TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: My anxiety is like super high. I had three closings yesterday.

THERAPIST: Zoiks.

CLIENT: Yeah. One of them I was having another attorney do. The first one I represented the seller who was turning around and buying a house downtown. They're selling here. I've been dealing with the daughter whose husband is a client of Jess's, a child support client who they still owe her money and whatnot.

THERAPIST: Were you representing them in both the sale and the buy?

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: So they were taking all the proceeds from the sale and buying cash.

THERAPIST: Gotcha.

CLIENT: Which can't be any easier. A seller rep —

[00:01:01]

THERAPIST: A seller rep is easy and buying with cash is easy, okay.

CLIENT: Like a week ago, I find out — like they tell us there's a title problem, so I agreed to fix that, but they hold back like $500 so that issue is resolved. Then I'm trying to get the information from my client to order the mortgage payoffs, and she delays and finally gets it to me. And they tell me I've got to fax it in and it's a two-day turnaround.

So I send her the sheet to sign for the authorization and she sends it right back to me, which I thought was a little odd because she has to get her parents to sign it. I fax it over at noon, basically on Wednesday, so two days would be at noon on Thursday — no, Tuesday I faxed it over.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Forty-eight hours would be —

THERAPIST: Noon yesterday.

CLIENT: — noon yesterday, with the closing being at 11 yesterday.

THERAPIST: Right.

[00:02:01]

CLIENT: Of course by the end of the day on Wednesday, no payoff.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So I was kind of anxious all day about this whole thing, and of course it just got worse at night. I woke up in the morning, I'm up at like 5:30 and the bank doesn't open until eight. So I finally called them at eight and I'm on the phone with them. They put me on hold, they put me on hold, they come back. They can't send me the payoff because the authorization I sent, the signatures don't match the signatures that they have. So I'm like oh my God, she must have forged —

THERAPIST: She signed for them or something.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, it turns out, because I saw them sign the deed, that they weren't forged.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Just that the wife — they're an old couple and the wife has just improved her handwriting.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And the husband has — his name [is Karl] and he signed the authorization [Karl], so it looks different.

[00:03:05]

But I've got to get them to call and send the payoff, and luckily they called and sent me the payoff at like 8:30.

THERAPIST: So you had the couple who had signed and they hadn't matched it actually call into the bank or something, and that worked well enough to get you the payoff in a couple of hours [in advance of closing].

CLIENT: Right, they just had to give all their information.

THERAPIST: Gotcha.

CLIENT: Like I think the daughter did it. She may have authorization with the bank, I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. But you had been —

CLIENT: It worked out, but I had just been going nuts, right.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And of course at the table they tell me that they left all this trash in the backyard. That they did the walk-through the night before and they figured the trash would be gone, so I had to break the news to them that there would still be trash there. So that was fine.

[00:04:06]

THERAPIST: To the buyer? You had to break the news to the buyer?

CLIENT: To the buyer, yeah. And now I've got to go down there, just a five-minute closing and then come back and cash checks because I need checks in the account because my third closing, which another attorney was doing for me — Phil was doing — the sellers are bringing money to the closing because they didn't have enough in the sale price.

There was a short sale [that got the bank involved] and it's FHA which means if they don't get it by the first of the month, the payoff, it's an extra month's interest. Well the first of the month is Saturday, so they've got to get it today. And of course there's a problem with the husband bringing his money and unless my deposits from yesterday cleared today, I don't have enough money in my account to send the wire out.

[00:05:04]

I'm supposed to meet up with this guy at some point to get the money from him, hoping I can get the wire and get it out. So I'm like all anxious about getting the money from this guy. And I logged into my account this morning and all my deposits are gone. It's just showing as if they were never made.

THERAPIST: Whoa.

