TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi.

(pause)

CLIENT: How are you?

THERAPIST: Good, thank you.

CLIENT: Did you have good week?

THERAPIST: It was nice, thank you. [00:01:00]

(pause)

[00:02:00]

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:02:04) what we-where we left off last time. [laughs]

(pause)

CLIENT: [sighs]

(pause)

CLIENT: [It's very cold] (ph).

THERAPIST: I'm sorry?

CLIENT: I said the season is really changing. It's cold in the mornings.

(pause)

[00:03:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: Sorry I'm so quiet. [laughs] I'm thinking about a lot of things. [00:04:00]

It's strange when the seasons change. It's like it forces you to think about it. [laughs] Usually, you don't really notice. At least, when I came back from Nepal, it was like, "Oh, it's hot here, as well, and sunny." Now that leaves are falling and, I don't know, the-it's really cold in the mornings. It's like it makes me pause and think about where I am. [laughs] It's different and I don't know.

I guess I've been contemplative lately. I started staying at my place, also, a little bit more-well, just on the weekends [laughs] for now. [00:05:01] It feels different.

I feel like it will be beneficially for me, I think it'll make me stronger. Of course, the money worry is there, but then having your own time and really making yourself use it wisely. [sighs] Feeding yourself and [laughs] all of that. Doing it all by yourself is very different from doing it along with someone else. For me, it's...not new, but newish. [00:06:00]

Going to places, socializing, and then coming back to an empty place or an empty room [laughs] and then working, it's a very different rhythm.

I went to two very different events on Saturday. I was just thinking about my reaction to both of them. I think one was a birthday party for a little girl. She was turning one; she's a friend's daughter. The other was a launch of a news website that my professor asked me to go to, very different.

I was so anxious at the birthday thing. [00:07:06] It's just like it's so-it's like I'm thinking, "You know, it's not just my scene," but then I know I really want to have a child sometime soon. I'm no good in wholesome family scenarios at all. [laughs] The night (ph) party with loud music and guys asking me out is my scene, apparently. I just feel like I'm in my element, even though I knew no one there. I got there too late and my professor had already gone. Still, it didn't depress me as much the first event. I don't know.

I was just still judgmental. I got there and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is like somebody just went onto the website and picked up ideas about colors about themes (ph) and colors. [00:08:08] It's so gaudy or whatever; this is not my taste." [laughs] It was happy and I love the child, of course. I sat there and played with her, but I was-that didn't mean that I wasn't judgmental about how the party looked and what they did. [sighs] I don't know.

There's this one girl there, she was-she looked like maybe she's in her 20s or something. She was just eating and just standing there and I guess stood there awkwardly for a bit and then we started talking. She asked me what I did. [00:09:00] It bugs me so much when people ask me that question, especially these people. People like her.

(inaudible at 00:09:14) I was like, "Yeah, I'm an artist," and [told her] (ph), she's like, "Uh huh." She was just stuffing her face. She's like, "How do you know this person?" I was like, "Okay, like this." Then she's like, "Yeah, well, that's my brother over there and that's his wife. That's their two-month-old child. I'm a research analyst at Yale." All the while, she's stuffing her face with pudding. I just felt so awkward and strange. She's so tiny.

I was just so upset. I was like, "How can someone like that make me feel so insecure?" I want to jump off the... [laughs] out of the window or something. [00:10:00] I just felt really frightened. I'm just like, "Why did I feel that way?"

I was telling Chris then we had-we were talking about the fact that I just see things like that. She just felt so bastioned (ph), like, "That's my brother. That's my family. I have a nice job. I have no worries. I'm stuffing my face with the pudding." I was stuffing my face, too. [laughs] My eating seemed like a disorder [laughs] compared to her eating.

THERAPIST: How do you mean?

CLIENT: Well, I don't know. She was thin. I don't know, I just-I have this weird thinking that if I'm eating, it's wrong, but if someone else is eating, it's nourishing and it's right, it's wholesome and it's healthy. [laughs]

I don't know, it's like-[grr], I can still feel that whatever I was feeling at that moment. [00:11:07]

The whole time, I'm just like, "I just want to run out of there." People with their babies; yeah, just family people and felt smug. [laughs]

I went with my mom. I went with a few friends, also another family and my mom.

