TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: It always feel like it to me. I mean nothing good. I also hoped I would be in sort of a good place or do something impressive that makes them very measurable (inaudible at 00:00:19) but I keep doing lame things everything weekend. I was a little late in e-mailing my resume. I put it off for a few days and I haven't heard back yet which worries me quite a bit.

THERAPIST: I thought it was something else that you were reading.

CLIENT: Well yeah it is. I mean it's both.

THERAPIST: Okay. "Where you used to work is who bought them?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah. And it seems I would be writing for something that would still be called it's name but it's a subsidiary. [00:01:02]

THERAPIST: Okay. All right.

CLIENT: But I would be writing at all about personal finance which is their main priority. Let's see. So I worry that they may think I'm not as excited as I actually am. I really want to come up with some excuse to e-mail my old boss just to see if he has any news. So I'm very nervous about that which it seems like it was in the bag.

THERAPIST: Right. That's how it sounded last week. I wouldn't quite put it that way but something pretty close to that.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean they didn't say that They had a job for me. It was just a matter of which one and when. But a job in the Spring is so exciting. Really it's like having about the idea of getting out of her into my head. I just am pretty determined to do so in January. [00:02:11]

I found another job opening as a private equity writer but at "Newswire" which they don't treat you well at "Newswire". They yell at you a lot, and keep you ridiculously long hours, and supposedly they pay you pretty decently. But I would rather have less money and more time.

THERAPIST: Also near.

CLIENT: Also the benefit would be not that I... I haven't even completed the application because I figured I'm going to wait until I e-mail my old boss and just get a vibe from him before I bother to write the cover letter. But I mean if this job works out the "Newswires" will always be sort of looming in the potential future with more money to offer. [00:03:03]

You know often people go there from this place and it's unclear whether it's worth it. I'd have to talk to them about it. But I mean this job would be kind of cool because I get to write for really big papers occasionally. I mean it's silly to talk about it as thought it's a possibility, but I do have a friend at the journal. I've always sort of hoped that maybe he could put in a good word for me and help me get a job there at some point in the future as long as he stays. I hope he stays there. Don't get a new job. But you know we were close before. I don't know. But if I did move and try to get in at the "Newswire". But their biggest competitor puts trackers on you so they always know where you are. [00:04:11]

THERAPIST: Oh my God.

CLIENT: They know when you're in the bathroom, when you're eating lunch, so they can reach you at any time. And if you're phone rings and you're supposed to be somehow hooked in so... Or maybe, no you're just supposed to be at your desk all the time because if you're phone rings and you don't answer it they get really angry at you. And sometimes people will call you because they're upset about something, and if you don't answer they'll go straight to your editor. And then your editor screams at you if you don't... So that's the main competitor. Financial Times doesn't track you but it has to be somewhat similar you know. So I don't know.

THERAPIST: Wow that's really oppressive.

CLIENT: Yeah. And on one hand it's very silly to even be thinking in this way when I haven't even applied for the job much less had any chance of getting it. But if I take this track that is going to be a possibility that other people seem to take at some point for the money and you get read by more people. [00:05:30]

So I mean that's not something that's happened. That's something that would have happened and didn't; getting an e-mail, more news.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well I hope you hear good news soon.

CLIENT: I hope so too. If I don't I think instead of waiting for them to get an excuse to hire me I'm going to really put myself out there for any writing job I could get which would probably be in financial communications. Because the job postings for writing are so brutal. It's always like you must have four to five years of experience writing about this beat particularly. [00:06:16]

THERAPIST: It's very tough.

CLIENT: Yeah. And I think if you've had two years of experience covering that beat then you still have a chance. You know I've been looking at these postings and some of them are about government and politics. I really don't think I would have a chance because I have no experience with that beat.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I'm sort of already pigeon holed here. That's what I'm looking at. So I mean that's been making me very nervous.

Also, this is very lame. I'm embarrassed to report this but I had some work for (inaudible at 00:07:08) that I hadn't done. I had gotten that angry e-mail and I just didn't do it, and they took it away. They assigned it to someone else. And I haven't communicated with them, but I made it clear in my angry e-mail. I said things like this is not a good fit. This is not working for me. I think I've pretty much quit. [00:07:29]

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Except in an ignominious way. (Pause) I mean there is like five things, two of them I had pretty much finished, but I guess I didn't feel like doing them. So I don't know. I feel totally lame about it. You know two of them are pretty much finished except editing. Three were started. So it's like it would have been better to do nothing and say assign them to someone else or finish them, but I did the worst possible thing. It just makes me very nervous now that this job might not pan out to leave my last job in such an unprofessional way. [00:08:22]

THERAPIST: I see. Are worried you need the reference?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Or are you worried about burning a bridge because you might need money?