CLIENT: And luckily just as I came in here, I started having trouble accessing my account. So it's about 8:30 and the tech guys are probably getting in and are hopefully fixing this problem and that's what it is, just a problem. But it's just like I can't handle this one thing after another that just, you know, they ultimately get resolved. You know, nothing major has been screwed up other than this guy not bringing his money to closing. (pause)

[00:06:04]

It's just the waiting, you know, the time period. I mean, I first checked it last night at like 1:30 and I checked it again at 5:30 this morning and my deposits are gone.

THERAPIST: Yeah, boy, you're really keyed up.

CLIENT: (chuckles) Yeah, I'm like nauseous.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: I'm leaving town tomorrow and I've got all these things I need to do today. I've got to play with Lucille because Lucille gets sad when I leave, but while I'm there she's all conflicted about playing with me. So Jess thinks I just need to spend more time with her. Of course, she wanted me to do it yesterday but, you know, there was no time. I had to get all this stuff out. One of the things I was thinking is that I got to the bank too late, then my deposits were too late, you know, to account for the same day.

[00:07:05]

But hopefully that's not the case. Either way I've got — I don't know. It's fucked up. It's just fucked up. I'm going to have to beg.

THERAPIST: Hmmm?

CLIENT: I'm going to have to beg to get them to override —

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: — if things don't fall into place like they're supposed to. If things fall into place like they're supposed to, it shouldn't be a problem.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And last time I logged in, I couldn't pull up my accounts.

THERAPIST: Great.

CLIENT: It's just got me — I mean, it's just one thing after another. Oh, and so they're calling me about this closing up North where I represent the buyer and that they haven't moved all their stuff out yet.

THERAPIST: Was that the third closing?

CLIENT: That was the third closing, yeah.

THERAPIST: That's not the trash in the yard, [that was the earlier one]. But this is —

CLIENT: Right, this is a separate issue, you know.

[00:08:04]

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah.

CLIENT: So it's like — yeah, nothing is happening so they're working on it. That's all I can hope that that's what's happening.

THERAPIST: Yeah. So this feels, I guess, potentially catastrophic —

CLIENT: (chuckles)

THERAPIST: — for you. Not quite like the world could come to an end, but something along those lines.

CLIENT: That's the way it feels, yeah. I'm catastrophizing. Am I? Is that the right — catastrophizing?

THERAPIST: That's the right word, but I guess I'm not looking at it so much in terms of that kind of a label but more in terms of wondering what's gotten [to you] in that way, you know?

[00:09:21]

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know if it's because I'm going on a trip and I'm just super anxious about that, you know. I don't know, but it just — all week I've been finding reasons to be nervous about these closings, you know, that they wouldn't happen. I'm still nervous that something is going to go wrong with this third closing where I'm waiting for the check, beyond just having there be enough money for the wire. (pause) I've just got this kind of "what else could go wrong?" attitude, you know.

[00:10:21]

THERAPIST: Well, is it like this? So, you're in a lot of debt, you got really depressed, you really couldn't work for a while, declared bankruptcy, [business is in debt] and then really slow for a while.

CLIENT: You know how to cheer a guy up.

THERAPIST: (chuckles) And now things are picking up a bit, and now you're kind of starting to get back on your feet really, and things are kind of more financially viable than they have been in a while, in a long time I think.

[00:11:15]

But you're not that long out of the abyss and I imagine feel like you could fall back in very easily and that would, you know, bring with it all kinds of stress, certainly. It's so stressful having no money coming in and no work or not much work and, you know, shame. It feels like shit. I wonder if that's what you're so scared of. You feel like a little slip could put you, like you could fall back in.

[00:12:09]

CLIENT: Yeah. I got an e-mail from my landlord. I asked him for an accounting of how much I owed. He's still like I owe five months and I just don't —

THERAPIST: Is this home?

