TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Morning.

CLIENT: Good morning. I'm doing Feng Shui, I'm doing [inaudible at 00:00:08]. So you know how when you are kind of thinking about something and it seems like you're getting new information but more like turning your full attention to something that you already knew and say okay that and something clicks?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Okay, so I'm thinking about, I'm thinking of my mom and why interactions with her are so difficult. And I was wondering if this something that she does and was wondering what my dad does, and also pretty constantly is to kind of refuse to look after herself or refuse to look after her own interests and kind of hand that over to me to look after and give (ph) to other people. I'm trying to think of an example and the biggest one I can think of is when it's time for us as a family to do something and my dad would say well what do you guys want to do. And he would never say what he wants to do, ever. It's always on somebody else to pick. And again with the well this is new information that I do this also. I mean you kind of wave your hands at it a lot.

But I guess the challenge for me is to realize that that's not good. It's not, it is not doing the other person any favors not to put them first, or not it's not doing the other person any favors for them to go first. Or to put them so entirely first that you do not pay attention to yourself at all. That's not actually putting them first because what you're doing is asking them to what I'm doing is asking the other person to look out for my interests because I can't do that. [00:02:26]

THERAPIST: Yes, it's one thing to give kids or one's children choice or options, it's another thing to make them responsible. You don't want to relate to [inaudible at 00:02:39] or something.

CLIENT: Yes. I guess I'm more thinking in terms of Mom is both she's very, very selfish and it's very hard for me to quite pin down exactly how she's selfish because I feel her being selfish but the things that she's saying is kind of all outwardly focused, outwardly directed and let me try to take care of you Tanya. But in fact when we have conversations she pretty much just talks about herself. But she doesn't do the things to take care of herself. She asks other people to do those things or she doesn't ask them but she kind of uses an expectant silence until other people do those things.

I think I do that a lot and I need to not do that but I don't quite know how. Yes, because when it comes to my parents I do pick up their slack, I do pick up the burden of looking after their interests and I get really resentful about it and it just doesn't it's just not a good thing. But I feel like that's how you that's just how it works. You don't take care of yourself. Somebody else does that for you or nobody does that for you and then I'm not happy when I'm not yes. [00:04:39]

On Friday, I guess I was pretty clearly not doing very well and I pretty clearly needed to just sit there. And I guess that's what I kind of said that I needed to do although super indirectly. But I just felt so bad about it. The whole time I felt like I was letting you down in some way or I wasn't keeping up my end of things or I was failing somehow.

THERAPIST: Which I take to mean there was a kind of implicit demand on you from me?

CLIENT: I think it's probably more accurate to say I constructed a demand that I thought was coming from you. But it's pretty clear I mean it was clear to me that it was a construct, even though it felt real if that makes sense.

THERAPIST: You sort of felt it in two different ways at the same time? You kind of knew that intellectually that I wasn't making such a demand, but it kind of felt anyway that I was or that there was one?

CLIENT: Yes, like there was one. There was this expectation in the room for me to, I don't know, do basically what I'm doing now. It's just like be able to talk through these thing and be lucid I guess. And this morning I am feeling lucid; I am feeling able to talk through things. I'm feeling that's what I want to do because it's about always thinking about this stuff and never talking about it. And I've had, yes, I worked Saturday but then I had Sunday and Monday and I have today off from work so that's a help. [00:06:44]

Yes, but I felt like I was wasting your time, felt like you were bored or I felt like you would be irritated with me or frustrated or I don't know. It took me pretty much the whole weekend to kind of work out. Okay maybe that's not actually the way Chad was feeling, which is why I can talk about it now. [Laughs] Baby steps. [Laughs]

THERAPIST: Right. Sure.

CLIENT: One day I'll be able to talk to you about me, you being irritated with me when I think you're actually irritated with me. Oh boy. [Laughs.]

THERAPIST: Well, I imagine that there are probably reasons that in your mind you set it up that way. In other words there's often a temptation I think to say well that's sort of your habit or that's what's familiar because that's what you grew up with, which is true.

CLIENT: Yes, but [00:08:23]

THERAPIST: And there's probably some inertia there, some kind of habituation to that, but I imagine there's another piece as well which is that I think it might do something for you too. And one candidate for that would be that it protects you from some really awful things that you're feeling at that moment and the vulnerability that can go along from feeling those and relying on somebody else like me to be there with you with them. Now it would play we both know it doesn't really fix that very well. And the thing of the play is that it doesn't feel very good either. So I'm not saying it's the best strategy, but -

CLIENT: But you mean that if I say no I have to put on my game face, whatever that game face looks like, because I got this thing to do for this other person then that means I don't have to sit with the way I feel. Okay. I can do that.

