TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Hi
THERAPIST: The one over by the fire station?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Oh gosh. That wasn't very considerate then.
CLIENT: No. And there were signs that said it would be closed over the weekend, I didn't realize Friday counts as the weekend now. (sigh) Anyway, I'm here. I'm sorry I'm late.
THERAPIST: That's okay. I am going to be out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, not next week, but the following week.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Which would mean that we wouldn't meet. But I will see if I can find something on maybe Tuesday.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: I'll let you know next week if that's okay.
CLIENT: All right, that's fine. (sigh) (pause) [00:01:01]
(continued very long pause) [00:01:41]
THERAPIST: So what's on your mind?
CLIENT: (pause) So there was there was a truly inspired for how I got to where I am, which I will explain, so that I don't sound completely crazy. [00:01:59]
But a number of friends of mine are fasting for the holiday right now. And so that reminded me of the first year I fasted for the holiday. I was 13 or 14, something like that. Maybe I was 12, I don't remember really. Which reminded me of my dad and how he's not fasting this year because he's just been too frail all year and he can't. Which is you know, sad and scary and just deeply upsetting to him that he can't fast this year. [00:02:35]
Which led me to the very morbid thought and like anxiety spiral of, dad has made it very clear that when he dies he doesn't want to be buried in the U.S. He wants to be buried in Nepal. And he wants to be buried according to religious burial law, which means burial within 24 hours of death. [00:02:53]
And so I just, I got trapped in the anxiety with both how on earth would we manage the logistics of that? Given that you know, it's a 16 hour plane ride and there are visas to be acquired and plane tickets to be bought and And I am borrowing trouble, because you know there's, there's no reason to think he's going to keel over anytime soon. [00:03:21]
But the fact that there is not a plan in place and there's no way to that I know of to actually fulfill his last wishes, it is causing me a great deal of anxiety. (long pause) [00:03:43]
THERAPIST: Hum. (very very long pause) [00:04:43]
(continued very long pause) [00:05:43] (continued very long pause) [00:06:29]
THERAPIST: What else is coming to mind?
CLIENT: Well that's about it.
THERAPIST: Are you having other thoughts about dad or -
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: to deal with the with anxiety?
CLIENT: Well thinking that I should at least know where the nearest consulate is, and I don't. Hum. (pause) I'm also feeling a little guilty because it's an awfully ghoulish thought. (long pause) [00:07:29]
(continued very long pause) [00:08:29] (continued very long pause) [00:09:29] (continued pause) [00:09:48]
CLIENT: I don't know why all my thoughts are so morbid this morning. (very very long pause) [00:10:48]
(continued very long pause) [00:11:48] (continued long pause) [00:12:20]
THERAPIST: Well I guess (pause) in some ways it seems similar to the things we've been talking about it in that (pause) you're sort of confronted with an impossible problem.
CLIENT: Um-hum.
THERAPIST: And the question of feelings that are hard to understand and fathom -
CLIENT: Um-hum.
THERAPIST: And aren't all that acceptable.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And (pause) I think are leery of talking to me about them for fear that I will (pause) make things worse on similar lines, either of pointing out how things are more impossible or less acceptable. [00:13:40]
CLIENT: Um-hum. (long pause) [00:14:12]
THERAPIST: You know, say something in a way that makes you feel like what you're thinking about or what you're confronted with reflects some problem of your own that makes you feel worse and that you don't feel any more able to solve or handle it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Like you're talking about it isn't that important or that you're worried about it. And coming to believe about what's on your mind. (long pause) [00:15:12]
(continued very long pause) [00:16:12] (continued very long pause) [00:16:59]
CLIENT: The thing that's really horrible that I feel really, really guilty about -
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: Is that I feel like it'll just be a relief when he finally does die.
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: Which is a terrible thing to think. Especially about a parent, but. (pause) (sigh) He's so unhappy. He just in general about his life, and always has been. And is so miserable and makes everyone around him so miserable. And (long pause) [00:17:59]
I felt that way about my grandmother too, when she passed away -
THERAPIST: Hum.
CLIENT: It was, it was just a profound relief because she had been making everyone miserable for so many years, and -
THERAPIST: Was this his mother?
CLIENT: No, my mom's mother.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: My dad's parents died long before I was born.
