TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I stepped in a puddle getting into my car.

THERAPIST: Oh, no.

CLIENT: It's like, "Why didn't you wear your boots today?" So I've been doing okay.

THERAPIST: Good.

CLIENT: I'm just having kind of a weird day. I was going back and forth between feeling really good and positive to the middle of the day where I just felt really down and sad. I went back and forth. I don't know if it's as I'm thinking about work and things are cropping up. I don't know. [00:00:59] Micah calls me in the morning to reschedule the appointment from Friday. She was like, "How are you doing? " I was like, "I feel great." I went to the registry and was in and out in five minutes.

THERAPIST: Whoa.

CLIENT: Yeah. We all know what was there. (laughs) I get to the office and I didn't quite do everything I wanted to do, but there was just a point where I was going to Staples to do a file and I felt really down. But on the way home I perked up again. I went over and saw the kids. Ian just doesn't listen to you anymore. "Don't do that," and he just laughs at you. He's driving Jess crazy. The interaction between the two of them is driving me crazy. So I go over there and Lucille is playing on her little computer asking me, "What's this? What's this? What's this?" It was Ian's computer and he's watching TV. It's just "Arggh." Then when I left I was like, "Now I've got to do work." I said, "I'm going to get some Chinese food." I didn't do the work. I kind of have a client meeting. [00:02:28]

THERAPIST: Sorry. Which day was this?

CLIENT: This was yesterday. Last night. I was exhausted most of the day, but still stayed up until 1:00 in the morning. There was a two-part episode of Criminal Minds on ION, so if you watch the first part at 11:00 you've got to watch the second part as well. I watched one at 10:00, too, so I saw three straight. I don't know why I'm kind of obsessed with that show now. [00:03:05]

THERAPIST: What's it about?

CLIENT: It's about the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. These are the top criminal profilers in the country. They don't really try and solve the crime by the crime scene. They use the crime scene and how the body was positioned and get all these different things to set up a profile.

THERAPIST: Like a psychological profile?

CLIENT: Right. And they use that psychological profile to catch the person or find the person. Some of the episodes are just really done well. The first one – I actually think I saw it before when I didn't know what the show was about. Keith Carradine played this serial killer and he was just an awesome... [00:04:06]

THERAPIST: Who is Keith Carradine?

CLIENT: The Carradine brothers are actors, famous actors. One really famous Carradine...

THERAPIST: There's David Carradine.

CLIENT: Yeah, he's the Kung Fu guy. This is his brother, Keith. There was an excellent movie, if you like westerns, The Long Riders. It's a bit violent, but it's the story of Jesse James. It's the James brothers, which is Stacy Keach and his brother, who plays Jesse James. The Youngers, which I think is the Carradine brothers, and then there was another set of famous brothers. This gang was actually real brothers, and it was a great, great movie. A little long, but it was a great movie, really well done. Like my all-time favorite western. But he was great. Mandy Patinkin was on the show for the first couple of years, and he's the best. He's awesome. This was an episode with him. The last six seasons he hasn't been on. [00:05:20]

THERAPIST: "My name is Inigo Montoya."

CLIENT: (laughs) Princess Bride?

THERAPIST: Yeah. That was him, right?

CLIENT: Yeah. He and Carradine are sitting at a table at a diner and Carradine is telling him, "I'm going to get out of here. When I finish my strawberry shake, I'm leaving." But he's interested in how they found him, so they tell the story in flashbacks. [00:05:49]

THERAPIST: Right. Patinkin works for the FBI? Carradine is the serial killer? There sitting in a diner.

CLIENT: Right. The local sheriff's department is all outside wanting to go in and kill the guy because he's captured the sheriff and he's like, "I'm walking out of here when I'm done with my strawberry shake." "You ain't going anywhere." He actually does walk out of there and goes free. It's really well done. The two of them – just two great actors – they keep showing close-ups of their faces and just the little tics and facial expressions were really well done. [00:06:30] So I don't know why I like it. I don't know if it's just the analyzing crazy people thing. They all have demons. There's this one guy who's a genius whose photographic memory knows all the statistics – everything, you know? He was captured in the two-part series. There was a guy with multiple personalities. The son that was trying to help him was injecting him with dilaudid or some opiate to calm him and, again, after he kills the guy they all show up and he's like, "Can I just have a moment alone?" They're like, "Sure," and they walk off. Then he goes back to the guy and he pulls the little vials out of his pocket, suggesting that he does drugs. [00:07:33]

THERAPIST: So the dad with multiple personality disorder is a killer?

