TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Good morning.

CLIENT: Good morning.

THERAPIST: Let's see. So scheduling.

CLIENT: Yes. You're out all week next week, right?

THERAPIST: I am out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I think I'm (inaudible 00:19) Monday, Tuesday. I will check. I think you're at work (inaudible 00:28) that you could meet at the usual available time.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And if I can arrange something in one of those times, I'll let you know later today or tomorrow morning. But I think I'm free. We'll definitely pick up a week from Wednesday?

CLIENT: Okay. (Pause) Sorry, I'm just -

THERAPIST: It's okay.

CLIENT: Making sure I have [them recorded] (ph).

THERAPIST: Sure. (Pause) Although I got another callback from your insurance company.

CLIENT: Oh, boy.

THERAPIST: He (ph) wants me to talk with them again, so I'm going to (inaudible 01:21) information today.

CLIENT: Okay. I'm sorry.

THERAPIST: Insurance happens (ph).

CLIENT: (Sighs) (Pause) So I realized on the drive over here I forgot my vegetable box. So I have a farm share for the summer. The distributions are at work every Friday at 3:00. This (ph), you know, company is claiming that it's a benefit they're providing to us, letting the farm share distribute in their parking lot, which I think is bullshit. They're not. I mean, it is a benefit for us, but it's not costing the company anything. So whatever. The vegetables come in these big waxed boxes, and we're supposed to bring them on Fridays and trade-in the previous week's box for this week's box because they don't have that many waxed boxes. And I forgot mine last week and had to, like, go get a garbage bag from a janitor to put my vegetables in, because they wouldn't let me go home with a second box. And I forgot it again this week.

And I've just been in one of the very classical spiral (ph) for me. Beating myself up for being a fuck-up and forgetting the box in the first place. And then feeling worse. And then feeling bad for making myself feel bad, because I should know better by now. And then just (pause) (inaudible 02:55). (Pause) This sort of thing happens, like, pretty frequently. Like, five or six times a day at least. But given that it was so recent, [maybe it's] (ph) an example to look at (inaudible 03:15).

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I could go home and get it after this, and then go to work, which wouldn't put me at work any later than I normally get to work. But I was hoping to get there a bit earlier today, because I'm leaving for Delaware to visit my family after work and wanted to get out early. And also, with me fighting Cheshire traffic three times this morning (inaudible 03:57).

(Silence)

CLIENT: I even know why I forgot it last week and this week. All summer, Dave has been getting the box and putting it by the door, along with my keys and a (inaudible 04:36) for me to take to work on Fridays. But the last two weeks, I've been coming here, which is way too early for Dave to be up.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: He doesn't get up, and I'm just not in the habit of dealing with the box. Because usually, it's right there by the door and I can't leave the house with it in front of the door. (Laughter) So yeah, our door opens into a very narrow walkway, so, like, there's literally no way for me to get out unless I pick up the box. (Laughter) (inaudible 05:03) it's easy to remember, "Oh, I should take this to work."

THERAPIST: You just have to remember not to put it down.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughter) Which has happened before. Not with the box, but with other things. Like, if I needed to take something, like, there's a letter for me to mail, Dave will put it in front of the door for me, and then I'll pick it up. And sometimes I'll pick it up before I'm actually leaving the house, and I'll set it down somewhere. And then it's just I'm not good at mornings. I am very grateful on most mornings Dave (inaudible 05:36).

And then this morning. I didn't pack last night because I was just feeling miserable (inaudible 05:44). So I was packing this morning also for Delaware. I won't' be back for three days.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But I'm still mad at myself for forgetting.

(Silence)

THERAPIST: Well, I guess I'm not sure of what to say (inaudible 09:24).

CLIENT: (Sighs) [Now there's this] (ph) situation with my parents (ph).

THERAPIST: [You say] (ph) your parents?

CLIENT: Yeah, and (pause) (sighs) so, while we were in Italy, my mom told me about the situation that had been developing from last month with my aunt, my father's brother's wife. So she had a hypertensive hematoma episode that put in her the ICU. Her blood pressure was something, like, terrifyingly high. Like 300 over 180 or something. Just absurd. And it was causing her brain damage essentially, and so she was in the hospital.

THERAPIST: What's a hypertensive hematoma?

CLIENT: A hematoma is a bruise that happens in the brain, essentially.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: So a blood vessel had burst.