CLIENT: Only about the reference. I'm so sick of working for them. It just made me feel so bad. But I feel like I don't have references that I can really use from there now and I could have. In the span of a week I burned the bridge. If I had just finished those things which were close to being finished I think I would've at least been able to put a name down and they would feel bad to say anything too terrible. Because I could totally complain about how their pay scale sucks and they use Wikipedia and then they might be afraid to say anything bad about me. But now I don't have that possibility. [00:09:26]

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: I feel pretty bad.

THERAPIST: I wonder why you did it that way?

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: I mean I get that you feel really pained about it.

CLIENT: Yeah. It wouldn't have been that hard to end in a respectable manner but I didn't. (Pause) Like I think that I made my life very difficult for myself. (Pause)

THERAPIST: In other ways as well? [00:10:27]

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean all I was thinking about last week was the (inaudible at 00:10:39). Like I didn't enjoy being (inaudible at 00:10:40). My friend Michelle was in town and I didn't really enjoy seeing her because I just felt so guilty about it. So I feel like I ruined what should've been a nice holiday. I spent time with Jeff. I felt like I should be spending time with people, but then I didn't enjoy it at all. And then I was really unprofessional too. It just seemed to me... I don't know. [00:11:20]

THERAPIST: When you say you were thinking about the (inaudible at 00:11:23) the whole time what stuff were you thinking about? You were thinking about how you had ended things with them or you were thinking about at that point what you still had to do and being frustrated by it?

CLIENT: What I still had to do, and being frustrated by it, and really not wanting to do it even though they're not hard. I had pretty much finished the... So it just alarms me that I could have that many things in a row of still thinking about something that was largely done but not doing it but also not ending things. It was just very reminiscent of the Harvard situation and that bothers me a lot. [00:12:17]

I seem to have developed some pretty negative patterns and... I don't know. It makes me sort of nervous about doing journalism except not really because there you're actually there in the office. Things are happening. You have to write a story about it by the end of the day. You're meeting with your editors. You're presently aware that people care about what you're doing. So it's not like a situation where you're feeling one thing and no one really comments on what you're doing except if you get it in on time. I don't know. [00:13:09]

THERAPIST: My impression is that you found working for (inaudible at 00:13:17) sort of degrading and alienating. (Pause) I guess I wonder if the way you handled things (pause) was... I'm not saying it was some sort of practical in a way but was it that it was like a fuck you I don't need you people? [00:14:02]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean especially as you were feeling more sure of the much better job in a much better city where you'd be treated like a human being. People would care about what you wrote. You'd get paid much better. You could go live where you wanted to. I guess I imagine you were pretty bitter and resentful of them and maybe wanted to demonstrate precisely that you don't need them. I understand that in popular terms the reference may be helpful. But maybe the more important issue was to make it clear that (pause) you don't need them. [00:15:05]

CLIENT: I mean it was a pretty botched fuck you though.

THERAPIST: Yes it was.

CLIENT: There were two good ways to do it which would've been to say I'm too busy for this. Assign it to someone else or just get them. It would've been...

THERAPIST: I was a slightly pretty self defeating fuck you.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean it was like I said it to myself in the end instead of to (inaudible at 00:15:28) and just made myself thoroughly miserable throughout a holiday in which one of my best friend's was in town and then afterward. So I can't feel any closure. And it wasn't in my control in the end like they pulled the assignment. I mean I was planning to quit this week anyway but I was planning to quit with some dignity. But now I guess I'm just not going to contact them and they probably won't contact me. [00:16:05]

THERAPIST: Right. So yeah what do we make of the pretty self defeating aspect of it you know? (Pause) What occurs to you?

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean (pause) I felt really paralyzed and it was pretty disappointing because like all day every day I would be trying to warm up to do it by reading things and writing a little bit. I didn't even write much fiction because I was just feeling so guilty and down about it. So I did more reading than anything just trying to get out of this funk I was in. I was just so depressed. And I (inaudible at 00:17:39). I have such a habit of not doing what I'm supposed to be doing when it's painful and then feeling really guilty about it. It seems I'm having a really hard time breaking this pattern and it's so frustrating. [00:18:00]

I'm getting back to communication almost seems like a cure and also a punishment because in that environment there's no opportunity for pulling this kind of shit. You really can't. You have to write so fast in a way that I found painful when I was there before. I mean going back to journalism almost does seem like a punishment in some ways although not really because there were things I liked about it. But... [00:19:03]

THERAPIST: Yeah I guess I imagine you feel really frustrated with yourself for not being able to do things the way you would've wanted to do them either at school or with (inaudible at 00:19:20).

