TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

FILE: 100577332 130107_001

THERAPIST: Hi. Come on in.

(Pause): [00:00:04 00:00:20]

CLIENT: How are you?

THERAPIST: Good, thank you.

(Pause): [00:00:21 00:00:38]

CLIENT: I had an interesting weekend. (Laughs) I don't really want to talk about it but I suppose I should.

(Pause): [00:00:49 00:00:55]

CLIENT: Maybe we I could talk about from where we left off last time. (Laughs) That might be a good option. I don't know if you had any comments or questions after what I shared last time because it was I haven't quite if it sounds weird or that stuff about my parents or like the first few years in the U.S. I don't know if you wanted me to talk more about that or if you have any insight. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:01:35 00:02:00]

THERAPIST: Well I think you're talking about all this was very important but you started by saying you have something you should be talking about today.

CLIENT: (Laughs) I mean I'm sure it's all connected in some way because it's my experiences and some things might be linked but this weekend I found out that Victor (sp?) is seeing someone (laughs) so that had a weird kind of effect on me so I was trying to deal with that. So I've been kind of numbed by this. But I don't want to talk about it because I feel like the only way to get over someone is just absolutely nothing about them at all. It's possible to move away or like immerse yourself in work and make as many new friends as possible and just completely avoid everything that reminds you of them. Unfortunately, I'm not able to do that because I have to drive down that same street to visit my mom and like I'm with Chris who kind of reminds me of him because they're friends or were friends. So.

(Pause): [00:03:40 00:03:59]

CLIENT: So, I'm feeling that that could be an option (unclear).

THERAPIST: (inaudible)

CLIENT: No, that's okay. I walked really fast here, to get here and it makes me warm. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Oh, I hadn't thought. I could put on the air conditioning. Hold on one second.

CLIENT: That's okay.

THERAPIST: It's been so hot in here I'm actually uncomfortable.

CLIENT: (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:04:19 00:04:44]

CLIENT: I want to do that, like not at all think about him but in my head I've allowed myself to think about him and this has been going on for several months, I know six months and I really want me back. (Laughs) I want that portion of me that has been obsessing for him to come back to me. Plus, it's been very like that resolution I cannot (unclear) good guy or not, did he take advantage of me like everyone I know tells me he did? Why do I even need a resolution to move on, you know? Why do I need a closure or something?

(Pause): [00:05:41 00:05:57]

CLIENT: So yesterday I was talking to my old roommate and she also kind of broke up with this guy and she's like, you know what? He was just like chocolate for me, you know? It's like not seeing him is like giving up chocolate. And I didn't understand what she meant but I was like I thought what she meant was chocolate is very important to her but I think what she was saying was that it's not like air, you know, that you would die without him, but I have that that's what I felt Victor (sp?) was for me, like air absolutely vital. That was the case in March, April, May, June, July and it sort of tapered off. But I really invested a lot in that kind of space that I shared with him. I wanted him to be that important to me. I felt like I was cheating on him if I even shared something beautiful with someone else. And this whole time I felt like I was cheating on him because I was seeing Chris and stuff. But once I shared that with him and he just laughed at me and said, 'oh my gosh, you're so monogamous.' (Laughs)

So I really I mean I guess he also was kind of blessed that I placed a lot of importance to what he brought, not just emotional support, but you know, his way of (unclear), referring to that, that Chris's way of life as dedication to work and to deriving a sense of self from that versus Victor (sp?)'s way of life in deriving your sense of self from just being alive or something on that sounding very nice and (laughs) like his expense and something like that, etc., etc. I feel like if I could just take the lessons that he's taught me and just have them as not his, not associating them with him and then just learn from them if I want to. Just completely cut him off and like and you know, just agree with Chris and everyone else that he's a bad guy and just move away, move on. It's really painful to keep wondering, keep thinking hopefully. At first I was very happy being hopeful. I was like in this daze, on this cloud. But now it's making me feel very stupid. [00:08:56]

THERAPIST: Can you qualify "monogamous" with an effort? It's sort of like saying, "she's so pregnant versus 'she's kind of pregnant.'

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Either you're pregnant or you're not. You're either monogamous or not.

CLIENT: I guess so.

THERAPIST: "You're so monogamous."

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: What does that mean?

CLIENT: That I could even feel like I'm cheating on him if I make out with a girl. (Laughs) You know? (Laughs) But I don't want to. Whatever, you know.

