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THERAPIST: Hi, come on in.

CLIENT: (Chuckling) Sorry.

THERAPIST: That's okay.

CLIENT: Is your leather chair going to spoil (chuckling)?

THERAPIST: It'll be fine, I'm sure.

CLIENT: Air it out. Should I sit somewhere else, make (ph) it dry?

THERAPIST: Well, if you're comfortable, it's fine. (Pause) [0:04:00]

CLIENT: It's so hot today (chuckling). (Pause) (Sniffing) I don't feel like talking (laughing, exhaling, sniffing). (Pause) [0:05:00]

THERAPIST: Are you hot in here? Do you want me to turn on the air?

CLIENT: Oh, if you want (chuckling). But you're fine, so it's okay. I'll probably cool down in a few minutes. (Pause) Let's see. (Pause) I spoke to a couple of women in the community here, like, my friends, just about what had happened in Nepal. [0:06:04] And they were all like, yeah, that person is awful. That... the daughter of the man (chuckling). Not that... I mean, I guess it makes me feel a little better, but I guess what they're trying to say is, she doesn't matter. So...

THERAPIST: She matters to you.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, but I'm trying to change because, you know, you can't really have... you can't really live your life by having other people be the center of your life, right? So it's... I mean, it's good to have that (sniffing)... like, be disillusioned with that and reconstruct and rebuild things. [0:07:02] So... I mean, yeah, I guess that's why I am feeling sad that... you know, what... if something's important to you, then it goes away, then you have to find something else or learn to live without that or... so, I mean, I guess people are saying that I was wrong to... I was wrong that I gave her so much importance in the first place. So... (Pause) Which also in a sense makes me feel bad, and I was like, why did I do that? Why didn't everyone tell me that it's not worth... that she's not worth it? [0:07:58] I guess people were telling me, but I wasn't listening because I was just all like, no, but you don't see the other side of her. She's nice and approachable and helps (chuckling, sniffing). So... (Pause)

THERAPIST: But it sounds like you're feeling insecure about it.

CLIENT: About what?

THERAPIST: Just what happened and the decisions you made.

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess this helps because I'm always struggling with what people are saying and what... like, their opinion. And it just completely clouds my own opinion. I can't even hear myself. But I guess this... it's good that I can kind of defend my choices in a way? [0:08:58] Like, if there's a narrative of our friendship, I can say that... now that I have a more complete picture, I can say that other people do not like her scholarship, do not like her personality. I saw this bit, and I liked it. And I had my own reasons for liking, you know? And they might not all be good reasons. There might be some selfish motives there or the wrong idea of whatever, success or whatever. Now once that was shattered I see why other people don't like her. But I can still see her as a whole person, not just what other people see, that she's just all bad or... maybe they don't say that she's all bad. It's just that they don't... she doesn't matter to them. And I can see why she mattered to me, and I can even, I guess, respect that because... if not respect, then at least understand why people like her became important to me, you know? [0:10:13]

THERAPIST: Well, how did you know her? How long did you know her for?

CLIENT: Yeah, through Chris (sp?). Yeah.

THERAPIST: You knew her through...? Were you close?

CLIENT: Not... I mean, so she's weird in the sense that she... so Chris, for his dissertation... like, you need... apparently for a PhD you need an outside person? I don't know, I guess you would (ph) know. So he picked her, and then very early on for some reason, because she's a anthropologist and he thought he would do a little bit of that in his dissertation? He didn't end up doing that, and he constantly thought about replacing her. But no, once you say someone... and I guess this was her first time being on a PhD dissertation committee or whatever. [0:11:06] She's young in the sense that she's, like, 40, and I think she struggles with the idea of getting older, like all of us do, I guess (chuckling). She's always like, I'm worried, or I'm not that old, she keeps saying.

