TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
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CLIENT: [inaudible] refused to try hers on but that wasn’t really surprising. She’s not a hat person right now. So… and it’s big enough that it’ll fit her next year. So Jackson [ph?] was home sick yesterday from school. He was, I think, puking all night. It hit the floor. So he was feeling sort of better by the time I came on board yesterday, and then Monica [ph?] and Frank both came home last night and both of them were green. So I don’t really know what I’m going to get today but… both in terms of what things are going to be like when I show up and also in terms of what I’m going to be feeling like during the next couple of days. [0:55] I’m sort of keeping James at very long arm’s length and (pause)
THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess I’m a little surprised they’re having you go, given the… I mean I can see that they need the help but…
CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t know. I wouldn’t… yeah, I feel like if I’m going to get it I already got it. And I also, yeah, I don’t know what… yesterday Monica [ph?] texted me as I was going there to be like this is the situation, can you bring some crackers. And I think she sort of was thinking about staying home and ended up not staying home because he was done being sick. He just needed to rest.
THERAPIST: Well I hope you don’t get it. [2:00]
CLIENT: Thanks. Thank you. I mean I sort of feel like it comes with the territory but also it sucks. (pause) But it was good to see them again. Sharon [ph?] has gotten… she’s sort of learning words and it’s more like she’s gotten much better at communicating but… so she can say more now, which is good. But mostly she just shakes her head because she doesn’t want to eat anything. [3:04] And so she’ll ask to sing a song but the only… she says AB or ABC. The ABC is because that was her favorite song at one point. And she goes like this for the Itsy Bitsy Spider. But she doesn’t want to sing either of those songs. She has a very specific song in mind and the only way to… and if you start singing a different song she’s like no, makes lots of noise. Turned out to be I’m a Little Teapot. (laughter) So we sang that six or seven times yesterday. (pause) I don’t think Monica’s [ph?] really a fan of… I don’t think she… the 18 month to 3 year period is her favorite developmental period. She’s like yeah, I’m really glad you got to know her as a baby so there’s some love accrued from that. [4:14] (laughter) I can’t tell whether Sharon [ph?] is better for me than she is for Monica [ph?] or whether I just mind it less. But I don’t know, she seems about the same to me. But she’s sort of, at least with Monica, [ph?] getting into the very demanding of things and sort of destructive in terms of she just opens doors and pulls shit out. So I don’t know. I’m perfectly happy to be the one that she does not open doors and pull shit out for. (pause) So I don’t know whether this is the last few days or just yesterday or the last week, so I don’t really have a good sense of time on this, but it’s… I think about cutting myself pretty regularly as it is, but the things I have been thinking about have been sort of increasingly violent it feels like. [6:06] And I don’t know. It feels like I’m clearly in control of them but that itself is really frustrating to me. (pause) I’m not worried that I’m going to do anything to myself that’s irreversible or particularly dangerous. I just sort of wish that I was. (pause)
THERAPIST: In a way you feel kind of constricted?