CLIENT: Yeah, and this makes no sense to me. It's like I thought I had been catching up. I thought I was maybe two or three months behind at the most. Now I've got to go through my records and it's just — (pause) I made enough money from yesterday to make an extra payment and still pay for my car. (pause)

[00:13:13]

THERAPIST: So I guess in the way I'm hearing your response as letting me know that you still are kind of in the whole more than you realize.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like I thought I would get this big settlement, and this would solve all my problems, and I'd be caught up and I'd have extra money. The reality is that I don't, you know. Yeah, it caught me up a lot, but I had $5,000 between legal bills and accounting bills. That was more than half the settlement right there.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And Jess, we each put in 500 bucks and then I kick in 2500 bucks. And she doesn't even know about the CPA and how much that costs and who is paying for that.

[00:14:16]

It's like push comes to shove, it will all come out in the wash about what I have paid, you know. Then she complained about the bill being 1000 bucks but it's two bills. One of the bills she saw was like 1000 bucks and it's like "You know, you charge people money for what you do. You can't complain when people charge money for what they do. You want someone to do your taxes. They're not easy. They're complicated. We have a business and two rental properties."

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: And one of the women who works there who works on the taxes referred her daughter to me for a closing.

THERAPIST: That's great.

[00:15:12]

CLIENT: So, you know, it all comes out in the wash. Break-even there. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: Right. (pause)

CLIENT: It's like these people have my contact information, but I don't have their contact information to get in touch with this seller who is supposed to bring the money. He and his wife are divorced so they are each bringing half. She brought her half, he didn't bring his half. I've got to drive up to Phil's office and get the file because I'm not even going to be in the office until close to 11:00.

[00:16:11]

Looks like I'm going to be up working tonight after I play with Lucille. I've got to pack. I've got to get up at three in the morning. My flight is at 5:30. I've got to be at Jess's at 4:15. (pause) Three-thirty. If everything is ready, I can just go.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:16:54) can you crash at Jess's?

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: I said it's (inaudible at 00:17:00) would it help to crash at Jess's?

CLIENT: I could ask. But I need to get work done tonight at home, so it's like —

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause)

[00:17:18]

CLIENT: Ian (sp?) has already asked several times if I could sleep over. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: I see. Yeah, you don't want to make it [fuzzy] for him. Sure.

CLIENT: Though he tells everyone he has two homes. (pause) Oh, God. (pause) I just can't wait to get on that plane and then everything kind of goes away, you know?

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: I may have to do some work down in Louisiana, but [I have to go help mom] to buy a computer. That sucks.

[00:18:20]

Tried to get her to buy it before I came down, but — (pause) There's always something she wants me to do. Hook up the VCR, hook up the DVR, hook up the cable box, hook up this TV, move this, move that, buy me a computer. She's so helpful. I never really saw her that way until Jess pointed it out. (chuckles) I was like "Yeah, you know, you're kind of right." (pause) Am I helpless?

THERAPIST: What was your thought?

CLIENT: Am I helpless?

THERAPIST: No, I heard that. But why do you imagine you are?

CLIENT: Well, I'm wondering if I inherited that from my mom. Helplessness.

[00:19:18]

THERAPIST: Do you feel helpless?

CLIENT: Sort of. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: How so?

CLIENT: Just that, you know, I feel like I just keep getting smacked upside the head and there's nothing I can do about it.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: You know, nothing is going right. (pause) Nothing can all fall into place smooth and easy, you know. I've got to constantly —

THERAPIST: Okay, I guess to me, it sounds like —

CLIENT: — worry and —

THERAPIST: — the opposite from sort of the [compliment] or whatever.

CLIENT: Well, that's your job.

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: To spin things in a positive light, though you did spend about five minutes — (chuckles)

THERAPIST: (chuckles)

CLIENT: — recounting my glorious past.

[00:20:15]

THERAPIST: Huh. Does that feel like my job, to spin things in a positive way?

CLIENT: To me? It feels like one of your — you know, like maybe if I'm being too hard on myself, you know, you would point out something positive, like you're doing right now. That's not your sole job.

THERAPIST: I see. Huh.

