TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: It might just be that the train didn’t come, so… but I made it and…

THERAPIST: I’m glad you’re here.

CLIENT: I’m glad to be here. I just got back from the conference and it was a… thank you for letting me reschedule. It was really busy, and I think the reason why it was busy is because I was still trying to figure out my work. And I was working so hard on my project but I guess I wasn’t working in the right way, and things finally all clicked about the project a day before my presentation. And I had not made a presentation in… my advisor said something a little snarky about oh, well you would have known how to calculate the classical density if you had taken my class. And I don’t know, well I mean it was… I guess he hit sort of a sore spot because I didn’t take his class last semester because I was busy teaching and researching and trying to find a job. [1:10] And between those three getting into lecture Monday morning just, I don’t know, [inaudible] the way I didn’t… I couldn’t handle it for Monday and Wednesday morning. But a lot of the class had been… was review for me except for maybe some. But I asked other people, the other people in the group, do you remember this, and they didn’t, had no clue, so I felt better once I found out they had no clue. But my advisor, that sort of… after he said that I sort of stuck around to see a presentation of a former group member, and then I walked home and I was just… I was… I didn’t start actively crying until I got to my room, but then I just sort of broke down because I was so frustrated and I just… I didn’t know why things… nothing was making sense. And then finally by 2:00 a.m., everything made sense except for the constant rotational energy surface, but that wasn’t necessary. He had given me a picture of… to copy. Now I understand the peanut shape and how to get trajectories on it. [2:21] But… that’s the ultimate. That was… I understood. There’s something exciting about the system, so now I just have to beat the dead horse and write a paper, which is exciting I guess. I mean I was hoping to finish this project by the beginning of March and now it’s a little over, but I’m happy that there’s…

THERAPIST: It feels finishable now.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean it feels a lot more exciting. I had a hard time going to sleep because I was just… last night because I had a hard time just… in one sense I had kind of a little time lag, but in another sense I was just really excited about doing research. And it was really nice. The conference was… it’s frustrating because it really didn’t have anything on chaos, which I study, but it was more a huge conference with 10,000 scientists and a lot of… it’s on more of the current topics. My topic’s more reserved to slower moving research company… not companies, countries, like Europe. They don’t move on to the sexy stuff so quick. But so it was kind of frustrating because I mean a) I was just working, working, working trying to understand my research and just running into computational sort of battle. [3:45] Now it all makes sense and now I have sort of a clear method and so… but it was the… funny because the hotel that we were staying at, I later found out from the cab driver that… because it was in a very seedy district, and I could tell just by walking. And there was romance of adult videos stores and a lot of downtrodden homeless people. I found an organic grocery so I could get some groceries but… and so that came to me as a little bit of a shock that I wasn’t prepared for that. But later I just sort of turned my super city sort of mode on where you don’t talk to anyone or you just ignore what they say. And I got to go to racquetball class in Utah, and it was... or in Reno. It was a lot of fun. It was just a bunch of adults, but it was a lot of fun because actually I did well. Well he said I did well, the teacher. And so it was a lot of fun. It just sort of brought…

THERAPIST: Good for you for trying it out.

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: Good for you for going and trying something, a new place.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, I wanted to go on Wednesday but that was after my presentation. And I had gotten two hours of sleep and my advisor wanted to eat out together as a group, so I was like I’m not going to be antisocial, I’m just going to go on with the group and catch up. But I really did just want to do racquetball. I mean not that Little India was bad but it was just one of those things that it’s good to be part of the group because the group is supportive. [5:33] And I got to hang out with a little bit of the group while I was there. And they’re a lot of fun. There’s… they sometimes talk about things that maybe are not at my interest level, but sometimes the company’s nice. For instance, well their politics are very one way and my politics are maybe a little bit on the libertarian side. And it’s just, oh, when they were at dinner with all of us they were talking about how can… how is it possible that you could be a Christian, and aren’t they just so naïve and stupid. And I said well I’m a Christian. I said but not all Christians believe by the bible. I mean they understand there’s many different levels of Christianity. And I mean that sort of stopped a lot of the talk but it’s just… it’s something, also, I felt like when I was at the conference, is there was just so much… so many men I felt I was a minority. I told my group I felt like a minority. And they’re like what do you mean, you were. And it… I mean there was…

THERAPIST: It sounds like you experienced being a minority on many different ways of… as a woman in science, as a Christian in science. [7:02]

CLIENT: Yeah, and I normally keep my mouth closed when it comes to… well with politics I sort of realize that it’s something… that I’m a little bit more whimsical on, but Christianity is like okay, I’m not… I can see you make your point but when you start saying they’re stupid or naïve and it’s…

THERAPIST: That’s disrespectful.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean…

THERAPIST: It’s okay for people to believe different things but it’s not really okay for people to be disrespectful of other people’s beliefs, finding a way to separate that.