THERAPIST: I see, yeah.

CLIENT: There was blood collecting and putting pressure on the brain. And so, my dad had had a hematoma event also. Not hypertensive. His was caused by a car accident he was in. He got rear-ended and hit his head. And it was terrifying and scary, because my father [is my father] (ph) and he refused that he was feeling any symptoms, even though he's a neurologist and should know better. And it was, like literally, the only reason he's still alive is because he went to lunch with another neurologist friend of his who noticed the symptoms and said, "You're going to the OR right now," and performed emergency surgery on him that day. [00:11:11]

But anyway, so she was in the ICU. And this is in Ottawa. And my uncle and my cousin were trying to decide what to do, and the attending physician caring for her recommended some invasive diagnostic procedure. I don't know what it was, but it involved injecting something into her blood stream. And my dad counseled against it. He said, "This is highly likely to cause a stroke. It's a bad idea. You already know she has a hematoma. It doesn't matter where. You just need to treat it, you know, X, Y, Z, whatever." And my cousin and my uncle decided not to take my dad's advice. Took the physician's advice, and she had a stroke, and was -

THERAPIST: Sorry. Is that was your dad advising more or less within his area of expertise?

CLIENT: Yes. So my dad's specialty is not that, but he does keep up with events in the field.

THERAPIST: (inaudible 12:11) so I just didn't know.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, it's not his area of specialty, but it's certainly something he knows enough about to provide sound medical advice. And, I mean, my dad will argue that he's right and the attending physician was an idiot. But I suspect, you know, in life and death scenarios, differences of professional opinion are kind of legit?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Anyway.

THERAPIST: She had a stroke.

CLIENT: She had a stroke. And as of when we were in Italy, she had been unconscious for a week-and-a-half, and no one knew whether she would wake up or not. And my cousin had a terrible decision to make. And his father just, like, could not cope with any of it and signed over medical power of attorney, so my cousin was stuck with it. My cousin is about 12 years older than me, so he's in his mid-40s. So my dad according to Mom, Dad was feeling very guilty, but he didn't cancel the trip to Italy and fly out to Ottawa and be with the family. And he was very stressed and anxious and couldn't communicate with them because we were in Italy, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, Dad said nothing about this. I heard from my mom later that he was furious that she had told me and my sisters what was going on. He was keeping all of this a secret from us, which is standard Dad operating procedure. He keeps everything a secret, all the time, from everyone. I didn't know he had started working again until he had been at work for two-and-a-half months.

THERAPIST: Wow (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah. When I was younger, I was in the sixth grade, and we were considering moving, and Dad had a couple job offers that he was debating between. And he and Mom went to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit the town and the hospital, and my grandparents came and took care of me and my sisters. And I mentioned this at school just in passing to a friend. I told them my parents are in Albuquerque. And my friend asked, "What's in Albuquerque?" I said, "Daddy might be getting a job there." And of course, she told her mom, and then her mom asked my mom. And then my dad was furious at me for sharing secrets and, like, beat me.

THERAPIST: And what?

CLIENT: Beat me.

THERAPIST: Beat you. [00:14:26]

CLIENT: [I had to pay] (ph) for telling secrets, even though he never told me it was a secret. But anyway, that's Dad. He doesn't like people to know anything about him, ever. So anyway, a couple of weeks later, I was talking to my mom on the phone, like, after we got back from Italy. And she said something. I don't recall what she said, but I came away from the conversation with the impression that my auntie passed away. Like, I, like it's possible there was some kind of horrible miscommunication, but I hung up from that phone call thinking, you know, "My aunt is dead. This is terrible. I should, at some point, send a sympathy card to my cousin." And I mean, I was a little bit upset but not very, because I never saw my aunt very often because my mom hated her and my dad also didn't particularly like her. And she just didn't have much access to us when we were growing up. It turns out she's still alive. I don't know if my mom intended to imply that she was dead. If my mom was hoping she had died. If there was just this horrible miscommunication.

