TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi. Come on in.

CLIENT: (inaudible)

THERAPIST: December.

CLIENT: Oh. Okay.

THERAPIST: Is that right? I don’t think .

CLIENT: I think so, yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: (inaudible)

THERAPIST: I don’t. Did Lisa send it to you?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I could look it up.

CLIENT: Okay. Should I write it for January also?

THERAPIST: It’s up to you if you want. (pause) I guess it’s a hundred and eighty for both. It’s a hundred for December and eighty for January. [00:01:30]

CLIENT: Okay. (pause) [00:02:30]

THERAPIST: Thank you. (silence from 00:02:35 to 00:04:20)

CLIENT: I’m not really sure what to talk about. (pause) Last time we talked about my dad and his whatever. You know, sexuality. How he did certain things that my mom didn’t approve of or that made her really depressed. I guess I’m just trying to understand why that has like remained with me as an impression or as a scathing, depressing kind of scenario to be in. [00:05:30]

I guess I don’t understand what it has to do with me or why does it have to sit with me or burden me with baggage. Yeah. And why that has any bearing on my present or my future. I guess it’s just like, it just sits there like he did that and that depressed my mom and that was so sad. She was sad and because she was sad, it made me sad. That’s basically it. It’s just like it’s powerful enough to make me feel sad even now. I guess I’m questioning that and why that still has power over me. [00:06:30]

There are other things that do kind of affect my parent’s behavior. I don’t know. You know, feeling like an outsider, etc. That has more bearing on me than this does. Although maybe this, in some way, informs the decisions I make. I don’t know. I mean I know I over react to certain things. I don’t know. (silence from 00:07:20 to 00:09:30)

I guess it does act to make a feeling of powerlessness in some way. Her inability to walk away and put an end to something that she didn’t like or approve of instead of staying in that situation for so long, for years. That kind of makes me feel powerless. You can’t change things if you don’t like them. You don’t have a choice. Life can be so awful with this and I’m measuring that only by the extent of her sadness about it. I guess that is one bearing that it has. [00:10:30]

It’s sad. I think of that and it makes me feel powerless and like I can’t do anything. (silence from 00:10:40 to 00:13:15)

THERAPIST: What are you thinking?

CLIENT: I’m trying to construct it, but it’s not really happening. I don’t know. (pause) I guess last time we were also talking about expecting less from people and just being more open minded. I guess that is what lead to this discussion and I’m trying to find my way back to that. I don’t know what more to say about that. [00:14:00]

THERAPIST: Well, I guess in this case, it’s expecting so little from somebody. Like in your mother’s case.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Having such low expectations or having higher expectations and just having them be constantly unfulfilled.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. I guess that is. I’m never sad but I’m thinking why she should have just walked away much sooner instead of staying in that situation and feeling powerless for so long. Once you know that their expectations are not going to be met, then you alter them or if you cannot do without them you kind of move away. You know? So you can stop expectations or at least not derive any meaning from them. At least she tried and who knows. She wouldn’t have had the material or emotional pay back. The foundation completely breaks away. [00:15:30]

Maybe that’s my fear behind building anything with anyone. (laughter) You know?

THERAPIST: You mean building what?

CLIENT: Anything with anyone. Any kind of relationship or even not just with people, but I don’t know. I guess I sometimes wonder if I will be able to build anything. I feel like I have been at the same place for a long time. I’m still an MA student. I mean I started doing MA’s in 2004 or 2005 or 2006. That’s been like 8 years. I don’t have a PhD, but I had started one. It’s just what I chose for my specific whatever purpose. I am learning more than I knew back then. That’s for sure. [00:17:00]

You know, career wise I feel like I don’t know if I am able to build and go from strength to strength and from experience to experience. Instead I’m just like going horizontally and trying. You know, to climb the ladder, so to speak. Not just climb the ladder, but build something. It’s like even with David I don’t feel like I have succeeded in building anything.