CLIENT: [It won't lock in]. Do you get good reception in here? Who do you have for your service?

THERAPIST: Funny you should ask. I was just going to switch, I think today, from AT&T to Verizon because of the service in here. Do you have AT&T?

CLIENT: I have Sprint.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: But the accounts are still fucked up. (pause)

[00:21:25]

THERAPIST: What seems to fit more for me is that it's like you're taking care of your mother than it's like you are your mother. You're not describing being helpless. You're describing things not going smoothly, but you're describing having to run all over the place —

CLIENT: Well, it's maybe like feeling helpless but there's no one there to help me, you know.

THERAPIST: It seems to me more like —

CLIENT: [But Phil was there to help me].

THERAPIST: — taking care of, doing things the same way you would if you took care of her. I mean, going to get her the computer and to sort all that out. It sounds kind of like something you have to do for work. Do you know what I'm saying? More so than it sounds like you're just kind of passively asking and expecting other people to do for you.

[00:22:21]

It seems more like you're kind of frustratingly and very worriedly running around to take care of things other people aren't doing right. The bank didn't fucking get the checks in there. They're not displaying your goddamn account. They haven't got whatever the problem is fixed. This guy didn't bring that to the closing. The other people didn't, you know, get the signatures right on the signatory page. The woman didn't get it back to you late. The bank didn't get you that form until 47 hours before the closing. Actually, what you're describing is taking on everybody else's mistakes. I know you have some responsibility for those, and it doesn't work out well for you if those don't get taken care of.

[00:23:14]

But the more I describe it, the more I'm kind of confident actually that it sounds much more like the situation of you taking care of a very worried, not very capable in some sense, mother than like your being her.

CLIENT: I was just wondering, you know. (pause) Why can't anyone else do their fucking job? (pause) [It's really stressful].

THERAPIST: I guess part of what seems important in this to me is, possibly, is that you pretty seamlessly take it on. (pause)

[00:24:40]

It's never clear to me what the realities are on this in your work, but you experience all these things that other people are doing wrong or are screwing up as very much your problem.

CLIENT: It becomes my problem, you know.

THERAPIST: Right, and I guess I'm not sure if that is entirely — (pause) I know it's a buck-stops-here kind of thing where, you know, it doesn't matter that the bank fucked up or the client fucked up or the other party fucked up.

[00:25:32]

You know, if it doesn't go well, it's your fault. I can imagine there are some jobs where it's just kind of like that. The buck stops with you, and your job is somehow magically to make sure everybody else, over whom you have very little control, does exactly what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it. And that's how you describe it. I guess, clearly putting it that way, I'm a little skeptical and I wonder about your probably mostly unconsciously feeling very responsible in ways that you may not actually be.

[00:26:25]

And if I'm really going to run with this, my next thought is I wonder if that started with you and your mother. You know, if her difficulty doing different sorts of things and her kind of helplessness and anxiety and your trying to sort of take care of her and do things for her and make things better for her are kind of the prototype for this. (pause)

CLIENT: I do feel responsible for this FHA payoff.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

[00:27:22]

CLIENT: It's like if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. It's not my responsibility. But I still feel like, you know, if it doesn't happen then I have to deal with this getting on record Monday, and then I've got to deal with getting extra money from them for the payoff. It's just —

THERAPIST: So I guess there are sort of additional logistics and some headaches. Then again, it's hard for me not knowing the realities, but I'm suspicious about whether that — (pause) I mean, you're really anxious. You haven't slept — like you didn't sleep well the other night, you were up at 5:30, you know, really worried.

[00:28:18]

It doesn't quite add up to me — I know (inaudible) — but it doesn't quite add up to me that that's because otherwise you might have two or three hours of extra work. You know what I mean? The degree of anxiety seems to be a little out of proportion to those real consequences, I think.

CLIENT: Yeah, it seems out of proportion to me too.