So she would invite... she lived in the area, and she would teach at BC (ph) and hated it. And she was working on a book. And she would invite Chris and me to stuff, like dinners and things, first just us and then later on she invited more people. Yeah, and she says now in her hate mail, like, oh, it was just because of Chris that I tolerated you. But I know that that's not true because the women that I spoke to, they were like, yeah, she's like a VIP hunter or whatever. [0:12:04] So she would ask me when I was at MSU, oh, so you won that award, you won this award, because she knew one of my teachers? She was friends with one of my teachers, and I'd just be like, yeah, I guess, whatever (sniffing). So it's not just that it was... that I was Chris's girlfriend that she tolerated me (chuckling). And, when I was at MSU and she'd heard about some of the awards, that's why she also tolerated me, I think.

I don't know, but I was... she knows a lot of people, and she has a way of amplifying achievement. And that seemed to me that's a good way of living life, making it seem fuller and making it seem bigger and... I don't know. [0:13:00] (Exhaling) At least online. It turned out just to be a very thin layer because everyone... or at least one of my friends this weekend, she was like, you just have to do good work. Why, that is what success should be. And I was like, it's a bit disappointing. It's a bit depressing, but I guess you're right (chuckling).

THERAPIST: What's depressing about it?

CLIENT: Well, at first I was like, there should be celebrations. There should be yelling and screaming and... in terms of publicity or in terms of people talking about your work or... there should be an elongated period of celebration, which is what she's doing... she did online. Like, ever since her book came out, and it's... you know, you hear about a book for a couple months maybe. [0:14:04] But until very recently, until she unfriended me and whatever in July, she'd just been posting stuff about her book, like reviews and interviews and readings she'd done. So you kind of live in the glory of your work, which has taken four or five years to finish, you know? It just means you get to live longer (chuckling). I guess that's what I was thinking.

THERAPIST: How do you mean, live longer?

CLIENT: Well, that's, like... that is living, right? Celebration and talking and being happy.

THERAPIST: Celebrating yourself?

CLIENT: Yeah (chuckling). I see that it's very problematic (chuckling). But... [0:14:59]

THERAPIST: Well, I love the idea actually of celebrating oneself, but it depends if you feel other people need to join in, too.

CLIENT: Yeah. I do, I guess, and that's wrong. It leads to disappointment, right? Because, if they don't, it's like, what's wrong with them? Like, why aren't they happy for me? (Chuckling) You make yourself miserable thinking that way.

THERAPIST: I think you could.

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: I think you could make yourself miserable, yes.

CLIENT: Yeah. So... yeah, that's what I was thinking, that I just wanted to be always connected with her because I thought that is what... that's what you will do. That's what you ought to do to amplify things, good things, and not just achievements like something you wrote or something like that. [0:16:03] Just amplifying things you like, people you like, and building a community or something. But I don't know. Maybe I'm just bullshitting now (laughing).

THERAPIST: Well, I imagine on some level... I don't think you were thinking about this, but on some level what... she spoke to you in a sense because you could identify someone who feels so insecure.

CLIENT: Yeah, probably (chuckling). Yeah. (Pause) Yeah, I tried to get close to her emotionally, but it didn't work because she's weird. She lies to herself, I think (chuckling). I mean, this whole... that whole... the response is clearly... everyone is saying that this has happened before. If he did this to you... everyone. Like, no one has said that, oh yeah, (inaudible at 0:16:58). [0:17:01] Everyone is like, he's done this before. He has done this before, and his wife and his daughter know it. And they're hiding it, and... I don't know. I don't want to comment on whether he's done this before, but I'm just considering that everyone thinks that way (chuckling). So [maybe it's true] (ph). But...

THERAPIST: You mean... were there other people who would live in this apartment upstairs?

CLIENT: No, just, like, women coming close to him and him inappropriately touching them or... I don't know. I can't really imagine the scenario. I know the dynamics between me and him were very complicated for all the reasons we've talked about. And I definitely do take responsibility for building him up. [0:17:52] If I had a good handle on how to deal with authority figures or people who, on paper, seem to have more stuff than me, more achievements, more money, whatever, I definitely feel subordinate. And if I hadn't felt that way I would have at least not got out of there sooner. I would have known... I wouldn't have been all, like... I don't know. Again, I keep going down that path, and then other contradictory thoughts come into play, that... but he was like, I want to be your daddy. Come here, you know? And I keep thinking, no, I would still fall for him. No, I would still fall for him (chuckling).

