TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I keep interpreting every conversation I have at work as some kind of... (SIGH) ...hinting at or veiled threat or criticism of me. Like, for example, my group was interviewing a candidate for a job and my mentor was in my cube talking about some project I'm working on. And he said, you know, "Crap. I've got a few minutes and I have to do an interview. I hate interviews. I wish we could just fill this position." And I was like, "Why do you hate interviews so much?" [00:00:59]

He's like, "It's really stressful trying to decide, you know, if someone's borderline, you know, do we hire them? Do we not? You know, if they're not a clear winner or a clear loser, I don't want to be the one who says, 'Hire them,' and then they turn out not to work out because in a company like this, it's really hard to fire someone once you've hired them because legal liability and the worry that they'll sue and, you know, even if they're not great at their job and they're kind of slowing you down, you can't just fire them when you have a small start up." (PAUSE) And I definitely took that as a veiled kind of, "You're not pulling your weight. Like, I wish I hadn't given you the thumbs up." (PAUSE) I don't know if that's true or if I'm just projecting and being crazy but... (SIGH)

(PAUSE) [00:02:00]

THERAPIST: Um... (PAUSE) Well... (PAUSE) You do seem very busy with this worry.

CLIENT: Mm hmm. [00:03:01]

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:03:03) If you're asking me because you know just to know the answer you must be sort of, you must be pretty worried to be asking me, not that like I have a problem with you asking me.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: But because you must be feeling kind of desperate.

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: And that beats you up I think.

CLIENT: Yeah. I feel really bad but I (inaudible at 00:03:47) six weeks ago that I know would have taken my mentor like four days to finish and I'm still churning on it. And some of it is, you know, I've done work and because I'm new at this job, it didn't work out so I had to cycle through enter it in a couple of times. [00:04:01]

So some of it just is learning curve and some of it is I've spent a lot of time staring at results of the last iteration and then being really worried about starting the next iteration. So the last iteration was an experiment run down two weeks ago and I haven't started the next one yet just because it's really... (PAUSE) You know, if it doesn't work then I'm out of ideas and I don't want it to not work and so I was just sort of testing to see if it'll work. (SIGH) And I know it doesn't look good. I know from the outside it looks like I'm just being lazy or lingering in some way but I just... I can't... (SIGH) I can't just sit down and do it. [00:04:57]

I even wrote down like both lines tiny details like literally like word for word what I need to type into the terminal to start this next of experiments and I just, I can't bring myself to do it. (PAUSE) I mean, Dave (ph) tells me I should have compassion on myself and not be so hard on myself and I said, "Well, I'm good." But, I mean, my boss doesn't care what's going on inside my head. He cares about whether I deliver results or not. (SIGH)

(PAUSE) [00:06:00]

THERAPIST: Well... (PAUSE) I know but it sounds to me like you're really quite terrified. I think you may also be trying to pull me a little bit into a thing, understandably, reassuring you and the reason I'm hesitant is not because I just don't believe in reassuring people or reassuring you but I think (inaudible at 00:07:11) then we have our different sides. [00:07:15]

Probably a little bit like you were just alluding to with you and Dave where sort of he holds one bag and you hold the other bag and... (PAUSE) And...

(PAUSE) [00:08:00]

THERAPIST: I think that's partly an effort to keep the compassion for yourself out by giving it to somebody else.

CLIENT: Right. (PAUSE) You sound annoyed by that.

THERAPIST: Oh. You mean just like my tone of voice?

CLIENT: Yeah.

(PAUSE) [00:09:00]

THERAPIST: Um...

CLIENT: Like I definitely, I heard that as, "Haven't we had this conversation like ten times already?"

THERAPIST: Wow. (PAUSE) Not at all what I was saying. There was a sort of funny tone as I was thinking of sort of being ironic. Like because, you know, doing that to somebody in general and (inaudible at 00:09:33) I thought I was being a little silly but I was not...

CLIENT: Okay.

(PAUSE)

THERAPIST: I was not being angry nor did I have in mind (inaudible at 00:10:05) [00:10:07]

I can sort of see what you mean about the production thing.

(PAUSE)

CLIENT: I mean, in addition to feeling horrible, because I can't seem to get work done. Like I hadn't imagined when I first started doing therapy five years ago, you know. I spent a year on this and like digging through my brain, figure out what's wrong with me, and then I would be better. It's been five years and I'm not better yet. So I feel like twice the failure. Right? Because not only do I still have like the initial pathology of not being able to get work done for completely stupid reasons but I've failed at rooting out those reasons and making them not problems anymore. [00:11:05]

(PAUSE)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:11:47)

(PAUSE) [00:12:00]

(PAUSE) [00:13:00]

THERAPIST: I see you also went quickly from me thinking you're useless at this to you thinking you're useless at this.

