TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: The first one is I will be out the second half of next week. So, I'm in on Monday, not on Thursday.

CLIENT: Yeah. You already told me that last week.

THERAPIST: Oh, I did?

CLIENT: And, it's in my calendar.

THERAPIST: Alright. So, anyway. Well, hopefully, I will remember, I will remember not to tell you again.

CLIENT: That's okay. I don't mind.

THERAPIST: And, the second thing is, it looks like there's a good chance I would have, I'm going to have a Wednesday morning time opening up at 8:30. I will know that before I leave, I think, next week.

CLIENT: Oh, Okay.

THERAPIST: But, I wondered if you would want it?

CLIENT: Probably. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Either to replace the Monday afternoon or in addition, I don't know. I'd have to think about that.

THERAPIST: Okay. Well, let's talk about that.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Because I think there's probably important stuff there.

CLIENT: Okay. [00:01:00]

THERAPIST: And, I guess, I mean, I can start talking about that unless you have something else in mind.

CLIENT: No, go ahead.

THERAPIST: Okay. The real life considerations aside, which I think are mostly for you about time.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:02:00]

THERAPIST: I think it could help you to do something more intensive in your... You know, it, it seems to me you are, like, sort of like feeling more comfortable talking about things and, you know, that we're able to get in things both that happen in your life and in here between you and I in ways that are kind of starting to point at. Like, you know, some of the stuff that I think will be more to help you in your life when you think about that sort of place. [00:03:00]

I think, it's my experience that kind of work can often be easier to do in a more frequent treatment. You know, with that said, I don't think it's necessary, like, I think we can work through things too and number two, I'm, well, people, often when I suggest that think that it's code for well, you're really fucked up, which it isn't.

CLIENT: But, I already knew I was really fucked up myself. (laughter)

THERAPIST: Well, you may have thought so, but, let's just be very clear who that's coming from. It's not coming from me.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: That is not how I see it. You know, to me, I'm currently seeing about, like, half my hours are seeing people three or four times a week now. It's just I think easier for them to get their hands in to stuff. Especially, since we can talk and especially stuff where it can be related a lot to the like therapy relationship which I think can be helpful. It's more a measure of, like, you know, a motivation utility than like a correlation with a degree of suffering or emotional damage or something like that.

CLIENT: It was quite a sanitized way of putting a functional impairment. [00:05:00]

THERAPIST: Oh. Yeah. I guess what I was trying to get at was, like, there is suffering, which is kind of internal, and then there's having trouble with doing the things you want.

CLIENT: Right. Right.

THERAPIST: To be able to do. And, yeah, this (inaudible at 00:05:13) for insurance purposes. But, go ahead, what are your thoughts?

CLIENT: I don't think I have talked yet on this topic.

THERAPIST: Okay. I also think it's a good one to talk about because it often I find, like, sharpens the focus on what, you know, how we understand what's going on here.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: And, what you're doing good and bad and worried about.

CLIENT: Okay. [00:06:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, my...

THERAPIST: That you're aware of I think.

CLIENT: My biggest concern is just wanting to get away from the 5:15 on Monday slot.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Just because it's a pain to leave work early.

THERAPIST: Sure. So, your main issue really is with the time?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. And, the slots in the morning that would work out, I think you said 8:30 is best?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: And...

CLIENT: I could probably make 7:45.

THERAPIST: Okay and then do Tuesday?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: I know that doesn't give you a lot of options to work with and I bet lots of people want the early morning before work slots.

THERAPIST: Yeah, those are the more popular ones, so, I'll see what I can do. I mean, there's also, like, offer some flex in my schedule.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Well, then I should probably know by the end of, like, next week whether I will have that.

CLIENT: Okay. Great. Thanks.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I can't remember. Thursday did I talk about the e-mail I got from my evil ex's ex-girlfriend?

THERAPIST: No. She had gotten your e-mail address, but you didn't, had not yet heard from her, I think.

CLIENT: Oh, lord. [00:08:00]

THERAPIST: I think that you said that somebody had e-mailed you and said some mysterious person wants to get in touch with you and you knew that it was her because you had just sat near her at dinner.

CLIENT: Right. Right.

THERAPIST: But, you hadn't yet heard from her.

CLIENT: Yeah. So, she e-mailed me like five pages of...

THERAPIST: Oh, God.

