TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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CLIENT: [inaudible] winter coat. My lightweight wool blazer was just not cutting it anymore. (pause) I was running late because I didn’t want to get out of the nice hot shower, and so I begrudged myself the time it would take to lace up my boots. (pause) Sorry. [1:10]

THERAPIST: Happy 2014.

CLIENT: Happy 2014. Sorry about last week. They didn’t plow my road so [inaudible] that I had gotten stuck on ice in Maine over break and needed to be towed. I was like do I really want to drive on [inaudible] Road? No.

THERAPIST: Maybe not, yeah.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, that was exciting. We went up to Maine for vacation. One of Dave’s colleagues owns… she calls it a cabin, but it’s really like a really nicely furnished house, but cabin up in the mountains in Bar Harbor, Maine. [2:08] And so…

THERAPIST: Sorry, where, northeastern Maine?

CLIENT: Bar Harbor.

THERAPIST: Oh, Bar Harbor?

CLIENT: Yeah, which is in northeastern Maine. And so we had checked the weather reports and the weather report’s forecast light snow, not expecting anything to stick, nice warm temperatures. So we decided to drive. Rather than blow $800 bucks for renting a Jeep we would just take my car. And how… we got there and it started snowing really hard. We were a half hour out from the cabin, and the cabin was on the top of the mountain. It was a 30 degree incline and on a dirt road. It wasn’t paved, which no one warned us about. And with the snow and the ice and the slush, the car just couldn’t do it. We started slipping on ice and not making forward progress halfway up the mountain, far enough up that there is really no good thing to do [inaudible]. So we tried backing down, like back to the highway, and lost control on the ice and well, went straight into a snow bank so we weren’t out of control for very long. Then we were just not going anywhere in any direction anymore. [3:20] And by that point it was 10:30 at night. We’re in rural Maine. David’s like let’s just knock on someone’s door. And I was like at 10:30 at night in rural America, in the same country where four people of color [ph] have been shot to death for knocking on doors or held up after getting into car accidents in the last two months? No, we’re just going to walk to the cabin. So we did.

THERAPIST: How far a walk was it?

CLIENT: About two miles, a little over two. But it was a very high grade and snow and ice in the dark with no flashlight. But there was a full moon so it was okay. Dave thinks I’m ridiculous for having been afraid of bodily harm from knocking on stranger’s doors. [4:04] (pause) But the way I saw it we had Gore-tex boots and flannel lined, or fleece lined, jeans and good sturdy jackets and gloves and hats. And so we weren’t really in any danger from the weather. And neither of us are very experienced winter hikers, but we’ve both done winter outdoors and safety classes, have gone on a couple of actual backpacking trips in snow and ice, so I wasn’t too worried about…

THERAPIST: Yeah, a 45 minute walk.

CLIENT: Yeah. On a road not on backwoods trail. I mean a dirt road but still a road. Yeah, I wasn’t… Dave was like what if you had slipped and broken your leg? Well, then you would’ve had to ring a doorbell. [5:05] But it was good. We got to the cabin and the next morning called a tow truck to tow our car up to the cabin. And then we had made plans to go to a couple of art galleries and maybe do some cross country skiing and some snowshoeing, but the roads were still really treacherous and we weren’t sure we could get down and back up the mountain a couple of times, so we’re like let’s just stay in the cabin. So we walked around the owner’s property a little bit. Mostly just sat in front of the fire and drank our body weight in hot chocolate and [inaudible].

THERAPIST: So who was there? Was it just the two of you?

CLIENT: Yeah, just the two of us. The colleague who owns the cabin was somewhere warm. She was with her grandkids. (pause) Yeah, it was nice. [6:12] (pause)

THERAPIST: [inaudible]

CLIENT: Even that wasn’t so bad. (pause) So yeah, other stuff. Work is still really slow. We still don’t have work to do. I’m still fighting with myself to stay focused on reading and professional development, and that’s really hard and really frustrating. [7:18] I’m terrified of performance reviews, which are coming up in another couple of weeks. (pause) And I still miss Ashley, which is ridiculous. (pause) So the monthly singing event is this Sunday. [9:06] And Ashley introduced me to singing. I mean I guess in my church choir we had some pieces before but not in the style that this singing is done, if that makes any sense. So there’s written music for all of the pieces, and you can perform it in traditional Anglican choral fashion, but the way it’s done in this group is very different in style. So Ashley introduced me to… this style to me even though I saw the music before. But yeah, I really enjoy this singing. I really like the group that meets on the second Sunday of the month in [inaudible] but that was our standing date night. Even if schedules didn’t line up and we didn’t do anything else that month, we would go to singing together and spend the night together. So I don’t know if I want to go. I fear awkwardness. [10:14] The last time I saw Ashley after the breakup it was…

THERAPIST: Was that delivering the food?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I remember that.

