TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: The iPhone says one thing, but then clearly something else is happening.
THERAPIST: What was the outlook?
CLIENT: It was 64 degrees and sunny today. I don’t know. Maybe later, but right now it’s fucking cold.
THERAPIST: I saw all that too. I saw it was supposed to be 80.
CLIENT: Is that all set?
THERAPIST: Yeah. It’s recording.
CLIENT: Let’s do this. Oh, it’s recording now?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Sweet. Eventually I’ll get over the urge to say something funny to the transcribers.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: They’re people too, I suppose.
THERAPIST: As far as we know.
CLIENT: Yeah. Probably not very well paid. Sorry, guys. It’s rough. Oh, man. So, vicodin. Vicodin’s really cool. I’m trying not to use more vicodin, you know, because Vicodin’s really awesome and then they gave me something for the pain and what not. So, I don’t want to have pain, and so I’m just going to use it because it’s so excellent.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know.
THERAPIST: Okay. CLIENT: It’s just so nice.
THERAPIST: It would be pretty, pretty easy to get really attached to it.
CLIENT: It’s so nice. It’s so good. It’s just, it’s like how do you feel? Fine. I feel fine. You know. So.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: They really should make this shit available to us all the time. You know. I’m sure it kills your liver, but so does alcohol and it seems like that’s on you. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Well, man, just to say it has been a rough go for you, man. These, these past months, have not been kind. [00:01:40]
CLIENT: No, they have not been kind.
THERAPIST: Not been kind.
CLIENT: But, I’m doing my best. Well, you know, I find myself, I’m working on this, this, there’s this game called Torchlight II. It’s a really good, a solid game. A brief history. You know the game Diablo? You must have heard of Diablo.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So, so, there where Diablo and Diablo was new and perfect and Blizzard, you know. And, then I get Diablo II some years later and Diablo II is new and perfect and absolutely amazing. It was very good for many years. And, some guy in his basement was like I probably could do that. So, he made a clone of Diablo II with some new ideas and a lot of outsourced art and, it was excellent. It was the best Diablo II clone in the world of fake. You could buy it off of various sites for like twenty bucks and it was really solid. It was only single player. I remember I picked it up and though this is really good. And, so that was great. And, then, a few years later, some people who, who worked on the original Diablo, quit Blizzard and are like hey, let’s, let’s make your game fake in to a full on game. So, they made Torchlight and it was the best Diablo II clone ever made. You know, I mean it was amazing. It was the best Diablo clone in many ways. It was amazing. It’s really good. Holy crap. We’re so amazed and there was only single player and so last year Diablo III comes out and people are like oh, Diablo III. We’ve been waiting for many years. It’s like, yeah it’s pretty good. Yeah. It’s pretty good. And, Torchlight II came out which is made by many of the same people and a number of them had quit Blizzard that had worked on Diablo II. And, it’s, it’s the greatest Diablo II ever made. It destroys Diablo III in terms of quality. In terms of in terms of enjoyment. In terms of design. Everything is just, it’s so much better than Diablo III that it’s embarrassing to be Blizzard at right now. I mean Blizzard’s the one who invented the genre. [00:03:40]
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: You know. And it has been out searched by the dude who started it in his basement.
THERAPIST: Oh, okay.
CLIENT: So.
THERAPIST: And, so, after he made fate he made this.
CLIENT: He made Torchlight.
THERAPIST: He made Torchlight.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: But, he took some, some people from Blizzard to join him?
CLIENT: Yeah. And, there were a bunch more there for Torchlight II.
THERAPIST: And Torchlight II. Oh, okay.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, anyway, but there’s a reason they released these, these modules. The full developer kit. The same tools they used to make the game they released to the public.
THERAPIST: Is that so?
CLIENT: You can make your own stuff for the game and put it on Steam workshop and then other people can download it and blah, blah, blah. So, I’ve sort of been putting time and effort in to this because, because it’s interesting. Working on making a different class and making dungeons and stuff, but like every minute I’m spending on this is a minute I’m not spending on something that could be a product I could potentially monetize. You know. Like, while this is interesting and certainly very valid, it’s not You Tube videos. I’m not going to be able to monetize. It’s not board game that people monetize. You know, it’s not. And, in my other creative and endeavors, I’m able to monetize, you know. So, what the fuck am I doing? [00:04:45]
THERAPIST: Well, is it, is it a relief though from all the kind of, you know, the, I guess maybe another question is when you’re doing the You Tube stuff or developing stuff is there a pressure there? Are you feeling like the pressure to monetize?
CLIENT: I guess there is some. Like, you know, like, yeah, this has to be a product as well, you know.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Is it a relief from that? You know. A kind of, a time to kind of just do something that you don’t have to, you know, be worried about.
CLIENT: Yeah. But, then I’m like I need to get a job. You know. Like, there’s just, there’s nothing there. There’s just nothing there. You know.
THERAPIST: You know, what are you finding? What are you, what are you looking for?
CLIENT: Things that are.
THERAPIST: What are you seeing out there?
