Client "SZ", Session May 16, 2014: Client discusses adjusting to having her sister in her home while her sister gets better after medical treatments. Client also discusses upcoming wedding, and the difficulty of discussing financial matters with her romantic partner. trial
TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Thank you for fitting me in today.
THERAPIST: I know. I’m glad it worked.
CLIENT: It really was a lot of mess earlier this week trying to get the hospital bed for my sister, and along with it came a lot of – it was really tasking at first, because on top of—
THERAPIST: How did you get in charge of it?
CLIENT: The thing is, it was supposed to – my sister has to stay in the Eastern area, because she has a checkup appointment. She is from Florida, but her doctor is from Chicago, just because they’re short on money, and having her stay in a hotel, she can’t do a lot of functions at the moment. [00:01:06] I need help strapping her leg into her exercise boot and giving her a shower. Essentially she couldn’t go back home and come back, so the arrangement was that she was going to stay for two weeks in our house, and since she can’t sleep on the couch because she’s 6 feet tall, she needs something very big, something very long. It was arranged with the hospital before the surgery in the hospital bed, and for some reason the case managers didn’t handle it correctly, and my sister, they did a different surgery on her than they talked about doing before, and it was – my sister went to this guy especially for this surgery, and instead he did something else, because after he opened her up, he saw, ah, maybe this is more the problem. [00:02:20]
So my sister was really upset to say the least, because this guy was out of network, and she was going to this guy, and he’s letting her write off the hospital costs except for $7,000.00, but still, that’s a lot of money for someone to do a different surgery than you thought, and what she was appealing for her insurance for. They denied it, but it went to higher up, because Florida has protocol for that. [00:03:04] It’s been very challenging because of all of these things, and instead of her being proactive about getting her hospital bed, like two days after her surgery, like okay, is this bed confirmed? Is it ready? She was crying, and depressed, and saying she wanted to die, which because she was pretty immobile wouldn’t be that possible, but she was very upset. I guess it was kind of hard, because I tried to point out positive things, like maybe this was less invasive, he saw that this was really the problem. She said I was dismissing her fears, and ignoring them, and how would I feel? Then I started crying.
THERAPIST: Really hard for both of you.
CLIENT: Then Jeremy got frustrated because he said that she’s overstepping her boundaries, we’re being nice enough to let them stay, and because the hospital bed didn’t come until Tuesday and they were out of a hotel – they stayed in a hotel down in Providence for one night, but the second night, they didn’t have any room. [00:04:17] They came over to our place to hang out, and it turned into – they slept in our bed. Then Jeremy was a little grumpy that he had to sleep on an air mattress, but he didn’t seem as grumpy when I told him that when the bed was delivered, I got mauled by our freak-out cat. I did get mauled. It’s frustrating because my sister’s thanked us, but it seems like you know, maybe – I don’t know. Maybe a little more thank you, or help with wedding invitations, or making herself useful. I haven’t said any of this. [00:05:06]
THERAPIST: Is there any part of it that you could say?
CLIENT: Well I think that maybe if I ask her if she could do some little things, but I mean, now that I have these guys almost sent out, she can punch holes through some of the things, but for the most part now she’s pretty pleasant. I found that making desserts for her was the best antidote, and she’s gone through a key lime pie and a pan of blondies in about four days. I hope I’m not making her fat, (laughter) but I like these desserts. In a sense I feel like she’s eating us out of house and home, but at least it’s the cheap things like desserts. I like making desserts. [00:06:03] This has given me a good week to catch up on my sleep, because I was really exhausted. I don’t know if it was sort of the end of the semester sort of exhaustion. Jeremy and I, the last two weekends, we went on 10 mile hikes in some of the State forests up north, State forests and reservations. I don’t know if my body is saying I’m exhausted, or stressing at all.
Also I’ve been trying to ramp up my sort of – because the wedding’s near, I’m trying to find healthy eating with more vegetables, and also fixing my face care products, just so I look in tip top shape. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do instead of buying drug store brands, because my skin tends to be sensitive, but something I bought had talc in it. [00:07:03] I didn’t know I was allergic to talc, or sensitive to talc, but it lead to – I had along my forehead and my neck a few very large – they weren’t cysts, but just huge, very painful acne. They’re gone now, thanks to – I have an arsenal at home. But it was very frustrating because you spend all this time, money, and you know (inaudible 00:07:37) return it for something that was much better, but I guess I get frustrated because I sort of feel like it’s not my fault. It’s my body’s fault, or whatever I put on, whatever was suggested.
