TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Sync up the days so we're late at the same time.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[Pause: 0:00:04.7 to 0:01:33.4]
THERAPIST: What's on your mind?
CLIENT: I don't know how to approach it. So there's the print shop, which I've talked a lot about and which I really like a lot, and there's been some drama around the print shop. The print shop has two levels of qualification. There is a qualified press op, which is what I am, who can use the shop unsupervised. As long as you follow the shop policies and don't break anything, we're all good. And then there are journeymen, who are kind of responsible for maintaining the equipment and preventative maintenance and training new press operators, you know maintaining shop policies and updating them when necessary, et cetera. [0:02:37.9]
Right now there are only three active journeymen. All of the others, you know one had a baby and stopped spending time in the shop, another moved to California, like six got run off by Howie. So our three journeymen are --
THERAPIST: By what?
CLIENT: Howie, short for Howard, the name of the person.
THERAPIST: Who was one of them?
CLIENT: Yes. Howie is one of the three journeymen who are still around.
THERAPIST: Okay, but Howie ran off six of the others.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Howie is a cantankerous old bastard who is impossible to get along with. He is also incredibly smart, incredibly knowledgeable, incredibly skilled. There have been times in both the distant past and the recent past, where you know the whole press would have broken down and no one knew how to fix it except for him.
THERAPIST: Wow. [0:03:37.8]
CLIENT: So we wouldn't have the print shop without him. So there's a lot of baggage around Howie.
THERAPIST: About how many press ops are there, just so I can get an idea.
CLIENT: Actively using the press, maybe ten.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Who use it on a regular basis. There's probably another 20 or so who live in the area and will show up once in a while, but not with any regularity. Howie has hated me ever since I was a student. There was some drama many years back, like in 2003, where I said some rather intemperate things on a mailing list and made myself a bunch of enemies, Howie included. For my part, like even before that drama happened, I never particularly liked him. I was just civil to him because I had to be, but he is a jerk, he is a pushy, entitled jerk, but you know whatever. Howie and I have had multiple run-ins over the years, when I was a student, when I was an officer of the chapter of the fraternity that owns the print shop. Howie criticized the way I went about doing my job, and then when I was an alum, he criticized me for being too involved with the undergrads, which you know is a nice bit of hypocrisy there. Anyway, Howie and I don't get along. There's another press op, who despises Howie, for much the same reason, and he hates her for much the same reason, and they don't get along and there's you know, blah. [0:05:30.7]
So anyway, Margaret, I have a great deal of respect for. Margaret intimidates me a little bit and I'm always worried that she doesn't think highly of me, but there's no like animosity. It's all me projecting basically. So anyway, a couple of months ago, no it was actually last month. Time flies. I was in the print shop with Susan and a trainee. I was observing the training run, because I want to get promoted to journeyman. So I was observing the training run and Susan started telling me about all of the shit Howie had done behind the scenes. There's another qualified press op named Alexis, who I've never actually met in person but I have used the shop after her and you know, as far as I can tell, she's a fine press op, but she's only been a press op for like eight months, and Howie wants to push her into being a journeyman. Howie does this, he has pets, mentees, and then he has the people he hates. You're either one or the other to Howie and if he's decided he likes you, he gets overly involved and pushes. [0:06:52.9]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So anyway, I was a little worried about this but I figured you know whatever, I'm not a journeyman, that's none of my business. But then I had this conversation with Susan, where she was like, I watched someone do a training run and it was a disaster and I don't think she should be a journeyman. And then she said Howie showed up for a chapter assessment and planning meeting, which back when I was a student, alums did not show up for those. Those are for students and maybe one chapter advisor and Howie is not a chapter advisor. So Susan told me that Howie showed up to this and started pushing an agenda to change print shop policies. So he knows Margaret and saying you know, I heard that Howie was at CAPS and I'm kind of wondering why, and I heard that print shop policies were changed at CAPS, and nothing about this went out to the print shop mailing list, and I would have had no idea if Susan hadn't forwarded me an email about it and like basically what the hell. Margaret responded with you know, a very polite and politically adeptly worded email that basically said shut the fuck up. Well not really, that's too harsh, but basically said you know, I am managing Howie, you should trust me to manage Howie. [0:08:17.9]
THERAPIST: Oh, okay.