CLIENT: You know, I hope you don't hate me. You know, I saw that you tweeted about me. It's like I sent out like one tweet and right after I got home from dinner saying, you know, well, that filled in all the story of, you know, my evil ex and the women he fucked over after me and not having all the feelings back. Which, you know, it was probably a violation of somebody's privacy there. Like, I really try not to talk about other people on line, but I felt like I anonymized that fairly well.

THERAPIST: Wait. I'm sorry. I may have just missed something. You read five pages and said I hope you don't hate me and said I'm now realizing all these things about my evil ex? [00:09:00]

CLIENT: No, no, no. After that dinner Wednesday night.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: I sent a tweet out saying, you know, you know, my, my oldest and best friend from college filled me on details of, you know, the woman my evil ex fucked over after me and now I'm having all the feelings.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: Like.

THERAPIST: Sorry. Sometimes, you know.

CLIENT: Sorry. I'm, I'm not telling things linearly or in chronological order.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: So, so, anyway I get this e-mail from Zappa.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: After I sent that tweet saying, you know, I hope you don't hate me. I really don't want you to tweet about me. I don't feel like Phil fucked me over. I'm still in love with him and then she gave me all these details about their relationship and things I didn't really need to know and she is apparently having PTSD flashbacks about things from their relationship and they broke up in 2007. But, she's still in love with him and mourns the loss of the relationship and it just went on and on and on. [00:10:00]

Then, she apparently found my blog, which I don't attach my name to. I use a pseudonym on line and I mostly don't give access to it to people I don't know, but somehow she found it and found the post where I, you know, wrote about and processed the sexual assault and some of the other stuff that went really terribly wrong in that relationship. So, she told me that she had found this and had read those entries and that they made her cry and she can't believe it and, like, she doesn't judge me for thinking badly of him, but, like, she wishes I could see what a good person he is and it just went on.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: So, I looked at it and said I cannot cope with this right now and had a beer (laughter) and came back to it and wrote her a very, very short response. Like, three paragraphs. You know, I'm sure this was really hard for you to write. I really want to honor that, but I'm going to say up front I cannot be rational talking about Phil. That's, you know, that chapter of my life is closed. I don't want to relive it. You know, I'm sorry you're having trouble processing. I wish you all the best in healing. You know, just, just for the record, the friend who told me about you and Phil's relationship didn't say anything that wasn't public knowledge. They just said that you did come after me and that it ended badly and you handled it differently than I did and anything beyond that I extrapolated based on my history with him and I apologize for that. I wish you the best of luck in, you know, in your healing process. Good bye.

She wrote another page five page e-mail in which she seemed very intent on making me ask about more details. Yeah. So, that was a stressful thing. That was Thursday night. And, I was replying to these e-mails and responding to them as the news about the shooting on MIT's campus was coming in. [00:12:00]

THERAPIST: Oh, god.

CLIENT: Yeah. So, that was, that was, that was stressful. And, on Friday, I got absolutely nothing done. I was working from home. I didn't get any work done. I feel a little bit guilty about that, because other people managed to get work done despite, you know, and I was just not able to, I guess, at all.

And, then Saturday was the Folk Festival which I wasn't going to go to, but having been cooped up in my house all day Friday. I mean it doesn't make any sense because had it been a normal Friday, I would have stayed indoors and like capable in the center of the building far away from windows and they would have spent the whole day staring at a computer screen.

But, the fact that I, I didn't have a choice about leaving the house, I don't know. I, I ended up deciding. My plan for Saturday was to work in the print shop on campus, but a) I kind of didn't want to be on campus, and I also didn't really want to be cooped up in the, the print shop which is I love the print shop. I love working in the print shop, but it's a very tiny, very cramped, very dark space with no natural light and very poor indoor lighting and I just, I didn't want to.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:13:30]

CLIENT: And, so, Ashley and Tom were both going to be at the Folk Festival travel for a few from here on out because it's shorter and faster and they both had spent the week trying to convince me to go with them.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But, I was...

THERAPIST: I think you were planning to go as of Thursday morning when we talked.

CLIENT: Yeah. I was waffling.

THERAPIST: Oh. Okay.

CLIENT: I had been waffling all week about it and I finally decided, like, a) print shop work needed to get done.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And b) like, I was really concerned about, well, things with Tom are just weird. I didn't want to run in to him and Ashley had kind of pulled back on communication last week. Like.