CLIENT: He's the son who kills his dad so he continues being his dad, so he's three people. He's an archangel, Rafael; his dad; and then himself. He's a tech-service support guy and so he goes into people's computers remotely and turns on their web cam. When they sin, he goes and kills them. It's one of these biblical things or whatever. He just happened to catch Reed. He tortured him for a while and at the end they were going to shoot him. The FBI came. They had the camera. They gave the camera of him to the FBI. He was giving little clues. Interestingly enough, he goes and takes the two vials of dilaudid at the very end. [00:08:45]

THERAPIST: I get it.

CLIENT: Yeah, he needed a moment alone to grab the drugs. Pretty interesting. They all have some kind of demon, you know. Something's happened in their past. Somebody gets murdered and later – good show. I watch it an awful lot because it's on ION all night long. There's nothing but crap on TV. This morning didn't stress me out too much. I get frustrated with people who mark their parking spots. There's a woman who's doing it right outside our house. She's got a fricking Subaru. You can't pull into any spot, you know? Now it's clean, but the spot wasn't completely clean. I understand someone who's gone and made a spot immaculate. If I come home tonight and that spot is there, I'm going to park there and put a little note on her chair that I know her car and I know who she is and if she touches my car – I know who you are. I'll make it mine. But there will be spots. I'm just saying – I won't do something like that. It's not good to get into conflicts with people like that. I shun conflict. The town has no school until Thursday. They've announced no school through Wednesday. They haven't announced school on Thursday. [00:10:38]

THERAPIST: Oh, my gosh. Why?

CLIENT: Number one: They use the school parking lots as emergency parking and they've just done such a horrible job of clearing the streets, so they've kept the parking ban on. Jess says it's because they've got to clean up the school parking lots, but I think it's just that they still have a parking ban so they've got to use the parking lots. There are going to be a lot of hell raised after this and I don't want to be the mayor. They did a poor job. Where the cars park it's actually kind of a little in-cut, so they're not right out there. There's a bike lane and then there's a regular lane. A snow bank four-foot high from the plows goes all the way out into the lane and leaves about that much room between the yellow line and the snow bank. So these cars are in there for good. You would think, because this is a major artery in town – there are not many of them. This is it. You would think that this would be their first priority. Get the main streets cleared and then worry about the side streets. It's just a mess. Then the rain comes and... [00:12:08] I've just been making an effort to get home in time to get a parking spot and just walk over to see the kids. We're filing a financial aid. Jess wants Ian to go to this private school, so we both have to do an application. She wants to go over the application together so we're on the same page and are consistent. She wants to do it Thursday. I'm going to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters on Thursday. I'm by myself. It's Valentine's Day. Why should I take someone, not that there's anyone to take. So I was like, "Can we do it Wednesday?" Now I'm thinking she probably thinks maybe I have a date or something for Valentine's Day. It was really weird because I brought the tax forms. She has trouble understanding that the partnership file has its own tax return but doesn't pay any taxes. They issue a K1, which we file with our personal tax returns, and that shows our income. She's upset because it splits 50-50. They're looking at us together. They're not going to say, "Oh, you made less money, but he made more money so we're going to give you financial aid. We're married. I don't think they care that we're separated. We're paying the taxes half and half which, actually, we're not because she doesn't pay for the state tax; so I pay an extra $120 every quarter. It's not like we're keeping track of every penny. She spends for day care and all of that. [00:14:03]

THERAPIST: Right. You just kind of work it out.

CLIENT: I dropped $5,000 on the attorney and our CPA, snowboarding lessons. I'm going to pay for half of camp. With what money, I don't know. I do have some loan funding this week, but most of that's spent. That struggle is going to come up eventually. I've got a meeting with a client today on a landlord/tenant security deposit; and it's just one of these classic Cameron-is-not-competent...

THERAPIST: Is this the one that you were mentioning on Friday where it's a slam-dunk – but you're nervous anyway?