I guess I didn't go with a partner. I didn't go with Chris, so maybe I felt more alone. [The thing] (ph) is just the loneliness is inside me. [00:12:00]

THERAPIST: I think that's true.

CLIENT: [laughs] I still feel like-that's what I feel. I just go into these places and I feel like everyone is just out there to attack me. Even simple questions like, "How do you know this person?" about the mother just felt like an attack. It's like, "What the hell are you doing here?" That's what it felt like. [laughs] It's just so weird; it obviously didn't mean that at all. To me, it's like, "What right do you have to be here? What makes you valid?" It's totally my own interpretation. The whole time, I was just in defense mode and people are attacking. [00:13:00]

Then at the other place, no one knew me, and that was a bit scary. People were drunk and dancing and they knew the...the value of doing something different. You're (ph) a journalist...so they know that they're doing something that's writing (ph). It's difficult and it has its own anxieties and very small rewards. [laughs] I felt like everyone was a little island, maybe because everyone was American there. At my gathering, most everyone was Nepalese. I don't know about that thing (ph).

I guess I felt like I'm okay at a place where people somehow...have already (ph) a value system that they'll bring to me, to what I'm doing. [00:14:08] If they don't have a good value system with judging, then I just feel totally insecure.

THERAPIST: How do you know what their value system is?

CLIENT: Well, they don't share it.

THERAPIST: Right, so how do you know what it is?

CLIENT: No, it pisses me off that they wouldn't want to share it.

THERAPIST: What are they sharing?

CLIENT: Nothing, which is what I don't like.

THERAPIST: What would you want them to share? I don't think I'm following that.

CLIENT: Well, when I say, "I'm doing this," are you just going to keep eating your pudding? You're not going to say anything, like, "Oh, that's brave (ph). Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's different. Oh, okay, I have no opinion." Something, some reaction. [00:15:00] Are you just senseless right now? You're just drowning [laughs] your senses in pudding so you can't really process. I don't know, maybe it's-yeah, I don't know.

THERAPIST: It's the lack of response?

CLIENT: I don't know what. I was just pissed. [laughs]

(pause)

CLIENT: Maybe lack of response. Just the smugness got to me. That makes me very hateful and judgmental. [laughs]

THERAPIST: You felt she was sort of communicating to you that she was better than you?

CLIENT: Well, she had everything and I was stupid (ph) one. [00:16:01] I'm sure that that's not what they meant.

I don't need people-I don't mind people being better than me. I just mind that they have no opinion of me. They're apathetic or don't value me. I can be on a lower rung, that's fine, but I would like to be on a run instead of just being outside or floating away or something. [laughs]

THERAPIST: It's your perception that you're on a lower rung.

CLIENT: Not really. You just said, "Is she better than you?"

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I'm just saying that's fine, she can be. Obviously, she is. [00:17:01] She's working at Yale, so obviously she's making much more money. [laughs] Right now, everyone is making more money. That's fine. It's okay. I can't really do anything about it.

At least you can say, "Hey, that's interesting," or, "Tell me more," or something. [laughs] I feel silly.

THERAPIST: Why? What do you mean, right now?

CLIENT: Yeah. I sound like a baby complaining. [laughs]

(pause)

CLIENT: I (inaudible at 00:17:49) feel like I'm in my early 20s again. [laughs] That when my mom would be like, "Let's go do this," "Let's go to that," and (inaudible at 00:17:58) often would be community gatherings such as this. [00:18:01] I'd be all snobby like Chris, like, "I'm not going to that shit." [laughs] "It's going to be full of settled people" [laughs] "who may be in their 20s or 30s but they certainly look like they're in their late 40s," with their prams and strollers and giant diaper bags. [laughs]

THERAPIST: It sounds like on the one hand you want that, on the other hand...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...you look down on it.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I guess I wonder whether you look down at it (ph) because it's something that you want and you feel like you can't have.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I've never heard you express wanting a baby soon.

CLIENT: Yeah, I know. I've just been suppressing it because it's really not going to pan out right now [laughs] because I want to finish my book first. [00:19:02] Then obviously, the guy situation [laughs] is clearly very, very messed up [laughs] right now.

