TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: You should tint your windows.

THERAPIST: The thing is, you know, winter or darker out, it's nice to have the light, it's very seasonal, and also it relates to the time of day.

CLIENT: So, I'm exhausted. I've been taking the Klonopin, went and saw Dr. Micah, or Micah, and you know, she agreed with Dr. [Huntsman?] that I should go back on the Prozac. She took me off the Ativan and put me on the Klonopin and said, take one before you go to bed. I have trouble getting up in the morning. I think I might have taken another one this morning. I just can barely keep my eyes open. No anxiety though. I don't know what's worse.

[Pause: 00:01:09 to 00:01:45]

CLIENT: I pretty much started feeling better after I met with her. I think I was pretty anxious about meeting with her but it's been okay. Yesterday, I got a call for a same day turnaround on a final exam.

THERAPIST: (inaudible)?

CLIENT: Yeah. I was talking to my buddy Phil and I was like, yeah, you know, Kim seems to be his volumes are down. It's like no, he's just had a title, and I'm like don't say that. And then he calls me with this rush, one day turnaround, and it took me almost four hours to do this thing. It was not it wasn't difficult, but there were thirteen deeds in the chain of title, two of them being foreclosures. So it's just all this little extra stuff you've got to look at.

THERAPIST: I see. [00:02:45]

CLIENT: Nothing, you know, it's just time consuming. So, that blew up my whole day, blew up and I, I'm trying to get the work done I was supposed to get done yesterday. I wanted to work on something, and I left that in Pembroke. We've got a meeting with the bank at like eight-thirty on Monday, my suit is at the drycleaners in Pembroke, and I don't want to go to Pembroke today for a file which I could probably work (yawns) could work on Monday, but I really want my suit for my coffee on Monday. I don't know what time the drycleaner opens. I think they open at like seven, like I can shoot into Pembroke, get my change in the office. Then again, if I plan that and I show up and they're not open. I guess I could call them. [00:04:03]

Have you said a word other than talking about the sunlight? Now you're trying not to say anything. (pause) Oh, yeah, Micah, what a freak show she is. She gave me these handouts on low self-esteem, assertiveness. It's like, I got all this shit in group before, don't reinvent the margarita now. Just, you know, I've read a lot of that stuff, none of it really helped. I just keep reading and reading and reading, even though I can't read and read and read and read, and hope one day that I'll read something that goes oh, that's it. Drink water from the back side of the cup. She seemed perplexed that you don't work on things with me, and then as she went to explain what working on things were, she pretty much was saying, you notice them, do you pay attention to them? Apparently, you should be handing paperwork out. [00:06:12]

THERAPIST: Because that apparently does a lot of good.

CLIENT: So, you know, I got my name on the door, I got my new banking account in my name. I went and got a stamp, even though they capitalized the accountant, the A in the hat on the stand. It's a little thing, I mean I could spend another twenty-seven bucks and get that changed but I'm not going to at this point. I hung pictures in my office. I just feel like I'm taking more steps forward and organizing and setting up, and making my office more of an office. So when people walk by now, they see my actual name, instead of just my last name, it's the whole name, you know? So the office should look somewhat presentable from the outside, I thought a picture on the wall would help. I don't know when my blinds are going in. [00:07:39]

I've done a little cleaning and organizing at home. I put together spread sheets to track did I tell you about this? I put spreadsheets on Google drive, to track?

THERAPIST: Yeah, you did.

CLIENT: I've decided I'm going to start doing that with contacts. As I close a loan, I'll put the borrowers and if the sellers are represented, I'll put the sellers, realtors, the loan officers, you know, re-file with the borrowers, and keep track of how I met them, when my last touch was and when should my next touch should be, what should it be. For instance, if someone buys a home, I could send them a one-year anniversary card, that kind of stuff, actually have some sort of marketing letter that I send to people maybe 30 days after they've moved in, you know, I hope everything is going well in your new home, if you have any questions about this, this, this? Oh, by the way, if you need any help with your wills, trust, your husband just died and you want me to probate his estate. [00:09:17]

(phone rings) Hampton, that can't be good. Who would be calling me from Hampton at quarter to nine? (chuckles) Today is slush day at school. Do they have slush day in Medford? Apparently, slush day is when they sell slush outside the school, afterwards, and the kids love it.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah?

CLIENT: My plan was to I'm going to a wine and cheese tonight, and then tomorrow I'm going to Sherwood with Marcia, so I'm not going to see Ian. Even having him sleep over Sunday night, I've got to be in Pembroke by eight-thirty. So, I'm going to try and go over there this afternoon. Of course now it's slush day, so that means I can't go over there until like three, three-thirty, four. (yawns) Maybe I can go to Pembroke, but then I go back down to Plymouth and I've got to drive all the way back up to Salem, for the wine and cheese? It's nuts, I'm killing myself driving everywhere.

[Pause: 00:10:47 to 00:11:41]

CLIENT: We could fall asleep right here. I was lying in bed this morning playing with my phone and of course I like drop it.

THERAPIST: (inaudible).