I was so mad. I read reviews on cosmetics, and I wonder, like, wow, this person sounded a little harsh. [00:08:01] Then I sort of realized I can understand, because I need to make a warning. In the same sense I try to talk – it’s interesting, because I’m very sensitive. I look around and now that I feel like my face has gotten much better, I look around at people who have much worse complexions and don’t wear makeup, and they’re just happy talking, and maybe they do wear it, but I see that being so conscientious about my face, it does hold me back. I mean, that’s something I need to work on. I haven’t gone swimming and gotten my face wet for a long time.
THERAPIST: It really limits you.
CLIENT: For one sense I don’t like getting wet, but for another sense, swimming with my face above the water, I realized it is limiting and it is frustrating. [00:09:09] Everyone’s like, “Why don’t you jump in the water?” No.
THERAPIST: Maybe you’re missing out on something fun.
CLIENT: Yeah. I feel like I’m doing the best that I can now. I just need to suck it up and sort of be okay if someone sees a zit or something. People get that.
THERAPIST: It’s just a normal part of life.
CLIENT: I mean my sister right now, with the stress, and the operation, I see that she doesn’t really – she’s letting everything hang out. I have to give her a bath tonight. It’s been six days. On one hand I think she doesn’t handle things so well, but I see that I don’t handle things so well. [00:10:06]
THERAPIST: How is it that you guys handle it differently?
CLIENT: The thing is, I don’t express what I get worried about. I just reduce the potentialness to confront those fears. But my sister actively says these fears out loud and repeats them over and over, and it’s very taxing on – she doesn’t tell my mom because they kind of had a big fall out a few years ago when my mom thought my sister was making up her pain. So instead she – my mom said that she had become a monster. You know, so now my sister sort of puts the whole brunt of it on – there’s part of things that I get not frustrated with, but you tell someone something, and she’s like, “Well the doctor said my other doctors measured the rotation of my femurs wrong” [00:11:15]
I’m like, well, he’s saying that to support what he did and go back to – I just see she’s not as – I don’t know. It’s just interesting because some things, if she was more polite when she’s in disagreement, she probably could be more persuasive, but for me to tell her that, I just see that that’s like putting myself in harm’s way. The good thing is at first Jeremy was quite grumpy about having my sister stay, but seems to enjoy the company. My sister doesn’t really tell Jeremy the pains and struggles. [00:12:00]
THERAPIST: That gets censored, filtered, saved for you.
CLIENT: Yeah. The only thing he really does is when she was – in case you need – he had to get the wheelchair when I was gone because she had a muscle spasm, and had to wheel her back to the bed. These little things – I made the transition easier by putting all of her stuff – because when she first came she kind of exploded all of her stuff all over our bed, and she doesn’t mean to do that, but she does that at home. Jeremy was freaking out, so I spent the day after the hospital bed was delivered to arrange everything into her room. It has the litter box in it, it is the study, but it’s kind of like the size of this office, maybe half the size of this office, so it’s a tiny space. I’d say three quarters the size of this office, but anyways, I think we’re coping nonetheless. [00:13:09]
I think she’s thankful, but I think just sort of setting some boundaries, like when she was arranging the appointment on Friday in Chicago, and she’s like – the lady said 10:00 or 11:00 am, so she’s like, fine, 11:00 am, and I’m like, Tammy, can you call for something later? She’s like, “You’re talking to someone who can drive to the airport at 3:00 am. I was like, you know, that’s great, but Jeremy’s going to be the one driving, and that’s a really early morning, and that’s a lot of driving. She changed it to 1:00, but it was just – I was just like, it’s great that you can do that, but you’re not the one driving, and you’re not the one dealing with the driver after we spent 5 hours driving – 10 hours total driving to Chicago and back in the same day. [00:14:10] There’s things that sort of show she’s not maybe as grateful.
THERAPIST: Thoughtful.
CLIENT: Yes, thoughtful. So I mean, (pause) yeah.
THERAPIST: I changed that from grateful to thoughtful because it seems to me the way you’re describing it is that part of it is she doesn’t take the moment to think what it would be like from another perspective.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And I wonder if she did do that, would she feel grateful for the sacrifice, or the time spent, if she had taken that time to notice it? You can’t be grateful for something you don’t know, but if she had taken the time to notice it, I wonder what she would feel. I don’t know. She was maybe not thinking about it and not grateful for it. [00:15:01]
CLIENT: Yeah. I think in a sense she just doesn’t think about – she’s very in her own world, and I think that’s the thing, focused on her own struggles.