THERAPIST: Yes, and again, if something like that is the case, I think we both know it's not going to work that great, that's sort of clear by now, but it doesn't really get rid of what you're feeling, and [00:10:00]

CLIENT: And it doesn't even convince me that it gets rid of what I'm feeling most of the time. But, yes. But so the way it plays out with James, at least partially or I don't know if it's the same thing or something different but it feels sort of the same is that James has been basically doing everything for me. Like he does all the money, he's been doing all of the cooking and almost all of the dishes, and most of the cleaning and basically just been kind of making the logistics of my life easy. And that's freaking me out, of course, and one of the things that I'm noticing is that I keep expecting him to be angry at me.

And so we had some time yesterday where we were both in a good enough place to talk and that hadn't happened for a while unfortunately and I think James was kind of frustrated in the end because by then and I felt pretty bad but I kind of felt like I was going to feel pretty bad anyway so whatever. I'm just glad we recovered. And I realized I expect that he will be angry at me because he is doing all these things for me and I am not contributing in any way. And he says no that never happens. That I'm never angry at you for those things. He said he gets angry at me for the self-destructive things I do. He gets angry at me for hurting myself and for thinking about suicide or moving towards suicide or whatever. [00:12:01]

So I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. Yes, I think his specific word, phrase was what gives you the right, which is not only (ph) I agree with him. That's why I'm not dead. [Laughs.] So I don't know. I don't quite know whether to try harder to be okay with James doing all of these things for me or to try harder to make it unnecessary for him to do these things for me.

THERAPIST: Another option would be to look at why it's so hard for you that he's doing all of these things, [inaudible at 00:13:02] -

CLIENT: [Laughing] Well if we're going to do that, I mean -

THERAPIST: I don't know. [Laughing]

CLIENT: This is crazy as Hell. Yes. It seems like it seems self-evident that it would be difficult for me for him to do things but now I can't quite pin down why.

THERAPIST: Well, I wonder if in your mind the situation feels very much like you with one of your parents, except that you're in the role of one of your parents and he's in the role of you. So naturally he's really resentful about it.

CLIENT: Well that makes sense. Yes. It feels like there's no way that he could be taking care of me and it not be hurting him to do so somehow. It feels like it has to be a zero-sum game if I'm using that phrase right. [00:14:14]

THERAPIST: Yes, or I understand what you mean.

CLIENT: It's good enough. Yes. You talked or you asked whether I was anxious that I would resent my children which thinking about that kind of two different things I thought about. The first is, I wonder whether my mom resents me or resented me as a child and I think probably she did. And the other is that it's difficult for me to think of parenting as anything other than a zero-sum game. I don't quite understand how taking care of my children would necessitate would not mean that one can't take care of himself. Probably not a good it's probably a good thing that I'm not planning on getting engaged (ph) any time soon. And I also expect that that's one of those things that you just kind of figure out as you go along, but on the other hand a lot of people don't figure it out, so -

THERAPIST: But you might.

CLIENT: Yes, I guess so. But I'm not willing to place a lot of money on that. Yes. And, so in couples counseling last week, Dr. Smith (ph) was kind of saying well do you feel like the focus has been so much on taking care of Tanya and her depression that the marriage has suffered and James did not at all understand what she was talking about. He was just like no. He said I don't this doesn't make sense to me. If you're taking care of a person in the marriage you are taking care of the marriage, which is very sweet. I think he's wrong but [laughs] I that makes it easier for me to see where he was coming from a bit. I think that he is taking care of himself and taking care of me. [00:17:32]

But you'd think that makes it easier for him but somehow it does not. It makes it easier for me though to let him do it, to kind of play into this; it does not make it easier for me to be okay with it and not to feel like I I still feel guilty. So that's got to be doing something for me. I don't know how I'd be if I didn't feel guilty. Much of this comes from my taking up this terrible, just terrible book that my mom gave me about damn. It's called [Children of the Solemn Sword] (ph). It's a guidebook for people who are nursing sick parents. Just, it's the worst written book I've ever read, legitimately the worst. It's just oh man, it's like please, get an editor. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't useful to some extent but I just couldn't do it. I'm like 45 and [inaudible at 00:19:10].

THERAPIST: Did she give that to you referring to herself or your dad or both?

CLIENT: Well she had it because she was reading it to kind of help her figure out her own parents. And then she gave it to me and -

THERAPIST: [inaudible at 00:19:27] with her?

CLIENT: Yes, I mean that's what I took it as. But I think she gave it to me with reference to my father actually. But yes.

THERAPIST: Irony in hearing you needed a [inaudible at 00:19:42].

CLIENT: No loss on me.