Yeah, it's there. I take pictures of random kids on the street. [laughs] I'm trying not to think about it too much. I'm trying to tell myself, "They poop and they make a mess." [laughs]

I guess coming back from Nepal, I thought I could do that, bring up a child [with Chris] (ph). Stay at home and do something at home, like writing or part-time teaching or something. [sighs] Not be a full-fledged career person for a few years, at least. [00:20:03] I came back and then all these other problems started.

I guess I was just thinking about, from our earlier conversation, the feeling like an outside all the time. Even when people want me, I feel like I need to have-I need to feel like an outsider, still. I end up feeling like jelly or something. [laughs]

(pause)

CLIENT: I try. It's not like I don't try. I try to smile. I try to get over my anxieties and hatred and judgment and go and talk to some people [if not everyone] (ph). [00:21:00]

This is what happens. [laughs] I talk and they say something I hear all this crazy stuff. [laughs]

I don't know if there is a chore (ph) or if I can learn something, like people's lack of opinion or taste will always be there and I just have to learn to live with it. Everyone must deal with it. I guess I should ask my teachers how they deal with it, they go around talking to people and they haven't read whatever. They don't who Hawthorne is or Hemingway is or...how do you deal with that? [laughs] [00:22:01]

THERAPIST: How do you know they don't know?

CLIENT: Well, I don't know. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Then I don't know how you know.

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:22:12) the same. The guy that I'm sort of seeing, he's like, "Oh, yeah, I liked 'Great Expectations.'" I'm like, "Ah, yeah. Dickens is very good." He's like, "Oh! I didn't know Dickens had written those (ph)." Okay.

THERAPIST: Do you feel like people have to know what you know?

CLIENT: No, (inaudible at 00:22:37). People in the arts are always how...everyone nowadays is less-reads less books. I think that's a general thing. I guess that, as a psychologist, your question is more pertinent to my mind.

Yeah, it helps. [00:23:01] Again, that my agenda of feeling valued would happen if they knew that I knew certain things yeah, I don't have a brother standing right there and his wife and his two-month-old, whatever. I don't have that, but I've read books.

THERAPIST: Sounds like a competition of value.

CLIENT: Isn't every interaction a competition of value?

THERAPIST: No (ph).

CLIENT: No? [laughs] Maybe not.

(pause)

THERAPIST: Are we in a competition of value?

CLIENT: I don't know. [laughs] Maybe, maybe not. [00:24:00]

It's already established. You know who you are, I know who you are. I don't know who I am and we're trying to figure that out. It's not really a fair competition. [laughs]

(pause)

CLIENT: I think about these things sometimes, but I guess that the way I think I can deal with it is just to focus on my work and meet people who do bring me value and limit such interactions. [00:25:10]

It'd be great if I know how to deal with these interactions, but I feel like right now, I don't. [laughs]

THERAPIST: Well, I guess the point I'm making is that you're bringing a set of your own assumptions to these interactions in (ph) assuming that other people are thinking these things.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You have no idea what they're thinking. Maybe they are, I don't know.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: This woman is probably not thinking, "There's my brother," and so forth, "over there. Look how great I am."

CLIENT: Yeah. No, of course not, but the (crosstalk at 00:25:49).

THERAPIST: It feels that way.

CLIENT: It feels that way.

THERAPIST: That's you (ph) standing in the world that you don't have. That's what it feels like. [00:26:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

I don't know, I guess I'm just very emotional during that time, people with their families. I guess I didn't realize it would affect me, but it did.

(pause)

CLIENT: It just makes me feel destructive. I don't know how long I will (ph) stay this way. I guess that's what we were talking about last time. I would like to play a different role, for a change.

Chris had gone to a conference this weekend and the people that invited me to come to their place, but I guess (inaudible at 00:27:08). I just don't want to go, because they made me feel stupid or whatever. He came back and he was saying, "Yeah, they were asking about you." This woman's mom was there and he said, "Yeah, she was saying her and (inaudible at 00:27:31) pretty and she writes very well," describing how they're cooking together and all that.

It was nice to be thought of, obviously, but I just felt...there's this mild urge in me to just push that aside, that invitation, that acceptance, the compliments. [00:28:03]

I just feel angry. Why didn't I have that when it was the right time, in my childhood? Why didn't I have...? I had a dad, why wasn't he there? Why wasn't my mom into (ph) me? Why don't I have a good relationship with her, still?

