TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Hey.

THERAPIST: Good morning.

CLIENT: I think things are going to get better.

THERAPIST: Good, good.

CLIENT: I feel rested this morning, which is a change from the past couple of weeks, and I’m sort of eating more normally, which is good. I sort of feel like when I’m depressed I like, food tastes a little bit different. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I think I don’t, it’s hard for me to eat at mealtimes, but then I just really want lots of like desserts, basically, or something like carbs. [00:00:57]

So I’m sort of doing, what’s, that’s sort of always how I eat. I’m getting sort of back of the—

THERAPIST: Well good.

CLIENT: I don’t know if you’ve been reading the, there’s been like a couple of articles recently about Woody Allen since, so like his adopted daughter wrote a piece for The New York Times like, “Yeah, no, actually he really did molest me when I was seven, like that was a real thing. I wasn’t lying about that.” And then there’s like a push back on her, and then some people pointing out, like hey guys, it’s a lot more common for children to be sexually molested than it is for them to lie about it, so maybe we should, you know, rather than pursuing that he is innocent, maybe we should presume that she is innocent. [00:00:57]

So I was sort of reading that and getting a little disgusted by the whole situation, and then a friend linked to like a 1979 article by Joan Didion in The New Yorker where she reviews like Manhattan and Annie Hall and one other that I haven’t seen. I hadn’t seen either of those since I was like fifteen, so I don’t even remember them very well. Oh man, Joan Didion is a great writer. Like she’s just, just like takes him to pieces. Yeah, just like really. I mean, she’s just sees them all as fairly narcissistic movies. And I don’t know, it’s sort of hard for me to assess because I haven’t seen the movies for a long time. [00:03:06]

She, she also talks about, or she, one of the things that she like brings into it is like the extent to which people in the movies and Woody Allen at the time like talk about therapy as this like central practice of their life, so she’s like, you know, Woody Allen discussing his own analysis after twenty-two years, it’s like holy shit.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I would say that’s pretty long analysis.

CLIENT: That’s good to hear. It feels long to me, but you know,

THERAPIST: Yeah, that’s pretty long. [00:04:01]

It’s like today clear for me, how this work in like immediate crises, and then it’s taking me a long time to get comfortable talking to you when I’m not in an immediate crisis. So [00:04:59]

I hope you got home okay yesterday in the snow. It was like the best kind of snow. It snowed all day and there was like an inch on the ground, and it wasn’t very cold. It was perfect. [00:06:01]

I still don’t have a, I still haven’t gotten a physical planner which I still need to do because I don’t, Google Calendar doesn’t actually like, I just never check it. I put things on there like once a month, and then I never, I can’t remember to look at it, but anyway, I went through it and put all my stuff for the next couple of months on Google Calendar, whatever good that will do. James is editing, and so he [00:07:08]

THERAPIST: Like a manuscript that he’s considering?

CLIENT: Yeah, he’s editing his thesis, and his, I made a joke when he was talking about how like finding a reference to confirm like one footnote had taken him all day and I made a joke like, “You should just let it go, nobody’s going to see it,” and I’m like, “No one will notice it.” He really didn’t think it was funny, like really didn’t. So that might take another six months or so. [00:07:57]

He asked for help like coming up with the right word yesterday and we spent like ten or fifteen minutes trying to think of the right word. The problem is it’s like a, it’s like two molecules are interspersed in kind of like an A-B-A-B pattern like this. But like interspersed sounds like sort of random when it’s actually quite precise, and so the word he wanted was like synchistic (sp), like the opposite of chiastic, but he was like, “Science is not going to know what that means.” So I eventually came down on the side of, “Well, if there’s an English word that’s the precise word that’s used, use it, and they’ll look it up, or they won’t look it up, and won’t know what it means, but like use it.”

THERAPIST: So you would have to dumb it down for the scientists?

