TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Some things are easing along into unbearable. James is so angry with me, but he didn’t want to talk about it, probably because it makes it like this, and so it’s just always there. And I want to take care of him, but as far as I can tell, he thinks that I’m flaky and untrustworthy and incapable of taking care of him in the ways that he needs and asks for. And as far as I can tell, he’s pretty much right. [1:25] I don’t blame him. And I’m not really sure that that’s like, I mean it’s obviously me worse today, but I was already pretty shitty to start out with. Like, yesterday was also a terrible day.
THERAPIST: (inaudible 1:59)
CLIENT: So it is sort of an easy and sitting around sort of day. I don’t feel like it. [2:10] It’s a hermit moment, which is fine when watching TV. I’ll stop watching TV eventually. It’s so hard. God. It’s so hard.
THERAPIST: In my mind you really want to be dead. [3:08]
CLIENT: Yeah. It’s like, I just it not to be so hard. I can sort of feel like my mind wanting to be dead and the wanting to hurt myself and wanting different things. It’s like, maybe this would make it easier.
THERAPIST: You just don’t want it to be like this, hurting this bad.
CLIENT: Yeah. (crying) And I feel it would actually be easier if I were more suicidal in sort of a paradoxical way. Like, it doesn’t really feel like an option.
THERAPIST: You get all excited about that or something.
CLIENT: Something like that. [4:15]
THERAPIST: I also – kind of backing up. But there was something in our interaction about the flowers where when I said, gee, sometimes I do answer questions, I felt as I was saying it, I realized I was saying something that was somehow quite hurtful.
CLIENT: It’s definitely not helpful. I don’t know. It’s okay.
THERAPIST: What started – You asked why they were over there and I explained. And I guess I had the vague impression that, and this may be completely off base, that there was something painful in my explanation? [5:24]
CLIENT: I don’t think so.
THERAPIST: All right. Maybe you were just feeling bad.
CLIENT: I was just feeling bad, I think. It does really bother me that you don’t answer questions. That is painful for me. So today, at least, being flippant about it was a little bit painful. Sometimes it makes it less painful to be flippant about it.
THERAPIST: Yeah, but I get your point.
CLIENT: No, I think I’m just hurting.
THERAPIST: And I’m sorry I was flippant. I know that’s not all the main thing, but it’s also the truth. (pause) 6:34]
CLIENT: I don’t know what to say. I feel like anything I say is just going to make it hurt more. I was talking with a person I know from church yesterday. We were going to visit somebody who’s – she’s 89 and she’s just stuck in her apartment, so we’re taking her to (inaudible at 7:46) and I sort of mentioned the depression. And he said, what does depression feel like. I said, well, that’s a very good question. He was very kind in asking it, but I didn’t really answer in a way that felt satisfactory to me. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to describe it. I certainly don’t know how to describe it when I’m not in it specifically.
I can say, this is what I’m feeling right now. At that moment I was more thinking about the person we were going to see and what we had to do to get that. And the fact that the guy – he was a really distracted driver. [8:35] He ran a red light in Denver. I was like, red light, red light, red light. You know, like, I feel like everybody who’s lived in Denver for a while that I end up driving with ends up just sort of wandering from lane to lane, not really paying much attention to staying in a specific lane or being courteous or any of that. So that’s kind of fine, so I kept expecting him to stop. No, he didn’t. I feel like on another day that would have made me very nervous and anxious. [9:24] (pause) I went to a housewarming party on Saturday.
THERAPIST: You had mentioned that.
CLIENT: Yeah. I really didn’t want to go up until about five minutes before I left. But I went. It was okay. A couple I know from church, or I know one of the men from church and the other, I didn’t know him before. [10:53] They have an entire room for shoes. It’s a small room, but still. They’ve got an entire room for one guy’s shoes. My friend, Jack just gets the big closet.
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 11:26) both feet? (pause) [12:23]
CLIENT: Today we had to take a bus to (inaudible at 13:06) which is fun, it’s just that it was significantly colder than I expected. It was colder than I expected. I wasn’t quite dressed for it. And the busses as they so often are, were delayed. So we ended up on the way back, it was like, 25 minutes before the bus came. It’s like, this exceeds expensive, because it’s going to feel like nine minutes or something. And I was so cold. We got back home, and I just couldn’t get warm. I took a half hour shower, really, really hot. [13:55] It was just a miserable morning. I was like, really? I feel horrible. I don’t like dealing with weather like that. It’s a lot to bear. (pause) [14:51] I feel like somehow two or three people have chosen this weekend to e-mail me to be like, hey, I haven’t seen you in a long time. Let’s get together for coffee. My friend from Brown is coming to town in a week or two. I like these people a lot and I just want to hide under the covers. (pause) [15:59] And it feels like now if I act as though I’m hurting, James will take that as a sign that it’s not okay to be angry at me. It’s not like I’m happy about. I’m pretty pissed off about it, actually. I don’t know. I guess I just feel like just closing off more. Like, I tried to shield him from how hurt I am and he tries to shield me from how angry he is. [17:20] (pause) I’m so tired. I wish there were something you could do. [18:36] (crying) So I hope your weekend was good. [19:23] I guess this feels like a lot on you.