CLIENT: There’s a cue that seems irrational. I mean I’m not called back. That’s like ludicrous that they didn’t call back. Like, I’m an excellent choice for this, so, like, why would you not call me back? You know. Maybe I’m over qualified. Which this is what I found is like that I’m over qualified for some stuff and under qualified for others. [00:06:00]
THERAPIST: The key way extension you’ve, you’re over qualified for.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s a manager position under a director. It’s like. I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know. I just want to be like what the fuck, man. What the fuck.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.
CLIENT: I need to get some sort of job. And, like, there’s, there’s nothing I’m finding. You know. It’s all just, like, amount of stuff and I’m like am I looking completely in the wrong direction? I’m like am I just looking in the wrong area? You know. I’m not really sure what to look for. Like, I feel really lost on this.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.
CLIENT: Particular issue. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Do you have anybody you feel like you can trust in the industry that you could talk to about what, what you’re doing?
CLIENT: I’m having lunch with my friend, Edie, today. You know, she’s a, she’s a recruiter in the industry and she works at Melody. You know. So, I’m sure I’ll broach this subject with her. You know. And, she may even have some leads. You know, she’s, she’s very involved in the game community. So.
THERAPIST: No. It makes sense though. Like, when people are in your position, I think it’s good to have somebody that their talking to that knows the industry and that they can really go hey, this is, you can say hey, this is what I’m doing. What do you think? They give you some feedback.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:07:30]
THERAPIST: It also kind of helps you kind of go am I doing something wrong versus it’s just...
CLIENT: Well, I’m not doing anything wrong.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like, you know, like, what it is I’m doing wrong.
THERAPIST: It clarifies that stuff.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I was like maybe you’ve been asking too many questions and maybe I’m being too direct. Violet Mills and now she’s Violet Kingsley told me she’s like, you can, you can intimidate people who are interviewing you. She’s like and that’s a problem. You know.
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: I’m like well, what the fuck do I do? I remember telling her year ago so, it’s like I feel like I should downplay my intelligence. And, he’s like you can’t hide how smart you are. He’s like you can’t actually hide that. He’s like it just comes across in basic conversation with you. You know. And, as he says, like, when you write in your blog remember that not everyone knows all the words that you do. I don’t think I know that many words.
THERAPIST: Yeah. You know. You can’t hide hit. I don’t think you even want to hide that. You want them to know who you are.
CLIENT: Well, I did for years want to hide it. The idea was don’t let anyone know how smart you are then they can’t expect things of you. And, I don’t remember the situation, but that’s how smart I was. Like, how I downplayed the edge to a degree where I would defer things that, that were considered when it really was a guess. Here are, here are the things we need to be paying attention to. That one is already marginalized. You know. So, you know.
THERAPIST: If they knew how intelligent you were, they would expect stuff from you? [00:09:15]
CLIENT: Yeah. Which was silly in the first place, but, you know, because really all you needed them to do was expect things from you so that when I told them what to do they would listen. I don’t know. It’s incredibly frustrating to look back on Melody and see them finally doing things I told them to do years ago. Years ago. I mean, like, these are things that we should be doing. They’re finally, slowly making their way there. You know. I don’t know. They’re making a mistake. I was thinking these people were so high above me. So, when really some of them were just very smart. And that’s it.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And, the problem with very smart people is that they make it to the top of the curve. You know. Whereas, I try to be very conscious like there are people who are significantly smarter than I am. People who terrify me how much smarter than I am they are.
THERAPIST: Terrified?
CLIENT: Yeah. People who make me feel stupid. You know.
THERAPIST: Really?
CLIENT: Like, oh, absolutely. There are people with 200 IQ’s out there. You know, there’s a guy living on a farm who is working on the unified theory of everything and no one will listen to him because he doesn’t have a fucking science degree and so it’s like why does he need a science degree? It’s like I can fucking see how the world works. You know. It’s like, he cares who he is and he comes up with, you know. People like Sam Harris. You know. It’s like well, this guy, he has really studied being intelligent. He has practiced it. He has worked at honing his intelligence for, for specific purposes. Specifically, for the purpose of the discourse of conversation of argument. Really useful applications of intelligence that I, I spent them on games. You know. Which is really all I want to fucking do, you know, is make games. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah. It’s your love. [00:11:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. I mean that’s what I fucking love to do. I mean just fucking make contact with the world.
THERAPIST: But, it’s almost like there’s, it feels to make like you, you can sense, a link between intelligence and power.
CLIENT: Oh, certainly. Absolutely I link intelligence with power. Absolutely I link intelligence with power. I don’t know. It’s not one to one. Most presidents aren’t that smart. You know. Politicians. Can you believe this gun control thing? 46 senators on the take. 46 bribed senators. Same thing with CISPA just happened. People were like oh, we have cispa and then like, fucking Time Warner comes in (inaudible at 00:11:40) what are you going to do? They’re just blatantly for sale. We have this, we have this legal bribe system built in. It’s called lobbying. We’re like yeah, it’s, it’s, you can buy people all you want now.
THERAPIST: It’s amazing. It’s amazing.
