TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: James is off for the (inaudible).
(Pause): [00:00:27 00:00:42]
CLIENT: I’m pretty sure he’s worried about my ability to be alone for a few weeks. He like got groceries and figured out what bills were going to come over the next two weeks.
THERAPIST: Yeah, thank you for the e-mail. I glanced at it and saw that it would require some work before we can –
CLIENT: (Laughs). Yeah. (inaudible). And I have all the – like I have all the bills. You know, I asked him at some point, I need to figure out this and I sort of meant it as I need to go into all the stack of claims and he had a documented (inaudible). And this weekend I’m going to see my (unclear) in the city.
THERAPIST: Yeah?
CLIENT: So I’m excited about that. I think I’ll leave (unclear) but I’m excited. I’m taking a (unclear) class on Friday and I (unclear) Sunday. I like, I actually do well on buses and trains. Most of the things that I enjoy to do I can do stationary. I don’t like (inaudible) very much.
(Pause): [00:02:31 00:02:55]
CLIENT: Jackson and Selena, especially Jackson is fascinated by knitting, but he doesn’t want to learn how to do it. Selena wants to learn. He doesn’t want to do that. He just wants to watch me do it. Which is fine but I can’t really like sit and be holding a baby or be doing something else for somebody else for like longer than 45 seconds. But at his request I am making him a (inaudible).
(Pause): [00:03:30 00:03:40]
THERAPIST: July? (Laughs) Whatever.
(Pause): [00:03:42 00:04:03]
CLIENT: It’s finally – he’s very anxious in some ways. He’s learning how to ride a bike with training wheels and I think it was sort of a hard sell by his parents and I took them out yesterday and he’s going really well but I think he’s very anxious.
(Pause): [00:04:33 00:04:39]
CLIENT: You know, telling me about it. Like a ritualization thing, like brushes his teeth five times and washes his hands five times and everything’s five times. Well, you know, I’m not sure you need to do it five times, like – (inaudible). I sort of passed that information along to his parents if it concerns them.
(Pause): [00:05:02 00:05:07]
THERAPIST: Want some random advice on the bike riding thing?
CLIENT: Oh yeah, that’d be great.
THERAPIST: They tend to learn much better, I mean training wheels – I mean not to actually teach them to ride without training wheel, but what it actually does is a balance bike thing –
CLIENT: Yeah he is graduating up from like a balance bike thing to the training wheel bike.
THERAPIST: Yeah, so instead, try like if it’s easy to get the pedals off the regular bike, so get the pedals and the training wheels off, put the seat a little lower and then the regular bike is like a balance bike and they scoot longer and longer on that and it is a much shorter step to actually being able to ride the bike. Actually like doing the training wheels like doesn’t have anything to do with better balance.
CLIENT: Thanks.
THERAPIST: So, whatever.
CLIENT: I’ll pass on (unclear).
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: Good. Of course now, Jackson was really excited to have Selena’s balance bike and now she just wants the other bike, the one he actually has.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Cool.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: Yeah, I’d never seen a balance bike before. But it’s a new thing.
THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s a new thing. I haven’t (unclear) an actual balance bike to be honest, but like the balance bike principles, the bike store was going on about it (inaudible).
CLIENT: Okay. Thanks.
(Pause): [00:06:44 00:07:30]
CLIENT: (Unclear) has decided she will never sleep again, like life is way too interesting to be asleep.
THERAPIST: (Laughs) Lucky you.
CLIENT: Oh yes. (Laughs) I mean in practice it means I keep her up until she’s cranky enough that she falls asleep faster but she is like just to go in the room with the crib and she’s like oh, no (laughs) this is not going to happen. Lucky me. She’s decided that she doesn’t like, she won’t sit still long enough for you to change her diaper so you have to come up like wrestle her while you’re trying to change her diaper.
(Pause): [00:08:23 00:08:54]
CLIENT: I’m not sure how I feel about James leaving.