CLIENT: Yeah, and that’s why… I mean I think I should’ve just said that earlier because now I’m so ticked off that that conversation happened. I mean it’s just not the… necessarily the most sensitive but…

THERAPIST: Very insensitive.

CLIENT: But… and yeah, I think I did a good job that I got up every morning and went and left early; I mean earlier in the morning and got there around 10:00 to do work, or… 10:00 or 11:00, or I got up and worked. And I think today when I woke up I was like I’m going to leave first thing in the morning but realizing that I’m exhausted and I’m so many… I have a pile of laundry that rivals Mount Everest so I realize that maybe it’s okay if I just work later in the day. But I’m going to… I see that at home there’s so many distractions. I got… March meeting I just had. I was in a hotel room where there was limited Internet because they probably only had one broadband and everyone was using it. [8:51] But yeah, so I see that being at home is really nice but it’s hard to really get in-depth focus when there’s a cat that wants me to play string or there’s Jeremy, even he’s working from home and it’s… it… sometimes it kind of angers me when he… well, I sort of… I really see that he thinks that when I work from home I’m supposed to be apart, a half day or a sort of equivalent of half day, not very serious, not really getting anything done. And I sort of recognize this too. Right now he’s at home working from home and writing a serious e-mail and then showing me how to roll a sausage. And it was like okay, this is nice but I have to do this… read this paper. And so I found that it’s sort of… it’s a lot clearer for everyone and maybe… including myself if I go leave early in the morning. And that was another thing, is by leaving I got to dress up in clothes. And people… sometimes people said something nice like oh, I like your boots, or oh, your hair is so nice. And I was like oh, wow, I don’t get that from the cat. I mean I think the girl kitty, she likes my scarf because she chews on it, but I don’t think she [inaudible] about its style or fashion. [10:13] But and I was talking to my other… my friends Ann and Byron [ph?] about this because they also have the same sort of scholarship or research aid right now. And they’re like yeah, we didn’t start leaving the home… we just never shower anymore and it was just… need some fresh air. But it’s hard to leave. And I was like yeah, I know that feeling. But I feel like I’ve gotten over that hump of being too scared of ever leaving home, or at least, no, I feel instead of getting over the hump I think I’m still walking on the hump, but I think that now I know what’s going to make me feel better. I just have to go out and do it, kind of like racquetball class, when I don’t want to exercise but I go anyway. And I wind up having an okay time. And Jeremy and I, part of the church that we’re getting… we’re getting married at a church that offers premarital counseling to talk about what are our expectations. And it’s been really nice because we fill out these surveys about all different things like what are your expectations for marriage, what are your thoughts on a good marriage, should you share… should you have secrets, should you keep secrets from each other. I say I don’t think we should but I mean… and so it was really nice going through the sheets. Jeremy had… he’s definitely a really good writer. I felt bad because I… he was saying that I think… why are you getting married, and Jeremy’s like I think because I love, I truly and deeply love, Janet. I think she’ll be a wonderful wife and mother. [12:08] And I said oh, I just said something simple like oh, because I love Jeremy and I think we’re a good match for each other. And I felt bad because he was… it’s nothing like very much… he was professing love and I was more matter of fact, and I felt bad because I was like well, I hope he doesn’t think that I don’t… because I didn’t reciprocate the elegance that he doesn’t think that I don’t love him. I do love him. I just don’t think in eloquent terms or profess this sort of like…

THERAPIST: [inaudible]

CLIENT: (sneezes)

THERAPIST: Bless you.

