TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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CLIENT: My family. They're horrible. They're just horrible human beings. They're petty and passive-aggressive and condescending and have absolutely no consideration for other human beings. [sighs]

Every time I see them, I tell myself, "Never again. I'm going to cut things off. I'll deal with the guilt and not have to endure this kind of emotional wreckage again." And every time, I cave. [sighs] I don't know.

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[00:01:00]

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CLIENT: I guess it's easier to talk about various drama happening in my friends' group than to deal with the Gordian's Knot that is my family. But I feel like I ought to be talking about my family, because it's the thing that's causing me the most long-term distress right now.

(pause)

THERAPIST: I can imagine it's also why you don't want about it. [00:02:01]

CLIENT: Yeah.

(pause)

CLIENT: In part, I'm late this morning because I was chatting online with a friend of mine who is having "Days of Our Lives"-level soap opera drama in her life. It was easier to provide a sounding board for her than to think about my own self and prepare for coming here.

Classic avoidant behavior.

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[00:03:00]

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THERAPIST: I hunch that you stay a bit clear off, most of the time, from what it's actually really like to be with them; and that, as a result, it's always in part a really rude awakening when you see them or spend time with them.

CLIENT: Maybe. I was pretty anxious and full of dread about this trip beforehand.

THERAPIST: Yep, yeah. I remember, yeah.

CLIENT: I feel like I was well-aware of how horrible it would be. [00:04:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: Even apart from my parents, the trip was just horrible.

THERAPIST: Oh, really?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Oh, that's too bad.

CLIENT: The tour operator we went with, Explorer we spent about half of each day in government-run factories, being given the hard sell on various overpriced, low-quality garbage.

THERAPIST: Oh my God.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It's really too bad.

CLIENT: "Learn about how jade is produced!" except really, it's just a showroom on a factory floor with overpriced, low-quality crap that they're trying to force you to buy and (crosstalk at 00:04:42).

THERAPIST: Oh, that's such a shame.

CLIENT: "Learn about Italy's long history of silk production!" except really, they're just trying to sell you $10,000 silk bed sheets.

We were given very little free time to explore the city on our own.

THERAPIST: Which city were you in? [00:05:00]

CLIENT: We spent three days in Rome, two days in Milan and then two days in Venice. Three days in Venice.

Yeah, they took us to this amazing museum in Venice which had five floors and something like thirty galleries, and they gave us an hour. They took us to the Temple of Heaven, which is one of the sights to see in Rome, and they gave us 15 minutes. Like literally, they said, "Okay, take your photos and then we're getting back on the bus." It's like, "Ugh, what the hell?"

And all the food they fed us was crap. It was Americanized, low-quality crap. Like the exact same food you can get in Italian restaurants in the U.S. At one place, we were fairly certain the chicken was spoiled and everyone in the tour group had diarrhea and vomiting for two days after eating there. Yeah, it was (inaudible at 00:06:01).

I dislike tour groups. I never go on tour groups. I'm way too independent-minded and stubborn to enjoy them. I just find them annoying and the forced intimacy of being with a group of 20 strangers. Americans are so fucking gregarious and jocular and they want to be best friends instantly. Jesus Christ, people, give me some space.

This would not have been a perfect vacation even if my family hadn't been there.

THERAPIST: Right. That's too bad, because the family stuff kind of probably had to be more or less the way it was, but that didn't...

CLIENT: Yeah. On the other hand, being with a tour group means that we actually ate. The three meals that the tour didn't provide, that they left us on our own for, my family just didn't eat. [00:07:00] Because my dad thinks the way to cure his diabetes is to not eat, ever. And he thinks if he's not eating, no one else should have to eat, ever. Also, he thinks we're all too fat, so it would do us good to go on a fasting diet for a week.

