TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: Good morning.
CLIENT: Good morning. (pause) So, I was really uncomfortable yesterday with you saying that you were wrong, and I’m not totally clear on why, so I thought I would bring it up. Yeah, I feel like I freaked out a little bit, and I don’t know why.
THERAPIST: Hmm. (pause) [00:00:53] As I recall, (pause) I had first been talking about this parallel where you seemed to kind of feel unsafe, both with your dad and with me, and I was saying I thought that, in a way, in the present day, it seems like that had more to with you than an actual danger, or likely danger. And then, as we talked more, there was something that made me kind of revise that.
CLIENT: Um-hum. I think we were talking about my dad trying to make a joke, (inaudible at 00:01:50) when I was a kid. (inaudible) Both of us, at the same time, were like, “Nope, not so much something to joke about right now.” [00:01:58]
THERAPIST: Yeah. Right, I guess, then how you made it clear to me that that actually was just the sort of thing you found hurtful, and you were afraid of happening. I think that was when I said I was sort of wrong.
CLIENT: Um-hum. (pause) Yeah, and I don’t know; it sort of threw me. [00:02:49] I don’t know why. It’s not that I necessarily disagreed with you. Yeah, I do think that it has a lot to do with me, but it’s not entirely coming from me, if that makes sense. Being afraid is. (pause) In part, people say things that are hurtful unintentionally when part I think it is… In some ways, because I think it was like, the call (ph) didn’t – it didn’t hurt me that much. It was like, “No, this isn’t okay,” but it wasn’t that painful. I think part of it is coming from a memory of being – of things like that hurting me much more than they currently do, if that makes sense. [00:04:05] But, I don’t know. (pause)
I think, also, what I had said immediately before was some reference to things being pretty bad for me right now, or right then, and (pause) it felt like you were trying to shift attention away from that, and that (pause) did not feel good. (sniffle)
THERAPIST: Oh. I see. [00:05:16]
(pause)
CLIENT: At least, that’s what I think was happening. It wasn’t something that I formulated in my head at the time. It’s more like reconstructing afterward.
THERAPIST: Hmm, I see. (pause) [00:06:16] It seems to have been what disturbed you was the sense that I was wanting to move away from your feeling really bad.
CLIENT: I think, in part. Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I mean, I think part of it is I’m just uncomfortable with you being wrong. (laughter) I don’t know what to do with that. (pause) [00:07:12] I am uncomfortable with you saying that you are wrong in that particular situation because I’m not uncomfortable telling you that I think you’re wrong. (pause)
THERAPIST: (laughter) [Hasn’t happened yet] (ph).
CLIENT: (laughter) At least, not most of the time, so yeah, I don’t know what to make of that. (pause 00:07:35 – 00:08:38)
I went back and slept for another three hours yesterday. I think that helped. It was hard to remember that I can’t miss sleep. It’s not good for me, but I just need to be disciplined about that. And it’s hard, also, not to make that kind of self-care something else that I beat myself up about.
THERAPIST: It also seems like it was hard to tell me how upset you were by what happened yesterday.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty exhausted now. (laughter) [00:09:38] You’re like, “Well, got that out of the way. What are we going to do with the next 40 minutes?” (laughter)
THERAPIST: So you’re feeling pretty cooked (ph) after that?
CLIENT: Little bit. (pause) Yeah, it’s hard. For some reason, telling you that I think that you’re wrong – like, that your ideas are wrong – is not the same thing as criticizing you, in my head.
THERAPIST: Um-hum.
CLIENT: And the former is okay, and the latter is really hard for me to do. It’s hard for me to trust that you’re going to understand what I mean and, also, that you’re going to respond well to it. [00:10:47] It’s hard for me to trust that when I say like, “This thing that you said had unintended consequences for me, that were hurtful,”—
THERAPIST: That I’m not hearing, “Wow, Chad (ph), you really fucked that up.”
CLIENT: Not even that, that you’re not hearing, “Wow, Chad, you’re a really terrible person.” (laughter)
THERAPIST: Ah, I see how that (inaudible).
CLIENT: (laughter) So, yeah, I guess I just feel like the stakes are very high here.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Um.
(pause 00:11:32 – 00:12:10)
THERAPIST: And I would hear, “I’m a terrible person,” along the lines of being very cruel or insensitive?
