Client "Ma", Session August 16, 2013: Client discusses the difficulty she feels in doing some of the most mundane tasks, like getting her prescription refilled. trial
TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
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THERAPIST: Good morning.
CLIENT: Good morning. I am really glad that you could see me today.
THERAPIST: Good. Well, I mean -
CLIENT: (Laughs)
THERAPIST: You know what I mean. (Laughs)
CLIENT: Yeah, that's the (laughing) about it.
THERAPIST: I'm glad it worked out but it's (Laughing) I guess I'm sorry you wanted to see me.
CLIENT: (Laughs) Yeah, that's about right. Yeah, I'm having sort of a tough time.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I couldn't find my pants this morning. This is it just feels like a classic morning for me in some ways. I was like packing last night and I was like, okay, I'm going to wear these jeans tomorrow and I put them somewhere and then this morning they were gone. Like totally gone and as it turns out I put them in a drawer with my shirts which I found after like 15 minutes of like where are my pants? I don't know. I've been like looking around my apartment for things a lot more often than I typically do. It's like most stuff you don't end up like seeing from one year to the next but maybe that's just me, but I broke my glasses a few days ago and I had a backup pair somewhere that was this pair and I like couldn't find them and I knew that I hadn't that I hadn't thrown them away because I was keeping them for this precise eventuality. And James knew he hadn't thrown them away but he didn't know where they were and I didn't know where they were and so I ended up looking everywhere in the apartment. My apartment is like about twice the size of this office, like its (laughing) not very big. And there are not many places. But like under the bed and I think I ended up like finding a lot of stuff that I couldn't remember and also a lot of stuff that remembered but didn't want to think about. Like I found my stash of flash cards, like thousands of flash cards on tiny little pieces of cardboard tied together with rubber bands in a bag and like I found that bag. And then like I found this beautiful, very nice hiking pack that I didn't remember or like I recognized it but I didn't know where it was from and I didn't know I had it and James was like, 'yeah, that was your birthday present last year.' So it's been like (whispers) I don't know.
(PAUSE): [00:03:27 00:03:52]
CLIENT: James really, really doesn't want to go to this wedding. And you know, he's been pretty like I don't know. I think he's doing as well as he can in terms of both being cheerful and cooperative and like not saying that he wants to go to the wedding because he doesn't want to go. I sort of want to go but I'm really tired from this week and am going to be more tired by the end of the weekend.
(PAUSE): [00:04:39 00:05:25]
CLIENT: It's not like I'm melting down over little things but I think that's mostly because I'm like, I can't get to the point where I'm actually melting down over little things, (laughing) like I think it's actually worse. I'm kind of like frozen and sad and really upset and don't know what to do about it. Somehow I have to refill my prescription on Monday or by Monday and like I know that I'm not going to remember to do it. Like I know this. But like I could have done it today but I couldn't have really done it today. There's just not time. The last two months I've ended up like missing two or three days on my thyroid medication because I had run out on a Tuesday and then I can't get it until Friday and then I don't really want to move on Friday morning and like just managing my life There's also like four or five events in two days for this wedding, right? It's three days, but like it's just all parties like all the time. It's like sort of going to be great and I sort of might just skip some but I also can't skip some because like these are my cousins whom I love and I don't see I see them once a year, if that, and I don't know. James last night was like, 'do you think we can be the angry drunks this time?' And I was like, (laughing) 'totally.'
My first family wedding that James went to, my cousin, Oliver, at the end of the night picked him up and held him upside down. James let him because like Oliver had just gotten divorced and he was just in a really bad place, like he was shit-faced drunk and he really likes James and he really kind wanted to mess with him a lot and at the end of the evening he was like, 'I'm going to pick you up.' Oliver's like 5'6", 5'7" he's like a big guy for a little guy and James's like a little over 6' and James was sober and said like sure, why not, if it'll make you happy. So we're going to be that person. (Laughs)
(PAUSE): [00:09:13 00:09:28]
CLIENT: I don't know whether Oliver is happy but his coffee shop is (unclear) so that's nice. And he has started The Coffee Company, which is a caf� in Maryland that somehow all of my friends who live in Maryland really, really like. So that's kind of nice.
