TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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(Pause) [0:01:00] [0:02:00] [0:03:00]

THERAPIST: Hi.

CLIENT: (Blowing nose, clearing throat, breathing deeply) [0:04:00] I guess last time we were talking about pity and all (sighing). [0:05:00] (Pause) (Sneezing) Excuse me.

THERAPIST: Bless you.

CLIENT: Thank you (sniffing). Maybe (ph) some of it stems from feeling adjoined to my mother or something (chuckling, sniffing). [0:05:57] But, like, separating from her would feel like such a betrayal, you know? I don't know why, but (sniffing)... (Pause) By not separating from her means not having my own kind of life and thinking and goals, and (blowing nose) so it feels like a tough decision or not an easy decision (sniffing). [0:07:00] (Sighing) (Pause) [0:08:00] I mean, it just seems like it's colored a lot of my other... a lot of other areas of my life (chuckling). (Blowing nose) Suddenly, like, it's everywhere (chuckling), like, the pity (sniffing). (Pause) [0:09:00] (Sniffing) Like, if people ask me to do something, I just cannot say no because (sighing, clearing throat)... even if I might not have time for it, I just wouldn't want to say no and feel (sniffing) not just, like, oh, I wanted to help them, but, like, a sense of obligation and, like, oh, I'm not good for any much else, you know? I should be a (inaudible at 0:09:40) (chuckling), you know? I find it sad that I think like that still, but (chuckling)... but at least I guess I'm questioning that kind of thinking. [0:10:01]

Like, someone, a friend, asked me to help her journalist friend. And I'm like, well, these people are so great, and I haven't done much, so I shouldn't be like, oh, but I'm busy (chuckling, sniffing). But then it seems people don't respect people who don't stand up for themselves, I think (chuckling, sniffing). But then I feel like I wouldn't know how much is too much. I might overdo it, so... [0:11:00] Sometimes it feels like I'm invited to this great ball or something or a magnificent room in some lord's house, and I just don't have the right kind of clothes or the right kind of language to interact with people (chuckling, sniffing, clearing throat). (Pause) I guess that's similar to feeling like a child in a world full of adults, and... (Pause) [0:12:00] (Clearing throat, sniffing) [0:13:00] (Sniffing, clearing throat) [0:14:00] (Chuckling)

THERAPIST: What are you thinking about?

CLIENT: (Sneezing) I don't... just a lot of things (sniffing). [0:15:00] I guess I pity myself when I feel very scared and feel like I'm not getting what I want (chuckling), when I've been denied something or refused it or (sighing, blowing nose)... I'm like, oh, but you... well, you don't know the whole story, you know (chuckling)? You'll like me if you know all this (sniffing), not, like, you'll like me if what you want is what I'm giving to you but (chuckling) this other thing (sniffing). I guess it doesn't work, right?

THERAPIST: You like me if you now this. What's this?

CLIENT: I don't know, like, my background or something (chuckling).

THERAPIST: I'm not sure that I follow. What would they know about you that would change their mind about your... given your background? [0:16:05]

CLIENT: Oh, not background but, like, making them feel obliged, like, doing a website instead of giving them a strong piece of work, so (sniffing)... (Pause) I guess it also is manipulative, that behavior. (Pause) [0:17:00] (Sniffing, clearing throat) [0:18:00] [0:19:00] (Sniffing) I'm very confused (chuckling). I don't really know what exactly I'm doing (chuckling). [0:19:59] (Pause) I mean, I'm scared by the fact that I don't see options, like, I don't see I have a choice (chuckling) and being scared to give up things, I guess? (Sighing) And, like, betray my mom, and... yeah. [0:21:02]

THERAPIST: What...? Yeah, when you say separate yourself from your mom, what in particular are you referring to?

CLIENT: I don't know (chuckling). I guess (pause) (sniffing, clearing throat) not feel so closely tied, I guess? Like, feel like her failures are my failures, or they reflect on me. And my failures reflect on her, and, like, we're this package or something, and... like, when I'm thinking of me, and she's right behind and... as the cause and the effect, you know? [0:22:06] Like, oh... just like that... when the professor said, you know, take into account or whatever, like, that kind of a thing. Oh, but I haven't succeeded as much because I've had to take care of my mom, you know (chuckling)? That kind of feeling very tied with her (sniffing, clearing throat). Like, thinking about every decision and then... like, every... anything I want to do I have to think of, oh, but how will it affect her?

I guess people can still do that but (clearing throat) not feel debilitated by that alone, so... [0:23:02] (Pause) (Sniffing) [0:24:00] I guess I'm trying to create my own identity, but (clearing throat, sniffing) there is always that guilt that it's kind of severing the bond that I have with my mom, but...and I guess feeling guilty about doing that (chuckling). That's part of the deal, though, so... (Pause) [0:25:00] There's just, like, a sense of aloneness, I guess, that one gets scared of, and, if you have a bond with someone, you then just try to preserve it because you don't want to be alone. So...

THERAPIST: And how would you be alone?

