TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi. Come on in.

(Pause): [00:01:15 00:01:34]

CLIENT: Hi.

(Pause): [00:01:34 00:02:35]

CLIENT: I’m thinking of what’s on my mind.

(Pause): [00:02:39 00:03:20]

CLIENT: I guess I was trying to tell myself or ask why I get so like influenced by other people in the sense that it becomes really debilitating at a point because. I guess I’ve always been like that with people and have observed that about me. I don’t know, I just get swayed by people and that’s true in a lot of respects, like it happens very intensely with I guess, boyfriends. And then it also happens like just generally with like feeling like I am thinking about or asking people, what do you do and you know? And why do you do it and I think about, like recently, I guess, think about what gives a person their confidence and like their happiness and all that. I wonder if it’s because I feel so lost so much that I look to other people to provide structure – maybe not structure but meaning or where to look for meaning. I don’t know.

But I was just feeling like I should stop that (laughs) because I had jobs and when I had jobs it was like I’m dying to write and now that I’ve given myself the time to write I’m spending a lot of it just worrying about whether I’m just wasting my time or why am I not heading out to work in the morning like everyone else, you know? Why am I not in the race to make money or watch out for myself, my future? And I’m like, but I wanted this time to write so I should just make the most of it and live in that moment instead of worrying about the future, at least for a bit. I don’t know, I’ve been applying for random jobs and not really getting anything because I thought I need another part time job or maybe even a full time one. I don’t know, because I want to figure out my living situation – living on my own or not. [00:06:34]

So I guess I’ll be seeing my old friend also. Because over the summer she’s just saved. She had to have a lot of money because she moved out of her old apartment and this morning I also saw that she is – she’d written out her own rent check which hasn’t happened in a long time. And I was surprised by that and felt kind of odd about it. (Laughs).

THERAPIST: Why? What happened?

CLIENT: Well, it was just like a mixture – like, oh, am I not needed? And I was like, oh, I didn’t really mean to yell and scream at her and give her so much attitude and feel like, oh God, I have this burden because she wrote her own rent check and then I was also feeling a little like relaxed you know, like she can take care of herself. (Laughs). Okay. Scary also. But I guess I had more negative, slightly more negative emotions than positive ones which is so stupid because I should be jumping up and down and saying, yaw! I don’t have to worry about my mom. But I do and she was like, he can pay the next one. But at least for these three months she hasn’t even asked me for any money, you know? So that should make me feel good, but instead I’m like should I be worried about this?

(Pause): [00:08:18 00:08:29]

CLIENT: Things have been kind of weird as they always are, so –

(Pause): [00:08:35 00:08:50]

CLIENT: So it gives me a little bit of hope or comfort that things won’t be as scary as I actually think that they are.

THERAPIST: And how did you think they’d be scary?

CLIENT: I’m scared all the bloody time. It’s just like, why am I scared? I have to actually slow down and think about it and try and look at it in the face and like why am I afraid of this? Let’s look at it. I’m learning to do that. I guess I’ve been doing things that I shouldn’t be doing (laughs) and that’s why I’m scared, but –

THERAPIST: Like?

CLIENT: You’re going to judge me on things that I tell you.

THERAPIST: Do I judge you?

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: (Unclear).

CLIENT: To, I guess, to help me. (Laughs) So I guess it’s okay that you judge me.

THERAPIST: How does my judging you help to help you?

CLIENT: I don’t know. Maybe you don’t judge me, all right? Maybe I just feel judged. Maybe what you do is very different from my perception. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: And I judge you because I don’t like you or because I’m a judgmental person?

CLIENT: I don’t know. Maybe you are a judgmental person. Everyone is judgmental.

THERAPIST: Well then that doesn’t make me a judgmental person. It makes me like everybody else, I guess.

CLIENT: (Laughs) That’s true.

(Pause): [00:10:36 00:10:53]

CLIENT: Things will evolve, I guess. I don’t know, but maybe I should also take some responsibility and plan or something like that, you know, be a little bit more rational and proactive. So – (laughs).

THERAPIST: You don’t have to tell me what quote/unquote stupid things you do, I was just curious about that aspect of your comment.

