TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: I was going to ask you this may be a sensitive topic, but I think it important to open up, because you talk about your mom kind of wearing the same things and so forth. You wear the same clothes every single time I see you.

CLIENT: (laughing) Yeah. I was wondering if you were going to ask about that.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: I have these favorites. I like this sweater so (laughs) . . .

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Yeah. I do take a shower and I'm clean and everything, but I wear the same clothes kind of; but I don't look as bad as my mom, I think. (laughs) Maybe I do. I've put on a lot of weight so I need to lose that and when the weather is nice I can wear nice things. (laughs) [00:01:02]

THERAPIST: Did you put on weight because you're eating more?

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess I eat more when I'm kind of anxious, instead of working out. I haven't been able to run regularly like I used to because of the weather and stuff.

THERAPIST: What do you think is causing the anxiety?

CLIENT: Just a number of things. I really don't know. (sighs) (pause)

THERAPIST: How does food help you deal with it?

CLIENT: Instant gratification. (laughs) (long pause) [00:02:24] I have a headache. (chuckles) I went to MSU yesterday. There was a faculty reading so all my teachers and some new teachers were reading their work. That was an anxious, nerve-wracking experience.

THERAPIST: What about?

CLIENT: Going into this space like, "Yeah, here I am again. I haven't achieved much. I don't have anything to say for myself and I know you guys have high expectations, but I have not yet delivered on them." (pause) [00:02:24] Seeing the current favorites, seeing the current students hugging the teachers and up in the front; me and my other friend at the back. She and I had the same problems. I'm sure she also was also wearing the same things. I saw her over the weekend and (laughs) she probably looked happy and stuff. I hadn't been to D.C. in a long time. It felt weird. I avoid it because of all those associations with things I did and this and that. [00:04:21]

THERAPIST: To D.C.? You said you haven't been to D.C.? Isn't your school there?

CLIENT: Not D.C. I get on the subway and I come out and go through the station into the bus, and from the bus to the campus, so I don't really see any city [ ] (inaudible at 00:04:43). I'm talking D.C., like the MSU area. [ ] (inaudible at 00:04:50) and all that. The people there, a classmate showed up; it was a big hall so I could see him from afar. I don't know if he could see me but he didn't stop and say hi or anything. That makes me feel very weird. We spend a year together reading each other's stories, seeing each other twice a week, and now we don't communicate. [00:05:34] That's supposed to be fine and I'm supposed to be strong and like "whatever." (chuckles) I wouldn't have wanted to go but I feel like you must. So I went, but it makes me feel horrible about myself.

THERAPIST: So where does wearing the same clothes fit in?

CLIENT: I'm not looking at myself that critically about wearing the same clothes. It's my choice. (chuckles) I have options, but I feel comfortable in what I've been wearing. (pause) [00:06:43]

THERAPIST: Do you feel like I want to take that away from you?

CLIENT: No. I guess I'm being like my mom and talking to myself. (laughs) Doing laundry must be hard for her, as it is for me. (pause)

THERAPIST: What makes it hard?

CLIENT: It's not too hard, I guess. Getting quarters, going down the stairs, putting clothes into the wash and then the dryer. Yeah, it's not that hard. I'm sure it's harder for my friend because she's got children and she must have even less time for her chores. I feel like an outcast and that's not a good feeling. (long pause) [00:09:26] I think I should avoid the MSU teachers until I have something to show for myself.

THERAPIST: In avoiding them, what are you avoiding?

CLIENT: Just not go to MSU events.

THERAPIST: But emotionally, what are you avoiding by not going?

CLIENT: The pressure and the reminder of how I haven't achieved. (pause) [00:10:23] I think being in my own bubble and not having that reminder . . . (pause) What do you think?

THERAPIST: About?

CLIENT: About avoiding them?

THERAPIST: I guess the question is what problem are you trying to solve by doing that? [00:11:20]

CLIENT: Not feel horrible about myself? (chuckles) Is that a good goal or no? (chuckles)

THERAPIST: Seeing them is a trigger for you, but it has nothing to do with them.

CLIENT: [ ] (inaudible at 00:11:48) (sighs)

THERAPIST: But it sounds like you're also not taking care of yourself in certain ways.

CLIENT: Yeah? Like how?