CLIENT: And I noticed it right away, as soon as I took it. She's like just take one at night. It destroys me. And then for some reason, I think I might have taken one this morning. I've got to be careful. I had two pills on the counter with some Prozac, which I thought were Lamictal, 25 milligrams. It turns out they were both Ativans, and I was about to just scoop them up. That would have been interesting, just after the Klonopin the night before.

THERAPIST: Right. [00:12:59]

CLIENT: I don't know if I should be driving a car or not. I really shouldn't, I should be biking here but... I'm lazy. (pause) (yawns)

THERAPIST: Yeah, I really think you feel like other people, such as me, to -

CLIENT: Can't you come up with something new?

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: I'm putting it all on you by having you come up with something new. Never mind, go ahead.

THERAPIST: Exactly. [00:14:10]

CLIENT: I vaguely remember you talking about this before. Whew. (pause) So this is how I found out my audience for Klonopin sales, is you know, the kids have been doing crazy drugs all night long and then they want to come down and go to sleep, so they take a Klonopin for that. I always wondered what people got out of it. (phone ringing) [00:15:12]

What's so funny? You're not allowed to keep secrets. It's very kind of rude and unprofessional that you're just leaving it to my imagination, what you were laughing about. You should at least say oh, you know, just something funny I thought about from the other day, instead of you know, the problems in your life kind of crack me up.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

[Pause: 00:15:58 to 00:16:37]

THERAPIST: I think you genuinely are worried actually, like probably, you're just making me out to be an asshole, as you do a lot, but, but I think there was something else that sort of in a way more genuine there, where you're worried.

CLIENT: About your last comment?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Well that's the risk, you know, whether someone's going to laugh with you or whether they're going to laugh at you. (pause)

THERAPIST: I think that's part of why you often work to get people to laugh with you, or something you laugh at them. It's because you're pretty worried actually, that they're going to laugh at you.

CLIENT: God, if I only had some literature I could read to improve my low self-esteem. [00:17:53]

THERAPIST: I knew you were going to come out with examples while I was talking about your exactly.

CLIENT: (coughs)

THERAPIST: Actually, I think this has a lot to do with your self-esteem.

CLIENT: (yawns) Excuse me.

THERAPIST: That people will, you know, be shaming and humiliating you, and sometimes you do things to create situations where that is exactly what happens.

CLIENT: Do you have an example? Does this one tip over? [00:18:53]

THERAPIST: I don't know, it might. I don't know.

CLIENT: I don't want to snap it. You would act like it's okay, but I know as soon as I walked out of here you'd be like, that fucking ass-hole, my favorite chair. Because you wouldn't have to buy one chair, you'd have to buy two chairs. I don't think you could tolerate two mismatched chairs.

[Pause: 00:19:34 to 00:20:08]

CLIENT: It feels like I've been up all night but I haven't. I think I'm not sitting so well. (pause) I have been feeling better though.

THERAPIST: Good. You mean since going back on the Prozac?

CLIENT: Well, I kept taking 20 a day.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And so I bumped up to 30. So I don't think that's been long enough, you know, I don't think Wednesday, I felt better because. I think number one, my meeting with Micah was kind of over-with and decisions had been made, and taking the Klonopin at night made a bigger difference.

THERAPIST: That helped, yeah. [00:21:14]

CLIENT: But, you know, it's like last night, Marcia went radio silent for a good period of time, and I was just like yeah. Didn't bother me. I'm like well, at some point she'll and she did. There's this weird thing going on where I would compliment her, which she seemed to like. And then it seemed like sometimes like she didn't like it and I'd say, "You don't like that?" She's like no, I like compliments but kind of getting a little more, say a compliment, and she would just maybe didn't think it was genuine.

THERAPIST: (inaudible).

CLIENT: Yeah. So I've stopped. Well, I haven't stopped but I've significantly pulled back, which felt noticeable. But I'm not going to get a straight answer if I ask her about it, because I've yet to get one. She'll say oh, yeah. [00:22:39]

THERAPIST: Well, (pause) -

CLIENT: I mean it's natural with me, that people start disbelieving things I say.

THERAPIST: But I think there's something else, which is that I think you this happens with other people too, I think. (pause) I don't think you sort of imagine how involved whatever is going on with the compliments with her could be. I mean, it could be 15 different things. It could be that it makes her feel uncomfortable because she really likes it and she gets nervous about being, you know, so excited about the things that you say. Or it could be that she really can't believe that stuff about herself and she really kind of can't believe you're saying it, so whenever you say it, I it makes her distrustful of you, which makes her feel not good about the relationship. Issues like that. It could be that one of her parents or siblings always used to compliment her a lot and would always do it with an agenda, so she's always really wary when you do it because reflexively, she looks for well, what does he want out of this or why is he doing that, what's he trying to get. I mean, it could be any number of things. My point is, I don't think you think about it like that. You just sort of assume, well I sort of asked her a yes or no question about whether she likes it and she answered she did, so I guess I'll keep you know, sort of like a black box. [00:24:51]

CLIENT: But I didn't, I haven't, you know, I have asked her and I -

THERAPIST: Have asked her what?