(PAUSE): [00:09:45 00:10:06]
CLIENT: It's like the most hipster coffee shop in Maryland
(PAUSE): [00:10:1100:12:04]
CLIENT: I've gotten to the point, in my job, where it's not so hard every week and it was hard this week but in general it's like less completely exhausting so I've started panicking that I'm not doing a good job anymore.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Sharon (sp?) has started trying to say my name, which considering like she has three words I feel really good about. You know, she doesn't say anything really remotely approximating my name but clearly she's trying. Apparently "Y" is really hard for small children, like it's one of the hardest consonants.
THERAPIST: (inaudible).
CLIENT: Yeah, it's more like, "tttt and then she gets the A and the N in there. She doesn't like, she doesn't babble that much or like she makes a lot of noise but she doesn't have a whole lot of different consonants. It's more like "da, da, da, da, da" and then like noise.
(PAUSE): [00:13:43 00:13:53]
CLIENT: She's getting bossier so we'll see how that goes. I think she really likes climbing up the stairs and when I don't want to climb up the stairs with her which is most of the time she gets really mad. Which is too bad she's really funny when she's mad. Like, 'I'm trying to take you seriously but you're not even a year old and you're "aarg." (Laughs)
(PAUSE): [00:14:23 00:14:51]
CLIENT: I feel like I should work harder on coming up with things to do.
(PAUSE): [00:14:52 00:15:07]
CLIENT: Like places to go to like -
(PAUSE): [00:15:07 00:15:57]
CLIENT: I don't know I like I feel like I'm running out of things to talk about because I am well I talked about all the things that are like sort of, pretty much bothering me and not the things that are really, really bad because I don't want to talk about things that are really, really bad and I also imagine that you don't want to hear about the things that are really, really bad and aren't actually the (whispers) I don't know.
(PAUSE): [00:16:36 00:16:44]
CLIENT: And they're not anchored in anything. I just feel like shit.
(PAUSE): [00:16:52 00:17:04]
CLIENT: And I just hate myself more than most of the time.
(PAUSE): [00:17:0700:17:17]
CLIENT: I have to go to weddings. I have to like find all my dresses and that makes me that doesn't help. (Laughs) (Crying?) So I have to bring dresses for Amanda also. She got into a situation where all of her dresses are at her boyfriend's house and she really needs to break up with her boyfriend and she didn't have it in her to do it like the night before she was leaving. She was, 'I'll just break it off, it will be okay.' So I'm bringing like eight dresses because there are like five things to do to. (Laughs)
(PAUSE): [00:18:08 00:18:22]
CLIENT: And I don't feel very good about any of them. And I don't know why it matters so much.
(PAUSE): [00:18:27 00:18:57]
CLIENT: I did suggest to Amanda that she not cut all of her hair off.
THERAPIST: Amanda?
CLIENT: Yeah. And probably for emotional reasons but I don't think it would look as good on you (laughing). So we'll see. I don't know why we're still in the dynamic where Amanda thinks that's I'm the like sensible, responsible one or like the one who has her shit together. I don't know why she thinks that. But somehow that's the dynamic that we're in.
(PAUSE): [00:19:32 00:19:42]
CLIENT: I don't know what to do about your life, Amanda. I don't know what to do about my life.
(PAUSE): [00:19:46 00:19:57]
CLIENT: The only thing I really know is that I think you should be in therapy and you don't really react very well to that so (laughs).
(PAUSE): [00:20:0100:20:18]
CLIENT: I mean considering all these experiences with therapists, I don't blame her but I don't know how else to say it.
THERAPIST: Do I know where she is?
CLIENT: She's in San Antonio. I don't know whether she'll stay there.