(pause)

CLIENT: Also, my dad tried to convince me to inject insulin after every meal, because he's convinced that he's diabetic because I'm fat even though my A1C and blood sugar levels are perfectly fine and at the low end of the healthy range. But, you know, he's a doctor and he can diagnose these things without any lab results, even though endocrinology is not his specialty seizures are. Pretty sure seizures and diabetes are not correlated (inaudible at 00:07:54).

THERAPIST: And you don't have those either.

CLIENT: No, I don't. [00:08:00] Yeah, Dad.

There was another Polish couple on the tour. And after Dad got over his ethnic hatred of Jews and realized that these were the good kind of Jews, who also speak English, he spent a lot of time chatting with them and humiliating and degrading Mom and my sisters and I.

He wishes he hadn't married an American. He thinks, "They're so lucky that their kids have proper cultural values and married other Asians." Both his kids married non-Asians and it's so terrible, and his kids aren't really Asian and we never wanted to learn English which is a flat-out lie. I used to beg Dad to teach me English, and every time I asked, he would say that I was too stupid and it was too difficult.

He also said that we never eat Asian food, which is also a flat-out lie! He said that we never learned to cook which is also a flat-out lie! [00:09:02] It was just really disgusting, the way he kept talking about how he wished he had married an Asian and he wished his kids were fully Asian, when Mom was right there and he fucking chose to marry her.

If you don't want to married to an American, get a divorce. But don't shit on your wife not even behind her back, in front of her face! [sighs]

(pause)

CLIENT: There were twenty-four of us on this tour; we got a table of eight at every meal. And we, the six of us, my family my sisters, my parents, Dave, and I always got sat with the Polish couple, because the tour organizers wanted all the people with special dietary requirements at the same table, just to make logistics easier on them. [00:10:01]

The Polish couple were vegetarian. My family wanted no pork at meals. We were stuck with these horrible people at every meal.

THERAPIST: They were horrible?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: The woman started talking to my mom about grandkids and how her son was so selfish and waited six years after getting married before giving her grandkids. And, "How long have your daughters been married? Have they given you grandkids yet?"

And then my mom was like, "Well, you know, I really wish my daughters would give me grandkids." Like (inaudible at 00:10:39) give her grandkids, as if her desires matter more than ours in the realm of reproductive choices. "But every time I ask, my daughters tell me it's none of my business, so I've just given up on asking," which is also a flat-out lie.

My sister used to tell her, "We don't feel ready or responsible enough for kids. [00:11:02] We're waiting until I graduate from school," and then Mom kept pressuring her, before she graduated from school. It was only in response to the pressure that my sister telling her, "Back off, it's none of your business."

And she knows about my infertility issues and the heartbreak of the two miscarriages and desperately wanting to have kids and not being able to.

It was really horrible, how she pinned it on me. Like, "I wish I could have grandkids, but my daughters won't give them to me," as opposed to anything even remotely reasonable as a response to such a nosy and intrusive question.

So at that point-that was halfway through the trip. I was tired and stressed and that was the day after our overnight sleeper train ride, which was a miserable nightmare-and-a-half. We were in cabins with four bunks. [00:12:02] So my parents bunked with my two sisters, and Dave and I bunked with a stranger a couple who were strangers. Pretty much everyone bunked with strangers except my parents.

But I was just tired and exhausted and sick of my father's bullshit, and so I snapped at my mother. I seriously lost my temper. It was really kind of mortifying, in hindsight. I kind of went off for ten minutes, the details of the diagnostic procedures I'd been through and the miscarriages and wanting kids and not being able to have them. I even talked about, "Let me tell you about the joys of having sex when the calendar tells you you have to, even though neither you nor your partner are feeling it." I'm really embarrassed that I lost it like that, because I was really loud. The whole restaurant could hear me and were staring at me and no one talked to me for a day and a half afterwards, because, "Don't want to set off the crazy lady." [00:13:03]

And of course, my mom couldn't understand why I was upset. She was like, "I didn't say anything wrong. It is none of my business, but I don't understand why you're mad at me. I know you like to just lash out at me when you're mad at other people. It's not fair that you abuse me and use me as your punching bag." It was awful.