THERAPIST: Like eating as opposed to talking more about your anxiety or managing it differently. Wearing the same clothes all the time is very striking.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't have that many clothes. (laughs) I don't like to have that many clothes, not in the winter. In the summertime I wear a lot. [00:12:32] (pause) I guess not having a place to go, like if I had a job I would have to wear very many outfits. (pause) I could be a bit more healthy and feel more comfortable switching clothes (pause) and join the gym. [00:13:30] Or just [ ] (inaudible at 00:13:30), despite the I do and have been the past few weeks. I've just been really busy. (long pause) [00:15:12]

I don't know. Like last year, when I was kind of crazy unhappy, I lost a lot of weight. (chuckles) I was very interested in buying clothes and dressing up and looking nice; then that just ended, you know? I kind of associate all that with my craziness. (chuckles) It makes me sad that I shouldn't do that. Again, there is not a medium middle. It seems like when I start a craziness equals dress well versus don't dress up at all and (laughs) be in the dumps. [00:16:33] (pause) I don't know, it's weird. Humph. (pause) Why should I look nice? For what? Who is going to look at me? Yeah, why should I do it? (laughs) (pause) [00:17:48]

I guess when my mom does it, I want to tell her, "It's your social responsibility to look nice, to give the appearance that you're doing good, taking care of yourself, and you're not too depressed you're maybe even happy." (laughs) It is nice to take care of yourself, I suppose. (sighs) (pause) I think about the MSU thing and other things like that and I just want to throw in the towel and be like my mom. I don't want to do anything. (laughs) [00:18:50] (pause) [00:19:49] Why do you dress up?

THERAPIST: I like to look nice.

CLIENT: For someone special? (laughs)

THERAPIST: For myself.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: It's kind of a paradox because you also are acutely aware of how other people see you and are very sort of sensitive to wanting others to approve you and fearing that they'll judge you.

CLIENT: Yeah. What's the paradox?

THERAPIST: Here, on the other hand, you're saying, "Who cares what anyone thinks? What social expectations are and norms are I don't care." Maybe it's not a paradox, maybe it's a conflict. [00:20:43]

CLIENT: Yeah. Maybe it's a reaction, being under pressure so long. Like "I don't care." Trying to resist the authority I have vested in that pressure.

THERAPIST: Right, but it seems like sometimes you get confused between whether the pressure is coming from the outside or the inside. By your not wanting to go to MSU I understand part of you feels it's a trigger, but in part it almost seems like the pressure is coming from outside.

CLIENT: Yeah, you don't think it is?

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: No? How is that possible? You mean it's coming from inside?

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:21:44] (pause)

CLIENT: So if people don't want to interact with you, they don't want to say hi, still the pressure is from the inside?

THERAPIST: I'm not sure what you're talking about, people not wanting to interact with you.

CLIENT: Yeah. (sighs)

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: Just what I said. Like we were in the same class, but it doesn't mean that at the event we (yawns) or whatever.

THERAPIST: So what is the pressure part? I'm not sure I understand that piece.

CLIENT: Isn't it awkward? If you and I have been friends for a year and then we see each other at a venue and I don't come up and say hi, you don't feel . . ? [00:22:53]

THERAPIST: How is that related to pressure from other people? I'm not sure what the pressure part is. Pressure, sort of needing or worrying about judgment? Pressure that you feel people are exerting on you to achieve?

CLIENT: I just assume that I'm not worthy of their attention because I have nothing to say for myself. If I had something, then they would say hi.

THERAPIST: Even if you felt that, how are they pressuring you? The pressure still comes from inside. If they've decided you're not worthy, then they're not putting pressure on you. They're not paying attention to you.

CLIENT: No, I feel pressure.

THERAPIST: Right. You feel the pressure from the inside, but what you're attributing to other people's behavior is just indifference, not pressure.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:24:00] That woman was nice. I asked my friend who has been more in touch with her, "What have I done that she's mad at me or whatever?" A little while later she said that she'd made a comment in passing and said, "You're too hard on yourself." (chuckles) I actually wanted to ask you about that today. I guess that's part of what it is, interpreting indifference as pressure interpreting anything as pressure. That's probably what they mean by being too hard on yourself. How does that get converted into pressure? I don't know. Do you have any ideas? (chuckles)

THERAPIST: I wasn't understanding what you meant. [00:25:00] You had commented that you wondered if I would ask about your clothes. It sounds like that was on your radar. What were your thoughts about wondering whether I would ask?

CLIENT: Just because I brought it up in relation to my mom and I noticed that I wear the same clothes, too, so it was like, "Huh I wonder if she's going to be like 'where do you wear the same thing?'" (chuckles) Previously I had a job, so I would change my outfit. But since I didn't, mostly I stay home and work so I wear the same clothes, I guess. That makes it slightly easier and all the other clothes can hang in the closet. (laughs) (pause) [00:26:03] But somewhere down the line, it can also lead to being sloppy in other things and not taking care of things. [ ] (inaudible at 00:26:15) without your knowing (pause) and then all those associations. (pause) I just feel the pressure because (pause) [00:27:06] I feel like achievement will make me gain more friends, like it will wipe away everything else like if I've been nasty to them that will be forgiven. And if I have been, as she said, too hard on myself, that will also be forgiven or overlooked or something. There is that pressure. The teachers want all their students to do well. Once you do achieve something you become, I suppose, that golden one. [00:28:06] They no longer equate you as student, but maybe as peers. (pause) Maybe that's where that pressure is coming from. I know it's not on the outside it's all in here, in my assumptions, which is why, I guess, maybe I should seek out a different crowd where I'll feel a different pressure (chuckles) or not these ones, at least. Maybe it will help more to disassociate the pressure and these people, to go to MSU and not feel anything or at least not feel the pressure. That would be a good goal to have, right? (chuckles) How do I get there though? Yeah, how do I get there? Should I just keep talking about it? Is that how to resolve it? I don't know. (chuckles) (pause) [00:30:02] What do you suggest? Should I just keep tinkering with it? (chuckles) It's not an instant process, is it? (pause)

THERAPIST: I feel like in these moments you're saying, "Tell me what to do."