It's so much easier to just go to a party with drunks and [laughs] get drunk yourself and just forget about it. People don't ask you hard questions or they don't look smug. [laughs] [00:29:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: I guess I go through phases in here, also, right? Certain times, I feel more positive. Certain times, [it's all] (ph) negative and destructive. I wonder why, right now, I feel more negative. [laughs] [00:30:02]

THERAPIST: [It's an] (ph) interesting question.

CLIENT: Is it because I started living on my own and away from Chris? [laughs] What's changed? The season is changing, (inaudible at 00:30:21) something else. [laughs]

(pause)

CLIENT: [sighs] I don't know.

THERAPIST: Maybe you're feeling sad.

CLIENT: But why?

THERAPIST: You're hopefully gaining new things, but you're giving up or letting go other things.

CLIENT: Like what? [00:31:00]

THERAPIST: You're letting go of the feeling of being taken care of by Chris. You're letting go of a certain kind of relationship with Chris.

CLIENT: Yeah. We're growing up.

THERAPIST: What does it feel like?

CLIENT: Yeah. Are these growing-up pains? [laughs] (inaudible at 00:31:22)

(pause)

CLIENT: Is it necessary to do this?

THERAPIST: To do? What's this?

CLIENT: To grow up, or what I want to do.

THERAPIST: Right. It depends, right. The question is necessary for what? [00:32:00]

CLIENT: Yeah, for me: for writing; for being strong and being my own person. [laughs]

THERAPIST: Growing up is definitely necessary to be your own person, by definition. That's how one becomes one's own person.

CLIENT: I guess earlier, when I felt fused. Now I definitely feel diffused [laughs] like a particle out there. It's just liberating, but it's also, I don't know. You're up there.

I wish I could go in there and be confident in my skin. [00:33:00] Be like, "Yeah, these people have stuff, but I've chosen a different path. I know why. I can just still be a particle and just observe." That's what I want to do, that's my purpose, to observe people in their environment and write about it. [laughs]

That's what I want and I have it. No one should be able to bring me down with their apathy or whatever it is.

(pause)

[00:34:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: It's not like I don't see a balanced picture. I see that. There are single people there. There are people who are-everyone is, or maybe no one is, as strong and smug as I think that they are. [laughs] They're probably insecure and worried about things, yeah. Probably doing jobs they don't really like as much. [00:35:02] Staying up very late looking after the baby. [laughs] They're also probably weak in many respects, like I am.

That's the thing. What if they don't present that and that is what I resent? I guess we can all feel that way, like, "Why is someone seeming very together instead of seeming insecure?" [laughs] That's just temperamental, I guess.

THERAPIST: Well, and even if they are very together, that doesn't mean they have everything, but even if they are very together, why does that reflect badly on you? [00:36:02]

CLIENT: Yeah. Why does it? [laughs] Because I'm standing next to them and [laughs] that's why.

(pause)

CLIENT: [sighs]

(pause)

[00:37:00]

CLIENT: Do you think, at some point, I will stop comparing myself or will just my insecurity leads me to do that?

THERAPIST: Well, hopefully we're working on helping you feel more secure.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(pause)

THERAPIST: Looking at the ways in which you almost reject security, like when people are giving you compliments...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...and recognition, that you reject that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You seem to kind of be magnetically pulled toward experiences that make you feel insecure or inferior.

CLIENT: Really (ph)? Like what? [00:38:00]

THERAPIST: I don't mean actually going to places that make you feel insecure and inferior sometimes but just the experiences themselves. It seems like compliments don't sink in the way experiences where you feel someone is looking down on you sink in.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's definitely [laughs] there.

THERAPIST: There's a pull, there, for you.

CLIENT: That means I will get into a trouble a lot.

THERAPIST: What kind of trouble?

CLIENT: Well, like earlier, you said I'm starting to go out with guys who treat me very badly.

THERAPIST: When did I say that?

CLIENT: Yes, you did Victor and the guy in Ohio.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I was saying-well, I didn't say you were starting to...