CLIENT: I guess so, yeah. (pause) So then I feel like what I imagine will happen is that either you will say, “Well, I’m not a terrible person, so obviously, I can’t have done anything wrong at all,” or you’ll say, “I did this wrong, and I am a terrible person,” and then sort of flagellate yourself until I have to step in and make you feel better about it and tell you, “You know, it’s really okay. You didn’t actually do anything wrong.”
THERAPIST: I see. [00:13:02]
CLIENT: I don’t really feel good about either of those things. (laughter)
THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) Certainly, both involve a kind of a bring-down (ph), in a way, between you and me, over what you said.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) With most people, when I need to confront them about things that were hurtful, I have to do the calculation of, “Is this a big enough deal that I have to say something? Is that rift already there, or is it something that I can sort of deal with on my own?” [00:14:10 ]
(pause) I’m getting better at sort of defending myself, and when the problem is already there, I’m getting better at recognizing that I’m just acknowledging that this is a big deal for me, rather than making something that wasn’t a big deal into a big deal. This is sort of a hypothetical situation with other people. But I don’t know; it almost feels like everything is going to become a big deal, whether it was or was not.
THERAPIST: I see. Right, whereas, the previous (inaudible at 00:15:07) that you might have been to, in a way, kind of minimize how big a deal something was, by attributing that you were just making a mountain out of a molehill.
CLIENT: Um-hum. (pause) Yeah, when you say “previous”… (laughter)
THERAPIST: Okay. Fair enough. (laughter) Yeah.
CLIENT: I’m working on it. [00:15:58]
THERAPIST: No, that makes a lot of sense. I guess, honestly, I probably didn’t have the idea so much that it was over. Instead, I was just trying to be clear what I was referring to.
CLIENT: Yeah. (laughter)
THERAPIST: That’s a good point that…
CLIENT: Yeah.
(pause 00:16:11 – 00:17:00)
THERAPIST: Maybe the (pause) worry you mentioned in telling me that what I said yesterday really upset you, or bothered you, kind of reiterates what happened in the first place. In other words, if you tell me what I said really disturbed you, you’re worried I’m going to feel like a terrible person. And then things are kind of going to fall apart, in the sense that, either I’m going to just brush aside what happened to you, or I’m going to get so absorbed in it that you’ve then got to abandon what you were talking about and shore me up, in a way. [00:18:08]
I guess, I wonder if that’s maybe something you were worried about when I said I was wrong yesterday, that I was feeling – or would feel – really terrible from having – for some reason, that thing, as opposed to any number of other things I get wrong. Somehow, I guess, it felt more self-critical than conceptual, or something like that.
CLIENT: Yeah, that makes sense. (pause) [00:19:02] I think – I also think that part of my fear of bringing it up today is it wasn’t that big of a deal, which sort of makes it much harder to bring up. Because if it was very hurtful to me, I’m already very hurt, and so there’s not as much risk to things blowing up with you. But because it was sort of a comparatively small thing, then it’s harder to talk to you about it because I feel like it might turn into a big thing, and then that’ll be on me. Does that make sense?
THERAPIST: Um…
CLIENT: But sort of the way that you’re describing it was that I was very hurt by this, and I think that’s not totally accurate. I think I was a little bit hurt by it. [00:20:03]
THERAPIST: Got you. It sort of feels like (crosstalk).
CLIENT: But I would be very hurt if you sort of read “I’m a terrible person,” into this, and either blew up at me about it or blew up at yourself, and that I had to resolve that.
THERAPIST: Right, it was sort of like doubling down or tripling down on your way out the door yesterday, which wasn’t so big, actually, yesterday but could blow up. The thing that you said that kind of jumped out at me was, “And it would be on you.”
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, I really believe that. I know it’s not true, but I really believe it. (laughter) [00:20:55]
THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess so. And, also, I don’t know; somehow it seems relevant to me that that’s a crucial – the issue of fault is just really looming large.
CLIENT: Um-hum.
THERAPIST: And whether it’s me feeling more or less intensely at fault – or you, I guess.
CLIENT: Um-hum. (pause 00:21:29 – 00:22:17)
Yeah. [I have a lot to say about it] (ph). (pause 00:22:20 – 00:23:46)
I think…
THERAPIST: Something that seems kind of closely tied in with feeling at fault – or with (inaudible) I’m feeling at fault – is a kind of really unmanageable degree of – I’m not sure if it’s guilt or shame – that comes along with that. Guilt, in the sense of my having hurt you in a way that I can’t tolerate—
CLIENT: Um-hum. [00:24:39]
THERAPIST: For me being kind of at fault or you blowing (ph) things up here. I have a sense of like – I don’t know – with me hurting you, it’s more like I feel guilty in a way that I just couldn’t handle. Whereas, with you bringing (ph) it up here, it would be more like you were ashamed, but I don’t know about that.
