TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
[Recording starts in mid-sentence]
CLIENT: things like a reasonable amount of doors with locks on them that the door is not working and things like that. But like, you know, that kind of stuff that spooked me like -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So we went and replaced doorknobs and had to re-plane doors and things like that to do it because it's just like I didn't feel I could walk away from that. They seemed to think it was not a big deal. I think that having a door that is difficult to open, you know, to get outside, impossible in a fire, you know. You have to lift it partially -
THERAPIST: [You have to push]. (ph)
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, it matters. So that kind of stuff. Like I said, it bothered me a little bit that they didn't see it as much of a they're really grateful that we did it and all, but just little things like that, you know. (pause) It was definitely good to be back for a little bit.
[00:00:58]
THERAPIST: Good.
CLIENT: It was definitely sometimes my mom and I bump heads. It's nothing huge, just little things, you know? (pause) And we really didn't actually have that much problems before. (pause) And it was really good. I don't know if it was like a fluke or what, but it's nice not to have they're not real big deals, but because we don't like because I have a fairly drama-free environment, when little things come up, they bother me a lot, you know? (pause)
THERAPIST: Well, what came up?
CLIENT: Oh, just little things about, you know, food and things like that. She's just like the whole thing of, you know, not being hungry but yet, you know, she subconsciously pressures me to get something to eat, that kind of thing. Nothing big, you know. (pause) That's pretty much the big thing that happened while I was down there.
[00:02:14]
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: I've sort of been in this extremely really, really rocky place with Mike.
THERAPIST: Oh no.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Sorry to hear that.
CLIENT: Yeah, well, he's backing out again.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: And I actually do kind of believe him. Like I said, he went to dinner at my parents' house which makes me very happy.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But it is distressing. And just in general, I just feel like he doesn't really have a good (pause) He has some very, very vague goals but he doesn't really have anything that's concrete that's going to help him get towards it, you know? That kind of thing. And it's frustrating as well, you know.
[00:03:11]
He seems to change his mind quite a bit and the problem I have is that [sharing my opinions on things] (ph) unnecessarily pressures him or unnecessarily makes him feel less I still do them, just not as much as I probably should. But you know, it's like (pause) He's so malleable that it's hard not to basically to make an effort not to influence, you know?
THERAPIST: Yeah. I would imagine he pulls for that.
CLIENT: He pulls for anything. I mean, anything at all. I mean, I'm sure he changes his color based upon like what he's perceiving around the room.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:04:04]
CLIENT: Not because of manipulation.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But like it's more about trying to fit in and feel okay about, you know, everything.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So I did have him try to make a back-up plan in case something else was going on. So I had him meet with one of his mentors to talk to him about you know, to go to lunch and catch up and that kind of thing, and see if he needed to [postpone the post-doc] (ph) until he could find basically if something gets pulled out from underneath him, he has something to fall back on.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: [So he couldn't immediately] (ph) say yes, but he said he wanted to be able to talk to [Harry and talk to people in finance] (ph) and see if he could do it. It's more about money than anything.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: This person is an extremely good influence on him.
THERAPIST: Good.
CLIENT: In fact, he sort of insisted that I come out to lunch because I know the thing about this is that the research community is so small. Even if it's not your discipline, you often know each other.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:05:13]
CLIENT: So like because of the stuff that he did vaguely overlapped, which my stuff vaguely overlapped, we knew each other, you know? That kind of thing. I was recalling how like very differently how life used to be and how it used to be that I used to have arguing fights with the dean of the whole school of researching. He [was remembered] (ph) very fondly because basically with this particular person who is now being moved out, that's how you knew you were getting somewhere, is if it was actually a loud conversation. (chuckles) It's like "Don't tell me this isn't relevant. This is relevant." And I was like "Do I need to go to the black " Like I would get very -
THERAPIST: (chuckles)
CLIENT: not like angry, but like "Are you going to make me like go to the blackboard?"
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: That kind of thing.
THERAPIST: Right.
[00:06:06]
CLIENT: In general, I just got very, very sentimental while I was there. I took lots of silly pictures to anybody but me.
THERAPIST: Well, you have so it's so hard for you, I think.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And you have so few chances to go to the blackboard these days.