CLIENT: Yeah. Well, and what do we do? Nothing. We do nothing. There’s nothing we can do. Honestly, what are we able to do? The answer is nothing.
THERAPIST: Boy, did that expose something though. That, that, the gun control thing. How could we not?
CLIENT: No. Yeah. Well, it exposes it, but like what do you do?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: The people who are taking the bribes are the people who changed the system. Right. So, what the fuck do we do?
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. [00:12:30]
CLIENT: So. So, appeal to their morality? Please. No. There are parents in Vermont who murdered their two children. Two of their eight children. The first one they wouldn’t take to the hospital because they kept praying over him and praying over him hoping he would get better. He needed Tylenol. Yeah, he needed a Tylenol. That’s what would have saved him was Tylenol and they didn’t bring him to the doctor and he died. And, the judge was like, well, you know, it’s Vermont, so it’s not child abuse if they did it for religious purposes. You know. So, that’s on the books in Vermont. So, so, they got ten years’ probation where they have to schedule regular medical checkups for all their seven other children. You know. These are, these are people with eight children first of all. Like, so, and then, just recently they were let go.
THERAPIST: They got let off. They got let off?
CLIENT: Yeah. They were let off because it was the same reason. They wouldn’t bring him to the doctor. He was having a hard a time breathing and having constant diarrhea and then he died. An 8 month old baby died of something preventable and so now they actually facing jail time while their kids have been taken away from them. I’m like okay, well, that’s what happened the first time. When you murder your children, you shouldn’t have children anymore.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. [00:14:00]
CLIENT: When there is evidence that you believe in faith healing, you shouldn’t have children anymore. You should not have anyone under the age of 18 living in your house.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. You know, one thing that just jumps out about that to me is, is, is really, you know, the amount of, the amount of craziness you endured without anybody stepping in and doing anything.
CLIENT: Certainly.
THERAPIST: And, what you learned from that is that you’ve got to take care of yourself.
CLIENT: Oh, absolutely.
THERAPIST: And, then the best thing that you have on your side is your intellect?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And, you’re, you’re, it’s a dangerous world if you’re not, if you’re not kind of like the smartest one in the room. You know.
CLIENT: Right. Well and then yeah, there’s something to that. You know. I mean I get, I get so irritated. [00:15:00]
THERAPIST: But, you know, one other thing about it is, is that there’s also a hell of a lot of pain you endured.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: A hell of a lot of, of well, pain and fear might be the best way to put it. I don’t know what, how you would characterize it.
CLIENT: Well, there is some fear. Some fear. Yeah.
THERAPIST: You wouldn’t even have fear.
CLIENT: Yeah. Not as much as many do, I’m certain. Like, I mean more people have it a lot worse. No one chopped off my arm or raped me to death. You know. So, that’s good.
THERAPIST: That’s true.
CLIENT: You know. Of course, we’re in a first world country, so we worry about that less.
THERAPIST: That’s true.
CLIENT: So, yeah, no, it is that. From my own personal experience of it, it was, it was no good. As far as I knew as a child, it was the worst it can be. As far as I knew as a child, it wasn’t just my world. Although, I sort of put it together later that it was my world.
THERAPIST: How do you mean that? [00:16:00]
CLIENT: Well, I remember when I was in high school when we lived with my uncle Jared my junior year. It was a two, a two hour commute to school and become from school. It was awful.
THERAPIST: So, four all together?
CLIENT: Yeah. Four.
THERAPIST: Holy shit.
CLIENT: You know. And, go drive me to Montague and in Montague we’d meet up with Rose and then Rose would drive us to Middletown where we would meet up with Dolly and Dolly would drive us to school. Yeah. In Dolly’s car we would listen to Ace of Base or Meatloaf and I fucking hate both of those people. So, awful, awful music. Awful. Awful music.
THERAPIST: Ace of Base.
CLIENT: Ace of Base, yeah. I saw a sign. I opened up my eyes and saw a sign. (singing back beat to song) And, it was like fucking awful. Over and over again. I’ve heard that album so many times. I digress. So, what I ended up doing since this was such a hard commute was I ended up staying with people in the middle of the week. I’d stay with Christian sometimes, you know, at his place. He had a spare bedroom and I’d sleep there and then go to school the next day. He’s a teacher there right now. Sometimes I would stay with Dolly. I’d stay overnight at her place and her mother was a sex education teacher at school which was the old boy’s school down the street.
THERAPIST: Just tell me. Where were you living?
CLIENT: I was living, I was living in Pelhalm and the school is in Heath.
THERAPIST: So, where is that in this? [00:17:30]
CLIENT: Pelhalm is next to Wallingford.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: And, Heath is north of Middletown.
THERAPIST: And, where is Middletown?
CLIENT: Middletown is a half hour north of North Wallignford. So, off 91 I think it is.
THERAPIST: Oh. Okay.
CLIENT: Next to 91. And, Heath was like a half hour from New Jersey.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: So. Yeah.
THERAPIST: What a trek.
CLIENT: Yes. So, from the middle of the state to the top pretty much. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah. So, sorry.