CLIENT: Print shop policies weren't changed. And so I feel like I kind of got played by Susan, because the way Susan presented it to me was nothing at all like what Margaret said actually happened at the meeting.
THERAPIST: Right. I'm sorry, Margaret is a press op?
CLIENT: She's a journeyman.
THERAPIST: She's a journeyman, okay.
CLIENT: And she's also an advisor to the chapter.
THERAPIST: And Susan is the other journeyman.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Okay, gotcha.
CLIENT: So now I feel really bad, because I feel like I instigated drama or got caught into someone else's drama. Then, I got an email from Margaret last night saying you know, just so you know, I used the press last weekend, and I think you were the most recent person to use it before me and you left it dirty. And then I felt really, really bad, like it triggered a downward spiral of self-loathing and me telling Dave that I would have to promise to never use the press again, because I screwed up and you know, I don't deserve to use it. [0:09:28.2]
THERAPIST: Zoiks.
CLIENT: Yeah. And then Dave made me really angry, because his way of dealing with it, with my meltdown, is to tell me you know, you're not as big a fuck-up as other press ops and hey, you know, I bet other press ops use it while drunk or high. Hell, I bet they do cocaine off the press. I was like that's (A) remarkably, vanishingly unlikely, and (B) slandering people you don't know is not going to make me feel better.
THERAPIST: Right, that's true.
CLIENT: It was just really frustrating.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[Pause: 0:10:27.0 to 0:12:11.8]
CLIENT: I just feel so ashamed that I didn't clean the press properly.
THERAPIST: Does that happen often for you?
CLIENT: What?
THERAPIST: That you don't clean the press well?
CLIENT: No. This is the first time anyone has ever said anything to me about it.
THERAPIST: And do you think it was legit that you did leave it a bit messy? I mean, I have other thoughts, which is that you set yourself up. [0:13:15.4]
CLIENT: Maybe.
THERAPIST: I'm going to switch to my other clock, that one has not been ticking the last few days, but it's starting to tick and I get moronic and distracted. Anyway, so yeah, I um…
[Pause: 0:13:53.4 to 0:14:15.9]
CLIENT: In fact Susan even said you know, when I went to watch her training run two weeks ago, that she couldn't even tell I had been in the print shop. She was doing her training run a week after I had done a job and she said that she couldn't even tell I had been in there, I'd left it so clean. So like this is -it's highly unusual that I leave any kind of mess behind.
THERAPIST: That's what I would have guessed.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Like there's some pattern that seems to keep repeating itself, of you putting yourself in someone's hands who it turns out you find you -you know, who doesn't have your back in the way you had hoped, and where you get like shamed or humiliated for having trusted them in the first place. Susan in a way, and Margaret and with Dave. It's a little different with Dave but sort of. I mean you told him about it, you were upset, you wanted him to be supportive, and then I think like not only wasn't he, but I think you actually felt in a way, kind of shamed by what he said. [0:15:53.9]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And ashamed that you had sort of reached out to him and didn't get the support that you wanted. But actually I wonder, could you have anticipated Dave would have responded the way he did, is that a typical response from him for something like that?
CLIENT: It depends on what kind of mood he's in really but yeah, he -it's not all the time or even most of the time, but it's certainly a noticeable enough percentage of the time that like when I'm upset, he responds by just like going balls out aggressive and hostile on anyone and everyone around me, instead of actually listening to what I'm saying.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:16:56.0]
CLIENT: Like it's a pattern and it's not very helpful.
THERAPIST: I imagine it's actually particularly unhelpful to you, because I think you probably feel a bit ashamed of his reaction.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: And that leaves you feeling worse, but like in a way you've made him look bad, by reaching out to him, because then he responds like a knucklehead.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And not only is that not supportive of you, but you then also feel bad for how he looks in a way, in his response. [0:18:00.7]
CLIENT: Well and also, his whole like I'm sure press ops use the press drunk or high or whatever, all the time, is also insulting to me, because like we have a community and we have community norms.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Kind of like your colleagues are all douchebags.