(Pause): [00:08:54 00:09:12]
CLIENT: But it will be nice to have time alone and I don’t want James to leave. I have to decide what I’m going to wear to my cousin’s wedding. I don’t want to go. It’s expensive. (inaudible).
(Pause): [00:09:41 00:09:55]
CLIENT: My aunt would be really sad if I missed it.
(Pause): [00:09:57 00:10:10]
CLIENT: But it’s just another (inaudible) how reasonable it is for me to need to go do this and in a sense to ask James to go with me.
(Pause): [00:10:26 00:11:32]
CLIENT: This is my cousin who is like, I mean like (laughs). I want to say, ‘this is my cousin from my aunt and uncle who are nuts, but that’s like two-thirds of them, at least. So, these are the people who are just like all of the kids and their parents too are the most extroverted, charismatic people I’ve ever met. Like very, very talented and very, sort of nuts ways. So Lillian, the one who is getting married, the same age as my sister by like four days and I think both Amanda and I have always been like kind of jealous of them but she’s like it’s not so much that they’ve got their shit together, because they really don’t, but they really don’t seem bothered by that at all. And it’s funny watching Amanda and Lillian. Both of them when they walk into a room are instantly the center or focus of the room. It’s just how they work. But I think Amanda sees that in Lillian but does not see that in herself. (inaudible) entertaining because there’s a lot of people who usually when they walk into a room are the focus of the room. Sometimes that ends up going badly, but usually it’s just really good.
(Pause): [00:13:43 00:14:00]
CLIENT: I have not met Lillian’s fiancé.
(Pause): [00:14:00 00:14:30]
CLIENT: Their father is a minister. And their mom worked in Portland public schools for a long time. I think she was like an education specialist.
(Pause): [00:14:55 00:15:17]
CLIENT: She was the one that like – we sort of realized it when we got older but whenever my dad doesn’t know what to do with his kids he calls her and she give him advice. So for years, quite recently, he told us, when he got divorced he called Phillip and, or Phillip and she was like you need –
THERAPIST: Like, her name’s Phillip?
CLIENT: Her name is Phillip, yeah, which is a family name.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Yeah. We name both girls and boys Phillip in our family. Which is confusing for some people. Actually, no, we didn’t used to. But my Aunt Phillip was pretty involved in the women’s movement in the 70s and so when her older brother, my uncle, had a second child he named him Phillip after her. I’m not sure it was as a tribute or making fun of her – it was probably both. But he called her and she said you need a housekeeper and you need a nanny. Like this is what you need to do. Like here’s how you’re going to deal with your wife leaving you. So, she’s like the greatest person, which I think – she always seems, she always thinks she knows what to do. Always takes charge. She had a daughter, Kelly, who died before – like that was her first child. So before any of us were born. I didn’t actually find out about her until my grandfather died.
THERAPIST: How old was she when she died?
CLIENT: Less than a year. (inaudible). (Pause) That’s how I found out about her. I don’t think anybody was like, nobody was keeping it a secret. It was just like nobody talked about her or at least my dad never talked about her. We didn’t see these cousins that often. I found out about it because she’s buried at the same church that my grandparents are buried. It was clearly like so present and so real for Phillip and for (inaudible) and Wyatt and I just hadn’t known about it. And it was clearly real to all the aunts and uncles as well. I didn’t know.
(Pause): [00:19:20 00:19:40]
THERAPIST: We’re such a storytelling family and we tell pretty hard stories – you know, stories with a lot of bite – but nobody ever told stories about this girl.
(Pause): [00:19:56 00:20:06]
CLIENT: Nobody’s named Kelly. Which there are like nine Ulysses, seven Lennons, and a whole bunch of Phillips. I guess male names you get tacked on more tightly than female names.
(Pause): [00:20:2400:20:59]
CLIENT: And of course (inaudible) feeling embarrassed or ashamed that I didn’t even know who Kelly was. Like I asked and may dad was kind of like, ‘what’s wrong with you?’ Nobody told me.