THERAPIST: I think that's fine, yes.

CLIENT: Oh yes. That was one of our best conversations. It's too bad it was like it never happened afterwards, where I said yes, you know, a lot of these things are traits that I see you as having and she kind of went huh, okay. And then it was like I never said it. It was just too hard for her. [00:20:15]

THERAPIST: But there was a [inaudible at 00:20:16] or something after a minute?

CLIENT: Yes, yes. It was like she could have grasped it for a minute. Yes. And it wasn't so much that she actively pushed it away as she just overlooked (ph) it. It was like it never happened. She just couldn't yes, couldn't see that. James was the one who suggested that she give it to me because she felt dad was to start to be narcissistic, which, I don't know. I don't know. Certainly he is narcissistic but he doesn't but our relationship doesn't erase me, you know. There's not that same I don't have the sense well most of the time, enough of the time, I don't have the sense that he just can't see me as a person because -

THERAPIST: In the way that it often happens with your mom.

CLIENT: Yes, yes, because maintaining himself, maintaining himself is so important that other people basically can't exist in order for you to exist. So yes, it was pretty funny. I cherish the book for that reason. [Laughs]. I really don't want to be that parent. I just, I don't want to be that. I don't want them to God. I don't want to be like that. [00:22:09]

So one of the things that I found funniest with the book, you know, kind of this how you deal with your parent. Don't empathize. [Laughs] Resist the temptation to empathize. That can only end badly. Son of a bitch. I mean it makes sense though. I mean what happens with Mom is that she starts talking about herself and I empathize and then I am completely lost in the [inaudible at 00:22:55]. I'm drowned out by her. I feel like I don't exist. Yes, that's a problem.

I do wish that I could read books without being judgmental about the type of person. Yes. I can't turn off the English teacher in my head but as an English teacher I wouldn't be as mean.

THERAPIST: Right. What are the mean things that you are thinking? [00:24:26]

CLIENT: Oh, just agreement's pretty easy and they teach it in most high school English classes, you know, subject-verb agreement, verb-object agreement. It's pretty easy. You start with a singular and end up with a singular, and even if you're using they as a singular, which is a legitimate thing to do that's not even what I'm talking about. That bothers me a little bit but I see that as a choice. It's not being able to construct a sentence that is that I can't help thinking this is indicative that what this person has to say is not useful when that's not actually the case all the time. Yes, I think there's an extent to which sloppy writing leads to sloppy thinking. But I also think there's an extent to which that's not the case and my that I underestimate writers, people who don't write well, which I know to be the case that I underestimate people who don't write well unless I hang out with them, talk to them, listen to them talk. And then I just think why don't you just record yourself talking and then write that down and then turn that answer into a paper. That's so much better than anything you write. [00:26:36]

THERAPIST: I wonder if you're -

CLIENT: [inaudible] very nice -

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: It's not very nice about it [00:26:53]. I'm not a nice person, when it comes to writing. Sorry.

THERAPIST: I wonder if you're mad at the writer in part because at least in the example you gave he or she or they could have made you a bit in sort of dictating that you must not empathize, which has been a way that you have coped to feel that you have some kind of connection, although you're questioning it, with your mother and because you don't really exist any more or in any more productive way as I've understood it by not empathizing, which is part of the problem. [00:28:38]

CLIENT: That makes sense. I mean I gave that as an example of actually of something that this was a new idea, in my mind this was a new idea that was part of good advice. But yes, I didn't really like to hear it. It's also I mean so many do-it-yourself psychology books I have read or articles or whatever, it just seems to presume that I haven't thought about this at all very carefully or that I'm not very smart or that I haven't tried most of the things that they suggest. And so that gets my back up. Yes. And then I, yes, then it comes full simple circle and I just get angry with myself for it being so important that I be smart. Why is that so important to me? That doesn't get me anywhere. [00:30:15]

And there's a kind of coldness in the advice that I think I see near in the way that I deal with my mom and that I don't like particularly well. There's a saying, saying this is probably not what's good for the parent but it's the only way you're gong to be able to cope and so f***k her, I think; don't try to be there for the parent. Just don't do it. And I feel like that's been something that I have done and that I don't I'm not very happy with myself.

THERAPIST: The being there for her or the not being there for her?