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm like, "What is going on here?" He doesn't even address the fact that it wasn't kept in a state bank account; and that's a big one. Segregated funds in a state bank account. If you don't do that, it's automatic treble damages, automatic reasonable attorney's fees – no ifs, ands or buts. And you can't do any counter-claims, because they filed counter claims; some of which weren't even valid. You can't subtract maintenance from a security deposit. They claimed some damages. But the way to cure that is on demand, you return the security deposit. Well, they sent a demand, certified mail, as the lease says "notices are to be certified mail to the address on the front." [00:15:51] They followed that and they never picked it up. Even if they say, "Well, I was out of town," whatever excuse they can come up with for not picking it up, the filing of the lawsuit is considered a demand and, once again, you should immediately return the security deposit. He's offered to return the rest of the security deposit, but they haven't returned it. Making the offer to do something is not the same as doing it. So, even if for some reason they don't find that the original demand was valid, the filing of the lawsuit was a valid demand. I'm going through every little piece here and reading the statute over and I've got a book this thick on tenant's rights and a bench memo from the housing court judge and I'm just like (sighs). [00:16:46] The guy has no landlord/tenant – he's got dozens of continuing legal education things and nothing on his website says landlord/tenant. You'd think he'd pick up a damned statute and read it. Google it. You can just Google it and there's a ton of stuff out there. It's on the Attorney General website – being a landlord. He gave us a check from what they deducted; the remainder of the security deposit that they did return was from a bank out of state, the account from the landlord. [00:17:23]

THERAPIST: Right. So you won it five times over. The question is why you're so anxious, right?

CLIENT: Right. And he doesn't even address the bank account in his answer. He addresses the fact that he didn't sign, he didn't give a list of damages, and you've got to sign it under the pains and penalties of perjury. He didn't do that. He thinks that's a technical violation, which I don't know if not subjecting yourself for criminal prosecution for lying is a technical violation. If you sign something under pains and penalties of perjury and there's a material fact in there that you lie on, you can go to jail. I'm going to tell my client. I'm like, "If something's too good to be true, it can be." I don't know if I should tell my client. [00:18:34]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I do this on everything.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you generally feel like somehow you fuck up. Whatever is going on, whatever the reality is, that you kind of fucked it up.

CLIENT: I think a lot of my anxiety comes from this kind of stuff.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And I think you sort of maintain this sense of yourself as a kind of slacker and somebody who fucks things up and – I can't quite find the word I'm looking for – if there's a mistake somewhere, you probably made it. You were the slacker. You didn't do what you were supposed to do. You weren't responsible in some way. I think you just generally kind of walk around with that. Even to the extent when you know full well in your head that that's not what's going on, you feel that way anyway. [00:20:22]

CLIENT: (pause) Yeah.

THERAPIST: I think it makes you pretty anxious to actually take yourself seriously.

CLIENT: I do it with non-work-related stuff, too. I do it with getting to things on time or...

THERAPIST: [...] (crosstalk at 00:20:51) as well.

CLIENT: All this time I've never knew this thing went back. Sorry, go on.

THERAPIST: Hunh.

CLIENT: I do this with Jess as well.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking about the possible significance of your not having noticed that the chair goes back, even though I'm sitting here like this and do all the time.

CLIENT: Can you see the felt on the back of my collar?

THERAPIST: Very slightly under the collar. Not unless I was paying attention.

CLIENT: This suit is so old it's starting to fall apart. I never wear it, but I'm like – you know. It had to get in the rotation. I put some double-sided tape back there to hold it.

THERAPIST: I think that projection is exactly the sort of thing we're talking about, because I think that suit looks fine. [00:22:08] I think it makes you feel really anxious and really responsible when you take yourself and your points seriously. That was true with Jess often, and you always felt like she was winning. It didn't matter if she was arguing that 2 + 2 was 5, you kind of felt in a way that she was right. Even if she wasn't right, it didn't really matter because she was right. I think it makes you anxious to take what you know or your point of view or your competence seriously. [00:23:02]

CLIENT: What pill is there for that?

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: (pause) So you know I've mentioned the counselor in the E&G (ph?) group, and it's like sometimes she looks attractive and sometimes she doesn't. [...] (inaudible at 00:23:32) She's leaving the group.

THERAPIST: This is not the auto-body woman, who is also attractive and is also leaving?

CLIENT: Yes. The counselor is single, but she lives in the suburbs and I think you mentioned, "What's the big deal about living in the suburbs?" I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I don't know if that's because she was leaving or we were losing another member; because we're kind of, once again, in that spot where they may shut the chapter down.