THERAPIST: Own experience and own perspective.
CLIENT: Yeah. So that’s sort of kind of what – I mean, I guess because I’m always thinking about – I do think about others quite a bit.
THERAPIST: That’s how you guys complement each other.
CLIENT: (laughter)
THERAPIST: You do think a lot about how another person might be thinking, or feeling, or affected by something.
CLIENT: I was interested, because when we were going hiking with our friend Candace, instead of doing brunch, it was like, do you want to go on a hike instead? She was like, sure, great. The whole time we were talking, I was like, hmm. I don’t know. I was always questioning what I was saying, or trying to conceive of what is she thinking? I mean, why am I doing this? [00:16:01] This is kind of weird. Asking yourself, does she like me? Is she my friend? It’s like, of course she’s been a friend for a long, long while. I mean, I don’t do this with Jeremy anymore I guess because he’s quite expressive, so I sort of know what a happy, or mad, or not content Jeremy is, but I sort of realized a lot of – I’m always trying to read people, except when I really know them. I sort of see, is this coming off as natural? I don’t know. I mean I guess there’s issues with being too thoughtful, or—
THERAPIST: Self-conscious.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Rather than actually engaged in the moment, you are being self-conscious about how you’re presenting in the moment.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:17:00]
THERAPIST: Finding that balance of feeling comfortable, and trusting the experience, and being thoughtless about it and not being self-aware at all. You want to strengthen that balance so you can enjoy the interactions you’re having with others.
CLIENT: Yeah, and I think that’s exactly what finding that balance is. In one sense it comes from every time I worked from home, or spending a lot of time – because I don’t have to go in, I sort of spend a lot of time not talking to people. It is like a learned skill I think. So I think that it’s good. I’ve been – for these past few weeks I’ve been really lazy to go to dance, or I go to dance like once a week or twice a week. [00:18:09]
THERAPIST: Is it that you’re being lazy or there’s something else stopping you?
CLIENT: A lot of it’s just because I’ve been frustrated with the progress of my paper. It’s been going slow, and of course the slower it goes, the less eager – it’s a negative feedback, a lot of it, and it’s frustrating because my advisor, he agrees that some sort of rigorous definition needs to be set to prove something, but he doesn’t offer much insight, like calculationally, what do I do? Even some of his – recently what I’ve found, a lot of his theories, he wasn’t very clear. He pointed that out, so we’re going to write a paper on what does it mean, for one of his past theories. [00:19:02] I hope we’re going to write it together and he better not write it without me on that paper. He goes off on tangents. It’s kind of like the key to everything. The paper starts going slower, the calculations.
I get frustrated because you’re stuck on, for instance, this one paper quotes a formula, but it quotes sort of a final answer, but they don’t quote maybe what the whole meaning of the equation is, and in another book there’s a minus sign. They correctly use the minus sign where the other paper doesn’t. It’s frustrating because I spent the whole four days of sort of – it’s not a solid sit down for nine hours and try and figure out what’s wrong in this formula. [00:20:07] It’s sort of like, go back every two hours, go back and try to plunk around to see what’s the difference. I guess it’s all just sort of meticulous work, that it gets hard to see – I’m starting to lose sight of the forest. I’m seeing the trees. Something like that. I’m not good at quoting these things.
THERAPIST: You feel like you get stuck in the little details.
CLIENT: Yeah, and that’s very bogged down because I’m afraid to leave the computer, or shut it down, because I want to get the details started over, or not started, just correct the details.
THERAPIST: So if you took a deep breath and stepped back, what is the picture in the forest?
CLIENT: [00:21:00] (pause) If I took a deep breath and a step back, I would say there’s something quantum mechanically happening that classically is not happening, and that’s essentially the big thing, and that’s what the paper is about.
THERAPIST: I’m sure that makes a lot of sense to you.
CLIENT: Yes, it does. (laughter)
THERAPIST: I’m trying to move my head. As long as that’s meaningful to you and your advisor. (laughter) Eye-level graduate physics doesn’t work for. (inaudible 00:21:34)
CLIENT: (laughter)
THERAPIST: I don’t need to understand your world. You need to understand that part of your world. I understand your emotional reactions and interpersonal patterns.