CLIENT: Yeah. I do. I mean, part of it is -
THERAPIST: It used to mean so much to you.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And it still does -
CLIENT: It still does.
THERAPIST: at this point.
CLIENT: Sometimes I do things longhand, just things that are completely meaningless.
THERAPIST: Yeah. It could also mean like, you know, you sort of have to show what you know, to like work through something, you know, like -
CLIENT: Yeah. To be honest, maybe about a month ago, we had a huge data outage at the store.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
[00:07:07]
CLIENT: And we had to do all of our transactions by hand.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Which is harder than you'd think.
THERAPIST: Sounds hard to me, yeah.
CLIENT: I mean, it's not I mean, part of it is writing everything down and obviously getting the sales tax numbers and this and that. I mean, that's great and all but which I did use a calculator for a little bit -
THERAPIST: [You must have to track] (ph) everything too.
CLIENT: Yeah, you know, everything like that. But the way the sales tax on cellphones in Connecticut are is you remove basically it's the amount that the subsidy doesn't cover.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: So like, for example, if it's a phone that's $658 and the subsidy is $199, then you've got to figure out what that part is -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: to get that amount of the sales tax. It's not like it's hard, it's just calculations.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: The point is you're sitting in front of a customer -
THERAPIST: Right, and you've got 20 people in line.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And one person staring at you.
CLIENT: And you've got pen and paper because that's all that you've got.
THERAPIST: Right.
[00:08:03]
CLIENT: And part of it is also because a lot these transactions are very expensive. You want to show them that you're doing this right.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: So it's like yeah, I see this, and the way I can check to make sure of this is if I subtract this from this, I should get zero. Yes, I did.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: That kind of thing. And honestly, I just got I've never been very good at arithmetic. I'm okay, but I just got the thrill of it. It's really to me I like the abstraction of doing things before you actually like basically doing things in terms of more abstract stuff than actual subtraction.
THERAPIST: Yeah, sure.
CLIENT: Like row-swapping in terms of matrices and things like that.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I love teaching people that kind of stuff because to me it's like the equivalent of those little puzzles where you can move things around.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Or Rubik's Cube.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: There's rules you can follow and there's ones you can't.
THERAPIST: Right. I was actually a math major in college, so I -
CLIENT: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So you understand then. Like that's the kind of stuff I love. Like things that are a bit more obscure. But I don't mind it though. But it was just fun to do that.
[00:09:13]
I was stressed out at the time, but it was exhilarating, you know? Sometimes it just is that I need to have the mental though sometimes I just totally shut down. But it's usually verbal when that happens lately and, you know, it's sort of a known issue. But I just kept thinking [you can't get out of] (ph) that kind of stuff, you know?
I did make a little bit of an idiot of myself, just desperate chatting for attention stuff over lunch, but luckily I knew there's a couple of Barry's in my husband's life. Barry Lowe knows me well enough to know that I was probably intellectually under-stimulated and therefore so excited to talk to somebody that, you know which is nice. But I guess it was just good to be back on campus for a little bit. I got to run an enormous number of errands that needed to be done, things like driver's license type stuff.
[00:10:20]
THERAPIST: Do you want to move back there?
CLIENT: (pause) I don't know. I think I'd like to spend my summers there.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: (pause) But I think I kind of do, but I kind of don't. I think that like I said, I'd like to spend my summers there.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know? (pause) I worry for my parents, and that's a very different thing than that's a separate thing from the desire to move back there. I definitely feel like being around my people, like, oh my gosh. (pause) I got the biggest charge out of the fact that I was trying to go visit some professors, not necessarily my department, that I just wanted to poke my head in and say hello to. And one of them is Martin Longstreet. He does a lot of game theory, et cetera.
[00:11:23]
Like he's technically philosophy, but his stuff crosses over again into that whole like he's got appointments in math and social decision sciences, so his stuff really overlaps a lot with (inaudible at 00:11:37) stuff. I wanted to pop my head into see him and he wasn't around, but random people in that department recognized me and remembered me and I'm like, wow, this is not my department. Wow, that's kind of cool, you know? It is, you know, one of those things where (inaudible at 00:11:58) knowledge, knowing how to do things, how to do what you need to do or get around to doing what you need to do. I know specifically how to make the system work for me when I'm in those situations, you know? (pause)
[00:12:19]
That could be with any place if I specifically have a long-term knowledge of it, you know? But it was definitely good to me home. I didn't really get a chance to see many friends per se. A couple of people that I thought lived in town had already moved away which was, you know, disappointing.