CLIENT: Yeah, and the [inaudible] uncomfortable hug and… but I mean I quit dancing entirely after I told Tom I didn’t want him in my life anymore because… terrified of running into him at dancing events. And I don’t want to lose another thing that I enjoy doing, especially because Ashley didn’t do anything particularly wrong. Well I mean I guess not caring that your partner’s depressed to the point of being suicidal is a wrong thing to do. [11:10]

THERAPIST: He wasn’t harassing or…

CLIENT: Right. I was going to say it’s a sin of omission rather than a sin of commission. (pause) I miss him and I wish we were still together, even though that wasn’t making me very happy. And I hate the fact that I’m being irrational about it.

THERAPIST: You mean by missing him knowing that you weren’t happy.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess you’re just not doing well enough at any of this post Ashley work. [14:36]

CLIENT: What do you mean?

THERAPIST: Well, (pause) you’re worried about your performance review, which I imagine derives partly from a sense that you have of not doing well or not. You sound worried about not being focused enough on that professional development stuff. You’re mad at yourself for irrationally missing Ashley, which sounds like [inaudible] of your performance maybe. I guess those were the things I had in mind. [15:30] (pause)

CLIENT: I was talking to one of Ashley’s other exes, Katie, the other day. [16:43] Katie is the person I have lots of history with. We went to college together, didn’t like each other, didn’t speak to each other for years. But Katie’s best friends with my good friend Lo, so I made efforts to…

THERAPIST: That’s not Lori.

CLIENT: Yes, Lori, sorry. Lo is an old nickname.

THERAPIST: Lo or Lou?

CLIENT: Lo, L-O. But yeah, I’ve been making an effort for Lori’s… to reach out to Katie and at least resolve some of the latent hostility between us. But anyway, Katie also… Katie dated Ashley for seven years and so I’m… I was talking to Katie about something to do with Lori’s next visit to Providence and scheduling dinner, whatever, and she asked what happened with Ashley. And so I told her most of it, pretty unvarnished. And she thinks that I completely misread the situation.

THERAPIST: In what way? [17:58]

CLIENT: She thinks that Ashley liked and cared about me much more than I gave him credit for, that he’s just bad at communicating, especially when he’s depressed, and also that he masks his mental health issues to a very large extent. So she said based on some of the descriptions of things he said and did that he sounds much more depressed than he has been in the past, which I mean doesn’t really excuse some of his behavior, but it does serve as a mitigating factor I guess. I mean I can be a huge jerk when I’m in a bad downswing. I’m… I don’t know. I don’t like this feeling of second guessing my decisions. (pause) But I don’t usually second guess myself. [19:07] I mean I will waffle forever before making a decision, but once it’s made I generally trust that I analyzed every possible aspect of the problem and move on. So it’s not completely unprecedented but certainly unusual and also unpleasant to have this feeling of maybe I made the wrong call here. (pause) I mean maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but if I did there’s nothing I can do about it now. You can’t just un-breakup with someone. (pause)

THERAPIST: I guess I’m wondering whether… or how much of your not liking that feeling of second guessing yourself has to do with having been wrong possibly per se as opposed to wrong and sort of fallible as opposed to really content that if you’re wrong it means maybe you’d have been happier in a way. [20:57]

CLIENT: That’s a good question. I don’t think I know.

THERAPIST: It’s probably easy and true to say they both Brett.

CLIENT: Right. (pause) So there’s a part of me right now that’s telling me I’m ridiculous for wasting our time here going on and on about my romantic angst, that there are probably more important things to talk about. I feel a little self-conscious. [22:13]

THERAPIST: You’re not suggesting you may be going about this the wrong way as well, are you?