CLIENT: Yeah, so I was staying with people and I started staying with Dolly more and more often because I didn’t want to go home. My uncle, Tim, is bi-polar and it was winter and he was, you know, depressed and angry and I was depressed and angry and so, it wasn’t. He yells a lot when he gets that way, and so he’d be yelling and I like didn’t like that. You know. I was like I didn’t even want to go home. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like, it was really stressful for me because I kept thinking he was going to flip out and hit me at any point. You know. And, finally, you know, he comes up to Dolly’s house to, you know, her mom called him up was like you should come and we should talk about why he doesn’t want to go home. You know. And, so, the three of us are sitting there talking about it and I was talking about being scared of him, you know, and afraid that he was going to hit me. He’s like, well, have you ever been hit? I’m like, because he has never hit me, I’m like, well, no and he’s like well, and Dolly’s like, Dolly’s mom is like well, I think he means ever and not just by, by him. And, I’m like, oh, well, yes. I said the answer is obvious. Like, of course. [00:19:00]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know. Maybe he didn’t even know that. So.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And, then it was like a shock. He’d be like, he was like, he was saying like oh, god. Like, no, of course I never wanted to hit you. People don’t do that. People don’t do that. People don’t hit people. So.
THERAPIST: But, it wasn’t something that you...
CLIENT: It wasn’t obvious to me. It was like oh and it struck me at that point. Pardon the pun, that it should have been obvious that it wasn’t obvious.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I’m sure if you asked that, it doesn’t mean he did.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Like there’s a feeling of why the, why the hell wouldn’t you understand?
CLIENT: Well, yeah. It’s all very odd. Okay, this is one of those situations where you start with deprogramming. Like, oh, here’s something you thought was wrong.
THERAPIST: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
CLIENT: Okay. I see now. You know. So, it’s just to put that stuff together.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Deprogramming, yeah. [00:20:00]
CLIENT: I remember, I remember when I was a kid, my mother was certain that alcohol was a totally dangerous drug and it made people violent and made them beat their wives and children. So, when I was at my friend Xavier’s house, which was really interesting to me, because it was, it was a very much of an alien experience for me. You know, they’re all Cuban. You know. The mom spoke Spanish most of the day, you know, when I was there. David and I would be there with Xavier. And, you know, the Spanish speaking Spanish, but most of the time and was talking to us in English. And, so, already I don’t understand, like, a lot of the culture going on. His father’s very, very macho, very quiet. You know, a very intimidating sort of thing. So, we’re over there playing video games and one of his cousins comes in one day and we’re having like a party and he’s got like a 40 and he has been drinking and he’s obviously a little tipsy and he sits down to like, you know, watch Xavier play video games. And, I stood in absolute terror and would not move. Like, like as if he were rabid dog. You know. I just thought he was going to fly off the handle like hey, and start hitting us at any moment. You know.
THERAPIST: Oh boy.
CLIENT: This guy is drunk. He’s going to be incredibly violent. Which, of course, is ridiculous.
THERAPIST: But, not at all, especially when violence is a, not an abstract concept.
CLIENT: Right. Which is very real and present.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s something you have seen first-hand.
CLIENT: Well, it’s something that is always just around the corner. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So.
THERAPIST: How often would you say, you know, your mother could be violent in a given week, for instance? [00:21:40]
CLIENT: Oh, rarely in a week. Sometimes we would go months without.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Without anything. But, it was, it didn’t really matter because it always came out of nowhere and it was always close to happening. You could see her building to it. At times, when she would try to angry, she would be unable to. You know. She’d be like you’re getting away. She tried to grab me or something and I would just get away. I remember one time she, I was off the road and she was in the front seat and she was reaching back trying to slap me. You know. And, I’m like Jesus Christ. You know. This woman is insane.
THERAPIST: And, she almost went off the road?
CLIENT: Yeah. She had one hand on the wheel, you know, and she’s a crazy person.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, she never should have had children. Clearly. Well, Fred you never would have been. I wouldn’t mind if I had never been. I wouldn’t mind. How would I? What a ridiculous concept. Well, what if you had never been born? Then I would have never born and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I wouldn’t have any emotions about it because I wouldn’t exist to have emotions about it. What a ridiculous concept. You know. What if you die and nothing happens? Then you won’t mind. Then you won’t mind. You know. It’s okay. Essentially, a pretty good scenario, considering some of the professed alternatives. You know? Like, in a system where you can go either to heaven or hell, I think the possibilities would cease to be at the end of your life.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: It would be like it’s fine. It’s better. It would be a real comfort.
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: So, it’s like flipping a coin.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Exactly.
CLIENT: So, my doctor says the transference rate of bipolar disorder from parent to child is a coin flip. It’s a straight up fifty fifty chance.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And, so, there are some people who are like oh, Fred, would you ever have children? No. Of course not. Not only do I not believe that it’s right to inflict life on someone. Right? It’s like ha ha, you’re alive. Deal with that. You know. As well as, like, I can flip a coin and your life is going to be fucked or it’s going to be like everyone else’s and possibly fucked. You know. If you flip a coin, you give this person bi-polar. No. Of course not.