CLIENT: Thank you. I don’t know. I don’t know why. Maybe I just don’t think in elegant terms. But I think we’re a good match, and I think I love him, and I think there’s some aspects, and that’s one thing that the survey pointed out to both of us, is the way sort of what are the weaknesses. And for him he said the weakness is that I sleep in, and that I can be lazy. And I was like… I was just kind of like what? I was like okay, well I mean it’s funny how certain… as I’m trying to change and be more active on the weekends and get going, he sort of perceives me as someone who just sleeps in on the weekend and naps. And I mean that was… I’m… it’s… the thing is, is that I guess first impressions are usually the longest lasting impressions. [13:53] And it’s hard to… okay, things are different.

THERAPIST: So you feel like that’s something that maybe fit before but doesn’t fit now and he still characterizes you as sleeping in?

CLIENT: Yeah. And I haven’t taken a midday nap in a while, which is… I think it’s good but… or even an after breakfast nap. I mean I used to do that so frequently and now I don’t do that. And I think that’s… I mean I think that’s a testament to working hard on sort of a behavioral thing and getting ready for a professional… and I said that he was critical in nature and he has problems dealing with the stress. Because he does. And I think it’s frustrating for me because I know that I have stress and anxiety and I work on it. And I guess he works on it but maybe not as actively or doesn’t… I mean the thing is, I feel that he gets… I may be anxious and sort of involved, but in the same sense, if the cat’s biting my foot I’m not just going to… I’m going to play with him just because the cat needs to be played with if he’s biting my foot instead of just sort of shake him off and… I mean because I play with those cats so much but… or same with Valentine’s Day. I did get him… wind up getting him a massage, but Jeremy was too stressed to even think about getting me a Valentine’s gift. And I was actually quite sad about that. Just because it showed… even if it was… even if he had just gotten a card. [15:40] He later got a present and that… I thought that was sweet; he wrote me a card, but it was just sort of like I can’t believe you didn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day. And I mean he’s stressed but it’s sort of like well you have the whole rest of the night from 7:30 on to… and I… and instead he was more focused on his espresso machine, getting parts from it, getting fixed, updating me on every element of his espresso machine. I think that’s what really sort of bothered me.

THERAPIST: That he was focusing on something for himself rather than focusing on you.

CLIENT: Yeah, and…

THERAPIST: It didn’t feel very thoughtful.

CLIENT: No, it didn’t. I mean and there are moments, for example, when I focus on myself, like when I get my hair done, but in the same sense I try and think about the other person. And I also sort of realize it was kind of a feedback loop that… and I talked to Jeremy about this. I said that one of the reasons why I didn’t feel that… didn’t feel like waking up with you in the morning is because there was no point. You would get really stressed out and angry at me. And I said then you would come home stressed out and angry. And so I just totally wanted to avoid that by switching my schedule around and waking up late. And he was just expressing how he’s exhausted and tired and there’s no food and he’s so stressed out and I was like well, I’m sorry, but I mean… and I think by him not having to make me breakfast in the morning because now he has sort of his own thing that’s not the same as me, now I just sort of make my own breakfast and… but I sort of… I saw, sort of, a shift from us wanting to really take care of each other to sort of us trying to live in parallel. And also he was getting very critical sometimes of what I wear and even… and it’s really interesting. When I get compliments on shoes that Jeremy doesn’t like or I’m like oh, yeah, no, I like them. I’m glad I got them because they make me happy and other people clearly seem to like them. [18:13] I mean it really doesn’t matter, people… if other people like them but it was nice to have some sort of validity or someone to validate what you’re wearing or… and anyway, but… and so it was really good that we went through this counseling, or we’re going through it, and just to think about what are our dreams that we have together as a couple. And we sort of looked at each other and it’s like well, he’s like Janet, you have any dreams? And then I thought about it and I was like well, it’s like one of my dreams was to get married. And I think the thing is, is that before, when I was going through undergrad, I had so many dreams of being a world class scientist and getting into grad school and getting a PhD and being academia, and I had all these sort of academic goals. And a lot of them I crossed off. And I got to travel and.. but now, sort of, I don’t know if… and getting cats was also a dream. But I don’t know if I have so many dreams anymore at this point. [19:25] I mean and there’s points where I had dreams like to be a Brown athlete and I could’ve been a Brown athlete this semester but it would have not been time… time wise it just isn’t a priority. Right now finishing with my PhD and actually… and research is exciting. So… but these dreams, it seems sort of like I’ve had so many deferred dreams or it just… the dreams have not happened. And I don’t know if I’ve stopped dreaming or… and now, I mean, in a sense understanding my system and even how to get trajectories going on the peanut shape, that was so exciting that I was dreaming of that. And so it’s nice to finally dream about my research instead of just sort of being a sort of… a lost sort of point.

