TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Then are we good for Tuesdays again starting...

CLIENT: Yes. I don't even know how to explain what's been going. I'm trying to figure out a way that it's going to make any sense at all. OK, so I think I had mentioned to you that Mike's dad's third wife is some sort of a mental health professional. Well, we had a conversation because there's a lot of drama going on in Mike's sister's life right now. And to be honest, I don't remember what I said to her but I think it was pretty innocuous, like, just something not especially, like, positive but probably not something negative either. And the thing she said to me is one of those things where I really feel like on some level I understand. There's a huge psychotic leap (ph) for me there is what I think and what I feel, you know, and it's very difficult sometimes to sort of separate them. [00:01:07]

So I don't remember exactly what I said to her it was pretty innocuous but she said, "Borderline people like you are the bottomless pits of woe and need."

THERAPIST: Yet you don't have borderline personality disorder. Don't sweat it.

CLIENT: I know but isn't this kind of, like, super unethical as a mental health professional to say shit like that?

THERAPIST: It is super unethical and it is downright mean.

CLIENT: It pretty shuts me down from never being able to say anything wrong again, pretty much, because...

THERAPIST: No, what it does is it makes her out to have acted like a huge bitch. I mean, it's just a horrible thing to say and unethical and wildly inappropriate.

CLIENT: Because I think that actually, you see me two hours a week, that you've spent more time with me than she has in my entire life, the past couple years. And it just but the thing is, is that it makes me really want to ever mention anything, you know, negative in any way, shape you know what I mean? It totally makes it so that my behavior is now sculpted by the fact that I don't want to hear that kind of stuff again or necessarily even really it made me really reexamine a lot of the things. Like, when I want to say that I need help and things are going wrong and I do have right now kind of weird life that seems to have a lot of, like, random stuff in it. But I don't feel like I need to I'm trying to talk to people because it's time to connect with people but I'm not very good at it and don't talk to people very often. I really don't people to know about my life, you know. I really don't. I don't feel like I'm seeking, like, a lot of, you know, emotional but you can see how this can be mentally manipulative to me. [00:03:06]

THERAPIST: Yes, absolutely.

CLIENT: You know? And it just and now it's like I'm going to be second guessing every single motive I have for a very long time.

THERAPIST: If it helps Debra, I've seen a number of people with borderline personality disorder and that diagnostic has often been used historically in a pejorative way but, you know, it is a real sort of clinical entity and there are people who meet that description and, you know, I've seen a number of people like that. And, you know, sometimes I've worked actually quite closely with them. And, you know, (pause) that's just not you, you know. If it was, I would tell you because I think it would be in your interest to know or I'd find some way to talk with you about the kinds of symptoms that that entails. I mean, the primary symptoms include things like, you know, terribly unstable volatile relationships, which you don't have. I mean... [00:04:31]

CLIENT: I don't feel like I'm being abandoned constantly by people, you know. Hell, I let people abandon me and still defend them. You know what I mean? (laughter)

THERAPIST: Absolutely. You don't have that I mean, and there are a lot of people who don't meet criteria for bpd but have, you know, kind of borderline like vulnerabilities, you know, are sort of more sensitive around things like abandonment or (pause) yeah, more of a tendency to kind of act out when they, you know, without a lot of impulse control or insult. You're just not one of those people.

CLIENT: I appreciate that and I do but on some level also the rational side of me is saying, well, I really need to I need to spend more time thinking about how I'm projecting myself to people. I know it was just abusive. It was just something specifically to shut me down and not ever say anything, you know, that was going to be unpleasant.

THERAPIST: It could have been any number of things. I mean, it could have been mostly manipulative. It could have been just sadistic and mean. It could have straight up ignorant and dumb. I mean, you know better than I because you were there but I imagine it'd be hard for you to judge because you were just reeling from the blow.

CLIENT: Yeah, and they've done this before. In fact, specifically her but I know that she has at the very least shared information with other members of the family about what she thinks is wrong with me, you know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, this is a more accurate what's going on right now with this paints a much more accurate picture of what's wrong with you, which is that I mean, there are a few things wrong. This one is that you're confidence can be pretty shaky around how you come across socially and...

CLIENT: Specifically related to family members you're saying, but yeah.