THERAPIST: Right. [...] (inaudible at 00:24:13)

CLIENT: I really didn't get a chance to say good-bye to her, so I sent her a note on Facebook. I've read it several times, thanking her for – she does the educational moments, and they were good. She gives good health tips that, if I ever get my act together – you know. And then I threw in there that I was going to miss her and her lovely smile. I read it several times. I keep thinking it's creepy, but it doesn't seem creepy to me; but she's not responded. She read it Saturday afternoon. It tells you when people read it. I just thought that was odd that I haven't gotten a response back. :Oh, thanks for getting me $20,000 back from my landlord. Blah, blah, blah." She's having a party in a couple of weeks at her office for E&G, even though she's leaving the group and I don't want to go now. First of all, it's the suburbs. Having a couple of drinks and then driving home... Once again, I'm just – why no response? The only thing I can come up with is that I creeped her out in some way. I mean, when someone sends you a message, you respond to it. (pause) [00:26:16] Initially I was expecting, "Can I make you dinner and have sex with you?"

THERAPIST: Right. Naturally.

CLIENT: But that didn't happen. Nothing's happened. That makes me think she's interpreted it in an uncomfortable way.

THERAPIST: I get it, but you're sure you've creeped her out. You're sure that means that you've fucked up, and that, therefore, you'd be ashamed to go to her office because she rightly has found you creepy or justifiably has found you creepy. (pause) I don't know. It doesn't sound creepy from what you're describing. [00:27:43]

CLIENT: I thought about what I was going to say. I didn't just fire something off. I wasn't drunk.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and it's one line like that when she's leaving the group.

CLIENT: It was a complement. Ian and I are playing this game on the iPhone. The way that you get extra money to buy players and all these cards and stuff like that is you can go and watch videos of games and then have a chance to download the game or you can go to websites. It gives you all these opportunities through co-marketing to get money. One of the things was to sign up for this free dating website called Zoosk. I did a quick profile. I didn't upload a picture, and the first flirt that I got was from some morbidly-obese woman. This morning I got one from this woman which I think is, once again, way the fuck out there, maybe it's in the County or something. Her picture is like she would be attractive, but she's trying to look sexy and it just isn't coming across. [00:29:07]

THERAPIST: Not working.

CLIENT: (laughs) I didn't read the message from the fat chick – not that I'm one to... but I'm not Jabba the Hut. But it was something like, "Oh, I just dropped something. It's my jaw." I'm like – my picture is not on the website. (both laugh) I don't want to say, "Do you say this to all the guys who don't have pictures on the website." I've got to get off that website. It's kind of funny, though. I'm entertained by it to some degree. I've got my name, where I live and all. (pause) [00:30:09] Something that I kind of thought defined Jess and what her main problem is – one of the libertarian things that I follow on Facebook had a cartoon of three soldiers. The first one was a woman carrying a gun. They're combat soldiers. She says, "I hope that I'm not distracting to you." The second soldier says, "Don't worry. We're married." And the third soldier says, "To each other." So here it is, women in combat, gays in the military – whatever you think of the military, this, to me, is a positive thing. I shared it and I said, "What a country." Jess was completely offended by the whole thing because it's military. She's anti-military. [00:31:03]

THERAPIST: What does that mean? We shouldn't have one?

CLIENT: Anything military. It's like she just gets so negative on things that she can't see through and – you know. I mean I don't think we should be in wars. This is a libertarian website that things we should cut back on defense and get out of all of these countries.

THERAPIST: Right. The point was in part about the military; but in part just about...

CLIENT: The advancement the country is making in equality. [00:31:41]

THERAPIST: Yeah. For us it's social values. So you're saying the point it makes about who she is, is that she's so focused on what she's focused on, that she couldn't get the point, couldn't just laugh and enjoy or appreciate it or see what you're trying to say.

CLIENT: It's like an inherent negativity in her. She's being awful nice to me, though, which I don't know if it's because I'm [...] (inaudible at 00:32:31) and coming over and spending time with the kids. I come to the door and Lucille is not crying. She's like, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy." She made me leave the other night. She was like, "Go home." She wanted to go to bed. She was like, "Go home, daddy. Go home." I don't know. She gets upset when I want to leave. [00:32:55]

THERAPIST: She's being nice to you probably because you're kind of like being helpful and there with the kids and nice to her?

CLIENT: I'm not being mean to her. (pause) I don't know what to make of this Adderall thing. I see benefits from it, but I'm wondering if I should be seeing more benefit from it. Like yesterday was kind of a low-motivation day, you know? I went into the office. I left because I wanted to get a parking space.