It always spooks my parents when they find out how much I sleep when I get there too. There's this now this is again the dichotomy between feeling like I need to take care of somebody and then also having a puzzle. There's this puzzle on my parents' house that is driving me crazy that every time I get there I try and get a chance to do, but this time I haven't had a chance to. There's a switch that needs to have the dimmer switched out. No big deal, you go downstairs and you pull the circuit breaker. I can't figure out for the life of me which circuit breaker it is that turns it off. I'm pretty sure I've turned them all off multiple times.
[00:13:20]
And so like to be able to do this and I cannot figure out how in the world this because I go up there and I've got the voltage check and it still says it's getting power. So this doggedness of being driven crazy by this and I keep telling my parents "If you can hold off on going to an electrician, I would really want to figure this out." Because everything that I know about how electricity works, like in terms of the home, I can't figure out how in the world this is being powered.
THERAPIST: (chuckles) Right.
CLIENT: So until then, they have no lights in their dining room on both not all the lights. They don't have the dimmer light on their chandelier. Everything else I can turn off the breakers to. This one I have no idea. It may be wired next door for all I know.
THERAPIST: (chuckles) [Like dark energy maybe?] (ph) (chuckles)
CLIENT: I don't know. (chuckles) I mean, exactly. I have no idea what's happening there.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And to me, that is something where I act really grumpy at the time of, but it's all kind of part of the process of it. It's not really being grumpy, it's just it's part of the process of figuring this out.
[00:14:20]
I had been planning originally when they were out at church to like literally unplug the house equivalent, like basically taking it off of the grid and figuring it out.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: But my hands were bothering me too much and I ended up sleeping most of the day. But I'm still like thinking and planning when I'm going to go back and figure out the stupid circuit. It's less even now about I'm just so annoyed by this, but yet love this because I can't figure out what in the world is going on. Old houses, you know. (pause)
And on top of it again, like little mysteries of things like that, my parents eventually will need to get new doors, but we have yet to ever find another door that fits that a door available that fits the house without getting one custom-made. I finally hunted down the problem is that they have Colonial-sized doors which is unusual because Cincinnati wasn't settled until post-Colonial times.
[00:15:19]
THERAPIST: That's odd.
CLIENT: So it's very weird.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: But I finally got that like to know that piece of information does help in its own way.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: Because if you're going to try to get something that is older that would like basically an existing piece of salvage or something like that to do it with, we know now that we'll have to go to Colonial areas to get that. That's okay. So that was like again, one of those mysteries of like, why in the world is this? This is definitely not, you know, [SI] (ph) and it's definitely not English measurements. What on earth is this? And it was basically when a certain height of bricks not their bricks, but the height of bricks at Colonial times is made exactly this many bricks high. It's pretty weird.
[00:16:07]
So those are the kind of mysteries where although I say I'm going home to take care of my parents, sometimes it's also there are other types of reasons I like to do it more than just the thing of I am a dutiful daughter and I am trying to take care of somebody else. It actually does give me a certain amount of intellectual or like thought stimulation -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: that other people don't necessarily equate that with doing chores around the house.
THERAPIST: Like putting together IKEA furniture.
CLIENT: Yeah. Have I ever told you that I told my parents that the only proof I have of God is that because he gave me to them so that I could put together IKEA for them?