(PAUSE): [00:20:34 00:20:56]
CLIENT: Yeah, I think most of the time when Amanda has gone to therapy it's been because somebody made her because they thought that something was wrong with her and she hasn't really been very happy about it or very happy with the experience.
(PAUSE): [00:21:18 00:22:01]
CLIENT: I've been writing again so that's good.
(PAUSE): [00:22:07 00:23:36]
THERAPIST: It sounds to me like you're really quite burdened by a lot of things.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And you don't want to have to deal with it and I think you're kind of angry with having to deal with it but then very guilty about being angry about having to deal with it. I think Amanda/dresses and you coming to therapy or talking about stuff -
(PAUSE): [00:24:14 00:24:37]
CLIENT: Yeah, I mean I always want to come to therapy and it's a mostly if I don't, I feel worse. But then it's actually like, yeah, but now I have to actually do it. (Laughs).
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, that's a yeah. Or you feel awful.
CLIENT: I don't get that far but yeah, on a scale maybe.
THERAPIST: Yeah, also sort of I really have to.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(PAUSE): [00:25:15 00:25:40]
CLIENT: Yeah, I tend to it is much harder for me when we don't meet as often. Yeah, not all the time but a lot of the time.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Your schedule is the same through the fall?
CLIENT: Yeah, I think so. Meeting a few times a week seems to be okay.
THERAPIST: Yeah. I'll see if I can arrange the Wednesday. I mean I've tried a couple of times and maybe there's (inaudible).
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Yeah, that's okay.
CLIENT: And I'm not sure what's going to happen with Monica's job. Did I tell you about her possibly having to resign?
THERAPIST: No.
CLIENT: Okay. So this is like at the beginning of this week or the beginning of last week I don't know. No, actually it was last week. The center she works for is the founder of the CEO's kid there. So before he started he like checked it out with the ethics commission to be like hey, is this going to be a conflict of interest? And they said no, just recuse yourself from anything to do with that and he checked it out again and initially they said no it's fine and then they said we're going to issue this statement saying that you need to either cut all ties or resign not just from the race for governor but also from being a senator. So she went to work one day last week and was like I am going to have to cool it like he's going to resign today. He didn't end up resigning but like in the next month he's going to basically figure out what can be about it. So I don't know what's going to happen with her job which means that I don't know what's going to happen to my job. You know I think it's the sort of thing where like I think they're going to try to keep me so I don't think I'll have to look for another job but -
(PAUSE): [00:28:17 00:28:22]
CLIENT: I could stay up worrying about that but there are so many other things. And that's something that's really, really not in my control. (Unclear).
(PAUSE): [00:28:50 00:29:19]
CLIENT: The problem is that the more I like if I say I don't want to deal with something I feel like I just become more of a burden to other people. So it just doesn't look particularly James but then like things aren't great between us right now and I just don't want to deal with it.
(PAUSE): [00:30:01 00:30:19]
CLIENT: Like it's sort of a new sensation for me of not wanting to just feeling that I just don't have the energy for that. Like I'm not thinking, 'oh no, we have to fix this right away.' And I just -
(PAUSE): [00:30:42 00:31:03]
CLIENT: We did finally make an appointment with a couple's counselor. I think he's going to be able to start like in September.
THERAPIST: Who is that?
CLIENT: I don't remember his name.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: His office is in Andover. (Laughs) That doesn't narrow it down very much.
THERAPIST: (Laughs) Somebody whose name you got from (unclear)?
CLIENT: Yeah. So I'm really glad about that. But I sort of feel like that will be the same thing as like it will be really good to have done and then, we'll have to do it, and then -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like that's just how life is. (Whispers) It's hard.
(PAUSE): [00:32:03 00:32:26]
THERAPIST: I'm trying to think of (unclear) to say how hard it is.
(PAUSE): [00:32:30 00:32:45]
THERAPIST: I imagine it feels like you should just learn to deal with how hard it is. You shouldn't have to lay it on somebody else by talking about how hard it is.