CLIENT: Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, it’s not dumbing it down, it’s just like different specialty, specialized lexicon. But I don’t know. [00:09:11]

It’s ongoing. So there was an article in the Washington Post yesterday, it was like an expose for the vestry of my church, just bought, decided to buy a rectory for the new rector. And they ended up buying this like, spending like $3.6 million on a condo in Denver. And so the Post was like, “Well, you know, maybe this is a lot of money to be spending on a rectory.” [00:10:10]

And you know, a dwelling place for a church, like an expose article. And like I have sort of mixed feelings. The reason, the sensible reason for buying a rectory was that like, say I wanted to be able to walk to church, which I think makes sense, but like A, the other four full-time priests all live in Denver, and they drive to church. And they also have really good parking spaces. They get to park like literally on a street right next to the church, yeah.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: And they can park there whenever, so like they can come down at night and like, I told Brett, that was better than a rectory. But so they all live far away. [00:11:00]

B, like the church is in Denver. It’s walkable, but it’s like, you know, it’s a longer walk than other places. And like, do you really need this, like a two-car garage, like is that really the thing that you want? But, but like I don’t, it doesn’t bother me in the way that it like really bothers some people. I’m more just like, “That’s silly.” The thing that I thought was especially silly was like John’s quote in the article was like, “No, this is a comfortable place, but it’s not an opulent place.” I’m like, John, you have no idea what those words mean, do you? I’m like just, just don’t talk. [00:11:56]

So that’s my rector. No idea that he’s really rich, like yeah. I felt like everyone from Cavalry that they interviewed about, for the article like said like really wise things, or you know, good things. And some people were saying like, “No, these were the reasons that it was a good choice.” And some people were saying like, “Oh, I’m not sure that’s the choice I would have made,” except for John. Like John’s the one who sort of put his foot in his mouth, at least from my perspective. [00:12:58]

(Long pause) I guess I’m sort of shaken up by, if I think about it too hard, I mean, who doesn’t want to think about it too hard? [00:13:58]

I don’t know. I mean, it feels like I never get to forget how vulnerable I am. Or like when I feel, it feels like when I do forget that, then you know, that vulnerability sort of makes itself known in scary ways. [00:15:02]

(Long pause)

THERAPIST: In a way I feel like it would be kind of nice not to be her this morning in that, like it might help you feel like a little more distant from how bad you’ve been feeling, or you’re here to think about it, can feel a little imposing or hard to know what to say, you said. [00:16:01]

CLIENT: I mean, it’s hard to know what to say, but I’m not sure that, I don’t know. I don’t think so, like I don’t—

THERAPIST: I don’t mean that you like feel unbalanced, don’t want to be here, I don’t mean like that.

CLIENT: So I guess like, what I’m mostly worried about sort of applies to you, but also applies to James and like, I guess it’s just you and James, but that like where I’m anxious is in feeling like I need to, I feel like if I just come in and sort of like chatty and normal that like that will somehow make like the last week not count. [00:17:18]

Or like it will like make it not have been real, and, but so like I don’t know that that fear, feeling like I need to present some continuity all the time is like that sort of there was. In some ways like that’s there with everybody that I talk to. But you and James are sort of the people that I talk to about anything like that. [00:18:02]

(Long pause) [00:19:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I imagine the feeling was like I wouldn’t believe you and you wouldn’t be credible.

CLIENT: Yes, yeah. But I mean, it’s just like I feel like I always worry that you know, I feel like I just switch so abruptly between like the weeks of being or I don’t [00:20:03]

I mean, there’s like, I worry about being credible, but I also worry about like scaring you or hurting you, like that. You know, I’m worried about being discontinuous. I don’t, do you know, like [00:20:59]

THERAPIST: Yeah, one way one day and another way the next?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: With no very clear rhyme or reason, and that I would, I would be like thrown off by that?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. You know, I worry about it more mostly for James. Yeah, I think I work much harder to sort of present a continuous front to him, but I feel like it’s been more important. [00:22:07]

I guess with you I worry about you seeing me as a crazy person.

THERAPIST: Well there is that.