THERAPIST: I think especially so with family members but, I mean, that kind of a, like, shaky confidence around, you know, and a tendency to kind of believe bad things people are saying about you rather than being sort of sure of what you know to be true. Like, that if you want to look for some problems that you have, there's one. (laughter) It's a terrible one, you know. It's not bpd. [00:07:15]

The other thing, which is (pause), you know, you have other problems too. Some of them are sort of physical health and reality problems. Like, you're incredibly financially stressed. You have, like, really unfortunate unpredictable often incapacitating health problems. You have chronic pain. You have a husband with an addiction. A lot of the things that I think you're dealing with, I mean, some of them are more psychological issues I guess like that one but a lot of them are not. And, like, believe me, I'm not somebody who tends to be biased in terms of seeing things in terms of reality problems rather than psychological problems. I'm really not. (laughter) No no no we tend to skew the other way.

CLIENT: On some level, like, I've apparently been walking, you know, before walking around with appendicitis for months and sort of putting it aside to being like, you know, kind of like, "Oh, I'm just too tense or I'm just" I didn't really think about it. I didn't really think that there was something wrong. I was ignoring my body and that's sort of a hazard that in general I do have but it just comes from the fact that I just detest going to the doctors, you know. But that's the outcome from...

THERAPIST: And you've got four other things hurting so you probably don't know how much it's reasonable for things to hurt anymore.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You know, if you've got four radios playing loudly and you've got one other radio that if you didn't have anything else would be really loud and irritating. You know what I mean?

CLIENT: Yeah, it gets very muddled. I just hate when we get sucked into this stuff (ph). This is just sort of an out shooting of the real drama that's going on. But this was definitely...

THERAPIST: *00:09:14)

CLIENT: No no no, please. And I do appreciate it. You have no idea how much this means to me to know these kinds of things because it's...

THERAPIST: Do you have questions about what bpd sort of entails that would -

CLIENT: Not really. To be honest, as long as it's not me I don't really have a morbid curiosity, if that makes sense. Does that make sense at all?

THERAPIST: Yeah, it does make sense.

CLIENT: I have too much, like, right now I've been struggling with just feeling terribly depressed and a lot of other health issues. Not that I'm saying that I won't ask at some point but probably right now I *00:09:50). Information overload.

(crosstalk)

THERAPIST: Go ahead, yeah.

CLIENT: I'm trying to drag myself out of this by having a project. I don't normally believe in doing I mean, my husband and I have a really good sense of teamwork on things but I don't really do a whole lot with him specifically career-wise. [It's normal] (ph) like, "Oh, you have this. Then I will look over your slides or I will help you with this." It's not anything really strong but he has the potential right now. And he doesn't get it. He doesn't get how big this is, of having something that basically potentially could set him in motion for having a ten year track (ph) position just about anywhere he wants.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: He has, due to a couple of things, set up a system that can detect single molecule presences through *00:10:57), which is basically like an electronic chip but instead of electrons it's water or fluid. They do these things that yeah, *00:11:06) is that basically. He's been able to be able to detect single molecules of certain types of proteins and one of the ones that looks like it's he's going *00:11:19) right now to get the ability to do this. But it looks like one of the ones he can do is any type of protein that is present in early HIV. So this would be able to...

THERAPIST: So this is the way to detect the presence of HIV...

CLIENT: In the bloodstream.

THERAPIST: ...before anything else?

CLIENT: Yeah. Within days of transmissions.

THERAPIST: Wow. And what's the current sort of...

CLIENT: Six months.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: The thing is that that's normally six months maybe but they also make you retest. There's a bunch of other things but yeah. The earliest they're really going to do is six month. And this would be really, really huge for people who work in certain fields where they could accidentally get a stick or could accidentally get exposed in ways that basically, most people who are getting it by a social means would not necessarily know they're exposed so this would be for someone who accidentally knows that they're -

THERAPIST: I guess I can imagine somebody who -

CLIENT: Clinicians.

THERAPIST: gets wasted, wakes up the next morning, says, "Oh shit, I had unprotected sex."

CLIENT: Yeah, could be that too but usually it's more like, this is going to be focused, at least for now, because they *00:12:30) military things or doctors [who are on orders] (ph) or whatever. You can actually pinpoint when the accidental exposure was. But still, again, this could also be further down the line. The whole problems is although the protein itself is not dangerous in any shape or form, you can imagine the amount of red tape it involves, like, in having all these committees and stuff to be able to buy the stuff to be able to do this. But entirely, like, dealing (ph) with all these other things, including protein that look just like it, big deal. Really big deal. Especially because these chips are this big. So they could be, like, potentially shrink-wrapped and, like, basically used when you need it as a rapid test.