CLIENT: Yeah. I guess I’m presenting it as something that’s just over the last week and it’s more like… that’s not a… it’s not a totally new thing. Or it’s not something that’s… it’s just… this is going to sound sort of stupid but I guess in the last couple of days it’s occurred to me that I could actually tell you about it. [8:04] So that’s a thing I can say. (pause) I have a copy of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets that I keep in my bag because it’s small, and so it’s something that I can read when I’m bored because I will read it on the train a lot. I think I’m thinking of this because I thought of a line from [inaudible] And so the other day I was… wanted to go to a cafe and it wasn’t open yet, and so I went to the… that café near [inaudible] to get a cup of tea and wait for it. [9:44] And I had a sort of like strange and sort of amusing interaction with an older man. So I was at a large table, a largish table. But it was the only one; there weren’t any open tables, so he sat down with me. So I was reading and I was like he’s going to make... he’s going to talk to me. He’s going to say something. Sure enough he was like what are you reading. And he saw that it was Eliot and he was like is it Prufrock? And I said no, it’s a different one. And he just really wanted to talk to me about my life and tell me how to run it. He just really wanted to do that. And I was like okay, I was like you seem like somebody who needs to spend his days talking to people. We can do this. I guess it was… I noticed it because it’s very typical for me. I feel like… I honestly feel like I’m a magnet for older men who are looking for a sympathetic listener. [11:15] (laughter) I don’t really feel like there’s a good way to handle it, and that if I sort of brush him off and say no, I’m going to read my book, I feel like kind of an asshole. And if I don’t then I’m sort of like, I don’t know, forced into playing this part that I’m not sure I feel so great about. (pause) I think I’ve gotten considerably more approachable in the last year or two, based on the fact that there have sort of been more people who are approaching me. People ask me for directions all the fucking time. I’m the worst person to ask for directions. (laughter) I’ve heard of that place, usually Brown undergraduate admissions. I’m like I know there’s a sign somewhere that I walk past on a regular basis but I couldn’t tell you where it is. I don’t know, mostly I like it. [13:37] I like that people feel able to approach me. People end up asking me for help on the subway a whole lot, [inaudible] with the card machines, which is good except then I miss my train. But I don’t know. I think the Eliot quote that I was thinking of is like I descend lower, descend something into the world of perpetual something. World not world but that which is not world. [inaudible] he’s talking about the subway. [15:19] And probably some other [inaudible] (pause)
THERAPIST: [inaudible]
CLIENT: Descend lower, descend, I think, only into the world of perpetual, maybe, solitude something. I don’t think it’s actually solitude. World not world but that which is not world.
THERAPIST: That makes me think of your [inaudible] before that, actually what happened recently, was it occurred to you that you could tell me about having more violent impulses as [inaudible] (pause)
CLIENT: Yeah, I guess it feels like there’s a pretty sharp divide right now between, these aren’t really good terms, but my daily life and the world in my head, in some ways. [17:57] Yeah. So it sort of feels like often what I end up doing in here is (pause) it feels like in here I often… I’m sort of trying to find some way to get into that world in my head, which is much darker. And then elsewhere I spend a lot of time trying to find some way not to do that. And they both end up being hard.
THERAPIST: Yeah, I imagine there are moments where I maybe feel a little more approachable. (pause)
CLIENT: Yeah, I guess it’s… it feels to me like there’s moments where I sort of recognize that my fantasize… my fantasies about you not being approachable are fantasies, if that makes sense. [19:38] But I don’t know.
THERAPIST: Yeah, more like those sort of emerge from the way things feel where talking to me is not necessarily true.
CLIENT: Yeah, I think that’s right. (pause) I get so angry at myself. [20:59] (pause) It was… last night I was brushing my teeth and it was like I had to look away from the mirror. I wanted to either smash the mirror or smash my face. (pause) It would feel nice cutting myself [inaudible] it’s just more frustrating. I’m sure the more I do it the more I think about it. [23:12]
THERAPIST: So was that right there a bit of the anger at yourself for doing it?
CLIENT: What do you mean?
THERAPIST: Well you sort of… it was like the… this kind of tightening expression that went across your face as you said the more you do it the more you think about it.
CLIENT: Yeah, I think so.
THERAPIST: And I was imagining that you were…
CLIENT: Yeah, I sort of feel like this is… it’s only a problem of my own creation, and now I’m stuck with it. But I also (pause) yeah, I get angry with myself because it feels like I’m choosing this and I know that my choices are making it worse but I don’t make different choices. [24:32] (pause) Something like even the bad choices that I do make aren’t actually enough. It doesn’t… it’s, I don’t know.
THERAPIST: What do you mean they’re not enough?
CLIENT: In that (pause) I don’t… I… it has not, in the last however long, a long time, cut myself such that it will scar permanently or hurt myself seriously, but that’s what I want. [26:08] (pause) Feels sort of like walking Lola because she’s this little dog, she’s about 20 or 30 pounds, and she will never ever stop pulling at the leash. [27:29] She’ll never stop doing it. And she’s pulling as hard as she can. And… but she never…
THERAPIST: I’m sorry, whose dog is Lola?