CLIENT: Yeah. You know, because obviously you couldn’t handle that. [00:23:04]

I mean like with people in my life who have been sort of wildly inconsistent in this way. So like my mom, actually there are a lot of people in my life that was like my mom, my dad, healthy in some ways, like my ex-boyfriend, like the— I never know what to expect, I never knew what to expect, and I never could like trust that things would be the way that I needed them to be with them. [00:23:58]

And yeah, it scares me to be that way.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I, on the phone the worry for me is, maybe it’s really more for James. I bet he’d be overwhelmed by that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Not knowing what he was going to get, or if he was going to get—

CLIENT: Yeah, and I sort of, I feel like the inevitable consequence of that is like you drive people away. [00:25:03]

They can’t trust you, yeah. It may interest you that be consistent or be who he needed you to be in the moment. Yeah, I feel like most of the time I sort of make a narrative for myself where my mood like goes up and down and it’s still like one person doing all of that. [00:26:07]

And that’s sort of breaking down. It feels like no, it’s just all over the place in several different places at once, and so that sort of freaked me out, and now I’m thinking about it a lot. Not actually thinking about a lot until now, but like it’s there. [00:27:03]

(Long pause) [00:28:06]

THERAPIST: Well I’m tentative about this, but one like alternative view to that is actually that the trajectory of your ups and downs often make sense.

CLIENT: You just sounded so tentative saying it.

THERAPIST: I’m not sure what it was that has sort of pulled you out of, or at least away, somewhat away from what you’ve been feeling the last few weeks. [00:29:06]

I think really, over the last couple of days it seemed like you were starting to feel better yesterday morning and then are continuing that trend today, maybe moreso. It seems to me you do seem to me to have found a way, both on the phone I think on Sunday, and yesterday here. I’m not sure, but I kind of suspect a little bit withdrawal as well, I don’t know, to like articulate a bit more what things were like in a way that’s, you talk about hard to do, and you often, I think, feel stymied at. [00:29:56]

I’m not sure. But that may be part of something, anyway, that helped. And, but there’s like also something else going on with your inclination to feel like you really just like the people in your family, the fact that especially your mom, probably. [00:30:58]

CLIENT: Yeah, (inaudible at [00:31:00]).

THERAPIST: It’s about being crazy. I mean, like being inconsistent about organization or being angry can be often sound like your dad where it kind of inconsistent about sort of being crazy, sounds more like, has to feel like more with you and your mom. Anyway yeah, it’s like there’s something. It sort of makes sense to me that it would seem like more plausible to you in a way because it wasn’t because something that happened that I’m feeling better or an interaction. It’s more like I’m just being crazy like my mom.

CLIENT: I don’t, so it’s, I don’t, I don’t think like that’s the move I’m trying to make. I think it’s more like, I think it’s less that I think there’s no reason behind it. [00:32:14]

And more that I am worried that you and James will think that there’s no reason behind it. Does that make sense?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And that, I don’t know. I mean, it also like, it doesn’t just feel like things are on an upward trend. Like it feels like it’s just gone.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And like it stopped. [00:33:00]

Which makes me, which is sort of a little bit less comfortable for me than if I move, sort of get out of it.

THERAPIST: Because it’s like whoa, now you see it, now you don’t.

CLIENT: Yeah. So, but I feel like, but I feel like in talking to you about it, I don’t want to sound like, no, I just feel better, it’s gone. Like I don’t want to say that so I sort of present it as like, I think things are a little better. I think that, you know, like I think this is coming, like I’m coming up out of it, as opposed to like, no, I’m just fine now. So yeah.

THERAPIST: So are you saying partly that you feel kind of ashamed?