That's his treating of me and his treatment of me has been very, very negative and that's made me very insecure if it was even possible for me to be any more insecure about myself. (Laughs) That's not helping any, I'm sure.

(Pause): [00:09:51 [00:10:01]

THERAPIST: It seems like you feel Chris is an unbiased party.

CLIENT: What do you mean?

THERAPIST: Well, well by saying, 'Chris's saying I should get on,' you know, get over him. Of course, he's going to feel that way.

CLIENT: Yeah. And he keeps saying, 'don't think of if you cannot think objectively about he did to you, think about what he did to me. I was his friend and he just did not even you know.' And that's true. I mean I actually cannot think about Chris.

THERAPIST: That's true.

CLIENT: Because when I told him, 'when I think about you, I think if I say, look what Victor (sp?) has done?' When I do that my conscience says, 'no, look what you have done.' No, that's worse. You Chris way more than Victor (sp?) loved Chris, you know? (Laughs) So and so Chris is like, 'no, I'm so bad, like I am really bad.'

THERAPIST: It's hard for you to think of Chris as a human.

CLIENT: What do you mean?

THERAPIST: Well, like he just, the way you feel about him makes him seem like this parental person and also this kind of, like he has needs. Not that I feel that you're being "insensitive." Like in a pejorative sense. But it's like it's hard for you to see that he has his own biases and viewpoints and needs.

CLIENT: I do see them and I am critical of Chris. But it's like how can you be critical like you said, a parental figure like it breaks your world to be critical of those who you look up to because, it would break my world if I poked too many holes. Like he's my base.

THERAPIST: Break your world is quite a that's quite a statement.

CLIENT: Well, my world it feels like it's been in pieces for a long time and I'm conscious when I say that, I'm conscious that it's my thinking and I'm very afraid of that (unclear) of thinking because it can clearly debilitate me. But you have to build your world on something, right? Don't you? Or no? (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:12:15 00:12:24]

THERAPIST: I think that's true. It depends on what you're building your world on. It's complicated when you build your world on an ideal parental figure. I mean even the idea I have to think about this more, but even the conception of Victor (sp?) taking advantage of you sort of speaks to you as David and him as Goliath, as opposed to two consenting adults.

CLIENT: But that was my understanding for the longest time. That's how I explained it and didn't have any ill will towards him. But that's really making me look I feel like I'm just a little child again looking up to him with all this love in my eyes and it's just not going to be reciprocated, so -

THERAPIST: But there's a difference between seeing him as treating you badly and him taking advantage of you. And taking advantage of you implies kind of a power difference. Him treating you badly still recognizes that he was unkind to you but it's a little bit different. Maybe I'm just parsing words. I don't know. But it feels different.

CLIENT: No, I mean that's true. Like if I say he took advantage of me then that definitely gives him more power and makes me sort of like this idiot who didn't really have any power during those months. And maybe Chris would like to think of him that way just so that he can I don't know. Deal with it. Put him in a box and forget about him and kind of forgive me and (laughs) have me back again.

(Pause): [00:14:16 00:14:24]

CLIENT: But I just want a solution to this ache of feeling not I want to get over him so if thinking that he treated me badly and I should have some self-respect if that is going to do it, then I'd like to think that way. But I'm aware that Chris has his bias when he says, 'he took advantage of you.' (Laughs) It's quite convenient for him to think that way.

THERAPIST: Right, because it takes away the fact that you made a choice.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It sort of negates that you have desire and will and interest.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:15:23 00:15:31]

CLIENT: But if I look at me that way I just feel like I'm that desiring subject and I'm not sure bad things happen to desiring women (laughs) and unfortunately, the conjecture is not far from reality. I don't want to be that desiring subject because I feel like I will desire Victor (sp?) again and I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: What's the alternative to a desiring subject?

CLIENT: A non-desiring one. Someone who has everything that she needs with that should find all those resources around her in her work and in other friends.

(Pause): [00:16:26 00:16:31]

CLIENT: This morning I woke up and I looked up because I didn't really know the meaning of this word. I looked up "nymphomaniac." (Laughs) It's like, 'did I become one?' You know?

(Pause): [00:16:50 00:16:53]

THERAPIST: So, a desiring subject is out of control?

CLIENT: Well, I was. (Laughs) Or, at least I was told that I was out of control.