THERAPIST: (chuckles) You might have, yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. Because neither one of them were built with they don't have spatial -
THERAPIST: Right. That's why I mentioned -
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. They don't have any of that.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Which is weird because my mom's father was very, very mechanical, but nobody else in the family except for me and him are like that. And he probably got it from the military. (pause)
[00:17:21]
It's sort of an interesting thing. But yeah, it was nice to do that. Nice to ponder over just random stuff with dad, you know? They're always so damn grateful when we do stuff too, and I know it makes Mike uncomfortable, partially because he's never like -
THERAPIST: [Them being grateful?] (ph)
CLIENT: Yeah. Well, they said "thanks" once, maybe or something, you know what I mean?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. So it makes him and sometimes they're a little overly lavish about something which to them like it sounds like it's excessive praise, but it's really sincere. I got my sense of cheesiness from things like that. My dad is like "Every time I open up the door, I think of you because you helped me get this fixed." That to him is way over the top. Like my dad probably really will think of Mike every time we did this.
[00:18:20]
And so it is, you know they're very grateful for the things we do. (pause) Yeah, so also like just little things like I said. But it's nice to go down there. I am less wanting to immediately like, hey let's drop everything and move, since I don't really know that many people down there right now. I know a few but not many.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But I still feel like I have the overall (pause) mobile social skills to be able to get a whole bunch more easily, if that makes sense, you know?
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: (pause) I'm still very wired into thinking you need to meet people, basically. (pause) But it was definitely nice to be down there.
[00:19:16]
THERAPIST: Good.
CLIENT: Yeah. Like I said, there are little things that make me worried. I'm worried about okay, so this is something that is apparently extremely common. I just need to get this off my chest here. I feel stupid speaking like this. This is extremely common for immigrant parents. My mom never did this when I was growing up though, [which is good] (ph). When I say the word "hoarding," I don't mean like cockroaches running everywhere or anything like that. I'm talking about the fact that like I went downstairs next to the washing machine and there was more than 10 different types of liquid detergent. You know, that kind of hoarding. Or lots and lots of hand soap.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: It's not filled and it's not necessarily entirely impeding their lives entirely, but it is a little weird.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: And so that's something that's been kind of bothering me a bit. But they don't really even see it that way. And maybe I'm over like you know reacting.
[00:20:13]
THERAPIST: Is it the inefficiency that bothers you or the sense that like something is a little out of kilter?
CLIENT: Both. Both. (pause) I'm concerned just in general that maybe this is a sign of something else that might be going on in terms of mental infirmity type stuff, you know?
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Part of it is because, you know, they're both bored. I mean, not bored like that really. It's more my mom than anything. But like the whole thing of "Okay, so what do we go get? We're supposed to go to Target now. Let's get some hand soap or let's do this." It's partially that and it's partially like I'm worried that they actually don't realize that they have plenty already and they don't need more. I don't know. Part is the inefficiency and part is it's a lot of things. I was sort of raised with this whole "a place for everything and everything in its place" kind of thing.
[00:21:14]
A lot of my very rigid rules that I grew up with are not necessarily happening back there now, and it's not because they were doing it just to put a good example for me. It's just -
THERAPIST: Yeah, something has changed with them.
CLIENT: Yeah, and I've been having a constant struggle with my dad to make sure he's getting his B-12. I have not invalid reasons to believe that my grandmother on my dad's side is completely and totally gone. Dementia. Like very quickly and very completely, enough that it scared everybody. And so like a complete and total change in six months type of thing. I haven't seen her in a long time. I've always thought she was kind of kooky but apparently it's more kooky than that, you know?
THERAPIST: Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that.
[00:22:11]
CLIENT: Yeah. So I explained to my dad like "Dad, I'm going to explain to you what is called pernicious anemia. You are supposed to be getting your injections." He's always telling me he's going to do it, that kind of thing, and I know he doesn't.
THERAPIST: You mentioned it, yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. And then basically every so often, I have to it's not exaggerate as much as like scare him into doing them.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: And I'm like "You do realize that there's a very good chance that what happened to my grandmother was caused because it is, you know I have it, you have it caused by this, right?" And I'm like "It's called megaloblastic madness. The reason why is that when you start running out of parts in your nervous system to steal from, your body starts stealing it from your brain."
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: They don't use that phrase anymore, by the way. That's one of those phrases that they don't use anymore, partially because of the name.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:23:07]
CLIENT: Yeah. But, you know, I have to like explain this over and over to him about this and he's like "Okay, I'm going to do this." And so now I'm hopefully going to get an email or a text message from him every time he goes over to see Dr. Carter (ph) and get a shot. Dr. Carter (ph) is a former neighbor of theirs from a couple of streets down, but now because of health issues, he's moved to a different place. And I keep saying to him that quite frankly, Peter really needs visits regularly and anyway, he's really lonely and he's actually going through a skin graft right now.