THERAPIST: it feels more focused it seems like than having dreams in so many different places at once.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, it does. And it does feel good. I mean I guess I forgot how draining it is to work on something that you don’t think is going to happen. And that’s

THERAPIST: It’s hard to stay motivated for that when you feel pessimistic. [20:52]

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean I sort of… it’s funny because Jeremy calls me so optimistic about life, and in a sense I sort of think I used to be more optimistic. And I’m pretty optimistic when things go bad, when things go really bad. Well now I’m sort of stressing out because of… I’m supposed to be… I’m not doing so well on money because I need to be reimbursed for the trip that I took and a little bit of reimbursement for my sister’s bridesmaid dress that I ordered. And it’s just a lot of money that I’ve had to sort of… the bank account is not steady and it sort of worries me, but I guess when things… I mean I guess it was all to say that if I had to live in Wallingford I would be fine, and that’s one thing… because Jeremy is really stressing out about money because… and that’s another reason why he’s stressed, is because the business isn’t doing so well. They had a slow year last year and they’re kind of having a hard time making ends meet. And I told Jeremy that… I mean the thing is that he doesn’t want to compromise on… I said that if we live out in Wallingford, I mean it’s …it is sort of an exchange of how, for $2000 of rent a month, you really have to go far out from the city to get something that’s decent or something. Because our rent recently… they’re proposing a big jump in it so we’re trying to figure out what we want to do. And but I mean I’m like okay, well so we don’t have the resources of the city. If we can’t make the check… the ends meet then you just have to settle with that. And he’s like well it’s not that we can’t make the ends meet, I’m just under consideration do we want to move or… I’m like well moving’s going to cost money and the down payment for an apartment so… but it’s just… it’s frustrating because sometimes I just feel that… I mean I guess I can be limited but Jeremy’s even more limited and it’s just sort of like well, I mean I guess we all sort of have our things and our… like for instance, the hotel that I stayed in, I later found out it was a crack house from the cab driver. [23:37] He’s like… the cab driver’s like oh, he’s like I can’t believe… how did you find that hotel. And I was like well it was… the beds were made and it seemed decent. I wouldn’t choose it myself but our group did. It was $84 a night. And the cab driver’s like oh, that’s a crack house. And I was just like oh, I really was kind of in a seedy area of Reno. But…

THERAPIST: I’m glad you made it through.

CLIENT: Yes. Well Jeremy kept on saying he was worried that I was going to get raped and I guess I… or robbed or stabbed and these sort of things. I was like well I’m just not walking late at… too late at night except for when I got dropped off, and I really was riding the bus with some sketchy characters. Fortunately there were some scientists also on the bus. But yeah, it just sort of… I was actually surprised that I could take such a… be able to relax in a hotel that maybe was not the highest maintenance, and who knows what people have been doing on the chairs and… or there could’ve been bed bugs. And I was just able to sort of… I had my initial sort of oh, so I got this appointment, what sort of hotel is this. And then later, okay, it’s going to be fine. And so I’ve gotten a lot better about freaking out…

THERAPIST: [inaudible] anxiety around that is pretty impressive. [25:13]