CLIENT: Well, I thought it was pretty obvious that the me thinking that you thought I was useless at this is just projection. [00:14:01]

THERAPIST: I did. I did. (PAUSE) But... (PAUSE) I guess I was just thinking that as a projection it's still a little different from something you think immediately about yourself.

CLIENT: Right. Right. (PAUSE) Well, the first therapist I saw (inaudible at 00:14:45) It was completely useless and I found out later that she stopped practicing as a therapist and is now, has no patients left which apparently you don't need. You can start a petition. [00:14:59]

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: She gave me this book Ten Days to Self Esteem and told me that if I worked through it then all of my academic problems would be solved within six months.

THERAPIST: Oh God.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That's horrible.

CLIENT: And of course that didn't work and she also recommended tapping. You know, you find pressure points on the palms of your hands and you tap them while repeating self affirmations and that this will rewire your brain. It was just all kinds of hokey nonsense and...

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah. (PAUSE) I also found out after the fact that she had a pray away the gay business niche.

THERAPIST: I mean...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...there's confidence and then there's like...

CLIENT: Yeah.

(PAUSE) [00:16:00]

CLIENT: But I really did think that, you know, getting into therapy would be a short course of treatment and it would be over and done with and it's not and... (SIGH) It's really frustrating. (PAUSE) (inaudible at 00:16:27) was called emotional freedom therapy.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(PAUSE) [00:17:00]

THERAPIST: I think you're probably awfully upset and probably trying pretty hard at the moment to hold it together

CLIENT: Mm hmm.

THERAPIST: I think you worry you will be more ashamed if you were more upset...

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: ...or if you expressed more kind of how upset you actually are. (PAUSE) It's probably also hard to believe that I would not think less of you for that.

(PAUSE) [00:18:00]

(PAUSE) [00:19:00]

CLIENT: The really sad thing is this project I've been stuck on it isn't even hard. It's just design a fucking entry and make it work. It's the sort of thing you would give a second year engineering student in college and to go and work on it for two weeks and come back and it would be done. (SIGH)

(PAUSE) [00:20:00]

CLIENT: I feel like I'm never ever going to dig myself out of the whole I got myself into in college. I wasn't getting any kind of treatment for the depression or anything and wasn't getting enough sleep and was over working, over stressed and did not do well in my classes. I was a C minus student throughout college and I didn't take the right set of classes because I kept changing majors and so I kept testing out of classes where I could kind of fake my way through the intro exams so that I could take the intermediate and senior level classes that I needed to graduate. So I have all these huge gaping holes in my technical background. Nevermind the fact that I can't remember half of what I studied in college because I wasn't getting enough sleep to lay down long term memories and just... (SIGH) [00:21:03]

I keep running up against, you know, things that I don't know how to do that I'm too ashamed that I don't know how to do because this is the sort of thing that you give to like a second year student of college, you know, take two weeks and solve it. (SIGH)

THERAPIST: You were kind of a mess in college it sounds like in a lot of ways.

CLIENT: I'm still a mess but I was more of a mess in college. (PAUSE) I mean, that's all aside from the fact that I never wanted to do digital circuits so it's not what I chose classes for in grad school. Like all my grad school classes were analog circuit design and a lot of the stuff carries over but... Like speed only comes with repetition and practice which I don't have. [00:22:01]

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: But this is, you know, getting to be ridiculous for someone who doesn't have the right background. (PAUSE) And even that's not fully why it's taking me so long because, you know, I went back to my undergrad textbooks and I, you know, bought a book off Amazon and I read it and I figured out how to do the stupid thing and that was, you know, four weeks ago and it's still not done because I'm afraid that I've got it wrong and, you know, the proof won't be in the pudding and that I'll have to go back to the drawing board.

(PAUSE) [00:23:00]

THERAPIST: It's like there's a little tyrant in your head that's incredibly demanding and cruel and unforgiving.

CLIENT: How do I make it (inaudible at 00:23:39)

(PAUSE) [00:24:00]

THERAPIST: You... (PAUSE) I think the problem is that you don't really know yet and in some way you don't want to. [00:25:03]

(PAUSE)

THERAPIST: I also think... (PAUSE) But that... (PAUSE) I mean... (inaudible at 00:25:57) [00:26:01]

It's taking far longer than you anticipated or ever wanted and today along with some other times but I think not all, you don't seem like you really are anywhere.

CLIENT: Well, I'm more functional than I was five years ago so that's something.

THERAPIST: It is.

CLIENT: My friend Hannah (ph) is a therapist and she only sees patients where she thinks their problem is situational and can be solved in six months or less and that doesn't really help with my sense of, you know, I'm a failure for five years and counting.