THERAPIST: Right. I remember you were worried because of this was after he read you're not (inaudible at 00:14:15).

CLIENT: Yeah. You know, I had asked him if he wanted a second date and he said yes and I said great, what time? And, he said well, I will have to share my Google calendar with you and I said well, I just shared mine with you too because I'm having trouble finding a time that works and, like, can you take a look? And, then silence for three days until I, you know, sent him a brief e-mail saying, you know, I haven't had a chance to look at calendar stuff. You know, I realize that my schedule is crazy and it might be hard, but, so, he, after I prompted him, he responded with a couple of suggestions and I responded with okay, I like this suggestion best. You know, do we want to, you know, actually decide on Thursday and nothing from him in response to that.

And, I mean, I want to, and I know for a fact that he struggles with depression because he's told me that and communication is hard for him. He told me that too. It's also something I vaguely remember from when we were friends. Like, a decade ago. So, it's probably not me, but I was still feeling vaguely like I had been nagging him and also a little insecure. [00:15:25]

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And, it was like, you know, if I go to the festival and I run in to him, like, there's a good chance that because of the large, crowded situation with lots of people I don't know, I will just cling to the person's whose face I recognize and that can come across as clingy or even if he doesn't perceive it as clingy, I will be worried that he's perceiving it as clingy and, you know, down that spiral of, you know, terrible brain weevils taking over my brain. So, I had decided I wasn't going go to go and just like bypass that whole can of worms and do print shop work, but then I didn't want to spend the day in the print shop.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And, Dave and I were driving each other up the wall because we were both working from home on Friday and that's the first time we've both tried to work from home on the same day since we moved in together. It did not work. Our work styles are so completely incompatible that we drove each other nuts on Friday. So, by Saturday, like, by lunch time Saturday, we were just sick of each other and I decided one or both of us needed to get the hell out of the house before we killed each other. So, I was like okay, fine. I'll go to the festival. And, so I went and I mostly had a good time, but, as predicted, things were weird and awkward every time I ran in to Tom. And, as predicted, every time I ran in to Ashley, I was, you know, terrified of coming across as too clingy or too needy and so I mostly tried to avoid both of them. [00:17:00]

Then I ran in to someone from my church and then was worried about being outed to a member of my church where, you know, church is one of the few places where Dave and I are not out as polyamorous. I don't know. I really enjoyed the events I went to. I really enjoyed the dancing and the singing and the presentations. But, it was also kind of stressing at the same time. Also, Ashley's girlfriend was there and I have no idea what their agreement is about public displays of affection with other partners, so, like, that just added another layer of, you know, me not knowing the rules.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And, also feeling insecure and anxious. So, anyway, I got no sleep last night. I literally did not fall asleep until 6:30 in the morning. So, I called in to work this morning which is like. You know, I needed the sleep because there was no way I was going to be able to drive safely. I briefly tried logging in to work and working from home, but I was just so out of it that I was making mistakes and like impeding progress, so I just gave up and declared today would be a sick day.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And, sorry, which day was the festival?

CLIENT: Saturday.

THERAPIST: So, that kept you up all night last night? I mean I know you have trouble sleeping, but it sounds like it was, it was pretty extreme last night.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yesterday, what did I do? I went to church yesterday and then I skipped my regular work out with my work out buddies to go to brunch with some friends from church.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And, then, oh, I went to see the Beowulf show, which was a fantastic show. I went with like a half dozen friends and then after the show, we got ice cream and I think part of why I couldn't sleep was just like physiological. [00:19:00]

I didn't eat all day. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but I didn't eat before church because I didn't have time because I woke up late. I had brunch with friends. The food wasn't really all that good at the place we went to, so I didn't finish my meal. I came home and I napped and when I woke up, I was feeling queasy. So, I decided oh, I'll get dinner after the show instead of before the show. But, then after the show, everyone wanted to go to get ice cream and no one wanted to get dinner and I didn't want to push the issue because I wanted the social time with my friends. So, I had half an eggs benedict and a scoop of ice cream yesterday. That was all I ate the whole day. [00:20:30]