CLIENT: I might be. (laugh) Again.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and [inaudible] to me there is… you’re referring to feeling self-conscious, which I imagine is part of how you felt some of the other stuff as well. I don’t… I think the sense that I’m seeing it for… maybe you’re more exposed, more vulnerable, more like you could really get on your case about it maybe. I don’t think your immediate concern is that I’m going to be so critical so much as you just feel kind of… you feel very ashamed to have me see you doing all these things wrong. [23:33]

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) So one really bad habit that I have, that’s carried over from when I was 13, is my away status for IM, instant messenger and all that crap, are song lyrics. I will change my status to song lyrics. But it’s sort of how I’m thinking and feeling in the moment. So kind of be a [inaudible] status indicator for people who know the songs that I like. Because I will rarely pick the lines that actually reflect my feelings, but something from the same song. But you kind of have to know the song to, I don’t know, it’s kind of passive aggressive and very childish of me. [25:21] There are some really perfect songs that sum up how I feel about Ashley and everything that happened. But I can’t use any of them as my status anymore because I don’t know if you are up on the feminist critique blogosphere or not, but a musician tried to host the songwriting retreat at a plantation where the plantation museum and the owner of the plantation kind of have a pro antebellum south, slavery wasn’t so bad, why can’t we all be friends sort of attitude towards the history of plantations. And she wanted to charge like $3000 for admission to the retreat workshop for pitching a tent on the lawn. Like bring your own tent even, not even like you get to stay in the plantation.

THERAPIST: [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah, so as you can imagine some people who do critique of media figures for a living had some things to say and a bunch of my friends got really mad, and so I fear social refribation [sic] if I use her lyrics as my away message. [26:43] And that’s a really silly thing to be upset about it. It’s frustrating. (pause)

THERAPIST: Well it’s something that is a way you’d like to let some of your friends know how you’re feeling. [28:06] (pause) I guess if I think about it again I [inaudible] there’s just like a sense of vulnerability to other people that’s kind of all over that. I mean both in that being a sort of nice but also, I think, maybe a bit comfortable, indirect way of letting some of your friends know how you’re doing, and also in your… worrying about so many people’s judgments if you keep doing the songs. And then also as you’re telling me about it, feeling like you’re being silly for being upset about it. [30:09]

CLIENT: I mean just to be clear, I don’t approve of her decision there. I think she owes pretty much everyone an apology for that. And I’m totally in agreement that I do not want to give her any more of my money, will no longer be buying her albums or buying tickets to her shows, but I don’t know, I feel like there are certain areas of lefty [ph] and especially feminist thought where it’s as a whole, as a community, we’re really, really bad at separating an artist from the art. And sometimes those things can’t be separated and sometimes a boycott is the right answer. I mean every artist does things I disagree with, and if I limited myself only to art produced by artists who meet some litmus test of social and political acceptability, I would never consume art at all, right. [31:16]

THERAPIST: Right. Not a straight forward issue.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) But I do feel like sometimes my social circles go too far, and this particular high profile outrageous and terrible but you must never listen to this person’s music or discuss her ever again except in terms of what a horrible human being she is.

THERAPIST: And if you still enjoy her music you’re bad. [31:58]

CLIENT: And this happens much more often with female artists than male artists, which is really upsetting. (pause) But now I thought I would stop feeling so crappy about breaking up with Ashley. It’s been a month, and I went on this great vacation with Dave. I still feel like crap. And my feeling like crap kind of cast a shadow over vacation. It didn’t ruin it or anything but I spent more time moping than I otherwise would have. [33:02] (pause)

THERAPIST: [inaudible] a little different to me. You seem, in that moment, less critical of yourself for still being upset and just more like sick and fucking tired of it.

CLIENT: Yeah, I would like to stop being upset. The whole point of breaking up with him was that I could stop being upset about him. And if I’m going to keep being upset about him, I might as well at least keep sleeping with him because that was really nice. [35:01]

THERAPIST: Well we have to stop for now.

CLIENT: And it’s a new year, which I think means the deductible [inaudible] starts over.

THERAPIST: Okay, you’re probably good because of the reimbursement rates in the winter. But I’ll look at it this weekend.

CLIENT: That’s right, the reimbursement

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