But anyways, so (exhaling)... what was I saying? But yeah, she... I feel like she just lies blatantly. Like, she one time very early on when we'd known her... Chris and I went to dinner to her place, and she was all like, yeah, my parents are not accepting of my boyfriend. [0:19:03] She... her parents are very... or her dad is very right wing Nepali. So she was like, yeah, my parents aren't accepting. And I think my mom was there also, maybe. I don't know. But my mom was like, wow, this is so... we should support her. Like, you should tell her that, if she wants me to preside at her wedding, I'll do that. (Chuckling) I was like, Mom, we're nothing, and she's, like, Nepal high society. Obviously she doesn't need our help. But I appreciate my mom's concern for her. I could see that... like, that was when this woman was opening herself a little bit emotionally. And then she went away or got busy.

And then, when her book came out last year in October, she'd come for a talk here. [0:19:59] And we were all out in a restaurant, and she'd been married and stuff. And I just casually asked, so, what happened with your parents? Like, I was a little serious, and I said, what happened? Your parents weren't accepting. She's like... and she was with friends and everyone, so she was like, oh, they love him, and he's, like, their favorite. And I was just like (chuckling), wow. Okay, clearly this is either not the place or the time or... to talk about this, but you go from one extreme to the other. And it's clearly like something weird is going on. All of a sudden your parents, 80-year-old parents gone (ph) suddenly from being right wing to be all, we love Muslims. You can't go... be like that. So I imagine that there are other lies, especially this one. [0:20:58] You just don't want to believe anything bad about the people you're looking up to, which is totally ridiculous because I just cannot look up to anyone. And now you (inaudible at 0:21:12) not true. But I find faults in every person. Maybe it's my... like, I build them up, and then the rebel in me is like, why is that person so great? This is wrong with them, and that is wrong with them. That doesn't mean that the rebel succeeds and I dethrone these people that I build up. But at least I feel (Exhaling) like I see people's negative sides as well (sniffing).

So yeah, that is why I couldn't completely understand her or associate with her or identify with her because I could see that she was insecure. [0:22:03] But I could also... I guess now I see that the way that she deals with insecurity is A (ph), to drum up herself and celebrate herself and surround herself with a lot of yes men, but also she lies to herself, right? I mean (chuckling), I guess. (Pause) I don't know. [0:23:00] So I guess I have to figure out my own idea of success, but it doesn't have to mean that I don't celebrate (chuckling). I don't know. Is celebration always a sign of insecurity (laughing)?

THERAPIST: No, I was thinking the opposite. The idea of celebrating oneself...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: As sort of a private matter seems quite beautiful actually. If you're needing to recruit or even coerce others into your celebrating you... like, not you, I mean you in a general sense, I think that's more problematic, not to say that everyone doesn't like to be celebrated sometime. But for months and months?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe people want to get back to their lives (laughing).

CLIENT: Yeah, they do (chuckling).

THERAPIST: But the idea of a private celebration, I quite liked that idea. I thought it was very poetic.

CLIENT: Wait, what do you mean by poetic? [0:23:58]

THERAPIST: When you first said sort of celebrate, you know, shouldn't you celebrate yourself, I thought, well, that's actually quite nice, the idea...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I'm not talking about what you were describing in her but the idea that one celebrates oneself.

CLIENT: Yeah, but how do you do it all by yourself? I guess I do it, I mean, like, close the door, put on loud music (laughing). Is that it? I don't know.

THERAPIST: I was thinking about it as feeling good about the things that you do.

CLIENT: Yeah (sniffing).

THERAPIST: Self-accolades.

CLIENT: Hmm. Yeah.

THERAPIST: The other piece of it is just... there's so much complexity, but the other piece I was thinking about is telling a woman, your father isn't what you thought he was, or your father is... I imagine you didn't say a bad man... [0:25:00]

CLIENT: Yeah, no, no.