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[00:14:00]

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[00:15:00]

THERAPIST: Maybe you're also worried that I'll be kind of embarrassed for you or, internally, in a way, won't want to deal with the crazy lady either, if you go on a rant about the trip or your family (inaudible at 00:15:34).

CLIENT: [sighs]

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[00:16:00]

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[00:17:00]

CLIENT: All of that is only the tip of the iceberg, too. There was just so much.

So I got back Monday night. And yesterday, Dave just didn't talk to me all day, because the way he deals with emotional stress is by retreating and becoming even more introverted than usual.

And my parents did not give us any time alone. They were super clingy and super needy and did not want to not spend time with us.

So Dave got no downtime, which he desperately needs in order to be happy. So we got home, and he was like, "I'm going into the study, leave me alone." Which is what he needed to recuperate, and that's fine, but it left me feeling awfully isolated and sad and lonely especially since probably about half of my friends were at a convention over the weekend. [00:18:01] They were all sharing in-jokes and tweeting each other and making posts on blog and online and crap about how wonderful the convention was.

And the few times I ventured online, onto the various social media, no one responded to any of my posts. And I e-mailed a couple people, asking if they wanted to get dinner and no one responded.

I understand, it's a workday in the middle of the week and a work night and people are just returning from their Memorial Day vacations. People are busy and short-notice and whatever. It just made me feel really (inaudible at 00:18:40) and unloved.

(pause)

CLIENT: In particular, Penelope who I think I've mentioned before, a woman who I would like to be dating had tweeted briefly at me-

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:19:01) college?

CLIENT: Yeah. I had tweeted to her earlier, saying-she had said she was back from the conference. I said, "Welcome back, how was your con?" She was like, "That's a really complicated question that we should talk about in person. Want to get together for tea later?" And I said, "Sure. Should we take this offline for scheduling?" And she said, "Sure," and so I pinged her on IM and she didn't respond and didn't respond. Then, three hours later, she was like, "Too busy, talk later." I was like, "You know, you initiated this, but..."

It turns out she had the soap opera drama going on in her life, which she told me all about, in great detail, this morning.

The circumstances last night contributed to my overall sense of malaise.

THERAPIST: I think this is worse than "malaise." [00:20:00]

CLIENT: Probably.

And the thing with Penelope is horribly fraught for me, because we're cool. She had said that she didn't want to date anyone new until she was done writing her novel and her kid was off to college, and could we table our feelings until August or September? And I said, "Sure, that's fine." She said she didn't want to start anything new with anyone until she was sure she could do it justice.

Then I found out she started dating someone new about two months ago and kept it a big secret from me but not from her other friends. Yeah. And also, there's this kind of a "Days of Our Lives"-level drama going on with her boyfriend and this girl he was dating and one of his buddies from work and the buddy's wife and...I didn't even follow half of the discussion, but this is not the first time Penelope has broken up with someone in a huge collision of drama and then declared that it was all the other person's fault and/or their other SO's faults, and claimed everyone was being full of drama except her. [00:21:13]

Sometimes, that just happens. Sometimes you get in a bad situation with someone who is bad news. But when it happens four times in three years, you have to say, "What's the common denominator, here?" Either she's picking bad people, or she's generating the drama and is probably misrepresenting the story.

So I feel like bullet dodged, a little bit, with [respect to her] (ph).

THERAPIST: [I didn't know] (ph).

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CLIENT: Which isn't to say we're going to stop being or anything. I still like her a great deal and care about her very much, but perhaps dating her wouldn't be wise.

THERAPIST: I imagine it also felt like as much as it might have been stressful to hear what was going on with her, a bit of relief to feel like-after how awful and probably disturbing (inaudible at 00:22:16) like, "Somebody else had the crazy for a while."