THERAPIST: And the manufacturing aspect would be straightforward.

CLIENT: Maybe. But the point though is that even if it never becomes a real product, the fact that there is a test to be able to do that could be it's a big deal. He doesn't see it as that. He sees it as the I understand, because he doesn't come from a product point of view. He starts talking about the *00:13:31) of this and he can detect single molecules. What I was telling you about this, as opposed to he may have just invented a very, very rapid test for HIV, you know. So I've been but he hasn't done virology in years, amongst many other things. So I've been doing things like helping him queue up, like, watching very things on virology from like, there's a lot of these *00:13:52) things that are very high-end virology videos you can get that are, you know, courses and things like that to make sure he knows a lot of it. He's, you know, set up things with doctors to talk about this. He has a huge, like, safety board meetings, blah blah blah, to get to this point.

So I've actually really gotten a lot of pleasure out of helping him with this kind of stuff and, like, sort of helping him figure out how to talk about it and just in general organizing these things. Getting MSDS sheets set up for all this stuff, you know, that kind of thing. And so even though it's not a long-term thing it's something that to me it can be something to rally behind. I can directly affect my own future. Whether or not I...

(crosstalk)

CLIENT: No. And I don't think he has a clue as to the funny thing is if this were rabies or chicken pox or anything like that, it wouldn't set you for life, if that makes sense. Not set you for life but wouldn't put you like, it wouldn't be considered to be such a because it has that cache with it, that people are desperate to find ways to identify that kind of thing, it has the ability to be life-changing. And so although there's a whole class of viruses that create proteins that potentially and he *00:15:01) many things. Like yes, but this is the one that will get you recognized. So that's something I've been really helping with and it's been really helping me...

THERAPIST: That's incredibly exciting.

CLIENT: It's incredibly exciting. And so although I haven't been doing that well, I've been cramming in my head just because I'm trying to be able to just spend time brainstorming. I've been dumping a lot more virology than I ever even remotely had. It's not from various neuroscience classes. I haven't taken biology since high school. I took a lot of neuroscience because of neuronetworks but that's different, just because I was trying to understand the crossovers between the two. But I still have a lot I [got really good at] (ph) chemistry to understand it. So, like, just to be able to talk intelligently like that and be able to help him and things like that. Because he doesn't see it as big as it could be. And I'm not trying to set him up to fall but I'm trying to say that, you know, "If you push this the right way, even if it never becomes a real product, you get a couple of *00:16:02) it's a big deal," you know.

So that's been something *00:16:09) lift me up and it's really helped a lot.

THERAPIST: That's great.

CLIENT: Until drama happened. I'm not putting *00:16:17) making it harder and harder to do so. So we get this phone call on Saturday night from his sister. Mike doesn't answer it, thank goodness, because he knows better. She never calls. The few times that she's ever relayed messages to us have either been by text or e-mail. And she leaves this message saying something along the lines of, "I have to sell the house. I have this desk of yours. What did you what me to do with it?" (pause) Yeah.

THERAPIST: This is the house *00:16:46) that everyone is expecting that she lives in it for a while and she -

CLIENT: It was given to her by his mother completely, like, debt free.

THERAPIST: Got it. No mortgage, no nothing.

CLIENT: Yeah. It was actually about 15 years ago today probably, that it was given to her. Now, we have no knowledge of any desk. There are many things of Mike's that, you know, he would love to have. The desk is kind of a random thing, since he doesn't have a desk, you know, or anything like that. And things that were very important to both of us she sold a couple of years ago, like, maybe five, in some garage sale. So we're wondering what on earth this could be about, that kind of thing.

So instead of talking to her directly, you know, because he doesn't want to get this just sounds like it is a hook to get into something else. It sounds like, "I'm trying to get you" instead of saying, "I really need to talk to you," it is, "I am going to make up shit about some desk." I'm sure there's a desk that actually is a desk but...

THERAPIST: That's not the point.