THERAPIST: Well, you chose to keep getting more master’s degrees.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: As your perception that that’s not building, but you chose to get two of the same master’s degrees too. [00:18:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I’m sure I have positive reasons and I know what they are. I just want ease and money and stuff, but I’m just finishing a project. In the back of my head I feel or I fear that I have this feeling that I will still be at that same level and that I hadn’t learned my lessons. So, in a way of like punishing as well. You know? That’s what I’m sure is an example of what is happening. Well, I guess that could be fine if it lasts a few years and maybe once I somehow build my confidence, I might allow myself to graduate from this MA stage. [00:19:00]

You know? I just hope that I am building confidence, you know. I think I am. It’s just, I’m just very, not very confident in the fact that I have any confidence. (laughter) So. (pause) Yeah, I mean especially with relationships and friendships I don’t feel like I’m valued. I mean maybe break up with them and sort of in the end it’s destroyed. [00:20:20]

THERAPIST: We’ve talked about that before.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Feeling destructive.

CLIENT: I know. I guess your take on that is that I was unhappy and walking out was not really a sign of being destructive.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I mean I talked to you before that I do think that some of the things you have done are destructive.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But I also know that you talk about how your parents described you. Your mother in particular in destructive in way that didn’t seem like learned. Maybe there were destructive elements, but that wasn’t the only reason you left.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe not the primary reason. I said that it seemed like what you were doing in the relationship was far more destructive then you leaving that relationship.

CLIENT: Oh.

THERAPIST: That definitely seemed destructive. (silence from 00:21:15 to 00:22:15)

CLIENT: I guess I understand why I did those destructive things.

THERAPIST: You seem a little distracted today.

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m not like thinking about something else. It’s just that it’s hard to explain. I don’t know. It’s been, I don’t know.

THERAPIST: I’m sorry, it’s been what?

CLIENT: I don’t know. I don’t think I have anything else on my mind. I’m trying to concentrate on something that’s not really solvent, doesn’t really feel really solvent right now. I don’t know. (silence from 00:23:00 to 00:23:45).

I guess when I went there that was a lot of unresolved anger and jealousy and stuff that made me do destructive things. Not to say that I’m not still doing those same things, but I feel like I am more conscientious. I feel like I don’t want to destroy things anymore. Sometimes I feel like I do want to destroy or I am being destructive, but other times I feel like I consciously feel like I don’t and I want to build stuff, I guess. Like working so long on one thing, one book, is I feel like that is one sign of trying to be constructive. You know. [00:25:00]

Maybe revisiting things and seeing the spark in them. I feel . I’m trying to make time for my mom. I’m trying to be there for David in whatever way. (laughter) Yeah. I’m feel like I’m building. Being nice to Nelson despite my fears and anxieties and things like that. I don’t know if I am building anything there. I just feel like at least I’m not being blatantly destructive. I don’t know. That’s the harder thing to talk about. Like my feelings for David and Nelson are so still confused. Basically, I’m getting two very different things from two very different people. It’s just a matter of deciding what I can do without and who I want to build something with. [00:26:30]

I guess I’m looking at a long term relationship as like building something and I just don’t know what exactly I’m going to build. Whatever it is that I build with one of these guys would look very different. At least it feels like that. It feels positive and something that I’m building instead of just like walking in to a situation and you can’t do anything about it. Most of the time being with David felt like that. That I had no idea he felt like the guy my parents had chosen for me.

THERAPIST: Really? [00:27:30]

CLIENT: Yes. Yeah.

THERAPIST: I never got that sense that it’s someone that you wanted or felt conflicted about, but that you chose. I never knew that you felt that way.

CLIENT: Sometimes I have kind of a feeling like that. Like I have no choice even though I did, as you say, get out of doing those destructive things just to make myself feel like I have a choice. Maybe that’s why I did them. Because that’s like the counter to the feeling that I didn’t have a choice. [00:28:30]

THERAPIST: This may seem somewhat tangential. I imagine it’s related somehow. I was thinking about money and I was thinking about money in here and I know I have brought it up before. I just know that money is such a big issue for you. I’m just always curious. I know I usually have to ask a few times about the bill.

CLIENT: (laughter) Yeah.

THERAPIST: I don’t know. Yeah, I guess I want to understand your feelings more about it because I know it has meaning for you.

CLIENT: No. I don’t quite understand the procedures. As soon as Lisa sends me the thing, I should write a check and give it to you at the session?

THERAPIST: Well, yeah. I mean usually .

CLIENT: Or should I, am I supposed to mail it somewhere?