CLIENT: And we work really hard to reinforce those norms to each other all the time.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Right? Because the press is an incredibly dangerous piece of machinery. There's no way OSHA would ever approve its use in a professional printing environment, because there are no safeties. You can seriously injure or even kill yourself, if you use it incorrectly, and so using the press drunk or high is not only dangerous and doesn't just put you at risk, it puts the whole shop at risk because you know, if someone gets seriously injured, they will take it away. The leaders are already unhappy that we have it in the first place. So it's insulting to me as a member of this community that you know, hey there's all these terrible things that can happen if you do things wrong but pff, whatever, community norms, they don't really exist. [0:19:17.0]
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: I don't know if that made any sense.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: I tried to explain to Dave why I found it insulting and he was like, well you don't use it drunk or high so why do you care? He missed the point.
THERAPIST: Well, it's deprecating of a group that you're a part of and a culture that you're proud of maintaining and value I think.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Like it's sort of like running down your team, I think. Is that…?
CLIENT: Yeah. And I also sort of feel like you know, because I wrote this long email to Margaret outlining my concerns, Howie and everything else, that you know I'm -I have to make sure my behavior is impeccable right? Like if you want to bring a problem to the notice of the person in charge, you have to be on your best behavior, and I wasn't and she caught it. [0:20:37.5]
THERAPIST: Right. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure of the motivation, but it really has the feel of something you kind of do, constantly just set yourself up. My hunch would be that it was to manage feeling guilty, like you felt really guilty that you had written this email after she wrote you back and said you know, hey I'm on it. I don't know if you felt bad as though you doubted her or just felt bad because you had gotten it wrong, even though you couldn't…
CLIENT: I felt bad both because -well in hindsight, because I wrote that email immediately after I talked to Susan and Susan had encouraged me to email Margaret, and I was pretty worked up emotionally over the whole situation. [0:22:01.0]
THERAPIST: Yeah, sure.
CLIENT: And now, a couple of weeks later, it feels like it was an overreaction, like even if all the facts Susan had given me were accurate. And also, like it was a waste of Margaret's time, and Margaret is very busy and I have a great deal of respect for her and I don't want to waste her time.
THERAPIST: Yeah. It sounds like your sort of respect and admiration for Margaret, and maybe the way she's intimidating to you, do have something to do with the kind of guilt you felt. And I guess, so what I'm imagining -this may sound like maybe counterintuitive, but this is the kind of thing people do in my experience. You may have been feeling guilty and then found a way to kind of get yourself punished, to help like kind of externalize it in a way.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm. [0:23:02.9]
THERAPIST: Does that make sense?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Because you felt so bad that it really became very difficult to kind of contain it.
[Pause: 0:23:30.0 to 0:24:07.3]
THERAPIST: My impression is my saying that makes you feel bad.
CLIENT: No or no worse than I was feeling already.
THERAPIST: I hope not.
CLIENT: I was just… The chain of mental associations went from you know, I got sloppy to the press, to reminding me of this thing I got reprimanded for at work last week, getting sloppy with some code that I checked in, which reminded me of a side experiment I was running at work where you know, the experiment failed because I got sloppy and just then, the mental voices of you know you're a slob and you can't do anything right, and you're thoughtless and sloppy and horrible and why would anyone ever want to work with you on anything. It was spiraling out of control.
THERAPIST: Okay, so that was very helpful, because I think that's possibly a somewhat illuminating response to what I said, because I think I would have actually put you in a more positive light than you felt, about what happened. [0:25:44.9]
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: And I think you quickly moved to reestablish that you're a fuck-up.
CLIENT: Yeah.
[Pause: 0:26:15.6 to 0:27:25.7]
THERAPIST: So the question I'm posing is then why is it so dangerous to have a more sympathetic view, that you have to kind of go after it so quickly? At the moment I'm going with well, for some reason. Yet, I guess it can be very dangerous for you to feel sympathy for yourself. [0:28:40.3]
CLIENT: I think it goes back to what we were talking about last week, that if I feel sympathy for myself, I could slide so easily into excuse making for my behavior.