CLIENT: Yeah and just… I mean and I was at Burger King. I actually was really happy because I was on my own, I could go to Burger King, and it’s kind of like a guilty pleasure. But after racquetball… and I was starving and I didn’t want to pay a lot of money for food and the natural grocery was closed, so I’m like I’m going to go to Burger King. I’m going to get my four chicken nugget and ice cream cone. And I… this guy, the guy accidentally gave me fries and I was like what is this. And a bum called oh, Miss Cinderella’s not happy with her order. I was just like ugh. I mean in a sense I just was… maybe what I’m trying to say is that the… I found the people, just like the bums, were just very vocal around me. I mean and I heard from one of my friends that they even were touched by a bum and said that… the bum said how gentlemanly he was on… for walking on the street side of his girlfriend. And I mean I guess in one sense I was sort of scared but I think I was proud of myself for not freaking out too much and just sort of going on, sitting down, and eating my chicken nuggets, eating with the people. I guess that’s sometimes what… because Jeremy’s like oh, I need a break from the city. So he was going to see his friend in, what is it, it’s Cambridge, around the Cambridge area, to go snowshoeing. [26:55] And I’m just like you’re tired of the city? I’m the one riding the subway and shoved in there and eating with the people. I mean I really am integrated into the city and so it’s so funny just, I don’t know. I don’t know why it bothers me but I guess it sort of shows, sort of, I guess if someone from Africa was complaining about healthcare versus someone in the U.S. I mean maybe that’s an extreme example. I mean… and the person in the U.S. that is having difficulties with healthcare, I mean that’s still a bad problem. especially if they get sick, but sort of just like you’re tired of the city. You’re not the one riding the subway. I don’t know, I think maybe I just need to go and realize that everyone… see I guess maybe when I get sort of stressed out or busy I’m not as understanding, and I feel bad but…

THERAPIST: Well it seems like the thing that you feel frustrated with Jeremy about is… because it seems similar to me, what you’re saying now, and then what you were saying about Valentine’s Day, is that maybe with the city thing it feels like a lack of perspective, and being able to take on your perspective and notice that his experience is different than yours. [28:20] Hold those two and then be thoughtful about what your experience is like. And with the Valentine’s Day thing, the same thing. You were frustrated that he couldn’t take on your perspective of what it might be like to be experiencing Valentine’s Day, noticing that he spent a lot of time the night before enamored with his new espresso machine and didn’t take on the perspective of okay, how might Janet feel if I don’t also express how much I’m enamored with her on this particular day. But so it’s just generally maybe feeling like he’s not being as thoughtful as you would like and being able to take on different perspectives, especially yours. And that also can have run similarly in how you were talking about the difference between living together and taking care of one another and living together and having parallel lives. You’re not being as thoughtful about one another as maybe you were in another point in time. [29:23]

CLIENT: And I think that sort of really highlighted, when we were talking about the surveys, is that this lack of perspective that we sort of have had for each other, like the… when you’re… because we both said when you get married, we said that nothing’s going to change. We’re going to continue to love each other and… but she’s like when you get married you do become a unit even more so, and you start having… you start developing a dream together and sort of like plans together and really focus on the together. And I sort of paused, like wow, we really haven’t… we just sort of have been more and more sort of getting off on… and in a sense it’s we do more things together. We kind of run into this problem every winter because I just don’t like walking. It is harder to get me out. But in the same sense, yeah, I… and I think that…

THERAPIST: Well that unit piece that she mentioned, is that something that you want to cultivate in a… in the rhythm of daily life, or is that something that you want to think about in terms of future planning? [30:48] And they’re not necessarily in one or the other, obviously, but I think maybe for you and Jeremy to decide well, how do you guys envision that togetherness and that unit piece? It’s probably not interpreted the same way by every married couple. You guys can kind of take that and say okay, does it mean that you spend the weekends together doing the same activities, or does it mean that you sit down and think about okay, where do we want to live in ten years?

CLIENT: Yeah, I know that is…

THERAPIST: So I think you get to determine, the two of you get to determine together, how do you take that in and make it part of your relationship.

CLIENT: Yeah, so that was pretty much… yeah, and that’s something that we should… I think Jeremy and I, we talk about things only when they get to the point of okay, we need to talk about it. But I think sort of being…

THERAPIST: What is that point for you? When do you need to talk about it?

CLIENT: When someone cries or someone gets really fussy. And I think that’s the… sort of the thing. And I know in the survey I also… one question I couldn’t answer is what do you do when you want to feel loved, or what do you want… how do you ask someone to… when you… how would you ask… what would you ask someone or what would you ask your partner to do when you’re feeling like you need comfort or love. And I was thinking… I was like well, I really don’t ask my partner that. [32:23] And I guess I can see why because I get frustrated. Because sometimes, well a lot of the times, Jeremy is asking for attention; look at me, listen to me…

THERAPIST: So that’s what he asks.