So, Tom is the person who initially got me in to doing contra dancing when we first started seeing each other. He, you know, kept inviting me to go contra dancing with him and seemed really excited about taking me with him and really wanted to get me to go. So, I went. You know, just to humor him and I really enjoyed the dancing, so that's why I've stuck with it. But, you know, every time I'm at the same dance that he is and, you know, sometimes we end up not over lapping because there are like four different dances every week and schedules are hard.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But, every time we're, we're at the same dance, it's, he'll spend the whole time between sets talking to his close knit group of contra dancing friends who he has known for years, which is fine. But, if I walk over to say hi to him, he'll, he's never introduced me to anyone at the dance, even though he's the one who invited me. He will often, if I walk up to say hi, like, he will simply, like, reposition his body so that his back is to me or that I'm shut out of the conversation circle. And, at first, I thought this was just, you know, him being socially clueless or not observant.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Or, just whatever. It's been a really consistent pattern and it happened again Saturday, twice. It's really upsetting and weird and awkward to me and I don't know what's going on. So, like between that and the way he doesn't respect my boundaries in public. Like, he's very good about respecting boundaries when we're having sex, but he's not anywhere else. Like, I told you about the party I had at my house where he made everyone uncomfortable. [00:22:20]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Then last Thursday night I went to contra dance and he happens to be there and he asked me to dance a set with him and I said I'll dance with you, but I don't want you to, like, dig your nails in to my back like that. That feels like to foreplay to me. I don't want to do that in public. I don't consent to it. Like, I was, and those were the exact words that I used. Like, I was very...

THERAPIST: That's pretty clear. Those are small words.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And pretty direct. Yeah.

CLIENT: Like, and so, half way through the set he's like, you know, I could totally distract you by digging my nails in to the back of your neck and I was like you said you wouldn't do that. He said no, I never said I wouldn't do that. You just said you didn't want me to do that and I was like, really? Really, Tom? And, then the dance, because the form of the dance, we, we didn't have a chance. We had to split around and like walk around separate sides of the circle. Then, you know, when we came back together, like six measures of music later, like, he wanted to talk about something else. Between that and then the way he behaved the week before with, you know, being all weird and judgy about me going on a date with Ashley, I just, I don't know. I think I really need to like have a talk with him where I tell him, you know, really, it's over. You know, I'm happy to be, you know, cordial to you when we run in to each other at parties because we have friends in common, but, like, the play relationship is over. The friendship is over. Like, I feel really weird and awkward and it's not worth it to me. I don't know how to do that. Like, what's the best way to approach that. I know it has been a while since I've had to do a break up that wasn't, you know, mutual for obvious reasons where both sides under were feeling it and were moving towards the same conclusion simultaneously. [00:24:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And, part of me wants to know why he's so weird about, you know, shutting me out of conversations with his, you know, contra friends.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But, part of me thinks, you know, it probably doesn't matter and if I ask I won't get an answer that is satisfying, so I should just be okay with not knowing. I don't know. It's....

THERAPIST: Or, you could be really annoyed and frustrated that you don't know even if there's no good way for you to find out.

CLIENT: Sure, but, I can't be annoyed and frustrated forever. At some point I have to, you know, give myself closure. It's really, I don't know. [00:25:20]

And, of course, because I'm neurotic and anxious about everything, there's a part of me that is worried that if I have this conversation with him and if he reacts badly, he'll go and tell Ashley's girlfriends and then that will cause drama in that relationship. I guess the worst case scenario that's spinning out in my head is, you know, I have this conversation with Tom and he reacts badly and then he goes and complains to Kiley, who he's dating, and paints me as being crazy and then she goes to Ashley who she is dating and says, you know, I don't want you dating someone who is crazy and I mean that's... And, having it blow back on me that way.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: This sounds so very Days of Our Lives when I lay it all out like this. [00:27:00]

THERAPIST: It seems to me sort of the various incidents, and there have been a bunch of them, you know, that we talked on Thursday. (laughter) You know. But, you, like, I think that you could handle most of them pretty effectively. I mean, you didn't get caught up in some big thing with, I can't remember what her name is, who was Phil's ex...

CLIENT: Zappa. [00:28:00]

THERAPIST: Sorry, Zappa. That's right.

CLIENT: Oh, she was at the festival too.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: So, it was Phil's best friend. They both tried talking to me. In both cases, I politely excused myself with oh, my goodness, I've been dancing for half an hour and need water and then, you know, disappearing in to the crowd of 500 people and, you know, studiously avoiding eye contact.

THERAPIST: Right. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, you're sounding pretty embattled.

CLIENT: It's all ridiculous.