[Pause: 0:28:53.4 to 0:30:25.4]
THERAPIST: I think that may be another example of the phenomenon, more so than the reason? Like you'd better be really vigilant, because if you are even that sympathetic, boom, all of a sudden you'd really be a jackass just making excuses for everything all the time.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And you'd let yourself get away with God knows what. You would never hold anybody else responsible and boy, would you really be an ass hole then.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: I think you're wound pretty tight around this. I don't mean you're like an uptight person. I don't mean uptight that way. I mean quite vigilant about keeping sympathy out. I wonder if you would be -if you were more sympathetic, I think you would be flooded with sadness. [0:32:07.8]
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: And you know, the pain of what I don't want to be, so it comes out like… you know? You care a lot about the press shop and you get this email from Susan, you get worried you know, that Howie is going to fuck things up for everybody. You kind of anxiously respond to Margaret like probably because you're just worried I think. You know, you don't want Howie to mess everything up. You kind of reach out to her and you trust her and imagine you know, like that she'll be able to be helpful, and instead she makes you feel like you've done something wrong, when all you were doing was like trying to make sure things were going to be okay at the press shop, and deal with your own worries about it, and maybe frustrations with Howie. And you couldn't have known what happened, I mean Susan says something, you didn't have a reason to distrust her, from what I've heard. You were trying to do the right thing. Margaret turns around and sort of says that's not what happened and you don't feel bad for being misled, how ever intentionally or unintentionally. You have an initial read of Margaret's response as actually feeling about her response is actually harsher than what you know it to have been. [0:33:52.4]
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: That's what you said when you were describing it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You know, so then in sort of trying to reach out, you get kind of whacked. Then you do this thing that I've got to like -need to get whacked again, and then you reach out to Dave about it because you're upset about the whole thing, and you get whacked again.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It's very, like that's a lot of pain, and some being set up and some setting yourself up. Yeah, I think this is like -actually, I think this poses a threat. [0:35:09.2]
CLIENT: But why? (inaudible).
THERAPIST: I had thought about it, although I'm not sure if it's right, but like because otherwise -there are probably a few reasons that are related to one piece of it. It's probably just that you know, you'd be flooded with sort of sadness and the pain of what it's been like. You know, like um… I mean, you're like exercising and out of breath and your leg hurts and you want to go home, and you're hungry, and you're like kind of a drill sergeant with yourself. You know, you're focused on that, to fight with the drill sergeant or whatever. Not like oh man ouch, I'm hungry, I haven't eaten this morning, my leg hurts, I don't need to be here. I don't know that's not a great analogy. I think sort of just about the pain and the sadness that came from it, like put you into a vulnerable position. I think this may happen in here quite frequently, if I could take a few minutes and go to where I said something. How ever correct or not, sometimes I'm like trying to be sympathetic about something, you might quickly beat yourself up. [0:37:10.3]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Because there's something dangerous about that.
CLIENT: That's funny, that analogy you just made, it's quite literally how I handle myself.
THERAPIST: I think a second is I suspect there's something also going on about protecting or taking care of the other person. [0:38:16.2]
CLIENT: How so?
THERAPIST: It's not so much about them having hurt you or them having been unreasonable, or their not having listened or appreciated the position you were in. I mean, I stop and think about it, Margaret, who's so smart, must know you heard this from Susan, must know you have no other source.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Because Howie sure as hell didn't tell you and she didn't tell you, so how else could you have known?
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: And you know, knows that you're probably worried about what's going on, and have reason to be, given how Howie can be. This is sort of one example. So like you know, but you don't even question -or it's what I heard, sort of think about her knowing all that.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: And sort of trying to be supportive of you, knowing what she does about what's going on and stuff. Something about like protecting her a little bit and putting her literally on a pedestal and making her unquestionable or something like that. [0:39:24.0]
CLIENT: I see.
THERAPIST: We're going to stop.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I have not yet been able to find other times for the following week but we'll keep looking and trying.
CLIENT: Okay.
END TRANSCRIPT