THERAPIST: No, no, no. You’re supposed to give it to me.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Usually, when people get the statements, they pay me within a few weeks. I usually ask like at the latest by the end of the month.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So, but yeah. When she sends a statement, I mean not necessarily the next session.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You know. Usually within a couple weeks. [00:29:30]

CLIENT: Yeah. I know. I guess the larger feeling about money is that I’m not staying on top of a lot of things that are not automatic deductibles. I have trouble staying on top of that.

THERAPIST: I get the sense you’re kind of putting it off a little bit.

CLIENT: Yeah. I do put it off in the sense that, like I said, if it’s not automatically deducted then it’s something that I have to keep in my kind of list in my head and that list kind of gets confused or misplaced, I guess. Yeah, but I do have major anxieties about money and what the hell I’m doing and not making any right now and over spending, actually. I’m borrowing from David now. [00:30:30]

This past month it’s been like I have to pay for school and my mom’s rent and so I had to borrow money from David.

THERAPIST: Do you mean school for tuition?

CLIENT: Yeah. That was a huge thing too. The delayed payment. It was from a year ago and Amherst is like a messed up place anyways. You ask five people and they’ll give you ten different answers. So, I was under the impression I didn’t have to pay anything, but apparently I do have to pay some things because the health insurance went up and stuff. So, yeah. I guess I was like, in the past, I have been able to take care of my finances in the sense that I have saved money. I’ve paid off student loans and I have had jobs and felt like things were in control and things were agreeing. Now that I’m a student again, I don’t know. I feel, yeah, like I’m not on top of my finances. [00:32:00]

THERAPIST: What is, I mean do you feel that you can’t create some of the structure for yourself outside of school in terms of writing? Like, what is the, it just seems like from an economic standpoint you’d do much better off not having to pay tuition. Even having a small, part time job and then being able to write rather than going to school.

CLIENT: Yeah. I just didn’t have the community and I mean the structure was there. I had a job. I’d come home and write. It was just a lot of things back then that were bothering me that I just felt like I couldn’t do anything about. I felt very weak and powerless. I don’t know. Since after Simmons, it’s just been like crazy and a huge mess. [00:33:00]

Simmons created some really, really unreasonable expectations. The teachers are there are so famous and they said oh, you can be like the next best thing and I thought that meant okay, success is just around the corner. So, I started expecting, very unreasonably, like okay, a vacation right away. My professor said take the next couple of years off and write and I didn’t even know how to do that and what the hell that meant. So, like six months after Simmons I went (inaudible) for six months. David was doing his dissertation and so I helped him with that. [00:34:00]

Those six months I wasn’t very. Then, I came back and I got a job and that was like I was really, really resentful of that because he was writing his dissertation. I guess he didn’t really have much money for rent or maybe he paid a little bit of the rent or helped with the rent. So, that was when I felt like okay, yet again, I’m putting my dream on hold. I am working in a full time job and paying the rent and taking care of my mom and my boyfriend which is like I just had this in my head. I shouldn’t have had to think this way, but I did. While some of my other classmates, they were writing because they didn’t have to take care of their mom or anything. [00:35:00]

They were working on their novels. Yeah. So, a year later I just kind of panicked and I was like okay, I come home and I write, but this is crap. I just keep getting rejected. So, then I went part time in that job which was also kind of a stroke of luck that they let me go part time. Even then, the finances were okay. (laughter) Then David got a job, but instead of seeing that, I was like hey, we’re building stuff. You know, like strength or power by association. Instead, I just couldn’t believe he was like, I saw him as this inconsiderate assembling or whatever who took everything or made sure that he succeeded while I was still at the starting gate. So, then I just was like fuck this. I just completely panicked and left my job, I guess. It wasn’t that I applied to schools or anything academic. Still, I worked. I know it’s was a very long winded answer, but I’m guess I’m trying to understand. [00:36:30]

I feel like there was a lot of like, as you said before, a lot of reactions to planning stuff. Well, sometimes. I feel like still the motivation was all from reacting to stuff and impulsive behavior. Then, you know, you could also say that was the fire. Creative people, I feel like they need, that’s how they get stuff done. They have this fire. (laughter) So, I’m like maybe that was my fire. I do feel like my approach to all of this was a bit haphazard and reactionary and impulsive rather than meticulous and planned. I’m like maybe I don’t have the luxury. I didn’t have the financial or like familial foundation or the emotional foundation to be that way. [00:37:45]

THERAPIST: That makes it even more imperative that you plan.