THERAPIST: But I just... the thought of how you must feel about your father and what that meant to communicate that to her about her father.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, I struggled with her email for a long time. I had, like, 102 degree fever for a couple days (chuckling), probably because there was stuff in the air but I think also because I was so mad. I wrote a response, never sent it. But the thing... in it I said, your father is a man. He's fallible. He... I'm not saying he's a monster, just that he's human, and so on and so forth. But in a sense... and I haven't explored this too much, is that I feel like my dad is actually vindicated a little bit (chuckling), because of this because he never molested me. [0:26:03] And I feel like I could say this, but I don't think he would molest my friends. I mean, later in life, I realized that... and I was a little uncomfortable one time introducing him to this woman I was living with in Orlando. She's very pretty, and he was flirting with her a little bit in front of everyone (chuckling). So I was a little worried, but I feel like... even now I feel like he wouldn't prey on them. He wouldn't just go and tell them, I want to be your daddy, and then touch them inappropriately. He would probably come to them like man to woman and try to seduce them. [0:26:58]

I don't know. I didn't really know his sexuality that well, but I... I mean, I know a little bit, that he was very, very sexual. And I guess my mom was not, so... I mean, even instead of calling him philanderer and all those bad things, I could just simply say that they were very incompatible. And he just basically used sex to get away from all the other things that he should have done, you know? (Exhaling) But I feel like there weren't any stories of him going after women much, much younger to him. I don't know, maybe not. I mean he wasn't... he was never 80s. He's not going to be 80 for another 20 years, so I don't know (chuckling). But I feel like he was more the hunter of... he's just going to use his... I don't know. [0:28:02]

So yeah, and then in other senses I felt like saying that, yeah, now you know what it feels like to have a shitty father (chuckling). But it's absolutely incomparable because his dad has so many... her dad has so many accomplishments, right? I mean, a celebrated poet and all that, so there's no reason for me to... well, there is some reason to compare. But... (Pause) I guess... I mean, are you suggesting I could use this to help myself, like, in a way that I could...? All that power that she had or maybe still has over me, the perception, my perception. If I could see that both of us have in some... fathers that have in some way disappointed us or done something disappointing, then that kind of levels us a bit and makes me feel less subordinate or... yeah. [0:29:14] Should I think that way?

THERAPIST: That's not what I was suggesting, but that's an interesting thought.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) I don't know. (Pause) What were you suggesting (chuckling)?

THERAPIST: I was more suggesting along the lines of what it meant to you and maybe what was motivating you, not at all consciously, about communicating to someone that their father wasn't what they thought they were and how disappointing your father is to you...

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:29:59]

THERAPIST: And how, I think, sometimes... how alone you feel in that experience of having parents but especially a father who is so disappointing.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's true. I did struggle with that a lot, didn't I? Do we have time, or...?

THERAPIST: Yeah, we're done at 11:00, so...

CLIENT: Oh. Yeah, I mean, just because I was surrounded by, at some point, just so many normal people (chuckling), that I felt acutely abnormal. Like Chris and some of his friends and stuff. So they all seem to have come from really very regular, middle-class families and... well, I don't know about what their fathers have done in every way (chuckling). But this much I know is that they provided for their families from day one, and so that just made me... that was all that I kept thinking about. [0:31:00] Their fathers worked hard, and now they don't have to worry... they don't have the worries that I do. Like, they don't have to worry about their moms, they don't have to worry about a house right away, they have something to fall back on. And these were the few things I kept thinking about. I guess I still do. But I'm really very tired of thinking about them (chuckling). I want to look at something else that they don't have maybe or not even think about them, but just to think about myself and what I do have.

And in fact I feel like my dad might not have given me material comfort, but he was complex enough for me to spend maybe half my life (chuckling) thinking about why he was the way he was, so I could... if I do somehow succeed as an artist or whatever, I could think about that and focus onthat. [0:32:16] And that could be, I don't know (chuckling), a way of making money out of some miserable experience. Not that I would do it, I don't think. I'm just... I don't know. I don't feel like doing that to... there are other complex things to think about, but yeah.