CLIENT: Hmm. I’m not totally clear on the difference between those two. It doesn’t—
THERAPIST: What I have in mind is, guilt is more to do with the relation with one’s self. In other words, you feel so bad in yourself about having done something or not done something. Whereas shame, I guess I sort of imagine more as feeling like you looked really bad in somebody else’s eyes for having done something. [00:25:49]
CLIENT: Mmm. (pause) Hmm. (pause) I feel like those concepts blur together pretty intensely for me. Yeah. (pause) But in what we were just talking about, no, I think it’s more just guilt. (pause 00:26:50 – 00:27:51)
I’m sorry. This is hard. (crying)
THERAPIST: Yeah.
(pause 00:27:58 – 00:28:49)
CLIENT: Okay, I sort of lost track of what we were talking about.
THERAPIST: Well, tell me what’s on your mind, if anything.
CLIENT: I don’t know. I feel like I’m trying to think about this, and I sort of go off in various other directions instead – but other directions that are like…
So this is sort of embarrassing, but I’ve been playing a lot of Candy Crush on my phone, and I have visions of the little jewels, so like that sort of clutter. (pause) [00:29:49] Not on my cell phone, my Kindle. I don’t have a smart phone.
THERAPIST: Sounds better than what we were talking about.
CLIENT: (laughter) Yeah, it’s very soothing. (pause, crying 00:30:03 – 00:31:53)
I’ll just get all… (chuckles)
THERAPIST: Huh?
I just got all the tissues. (laughter)
THERAPIST: Do you need some more? There’s some—
CLIENT: No, there’s still more in there. I cried (ph) more than I expected today. (pause, sniffling 00:32:05 – 00:32:58)
Who knew? I’m really scared to talk about this. But I want to keep talking about it, but it’s sort of managing my fear and talking about it at the same time is hard.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
(pause 00:33:13 – 00:33:50)
CLIENT: Yeah, I’m just frustrated with myself.
THERAPIST: Um-hum. (pause) Candy Crush is a little like Tetris?
CLIENT: Yeah, or like Jewel, if you’ve played that. It’s basically like Tetris, yeah. (pause) It’s like slightly more strategy, but not very much more strategy. (pause) [00:34:50]
When you were talking about guilt yesterday, I was thinking about it, and it’s like both of my parents, especially my mom, they just feel so bad about themselves all the time. I just feel so guilty, and yeah, I end up caring for them. Nobody saw that coming. (laughter)
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:35:52)
CLIENT: Okay.
(background noise)
THERAPIST: Uh-huh. (pause)
I think with me, you’re (pause) sort of working to and very anxious about putting it back.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(pause 00:36:35 – 00:38:05)
THERAPIST: I guess another something that I also imagine feels similar with me and with your parents, especially when you were younger, is the feeling that you’re more dependent. You need me or them in a way that we don’t need you.
CLIENT: Mmm.
THERAPIST: I imagine is how it felt, so if I can’t deal with something, or they can’t, you’re going to pay the tab.
CLIENT: (laughter)
THERAPIST: In order to keep things going.
CLIENT: Yeah.
(pause 00:38:44 – 00:40:50)
THERAPIST: I’m also remembering back a little bit to yesterday, and I don’t remember (inaudible) we were saying, but I do remember, I think, before revising my view of what happened with your dad and also my thought about being wrong in what I said – I remember being surprised somebody had really upset you (pause) in a way that I hadn’t kind of expected or didn’t understand, I think, made me sort of rethink, like, “Huh, maybe I – I see to have missed something here.”
CLIENT: Mmm.
THERAPIST: And wonder, sort of, if that was what it was, what I then went onto say and kind of revise. It seems like, to you, something in the way I came across doing that made it seem like I was feeling really bad. (pause) [00:41:57]
CLIENT: Maybe, but that’s not what I remember feeling. I don’t, I don’t…
THERAPIST: I see. Yeah. (pause 00:42:11 – 00:43:15) (inaudible)
CLIENT: Thanks.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
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