CLIENT: Like I guess it’s not stupid, it just kind of scares me a little bit but so you know, like there’s so much, so many things happening, I feel overwhelmed a bit, I guess. So, I’m not really processing a lot of things. I’m just trying to compartmentalize them but at the same time life is also happening, you know. So, I don’t know what thread to pick up on and what narrative to give it except saying that if I put myself in the center and then I would say that I’m kind of confused but also looking for a path that is my own and not inspired by others or like not like I’m usually, up until now, I’ve been – I do two things I guess. I try – I think I try to just fit in and try to figure out, okay, where will I – I guess when you’re looking for a job and you’re graduate, that’s the mode right? You see where you’ll fit in, where your skills will match with what company and all that. So there is that side of me, but on the other side that wants to be, I don’t know, independent, or I would like to use a very fancy word – trailblazer thing, you know. That’s what I want to be. I want to do something different and lo and behold, I am doing it from some miracle in the sense that I’ve quit jobs several times and now I’m like taking all the necessary steps to do that, but then there are all these other complications as well and I just get scared that – am I sabotaging what is most important to me by either getting distracted and there are other things also. Like the thing with David over kind of always confused about each other. I guess mostly the confusion is mine. And we were talking about doing couples therapy and now he thinks – until recently he was like yeah let’s do it. But I was just a bit confused or lost and not wanting to do it because I’m like I’m already doing therapy here and I don’t want to add this on. I don’t know. So and then you know, I went to New York. When was that? I think, I don’t know – was it cold? No it wasn’t cold.

THERAPIST: In the spring sometime? Is that was you’re referring to?

CLIENT: (Laughing) I’m not remembering when this was.

THERAPIST: Who did you go to visit?

CLIENT: Graham.

THERAPIST: Graham.

CLIENT: When was this? Was it last year? No.

THERAPIST: No, it was spring, sometime. [00:15:03]

CLIENT: It wasn’t cold.

THERAPIST: Maybe it was in late spring.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It could have been in April or May.

CLIENT: Yeah, okay. Maybe April. Yeah, probably April, because not in May and then I went to Nepal. Oh God, it feels like – anyways, and so that you said was kind of stupid and I agree. Like, well I don’t know – I don’t know if I agree.

THERAPIST: I don’t know if I used the word “stupid” but okay.

CLIENT: Well, what did you say?

THERAPIST: I don’t remember how I described it but I wouldn’t think I used to word “stupid”.

CLIENT: Yeah, but maybe it was more like you get into messes, or something like that? What would you call that situation? I mean you don’t remember your words from then, but -

THERAPIST: Complicated?

CLIENT: You get into complications? (Laughs) Or, I complicate things? Why is that complicating –

THERAPIST: The reason I used the word complicated is that it is complicated. There are (unclear) motivations that you have for doing that.

CLIENT: Or going there.

THERAPIST: Yes. It’s hard to characterize each one thing.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (Unclear) not called stupid.

CLIENT: Hmm. I guess the less complicated way would have been to like break things off with David first, right?

THERAPIST: That’s one way.

CLIENT: Yeah. Which I guess is what I’m trying to do now. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Are you?

CLIENT: Well like so I met a guy (laughs) in – March? Yeah, probably around the same time and we were just casually hanging out and stuff and I guess we got intimate this weekend so now I have all this like guilt. (Laughs) So since then, well actually before that when I got back from Nepal I was like, okay, I have to find my own place, you know, because I’m basically living with David, you know? And seeing someone else while living with David is you know, wrong. On so many levels I feel like -. So step one – find a job. Step two look for a place. So I’m still working on both of those because both are seeming to be extremely hard to come by. (Laughs).

But at the same time I feel like I’m trying to open myself to the possibility of living with my mom because she’s moved to Providence now so location-wise that is quite attractive and I just have to figure out the physical, the living arrangements to set up the place to my liking because she is very messy and I’m kind of organized – not organized, but neat and esthetically need the place to look really nice – so I have to negotiate that with her. But instead of that freaking me out, it’s actually not a little bit. I mean it is freaking me out but it’s also like I’m trying to – you know, like this morning when she’d written the rent check I felt very confident. Or I was telling myself this was comforting and you ought to feel it. So I am hoping that I will be pleasantly surprised because she has been living alone now for a year. So maybe she’s become a little independent and it would be nice to kind of observe that or partake of that because it is nice, I think to live with someone who’s you know, not leaning on you.

Or maybe, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is like, earlier living with her was somewhat painful because she was dependent and now that I’m doing therapy, also, I’ve talked about this with you, I’m hoping my perspective has changed a little where I’m seeing her as being an independent person – someone who does not lean on me for money and if she does it doesn’t seem like such an emotional burden or psychological burden, you know? And that I’m not responsible all the time for her happiness or her sadness, you know? Because living with her – I think we talked about this, I felt so fused with her sorrows and her inabilities to do things. So fused that that became my identity and I was desperately wanting another one and I guess what I found in its place was an identity with David. That again, that also was kind of not acceptable to me because I kept feeling lower than him on so many levels. So I feel like I would love an identity that was not fused with anyone. Informed by other people, mom, boyfriends, dad even (laughs), and friends, but I would like for them to give me some space, to be on the side like chapter three or four. Maybe the first two chapters would just be about me, you know? So that is what I would like. (Laughs). [00:21:23]

THERAPIST: Do you feel like there are things you can’t tell me because you’re afraid of my judging you?