CLIENT: Yeah. That's not what the point is. So we find out from Mike's father that she's moving to an apartment. There was, like I said, this was Mike's mother's house before she just this is before Mike and I got married and before Kerry had her daughter, that it was given to her. There's (ph) the house that Mike grew up in. So this is a family house. It's been in the family for many years. And from what we can construe about this whole thing, apparently I guess she took quite a few loans against it. Although she works in the industry, is kind of an idiot about things, about not paying stuff. But the thing that really got both of us more upset was the fact that she didn't care for it and that's the reason why.

In Kentucky, along with some places in the southwest but mostly Kentucky, they have clay. So you actually have to water the foundation. If you don't water the foundation, the foundation cracks. It's well-known, this is what you're supposed to do. Well, apparently, she has 50,000 dollars' worth in foundation damage because she never watered it. And she grew up in that house. She knew. She grew up in Kentucky, she knows.

THERAPIST: She grew up in the house, yeah.

CLIENT: It just...

THERAPIST: How often do you have to water a house like that?

CLIENT: About once a week. You put it on I mean, they make special *00:19:07) you wrap around the foundation.

THERAPIST: Right. You just turn it out, it sprinkles on the foundation.

CLIENT: Yeah. And, you know, it's funny -

THERAPIST: Keep the clay from drying out too much.

CLIENT: Yeah. And so it's kind of funny because we were discussing the fact that we know that she never did it because if so, when you look at her house on Google Maps, there would at least be some green grass somewhere near, like, the edge of the property. It's dead. I mean, there's nothing there. So it's like, you know. And that's just kind of her life she lives and, like, a very expensive slum. You know what I mean? The few times that we used to go there, we would go and clean because it was gross. I mean, the kind of grossness that, like, we were worried about when I say baby Emily, even though she's (ph) about 13 years old. You know, things like a dead cockroach or a raisin. We don't know so we have to clean all this stuff up, you know, that kind of thing. Other things like that, things that were just left sitting out that were just absolutely filthy disgusting. No idea why it was left out, that kind of thing. [00:20:13]

I remember at one point after the second child was born, the pregnancy test for the first child was still sitting in the kitchen. And I remember thinking this is kind of gross, because you pee on that. Yeah, in a kitchen.

THERAPIST: Yeah, years later.

CLIENT: Years later. I can understand leaving it out a couple of days, like being like, "Yeah, I'm pregnant," you know, that kind of thing. Maybe? I can't imagine leaving it in the kitchen, but that's just me, you know. It's filthy. It's disgusting. They have *00:20:43). They had a room that was more or less at cat box because no one ever wanted to, like, clean the cat box so the cat box had its own room. I'm talking, like, not quite quarters but pretty darn fucking gross.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's pretty darn fucking gross.

CLIENT: Like, you know, feces and dead, you know, dead everything. But very, very, you know, expensive around there too. She's just like that. She likes her World of Warcraft, which makes her not have to pay attention to anything else too, which I think is -

THERAPIST: *00:21:12)

CLIENT: Oh yeah, she's really into the multi online gaming thing.

THERAPIST: *00:21:16)

CLIENT: No, for women it's very rare.

THERAPIST: There's that, but I guess I was thinking of it in relation to Mike as well *00:21:25)

CLIENT: He's never really liked multi online playing things.

THERAPIST: Right. Yeah, I was thinking, like, addiction to online *00:21:33)

CLIENT: I think that's about the only thing she really does. I don't know. I didn't know about that until Mike's littlest brother mentioned the fact that that's all she does, is go on there.

THERAPIST: So what are the consequences for you guys of finding out she's selling the house?

CLIENT: Well, part of it is the fact that Mike's pretty distressed about his childhood home having to be lost to whatever, you know. And sure there are things that we would want but to be honest, if we haven't gotten them in 15 years, we don't need them. Does that make sense?

THERAPIST: Yeah, of course.

CLIENT: It is more the consequences of the fact that, like, we got dragged into this and therefore had to, like, call and find out stuff. And mostly just being worried about the kids. Because if she's taking loans out on the house that she got herself in trouble, she has three children. What kind of apartment can she afford on a regular basis, rent, that is going to be any better or worse than, you know, in this situation? [00:22:25]

THERAPIST: I'm sorry, I don't remember. Is she married currently?

CLIENT: No, she divorced. Actually she divorced her husband for having sexual-related problems, which is I think part of the reason why she's especially nasty to me, I think. As soon as she found out that he had been having, like, relationships with people online amongst many other things, she just left him. But, yeah. So it's pretty bad. But I'm really worried because these kids have been exposed to so much crap. These are the same kids that the middle boy looks to the younger girl to tell him what's he thinking and feeling. That's creepy already, like, you know. And so...