THERAPIST: Oh no.
CLIENT: Long-term like I have a lot of empathy for him because he is dealing with the consequences of all the steroids that he's taken over an entire lifetime. And now when he falls, if he trips and falls, like it's tremendously, tremendously bad, you know? So things don't heal. They're doing the skin grafts for when he bumped his foot on the bed or something like that right now. Yeah.
[00:24:11]
And although he's like one of the three people who pioneered the heart-lung transplant so therefore he has access to some of the best things, it's just that also your ability to accept things just gets very wonky.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: But I'm just like, "You know dad, it's not hard for him to give me an [intramuscular injection] (ph) and he said that it's not a big deal. Think of it though as you're going to see him. You're not getting in on his time. You're going to see him because he needs, you know, and we'll see." This is sort of an ongoing struggle to get him to do that. But I think it will get better. I just he definitely sees and feels the results and the differences in it. And I know he thinks it's not a placebo, there really is something there. (pause) He's always so darn it's hard to get him to comply with that kind of stuff.
THERAPIST: Your dad.
[00:25:10]
CLIENT: Yeah, my dad is really hard to get to comply with kind of thing. (pause) I think I've mentioned briefly to you that I asked my dad "Have you adjusted your are you adjusting your insulin levels and your blood sugar levels?" and he's like "Yeah, I've done them." "This year?" "No, not this year." "Last year?" "Oh, probably last year." "Do you think more than " Like I have to give it to him. "Like more than 10 times?"
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: "You're supposed to do that once a day, dad." There's lots of and after talking to him, I find out that the things that you stick in your hands are very, very painful and it makes it hard for him to type afterwards. So it's not even so much that's more of a, you know -
THERAPIST: The fact that he's just blowing it off. It hurts him.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: [He has a hard time typing]. (ph)
CLIENT: Yeah. "Well, I just need to type." (pause) So that's at least I mean, that's reasonable. But, you know, it's just one of those things where I just worry about him.
[00:26:21]
My mom is better at taking care of her health than dad is, but you'd never know it because mom vacations up in the hospital for a few months or something like that. A good bit of my childhood I remember -
THERAPIST: Your mother?
CLIENT: Yeah, she's had some heart problems and some other stuff.
THERAPIST: [Was she in the hospital when you were growing up?] (ph)
CLIENT: Mmm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: In fact, when I was very young, a lot.
THERAPIST: Really?
CLIENT: To me it doesn't really think as a negative thing though because the hospital where she was at was right next to a beautiful park that actually reminds me of Sevilla, like right outside, that kind of place with a balloon seller and everything, you know?
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Yeah. And so I spent a lot of time there and so I didn't really although she was very sick, I don't really think of it as a negative part of my life at all.
[00:27:12]
Between that and the fact that, you know, my mom's doctor also was the doctor for the football team and so like she became my doctor eventually. Like I saw a lot of that, and this kind of stuff didn't seem all that strange. It didn't seem all that negative to me. No one ever thought that she was going to die. They just didn't really understand what was happening. We got sort of a better idea on it now, but it is it's one of those things where you've got those mysteries of people who potentially have gotten exposed many times in different places to various different types of war-related air contaminants.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: Whether being like gas itself -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: or certain things that have stuff that goes in the air or whatever.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: So they don't really have a good grip as to what the cause there's so many things she's been exposed to.
[00:28:10]
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Nobody knows.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But she also knows how to take care of herself. I remember her as a child like knowing that my mom knew how to take her own blood pressure which seemed to be really odd at the time. Now they've got things that can do it themselves, but back then was actually a lot of training to it.
And that's actually part of the reason why I get especially uppity when my doctor gives me a hard time about my blood pressure. Because it's like the only reason of why I've had low blood pressure all my life and now I'm in the normal range. I've only had high blood pressure either one, because I'm in extreme pain or two, because you've made me so freaking nervous about my blood pressure that I get in there and there's nothing I can do to bring it down. So I'd be delighted to have it taken somewhere else and have it sent to you. Like I've gotten very feisty about this, not because I'm in denial about it. It's because I know what high blood pressure looks like, you know? I know what this kind of stuff is.