CLIENT: Yeah. I feel badly because it doesn't seem to me that it can possibly it doesn't seem like it is this hard for other people and I realize that like I don't know other people. I don't realize how hard it is for them but yeah I don't think other people want to quit life on a regular basis because they just don't because of doing the dishes. And it doesn't make me feel like I don't feel I sort of feel sorry for myself but more of why can't I just deal with these things, these normal things. This is just how life is.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Why can't I just deal with it? Because I don't think my life is actually harder than most people's.
THERAPIST: Externally.
CLIENT: I'm sorry.
THERAPIST: Externally.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Like I just don't have what I should have to deal with it. I don't know.
(PAUSE): [00:34:36 00:35:19]
CLIENT: So Selena's in this place where she has her favorite everything her favorite cup and her favorite bowl and her favorite clothes and so when the clothes she likes to wear are cleaned she just doesn't want to wear her other clothes and I sort of don't know what to do. I really know what you're going through, Selena. I really understand. On the other hand, you're just going to have to wear these other clothes. Like that's just how it goes.
(PAUSE): [00:35:53 00:38:01]
THERAPIST: I guess I it strikes me in different ways. One I do think you're feeling a bit that way with me like, 'doc, I don't want to fucking wear these clothes. I don't like the way things are. I don't like that I don't want to be on top of everything. I don't like that I want to quit and give up. I don't like that I feel so burdened. Like -
CLIENT: Yeah, a little bit.
THERAPIST: And so I also kind of imagine like there's something that's sort of historically referential there where Selena has you and her parents to kind of help her with that. She doesn't want to wear her clothes. We're going to sit there and get her to wear them somehow but you'll like help her. You'll be more or less patient with her. You'll try different tactics and whatever and you'll see this as like, 'okay, this is what a three year old does. Like she's going through a phase, like boo-hoo. Like we'll try this, we'll try that. You know, some combination of trying to distract her, trying to force her, trying to bribe her, trying to do the laundry more, and just losing patience with her (unclear).
CLIENT: (Laughs) Yeah, that's about right.
THERAPIST: And kind of like be in it with her to some extent. I don't know. I guess it makes me imagine that maybe you didn't have that.
CLIENT: I don't remember. I mean thinking more generally but I don't remember anyone talking to me about my clothes much. I mean that's what it feels like anyway.
THERAPIST: I guess part of where I'm part of what I was saying was like I think it and I mean it sincerely by the way, is like it feels to you like such a huge like kind of existential problem to not want to be doing these things. It's so burdensome and yet so dangerous not to do them.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And its sort of like my complete vanity about it is that she won't feel that way because she's got you and her parents to help her feel like this is livable or like survivable. It sucks but is not the end of the world.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(PAUSE): [00:42:24 00:44:03]
CLIENT: So are you saying that a lot of my distress at not wanting to deal with my life and having to deal with my life and having to deal with my life comes through as I don't know how to resolve that or that I don't know how to resolve that?
THERAPIST: I guess what I'm saying is (inaudible).
CLIENT: (Crying?) Sorry -
(PAUSE): [00:44:43 00:45:03]
CLIENT: (Crying)
(PAUSE): [00:45:03 00:45:19]
CLIENT: (Unclear) (Crying).
(PAUSE): [00:45:19 00:45:30]
CLIENT: I don't really know what to say except 'thinking is hard.' (Chuckle) (Crying)
(PAUSE): [00:45:31 00:46:38]
CLIENT: (Crying) I'm sorry I can't stop.
(PAUSE): [00:46:28 00:47:29]
CLIENT: Well, I'll lose my train of thought. (Chuckle)
(PAUSE): [00:47:31 00:48.21]
CLIENT: I think I get to the point where I am trying to sort of take the next step and work things out and I don't know, say something intelligent, I just it just gets too hard.
(PAUSE): [00:48:54 00:49:06]
THERAPIST: And I think that may feel like the end of the world.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(PAUSE): [00:49:10 00:49:28]
THERAPIST: We should stop.
CLIENT: Yeah. Have a good weekend.
THERAPIST: Thank you. Take care.
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