THERAPIST: I see yeah.
CLIENT: It’s an awful thing to do.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Why would you do that? Well, you will be less lonely. Seems kind of selfish, doesn’t it?
THERAPIST: Well, I, I think too that you, you endured a, a life with a, with a person that had it in a very severe, untreated. It was schizophrenic.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And, it was untreated and it put you through hell.
CLIENT: Yeah. It was pretty rough. Yeah.
THERAPIST: You know. It makes me think, you know, of heaven and hell and how, you know, like, what if you had, there’s this line about how analysts came up with about we don’t fear, we don’t fear of the something. A fear of what is. We don’t have a fear of what will happen. We have this fear of what has already happened. And, I think for you, having been through the kind of stuff that you’ve been through, it’s very different for people who haven’t been through that because they don’t have a fear of something that you have a fear of.
CLIENT: Well, they just don’t understand it’s a possibility. [00:25:15]
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: If I walk around not thinking about it.
THERAPIST: They don’t have to think of it. They’ve never seen it.
CLIENT: Yeah. Right.
THERAPIST: In other words they’re out of it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s like people who have been to war.
CLIENT: There’s probably people who don’t have any sort of trauma. They understand something the rest of us don’t. They have seen things the rest of us haven’t. They understand the things that can happen to someone that others don’t know about. There was this episode of SVU on video where they talked to man who, as a child, was, was caught by a serial killer and pretty horribly abused and tortured as a child. And, what stuck with me the most is this line. He’s like I didn’t even know you could do that to a person. You know.
THERAPIST: Never even imagined.
CLIENT: Yeah. No. It’s that sort of thing. Like, I didn’t even realize that could even be done. You know.
THERAPIST: I think the other thing that people don’t know, that you know, is that you are, when you’re attached to the person that is supposed to give you care, which is natural and instinctual and adaptive, and the person that you’re attached to is the most dangerous person.
CLIENT: Right. Yeah.
THERAPIST: There’s something very, very scary in that.
CLIENT: Well there’s something that point it ever happens is when it happened to me I guess, right? Either, one of the things, you know, against most people probably don’t ascend or crumble in to that sort of thing. [00:27:00]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: My nephew. You know, there’s something about my nephew and his buddy playing the, with games last weekend.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Well, what were you thinking?
CLIENT: Well, I was thinking, again, just like when I was a child needing to, you know, hide pornography and struggle to find it. And, again, it’s just his, his ability now just to go find it. You know. It seems to me, he can type in naked ladies in to Google. Naked ladies. Boom. Everything he ever hoped to see or learn. Things he might hope to never see or learn or be able to unsee. You know. Later on. You know.
THERAPIST: It can have an effect on them.
CLIENT: Things that you’re like, oh, I didn’t really want to see that. Like, you know. Like, you know. You’re just watching some porn and next to you is somebody. Like, come on, guys. What the fuck. I was watching this. What are you doing? I don’t know.
THERAPIST: Versus you would sneak it. You had to like sneak.
CLIENT: Well, I had to sneak to learn the stuff. I had to, like, really work at it. You know.
THERAPIST: Cover your tracks.
CLIENT: Yeah. There was a real effort to it. Now, all he has to do is get familiar control, shift, N and, you know, and watch incognito mode. You know. It won’t save any of his web history. You know. Close out the windows afterwards. Put it back and it’s like he was never there. Then a virus will get on the machine, because he’s not, he doesn’t know how to use site advisor in Norton and all those various other tools to determine to if the site you’re going to is a malware site or not. You know. So, he’ll fall prey to those, to those sites because no one will have taught him about safe surfing habits. And, there are 4 Chan the five forms of like jail bait and I don’t know what that means and go in there. Those things exist. There’s places on sites like fortune who have jail bait sections. Like, what the fuck are you thinking? Like, it says right there in the title. You know. [00:29:30]
THERAPIST: What did you say? It’s called 4 Chan?
CLIENT: 4 Chan is like an Internet picture site. It’s, I’ve rarely been because it sounds like an awful place and it is. It’s pretty much a collection of pictures. People just doing all sorts of various different things. And, you can, you can push to get the ramp in pictures with the Internet. There’s some picture from somewhere on the Internet and it seems like it’s a horrible button to push. Which I’ve never done. Just like with Chat Roulette. I’ve never played Chat Roulette. It seems like a real losing game.
THERAPIST: There was the thing that came from the Russia, the, the roulette of the video roulette?
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Chat Roulette.
THERAPIST: That’s Chat Roulette. Oh. Okay.
CLIENT: Yeah. Where you just like push a button and someone’s web cam.
THERAPIST: And, somebody’s web cam comes up and you don’t know what you’re going to get.
CLIENT: Yeah. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? And, there’s people who like record those and put them on line.
THERAPIST: Oh. Yeah.
CLIENT: And, there’s this guy who does, he does comedy. He dresses up as a, in a bikini. You know. He had a beard though. It’s a long like wave and he is in a bikini and he does a couple of dances where he’s turning away from the camera and he’ll turn towards the camera and he’ll be like oh, dude. You know. It’s funny. He does like comedy, maybe, and like he does this dance and lip synchs to it and just that’s his chat roulette. He just does that over and over and over again and he records it.