THERAPIST: That's just really upsetting.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's really I mean, my first instinct is I want to go down there and officially supposedly help so that I can sort of get an emotional temperature on how the kids are but not really. But that's like an admission to like, "Oh yeah." And then I'm like, yeah, no, not going to happen, amongst many other things. But it just makes me very distressed. I know it makes Mike pretty upset. [00:23:45]

So this sort of stirred up a whole bunch of other things. All these other things starts coming to the surface in terms of that, you know. His mom hasn't spoken to him in quite a long time. And after speaking to his aunt, I guess she has been more or less, like, because she has, like, this ridiculous irrational hatred for her aunt's boyfriend. Like, her aunt, who's in her 60s, boyfriend, she's had for years. That, like, she is, like, the house that they live in doesn't go there very much anymore because of, like, the emotional like stress of all this stuff. So she's doing the same old shit that she did with me and Mike on them. And so his aunt has to move out now and, you know, leave the compound or whatever. They (ph) used to have days, like "this is my night, this is your night out" kind of thing. It's just *00:24:35) ridiculous. It's so much fucking drama. And although none of it directly affects us, it does in its own way, you know.

THERAPIST: Well, I imagine it's all very emotional for Mike and kind of emotional for you *00:24:54)

CLIENT: I want to have a calm life. I don't like to have these kinds of things just dropped on me on a Saturday night. You know what I mean? This is not *00:25:04). Not that I'm saying that legitimately that, you know, these things shouldn't happen, I shouldn't know about them or anything like that. It just seems like it seems to be, like, a way of disrupting, like, any tranquility in our lives, you know? I'm not saying I shouldn't know about negative things but, like, (pause), you know, there are (pause) it's just pulling it (ph) back into that lifestyle again, you know. But complete and total, like, I don't care what anyone thinks or feels about me, I'm going to do things the way I want to kind of thing. It sounds great and all but, like, cracked foundation, you know, that kind of thing. It's really sad.

THERAPIST: Absolutely.

CLIENT: And (pause) it's especially hard for him because he's like he knows that the reason why he hasn't called his aunt at all is because he all of sudden realized that, you know, no one talks to him on that side of the family at all at this point, except for his aunt. So if there was something wrong with his grandfather at this point with his *00:26:22) no one would ever tell him.

THERAPIST: *00:26:23)

CLIENT: And so he had to, like, super promise that if anything went wrong and this is not an irrational worry because Mike's grandmother was dying and nobody really thought it was really that important for him to know or even come visit until she was dead. And when she was dead, they didn't think it was all that big of a deal for him to they didn't think he really needed to come out for the funeral, you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: So did they ever tell him?

CLIENT: They told him. Like, so what happened was he found out maybe a week or two before everyone was going to visit her that she had lung cancer. Didn't make a big deal about it. Just like, "Hey, we're just going to go out there." And Mike's like, "Well, if everyone's going out there, why didn't you invite me?" And they're like, "Oh, we didn't think you'd want to go and, you know, it's only a week beforehand so it's kind of too late to book tickets for you too. So sorry." So they all went out, like, over, like, Labor Day. Later in the late summer. And before Thanksgiving, she was dead.

So he never even really got a chance, like, to have any of sink in or have any of it be real. When she was dead they were like, "Oh, well, you know, it's too hard for you to come out here, blah blah blah." And so I did make it a this is just before we got married, like the year before. I made it a point of finding a ticket for him so he could go out there.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and he did?

CLIENT: He did. But the thing is, they didn't really think he was important enough to want to, you know. And so he had to. I mean, these are like him, like, saying, "I need you to tell me if something is wrong because no one will call me." He kind of *00:27:52)

THERAPIST: *00:27:53)

CLIENT: Yeah. So I guess part of the reason why I'm upset is because, at least that right now, is the fact that, yes, it's less jealousy over the fact that Mike's sister got a friend house and we didn't. it's not really about that. She had a family, you know. She was starting the family. She was given the gift of always having a roof over her head, of security. And she threw it away, you know. And to me that's really sad, you know. And so to me it's more of a, you know, gosh darn, is this it's hard to explain but just emotionally hard to hear, you know.