(Pause): [00:17:06 [00:17:54]

CLIENT: I want to be positive and I want to be productive and happy. (Laughs) I just, sometimes it really baffles me the things that are in the way of making me achieve all these goals.

THERAPIST: What do you think made you reluctant to talk about Victor (sp?)'s seeing someone else?

CLIENT: Well, it's just I don't want to keep talking about him. Like I said, the best way I know is just completely cut them out and not even talk about them.

(Pause): [00:18:41 00:18:45]

THERAPIST: That sounds like an excision.

CLIENT: Well, you know, it's like I guess I see it as a limb with ganglia or something and you have to cut it off. You know? Or it will spread.

THERAPIST: So, it's a part of you that's diseased?

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:19:03 00:19:19]

CLIENT: The other thing what we were doing this weekend we went to the furniture store and bought a whole bunch of furniture for Chris's place because I had offered to make it nice for him. It was kind of really like a bachelor pad with just lots of books and bookcases and it wasn't cozy and stuff. So, I can to that had I was just feeling kind of numb from Victor (sp?)'s thing and my mom and Chris were moving furniture around, seeing things and I was kind of aware of this like voice in my head that was telling me almost feverishly like, 'you have to be here. You have to be present 100%. You have to be happy. You have to make all of this happen and you have to make it beautiful and you have to stop looking outside and like this is it. This is your shot. This is your second chance.' You know? Be engaged. (Laughs) It gave me a headache from just pushing myself.

(Pause): [00:20:37 00:21:07]

CLIENT: I mean it's not that hard as making a beautiful like that hard, like really have to push yourself, or does it just come naturally? I guess sometimes it just comes naturally and some other times it's hard.

(Pause): [00:21:24 00:22:01]

CLIENT: I feel like there is this fear in me that something, and I just don't know what it is what I'm afraid of. I don't know if I've been able to articulate it.

(Pause): [00:22:12 00:22:24]

CLIENT: I wonder if I'm afraid of like my life turning out like my parents those first two years in the U.S. But I feel like it never will. Like, it never will reach that low point like emotionally. But even if it did, why should I be so mortified if I I don't know.

(Pause): [00:22:56 00:23:07]

THERAPIST: What would that look like for your life to turn out like your parents' life in the U.S.?

CLIENT: Do you mean what was my parents' life?

THERAPIST: No. Like what I guess I got, I was sort of surprised by that association because I can't imagine what not what their life was like, but how you imagine your life could be like theirs in what way?

CLIENT: I don't know. I certainly have images of that time that were really (unclear) depressing. Just you know, horrible. The place messy and like messy as hell (laughs) and you know, my dad cheating. I don't even think it could be called "cheating" because my mom knew everything. (Laughs) And you know, her just absolutely miserable and making a complete fool of herself and -

THERAPIST: Fool of herself in terms of -

CLIENT: Well like he completely manipulated her. He said, 'I'm telling you everything I'm doing. I being honest with you.' And you know she did everything. She had she was the one with the job. She made all the she paid all the bills but still he managed her money and after all that he kind of really made her suffer, like psychologically, he would say all kinds of nasty things about her and to her face and she's a complete wreck now in the sense not a wreck, but like she has abysmally low self esteem and she can't make any decisions. Like if you ask her, 'what do you want?' She has absolutely no choice. No desire. She could have been so she was so powerful and strong and stuff. And then he took that away from her and kept kind of emotionally abusing her by taking her money and abusing her completely and classically stupid, you know? [00:25:42]

And she has nothing. She had nothing. I feel I wish I could stop thinking about her sympathetically, but that's what I think, you know pathetic. I feel very, very sad about her. I wish I could feel differently, not be so mortified and afraid and just really just yeah, like debilitated by that. She kept this from me for the longest time but she didn't tell me about his habits until like I was 19 or 20.

THERAPIST: Did you suspect?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Where did you think he was?

CLIENT: We didn't so he would always keep, like in my childhood he was not around very much so he would keep going to different cities. It was kind of shocking when I was 20 and then just learned this woman who used to come by (laughs) who I got really attached to was, he was like he was having an affair with her and it was terrible.

THERAPIST: You liked her?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Clearly, and then when I found 10 years later about it I was like, 'what?'

(Pause): [00:27:30 00:27:41]

THERAPIST: Do you think your mom would have divorced him?

CLIENT: Well, I don't know. I mean they were kind of separated, or getting divorced and they got back together and it was all very messy. And then you know, eventually they did get a divorce here, but -

(Pause): [00:27:58 00:28:17]

CLIENT: I hated going obviously (laughs) I hated going like visiting them from college.