CLIENT: (laughter) And another thing that’s been a source of frustration, just because I was supposed to be reimbursed last March, this most recent last March for the conference, and it was interesting, because the way I was getting reimbursed was I didn’t pay for the hotel. [00:22:07] Another group member did, so I didn’t have a receipt for the hotel, and that proved difficult in the reimbursement, because I’m supposed to reimburse him from the lump sum I’m given. But I’m the last one in the group who still hasn’t been reimbursed. I feel like I’m a money grabber because I’m like, oh, what’s the progress of this?
According to this, physics doesn’t have funds for you. Well physics was not supposed to have funds for me. This was supposed to be processed another way. Talk to the chemistry secretary. In a sense I’m eager to get the reimbursement back, because $800.00, $900.00 is a lot of money, but it’s frustrating, plus, because Jeremy, now that he’s getting paid he’s not such a pain in the butt about me giving him money. [00:23:04] It’s just – it’s interesting because even though we’re a team, it doesn’t feel like we’re a team. It feels like I’m paying a landlord. There’s things for instance, like buying—
THERAPIST: What makes it feel that way?
CLIENT: Because he expects a paycheck every month at a certain time, and if it’s not, I have to ask for an extension, or say you’re getting your money here. Like, when I found out I won this teaching prize, it was a $1,000.00 prize I recently won. I’m thinking, I can treat myself to something nice and put the rest away to save for taxes, but he was like, “Maybe you can give that money to me, because you didn’t pay me this last April during tax month, and I gave you $700.00.” I’m just like—
THERAPIST: That feels very— [00:24:01]
CLIENT: Yeah, it feels like, wait. If I give you this money, the $700.00, the rest of the prize money, minus what I spend on – I was going to spend $200.00 on some bridal headpiece, which I didn’t do – but I was like, then next year, are you going to get grumpy when you have to pay me $800.00 for taxes? Then we’re supposed to do the bank account thing, but somehow, I’m never up when he is up in the morning, and he normally wants to go and work out.
THERAPIST: Have you had the pre (inaudible 00:24:44) discussion about money and how you guys will utilize it in your marriage, and what you see as kind of what your method will be of how you guys merge funds, what you merge, what you don’t merge, that kind of thing?” [00:25:02]
CLIENT: We’ve roughly talked about it, but we both get very sensitive about money.
THERAPIST: Often a very complicated conversation. Do you have more of those sessions with a priest, or with a somebody?
CLIENT: (laughter) No. We only have one more meeting with the priest, and I think that’s something that – she had enough to cover in terms of talking about communication.
THERAPIST: But there’s not going to be more time for the money talk?
CLIENT: Yeah. I think that’s one thing I noticed, that what happened last night, I briefly mentioned, oh, maybe I’ll go to Guy’s tomorrow and you can meet me in the square. He was like, oh. Yeah, or we can go out to some cheap eat, or something. He’s like, “Okay, maybe I’ll think about it.” Then the next – yesterday night I hadn’t heard any talk about him going to the square, then 7:00 when I’m heading off to a different dance class on Cranston, because I didn’t feel like leaving home, he’s at the square, and I realized I didn’t even remember. [00:26:11] It didn’t seem like, okay, we’re going to do this.
THERAPIST: You did not feel like you had nailed down a plan.
CLIENT: Yeah, and I realized we really need to work on communication, both in terms of intimacy – we haven’t had many nights to be intimate, actually. Everything’s been so busy, or we’ve both been exhausted, or go to bed at different times, but I think the last time we were intimate, he’s doing a lot better job at – I still haven’t been able to come, but in a sense he’s doing a lot better job at trying to at least – I mean, I haven’t had that full-out conversation that more needs to be done. [00:27:04] But at least he’s doing more foreplay.
THERAPIST: And he’s doing that because you’ve had some of the conversation, or magical intuition?
CLIENT: I think it’s by magical intuition, by accepting. (laughter) So that’s something that I need to – and maybe it’s fine that I common on, “That’s nice.” during the act.
THERAPIST: That’s not magic. That’s communication.
CLIENT: Yeah, okay.
THERAPIST: It’s reinforcing. It’s something happening that you’re liking, being expressive about that, that’s giving him reinforcement in the moment. That counts. That is a type of communication, and the more straightforward conversation is one way of communicating, but those little messages that you give, either expressing enjoyment by saying, “That feels good.” or by your non-verbal responses, the less direct communication leaves some room for interpretation, and you’re making the assumption he’s going to pick up on it, which is possible. [00:28:09] It’s not guaranteed, but it’s possible. It is intuition which is partly magic but partly – it exists. Some people are more intuitive than others.
CLIENT: Some people need to have it – I was going to make the joke that they need a hammer to their head.