THERAPIST: And what's difficult is to kind of see her having thrown it away.

CLIENT: Yeah. Having thrown it away, especially since it's something that it isn't her I mean, that's not her responsibility. She has all these kids to take care of, you know. [00:29:15]

THERAPIST: Does it feel like it's tragic? Do you feel like you're worried for the kids?

CLIENT: I'm worried for the kids.

THERAPIST: It's less (ph) like it just kind of feels like a tragic event.

CLIENT: It feels like a tragic event. I'm worried for them. I'm worried that this is going to make things worse. I am (pause) it's hard to explain. There's already been a lot of (pause) I just don't want another generation going down this road, you know what I mean, the behavior aspect of things. And it seems like this is just another way to have it happen, you know. Not only that but I'm also secretly worrying about how in the world we are going to roped into something being our fault. Does that make sense? I mean, I don't really believe this but I do know that, like, the most irrational crap in the world, like, all of sudden becomes our fault.

THERAPIST: I understand.

CLIENT: And this kind of vigilance, that's something trained in me, you know. I know that whatever, like, you know, like, random contact. "I need to know what to do with your desks" usually becomes something bigger or something, you know, different, you know. I know that she is jealous because we are educated and she is not but we don't think we're better than her per se. She had every bit of intelligence to do it. [00:31:04]

THERAPIST: So this is the part where you actually start irrationally blaming yourself as though you've done something wrong even though you know you haven't done it?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: In other words, like, you...

CLIENT: I irrationally blame myself that I didn't jump in to have more to do with the kids right now.

THERAPIST: [What the hell] (ph) are you going to do for the kids? I mean, I appreciate the sort of Benevolence (ph) and compassion of your intentions but what the hell are you going to do? I mean...

CLIENT: I don't know. [I was going to] (ph) fly down there.

THERAPIST: You'd have to be in better health to actually help out. You know, you get treated horribly and would probably be prevented from actually doing anything any way. I mean, again, I am not -

CLIENT: No, I agree.

THERAPIST: motives, but...

CLIENT: I don't know. Paying to have Gemma come up for the summer so that she can be around somebody else, see that there is a different life, exposed to something different. I don't know.

THERAPIST: You just want to help.

CLIENT: I want to help her. I barely know the other kids. I love them to death but I barely know them. Gemma, I have a really strong bond with.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And she's a completely kid than back when I knew her, because I knew her as, like, a toddler and older. And so...

THERAPIST: It may not be quite as much difference between a toddler and a 15 year old as you think *00:32:34)

CLIENT: She would do things, like, when I was resting because my joints were hurting, she'd go and put stuffed animals on my joints while I'm sleeping, you know. She really wanted me to sleep with her in her room, like that kind of thing.

THERAPIST: She's a really sweet kid.

CLIENT: She's a really sweet kid. She used to be very, very tactile and cuddly with me. And (pause) I just don't want (pause) I just don't want another kid to just feel like there's no hope, you know, to think that they're crap, you know. And the way that people just abandon their own kids in that family. I mean, Mike's mom would say *00:33:19) talking to you. Say one wrong thing, then *00:33:23) to the brother. Like, I don't want them to have to live out of fear like this. Mike obviously learned this behavior of being terrified of certain things because he saw his mom cut off other people in his life. And so I just don't want those kids having to deal with that too, you know. I don't know. It's really kind of sad and it makes me feel bad that they're being dragged through this. And I guess maybe if they I feel like maybe if they had some sort of influence in their lives that had some sense of rationality and optimism at least, that maybe that when these bad things keep happening then it would not fix it but *00:34:12) from being so bad, you know.

I used to make the joke that I was looking forward to the period of time where kids hate their parents so that I can probably get to know my nieces and nephews. (laughter) But thinking about how much neglect Mike went through well, neglect in terms of, like, being in the same house and neglecting him, I have to wonder how much the house has been neglected and this has been neglected. I have to really truly wonder how much those kids are being neglected now.

THERAPIST: I'm sure they're being neglected. I mean, you don't keep a house like that. Keeping a house like that is a form of neglect of your children. If you're having a room as the cat box, leaving a thermometer with old pee on it or a pregnancy test with old pee on it in your kitchen while your child is an infant and a toddler, you know, having raisins or roaches around the house. Like, those things are neglect in and of themselves. I mean, obviously there's lots of other things that could better or worse but that is neglectful to have a house like that with kids living there.