CLIENT: Does it? (laughter)

THERAPIST: Yeah. We all have to worry about money and other things even when we plan as much. If you have less to fall back on, you need to plan even better.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean that’s, I don’t know. It’s a scenario that I may not have the luxury of having. I don’t know. I guess I’m being defensive, but I feel like I want to be defensive right now. (laughter)

THERAPIST: Why?

CLIENT: I don’t know. I just feel. I don’t know. When you said that, I thought of Nelson and I was just like I don’t know.

THERAPIST: You thought of him in terms of what?

CLIENT: He’s someone who plans and he has money and that’s because he planned and he has a new, corporate, nice job. So, if I still want to do that, you know. [00:39:00]

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just making excuses, but I feel like I don’t know. I just feel resentful. I still do.

THERAPIST: Resentful at?

CLIENT: Well, just that I didn’t, I wasn’t able to plan for whatever and that I am still doing it and you know. That I feel like that I’m not building and that I’m just running away and destroying things.

THERAPIST: But you have the power to do something different if you want.

CLIENT: Yeah. I just don’t know what it is that I want to build when there’s very few things that would be on my list I’m building. Yeah. My writing and me as a person. That’s it, basically.

THERAPIST: So, you’re resentful at your situation or at someone or people? [00:40:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. At the situation and maybe a little at myself, but I don’t know what to do about that. You know? I can’t really go back and change stuff other than going back and saying I shouldn’t of done that or I should of or the next time when the same thing comes around I’ll react differently. The best I can do is be kind to myself and be like you know I didn’t know any better back then.

THERAPIST: But the question is so that’s important. But then another question is what about now?

CLIENT: Yeah. What about now? I mean that’s what I’m saying. I want to identify what those right steps are that get me from this you know like feeling like this ping pong ball going not in between two players, but down steps. You know. The basement, the steps to the basement rather than like moving forward. [00:41:30]

THERAPIST: But, in a sense it’s almost reminds me of what you were saying about your mom earlier. That you felt sad that she didn’t feel that she could actually do something about her circumstance and that she was powerless.

CLIENT: Yeah. That’s what I want to change. I don’t want to be that way. So, yeah. I mean I just want to identify those steps to be what they are that make me feel like I am going from strength to strength and building stuff. It’s not visa vie other people, because that’s just too confusing. At least just visa vie me and my work or what I want to do career wise. Yeah. Because I mean it’s not like there is a pretty messy thing that I’m doing. It’s not like get a job. Stay with it and keep moving up. You know? It’s not simple like that I think. [00:42:30]

THERAPIST: No, but I don’t think anyone’s work situation is that simple.

CLIENT: Really? Some people it is. I think it is.

THERAPIST: You think it is. I think you see, because you see yourself as sort of so outside and I appreciate that writing has probably a more amphioxus structure. That’s more of a structure than other professions, but there’s a way in which you imagine well, everyone has this sort of linear, clear path and you just have to do this, this and this and they get to this, but I, no, I don’t have any of that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You think that in a lot of different ways.

CLIENT: That’s true. You think that’s kind of destructive or hurtful?

THERAPIST: I do because I think it’s just a very idealized view of what other people have and what other people can do and that you’re an outsider and it makes you feel angry and resentful.

CLIENT: Yeah. It does. (laughter) [00:43:30]

THERAPIST: I don’t think it’s accurate even. I think your father very much felt like that. I think it’s sort of very much an adoption of an absorption of the feelings that he had and I think your mother in her own way too in terms of what she’s entitled to and what she feels other people do and don’t have.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Relative to her.

CLIENT: Yeah. Probably true.

THERAPIST: I do think it’s a destructive narrative because it keeps you on the outside. It keeps you alienated from other people and it keeps you feeling very deprived. (pause) Actually think with a different narrative and you will just feel better and you will feel more empowered and you will feel less alienated.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: On that note, we need to stop for today.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: I will see you on Wednesday.

CLIENT: Alright.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Have a good day.

THERAPIST: Thank you. You too.

CLIENT: Bye.

THERAPIST: Bye.

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