THERAPIST: Um... (SIGH)

(PAUSE) [00:27:00]

THERAPIST: I don't know anybody who does that. (LAUGHTER) I mean, I'm not doubting you. She may be a good therapist.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: I'm not ever really doubting her but I'm trying to think of things that can be dealt with in six months. I'm sure insurance companies really love that. I'm not saying there aren't problems or people who have symptoms that can be ameliorated to some extent in a short period of time but nothing substantial.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(PAUSE) [00:28:00]

THERAPIST: You were seeing her once a week?

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: I'm not making that face to belittle. I'm just saying that in my world like you haven't been at this that intensively that long. Like I don't... I'm not trying to say that to belittle or put you down.

CLIENT: Right. Yeah, I know.

THERAPIST: I'm just saying that... But, you know... If I can compare it to like sort of intensive psychotherapy or analysis, you know, those are two, three, five times a week about four to ten years usually...

CLIENT: That's a really long time.

THERAPIST: I'm not saying you do that necessarily but that's because that's actually really, to be honest about it, actually takes... [00:29:03]

I'm not saying that you need that or use that but like... Yeah. Three or four years of once a week therapy or six years of once a week therapy... I mean, I've done that. Like, you know, you can address things and it can be a great help but like to really kind of get in there and deal with stuff... (PAUSE) That just... (PAUSE) I don't know. It is a really long time and it is a lot of effort and a long time. [00:30:01]

Um... (PAUSE) And... (PAUSE) (SIGH) It's unfortunate that it is but... (PAUSE) That's the reality and I guess I don't want to wander too far away from what you're talking about but you grew up in a bad home environment. It was bad. You know, it's not the worst I've heard but it was bad. You probably don't need me to tell you that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should not minimize what you have to do, what you're up against from the expected the fact of something like that. [00:31:07]

Like... (PAUSE) You know, just... It's very rare to come in second at the state competition and have your father tell you off.

CLIENT: I don't know (inaudible at 00:31:41) At most, that would be like a thousand second place state competition winners within, you know, plus or minus ten years of my age and...

THERAPIST: Well...

CLIENT: (LAUGHTER)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:32:01) (LAUGHTER) [00:32:03]

CLIENT: Fair enough. We do probably have a concentration of them here.

THERAPIST: And actually...

CLIENT: I suppose there's more than one competition so you multiply it by a factor there.

THERAPIST: But the real problem with your argument I think is that I actually have a lot of data on my side because there are so many people who finish less than second in whatever the competition was and still didn't have, you know...

CLIENT: Fair enough.

(PAUSE)

THERAPIST: And, I know we're goofing around, but if you had come in first it really wouldn't have changed much. That car might have been better.

CLIENT: Maybe.

THERAPIST: Maybe.

(PAUSE) [00:33:00]

CLIENT: When I was in high school, my senior year I went to the national Science Olympiad competition and Science Olympiad was a huge deal to me at the time but then I went to Harvard and met people who competed in much more high prestige competitions in science than I did and kind of looked down on Science Olympiad as something the dumb kids did.

THERAPIST: Yeah

CLIENT: It's run kind of like a track and field meet in that there are multiple events...

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: ...and you have a team of kids and different kids compete in different events.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: So, you know, you know, like the relay has four kids competing so the Science Olympiad like what power a chemistry competition would have you have two students compete in a partnership and then there are some individuals or a group of five or whatever. So (inaudible at 00:33:57) and I medaled in all three. [00:33:59]

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Silver medals in all three. For the rest of the year everyone, my teachers, my teammates, my parents, my sisters referred to me as the first loser because second place is the first loser.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Only one person on my team got a gold medal that year and one event and his other three he didn't place in at all. You know, the school at the end of the year gets points based on, you know, gold medal is ten, silver is nine, bronze is eight and so on down, whatever the scale was. You got points on where you ranked versus the other schools that were competing and I earned more points for my team than any other single student on my team and yet...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...I was the first loser and... Yeah.

(PAUSE) [00:35:00]

CLIENT: Even my best friend... (LAUGHTER) ...joined in on that because she thought it was hilarious and ironic.

THERAPIST: Ouch.

CLIENT: Yeah. (PAUSE) And I know Jessica (ph) didn't mean anything by it. Like she mostly was saying it to mock the people who were saying it in earnest.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But like... I don't know. It was still hard to hear.

THERAPIST: I'm sure it was.

(PAUSE)

CLIENT: And of course my parents didn't mean it ironically at all.

THERAPIST: I know... It's not hard for me to imagine some parents who would say that in a different way and be different about it but I know well that your parents were complete assholes about it.

CLIENT: They tried to cancel my graduation party because I was not valedictorian. I came in sixth in my class of five hundred and seven students. [00:36:09]

THERAPIST: Oh.

(PAUSE)

CLIENT: It took seven years to stop yelling at me about not getting into Cambridge.