THERAPIST: You take your weekends off the Adderall?

CLIENT: I'm trying to, but I was like, "Well, for shoveling I probably should take one to get off my ass and go shovel," so I took one on Saturday. I don't think I took one on Sunday.

THERAPIST: You started pretty recently so I can't imagine you'd be desensitizing yet, but you may want to check with Micah about how often to take holidays so that you don't upset the balance.

CLIENT: I took it out West, too, because of the time change and everything like that. And then when I'm [burning down an objective with PCP.] (ph?) [00:35:03]

THERAPIST: What about that?

CLIENT: I was just thinking that a guy on Criminal Minds became a drug addict because his dad beat him, burned a cross in his head...

THERAPIST: This is not one of the FBI agents?

CLIENT: No, this is the serial killer. They talked to his Narcotics Anonymous buddy and he was saying how he would take dilaudid and mix it with a psychedelic; just get as far away from reality as he could. That's where that came from. I don't inject myself with medication or drugs.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I get that. I kind of knew you were kidding.

CLIENT: I don't even know where one would get PCP. They probably don't even call it PCP any more.

THERAPIST: Target?

CLIENT: Target. What aisle? (both chuckle) [00:36:11]

THERAPIST: I think the Adderall is helping significantly.

CLIENT: I was worried because last night with all the noise and the kids and Jess, it's been two nights that just haven't gotten to me.

THERAPIST: Even with Adderall there's still real life. I guess what I feel like I don't understand is that Ian is driving Jess crazy, the two of them are driving you crazy, Lucille, as two year olds do, is wanting your attention every three seconds...

CLIENT: "What's this? What's this? What's this?"

THERAPIST: Yeah and that sort of thing – well, of course, you've had enough after however long. It feels like the Adderall should be doing more for that or you should be more patient or resilient to it? [00:37:08]

CLIENT: I don't know. I just feel like, with all the medication I'm on, it just felt like I'm letting so much stuff go, especially with the storm and people being assholes. There is a lot of stuff that bothers me in these storms – people who won't walk on the sidewalk, you know? I'd much rather slip and fall on the sidewalk than get hit by a car. That's my preference. It freaks me out when I'm driving and there are people walking in the street. Who knows when the car all of a sudden could skid, you slam on the brakes and the car skids? People are marking their spots and that kind of gets to me a little bit, but I'm not as angry as I used to get over it. I guess maybe it's just too much. [00:38:02]

THERAPIST: Yeah, maybe it is too much.

CLIENT: I literally wanted to get up and leave. I was downstairs looking for a file. I was very frustrated because I was hot and sweaty. I just walked over in my heavy jacket, which I shouldn't have worn; and couldn't find the file I was looking for, and was just very frustrated. When I leave, Ian doesn't say he doesn't want me to go, but it's clear he's bothered by me leaving. Extra hugs. [00:38:55]

THERAPIST: Are you feeling sad or guilty that you didn't want to stay longer or felt so much like...

CLIENT: I stayed, but eventually I left. I actually started feeling sick a little bit, but then I went and got Chinese food, which I didn't eat all of it, most of it. I don't know. (pause) I don't know if I'm expecting too much because I have seen improvement, but I want more. At the same time, I don't want to go tell Micah this stuff because I don't want her to stop weaning me off Wellbutrin. I just don't see any point in me taking that, especially with the Adderall and the Prozac. (pause) I just feel like I'm going back and forth a lot. I want to be more level, you know? Things have definitely improved. [00:41:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess it sounds though like you're kind of getting used to like a bit of a bumpy ride, figuring out what's going to be better and what isn't. How do you feel better one minute and then feel shitty the next? What's going to throw you and what isn't: the traffic – not so much, but being with the family for a little while did.

CLIENT: I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden I was sad yesterday at the office. I don't know if it's just lack of talking to people and...

THERAPIST: Well we have to stop for now, but that's the sort of thing you can try to figure out, what was happening, what was going on in your mind. It's not unusual for somebody to have a change – even an intense change – in how they feel. It's because of something that's going on kind of in the back of their mind or is related to something they're upset about, but isn't front and center as they're going about their day.

CLIENT: Because Doctor Grace won't respond to my message. Is that it?

THERAPIST: I don't know. Maybe.

CLIENT: Friday.

THERAPIST: Sorry, again, that I was late.

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