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Like that you're maybe incredibly mad at yourself for not having more agency and not being more, according to the ways I think you would judge it, more successful. And maybe you take that out on yourself and in a painful way such as by kind of fucking yourself over with (inaudible at 00:19:54) in terms of references and so forth.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And maybe that's also sort of part of why you feel like... I think you feel like you deserve this punishment of going back a little bit. I mean in other words not that it's like it kind of sucks (inaudible at 00:20:19). My impression is that there is an extent to which you feel like I fucked up and so now although I'm clearly getting things that I want there's also a level at which I'm getting something that I deserve in a bad way. [00:20:39]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I fucked up this other stuff. I didn't do it the way I was supposed to do it. I feel like (inaudible at 00:20:50) for now.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think that is a very fitting punishment for someone who the problem was that I couldn't write things fast enough because I cared about them too much. So, of course, it was fitting to go write things that I don't care about very quickly all day every day. [00:21:19]

THERAPIST: Sort of making things like journalism is the hell to where perfectionistic writers are sent or something like that?

CLIENT: Yeah. That sounds about write. (inaudible at 00:21:32) particularly. Its not like I'm going to be going on reading pieces or something. But I mean I wouldn't want that at all. You know there's also something where I really want somewhere to hide for a few years while I work on my own things and publish my own opinions and beliefs. It's not like I wish I were going to be a columnist at somewhere really erudite. That sounds horribly intimidating and even if I had worked things in such a way that it were an option I wouldn't want to take it right now. [00:22:25]

THERAPIST: Of course like... I would certainly... I do question the way you put that particular story together because you're a graduate student and a textbook writer that you've been condemned to journalism means what the hell did you do wrong. I mean you had trouble especially in graduate school but like wrong. Really? What did you do wrong? [00:23:15]

CLIENT: In some ways I feel like the biggest thing out there is being unprofessional and practical too. Like I feel like given the experience I've had out in the world I should've learn the most important thing which is to be pragmatic and make things work for yourself.

THERAPIST: How does that relate to graduate school? I get the thought I just missed the connection.

CLIENT: I mean I failed to be pragmatic or professional...

THERAPIST: With your writing?

CLIENT: Yeah and with dealing with them in general, communicating with them, and that maybe there are reasons behind it. But it's so... I failed at the things I most value. [00:24:11]

THERAPIST: Well yeah. The mental health stuff really got in the way of your writing. I don't think it was because you... I'm pretty sure I remember you telling me while you were working on it that you knew it was much more pressing along the lines with knowing it was much more practical. It would be much more practical just to write something less perfect and get it done. I (inaudible at 00:24:40) know or value that. I mean I think you were too terrified to do it.

CLIENT: I still...

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:24:56).

CLIENT: I knew what would be pragmatic but I feel like being unable to execute that still counts as something that's judgmental for if nothing else for being in a place where I could have such a bad outbreak of mental illness and not dispelling that beforehand somehow. [00:25:23]

THERAPIST: Maybe you were more helpless and more vulnerable to things you couldn't anticipate or control such as how dangerous the work and the community would feel like graduate school, or how vulnerable you feel around having to express anything in your own voice. [00:26:04]

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I certainly hadn't anticipated that but I should've.

THERAPIST: I don't see how you could've seen it coming.

CLIENT: I don't know. I felt pretty miserable applying. Maybe I should've taken that as a sign that I should wait to apply. I also think I failed to recognize the degree which communications was sort of holding me together. I mean communications is sort of like a corset or something like it just keeps everything in because you have to inhabit this persona that's not authentic. And you have to be tethered to the real world and things that are happening in real time. [00:27:10]

THERAPIST: There's a lot of structure and sort of behavioral enforcement that (inaudible at 00:27:17).

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You can do this and get this done by then.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean there are very clear expectations. It's very clear what is valued and how to I mean how to get what is valued is somewhat difficult, but there are channels that you know you need to go through. It's just a matter of how to best navigate them. And dealing with questions like who, what, when, where, why is just so much more concrete and there's no expectation or possibility for expressing some really profound old truth. And I guess I had no idea how much that was keeping my feet on the ground and how far they could go off the ground without that super structure I guess. I don't know. [00:28:24]

THERAPIST: But I think you're right. I think that's probably pretty scary. It's just really hard to know. I think in a way it's (inaudible at 00:28:46).

CLIENT: I mean I don't even have time... I don't know. I mean I feel there were signs that I should be doing more than I was doing, but I really didn't know what. I mean Kevin told me that I should be dealing with my issues. I just had no idea what they were and how to deal with them. I do blame myself for that. It feels like maybe if I had done more writing I was writing here and there but if I had forced myself to write every day or something... At that point therapy really doesn't seem like an option because I had tried it once in undergrad but gone to three sessions and just cried all through three of them and I'm unsure why. I was too embarrassed to go back. [00:29:54]

THERAPIST: (Pause) Do you know why now?

CLIENT: I mean a part of me wasn't even sure why I was going. I just knew something wasn't working. I think it was just (inaudible at 00:30:35) too; analyzing things. It was just raw emotion that would be talked about. [00:30:46]

(Pause) It seems like that should've been a hint that I should think more about it.