And, you know, if my dad weren't so obsessed about secrecy and not telling anyone everything, this wouldn't have been an issue because he would have telling us what was going on. Because, I mean, sure we were never close to my aunt, but we were randomly (ph) close to my uncle and my cousins. That's the sort of information that family would want to have. It's like, I can't like, just hypothetically, when I have kids, if something was happening to one of my sisters on their spouses, I would want the kids to know. Like, that's... (Sighs). (Pause) Yeah. My parents. [00:16:56]

I'm so tired of my parents. I'm so tired of their bullshit. And just comparing and contrasting them with Dave's parents, I mean, yes, Dave's mom occasionally drives me up a wall, but, like, the quality of that annoyance is different? I mean, I was telling a friend this and she was like, "Yeah, but, you know, you don't know your in-laws the way you know your parents, and you don't have as much history with them. And, you know, maybe in ten years she will drive you crazy as much as your parents do." I was like, "Well, I've known her from ten years." Like, at this point, I think if she was going to be as horrible as my parents, I would have figured it out. Like, we butt heads. We have disagreements. But they're all (pause) things reasonable people can disagree about? Right. Like, (pause) she's not crazy is what I'm saying, I guess. My parents kind of are. And she's not mean-spirited and she's not selfish. She's a little bit controlling and demanding, but she is used to having her own way. And I don't like it when she doesn't get her way. But (pause), like, she is a little able to comprehend that other people might want different things than her. [00:18:41]

(Silence)

It's a little sad that I start to feel (pause) what's the word? I am happy to see Dave's parents several times a year. I want to see them several times a year. If we go too long without seeing them, I start to think, "Oh, we should plan a trip to see Dave's parents. You know, that would be nice." Whereas with my parents, I dread seeing them. I never want to go see them. Yeah. I'm never excited to plan a trip to go see them. (Sighs) And that's sad.

(Silence)

THERAPIST: Well, (clears throat) you know, what you said, my hunch is that you're feeling sort of a little free or more comfortable talking about some of the stuff that was upsetting from a few months ago, like the incident you just mentioned. And also, not just the incident itself but (inaudible 22:37) your parents and, like, the perspective you have on that I guess, like, relative to Dave. How you see Dave's parents. For example, Dave's mom in particular. And that (pause) it does make me think also of what you said, naturally, about the wax box and how, you know, when Dave can be there for you, like, (pause) you're more able to manage stuff. And I imagine you have perhaps a bit of a feeling of, you know, Dave being more there or more available in some way. Maybe partly because of how you've been talking about things the last few weeks. Maybe (inaudible 23:39). I'm not sure. But that has something to do, I suspect, with (pause) being able to (inaudible 23:59).

(Silence)

THERAPIST: What's on your mind?

CLIENT: (Sighs) Oh, I was just recalling some conversation that I'd had a friend of mine (inaudible 27:39) about my parents. This friend of mine also works in journalism, except she's trying to make that her full-time job, whereas I'm just dabbling. But we had talked earlier this week about some of the stories we had been reading in our respective slush piles. So slush is the term for all of the stories that get submitted for publication. Usually, they're mostly bad. Following Sturgeon's Law, 95 percent of them are crap.

THERAPIST: (inaudible 28:17)

CLIENT: Sturgeon's Law.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: which is that 95 percent of science fiction is crap, but that can be applied to everything. (Laughter) And, like, this is the unpublished stuff, so it's probably more like 99 percent is crap. (Laughter) And so, because I read slush for a magazine that (inaudible 28:38), a lot of really terrible human beings take that to mean rape. Rape, rape, rape, rape, rape. And so, on any given week, like, a third to a half of my stories are just rape fantasies from the perspective of the rapist. And, you know, they're usually pretty obvious within the first couple of paragraphs. And I send a rejection letter and just move on. But then there are some that are just astonishingly bad, even given the background level of, like, expectations of badness.

So there was a story about two weeks about a rapist who had died, and his afterlife was being sodomized by Jesus still nailed to the crucifix, repeatedly, for all of eternity. Yeah. There was another one about a teenage boy who was tormented by guilt even because he looked at porn and then masturbated. And he was so tormented, and the only way to end the torment was to castrate himself. There was another story written from the perspective of a duck who was getting raped to duck by other ducks. Yeah. It's (laughter) and so, yeah, (inaudible 29:56) had an equally horrible. She had one story and the main character had all kinds of weird objects come out of his butt, including a person who's surname was Strange. (Laughter) Because he had a trans-dimensional portal in his butt. (Laughter) Like, just...

And so, anyway, I was telling her about my parents and just, like, what the fuck. And her comment was, "Your parents are even more baffling than duck rape. I don't have anything else to say. I don't know what else to say." Yeah. I was just remembering that conversation. Yeah.