THERAPIST: I was actually thinking you seem really wary of putting or somewhat wary of putting these things on me. I’m not saying you’re not at all. (pause) I mean, it seems to me you’re sort of maybe struggling around that, wanting to put a lot more it out there or on me and also you maybe not wanting to do. [20:46] I imagine with things with James about having to do with how bad you’re feeling and things to do with you and me.
CLIENT: It sort of feels like talking about the things that are really hard for me and that I have to think about them. It just feels like too much. [21:54] (crying) (pause) [23:05] I guess it sort of feels like I study very carefully everything that comes crashing down upon me. (pause) [24:20] Before James, it’s like I know that there’s all this hurt and anger there and I can’t stand sort of like frozenness that comes from not talking about it. So I just poke him until like sure, to say to talk about it. And sure enough, he’s very angry and very hurt. So it destroys me. I feel like maybe I should have just left it where I was. [25:37] I just don’t know if that’s how to fix it.
THERAPIST: I can see that you can’t bear either one. To have him frozen with this and to sort of know in your head anyway that it’s there. Or, to have him stressed at you or put it out there or something which you can’t stand either. [26:54] (pause)
CLIENT: But I continue to not hurt myself. I’m a little surprised at that, to be honest. But I am. I don’t know why I feel like there’s a wing here. I’m not sure that it’s actually better.
THERAPIST: Not to. [28:20]
CLIENT: James and I have to talk. I don’t want to be mad with him about it and I’m really mad at myself about it. I think a lot about like, us being stuck with regard to James’s job and I obsess a lot on that. [29:46] (pause) [30:45] [31:37] It bothers me that James won’t let me help him, but I can’t even cook dinner. Or I don’t, anyway.
THERAPIST: I think you might feel James is actually terribly untrustworthy. [33:00]
CLIENT: I do feel like I receive very mixed messages from him about how far it’s okay for me to lean on him. (pause)
THERAPIST: At least, as I heard it from you, he had reassured you about that, and then later actually thought about leaving over it. My sense is that’s somewhat in the past.
CLIENT: And it feels like the same thing is happening again. I worry that going to the hospital – going back to the hospital with this huge breach of trust. And I feel like he told me first that this time was different and it was okay, and then when it wasn’t okay. I don’t know what he thinks. I don’t know what to believe. [34:33]
THERAPIST: I know also that you have been it seems like, really on edge about whether or when you’ll move. [35:24] And in a way he hasn’t followed through.
CLIENT: (crying) [36:39] Well, you’ve got something there. I don’t know what. [37:39] (pause) I’m still upset about that, but I don’t feel like I’m in a particularly defensible position either. You sort of say, well how important is it for us to stay in Denver. I think that sort of changes depending on how I’m doing that day. [38:19] I love saying that like, no, no. He really just needs to figure this shit out. He just needs to do something. I can’t even talk to him about it anymore. (pause) [39:45] (pause) [40:42]
THERAPIST: I imagine that there are a couple of things, those that are going through my mind, a couple about that. One is sort of the nail-biting aspect of it where you’re like, really anxious and worked up and upset and on edge and all of that. And you really don’t feel that you can really bring it up with him at all. [42:00] I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying whatever that’s – which is that. So I guess what came to my mind is just of you feeling kind of shoved in a closet with this. So it’s really affecting you clearly, quite a lot. And again, I’m not trying to make a case that you can or should talk to about him, because I really don’t know. I’m just saying in terms of how it sounds like it is for you right now in recent weeks, in the last couple of months, I guess.
CLIENT: I think it’s mostly coming from me rather than from him. Because the thing is like, when I have talked to him about it, I don’t get anywhere with it. It’s not that he minds me bringing it up, but he doesn’t particularly like it and he doesn’t have anything to say.
THERAPIST: So then it goes nowhere. [43:06] The other thing that crossed my mind is like, that you will be talking and I don’t know, maybe thinking about losing this.
CLIENT: Yeah. That’s really hard and it is – it’s something that I feel like, if I knew we had to do, I could figure out how to reconcile myself to it. But since I don’t know that it’s something I have to do, there’s just this anxiety about it. If it were a real thing, I could figure it out. I could figure out how to make it okay. It’s just this thing hanging over me. [44:18] (crying) James doesn’t know what he’s asking me to do. He can’t.
THERAPIST: I don’t mean it as a slight against him. But I imagine he doesn’t and if you haven’t done something like this before, it’s not really in your culture, you just don’t know. [44:45]
CLIENT: And I knew it before. It’s not even a question. I’m just scared that what it’s coming down to is that I’m going to have to choose with this relationship and my relationship with James. And that’s not a choice I want to make. [45:40] But I can’t tell James that that’s what’s going on. I’m just scared.
THERAPIST: We have to stop.
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