TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: And they think that I think [that was all] (ph) or words that [didn't amount to something] (ph). I was thinking as I was walking home on Friday the thing about a [lonely being] (ph), I didn't really ever consciously think she doesn't want me. What I thought and what was really difficult for me, or one of the things that was really difficult, was feeling, burning with absolute certainty was what I wanted didn't matter at all; that it was not going to be taken into account. So, I mean from that perspective, the story of about [inaudible at 00:01:22] at camp it's like no, that wasn't about me choosing anything. In some part it was I wanted to be with my mom. I was getting some kind of conciliation prize and it wasn't really very much. I wanted to be at a different school, I didn't want to be at no (ph) and it just didn't matter to anybody. I wanted to be in different classes and it was ended. Even now I don't want to be working on [inaudible at 00:02:25] and it feels like I don't have a choice. I wanted to be in [inaudible at 00:02:44]; that doesn't seem to make a difference.
THERAPIST: You like to not be working?
CLIENT: I just wanted to get a life. I don't think I wanted that. I want to be doing I feel like I need to be working, to be doing something but I don't know what it is.
THERAPIST: You think you really want to be dead?
CLIENT: I think so. I mean, really I just want my life not to suck but I don't see that as a reasonable possibility. I want not to be suffering so much, but I don't see how to make that happen. Yeah. I would rather be dead than [inaudible 00:04:18]; watch [inaudible] time in life. [inaudible].
THERAPIST: So, if I'm understanding you right, the things we've been talking about to do with your mother and what that has made you think of about what you sort of wanted or needed not mattering not much at all and really not being, well, recognized really even, let alone seriously taken into account.
CLIENT: Yes. I told people what I wanted -
THERAPIST: Yes, and how did that -
CLIENT: And they kind of nodded and listened and said okay and then it just didn't happen. And there wasn't even any like admission that yes, I had wanted this and I wasn't getting it. It was like I hadn't spoken. [00:06:06]
THERAPIST: I imagine it sometimes feels that same way when you talk about wanting to die that when there's (ph) people around when you're talking about whatever (ph), but not much happened.
CLIENT: Yes, yes, yes. The only other person that I talk to about it is James. I don't talk to him about much. I mean I have more and more [inaudible]. And what's inside of me, I know, I'm sorry, and I'm making it up to him, which is something.
THERAPIST: When you said I mean, I asked if this is what you wanted and you said [at that point] (ph) you would ask for your life not to suck, but you don't see that doesn't seem possible. So I guess that that would be like a little like with school, wanting things in your classroom to be better but not being that a real possibility and so just wanting to be somewhere else as a kind of tactical [00:08:51]
CLIENT: Yes, I want people to like me but that wasn't consistent (ph). I wanted people to care whether I was there or not and they just really didn't.
THERAPIST: Yes, you wanted to [inaudible at 00:09:16], which is not how things are now I gather.
CLIENT: Yes. It's it felt like kind of like I was hallucinating; it felt real bad.
THERAPIST: Yesterday?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Tell me about it.
CLIENT: Just it's just all of the choices that I have seems just impossible to do they were so hard. And it felt like I would die if I went into work. I didn't think it sort of felt like I would die if I called in sick and felt like it would be better but also like it would be better for me to die. I was just like this cannot be my situation; this cannot be my life. But that is what it was. [00:10:52]
It was like I could, for most of the day I could kind of feel something really, really bad or I could feel about like it was going to be really, really painful at some point and I kept just kind of trying to cope.
THERAPIST: Like the shit was going to hit the fan?
CLIENT: Yes, and at yes. And that's when I sort of broke and -
THERAPIST: What?
CLIENT: I eventually just broke, the night before last. I got drunk with James; that was how he copes. It might not be the best coping mechanism but I don't think it's the worst. But that was what I did.
THERAPIST: That was fine, yes.
CLIENT: I -
THERAPIST: When did I'm sorry, my calendar's is all screwed up we talked on the phone, was that after Friday?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: I don't remember what I did. Oh, Saturday I went to [the chiropractor] (ph) early in the afternoon. [00:12:06]
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: I came home and sat there for about half an hour and then it's like yes, this isn't going to happen [inaudible at 00:12:13] this week or the next day early Sunday. And then I had to go to work.
THERAPIST: Yes, so...
CLIENT: It's like I've been dodging feeling as bad and -
THERAPIST: And this is the stuff that came up around your mother when she left?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And we kind of jumped into it with both feet.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: I don't think it's a major factor.
CLIENT: I wasn't expecting it to be like it was because it's not like I haven't thought about it and I mean we've talked about it before, just not at great length. And I think I told you before that I really wanted to move. But it was like I started thinking about it and I couldn't stop thinking about it, and -
THERAPIST: Thinking about having wanted to [move on] (ph), how that would make a difference?
CLIENT: Yes. And then started drawing analogies that may or may not actually be apt to the way I'm living now but...