But what you were saying is slightly different. I guess I feel like maybe this ought to make me a little bit more mature as to... because I think earlier we had talked about me feeling like I was the only one who... everyone else is doing okay, but I'm the one that's got problems. [0:33:11] No one else has problems. But I guess now I'm trying to disabuse myself of that, and I feel like people... everyone has problems, some of them even have problems that are similar to me or actually worse than me. In a sense, at least my dad I feel wasn't a predator, and her dad I feel like, at least what everyone else says, is one. So that's something big to deal with. And she deals with it by lying to herself (chuckling). So... [0:33:58]

THERAPIST: Was it...? Were you thinking that he molested children? Is that what you were thinking?

CLIENT: Well, I don't really want to think about it. But I feel like, in this scenario, he infantilized me. And again I know you'll say, no, you can take responsibility. You don't have to feel that way. But I mean to say that, in that specific interaction when he was quoting his... perhaps that I completely failed to see the sexual whatever, urge or agenda that he had. He quoted it in this narrative... or he got close to me by saying the words that he said. You're a baby. You're a child, and I wish I was your father. And then it turned that way. But... so that makes me feel like... if he had approached me like a man, if he'd said, you're beautiful, I'm attracted to you or whatever, then I would have done something about it much sooner. [0:35:12] I would have actually just said, but Uncle, you're 80 (chuckling). Do you see that? Or whichever way, I would have found a way of dealing with that.

But I just felt like I was manipulated in that way, and I didn't see it because I didn't. I just wouldn't have been able to see it. I wouldn't have been able to see that he was... he didn't mean to be my father, or (chuckling)... I don't know. I just couldn't (inaudible at 0:35:40). Now going forward I perhaps will. When someone says, I want to be your dad, I'll be like, shut up (chuckling). But at that time I couldn't, so... but yeah, that makes me feel like, is he... does he do this to children or to...? [0:36:06] I don't know (chuckling). (Pause) Because if he were just a few years older, five or six years older, he'd be like my grandfather. He'd be my grandfather's age, but I don't know. Why is that important?

THERAPIST: Why is...? Which part of it?

CLIENT: Well, you said...

THERAPIST: Oh, because I wasn't... it's not... I mean, it's important in actuality for other people. But I was trying to understand how you thought about him. That's what I was...I was trying to...

CLIENT: Yeah, this is how I think about him because... just because of my interaction. But I hope he doesn't do it to children (chuckling). I don't know. Yeah. (Pause) [0:37:03]

THERAPIST: You know, one thing I thought when you came back and you told me this story, which is such a complex story...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Is, I guess I felt, if I were to be honest, like, oh, Cecelia (sp?), I wish she wasn't so impulsive sometimes.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: There's this part of her that's very reflective and thoughtful, and it just vanishes sometimes...

CLIENT: It does (chuckling).

THERAPIST: And you do really kind of nutty things that have a complete meaning and understanding that we can make of it. They're not random.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But sometimes there's an impulsivity to your... to what you do. It's like, oh, just call me, and let's talk about it.

CLIENT: Yeah. What was impulsive? Like...

THERAPIST: First of all, just the whole... I mean, I understand that... there's at times something that almost takes over you...

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:38:01]

THERAPIST: That you feel like, what is this lunatic telling me he wants to be my daddy? This is bizarro (sp?). I'm going to leave. Let me find somewhere else (chuckling)... like, what is going...?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: There's... that part of your brain just vanishes. It doesn't really vanish, something happens to it. And then you get embroiled in something so complicated, which has great emotional import to you, which has an intense emotional pull.

CLIENT: Hmm.

THERAPIST: And I understand that. I don't want to minimize that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But it's like other pieces of reality get kind of lost. And then the more anxious you feel and the more guilt-ridden that you feel, then you go to rape... I know it wasn't a rape counselor...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But a violence counselor. And I'm not minimizing. It was terrible what happened, and he was not... he was completely inappropriate. I'm not justifying it. But something gets... and then you kind of just... it snowballs, and then you kind of just do wacky things.