(PAUSE)

THERAPIST: That's horrid and I'm telling you that degree of it is rare. You know? Like parents who put a lot of pressure on their kid where there's this like sort of tragic sense of contingency of their kid being loved based on their performance or what they can do and all that stuff like that's all over the place with high achieving people. Like... [00:37:03]

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: I forgot add that these...

CLIENT: So many people I know have the, you know, so you got all As...

THERAPIST: Right. But that's different from, "We're not throwing you the party because you weren't first," or, "Like, we're going to call you a loser. You know? I mean, that's...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...defeating.

CLIENT: Like in even the, you know, the tiger mom style parents who would be thrilled if their kid got into Harvard.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But mine weren't. They were mad about Cambridge. Like nevermind the fact that there had been a clear pattern in my high school for twenty years of one student from my high school gets in every year. Like there's always one, exactly one...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...and in alternating years male and female. Like I know Cambridge claims they don't have quotas but like it was a very, very clear pattern of one per year and Jessica my best friend was a legacy at Cambridge. [00:38:15]

I mean, she's also very smart and deserved to go but her father, her grandfather, her great grandfather all went to Cambridge.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like... (SIGH)

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You know, we were... I think we were exactly matched in terms of, you know...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: ...raw intelligence and, you know, extra curriculars and resume and she was legacy and I wasn't.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I mean, not that I...

THERAPIST: She was uber legacy.

CLIENT: Yes and it's not like I'm bitter about it. I don't think... Given the choice between Cambridge and Harvard, I would have chosen Harvard anyway because...

THERAPIST: You would have gone to Stanford actually.

CLIENT: Yep. I really did.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I wanted to be at that school. I did not want to go to a liberal arts school and I felt very strongly about that. [00:38:59]

I think knowing what I know now I might choose differently but, you know, when I was eighteen that was very very important to me that I be at that college. So I definitely don't begrudge Jessica for legacy admission.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like in fact at the time I was really grateful that she got it because I didn't have to explain that choice to my parents. (LAUGHTER) They were furious. They accused me of deliberately sabotaging my application.

THERAPIST: That... See, like that's where it gets crazy.

CLIENT: Yeah. And I mean I did procrastinate on all of my college applications...

THERAPIST: That had nothing to do with why they were accusing you. They were accusing you because like they wanted to turn it around and make it your fault.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And be assholes about it.

CLIENT: (SIGH) (PAUSE) I procrastinated all of my applications but that didn't matter with Harvard or Stanford. [00:40:01] (LAUGHTER)

THERAPIST: (LAUGHTER) (PAUSE) It's (inaudible at 00:40:31)

CLIENT: Yeah. I really wish I could without feeling guilty.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

(PAUSE) [00:41:00]

CLIENT: I know it feels so cliche to say my parents don't understand me. I know every teenager says that. I feel like they really don't understand me. (PAUSE) Of course my dad would blame that on my dad would be too American and hyper into the (inaudible at 00:41:49) I would be a good daughter.

THERAPIST: I don't actually know how (inaudible at 00:42:01) [00:42:03]

I mean, you never really said anything to me to indicate that he had a clear sense of he was a person with interests and feelings and preferences and like a different personality. You know what I mean? Like that may have been there. I don't know. It's just never something you... You've never mentioned him (inaudible at 00:42:39) something that mattered to you because it mattered to you. (PAUSE) I mean, you told me a lot about like opinions about like your judgements or reactions...

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:43:05]

THERAPIST: ...that have very little to do with...

CLIENT: I was home for Christmas I think or something like that my freshman year of college and my parents took me to the mall to buy new clothes. It was (inaudible at 00:43:21) I didn't have much I could wear here. We were out in the mall and I found this ensemble of brown sweater and kind of a tweedy skirt with matching boots and belt that I really wanted and it came in... The sweater came in two styles, a boat neck and a v neck and I picked out the v neck and my dad started screaming at me in the store about how that wasn't my personality and that wasn't my style and he knows me because I'm his daughter and I should get the boat neck. I've always hated boat neck tops. (LAUGHTER) [00:43:59]

Like it's such a stupid thing but I've never ever worn boat neck tops.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I think they look awful on me which, I mean, I don't know arguably if they actually look awful or if that's just my opinion. Whatever. The point is...

THERAPIST: You don't like them.

CLIENT: Yeah. He just like yelling like spittle flying out of his mouth. I ended up not getting the outfit and going home in tears because...

THERAPIST: That's horrible.

CLIENT: What it really boiled down to was he felt the v neck showed too much cleavage. But he couldn't bring himself to say that so he made up this story how it's not my style and not my personality and blah, blah, bullshit.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: (SIGH) It wasn't even a deep v neck. It doesn't show that much cleavage. It was perfectly modest. [00:45:03]

(PAUSE)

THERAPIST: Let's stop for now.

CLIENT: Yep. I'll see you Thursday.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

END TRANSCRIPT