THERAPIST: Yeah, see, you say that now, but it, it doesn't sound, like, I think your point of saying that talking to me, kind of laying it out, you feel probably like a drama queen or something like that. [00:29:00]

CLIENT: Yes. In fact, I do, and it's a terrible feeling.

THERAPIST: Like, both of us are going to think you're really a loser for getting all worked up about these things and having emotional reactions to them and somehow you should be able to handle your social life so this doesn't happen.

CLIENT: Yup.

THERAPIST: I hope it's clear, but, the reason I can make these inferences is because I know you, not because these are my actual like reactions.

CLIENT: That was clear, yes.

THERAPIST: I figured, but I wanted to make sure. [00:30:00]

CLIENT: Okay. I mean and then there was the worst case scenario where I spin out where, you know, if I tell Tom that I feel weird and awkward and it makes me unhappy and you know, I want to stop seeing him. You know, the worst case scenario where that leads to like Kiley giving Ashley an ultimatum that he can't date me.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Like, is awfully unlikely and is probably just a result of, you know, my insecurities and anxieties.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: But...

THERAPIST: I mean other than that, that thing that you described involved you actually not being the source of the drama yourself and handling the drama in ways that I think felt fairly effective at the time.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean, you know, pretty soon he'll get back to you, like, strangely for three days you get the message from Zappa. You, you and Dave were driving each other crazy and you decided somebody has to leave the apartment, so you make plans. You know?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Plans. You decide the social set is more important than dinner. Like, I mean. [00:31:00]

CLIENT: That one was questionable.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Sure, okay. Fine. But, not off the wall.

CLIENT: Right. I mean there were certainly options, like, you know, I'm going to run by the Crepes Cafe and get, you know.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Something that's food and meet you at the ice cream shop in 20 minutes. Like, that. I could have done that and things would have gone better for me.

THERAPIST: That's true. That is true. But, I guess, that was also not the case with you dealing with somebody else's drama.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: I mean, that's just a category.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But, yeah, you feel sort of dramatic and anxious and felt critical laying it out and trying to deal with it. [00:32:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. So, yeah. So, seeing Tracy at the festival, like I, you know, read in to him.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I was coming out of an event that he was going in to and I, I left half way through the event because I was bored. It was a folk song squawk that, you know, was just, it was really poorly managed and I was bored, so I left. And, Tracy was coming in because he has weird scheduling. He missed the start of it, but was coming in half way through and we, we ran in to each other in the doorway. And, he, you know, asked, you know, why I was leaving and I said oh, I'm bored because, you know, they're, you know, singing mostly songs I know at like half the tempo they should be sung at and, you know, I'm not interested in that. He was like well, I'll walk with you to wherever you're going. I was like, oh, we were going to this thing and, you know, I don't want you. I mean don't, don't skip what you were going to do on my account. [00:33:00]

But, he insisted that he would rather spend time with me than go to the sing along which, you know, was awfully reassuring and nice and we, we had a good half hour conversation waiting for the next event that I wanted to go, which he had no interest in. And, then, so, then I went to that event and he went to something else and like an hour and a half later we ran in to each other again and I danced where we were both at. So, I was at the festival from like 4 until 11. So, there was, there was many hour of like, and events were planned in 45 minute blocks, so there were.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Yeah. So, so anyway. The next time I ran in to him, his face just lit up when he saw me and he insisted that I had to dance the next dance with him, which I did and that was terrific and then there is kind of a convention that it's rude to dance more than once, it's rude to dance twice in a row with the same person. You're supposed to switch partners. [00:34:00]