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but yeah. [00:34:00]

THERAPIST: That, I mean, that I (inaudible at [00:34:05]) is a bit mysterious, and as you imagine to me, is not necessarily all that credible. It’s gone.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Like a magic trick.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And if you, another thought that came to my mind is like you know, if you’re a kid who’s having trouble in school, either academic, I guess, or behaviorally or whatever and then just comes home and tells the parent, oh actually, everything’s fine now. The teacher said it was fine, I brought all my work in, I’ve been, you know, behaving well in class. [00:35:02]

Everything’s cool. Or I guess an addict would be another person. It’s like yeah, I know I was drinking, I had this problem, I was, you know, really torn up and struggling and I couldn’t stop, but now it’s fine, actually. I mean, it sounds like you feel that’s how you’re coming across.

CLIENT: Yeah. You know, on one hand like I don’t trust that. Like I don’t, it feels like it’s just gone, but I don’t actually believe that that’s the case until like, but I also worry that like if I spend too much time being like where did it go, then it will just come back, and yeah.

THERAPIST: It seems to me there’s also a subtle split in it that, I don’t know, somehow seems important where before we kind of stop and say wait a minute and say let’s talk and look at it, I think you own more of the well that’s just how it is, and you give me more of the oh my gosh, Dr. Lee (sp), isn’t going to believe or is going to think I’m crazy. [00:36:08]

Whereas when we sort of stop and talk more closely about it, you’re like well, I don’t know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and I don’t really know if I believe it, but I’m saying that I don’t need to act there, so do you know what I mean? In this sort of subtle way, it had been feeling more like I was going to be critical and you were just sort of talking about how it is, whereas now it seems to me you’re sort of owning a little more of both of those things.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:37:01]

How I’m, I’m really anxious right now and I don’t exactly know why, but I’m like, my entire body is tensed up. That’s interesting. Okay.

THERAPIST: Do you know if it’s, if it, when it hit you? Was it after what I just said or was it like when you started to explain to me?

CLIENT: Yeah, when I started like.

THERAPIST: I see. Like how actually it’s gone.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:38:00]

THERAPIST: Maybe that made you feel kind of exposed, like you were telling in a way what seems like the less reasonable version of the story.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, I think I just don’t, I don’t know how you’re going to react. I think I am anxious that like [00:39:01]

That I will make you feel like I didn’t actually need your help in the last week, but like I don’t know. Yeah. Like that wasn’t real. [00:39:59]

THERAPIST: I guess you feel in some way like maybe you played a trick on me?

CLIENT: Yeah, something like that. But it’s also like I was really, really scared and I don’t really want you to tell me that there wasn’t any reason for that. So, but like it was foolish of me to be so scared. [00:40:59]

(Long pause)

THERAPIST: I guess those are a quality of undoing to it, where there’s a way that feels like you’re, it feels to you like you’re undoing (inaudible at [00:42:08]). [00:42:08]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: In a sense it sounds like partly your, partly mine kind of revised version of what happened where you’re tricking me and I’m not going to believe it, and—

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess so. [00:42:59]

It sort of makes me think of when you see T (sp), actually. Like you know, a couple of people that I told about these things are like boy, you, so you’re missing a lot of memories, but then they’re bad memories, right? So it’s fine for them to be gone. I’m like, it’s really not over at all, like even if I don’t, even if I don’t remember like even if I don’t like have that, the aftermath is still real, like the, so yeah. Sort of, I’m not really sure how precise the analogy is. [00:43:59]

Like I feel like there’s some way in which like I don’t want to get erased. Even though I didn’t want it to happen, but it wasn’t good, but I don’t, yeah.

THERAPIST: Well, so what happened to you and you’re upset about things that matter. And even if it wasn’t quite clear how, I think, if that makes sense. [00:45:03]

I guess so like, you know, so you want to push a button and erase all of your memories of what a horrible breakup with somebody was like.

CLIENT: Like (inaudible at [00:45:23]).

THERAPIST: I have, and I’ve heard of it.

CLIENT: It was a good movie. It’s really interesting. I don’t think I’ve seen it since the ECTs, so I have to go back and watch that, but yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and that’s like sure, in a way you don’t want the pain, but in another way it’s really important. I don’t know if that’s what you’re saying, or—

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. [00:45:59]

THERAPIST: We should stop.

END TRANSCRIPT