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah. I'm not saying a few more hours of work isn't a pain in the ass, especially when you have to do everything remotely. I get that. It just doesn't seem as dire as it sounds like this all feels in the throes of it. (pause)

[00:29:31]

CLIENT: It's like I don't even have this realtor's information. (long pause) Yeah, there he is. If he checks his e-mail, I don't know. (long pause)

[00:32:38]

I'm also worried — I had to renew my Klonopin before I left which means I had to call Micah and then call them back and do whatever, and I know it's not going to get done. I really just can't deal with it.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I'm tired of every time I have to renew a prescription when she told me was the way to do it, I still have to end up making extra phone calls. (pause) On a day like today, it's the last thing I want to deal with. It's like I've got to call the bank.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I can wait until I get into the bank, at the branch, but I've got to call and find out what's going on, you know, to know exactly what I'm up against. (pause)

[00:33:55]

I mean, I just can't imagine that stuff just disappearing. There's got to be some — I made the deposits yesterday. They should at least show up in the account, you know.

THERAPIST: Right, like I know if I deposit a check in my checking account, if I look later that day, even if I deposited it at an ATM, the funds may not be available but it will show that I made the deposit.

CLIENT: Well, I've already — yesterday when I checked, it was there.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Since one was a transfer from one of my accounts to another, it already showed the funds as available.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: And some things that came in, like the wire that came in yesterday is showing. But it's these late-day deposits.

THERAPIST: And they're not showing up at all at this point?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Although you can access your account.

[00:34:52]

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) So I've got to call them. What the hay. This is ridiculous. And that's part of kind of what it feels like, like I can't do all these extra little things.

THERAPIST: Well, it seems like (pause) there's (long pause) -

[00:36:11]

There's something about your feeling like you don't have a resource that's supposed to be there.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don't have an assistant. That's what I need. (pause) Then what would I do? (pause)

THERAPIST: I think you feel like the other person really isn't there, in some important way, actually.

CLIENT: Which other person?

THERAPIST: Whichever other person is involved in the transaction, whether it's the bank that just eats your deposit or the client who doesn't do what they're supposed to do.

[00:37:14]

I think you have this experience where every person feels profoundly limited or insubstantial.

CLIENT: Who is limited and insubstantial?

THERAPIST: The other person.

CLIENT: The other person, okay. My mind is just whirling. (long pause)

[00:40:55]

I just can't stop thinking about the money (inaudible) and the missing deposits.

THERAPIST: What are you thinking specifically?

CLIENT: Just what could be going on, you know.

THERAPIST: All the things that could have happened?

CLIENT: Yeah, like why they're not crediting it to me, that this is actually the way that it's going to be, that I'm going to have to put some money into the account to send the wire out.

THERAPIST: Like how much money are we talking about?

CLIENT: $259,000. There's 259 in the account, but I'm about 600 short of the payoff amount. But I had deposited a check yesterday. One of them was $2100 which comes from that account.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So that's supposed to clear the same day which should have been yesterday. If it didn't clear yesterday, it's going to clear today, and there's not going to be available money in the account because I've wired it all out which would bounce and put me back in front of the Board of Bar Overseers who I've got to explain to once again, and I'm fucked because I don't — you know. Just —

[00:42:11]

THERAPIST: But you're short 600 bucks?

CLIENT: No. It's that there will be no available money because I've wired out all the available money, that this check I wrote between accounts will bounce.

THERAPIST: I'm sorry, I'm a little — how much was that for?

CLIENT: $2100.

THERAPIST: Okay, so if you had $2100 cash in your pocket, it would make the problem go away.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Which actually you don't (inaudible).

[00:43:05]

We should stop.

CLIENT: Wish me luck. I'm not going to be here Tuesday.

THERAPIST: Right. Talk to you on Friday. Actually I have — are you back on Wednesday? I have time —

CLIENT: No, I'm coming in late on Wednesday.

THERAPIST: Alright, then I'll just see you on Friday.

END TRANSCRIPT