(Pause): [00:21:21 00:22:38]
CLIENT: I haven’t talked to him about session, us filing claims.
(Pause): [00:22:46 00:22:59]
CLIENT: It seemed like not a good time. Trying to pack and trying to get ends tied up and trying to set up like work to do when he gets there.
(Pause): [00:23:17 00:23:46]
CLIENT: I feel like I’m getting – what do I mean, getting? I feel like I am much more timid around him than is at all good for me or than has been the (unclear) for our relationship. You know, I certainly have been timid with lots of people (inaudible).
(Pause): [00:24:09 00:25:12]
CLIENT: (inaudible) second offer (inaudible).
(Pause): [00:25:15 00:26:29]
CLIENT: (inaudible) disappointed (inaudible).
(Pause): [00:26:47 00:27:32]
CLIENT: I think the hardest part for Jackson is that he’s not found – he’s not quite strong enough to actually turn the pedals when he’s not going very fast. And he is sort of afraid to go fast enough to get momentum so he’ll like start going and then he’ll like start going and then stop and then get frustrated because the pedals are upright and he can’t push them down. Also the brakes don’t seem to be working that well.
(Pause): [00:28:13 00:28:43]
CLIENT When I was 9 or 10, somebody took a picture of me riding a bicycle and reading at the same time.
THERAPIST: (Laughs)
CLIENT: (Laughs)
THERAPIST: It became sort of iconic for me for like – that was what people remembered about me for years. I really liked to ride my bike by myself. I really liked to read. Didn’t like putting down my book for anything. It was like in a parking lot.
(Pause): [00:29:19 00:29:35]
CLIENT: I had the same thing happening to me with books. I always used to – like I’d start a novel and I just won’t be able to stop until I finish the book. Like I don’t care about anything else. Like I just want to finish the book. I just want to keep reading.
(Pause): [00:29:56 00:30:03]
CLIENT: I mean I read fast, which is good, but –
(Pause): [00:30:05 00:30:19]
CLIENT: It is a little bit scary to get enough caught up in the narrative that like in some ways nothing else in my life matters.
(Pause): [00:30:30 00:30:52]
THERAPIST: (Unclear) books distract you in a way that recapitulates (inaudible).
CLIENT: Yeah.
(Pause): [00:31:01 [00:31:14]
CLIENT: The problem is that eventually you have to put the book down. (inaudible). Not that I haven’t tried.
(Pause): [00:31:20 00:31:31]
CLIENT: And then I feel bad – just the day being gone. I had these things I was planning on doing today.
(Pause): [00:31:41 00:32:22]
THERAPIST: I guess there’s also (unclear) about not being (unclear) with James because of feeling so sad that (unclear). But I guess I also imagine that that wasn’t the only (unclear) that kept you apart.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(Pause): [00:33:00 00:33:19]
CLIENT: He sort of asks why I’m sad. He asks about it. I’m not going to tell him I’d rather be dead.
(Pause): [00:33:29 00:33:47]
CLIENT: I feel like he’s taking care of me in so many ways and what he wants from me or what he needs from me is for me to be okay and I can’t give him that.
(Pause): [00:34:11 00:34:30]
THERAPIST: So my impulse is to try to cover that up. And I act like I’m okay. And then I get distant from him.
(Pause): [00:34:49 00:35:23]
CLIENT: And then I feel like I’m (unclear) a hell of a lot.
(Pause): [00:35:28 00:35:44]
CLIENT: (inaudible) hard things are (unclear) happy.
(Pause): [00:35:48 00:36:27]
CLIENT: Yeah, I’ve sort of gotten it through my head is that the best way I can take care him is to take care of myself but then I can’t take care of myself. I can’t be okay.