CLIENT: The not being there for her. Just detaching. I don't I'm not quite sure to what extent it works but regardless of how much it works or it doesn't work I don't particularly like myself in that, those kinds of encounters. And it's pretty similar to the not liking myself when I'm reading bad writing actually but that's likely because I pull back from what the person's trying to say. [00:32:29]

THERAPIST: Is there a way in which I don't know. I guess it seems like a lot of what you described today about this dynamic where one person, your mother or the writer or you with James or at times with me, is sort of is or is to you kind of taking up all the oxygen in the room and the other person, not you, your dad, and but it's a tricky struggle because you want to stay connected at the same time. But you, you feel really kind of anxious and guilty. [00:34:14]

CLIENT: Yes, yes. Sorry, that hesitation is that I'm trying to figure out how well the writing fits into that pattern but I think that's the least important of it..

THERAPIST: Yes, my thought, and it may not fit this way, but what I was thinking is the writer who is taking up all the oxygen and maybe -

CLIENT: Plus I feel like I have to work really, really hard to get to the point where I can understand what the writer's trying to say, is trying to be saying, trying to say rather, and that is frustrating for me. But there's no reason for it to be that hard.

THERAPIST: You're kind of really resisting kind of what you have to overcome, understanding what the writer's saying or being critical of how they're saying it?

CLIENT: No, I it's not clear what they're trying to say because they're not saying it very well. And so I have to -

THERAPIST: Oh, I see.

CLIENT: figure out how much of it is, how much of the stuff, how much of the crappy writing is stylistic, how much of it is a choice and how much of it is not a choice. So I have to rewrite as I go to try to figure out what they're actually trying to say.

THERAPIST: I see. They're in that case the writer's making your job much more difficult than it needs to be as the reader. [00:36:14]

CLIENT: Yes, I guess so, yes. And then I -

THERAPIST: In a way not doing sorry not doing your own job.

CLIENT: Certainly not. Yes, yes.

THERAPIST: I guess that sounds familiar to you?

CLIENT: I guess. I don't know that it's perfect analogy but that's okay. The phrase taking up all the oxygen feels appropriate. Yes. Yes it feels like, I mean when it's me it feels as though I using the facts of my life and the fact that I am in pain specifically to manipulate people into doing what hurts them or what they would not ordinarily do. Yes.

THERAPIST: Like James taking care of you or me with the big silence.

CLIENT: Yes. I talked about the stork before, right? There's this stork and I think in medieval coats of arms is often represented as piercing its breast and bleeding and dying [inaudible]. And medieval bestiaries was that the stork, the mother stork, would use her own blood to feed her children. Yes, that's the one that I feel like it's apt [inaudible at 00:39:04].

THERAPIST: Yes, that's kind of zero-sum.

CLIENT: Yes. Yes, I guess I always felt like my mom was maternal that was when she would do it. And I'm sure that [inaudible at 00:39:30] thinks it's a picture of this is the greatest maternal love.

THERAPIST: I see. Well I think that that does speak to ideas like violence and brutality, which I think you very much experience in all of this as I mean is often there in a way one way or another, like the talking about it in nice terms. But if we're talking about your mother kind of pretty thoroughly vacating you or your feeling like when she takes care of you she's effectively like bleeding under the halves, I mean there's some real brutality there. [00:40:21]

CLIENT: Yes, yes. It came to mind I wrote in a journal when I was 17 one day [inaudible at 00:40:33]. This was what pain from my relationship looked like, where I was the stork. And then I read, re-read that some years later and I was like what the f***k, Tanya? [Laughs.] Yes, I'm not sure how to let James take care of me and not feel like he is I am doing him violence or doing violence to him somehow.

THERAPIST: Do you have images or fantasies of the nature of the violence you're doing?

CLIENT: I mean the one that came to mind when you said that was of me smothering him, although honestly it feels like the other way around more often but I just need more time to be alone. But at the same time I can't fault him for not trusting me to be alone this weekend, so. Yes it feels sort of analogous to me just running madly back and forth in this coffee shop while my knees are disintegrating to get people the coffee, only for him. [00:42:46]

The thing is in the coffee shop I don't begrudge it when I'm doing it or I wouldn't do it. I think that's the frustrating thing is it is very natural and it feels like the right thing to do until I go home and I'm like holy f***k, it hurts.

THERAPIST: We'll stop in a minute but I'm going to be talking to Dr. Smith about a bunch of stuff probably tomorrow. I'd be happy to talk to you about [inaudible at 00:43:32] stuff.

CLIENT: Yes, that'd be good. Do I need to sign something?

THERAPIST: Yes, just send me an e-mail.

CLIENT: Send you an e-mail? Okay.

THERAPIST: [inaudible at 00:43:43] Do you have time to get the form?

CLIENT: There's a consent form but I don't think we have printed it out yet. So I'll send you an e-mail and I guess I'll send her an e-mail.

THERAPIST: You can just send it to both of us and that'll work for me. She may want something else.

CLIENT: Okay. Okay, thanks.

THERAPIST: Sure. [00:44:24]

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