THERAPIST: I know you don’t really mean that. (laughter)
CLIENT: I was like, no, that sounds mean. Just very straightforward.
THERAPIST: Being able to have that direct conversation, I think you’ll see more of a response, but with what you’ve been able to have, that’s great that there’s something happening that feels better.
CLIENT: Yeah. No, it definitely feels better. It was interesting when we were going hiking. We were alone in the woods, and he started getting frisky. I guess during – not I guess, but it was foreplay when we were in our clothes, and it was actually – it was kind of like when you said the sex therapist said, what you should do is not have sex, but go as far as you can without actually having sex. [00:29:12] I was like, this is a cool idea. We’re out in the forest. It’s still a public place, and we were the only ones far out on the trail. It did feel almost like the frolicking in the spring that I talked about. Yeah, it was kind of cool to just not have any goal, and it kind of made it even spicier because there was something—
THERAPIST: Illicit about it. (laughter)
CLIENT: (laughter) Yeah, you know. I realized, I have to take that boy on more nature hikes.
THERAPIST: Yeah. I think that’s kind of exploring, and seeing what you like, and it sounds like in that environment you were actually able to feel sexy which is something that you had been missing. There was a boundary, and you probably weren’t going to have sex in the forest.
CLIENT: No. (laughter)
THERAPIST: And it was different, different environment than being in your apartment where you spend a lot of time, and that feels sexy, and exciting.
CLIENT: And actually what you just made me realize is maybe – I mean, in my apartment, I feel very much like, I already have a pre-established routine, and way to think about myself. A lot of it is just students.
THERAPIST: You have so many roles there.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Being a mommy to your cats.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And working on your paper, and also you’ve had some negative associations with how sex has gone there, and that it hasn’t felt as nurturing as you’d like, and it hasn’t had as much foreplay as you’d like, so you have these associations of how things are going to be in that setting, and they’re not how you would like them to be. [00:31:03] So being in a place where you won’t feel the responsibility of the dishes you have to do, or the cats nipping at your feet.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Those things aren’t there.
CLIENT: (laughter) Yeah, I have to be useful. It makes me realize that sort of we need to go places, and set a time together for each other, because at home, it’s hard for me to – I buy him specialty ice cream, and do little things here and there, but to actually feel that togetherness, at home, it almost feels a little bit more like two boarding roommates at the moment, and I think part of that is just maybe my schedule, or maybe my frame of mind.
THERAPIST: It sounds like a couple things might contribute to that. Maybe schedule, frame of mind. Sounds like the money, the way you guys deal with the finances feels less like a couple working together towards something, and more like you said, landlord and— [00:32:16]
CLIENT: Tenant.
THERAPIST: So there may be room for you guys to renegotiate how you approach some of those things so it feels more like a marriage and less like roommates or tenants.
CLIENT: I think that’s one thing our pastor had pointed out. She was like, in a sense, marriage isn’t going to change who you are, but it does bring up the moment where you guys make plans together, and that’s something that it’s hard – having dreams together. For a while, Jeremy hasn’t been dreaming because he’s been so freaked out about money. [00:33:04] Finally he’s getting paid, so he seems a lot more cheerful. I guess it’s hard to work and not get money. I understand.
THERAPIST: But being able to be upset about that and not having it circle back to being put on you.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Because you’re not getting paid, that’s not a changing arrangement you guys have, and it’s not because of anything that you’ve done. It’s understandable that it puts pressure on you as a couple, and it feels upsetting to him. It’s frustrating how you guys absorb that together, rather than feel like it gets vented and directed at you.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think—
THERAPIST: Because that may happen again. They may have a slow month.
CLIENT: That’s what I was telling him, and why I said he should go to therapy. (laughter) I said, you know, the way you – things like this are going to happen all the time and you can’t let this get you down like it’s gotten you down. Then I was thinking, I can’t let him do this to both of us because I spend quite a bit of time pep talking, or being supportive, and judging, or asking about work, and if he gets grumpy, I realize that maybe I shouldn’t ask him about work.
THERAPIST: That sounds like a lot of responsibility.
CLIENT: Naturally if he asks, how’s your day, if it went bad or well, I’m like, oh, it went okay. Could have been more productive, but I guess I’ll work more after dinner. But there’s never a – I noticed with Jeremy, coming home, the other day he was making dinner, and he just got into his chair. I could see the tense – I was just like, deep breath, Jeremy. It’s okay. There’s dinner. There’s food. [00:35:04] Yeah. He’s trying to do meditation, but I think I’m going to keep on suggesting therapy. I think everyone feels better given therapy. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing, but in the meantime my dad told me – because I told him how I was frustrated with my sister. He said there’s this thing called co-dependency where people often put other people’s emotions as their responsibility, their hardships, their feelings. In a sense, you can’t be so co-dependent on someone that their whole self-worth or happiness is weighted upon your feelings.