CLIENT: I feel like that (inaudible at 0:25:25) sometimes, yeah. Like, yesterday at school in the class, I felt very alone (chuckling), just not part of the conversation somehow. I don't know. We were just critiquing two people's stories, and, I don't know, I just felt very alone (chuckling). No reason, but (sighing)... [0:25:58]

THERAPIST: How would being connected to your mother feel like you're less alone?

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: How does being connected to your mother make you feel less alone?

CLIENT: Why (ph), I have some mass to lean on or something (chuckling), I don't know. Wouldn't it (sniffing)?

THERAPIST: But you describe her as fragile.

CLIENT: Yeah. But duty-bound or something, I don't know, bound. Fragile things can require a lot of care, so I guess you feel tied to the care of them and that task can feel weighty. I don't know (chuckling).

THERAPIST: I was responding to your initial thought about leaning... being able to lean on a mass. [0:27:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And that's why I commented about that you feel she's fragile.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's weird (chuckling). Complicated, I guess.

THERAPIST: So being tied to her gives you a purpose?

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess, yeah. (Pause) Yeah. Being purposeless is a very scary thing, isn't it? I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess my thought though is that you have a lot of purpose in your life. You have a lot of aspirations that you're working toward that give meaning to your life. [0:27:59]

CLIENT: Yeah. [Best would have been] (ph) under duress you reach out for the thing that makes you feel most acutely or something? You know? So... I don't know. (Pause) A week ago or something (sighing), Chris (sp?) and I were having a fight, and... well, it started because he said... we were going to listen to some speaker who's coming to Brown. He's a politician in Nepal. He's just now joined the right wing party, and he just said... it was like a... it was a thing at Brown, and Chris was feeling odd about going there because it was for Brown graduate students. [0:29:11] And he isn't one, so he felt odd going there. And then I was tagging along.

And then it was lunchtime, so I... and they were... they had lunch. I just said... my mom was in the area, and she usually comes over for lunch. I said we could just meet there. Not that I wanted to get free lunch or anything. I didn't even know what kind of food they had. But Chris just got kind of weird about it. He was like, what did he say about being right wing or some...? Like, he's implied that my mother is a closet right wing, and I got very, very upset by that (chuckling, sniffing). I just felt like defending her and felt conjoined in that sense, you know? [0:30:01] That here's this very nice whatever professor, and he's calling us names. I just felt so angry [with him] (ph), like, righteous anger type. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Who was saying that you're right wing?

CLIENT: Chris.

THERAPIST: Chris was saying that your mother...?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What made him think that?

CLIENT: I don't know. There's... like, in our parents' generation you think (sniffing) is not as progressive as we are, you know (chuckling)? And I just didn't like that at all, but yeah, I just felt, like, separated from Chris at that time and rushing to my mother's rescue (chuckling, sniffing). [0:30:58] That sense, that made me feel like she's... I mean, I can see that, in that scenario, she would feel, to me, fragile and in need of rescuing and...

THERAPIST: Would she be offended by being called right wing?

CLIENT: She wouldn't really care... it's a very different generation, so for us... or not just generation, like, people of far political leaning, it's very, very important to not be considered right wing, to be considered progressive. But, for my mom's generation, for her, it's not even important, it's not even a topic of conversation or consideration. It's just that life and living is so much more important.

THERAPIST: Yes, I'm trying to understand who the insult was towards. It didn't sound like you felt if your mother heard it she would care. [0:32:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So it seems like you felt the insult was toward you.

CLIENT: Well, no, it felt directed to my mother, and it was just like... he's done this to other people, and they've stopped talking to him (chuckling). And he didn't even mean it or something, and they were just like, wow, he' so insensitive, and (chuckling)...

THERAPIST: But it sounds like, again, an insult to you, not to your mother. I mean, she wouldn't be insulted by it.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So it's not an insult to her.

CLIENT: That's true. Yeah, I don't know why he wanted to insult me (chuckling). (Pause) (Sniffing) [0:32:57] So you're saying, in that scenario, like, why did I think it was against her and she needed defending instead of thinking it was against me? And, like, I could have anger for myself, I could... yeah (chuckling). I don't know.

THERAPIST: It's like being married to someone who... and the couple has values around not being materialistic. And say that their... the sister of the wife likes clothes and likes nice things. And he says, oh, well, your sister, she just likes fancy things. And the sister wouldn't be upset, yeah, I do. But somehow maybe it would be an insult. Oh, your family is materialistic.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But it's not an insult to the person, per se. The person wouldn't be insulted. [0:34:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. I just wonder if that's... like, that shows that I'm really conjoined, or perhaps not. But it just shows that I'm looking for any opportunity to get mad at Chris (chuckling). So...

THERAPIST: Well, it also points out the way the two of you are different, you and your mom. You have different interests.

CLIENT: Yeah. Meaning?

THERAPIST: She doesn't sound like being political is that important to her. And it's important to you, very important to you.