CLIENT: Whether she likes it or not, because when I've said things to her, -

THERAPIST: Right. So what I'm saying is, you ask her a yes or no question like that, -

CLIENT: to her face, and she's giving me (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: if anyone of the scenarios I was sort of making up were true or anything like that was true, asking her a yes or no question of whether she liked it or not wouldn't get you very close to finding that out. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, unless she offered it.

CLIENT: So I should ask leading questions.

THERAPIST: No. What I'm saying, Cameron, is that I don't think you impute to other people or to yourself, a kind of like complexity or involvement of like, in her life, which I think is there. I think it makes it hard to understand why people do what they do and also understand what's going on with you.

CLIENT: I don't know what any of that means. [00:26:10]

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Yeah. Some people are complex and I don't know why they do things and I want to know why they do things. (pause)

THERAPIST: Okay, so what I say oh, with Marcia it could be this or it could be that or it could be this other thing, and I start making stuff up, and I say I don't think you sort of imagine there could be things like that going on with her, right? On the one hand you know what I mean, I think you understand each of the scenarios that I described and they sound like, yeah that's something that could happen in theory, right? It's not like you have no idea, I mean you don't have Aspergers or something, which is I would say it and they'd be like what? You know, like it just wouldn't make sense. But that's not you, you know what I mean. And yet, it's not something you would usually think of, that there could be something like that. [00:27:28]

CLIENT: Initially.

THERAPIST: Go on.

CLIENT: No, I'm saying at some point I do say oh it's something, you know? I come up with plausible explanations.

THERAPIST: You do?

CLIENT: Yeah, to kind of see how stupid -

THERAPIST: Well, like what?

CLIENT: my anxiety is. You know, like she hasn't texted me in three or four hours, well, she could have left her phone at a friends or at home, which she does quite frequently. My texts come through slow sometimes, so she might have missed it somehow. She's super busy.

THERAPIST: I think that's a little different.

CLIENT: She doesn't want to answer the text.

THERAPIST: I think that's a bit different, because what you're talking about are mostly kind of circumstantial. What I'm talking about is mostly psychological. In other words, you're saying well it could be this circumstance, she left her phone here, maybe my text came through slow. Those are things about stuff happening in the world. I'm talking about stuff that's happening in her, like maybe this stuff happened in her past and it's affected her in this way, vis-�-vis taking compliments. [00:29:00]

CLIENT: But it was clear like initially, that she liked them, you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. No, it sounds confusing and people are funny about compliments a lot of times, I think, but it does sound confusing. (pause)

CLIENT: I can barely keep my eyes open. Go home and take like five Adderall, drink more coffee, that will help my anxiety. Ohhh. (yawns; stretches; sighs).

[Pause: 00:30:31 to 00:32:11]

CLIENT: I think I drifted off for a moment there.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: (groans; yawns) I don't know what to do. Do I keep taking the Klonopin? I mean the two things that have changed is that I'm taking the Klonopin and that, you know, there's sort of a plan I can live with, or at least that I've accepted.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: You know, going back on the Prozac. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, I wonder what that will affect with Marcia.

[Pause: 00:33:31 to 00:34:31]

CLIENT: This is too comfortable.

[Pause: 00:34:33 to 00:36:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah, you seem pretty tired.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think I took one this morning. I don't know why I did that. That's got to be what's going on. I was tired yesterday with one dose. How long do they last? The one from the night through kind of carries through, you know, so. (pause)

THERAPIST: So the drycleaners opens early enough, you don't have much to do today, except go to see the kids at three, or whatever.

CLIENT: He's in Pembroke and I don't want to go to Pembroke.

THERAPIST: Right. No, no, I'm saying if the drycleaner opens early enough on Monday, then you won't have to go today, right? You said before. But if not, then you're kind of screwed and you have to go today. [00:37:08]

CLIENT: I don't think the drycleaner would open before business hours though.

THERAPIST: Usually, I think they do, they're open at seven, but you know, why don't you look it up.

CLIENT: I could call them, yes. They gave me a bag to put my dry-cleaning in that has their number on it.

THERAPIST: You probably don't remember the name.

CLIENT: I don't know, it's a brand new one, they've got two branches. I mean, they've got the I walked by yesterday late, because I was at the office late, so they may even have their hours posted. (pause) It will be an interesting meeting. She already kind of knows me and likes me. It helps. (pause) And she's coming to Pembroke to meet me, which for me shows sort of a level of respect, because she's looking at me for doing stuff in Pembroke, although she's in Essex. There's a lot of bankers who want me to come to them.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:39:26]

CLIENT: She seems to be taking it a little more serious. A lot of the people I meet with, who are just doing it out of a favor if they're referred, hoping that I've got business to send out. (pause) I have two closings at the beginning of July but I need those closings now.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm. [00:40:27]

CLIENT: Do you know how many days a week Lucille goes to daycare? I think Jess said maybe it's now two. Why does she only go to daycare two days a week? Jess doesn't work? She's going to have no choice once Lucille is in preschool, she's going to have to work. I don't know what's going on with the move. I thought they were moving this month but she hasn't talked to me about anything. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Why don't we stop for now.

END TRANSCRIPT