CLIENT: Yeah. And although Mike's mom, like, was a clean freak and so therefore, you know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that wasn't an issue.

CLIENT: That wasn't so much an issue for that, you know. She was neglectful in terms of, like, wanting to be involved. And I don't think Kerry's really that involved either, you know.

THERAPIST: It sounds like she plays a lot of World of Warcraft. [00:35:51]

CLIENT: Like I said, this is only what I've gotten from Mike's youngest brother. I remember that she liked to play video games but I didn't really know a whole lot about it. Like, when the 20 year old is impressed with the amount of video games you play, that says something. A 22 year old boy is impressed with that? That's pretty bad. (laughter) And I guess it's sort of like reliving in real time now the crap that Mike went through. You know, with Gemma they totally *00:36:23) did everything and for the other two kids, especially for Aiden, like, not paying attention to *00:36:29). There's, like, very few pictures of him, this and that. But Mike, they have nothing, you know. And it's sort of coming to head (ph). Like, seeing it happen again is a lot. We can't even like, conversations are so damn, like, loaded. Because, like, for example, if we want to do adoption and this is something we have to think about ahead of time. Adoption agencies want you have to have something called an adoption profile book ahead of time. Like, meet up and things like that. Do you know what that is?

It's more or less a thing trying to solicit yourself to future parents. It talks about you, how you met each other, like, the things you love together, often your history, things like that. You know, pictures of you as a kid, what you dream for your children, you know, like, basically it's more or less an advertisement for you as parents. And, like, well, we can't really pick too many pictures of Mike as a kid because we just don't have them. I mean, we can't really, like, talk about that so we're going to have to focus more on, you know like, it would seem weird for me to talk about my, you know, my childhood growing up and not his, unless it's just carefully. And so, like, having to figure that out, like, in terms of putting together a book, you get a bunch of *00:37:43).

You know, that's kind of an awkward thing to try and gloss over. It's not like it sounded so shallow to say that, "I'm upset that they did this because how in the world are you going to put it in a book?" It's not that it's the book it's the fact that it brings up the fact that things that should have been long dead, about the fact that they just didn't give a damn about Mike, you know.

THERAPIST: Well, sure. It's example number [five million four hundred any-six thousand and three] (ph) of how the way he was raised, you know, still matters now.

CLIENT: Yeah. And so, I strongly have feelings about the fact that I wanted Mike's mother to never have contract with his children. Mike's acquiescent. He doesn't entirely agree with it but he understands. I don't want her to ever, ever have anything but I don't want to ever have to have the conversation about why it is that, like, she is the way she is or, like, why is that you feel this way. I don't want to have to talk to kids about that. They're so damn, like, perceptive, you know. And I'm not going to plan on lying to her children but, you know, it's a little bit easier to explain that she's mentally ill and that's why we can't, like, talk we can't have, like, contact with her than it is to try and explain why it is that, you know, that she does this, like, any individual, like, behaviors, I think. Because they're just all so fucking petty, you know. [00:39:19]

And it's a lot to have to deal with. And like I said, seeing this having to move out of the house thing is like, you know, like I said, it's very stirring up. Like, seeing the kind of things that happened with Mike, things that will never be resolved, that can't be resolved. Not only is his mom not willing to but even if she was "willing to" it would take, like...

THERAPIST: It's not going to happen.

CLIENT: It's not going to happen. And so the only way that we can resolve this is by breaking the chain with ourselves and raising children that never go with that kind of feeling, never, you know. That never feel lonely in a house full of people.

THERAPIST: My impression is that's one of the primary things you want to do with your life.

CLIENT: Yeah. And, you know, it's hard.

(silence)

CLIENT: So that's been my week lately. And I'm trying to be optimistic about this kind of thing, like, the future, because I think that if I can just push off this crap and focus on the prize and get us, like, not bogged down in this family crap that we could have the future that we want. Do you know what I mean? Like, if we can just focus, if we can get Mike focusing on his research, focusing on this, that we can have this life. But as soon as we do the rest of them seem to, like, want to come back in and make our lives miserable, you know. [00:41:21]

(silence)

CLIENT: Yeah, that's pretty much it.

THERAPIST: Well, that's more than enough. We can (ph) stop for now. Well, I'll see on Tuesday.

CLIENT: I'll see you Tuesday.

END TRANSCRIPT