THERAPIST: Is this the one that switches every 15 seconds or something like that?
CLIENT: That’s Vine. That’s Vine I think does that. This might as well. I don’t know. The Chat Roulette, with the Chat Roulette, you hit a button and you get a web cam.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: And Vine switches like every six seconds. But, regardless, and this is just what he’ll do. And, he makes a video of that on You Tube which he cycles through all the people to get their reactions to this.
THERAPIST: And, he’ll have it on his? [00:31:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. On his and theirs at the same time and it’s funny because people are just like, you know, are you going to put a light on or something. You know, or whatever.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But, there’s one where, like, he does just kind of dancing around in a bikini with his face turned away from the camera or like with his hair, like, and he’s hiding his beard and like pretending to be a woman and everything. And, the other person’s like camera. I see he’s, like, watching kind of on the side and you see his hand starts to move down the camera frame and the guy, he pulls his beard and he’s like don’t touch me, dick. Don’t you touch me dick right now and he was like just slam the off button and I’m like why would he masturbate on Chat Roulette? Like, people are recording you, man. But, what, what are you thinking? That’s just a stupid idea. You know. It’s like what are you thinking? Now, people don’t realize that the Internet is forever. The Internet is forever. You know. So.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, the, it’s almost like you, you’re sort of saying like well, how could these guys not be thinking?
CLIENT: How could they not be thinking ahead, yeah.
THERAPIST: Ahead, yeah.
CLIENT: You know, before I do this stupid thing.
THERAPIST: Yes. Including why would you even be in the chat room in the first place if you’re?
CLIENT: Right. Why would you be there in the first place? Why would you be there in the first place?
THERAPIST: You don’t know what you’re going to get.
CLIENT: What an awful idea. I’m sure it’s like oh, why can’t we find something gross. It’s like yeah, you’ll probably see something gross. Probably. But, it’s like people who watch two girls in one cut. You know. I never saw. Eventually I wiki’d and I was like so what happens? You know, is there a text explanation of what goes on in this clip.
THERAPIST: But, you were smart enough to go why would I want to? [00:33:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. I was like, I saw the reaction to the video. People are like oh. I’m like, okay, then why am I, if this is the reaction you’re going to have, then why I am going to watch this thing.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like, this sounds awful. You know.
THERAPIST: It seems to me, like, it kind of relates to the whole, your ideas about like driving. Well, you know, driving is such a dangerous thing.
CLIENT: Incredibly dangerous.
THERAPIST: You can get yourself, I mean even if it’s not your fault, you can get yourself in to vehicular homicide. CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: Yeah. And, it’s so little people that don’t think about the risks. It’s almost like imperative that you don’t think about risks.
CLIENT: I guess.
THERAPIST: To drive.
CLIENT: I guess that’s their, what they think. Who knows. I don’t know.
THERAPIST: Oh, I guarantee you they’re not thinking about the, there’s no way anybody would drive if they really thought about it. There’s something I once said like, if you, if you really consider and we’re very aware of the exact, how much trust goes in to driving, you’d never drive. Somebody can swerve in to your side of the lane just randomly.
CLIENT: Some of them do. It’s totally on you. Yeah.
THERAPIST: But, you know, and I was aware of you saying a couple weeks ago that you want to drive though.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You want to be able to drive.
CLIENT: It’s really good. It’s really good.
THERAPIST: When did you drive?
CLIENT: What did I drive?
THERAPIST: When? What, what age were you driving?
CLIENT: In high school mostly. Eighteen. I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty and through college, but that was mostly it. You know. After college, after we, we moved to Warwick, you know, Ginny had her car, which we still have. And, I was smoking a lot of weeds in those days. And, so, then I’d have a student drive. I was like let’s go out and they like I can’t drive because I’m high right now. You know, I can’t drive.
THERAPIST: You wouldn’t drive if you were high? [00:35:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. I was high all the time so eventually he’s like oh, I can’t drive. Like, I’ve recently been high or like I was pretty high yesterday, you know, so, I don’t want to like drive and have, you know, one of us get pulled over and I remember one time I had to get Ginny from the train station. This was from the blue line when she was getting back from the airport she was going to take the blue line and then I was going to go pick her up. It was a ten minute drive. A ten minute drive from my house to the blue line. And, it’s not a very complicated drive. You know, down the straight highway. 75 percent around the road and some side streets. You know. Not hard. I don’t remember the roads right now. Not, not difficult, but I mistimed it. I mistimed how long it would take me to come down from being high. So, I had to go get her and I was still a little high and I remember being like this is horrible. Like, this is the most horrible thing because, you know, I’m, I’m very conscious of driving anyway, right and then I was super conscious, like, okay don’t look like you’re high while you are driving. Make sure you go exactly the right speed limit and like oh God, be super careful and I was thinking, like, oh shit, my reaction time is not as fast as it needs to be and I’m like I’m impaired. I’m driving impaired. You know. And, just feeling like this is awful. This is absolutely awful. And, so, I got there and I had her take over the, the wheel and she drove us back.