(Silence)

CLIENT: Reading slush (inaudible 31:19) made me feel far better about my own work because, you know, I'm certainly no, you know, Virginia Woolf or Faulkner, whatever. But at least I'm not writing (laughter) gang rape by duck. (Laughter)

(Silence)

THERAPIST: (inaudible 33:00) but this story about rape fantasies are pretty (inaudible 33:04) interesting. (Laughter) Like, I don't mean to say that the writers are all screwed up. I just mean that, like, the particular arrangements of [metaphor and symbolism] (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah. (Sighs)

THERAPIST: Provocative (ph).

CLIENT: There is a shocking number of stories that are just, like, straight-up murder revenge fantasies where there's a male protagonist who brutally murders, sometimes rapes and murders, a wife or girlfriend who has in some way snubbed him. There is, you know, three or four of those every week. They're terribly boring and predictable. They're never competently executed. They always have clunky, awkward prose and it's just, yeah, really gross.

(Silence)

THERAPIST: I guess I also imagine I'm not, like, (pause) maybe (ph) I'm not, but there might be something reassuring in it, in as much as it makes this sort of normalizing. Like...

CLIENT: No, I think that actually makes it more disturbing.

THERAPIST: More disturbing.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, okay. I don't mean that I think you have those kind of fantasies. You've never mentioned that. Only that it would make it feel like, in the spectrum of things, some things that you heard about or have happened to you are not as far out there as some things feel like. But I appreciate that you were saying that's not the case.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And in fact, it's much more that it's just disturbing to read about and know it's (ph) out there.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like, it's just (pause) so, I don't think it's fair to judge people from the content of their fantasies and violent or disturbing fantasies. Like, as long as they stay within your head that's, you k now, fine. Lots of people have those. But there are trying to get them published in a fairly in a magazine that has fairly large readership compared to the rest of the field, which is just there's seems to be no awareness on the part of these authors that these fantasies they have are disturbing (laughter) and perhaps not appropriate for being published. Like, there's just a level of hatred of women apparent in these stories that really disgusting (ph).

And, I mean, on some level, I knew that, like, this is the (inaudible 37:01) lots of men have, like, deep-seeded rage and hatred and fear of women. And, you know, if that weren't the case, we wouldn't have a situation where one out of four adult women in this country will have been raped at some point in their lives or, you know, whatever. But I had thought that that wasn't this is going to sound stupid because, of course, I've been assaulted twice now. But I had thought that, you know, that wasn't a thing in my community with, like, my, like, broadly defined communities that I move in (inaudible 37:37) past that. And that's not the case, because these are people who are part of the community, and they're certainly not a part of my circle of friends, but they're there. They go to the same conventions and parties that I go to, and they're in my world. And they have these really distressing ideas about men and women and the relationships between them. And that's frightening.

(Silence)

THERAPIST: I'm not sure what to make of the connection, but...

CLIENT: Are you going to connect this to the vegetable box?

THERAPIST: No. (Laughter) No, I'm not going to connect it to the vegetable box. (Laughter)

CLIENT: I'm sorry.

THERAPIST: (Laughter) It's fine. It's fine. (inaudible 40:41) your parents and that was (inaudible 40:44). Lydia?

CLIENT: Lucy (sp?).

THERAPIST: Lucy.

CLIENT: (inaudible 40:55) if that's okay. Lucy is in her 60s. She's an immigrant. She attends my church, sings in the choir. She is very sweet and very generous and very loving, and I can't imagine talking about any of the horrors of my life with her. Certainly not duck rape. (Laughter) (Pause) Lucy is the one I have admired from afar for quite some time. And then I ran into her at Ashley's (sp?) apartment when I first stayed with Ashley (sp?). Then Ashley (sp?) introduced her. She did not bother to introduce Lucy by last name, so I did not know this was (inaudible 41:56).

THERAPIST: Oh, this is that okay. I remember you talking about someone who's a friend of Ashley's (sp?) (inaudible 42:03), but I didn't put that together.

CLIENT: We have become quite good friends in the last couple of months. I guess it's only been like four months. Well, yeah, almost exactly four months.

THERAPIST: We're going to stop for now. [And I will possibly see you on Wednesday] (ph). Take care.

CLIENT: [Yeah. Bye] (ph).

(Background noise)

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