TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: I have been running errands all day, hopefully, so there are a lot of them but like some errands in Burnley and some things to do downtown and so I just spend all day traveling. I took one of Kim’s (sp) car keys home with me yesterday, and like the keys to Frank’s car, because I had to move it to get the other car out, so then I had to bring it back.
CLIENT: James and I are going to go have some pizza and play some Settlers of Katan (sp) with a couple friends from my church. A little bit anxious. I feel like it’s a huge sacrifice to ask James for something and I feel like it’s infringing on him, much more than it actually is. (long pause) [00:02:00]
CLIENT: I don’t feel very good about it at all today. (inaudible) [00:02:44] I feel like it’s sort of, I feel like equal parts enjoy it and get really anxious about it or feel bad about myself as we go.
(long pause)
CLIENT: I feel like things are really tense with James and I don’t know why and I don’t, I haven’t had the energy to sort of sit down and try and figure it out in the last few days and but I feel like I am doing something really wrong and I can’t tell. I most definitely can’t tell anyone that.
(long pause)
CLIENT: You know I’d (inaudible) [00:06:03] for him. I’m having a very hard time talking.
THERAPIST: I had this thought of a game with James, where you know, you’re going to have it your people to do this in your way and this is an infringement for me, like what they go to put in the game with James. (therapist speaks very low, hard to hear) [00:06:51]
CLIENT: I don’t know. I don’t know, I just feel like I am having a hard time just picking one thing out to say or like one thing after another.
THERAPIST: I see, like you had some and it’s very hard to typically? (inaudible) [00:07:34]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Do you still like turn up?
CLIENT: Yeah, yes like as soon as I got back from running errands and returning his key and James was sort of quiet and subdued and I said are you okay and he said long pause I am fine! I said do you want to talk about it and he said no, I don’t, I said okay. Do you need to not go tonight and he said no and then sort of gave me a look as to say God, what’s wrong with you! [00:08:39]
(very long pause, client is crying quietly)
THERAPIST: I wonder if your feelings of all of the mish-mash of things vary in terms like from that. Like very frightened, very frustrated, very helpless, kind of all mashed together. [00:09:51]
(long pause, client is crying quietly)
THERAPIST: Remember your working so hard communicating with him and accommodating and are so worried about things between the two of you, I think also, so like guarded.
CLIENT: I feel like, I don’t know, I feel like I can’t win. I’ve been telling him that I’ve needed to do all these things to do today and I said I have a really full day for your day off and clearly in his head it was like and that could easily wear you out or send you spiraling into depression and I would have to deal with it so you need to take better care of yourself and I didn’t really like choose to have a whole bunch of things that I had to do today, it just happened and so I am doing it! Oh well, and the things that I did choose, are the things that I really wanted to do. Now I feel like I can’t be tired at the end of the day because I know that it will be an “I told you so” and you should take better care of yourself and I like need church I think. [00:12:18]
CLIENT: It feels like he supports me doing it and is telling me to build a support system other than him and you know make relationships and take care of myself in that way but that it also feels like he really resents the time that I it means I don’t spend a lot of time with him on Sundays or it takes a big chunk of my free time away from him and he’s just not interested in being involved at all and to some extent I’m like sorry, it’s a part of being married, like you have to go to dinners together you know? I just don’t know what to do.
(long pause, client crying softly)
THERAPIST: Not only are these situations impossible in the way that you describe, but that the stakes feel incredibly high, regardless of the moment of what they are, they certainly feel that way. I think that any of these things could really push the two of you over the edge.
CLIENT: Yeah.
CLIENT: I don’t trust myself to know how high the stakes are, or to be able to tell what is going to be important and what’s not important. I will attach huge importance to, this going to be terrible, but like doing dishes, or I don’t like to do dishes basically and I don’t do them a lot. I just fret over that and it seems really important and then James will be like no, no, that’s really not a big deal but then other things that it never occurred to me would be important would turn out to be really hurtful for him and I feel like I don’t trust him to half the things he says not be a big deal, actually not be a big deal. [00:15:51]
(very long pause)
CLIENT: It feels like I am so careful around him, like just so careful and what I am being told is sort of simultaneously it’s wrong for you to be so careful or unhealthy or not necessary or something and at the same time but your just really not careful enough. [00:18:33]
(very long pause)
THERAPIST: Making you go to pieces somewhat, confronted with a (inaudible) [00:20:22]
CLIENT: Yes as you see.
THERAPIST: I know your upset, but that’s not exactly what I mean. I mean maybe in a way you feel like you’re in pieces, one piece that’s trying to relax and not be so careful and the other piece that is trying to be very wary and sort of attentive and accommodating. Another piece that’s feeling helpless and overwhelmed, another piece that’s feeling frustrated.
CLIENT: Yes, I think so. Guilt is exactly right actually.
THERAPIST: Maybe that is some of what makes it hard to talk here or think generally is you’ve got to instead of, I don’t know, like a diverse course, like a coffin (inaudible) [00:21:49] is probably a better word.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: That’s an incredibly anxious, overwhelmed condition.
CLIENT: I don’t, you know it’s important for me to be consistent and I can’t.
(talking over each other) [00:22:36]
CLIENT: I feel like it’s, I want to sort of hide that it feels like I am in pieces, so I want to present one story but I can’t find it.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
(long pause)
THERAPIST: I wonder, how much at the end of the day that’s about safety actually. Wanting both to feel and come across as your together, sort of coherent with one story. Is about that’s a much safer thing.
CLIENT: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t It doesn’t bother me when people talk about people as crazy in the family that it does bother other people, but like, that I worry that people will see me like that, I feel like, not being consistent or not being together are, I feel like people who are not helpless, of how they think of me. (inaudible) [00:25:58]
CLIENT: If I am still like all those people.
THERAPIST: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: I don’t know and I’m scared to think of myself (inaudible) [00:27:07]
THERAPIST: I can almost imagine that when you feel that way, you might feel as though you already have lost, what were you saying, say it again another (inaudible) [00:27:30] I don’t mean like you moved away, but like -
THERAPIST: Hard to know who you are dealing with, when you’re so jumbled.
(long pause)
CLIENT: I feel like I have to step back or I might say something that really hurts people. But then I (inaudible) [00:29:09] Yeah I sort of want to go be somewhere by myself for a while until I can get it together. But of course that’s not actually how it works so it -
(long pause)
THERAPIST: Probably at the current moment you’re feeling pretty exposed.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: for any length, it’s uncomfortable. (sp?) [00:31:58]
CLIENT: I feel like I can’t help you when I’m (inaudible) [00:32:50]
THERAPIST: I bet you part of that means your very worried.
(long pause)
THERAPIST: I guess it’s like you can help me so the bottom doesn’t fall out. (inaudible) (best guess) [00:34:45]
(client is crying quietly)
(very long pause)
CLIENT: I’m just really scared that’s all. I don’t know what to say about that. (very quiet, hard to hear) [00:37:51]
(background noisetalking, laughing and crying) [00:38:29]
CLIENT: I feel like James especially does not react well when I am not consistent. He just doesn’t have a very high tolerance for that.
THERAPIST: We are going to stop ok.
END TRANSCRIPT