CLIENT: Yeah, but I’m trying to get over that. See how quickly I told you? (Laughs)

THERAPIST: And what does my judging you mean?

CLIENT: Well, like earlier with the Ohio thing you said something, I guess I didn’t remember the exact words but I remembered my feeling of my reaction to what you’d said so I guess that was like, ‘oh God, I did something wrong. Why am I always doing wrong things? What’s wrong with me, you know?

THERAPIST: So that was coming from me?

CLIENT: Well no. I’m not saying – I’m not putting you at fault. I’m stepping up and taking responsibility for my own feelings. You might have meant “A” and I might have interpreted it as “B” or A plus X or something. That +X is my doing, my brain or whatever that converts your speech into a negative emotion. I mean I just thought it would start worrying me to have to worry about what I’m doing.

THERAPIST: How do you mean, “worry about what you’re doing”?

CLIENT: Well, you know, it is kind of worrying. It’s been weird because you know on the one hand I want to see this guy and on the other, I don’t want to see him because it’s like I’m living with David and I haven’t told him and I don’t think I can and it feels wrong to do this to David.

(Pause): [00:23:18 00:23:30]

CLIENT: So it’s worrying. I get (unclear) all up and down this weekend and I’m so happy, so happy, and then I’m like scared, (laughs) worried and feeling very guilty. (Sighs)

THERAPIST: When you do these things it’s not about me. From what I understand about judgment, the way I see it, it’s things that you’re doing to yourself.

CLIENT: What do you mean, these things?

THERAPIST: Like, you know, sort of going and seeing another man while you’re living with David. Bearing that knowledge and feeling that sense of guilt is a lot of pain to bear.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well I’m trying to change that. I’m sleeping at my mom’s place. And I’m slowly trying to transition into living with her so I’m hoping that I won’t be living with David in the next few days.

THERAPIST: Does he know you’re moving out?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Does he know – did you tell him why?

CLIENT: That’s what I mean. There’s all these things that I haven’t processed and all these conflicting influences because when I came back from Nepal I told him that I am ready to get married in the next few months and have children but that married life would be a little stale physically, I guess. And he was like, no – that’s not acceptable. What do I do about this? Because I love him and I respect him and I see myself fitting into his life like having kids with him. I still have all these doubts like can he be a good father? But I don’t care because I think I’ll just bring up the children. So I saw that, I considered that possibility I guess because I’d seen – this was like the Nepal influence where I ‘d spent time with couples and women that I’d admired, they now have two kids and you know they seem to live fairly independently of their husbands in the sense that they all live together but the husband goes off to work in the mornings, comes in the evenings and the woman has the whole day to herself to look after kids, do what she wants. I thought maybe that’s what I want to do. But then the moment I got back to the U.S. and started hanging out with the women’s organization that we started, they are all about – they are like western feminists and are like independence and explore – not explore but talk about your sexuality and this and that. And I’m like wait a second, I don’t want to get married to David because I’m not really attracted to him physically. We are intimate because I don’t know, it seems to work, I guess, now. But it’s not something that I look forward to or would like to initiate.

THERAPIST: So then, how did you break up with him?

CLIENT: Well, it’s been like happening over a year, right. So, he knows that I’m totally confused.

THERAPIST: But I thought you said you’re moving out.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So are you not breaking up with him?

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess I am. I guess what I said to him was that I need space to figure things out. So – I mean, I’ve been looking for apartments since I got back and I haven’t – (unclear). So I just thought I’d be able to live with my mom. So I think it’s kind of complicated. (Laughs) I thought I wouldn’t see this guy until I find a place and have you know, kind of not seeing David for a while, but I guess that didn’t happen.

THERAPIST: You changed your mind?

CLIENT: I didn’t have self-control. (Laughs) So, yeah.