THERAPIST: It was like your brain went in to hyper vigilance mode almost to the point where you couldn’t.
CLIENT: Right. I was, I was like this is awful. This is an awful experience. And, I think it was probably part of it. One of the last times I really drove and I’ve driven since, you know, and I drove to work a lot, you know or to Melody, but it was a specific route that I took every day and I had intentionally planned a very quiet route with very simple turns. Very predictable patterns. [00:37:10]
THERAPIST: Where do you start to get kind of more concerned about it?
CLIENT: When I go to new places. Places I don’t know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: When I have to like figure out a new, a new route on the highway is getting on to and off of the highway.
THERAPIST: There’s, are there specific things about driving that make your more nervous? You know, like, you said something about the turns, the turns are simple. Or, you know, two lanes to four lanes.
CLIENT: Yeah. Having to, having to get over lanes. You know. I usually do it well beforehand and I’m like I’m going to be getting off in a couple miles, so I’ll get in to the right lane and I’ll just stay there.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: I’m like no, I’m not going out. Then after I get over, this is where I am.
THERAPIST: Okay. Yeah.
CLIENT: I’ve never seen a situation where I have to oh, quickly get over there. Like, I don’t want to do that.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Yeah. Essentially, I don’t like anything where I really have to communicate with another drive because they’re all fucking idiots. You know. [00:38:30]
THERAPIST: Tell me, like, when did you have to...
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like I need to get in your lane. You need to let me in your lane. I’m like I’ll get in to your lane. I’m getting out of this lane. You know. I just don’t like those things. Again, it’s a level of trust. It’s like.
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: I need you not to be stupid. I need you not be stupid. Can that, can you be that guy? You can be that guy.
THERAPIST: Yeah, how are you, I mean, like, the, the trust is, is not really there based upon a lot experiences of really feeling like there’s a lot of craziness and stupidity.
CLIENT: Yeah. Well, certainly there’s a lot of craziness and stupidity. Way more than it’s, more than I’m comfortable with. So, yeah. It seems sort of terrifying. I’m in this world where I have to and I’m dependent upon so many stupid people, or even average people. Like, being at the career fair and actually being surrounded by average level intelligence people. Being like wow, this is awful. This is absolutely awful. Just, just mind numbing. You know. These are, these are regular people.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: These are people, 80 percent of which, 80 percent of which, believe that an invisible space monster is coming to end the world.
THERAPIST: What I think too is that, it, you’re also, you’re also aware of the fact that there, and I think this is very, very true of your mother. That she was not concerned so much about her own safety a lot of the time or her own well-being.
CLIENT: Or, she wasn’t aware of it.
THERAPIST: She wasn’t aware of it. Exactly.
CLIENT: No. She just kind of took it for granted essentially that she would be fine. [00:40:40]
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: So, many car accidents there have been with her. I told you this. I have been in multiple car accidents.
THERAPIST: Yeah. How many?
CLIENT: Oh, God. It’s hard to remember. So, I think, okay, so, when I was five is the tiny one. She was backing out of the driveway and slammed in to a parked car across the street. So, okay, not a huge deal. Not a big deal.
THERAPIST: Frightening as a five year old though.
CLIENT: Yeah. You know, she had another fender bender. She ran in to someone’s car when I was like seven or eight. Also, not a big deal. When I was about ten, she pulled out in to another, in to, like pulled out from a T in to traffic and wham, hit the front of our car.
THERAPIST: You got, you got t-boned?
CLIENT: No. The, the.
THERAPIST: She hit.
CLIENT: We got hit, but it was in the front like tire. The front left, the front left tire. So, you know. I’m like okay, not, again, a little bit worse. She gets in to a crash so she got to sue for that and that’s when she learned she could sue for car accidents and they seemed to be a lot more prevalent after that. You know. When she got, when she understood that she could get money out of it. So.
THERAPIST: Oh. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There’s like a whole cottage industry of people doing that. Yeah. [00:42:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. And she’s one of them.
THERAPIST: Jesus.
CLIENT: And, and, then there was she had this old man, Charles, driving us around and I swear to God she targeted him. He was this old man with like a big station wagon. You know, one of the newer ones at the time with an, an electronic dashboard. You know, this old, old guy who couldn’t turn his head left or right, but he drove. He drove us places. So, I was in the front seat and she was in the back seat with Kevin and Bridget and he’s driving us around and he goes to pull out on to the highway. Not a major highway. It was one of those western Rhode Island highways. He doesn’t look left. He can’t look left. He just pulls out and a truck smashes us. We spin around.
THERAPIST: Holy shit.
CLIENT: I’m so accustomed to car crashes at this point that I actually sit up in my seat and turn around, wow, and watch us go. This is amazing. We spin and we spin. And, and, then there was just calm. My mother says no, I think I broke my back. I think I broke my back. So, they take her out on a board. Kevin wakes up. He’s a baby and sees his mommy being taken on a board and he freaks out. You know. And, Bridget and I get in the ambulance. We go. We’re all at the hospital. We’re all fine. James comes to get us and he’s in there and the nurse comes out and says she might have a broken back and James’ like did the doctor say that or did she say that? The nurse is like she says that. You know, they wheel her out in a wheel chair and she’s like oh, oh.