CLIENT: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. But I know I shouldn't compare people to each other, and every relationship is different and people are different and so on and so forth. But comparing Penelope to Ashley and how remarkably chill he is. I'm friends with several of his ex-girlfriends and have heard the inside scoop on two of his past breakups. Breakups are never fun and never easy, but-

THERAPIST: He's pretty chill.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That's great.

CLIENT: There have been no mad explosions of drama around him since his early 20s. [00:23:04] Who doesn't have that when they're 23? [sighs]

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CLIENT: But yeah, (inaudible at 00:23:26) people.

I'm super anxious about work, because the last week before I left for Italy, I was not productive at all and just struggled to produce anything and didn't hit any of my targets or meet any of my goals. And I had really serious problems with being on the Internet at work. I still have a good plan for not falling back into the rabbit hole of browsing the Internet this week. [00:24:00] [sighs]

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THERAPIST: You must be completely overwhelmed.

CLIENT: I had a list as long as my arm of things I wanted to get done yesterday. E-mails that needed to be sent and errands that needed to be run and stuff that needed to be done around the house. I took the day off work-

THERAPIST: Were you not at work? Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, I took yesterday off work, because I knew I'd be too jet-lagged to get work done. But I thought, at the very least, I could-"I'll review this grant proposal for a friend," and make suggestions and fire off a couple e-mails related to my fraternity stuff. Clear out my desk. [sighs] Various apartment stuff. [00:25:00]

But instead, I just literally stayed in bed all day, reading the Internet and moping and being inconsolably miserable. It was pretty bad.

THERAPIST: Or you were recovering from (inaudible at 00:25:18) with your family.

CLIENT: I don't know why I thought I was going to be able to get stuff done yesterday. I'm never able to get stuff done after seeing my family, even without the jet lag and 22-hour travel interlude to contend with. Or the stomach illness from eating bad food in Venice which I'm still not recovered from, it's quite unpleasant.

But somehow I did, and then I spent a good chunk of yesterday self-flagellating for not getting my to-do list done. [00:26:00]

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[00:27:00]

THERAPIST: I think it happened when you...started talking about work. You started to sound instead of upset as you did when you were talking about your trip like a little more flat or even a little glib, I think.

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THERAPIST: I guess that probably partly what gave me the impression though I didn't sort of put it together that way of how overwhelmed you felt. But I think something that goes along with that sort of a shift is a feeling that you should just be able to do or handle everything. [00:28:04] That it's really on you.

CLIENT: I definitely do feel that way. I don't know, Dave tells me that this belief is crazy, but I certainly believe that whatever is going on in my life, emotionally or personally, I should be able to box it up and set it aside and get work done, because work has to get done.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:28:32)

CLIENT: The work does have to get done, or I'll get fired. I need to have a job so I can have a paycheck so I can pay my rent and have food to eat.

Or put another way, if I were living a century ago and working on a farm, I couldn't just not milk the cows because I had sad feelings.

THERAPIST: Right, right. [00:29:00] But usually actions are less of a subject to be mucked (ph) with. In other words, it's easier to milk cows if you're sad or if you're distracted than it is to do anything (inaudible at 00:29:17).

CLIENT: Fair enough.

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CLIENT: I want to be able to do the Vulcan thing of just logically processing my emotions, dealing with them, getting them out of the way, and then being able to do my work.

THERAPIST: That would be great.

CLIENT: How do I get there?

THERAPIST: [laughs] Oh, we're out of time! [laughs]

CLIENT: [laughs]

THERAPIST: We really are. [laughs]

CLIENT: [laughs] Fair enough.

THERAPIST: I don't think it works like that. I understand how that would be helpful.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:30:00] All right.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:30:01)

CLIENT: I'm going to do my best to be outside. Sorry. Have a great day.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you too.

CLIENT: Take care.

THERAPIST: You too.

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