(Pause): [00:28:41 00:28:49]

CLIENT: I’m trying to have control, I guess. Trying to make a plan and prioritize but I guess I do worry, am I throwing away my priority? I mean, David. Staying with David was great because he, like he didn’t ask, he doesn’t ask for rent because it was such a tiny space anyways. I mean I could contribute if I want to but I guess I had my mom’s rent to pay so I didn’t. And I wonder if that was using him because it’s not that I don’t love him. I do love him and I do all his cooking and cleaning and (laughs). And living with him was kind of ideal in that sense because I didn’t have to worry about money and I had like a space just all to myself at least all day long. But I’m wondering if that is not – if I should have my own space. At least the women in my organization are like, you really need a place of your own. (Laughs). I feel like yeah, that is the first order of business. But then like is there a cost/benefit analysis here because should I turn off the (unclear) because then I can finish my project, you know. Finish my writing project.

THERAPIST: So would David be okay if you lived there as roommates and you dated other people?

CLIENT: Well, I don’t know. I guess he’d be okay with us being roommates but probably not if I’m seeing other people. We’d be okay as roommates if I was not seeing people. (Laughs) And I could have done that but I was very attracted to this guy and he was like –

THERAPIST: Well, if you were roommates then you’re not living as roommates if you cannot see other people. Because roommates can see other people.

CLIENT: But not in our case because we’ve been so –

THERAPIST: Well, that’s because you wouldn’t be roommates.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t think David and I can be roommates. Because we’ve been together for so long and last year also we were practically seeing each other every day, (laughs), almost. And we talked about getting married also. And it’s just fused. I’m just fused with him. So it would be –

THERAPIST: (Unclear proper name), this comment, I hope you hear doesn’t come out of a place of judgment. I don’t think you can feel good about yourself when you lie to people.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I just don’t think you can. I think you’re feeling bad about yourself comes from a lot of different sources.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: When you’re feeling badly, I’m not judging you. You’re judging yourself. You don’t feel like it’s the right thing to do – you’re sneaking around.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You’re worried you’re using him. It’s hard to feel good about yourself that way.

CLIENT: Yeah. What should I do?

THERAPIST: Well, on the flip side you like the benefits – some of the benefits of sneaking around because if you told him you know you’d be sort of confronted with some very specific decisions.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So you kind of try this halfway point but I don’t think in the end the halfway point gets you what you want.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t want to sneak or lie. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Well then you’d tell him and leave.

CLIENT: That’s what I’m trying. I mean it’s happened over the weekend. It’s been two days.

THERAPIST: Well, it sounds like you’ve been interested in this guy for many months. [00:33:24]

CLIENT: Yeah, but we were just very platonic and yeah.

THERAPIST: There are lies and then there are part lies.

CLIENT: (Laughs). I did, I wanted to tell him. That’s what – I’m not sure you know. I don’t know. I kept telling myself, who knows, maybe I won’t like this guy. You know, he’s not really an academic, he’s not – conversations with him are not that interesting. (Laughs). This is like, oops, this is not going to last. I don’t know why. I just feel like I should just move back to Nepal, get married to David and then we (unclear).

THERAPIST: But you won’t be able to sustain that.

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: You wouldn’t be able to sustain that? At least not the way you are now.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t know.

(Pause): [00:34:22 00:34:31]

THERAPIST: I feel like on the most basic level you have very few role models of how to treat people sort of with respect and earnestness.

CLIENT: (Laughs) You’re saying I’m disrespectful and phony. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: No. I said you have very few role models for how to be that way in the world and how to derive a lot of pleasure and self-respect and comfort that way.

CLIENT: What do you mean? Self-respect, comfort and pleasure with what?

THERAPIST: About just sort of knowing there’s nothing – your interactions are what they are. You know you do what you say. There’s no secrets, there’s no lies. There’s no ulterior motives. I mean people’s motives for being with other people are very complicated. I don’t mean to make it sound so simplistic. I mean if the motives are there and straightforward and you feel good about them, then there’s just like a lot of comfort that you get from that experience with being with people in that way.

(Pause): [00:35:33 00:35:43]

CLIENT: I never did anything like this until now. Sure, I mean, I feel like I’m becoming worse, you know. I’ve definitely ended relationships when they were not right and –

THERAPIST: But this extends beyond your relationship with David, with a lot of people who you want something from and you feel like you need to kind of equivocate or position yourself in a particular way. It causes a lot of internal angst.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And a lot of contingencies.

CLIENT: What do you mean, “contingencies”?

THERAPIST: Well, like you sound like you just want to be with this person. There is a particular set of contingencies, which you want to create that relationship. And probably you feel the other way that them being with you has contingencies, too. Nothing is straightforward.

CLIENT: I would love for it to be straightforward. (Laughs) I really would.

(Pause): [00:36:58 00:37:07]

CLIENT: I guess that I see that I’m not there yet.