So, after that dance, we both went and found other dance partners and, but, before that, he told me, you know, you should find me later on and we should dance another set together. I was like sure, sure, whatever. But, then the next time I saw him because there was a giant, the dance hall was this giant high school gymnasium with hundreds of people and I lost track of him for a while. It was like an hour before I saw him again and when I did, he was talking with Tom and with Kiley his girlfriend and a whole bunch of Tom's friends and partners and harem. And, when I went over to say hi to them, Tom was being really weird at me so, and I felt really awkward, so I was just like okay, you know what, I'm just going to walk away and find someone else to dance with.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And try again later. And, then, every time I, I was able to identify where Ashley was after that, he was hanging out with Tom and it was just weird. [00:35:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So, I just, I stayed on the other end of the dance hall and avoided them for the rest of the night and then at the end, like, when things were shutting down and, you know, the, the parking lot at the high school was completely full when I got there, so I was parked in like remote parking 10 miles away and I was going to go catch the shuttle to get to my car and so, I didn't see him. I wasn't able to find him to say good night.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But, by that point, I was just super upset about the way Tom was treating me and feeling just super socially anxious and the whole, the whole like social negotiation of finding a dance partner and, you know, there were some people who I recognized from the staff house dances who were just completely undanceable there. Horrible, like, creepy, creepy, handsy guys. So, the whole process of trying to avoid the creepy guys while not being rude or committing any social faux paus while finding a partner who wants to dance with you who, you know, because a lot of people didn't recognize me and I'm a newer dancer, like...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: The experienced dancers don't want to dance with new dancers because you might screw up the dance. Like, that whole negotiation was very stressful for me and after like three hours of that I was just like, you know what? I cannot. I am out of all possible, like, ability to deal with social situations. So, I just texted him and said, you know, I'm really glad I ran in to you. I'm sorry I lost track of you. The dance hall was really crowded, but, you know, just letting you know I'm heading out now because I've got a headache and I want to catch the shuttle to remote parking. You know, let me know about next Thursday if you want to get together and he hasn't responded to that. Like, I don't know. On one hand, when he actually saw me, he looked happy to see me and he told me he wanted to dance with me, but on the other hand, he's not responding to any of my, you know, off line or on line communication, so I don't know what to do and it's very frustrating and provoking all of my anxieties. [00:37:00]

THERAPIST: And, you're not supposed to get worked up about things like this.

CLIENT: Right. Or, at least not supposed to let other people see that I am worked up.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Because no one wants to date someone who's high strung and high needs and nagging.

THERAPIST: Which is really the only way to read what is going on, I guess. [00:38:00]

CLIENT: Yes. From the tone of your voice, it sounds like that's the wrong answer. But, it's certainly the only way. I guess the way I see it is that there have now been three separate sets of communication exchanges that I initiated where he let them trail off and so I worry that, like, that's a bad pattern to establish, but, like, it really does feel like nagging to me. I mean, I guess the phrase that is coming to mind is he's just not that in to you. Like, if he were, he would have, you know, responded to some, something at least without being prompted for a response. [00:39:00]

THERAPIST: Yes. I guess it just seems I mean just because of his responses of these two that you have described... I mean, if he's trying to send a message by not responding, it seems ambiguous because his response because the response is probably is not easy to describe. I mean, if he's trying to send a message by not responding, it seems complicated by the other way he's responding to you, you know?

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's possible he's just really bad at communicating and, you know, he said that, you know, he has, he's been in the middle of a pretty bad depressive episode for about a week and having those, when I'm in the middle of a really bad episode.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Like, the first that goes is any ability to communicate at all, whatsoever. But, it's just such a dramatic difference from when we were e-mailing back and forth the week before our first not a date.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Not a date. Where, you know, he was responding, you know, you know, within an hour to most of my e-mails.

THERAPIST: Right. [00:40:35]

CLIENT: And, never more than about a day and now it has been, you know, two days, three days between responses and I don't know. I don't want to make a fool out of myself by being over eager.

THERAPIST: A lot of what you're describing seems to be about, about feeling really quite ashamed, including in front of me, of being emotional or sort of acting on your...

CLIENT: Impulse. [00:42:35]

THERAPIST: I imagine that you sort of worry about like pretty active kind of shaming sort of response. So, in other words, like, not a passive, quiet judgment or like questions on what you're doing. Like, sort of being dressed down in a way.

CLIENT: Well, I'm mostly concerned about people then going and talking about me to mutual friends.

THERAPIST: Oh, I see.

CLIENT: And, painting me as, you know, a drama queen. Because I know that in my broader social group, people do talk about, you know, oh, such and such is, you shouldn't date so and so because they cause drama. You know? And, it's, a lot of times, it's very much community service because there are some people who just like, just leave a wake of emotional destruction. Like, a swath of it in their wake and yeah. So, having, having once been, you know, ten years ago, you know the person that everyone was warning people not to date because, you know, I'm just crazy and, you know, did not handle it well and actually did cause a lot of drama and behaved in passive aggressive ways and kind of did a lot of processing out loud in public places. Inappropriate places. Like, you know, I really don't want that reputation to get reattached to me. [00:44:20]

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Like, it really is a tiny, tiny community.

THERAPIST: We should stop.

END TRANSCRIPT