(Pause): [00:28:24 00:28:40]

CLIENT: It was a nice kind of I was lucky I wasn't living with them, you know. I had friends and I had a boyfriend who taught me everything. He taught me how to drive and another parental figure. (Laughs) But I mean in the end, even that kind of turned very ugly because we were friends from church and that betrayal (unclear). I don't know if I got over that. I had like tons of friends. I must have had like 50-60 friends in college and that church.

THERAPIST: And they all just shunned you because of your parents?

CLIENT: Yeah. And you know that thing where we ended last time, that thing that my dad did where he kind of used them for his own ? That is like gets a hold of you.

(Pause): [00:29:49 00:30:04]

CLIENT: Yeah, and since then I mean it's just been kind of hard to build a life and I think subconsciously I felt very weird or very, I've been unable to I feel like my mom and I have been unable to build a life together; to find a community because it's quite a task to replace a church community, you know? (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Do you think it was like coming to the U.S. all over again, that loss of community?

(Pause): [00:30:43 00:30:47]

CLIENT: I don't know what you mean.

THERAPIST: Well, you lost I mean it's different, too. But like you lost your culture in the context of the community when you came over to the U.S.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And so I was wondering if there is a similar experience.

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess what it was was that we were in this bubble when we first came and that kind of slowly broke or whatever in college when I had my boyfriend and my church friends. But then when that was gone, I felt like we just had to make our own little U.S. Like we were still living here and were citizens and it was just a different engagement with the U.S. Like I felt more free. I felt like we don't have to be completely Americanized. We didn't need to be religious, like we could be humans again or something. (Laughs) I don't know if that's the case. But you know, like we could have other Nepalese friends.

THERAPIST: The church you got involved in. It wasn't through your college or was it?

CLIENT: It was.

THERAPIST: How did your mother get involved then?

CLIENT: Well, you know, like it was very evangelical and so they really, when they save you they really kind of give you this message of what really is waiting for you is hell and hell is (unclear) unless Jesus is your only thing and you are told that message. You immediately think, 'oh my gosh,' and they tell you to think of all those people you know who are unsaved and immediately my mind went to my mom and the person I love the most so you know, I know once I knew about (unclear) I had to save her literally and spiritually.

THERAPIST: And she was ripe to come on board?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean she was reluctant at first but then she said, 'I saw all the changes in you and I was interested.' And she was going through much more of hell than my dad, so. She's always had this spiritual bent I guess even in Nepal when he was doing all that. She and I would go to this kind of gathering, religious gathering.

(Pause): [00:33:21 00:33:33]

CLIENT: I'm so ashamed of this whole episode. I'm just mortified of it. Again, that word, "debilified," by it and I don't know do you say it will help for me to like open it up and look at it objectively? I mean it's been 10 years a little less, but -

(Pause): [00:34:00 00:34:03]

THERAPIST: But you want to excise that, too?

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: This part of your past.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean I put it in a box and I felt so afraid of it, I wonder if that's what's behind all my negative thoughts and that's what's (unclear) me, so I wonder if I have enough strength or if it's really time to open that box and deal with it. I tell my self this is what I'm afraid of. I don't think so because I think I can prevent this from happening or yeah, that happened, but let's forgive these people or I don't know, something.

(Pause): [00:34:50 -[00:35:02]

THERAPIST: What do you think you're afraid of?

CLIENT: I don't know. What do you think? (Laughs) Like in that scenario of this weekend. What do you think I was afraid of?

THERAPIST: I don't know.

CLIENT: I don't know either. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:35:17 00:35:27]

CLIENT: I feel like that was most of the fear.

(Pause): [00:35:31 00:35:35]

CLIENT: Maybe it was just heartbreak or I don't know what.

THERAPIST: Fear of becoming or being a desiring subject?

CLIENT: That and knowing that or feeling that what I had with Victor (sp?) was so nice and you know like nothing could match that or I don't know.

(Pause): [00:36:11 00:36:19]

CLIENT: This doesn't measure up to that. (Laughs) And that's like my fate now. (Unclear).

(Pause): [00:36:31 00:36:44]

CLIENT: In many ways I feel like Victor (sp?) is kind of like my dad and not in a good way. (Laughs) Maybe this is a completely new layer of associations that my head has formed but you know like over-sexed and all and like I don't know if he's (unclear). This is my interpretation, of course, you know, like my dad, chases everything that walks and he's like that.