(Pause): [00:36:35 00:37:24]
THERAPIST: Well I guess you felt sort of the same thing and it’s part of where we ended yesterday about talking with me about wanting to be dead and (inaudible) I must see it differently but if, maybe not for quite the same reasons I think as James, you feel like I am in the position of seeing you kind of on your own with that.
CLIENT: Yeah. But maybe not for quite the same reasons but they seem like there’s a similarity there.
(Pause): [00:38:33 00:39:14]
CLIENT: You know, it’s like both of you make me be alive and that’s something a part of me can really get behind and is really committed to and part of me can’t and –
(Pause): [00:39:44 00:39:57]
THERAPIST: So it feels like there’s an estrangement there. And it feels like an estrangement to myself too.
(Pause): [00:40:07 00:40:33]
THERAPIST: Are you estranged from yourself, too?
CLIENT: Yeah, in the sense of like I am committed to being (inaudible) but what I’m trying to do, a large chunk of me doesn’t want that at all. I can’t, you know that’s sort of something I can take out and look at and then I have to put it away. Like I have to not spend too much time with it.
(Pause): [00:41:30 00:41:36]
CLIENT: But when I don’t spend any time at all with it, I begin to feel like nothing I do is authentic.
THERAPIST: I think you, at least with me, (unclear), like set up the estrangement. I know what you mean (unclear) yesterday (unclear) my commitment, giving me a lot of responsibility, I guess, to do that. But at the same time we both know that (unclear) I have very limited ability to do that.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(Pause): [00:42:49 00:42:58]
THERAPIST: Put another way, that requires on your participation and –
(Pause): [00:43:05 00:43:29]
THERAPIST: I guess I have the impression that there is some way then that you kind of set up or experience it as an estrangement or as (unclear) probably in part because it’s so hard and so scary to talk about many of the really, really awful, dark, sometimes self-destructive, sometimes angry things that you feel, I think. I think you’re so worried and sometimes so sure that I or anybody else can’t bear to hear them and will want to shove them back on you in some way or other. You know. Like with having somebody die. You know, you didn’t get to have the moment of discovering that or figuring that out or like the horror of it or sadness, or whatever – like you very quickly made it about it somehow being your fault for not knowing or your responsibility to deal with it or something like that. I think this is real similar with some of the (unclear) things. (Unclear) like people can’t hear those. I mean, it’s not clear with James now and there are some ways he can’t, or there’s limitations, which are there. I mean that’s not just you. But I guess it seems like with me I also sort of anticipate that and even arrange it a little bit.
CLIENT: I have a very clear and a (unclear) focus, very clear in my head, but like this is the place that I can cry when I need to, but not for longer than five minutes.
(Pause): [00:46:08 00:46:36]
THERAPIST: Like the minutes are like, ‘those are mine,’ or, ‘that’s mine?’
CLIENT: I guess so.
(Pause): [00:46:43 00:46:48]
CLIENT: I guess I feel like it feels to me, and I think that this is more me than you, but it feels to me as though the limits you have with that I can tell you about these terrible self-destructive things and feelings but my attitude towards them has to be one of wanting to be better.
(Pause): [00:47:31 00:47:42]
THERAPIST: I think that –
(Pause): [00:47:43 00:48:01]
THERAPIST: I think that I can sort of (unclear) with you, makes me neglectful in a seemingly benign, well intentioned like – like make me seem benign and well-intentioned but actually neglectful which I think you -
CLIENT: How neglectful?
THERAPIST: Because it puts limits on how you feel. How things actually are for you.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: On the basis of how I, what I think that you should be. Like it doesn’t make room for you. Does that make sense?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And sort of casts in a positive way which I do so often do with people (unclear) or change the subject or said something and they meant to be nice or they thought they were being helpful or I could see why they said it that way but really it left me alone and feeling worse. (Pause) We’re going to stop.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Friday at 4:45?
CLIENT: Okay. (Cross talk) Yeah thanks for (unclear). Drive safe.
END TRANSCRIPT