(Pause): [00:37:10 00:37:20]

CLIENT: I’m really afraid of hurting David by this. I’m very afraid but I am, despite my being afraid. I am hurting him I guess more by not telling him.

(Pause): [00:37:35 00:38:27]

CLIENT: I don’t know when I broke up with my first boyfriend I was so much younger and you know had no money and I think, no job, but maybe I had a job, I don’t know, I can’t remember. But I knew, for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that I didn’t want to be with him anymore. You know? Plus, he moved to a different state so that was kind of slightly easy. Now, you know, it’s so hard to break up with David for whatever reason, you know? It’s like you know, I’m older and perhaps, one would think, more mature, (laughs) but it’s so much more scary than I was then. And I don’t think beyond a shadow of a doubt that I don’t want to be with David. I still think that I could be with him.

(Pause): [00:39:23 00:39:34]

CLIENT: I keep asking my friends, what kind of person would you be, like what can you compromise on? Chemistry? This and that and they’re all like no – everything or nothing. They’d rather be alone than have to settle and you know.

THERAPIST: The problem is that no one can tell you that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: They’re not living with David to know (unclear).

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That’s one of the problems of asking other people, you know, sort of what they’d do and emulating yourself after them is theoretically impossible because there are no two symmetric situations.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Your attachment to David is just so complicated.

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: The two of you attachment together are so complicated. But there are ways in which when there are two things that are incompatible that you want your solution is to see just if you can get them both, even if they’re incompatible. And so you strain the system – whether compromising yourself or compromising other things to see if you can make that happen. And you’re so focused on that you don’t realize the negative effects of that strain.

CLIENT: Yeah. You said two incompatibilities. What –?

THERAPIST: Sometimes it’s two different people. You want two people at the same time who don’t want to be in an open relationship.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And so on that level. But I mean, even with David, you want someone sort of exciting and spontaneous and very structured and very – even to attributes in one person you want – but then you know, you want to be with David and you want to be with somebody else and the two of them – at least David doesn’t want you to be with somebody else. That’s incompatible. You have to be with one or you have to be with the other. Or no one. And so then you strain the system. Oh what can I do, what can I say, how can I make things so that I can get both these things? But in the end you end up being so much more hurt by that then having to deal with not getting some of what you want.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:41:37 00:41:58]

CLIENT: I guess I don’t want to be so desperate and be like no I have to get this thing right away, you know? But whatever it is – physical, intimacy, or structure, you know. But I feel that way. I feel – I guess I feel more a need for structure than I feel for physical intimacy. I mean that can be put on the back burner.

THERAPIST: But no.

CLIENT: But for how long? (Laughs)

THERAPIST: But you don’t put it on the back burner.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:42:32 00:42:42]

THERAPIST: I won’t get into a debate about this.

CLIENT: (Laughs) Well I mean I –

THERAPIST: You don’t put it on the back burner long enough to say, I picking structure. I’m not doing that.

CLIENT: I did.

THERAPIST: Every few months I hear about some guy you’re (unclear).

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Maybe we have different definitions of what’s on the back burner.

(Pause): [00:43:05 00:43:19]

CLIENT: I don’t know. Okay. I don’t see the burner. I don’t see what I can put on the back or on the front. I just – I guess that’s what I do. I switch things around. Like the first of the month I stick with structure, cook that for a bit and then when something happens I put, yeah, I put physical intimacy on the front burner and then structure on the back. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: But I don’t know if there’s a burner that you actually have to dump the pot. I think there’s really only one burner and so it’s unclear what to do with the pot. So sometimes I think you say on an unconscious level – oh that pot doesn’t exist. There’s no pot. I’ll go off with this (unclear) pot and the pot emerges when you come back and you need somewhere to sleep.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: But it’s a game you play with yourself. A game – in quotes. I know it’s very complicated. I don’t mean to make it sound – I don’t see it as manipulative. But it really screws with your brain and comes at great cost to you.

CLIENT: Yeah. It does. I guess I pretend that it doesn’t.

THERAPIST: I know. And that’s really – that’s the biggest lie of all. The one to yourself.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It absolutely comes in as a cost to you. I absolutely agree that you pretend to yourself.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: We need to stop. I’m here – next Monday’s Labor Day. I won’t be here in the morning. I’m not going to be here in the afternoon.

CLIENT: So 10:15 you want?

THERAPIST: Will that work?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. So I will see you on Wednesday. Okay.

CLIENT: At 9-5-0.

THERAPIST: 9-5-0 – you’ve got it. Okay, bye-bye.

CLIENT: See you.

END TRANSCRIPT