CLIENT: She’s Amanda’s dog. She used to be my dog. Or any dog like her. But she’s a little dog. She’s never going to be able to pull hard enough to get away but… just because I’m always going to be stronger than she is. I’m just a lot bigger. But I can’t ever stop holding on. I don’t know. Yeah, I sort of want to let go but (pause) it’s pretty clearly not [inaudible]
THERAPIST: I guess that part of you is, much of the time, is physically craving [ph?] for what?
CLIENT: Yeah. [28:53]
THERAPIST: [inaudible]
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) Yeah, it’s just been [ph?] (pause)
THERAPIST: Like I said, [inaudible] that’s most of what it seems to want. [31:07]
CLIENT: What do you mean?
THERAPIST: Maybe it’s one thing that fits about your analogy to… with Lola, is you can’t really reason with Lola. You can’t really say all right, look, yeah we can’t go over there because that’s the highway, or we can’t keep walking because we have to get back. Or… but tomorrow we’ll go a little further or we’ll go over there or whatever. I think similarly what you’re describing is either kind of letting go or giving in or not, and continuing to have to deal with the pulling and the pulling and the pulling, the pulling. And there’s no conversation, there are no other demands. [32:27]
CLIENT: I mean I do try to reason myself out of it. And I sort of step back and say okay, well what is this actually doing for me. And sometimes I can see what’s it’s doing for me, but that doesn’t seem to touch it, if that makes sense. (pause) Yeah, so (pause) it makes it less scary when I can say well, this wouldn’t actually be an appropriate response to whatever I’m mad about myself for, or I can see that I’m upset about this thing or sad about this thing and I’m getting angry with myself here. [34:09] It sort of makes it sort of less monstrous but… yeah. (pause)
THERAPIST: I (pause) [inaudible] you mentioned of… you’re mentioning like a criminal [ph?] you’re brushing teeth, brushing your teeth. And also, talking here made me think that maybe something that triggers it is taking care of yourself. You probably [inaudible] did you have issues brushing your teeth when you were [inaudible] (pause)
CLIENT: Feeling like people are noticing me tends to set it off a lot. [36:22] Or feeling like people are noticing me in positive ways. (pause)
THERAPIST: [inaudible] going back to you as… what you first said about Sharon. [ph?] [inaudible] said… you were saying that Monica’s [ph?] not crazy about the 18 to, I forget what you said, like 36 months or so. I was thinking, you’ve been coming here, what, 20 months, 18 months? And you’re talking about Sharon [ph?] [inaudible] communicate, which is what you’ve been talking about, worried about the way that Monica’s [ph?] going to get mad Sharon’s [ph?] pulling shit out of drawers and thrashing around and being destructive. [38:58]
CLIENT: That’s pretty good. I didn’t realize it was that long. I guess I, yeah, I have a hard time [inaudible]
THERAPIST: You started coming here in something like May of 2012, toward the end of the last semester that you were in school.
CLIENT: Okay. Cool. [inaudible] pulling things out of drawers.
THERAPIST: I was thinking about it mostly in terms of an analogy to in here, but it also occurred to me that I could imagine that kind of thing when you literally were at that stage not going so well, that I was much more speculative. [41:21]
CLIENT: Yeah, [inaudible] I could also imagine that. I think the way my mom talks about us as babies I think she’s… was [ph?] probably really happy when we were babies. (pause) I don’t know. (pause) Yeah, I don’t really [inaudible] because that’s a little corrective [ph?] shield [ph?] I had to wear. Yeah, I had feet that curled in apparently, so they had me wear little white saddle shoes. [44:01]
THERAPIST: That had orthotics in them or…
CLIENT: I think so, probably, yeah. I’m not really sure it did anything, but I mean I remember being in my crib wearing them and being like why the fuck am I wearing shoes, just hating them. (laughter)
THERAPIST: [inaudible]
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