(Pause): [00:36:44 00:37:23]

CLIENT: And that it's bad for me to even think of being with such a man like that.

(Pause): [00:37:30 00:37:36]

CLIENT: So there's that, you know warning. But it's really yeah, like sometimes being with Chris a lot of times being with Chris I have that anxiety that will he and I really be able to sort of have what Victor (sp?) and I had? And then my mind tells me so many things like what Victor (sp?) and I had was based on lies and deceit and maybe it felt so good because it was so wrong. It wasn't permanent and it was never going to work and -

(Pause): [00:38:20 00:38:30]

CLIENT: And even if it did work, I would again go into my depression and make it bad.

(Pause): [00:38:39 00:38:54]

CLIENT: Again, you know that glass wall comes up and I'm like, cannot break it or I don't feel 100% engaged. (Sighs)

(Pause): [00:39:05 00:39:29]

THERAPIST: In this case you're disengaged from -

CLIENT: In which case?

THERAPIST: You said, 'I feel disengaged.' Disengaged from -

CLIENT: Yeah, I feel like this weekend, yeah. I don't know, I just started questioning myself. Like am I giving this situation my 100% but it doesn't happen all the time, thankfully, but it was Chris and my mom and I trying to make Chris's apartment beautiful.

(Pause): [00:40:11 00:40:29]

CLIENT: I (inaudible) Victor (sp?) badly.

(Patient): [00:40:31 00:40:46]

THERAPIST: When you started thinking about what the allure of Victor (sp?) is -

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:40:47 00:40:54]

THERAPIST: It's actually your association to your dad is something you've talked about before. It's interesting that you didn't remember.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) I don't know if I had made the negative association talking about him.

(Pause): [00:41:10 00:41:21]

THERAPIST: The way you describe it is like you're onto something enticing but very dark.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And not even Victor (sp?), but a dark part of yourself.

(Pause): [00:41:30 00:41:34]

CLIENT: Yeah. Maybe.

(Pause): [00:41:35 [00:41:49]

CLIENT: I guess in the back of my head I might have had this thought that what can happen or like going down a rabbit hole let's see where this leads you. (Laughs) I'm falling and let's see how far I fall or how hard I hit the ground or something. (Laughs) Or something macabre like that.

(Pause): [00:42:11 00:42:14]

CLIENT: Maybe I had that feeling.

(Pause): [00:42:16 00:43:20]

CLIENT: I wonder if like this whole thing about engagement, I wonder if this comes from all this self-loathing. That must be the glass wall, right? I don't know, I feel like that must be it.

THERAPIST: The lack of engagement is self-loathing?

CLIENT: No, I mean the thing that keeps me from engaging with people a glass wall. I wonder if the name of that glass wall is self-loathing, you know? If that's the thing that keeps me from being there 100%, being free and being myself and, yeah, like inviting criticism as well as nice things.

THERAPIST: So being trapped but also being kept safe by the glass wall like both functions?

CLIENT: Yeah. But I shouldn't have this need for being kept safe from so much because -

THERAPIST: Sure if you don't feel safe then you'd have a need to have something to make you feel safe.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean sort of like that's saying, well it shouldn't not feel safe, while right now you do though. Not always.

CLIENT: But I'm saying that I have a glass wall up and ridiculous scenarios like gatherings and stuff when I'm meeting complete strangers or something and it's just very casual conversations so I shouldn't -

THERAPIST: You should just cut that out, right? That's ridiculous. You just cut that out.

CLIENT: (Laughs). I don't know.

(Pause): [00:45:08 00:45:12]

CLIENT: It weighs on my mind a lot so that's why -

(Pause): [00:45:14 00:45:22]

THERAPIST: That's one way I was trying to be humorous and that's one way of dealing with things that you don't know what to do with. You're just like, 'why don't you just cut that out.' I shouldn't be so silly. Kind of dismissive.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean sometimes it's good to be dismissive, to take yourself lightly.

THERAPIST: I don't actually see those as the same things.

CLIENT: (Laughs). That's true.

THERAPIST: We should really stop for today. Okay?

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: I'll see you on Wednesday.

CLIENT: Okay. That was a nice couple of days.

THERAPIST: Thank you very much. You too.

CLIENT: Thank you.

END TRANSCRIPT