CLIENT: And I mean yeah, he asks all the time. But I don’t ask, and I don’t know if it’s because I don’t need love, because I mean that doesn’t make sense. And I was like why won’t I ask. And I was…

THERAPIST: Do you know what you need to feel loved?

CLIENT: Yeah, I need someone to give me a hug and just be very tender and maybe stroke my hair and rub… sort of rub my back as well. And I think that’s… instead of… I mean even with intimacy. I think Jeremy’s slowly getting on to the part that I like to make the emotional connection. I think he’s slowly… I mean and I even told him that but I think… I mean I don’t know if he’s just being… if he’s… I think that’s the thing, is that he has… I mean especially because he used to make things for me and make lunches for me, make breakfast for me. I guess I felt very taken care of. And now he doesn’t do that for me and I just… I don’t feel as taken care of. And so…

THERAPIST: And it hasn’t been replaced with another way that you feel taken care of. [34:00]

CLIENT: And especially because now I’m helping him out making dinner instead of his making dinner for me. And this doesn’t… I mean I go to racquetball two times to three times a week but so he doesn’t have to always do that. But I think maybe that’s something I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it’s… normally he was making me coffee in the morning, making me breakfast, packing me a lunch. Now he doesn’t do that. And that’s all fine because I’d rather pack my own lunches but…

THERAPIST: But you’d like to… it’s not the content of the thing but it’s that… those are ways that he was expressing his love, and you felt very nurtured and taken care of. And now those things have stopped, which in some ways works better for you. It gives you a lot more flexibility and freedom over your food, but he hasn’t replaced it with another way that expresses the nurturance in the same way that you were feeling it before. And I wonder… I guess maybe a conversation to have because to ask him, he might be expressing it in some way that you’re not perceiving. And… but… or… and it might not be a good match. Maybe he’s doing something that he thinks is expressing this love and nurturance and you’re not picking up on it because it’s not something you pay attention to. But if there are ways that you would feel more nurtured, if it would be him reaching out and stroking your hair or returning a back rub, then letting him know that because maybe he’s expending energy in all sorts of useless ways. [35:34] And it might be better if he knew this would be a way that would make me feel really cared about. Because obviously he expressed in those elegant words how much he cared about you, but you’re not getting that message… you’re not going to those meetings every week; you’re not getting that message every day.

CLIENT: I know. That’s… yeah, and I mean he does… I mean he… I think the thing is, the way he connects through words but I connect through actions, and the only actions that he did have was with food and…

THERAPIST: And that’s a little bit problematic area.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well in a sense, too, it’s been stressing him out to make food so…

THERAPIST: So maybe there are some ways that you could talk about what are some actions that might be less problematic for him to engage in that would help you feel really loved. And then you can also practice kind of absorbing the words since that’s maybe his more natural mode and attaching that to something that feels more meaningful to you. We do need to wrap up for today.

CLIENT: Okay. Well very productive.

THERAPIST: I’m glad. So I have us down for this coming Tuesday at 1:30. We had previously scheduled that.

CLIENT: Yeah, next Tuesday, 1:30.

THERAPIST: Yeah, the 11th.

CLIENT: I know there’s a checkbook in here. Oh, and when I come back from a trip and then I find all of the other things in my bag.

THERAPIST: Haven’t quite unpacked [inaudible]

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: Haven’t quite unpacked and repacked for your typical life.

CLIENT: No I haven’t. I guess I thought I was going to be early because I was… I’m like I’m not going to have lunch, I’m just going to go. And then I was like oh shoot, I’m so scattered. Didn’t help that the window mason came in and stepped on my cat.

THERAPIST: Oh no.

CLIENT: He did it by accident [inaudible]

THERAPIST: It’s amazing how many little things can happen to soak up the time when you thought you were leaving.

CLIENT: I know. I was putting on my makeup and then the window mason comes in and it’s like okay. I need to go find my cat and apologize to the cat. Is it the 7th?

THERAPIST: Yes it is.

CLIENT: I guess that’s why it’s best to leave earlier in the morning before people can come over and… I’m low on checks.

THERAPIST: Thank you. I will see you on Tuesday.

CLIENT: Okay.

END TRANSCRIPT