CLIENT: [laughs]

THERAPIST: ...I was saying at that time, you were attracted to people who aren't treating you well. I'm not sure that's why you were attracted to them...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...but I was also-but I didn't make that comment [of late] (ph). I certainly haven't made that comment at all about this guy you're seeing; (inaudible at 00:39:01) I don't know anything about him.

CLIENT: What if he treats me badly? I'm very (inaudible at 00:39:06) right now. [laughs]

THERAPIST: Do you feel like he would?

CLIENT: I don't know. I don't really know too much about him. (inaudible at 00:39:23) try not to, I guess.

THERAPIST: That came from sort of a place of anxiety. What were you thinking? "What if I get involved with guys who treat me badly?"

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Where is that coming from?

CLIENT: Well, it's just I guess certain words that you use, that I attract trouble. No, not that. You said...

THERAPIST: Yeah, I did not say that.

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:39:51), people who put me down.

THERAPIST: I didn't really say that, either. I said that's what you take away from experiences. [00:40:01]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That's actually my point, exactly.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That you experience people putting you down. I don't know if that's what's happening.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I'm sure some people put you down. People put everybody-who can find people who'll put other people down?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But that's your experience, that's what you take away from the interaction.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, so there's that piece. Then there's [laughs] that other, earlier piece, where I did go out with guys a couple guys who didn't treat me well. If we analyze that, maybe it'll come up that I was attracted to them because they weren't very nice to me.

Therefore, I felt like, "Am I attracting trouble?" Am I in that phase where I'm attracting or attractive to situations that bring me anxiety? [00:41:09] That aren't warm and nurturing but kind of judgmental and cold?

THERAPIST: (crosstalk at 00:41:19)

CLIENT: (crosstalk at 00:41:20)

THERAPIST: I'm sorry, go ahead.

CLIENT: No, that's it.

THERAPIST: Well, you feel that way about Chris.

CLIENT: What, cold?

THERAPIST: Yeah, that you go into these situations with him and his friends and you feel very much like it's cold and intellectual but not warm and nurturing. You very much felt that way with him.

CLIENT: I'm so confused, because some of those situations can be warm and nurturing. [laughs] This weekend, they were all cooking together. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Well, it could be cooking together, meaning you and Chris? [00:42:00]

CLIENT: No, his friends.

THERAPIST: Chris's friends?

CLIENT: Yeah. People he was staying with in Cambridge. [sighs] I was invited, but I didn't go. [laughs]

THERAPIST: You experience Chris as very judgmental.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I know there are parts of him that you feel are nurturing...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...and he takes care of you, so I know that's not the whole picture.

CLIENT: Yeah. (inaudible at 00:42:37)

Again, it feels like (inaudible at 00:42:46).

I guess all this must have something to do with how I categorize people, because anyone can be cold and warm, right? [00:43:02]

THERAPIST: Some people are more cold and some people are more warm.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Some people can be very embracing and accepting; some people judgmental. People can be a composite.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It depends on the person.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You're feeling differently and you're curious about that, a change of seasons and growing pains and what this means for you and the implications and...

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess the goal's really that you bring out the side of people that makes you feel good and makes them feel good. [00:44:00] Have a productive interaction, because everyone can be cold and warm some more, some less, obviously.

Hopefully I'm not in that phase anymore, where I inspire judgment and negative behavior like I did with those guys. That's what I'm hoping.

THERAPIST: Well, they inspired it in you, too. It was a two-way street.

CLIENT: Yeah, it was very-they were cold and I was whatever, needy or something (ph) [laughs] whatever. [I don't know] (ph).

THERAPIST: They were like an empty refrigerator.

CLIENT: [laughs] Yeah? I would say they were more like rabid dogs, barking at me. [laughs] Well...

THERAPIST: That's different than refrigerator, for sure-an empty refrigerator (crosstalk at 00:45:01).

CLIENT: An (ph) empty refrigerator's just standing there. These guys were bitchy. They bitched. Victor threw me out of his house. That other guy was just like, "Wah, wah, wah, wah," and judgment all the freaking time. [laughs] They weren't just standing there.

THERAPIST: We're going to need to stop for today. I will see you on Wednesday!

CLIENT: Okay. It's 9:50?

THERAPIST: Yeah, exactly. Okay, take care.

CLIENT: You, too. Have a good day.

THERAPIST: Thank you, you too.

END TRANSCRIPT