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess. [Oh, and God] (ph), that was a weird afternoon because (chuckling)... so first of all Chris is judgmental, and he's feeling awkward about kind of [going to go] (ph) crashing this event. And then my mom turns up, and she's wearing the same thing she wears every single day (laughing). [0:35:02] And, you know, her trousers, her baggie, and her snow boots are completely gray (chuckling). and her hair's completely disheveled, and these are people who are very properly dressed, some of them (laughing). I just was like, (inaudible at 0:35:20) these two people, Chris and my mom, they're just going to destroy me. One is judgmental, and the other is just looking (pause) like a wet rag (chuckling). (Pause) I just... in that room I was like, I don't know these two, okay (chuckling)? No one associate them with me. Look at me, I look nice. I'm wearing a nice dress, appropriate for the occasion (laughing). [0:35:59]

THERAPIST: You felt embarrassed?

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) (Chuckling) The question, why haven't you combed your hair, produces the response, my comb is broken (chuckling) or something. [0:37:02] Like, I need a new one. (Pause)

THERAPIST: You look a little sad.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. Just a lot of things. (Sighing) Colleagues are getting success, and I am, you know, not (chuckling).

THERAPIST: Your mom, whom you feel connected to and whom you feel helps make your... makes you feel less lonely, you're also embarrassed by and ashamed of and at times angry at. [0:38:04]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So it's... comes at a cost.

CLIENT: What do you mean? What cost?

THERAPIST: The cost of feeling less lonely, you have all these other feelings, too.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, really, it was weird because there I was, walking away from Chris, feeling like he'd judged my mom and I was going to defend her. And then I saw her (laughing), and then it was like, oh, wait. She needs to go home and change first (chuckling) before she can be seen in public with me (chuckling). (Pause) [0:38:56] It's like she and I are just not... well, we were never great communicators, so... but really it's like that in this situation, too, where I'm saying, I want you to look your best, I want you to be strong, and this and that. And she's like, here you go, here's some food I made for you (chuckling). It's literally like that. I'm like, but I don't want the food, I want this other... these other things. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Do you...? Well, it sounds like you did about the hair. Do you ask her why she dresses like that?

CLIENT: Yeah. And she's always got silly excuse. I just came out of the swimming pool, and... or everywhere I go I get so many compliments for this dress (chuckling). [0:40:00] (Pause) [Tell me] (ph), what can you do but try to separate yourself from that (chuckling)?

THERAPIST: Yeah, but I'm not sure even what separate means. Does separate have... mean no... having no connection to that other person? Like, what does separate mean?

CLIENT: I don't know. (Pause) Not feeling so acutely when they fail. Like it's your doing, or you're responsible, or you share in that misery and, you know, that (chuckling). [0:41:00] And coming to a point where her dressing the way she does doesn't bother me as much (sniffing). I don't know if that's possible, but it'll have to be because she's not... doesn't look like she's going to change (chuckling) literally. (Pause) (Sniffing) [0:42:00] I mean, when people feel lonely, like those other people in the room yesterday with my class, were they thinking...? They must be thinking about their family, right? Just like, say, I was thinking about mine. I mean, maybe they feel... maybe it's wrong of me to assume for them family must conjure up nice images, or they have a nicer family or a happier one, but I don't. Maybe I shouldn't assume that (chuckling, sniffing). (Pause)

THERAPIST: Does your mother feel like the last person you have? [0:42:57]

CLIENT: Yeah, or the only. I've been told this growing up, so...

THERAPIST: Told what in particular?

CLIENT: Like, she sacrificed her whole life for me, so... but she's not particularly affectionate or anything like that (chuckling). We don't share... like, we don't have a heart to heart conversation or anything like that. We're not... we don't get along famously. There's a lot of silence and a lot of awkwardness (chuckling). (Pause)

THERAPIST: That's a very big burden to place on a child.

CLIENT: Yeah, but...

THERAPIST: And that seems like it's presented as an obligation, not as a choice, and certainly nothing you requested. [0:44:03]

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause)

THERAPIST: It seems to imply, I didn't have a choice, now you don't have a choice.

CLIENT: Yeah, I suppose. (Pause)

THERAPIST: You seem kind of... I don't know if it's distracted or if it's deep in thought, I can't really tell.

CLIENT: (Chuckling) Sorry. No, I'm hearing what you're saying and thinking about it, that...

THERAPIST: You're trying to take it in and make sense of it?

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:44:58] I mean, I'm sure she didn't mean it like that, like, I didn't get a life, so you don't get a life. But...

THERAPIST: Oh, I'm not so sure about that.

CLIENT: Yeah (chuckling)?

THERAPIST: I'm not sure she meant that intentionally, but that's certainly the implication. Look at all I've done for you, and now you owe me. And when you owe someone you don't have a choice. It's expected of you.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You know, Cecelia (sp?), we're going to need to (inaudible at 0:45:30). I will see you on Monday.

CLIENT: Yes, thank you.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Have a good weekend.

THERAPIST: Thank you, I appreciate it. You, too.

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