CLIENT: Well, what was so wacky that I did?

THERAPIST: Well, the... I mean, I think that going to these women of violence... I mean, counselors... I mean, you have a counselor (chuckling). [0:39:03] You can talk to me about it, so...

CLIENT: Yeah, but I did when I came back (chuckling).

THERAPIST: You did, but you were doing something about... I mean, I feel like that was almost... you were doing something with going... I mean, with going to them.

CLIENT: Yeah, well, the friend suggested it, and he...

THERAPIST: But... right, but that's the thing. People will suggest all sorts of things to you in life.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think it was helpful because what they were saying is, it's not your fault. And that's basically... I mean, the friend I guess sensed, and he'd worked with women who had experienced violence of all sorts, including this minor incident. But I guess he knew that I should listen to this, that, you know, it's not my fault, that basic thing. But I guess what I am trying to... I mean, I'm trying to see from your perspective. And what I can say is, I did kind of stop thinking after that. [0:39:59] I mean, after that happened, I didn't really know... because I felt so alone in the sense that... I mean, I had Chris, and his friends were there. But at that point I wasn't thinking. I wasn't taking care of myself, I guess you could say that. But I felt like I was in a strange city. Despite having these people, I didn't really know anyone.

THERAPIST: Well, I guess that's the other thing I didn't... I don't want to interrupt, but...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Why were you there? I guess I didn't actually understand the purpose of your being in Nepal. I know you went with Chris, but, if you moved and wanted to live separately, why didn't (ph) you come back here?

CLIENT: Yeah, well, I thought of coming back, but it was... I'd have had to buy a new ticket, and that was, like $700. And I thought I shouldn't spend that much money. And (sniffing)... yeah. [0:41:02] I mean, I didn't really have a purpose other than... I mean, going to Nepal, other than work. And it was actually... yeah, I didn't think things through obviously. That's one big problem that I have. But I just thought it would be easier, or it would be different to work in Nepal. And it was actually. It was much better. And, I mean, it was a big unknown, but I was open to giving it a shot. And working at Chris's place wasn't going to be that productive because his place is in Istanbul. It's very tiny, and his parents are there all the time.

So... and I... at first I checked into a university guest house and stayed there for, like, four days just by myself. [0:42:01] And that was very productive, and we were just asking people around. Chris was going to send me to another city, where I could have a whole floor to myself on top of his relatives' house. (Chuckling) And I should have done that in retrospect. But then he asked this woman who was in Nepal, and I thought Nepal is kind of closer to where I come from originally. So I thought that would be... I mean, it's a completely different part of the country than Istanbul, so I thought climatically (ph) and geographically and culturally it would feel much closer to home, to what I know, Nepal where I grew up. So that's why I went for it.

THERAPIST: And yet you described it as a strange place that wasn't familiar. [0:42:57]

CLIENT: Yeah, just because it completely shut itself up once this happened. I just felt like I couldn't trust anyone, and I couldn't, yeah (chuckling), feel safe in it any more. I just wanted to disown it and be like, this is not my place. Go away (chuckling). Or I should go away. I mean, I wanted so badly to own it, own it in a sense that... own it in my art, own it in my space, in my intellectual space. And in some senses I succeeded in doing it, but then when this happened I just felt completely floored. I lost all ownership, and I lost all control. And it suddenly became like a monster, and I didn't really... yeah. [0:43:56] I wanted distance from it (chuckling). I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, Cecelia, we are going to need to stop for today.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: So I'll see you on Wednesday. Okay.

CLIENT: Yes. 9:00, or...?

THERAPIST: 9:50.

CLIENT: 50, okay.

THERAPIST: 9:50, yeah. And like I said I'll have that through the end of the month, and I should have that going forward, too, [both times] (ph), okay?

CLIENT: Okay, sounds good, thank you.

THERAPIST: Okay, take care.

CLIENT: You, too.

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