CLIENT: Yeah, kind of. (chuckles) (sniffles) (pause)

THERAPIST: There is sort of a kind of abdicating of responsibility. "I don't want to be responsible for taking care of myself or figuring things out or using my mind." [00:31:07]

CLIENT: No. I mean if I talk and think, I am doing the work, right? I'm just asking for a lead point or something.

THERAPIST: Is that my style to say, "Do this and then try this and then do this and then do that?"

CLIENT: I don't know. Probably not. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: So are you hoping you'll get something different from me than what you're getting?

CLIENT: No. Yesterday I felt more stupid than other days. Those days, I suppose, I ask for more. (chuckles) (pause) No. Yesterday I felt more stupid than other days. Those days, I suppose, I ask for more. (chuckles) (pause) [00:32:22] I feel so weird about it. Like last night walking back from MSU at 10:00 in the night (chuckles), I just felt like walking in the darkness I just wanted to hide or run away. I had the impulse of walking all the way to Cheshire and asking Victor to hide me. (laughs)

THERAPIST: And what would you be hiding from?

CLIENT: I don't know. My teachers [ ] (inaudible at 00:33:06) (pause) [00:33:30] It feels like the world is so harsh. Maybe it's me who is harsh and [ ] (inaudible at 00:33:40), but that's what it feels like. Like "Enough already. I can't take it." (chuckles) (pause) I don't want to do anything and just lay in bed or something.

THERAPIST: That sounds like your mother.

CLIENT: Yeah. (chuckles) (pause) (sighs) (long pause) [00:35:06] She's not in bed. She'll still get up and do stuff. It's actually me feeling that way. Maybe it's not me, either. I do get up. (chuckles) (long pause) [00:36:23] Why am I so hard on myself? Do you think I'm hard on myself? (pause) After spending nine months or six months with me she says that, so I guess it must be true. (pause)

THERAPIST: You have this way of looking to others "tell me what to think," "tell me who I am," "tell me what to do."

CLIENT: Yeah. Why is that? (chuckles)

THERAPIST: "Tell me why that is."

CLIENT: (laughs) Yes. [00:37:35] (pause) I guess I feel incredibly anxious to get better and fix it and I feel like I don't have the resources or the tools to do that. (sighs) But you're saying I do.

THERAPIST: You doubt.

CLIENT: Yeah. I doubt.

THERAPIST: But now when you doubt it's not simply that you doubt yourself, there's a way in which you say, "Here you take care of it. You tell me."

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:38:39] Why? (giggles) Again, I just don't have that confidence in myself to do stuff, you know? But why don't I? What is it that I have to do to prove myself to myself?

THERAPIST: I think it's part not having the confidence and I think it's part wanting someone to take care of you in these ways.

CLIENT: But why? Why don't I believe that I can take care of myself? Why am I so needy? (chuckles) Why don't I trust myself to take good care of myself? (pause) [00:40:08] Maybe it's not a trust thing. Maybe it's more like I desperately seek something like kindness or acceptance. Maybe it's that. I feel like I've been slapped around or something and now I want to be hugged or something, (chuckles) even though I haven't been slapped around.

THERAPIST: In many senses you have been.

CLIENT: I have been?

THERAPIST: Don't you think? Growing up?

CLIENT: Yeah, but that was years ago. I'm still seeking retribution for that? (sighs) (pause) [00:41:06] I know not everyone who has had such a childhood turns to people [ ] (inaudible at 00:41:11). (pause)

THERAPIST: No. Maybe some people would turn away from people, but that's just as big a problem.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) It's hard to talk about it productively because don't all of us feel the need to be taken care of? Don't you? How are we different?

THERAPIST: I do think that is a basic need. [00:42:04]

CLIENT: Yeah. But I abuse it, right?

THERAPIST: Interesting way of putting it.

CLIENT: Or over-seek it.

THERAPIST: You feel very hungry for it.

CLIENT: But you don't? (pause)

THERAPIST: Am I the norm?

CLIENT: I just want to learn in what way am I different? In what way am I overdoing it? I feel like it's lessened recently because of therapy and stuff. Last night I did have the urge, just not as strongly to carry it through and I went home and did some work.

THERAPIST: Cecelia, we're going to need to stop for today, okay? I will see you on Monday.

CLIENT: Okay. Have a good weekend.

THERAPIST: Thank you. I appreciate it.

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