[00:29:07]
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: (pause) You know, I feel like it's not necessarily false concern but like I am distracted by the fact that I do not like the fact that he is inadvertently giving me false positives. (pause) So, you know, it's hard. It's really hard being an only child because I don't have anyone to fall back on right now.
THERAPIST: [In terms of your concerns about -]
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do have both of my parents have sisters and, you know, I have cousins. But the thing is that there is only so much you can have a one-way relationship like that. (pause) There is because my cousin is going to be getting married soon, there is a lot of like in general I've gotten married before, so I know what this is like.
[00:30:10]
This is generally the high-level stress of people not really noticing what the important things are and getting wrapped up in the ridiculous details, you know?
THERAPIST: Yes, it's a fairly common condition in preparing for a wedding.
CLIENT: Yes. (pause) So that's, you know, asking my cousin Sarah, which is the only cousin I'm close in age to at all, to take care of this stuff she does check in with my mom because she talks [to her about the wedding]. (ph) But the thing is that I think it causes conflict between her and her sister because when people like I know this will go over soon, the whole thing of "Oh, you're talking to my sister and not to me" and this and that. It's like, "Oh man, Sarah, can you just go get married fast because we want this to be over," you know?
[00:31:14]
But the funny thing is, as much as like this kind of stuff stresses me out, it wasn't nearly as bad as when I got married. And that is not me belittling what's going on.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: It's just that I have to keep reminding myself that this kind of stuff is extremely normal. It doesn't mean that it should happen, but it is a common occurrence, you know?
THERAPIST: Yeah. Right, it's not indicative of something being the matter.
CLIENT: No. Well, maybe but maybe nothing that is my business to fix, let's just put it that way.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: It is indicative of the fact that Sarah needs to learn to like properly talk to her mom in a way to be able to diffuse these situations. As opposed to still doing a little bit of the young thing of "Ha, ha, ha. I'm getting my way anyways." Or "I'm going to let you have your way, but I'm letting you know that you're having your way so that I can feel " You know, that kind of immature behavior.
[00:32:13]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I think that basically this is going to be hopefully that she's going to learn how to interact with her mother the way she interacts with other adults in her life. This is sort of a learning experience. Hopefully. It's not like when I say something is wrong, it's not like wrong-wrong as in like you know. There will not be a point where no one ever talks to each other or anything like that, like in Mike's family.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: One of the things that was really, really upsetting that I was talking to Mike about is that we were talking with Barry, as I said, his long-term mentor, and I mentioned to him because he insisted that I come to lunch. He insisted in like a good way.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And we were talking about the adoption thing and how -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:33:03]
CLIENT: one of the biggest pressures we've actually actually one of the things that people are really encouraging us to do is not just going through adoption agencies but making sure that you use your social network to make sure that everybody knows that you are trying to adopt. That way if anybody hears of anybody who has, you know, a child or has a baby or is pregnant basically, who is not quite sure what they should do, often the fact that they know that there is a good family that immediately needs it will actually influence their decision.
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: I thought that this was kind of strange, but I've been told by more than three customers I work with. They'll even ask how [this and this] (ph) comes up when you teach people how to use (inaudible at 00:33:45) and videos and stuff like this, these kind of conversations inevitably happen.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Especially people who have done adoptions. But apparently it is really, really important to make sure that you tell people more than just a passing thing that you are trying to have a baby. In terms of like get a baby, trying to adopt, because of that. Well, when we were talking to Barry, Barry took this very seriously, especially telling him that one of the things we need to do is to get the word out so that if anyone knows what's happening.