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: And dad didn't speak about them much. I know very little about them.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: But yeah, my mom's mother when she died, I mean I do not recall a single time that my mom called her mother and didn't end up in tears by the end of the conversation. Granny was she when I was seven, my younger sister was born, and there were complications and mom ended up in the hospital for two weeks. [00:18:50]
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: And my grandparents came up to help take care of me and my middle sister while dad took care of mom and the baby. And I didn't like the way my grandmother made fried eggs. She actually flipped them over and cooked them on both sides. But [00:19:05]
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: What my parents called fried eggs were sunny side up eggs.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: So she made me these eggs for breakfast and I was like eew, this is gross. I want them the way daddy makes them. I was seven.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: She refused -
THERAPIST: That was a lot of the stress in the house.
CLIENT: Yeah. She refused to cook breakfast for me ever again. Twenty years, she didn't ever cook breakfast for me.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: In the summer my sister and I were sent to stay with them. She'd say cook breakfast for herself, and she made me cook my own or eat cereal.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: Because I can't cook eggs the way your daddy does. That was just the kind of woman she was. So (pause) [00:20:00]
(continued long pause)
CLIENT: And their house was filled with photos of my cousin, my mom's brother's daughter, who is blond and very photogenic. Dozens and thousands and dozens of photos of her everywhere in the house. And when my mom and I was talking about her taking pictures of my kids, my grandparents said well you never sent us any. I was like that's not true, I sent you photos all the time. [00:20:36]
And we cleaned out of their house after granny died, we found like two big moving boxes just stuffed with unframed photographs of me and my sisters -
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: That they had just shoved into the closet. (pause) Yeah and so when granny died, all I could really feel was you know, relief that you know at least she's not making my mother miserable anymore. And that's a horrible thing to think about my grandmother. (long pause) [00:21:36]
(continued very long pause) [00:22:36] (continued long pause)
THERAPIST: It seems like it's a little easier to talk about those kinds of feelings towards her than towards your dad.
CLIENT: Yep. (long pause) Yeah my dad actually said that when granny died and mom was you know, sad and crying -
THERAPIST: Um-hum.
CLIENT: And grieving and you know. That I actually said to her you know, it's better that she's dead because she's not making you miserable anymore. Why are you so sad? You hated her.
THERAPIST: Um-hum.
CLIENT: God. You can't say that. [00:23:28]
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: You just, you can't (pause) (sigh) That wasn't a paraphrase either.
THERAPIST: Right. That's exactly what you said.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: It might not -
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Be word for word because this was like four years ago now.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But as close as I can get.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:24:00]
(continued very long pause) [00:24:54]
THERAPIST: Well again it seems for your mother I imagine this is (pause) true for you too, that there is like for her with her mother, there was a mother there for her that she loved and would miss.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: Somehow.
CLIENT: Yep. (long pause)
THERAPIST: Even though the like after a mother that everybody including her saw and had to deal with most of the time, but the regular bond with her mother, you mom felt really bad.
CLIENT: Yeah. (long pause) [00:26:00]
(continued very long pause) [00:27:00] (continued long pause) [00:27:25]
THERAPIST: I wonder if you worry a bit about my responding to you. If in it a gentler sort of way with a simpler sort of message to you about your father.
CLIENT: Hum.
THERAPIST: As he did to her. Like well gees you know you always talk about how terrible he is and how impossible and awful and this and that, so like -
CLIENT: Um-hum.
THERAPIST: How can you be so worried or sad or guilty feeling.
CLIENT: Hum.
THERAPIST: I wonder if you like, imagine that moment that that's where I'm coming from?
CLIENT: No, I think my emotion is the, the other side of the spectrum really -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know. Yes I understand that was a terrible thing to think.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: He's your father and he took care of you. And you know, whatever his flaws, he tried and he loves you and [00:28:25]
THERAPIST: I see. (pause) So I get that side of it but not the -
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: It would be a relief.
CLIENT: Well sort of. (very long pause) [00:29:00]
(continued very long pause) [00:29:52]
THERAPIST: And I guess another feature of it is that (pause) After what you described today about both your grandmother and your father like, I have had patience for the other. In other words like (pause) you know, he did his best, it's not like he was like that, instead blah, blah, blah, so how can you think anything other than appreciative thoughts at all?
CLIENT: Right. (pause)
THERAPIST: I can't stand it. I don't want to hear about it. I think it's bad to prolong.
CLIENT: Um-hum.
THERAPIST: It reflects terribly on you. [00:30:59]
CLIENT: I mean I know for a fact that's what my mother and my sisters would say about him. He never did anything to them.
THERAPIST: I see. (pause) A little is not so okay.
CLIENT: Yeah. The thing is I can't think of a single unqualified good thing to say about him.
THERAPIST: Uh-huh. We can stop.
CLIENT: All right.
THERAPIST: I'll call you and set it up.
CLIENT: Sure. Tell me when.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: I don't bring anything in.
THERAPIST: Oh okay, good. [00:31:57]
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