THERAPIST: Oh, boy.
CLIENT: She sued him as well.
THERAPIST: Charles?
CLIENT: Yeah, the guy who was driving us. She won. [00:44:00]
THERAPIST: She won?
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. You know, so there was that one.
THERAPIST: Jesus.
CLIENT: And, then there were some smaller ones. But she eventually wrecked her car when it was just her and Kevin. She flipped it and rolled it.
THERAPIST: She flipped it?
CLIENT: Yeah. And, she got in to a car accident with herself that time. And, she was pretty badly injured. Kevin was fine. I remember thinking like that’s probably when she went too far. You know, she’s feeling insecure because something just happened earlier that day. Some conversation with Bridget.
THERAPIST: Oh, my God.
CLIENT: So, she probably went looking to get in to a car accident. You know, to get some sympathy.
THERAPIST: Make her feel bad?
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. And get, you know, get some extra crash. But, there was nobody there and she swerved and then she just flipped the car. You know. So, she was calculating and hurt herself really badly and Kevin never drove with her again.
THERAPIST: Oh, my gosh.
CLIENT: No. It’s just not safe.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So.
THERAPIST: Jesus. No wonder you’re feeling like that.
CLIENT: It’s terrifying. It’s dangerous. There are people like her out there. You know.
THERAPIST: I mean people get enough freaked out by one accident and won’t drive again. [00:45:20]
CLIENT: And, I had one, a number of years ago, with Darcy. She got in to a car accident with herself, but that wasn’t too bad. So, this thing where she switches lanes and she turns to look while she’s in the process of switching lanes. So, while we were, Ginny and I were in the back seat and she’s going down a two land highway and we’re going and she starts to go in another lane and she looks and sees another car there and says oh and swerves back hard in the other way. She just goes like oh. Swerves back hard the other way. Spins around. It rips both of the front tires open on the skid and we’re perpendicular to the highway. It’s like.
THERAPIST: Been here. [00:46:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. And I was like do, do, do, do. And, I’m like hey, we’re on the highway. What’s up. Yeah. A car accident.
THERAPIST: I was thinking that almost in one way it’s almost like maybe calming to think it’s finally happened.
CLIENT: I guess. Yeah. It’s like I had another one on the way, on the way home from college one, one spring break. A bunch of us were coming back from Diego’s place and Melissa Jules was sleeping with Chester and so she’s like I’ll come too. I’ll bring in my car. My unregistered, uninsured car with bald tires on a winter trip down a mountain. And, Omar is his car in the back seat. He spins out and gets taken off the side of the road, perpendicular to the road. It finally comes and the back half is sticking out in to the highway. I look out the window and I see Chester driving down and she can’t stop. She had bad brakes and bald tires on an icy road. The look on her face.
THERAPIST: Oh, my gosh.
CLIENT: Is just terrified. Terrified. Like she’s going to slam directly in to me and Tim’s like oh, I was thinking like. I sort of got, I felt like I coaster car to the side. You know, I was looking and wham. Hits the back of the car behind me and destroys the trunk of his car. Destroys the trunk of his car and if I get hit again that was the fastest way in cost to myself. You know, because he used to be cautious up to that point and then. So.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, but your mother is intentionally getting to accidents.
CLIENT: Yeah. Probably. Probably. [00:47:45]
THERAPIST: I mean there’s something. There’s something.
CLIENT: With that many of them and her being hit, always her being hit. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s a racket that some people do all around the state or all around the country, I’m sure.
CLIENT: Yeah. I’m not even sure if she was aware she was doing it.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: She would deny it. According to her, when talking with my mother about the marathon bombings, terrorists are trying to kill Fred and Bridget right now.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, I’m like, no, it’s not true.
THERAPIST: Oh, my God.
CLIENT: So. So, we’re a little at a loss.
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: Yeah. Alright.
THERAPIST: I mean just really striking. Just what you just said is just very, very striking.
CLIENT: It’s what she thought.
THERAPIST: It’s that, that they’re going to kill you.
CLIENT: Right. Right. They’re coming to kill us, right. It’s like, no, no that had nothing to do with us. You know, we weren’t even there.
THERAPIST: It’s the exact opposite thing that a parent should say. I mean, if they’re wanting to have their children feel safe.
CLIENT: Well, yeah, she said the other day they’re coming to kill us. Just so it was closely related to her. So, this way she can make the bombing about her in some way.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: You know. Well, that’s a sickness though, isn’t it?
THERAPIST: It is.
CLIENT: I know. It’s time I guess.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Next week. Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. Someone left twenty one cents on your ledge there.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Somebody left it in the, in the chair.
CLIENT: Well, if they don’t come back, it’s yours.
THERAPIST: I’m taking it. If they’re not here in a week, it’s mine.
CLIENT: There you go. See you next week.
THERAPIST: Okay. See you next week.
END TRANSCRIPT