THERAPIST: Which, I guess, is like maybe you should've done?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Do you think you could've then?

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean I was always frustrated by people saying that I should work through my issues but I just couldn't figure out what they were and what it meant to work through them which is still is always a hard thing. [00:32:03]

THERAPIST: What'd you have in mind?

CLIENT: Well how do I work through something that doesn't want to be gotten through? It sort of wants to stay in this concentrated form which can be very slippery and shows up when you don't want it to. Things like issues that (inaudible at 00:32:41) resist working through. (Pause) It's hard to know how to go further than you've gone at a certain point. [00:33:04]

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I feel like I've done all this thinking and living with certain things, but they still surprise me at certain times and take forms that are difficult to deal with. (Pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:33:41) are the way that you're sort of acknowledging your life degree of vulnerability to them, the difficulty of controlling them, the greater sense of how they effect you in your life. I think sometimes you have a idea that you can be in more control of them and less subject to them than I think you are. [00:34:21]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And I could understand why you want think that about them.

CLIENT: Yeah I guess I always hoped that working through them meant getting to a point where they never prevented me from doing something I wanted to do.

THERAPIST: It can mean that. It takes a while. And with the stuff you've got, pretty intense stuff, probably like more (inaudible at 00:35:04). I don't mean that you can't make hard (inaudible at 00:35:06). It seems to me that you have. But to work through them in the way that you're talking about will probably take a fair amount of time and I can't see that far. [00:35:25]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I think it would be the continuation of what you're already doing. I don't think it would be fundamentally different.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I definitely feel that I've made a lot of progress. I guess for a long time I was judging progress in very practical terms. I've sort of accepted that I have to compromise my idea of what that means. [00:36:05]

THERAPIST: Sure. And I can understand that it would be very frustrating and disappointing that progress doesn't translate into those terms.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And it's not so much that...

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) Yeah and going back to communications is sort of giving over control in two ways. It's admitting that I can't just do whatever I want to do and maybe take control that way. And it's also as a profession you're really giving over control of your mind space and what you can and can't say. It is sort of strange writing just spending so much time writing about this world that is so strange and alien. Like I feel like I'm putting myself back on the treadmill or something that's healthy and beneficial to me. I don't know. [00:37:49]

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:38:02).

CLIENT: I guess now that things have fizzled at (inaudible at 00:38:18) I asked my parents to support me for the next month with the idea that I'll find some sort of job in January whatever it may be. But it's very strange to sort of craft (inaudible at 00:38:34). I've been reading less, and I would like to make a lot of progress on my novel, but I'm just so depressed about how stuff ended with (inaudible at 00:38:44) that I've been having a hard time writing. But that had better change. Given how often I seem to be depressed I can't not write when I'm depressed. I'll never get anything written. [00:39:00]

(Pause) I guess there's a lot of pressure this month to be what grad school failed to be for me but what I imagine it would be like a time in which I could read and write whatever I wanted. And if I don't make it good I'll be very disappointed come January 1st. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Do you feel relieved at all?

CLIENT: No. I just feel too depressed to feel relieved.

THERAPIST: You feel like in the next month you've got to make for a lot.

CLIENT: Yes. I think if I had finished the (inaudible at 00:40:07) stuff and sent them a satisfying e-mail about how they suck that also wouldn't have been good for getting a reference from them, but I would feel better about this month. Having yet another thing sort of fizzle out unsatisfyingly it really feels like I have to actually make some goal and complete it or else I'll just feel like a totally horrible lame ineffectual person. [00:40:37]

(Pause)

THERAPIST: You worked for (inaudible at 00:40:50) since last January?

CLIENT: I think I started in late February or something like that. Yeah.

THERAPIST: (Pause) I guess part of the past, especially recently, you worked incredibly hard for them like multiple nights in a row writing at a much higher level of quality than they expected. Too bad the last week or two has kind of undone any sense of prior satisfaction you had about the work you did for them. [00:41:44]

CLIENT: Yeah. It wouldn't have taken that many hours to not totally ruin it. (Pause) And I think once the new guy sent the angry e-mail I was sort of through with them but I shouldn't have been. Like I shouldn't be so (inaudible at 00:42:30). If communications happens I'm going to be getting a lot of angry e-mails. [00:42:36]

THERAPIST: Although I think that is good different because you kind of go in knowing.

CLIENT: I'm going to do a good job to make people angry sort of.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I think this is more adversarial like that.

CLIENT: Yeah. As long as my editor's not angry at me.

THERAPIST: Uh huh. (Pause) Well we should stop for now. I'll see you next week.

CLIENT: Thanks.

THERAPIST: Can I help you with your books?

CLIENT: No. [00:43:15]

END TRANSCRIPT