THERAPIST: That’s too much pressure.
CLIENT: I do that a lot with Jeremy and Tammy. It’s interesting. There’s similarities between the two. [00:36:05]
THERAPIST: I’ve been trained. (laughter)
CLIENT: (laughter)
THERAPIST: And a lot of times in these close relationships, we do find that there are these repeated patterns, because our typical way of responding to things meshes well with a particular style, you know what I mean? It ends up getting reinforced, and I think in healthy relationships, there’s a degree of flexibility in how you respond to things, and when you feel like you’re – you may notice you respond to Tammy in a similar way that you respond to him. These are two pretty significant relationships in your life. It makes sense that there would be some similarities in the way that they handle things, and you respond to those things, and your typical way. But looking for where there’s some flexibility in how you respond differently so you don’t feel like you have this really narrow way of being – because that’s when people start to feel resentful, or stuck. [00:37:04]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Or feel like there’s only one way you can be, and you have all this responsibility to make sure things stay just so. That’s really hard.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You want to be able to have freedom of expression.
CLIENT: Yeah, and I think that’s something with Jeremy I know I’m working on in terms of what I wear.
THERAPIST: Being able to have your own voice.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And be okay, like he might not love some of the things that you choose, and that’s okay.
CLIENT: That was all of these bad boys. He liked what I put together, but I realize at a certain point, if I really want to do something, I’m going to be the one doing it. If I’m putting all the effort and stuff, as long as he can tolerate it, he won’t feel embarrassed. That was another thing for wedding invitations. I tried to just get it done, and he had approved everything except this one quote from Dr. Seuss I found about love. [00:38:07] He tells me last night, “Did you send that in? That quote was really cheesy.” I was like, okay, I’m sorry. I thought it was cute, but we can nix it. We have a proof before it gets printed. I was like, sorry. Last time you used a quote, it was a nice quote by Oscar Wilde, something about love. It was a nice quote, but last time – in all fairness, when he put together an engagement picture album, he hadn’t run the pictures by me, and I got upset because he chose some of the pictures I didn’t like of myself. Then I apologized and said, “It’s a nice book. I’m sorry.” [00:39:01]
THERAPIST: Maybe all lessons in starting to work in a unit rather than working as two independent people.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think that is the overriding lesson that we need to take and integrate, because I think right now the way we do things, and schedule our lives, sort of how we delegate chores, it’s not working together so much.
THERAPIST: So you don’t want to be codependent in that you’re too dependent on one another in order to exist, but you’re also finding that when you’re too independent from one another, you end up running into issues. I think coming together as a married couple is going to be a lot about finding out where are the places you want to check in with one another and make decisions together, and where are the places that it’s okay to have a difference of opinion or do things independently without checking. It’s part of the process, figuring that out. [00:40:00]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: We’re going to stop there for today.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: And we’re on for Tuesday?
CLIENT: Yeah, as long as now no more hospital beds are being delivered. (laughter) Ay yi yi.
THERAPIST: I have us down for 1:30. That’s what I have.
CLIENT: Okay. You have a pen?
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: I found a cinnamon candy. Yum. (laughter)
THERAPIST: Good treat.
CLIENT: I know. I got this five pound bag of hard candies from this one conference at Brown, and it was supposed to be for everyone, but no one punched it. So I’ve gone through about – over the past fall and spring semester, it’s the 19th?
THERAPIST: 16th.
CLIENT: Oh, 16th. [00:41:05] All of the unwanted flavors are left. Doesn’t stop me.
THERAPIST: (inaudible 00:41:15)
CLIENT: How long were you in your PhD program?
THERAPIST: I did four years of school, and our fifth year is an internship, and full-time internship, then I did a year of post-op.
CLIENT: Oh. You know what it’s like being a student.
THERAPIST: Yes, and I finished my dissertation during my internship year, maybe halfway through my internship year.
CLIENT: That’s hard. (laughter)
THERAPIST: Very different types of programs. Mine is much more clinically-oriented than what you were writing about. [00:42:02] In a sense, everything comes with its own challenges, and any sort of doctorate degrees is impressive. (inaudible) We’ll get you there.
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