[00:34:14]
And he took it very seriously and said "You know what? I immediately I don't know anybody, but I want to try and let other people know that I know this nice couple who are very academic-oriented who, you know, blah blah blah, want to have a baby." And so he seemed more invested in helping us adopt than any member of his family. My parents are to some extent. They're not as much. They're very, very supportive, but my mother would never she's one of those people that it would never want to feel like she's pressuring somebody.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And so therefore because she is the potential grandmother, she wouldn't want to be like putting the pressure on it.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: Whereas Barry, he's a professor but also which occasionally you get really smart kids that things happen to. But also he does a lot of not really outreach, but like he does a lot of stuff with schools, especially Catholic schools but just schools in general, in which he goes in and helps them think about what kind of careers they want to do and figure out less about what you would imagine doing for your job and finding exactly what your talents are and (inaudible).
[00:35:27]
And so therefore, he potentially has a lot of people he can just sort of put the word out for and say "Hey, if anybody hears about something like this, I know this couple. They are desperate to be able to do this."
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: "I attended his defense. I can tell you that he is a good guy," that kind of thing. It was really nice because -
THERAPIST: That's terrific.
CLIENT: Yeah. I know that it made Mike sad to have that friend realizing that he seemed more like -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: engaged in helping us have a family. And part of it is the fact that [he has his children]. (ph) So like I used to take like on days the schools were closed but people like Barry's wife needed to be somewhere and this and that I would bring his kids to school on days that were snowing because [he had to grade things] (ph). I would go right next door to the museum and I would spend the whole day in the museum with them. And Devin, who is now 15, back when he was five, he could've been a docent. Like he was giving tours to people, like inadvertently, letting them know about these things. It was so adorable.
[00:36:31]
But the fact that he trusted me to go off with his two children, his infant son and his five-year-old son, for the day to the museum, you know. So he actually knows that I do have the skills.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: Whereas I don't think that actually any of his family have a clue that I'm pretty good with kids.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Because I've been around my niece and nephews a little bit, but there is so much anxiety that (pause) They only are themselves around me when no other grown-ups are around, you know?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: They can tell. I mean, kids at a very young age can tell very quickly, something I don't know if it's a smell or just that they've got a lot of body language or whatever it is, they can tell that there's something that they need not to react, you know?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:37:27]
CLIENT: You know, that's the biggest reason why actually that I don't really I would not be thrilled if Mike got reconciled with his mother, but I could accept it. But I don't want her or most of my family most of his family anywhere near our children ever. Ever, ever. Because I know that kids can figure that kind of stuff out really fast, and it's so much better if they just don't know them.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: I mean, it sounds awfully selfish to say it that way, but (pause) I don't think that there's anything they could do to make these kids feel any better about them. This relationship would be only about them, not about the kids.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know?
THERAPIST: Sure. How could you not feel that way seeing how they've been with Mike, especially (inaudible).
00:38:25
CLIENT: Yeah. Or like just seeing how the next generation of Aiden -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like Aiden has to ask other people how he's feeling. Where do you think Mike got this idea of like picking up on everybody else around him?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And they think it's adorable. They think it's great that it's a miniature Mike.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: (pause) It's disturbing. It's really disturbing. I know I feel really defensive, and I understand that I feel defensive about it, but you know what? (pause) I don't think there's anything that could change my mind on that. I really don't. Aside from like massive, massive personality changes. I'm talking zebras instead of horses here, you know?
THERAPIST: Yeah, it's not going to happen.
[00:39:22]
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) And I just it's important for them to be loved. It wasn't as profound to me when I noticed it as a kid. My grandmother on my father's side and my mom never really got along. They never nothing was ever said. They were never anything but cordial [and appeared like normal] (ph) but I knew like before I could voice whole sentences that there was something up.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: And I figured it out that she wasn't especially thrilled with me because I was related to her.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: Because it was my you know, my mother's child -
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: kind of thing. I knew that. I was extremely aware of it early on. Very luckily it didn't substantially affect me. (pause) You know, but it made me really, really hyper-aware about how some people there's nothing you can do to change them. That's just who they are.
[00:40:28]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: It doesn't make them a bad person. They may do good things. But the overall like exposure to one another isn't necessarily important.
THERAPIST: We should finish up for now, but we're on for -
CLIENT: Tuesday.
THERAPIST: Next week as usual, good.
CLIENT: Yeah. Probably that way for a little bit, like at least until October or so.
THERAPIST: Okay, sounds good.
CLIENT: Thanks for being so flexible.
THERAPIST: Oh, no problem.
END TRANSCRIPT