THERAPIST: Does it feel like there's not as much between the two of you or that there never was [inaudible at 00:13:57]?
CLIENT: No. Between the two...?
THERAPIST: You and your mom. [00:14:04]
CLIENT: I don't know.
THERAPIST: I guess I sort of imagined you in a kind of freefall over the last few days. Or I guess the bottom kind of dropped out in a way that you saw more clearly when she wasn't there for you.
CLIENT: Yes, but it's when she wasn't there and when everybody wasn't there. It's like everybody sort of tried but nobody really quite cared enough. They cared enough to say use your therapist, but therapists don't call anybody at other times when my living situation wasn't good. And my dad didn't care enough to not yell at me all the f***king time; school just didn't care at all; I don't know, I didn't care enough to fake [inaudible at 00:15:56]. It feels like when [inaudible] I tend to automatically think that what I want isn't very important and I got trained pretty specifically into thinking that what I wanted wasn't very important because it was not treated as very important. And it's really hard. [00:16:30]
THERAPIST: And it's started again, yes. I mean how long [inaudible] really mattered?
CLIENT: Yes, I think I must have worried about or felt like my mom didn't want me on some level because I never thought about her not wanting me but I thought very hard about other people not wanting me. I was very upset that I did not have friends and incredibly lonely in that regard. It felt like I remember phrasing to myself that nobody cares whether I'm in the room or not; nobody would care if I left.
THERAPIST: I wonder too about the therapist in some ways feeling like a proxy figure mom in that the feeling I get from it, at least in other words from you, is like it was kind of she put in an appearance. [00:18:19]
CLIENT: Yes, I mean she was trying but she didn't know what I needed and I didn't know how to tell her. Yes. I remember the thing about her telling me oh, this is how you can avoid crying because that was something where that was exactly what I needed at that moment, that like how do I cope?
THERAPIST: But -
CLIENT: Because I would just burst into tears all the time and I couldn't stop it.
THERAPIST: Well you were so horribly sad and you were so horribly alone. Probably furious too but -
CLIENT: Yes, definitely that.
THERAPIST: and I think I appreciate how in a way what you did need was supplicated (ph) to tell you how to cope but you really needed somebody there with you, which you absolutely didn't in no way, shape or form have.
CLIENT: By that time, I mean by the time she said that, I was in seventh or eighth grade so I'd given up on that as even a possibility. Like, this is what's never going to happen.
THERAPIST: You quit. [00:20:10]
CLIENT: Yes, but I didn't.
THERAPIST: You're right. I completely agree.
CLIENT: But by that point, I didn't think that people were all bad so I didn't care.
THERAPIST: Yes, I imagine you couldn't [inaudible at 00:20:29] function at all. I think another factor in this last few days is that I kind of left you with this on Friday and we haven't talked much since, I mean we've talked on the phone, but -
CLIENT: It's hard.
THERAPIST: I think the timing there sucked and maybe a little bit recapitulated some of it. Though, I would imagine a bit late [inaudible at 00:21:08], but neither of us even realizing, I don't think, the extent to which it had [inaudible].
CLIENT: No, it's one of those where it's like I don't blame you but I sort of need to blame somebody or something. It's hard but I'm here. I also finished the Infinite Jest, which is not the best idea ever but I needed to be done with it.
THERAPIST: Why was it not the best idea?
CLIENT: Oh because it didn't end in a satisfying way. So I [inaudible at 00:22:00] kind of poked around a little bit and got somebody else's opinion on this and read an article about, a very long article about David Foster Wallace, it was like a biography of his life and his depression, nearing his biography of his work and what he was trying to do with it. So I found it a bit it ended in the way he'd want it to end but I wasn't missing anything. It just wasn't a satisfying conclusion and that actually made me feel much better about the book. I'm okay as long as I know it's not like some kind of clue he didn't [inaudible at 00:22:41], that this is what we're supposed to get. Yes, I was just thinking about all these things. [00:22:57]
THERAPIST: How old is he?
CLIENT: He's 46. I should have I guess the one thing that I realized that is helpful is that when he writes about depression, he writes about it from the perspective of somebody who's totally in it. And the way that when I am completely in it, it feels like it has always been exactly this unendurable and it is the same level of unendurable but that's not actually the case. I just don't, I don't think he had that distance ever. So I spent some time thinking through that. [00:24:05]?
THERAPIST: Yes.
CLIENT: And he I think truly despised therapy. So he's very funny writing about it and it's very kind of therapeutic for me, like oh my God somebody else is [saying this] (ph). I just don't know if he ever had a therapist who was smarter than he was, was the problem, or as smart as he was or could keep up.
THERAPIST: I'll go with or keep up.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: A good therapist [inaudible at 00:24:46] keep up.
CLIENT: So he never trusted anybody else to know better than he did. So I'm working that card or smart or something. [00:25:12].
THERAPIST: What did he say that might help?
CLIENT: Oh God. Oh, there's this amazing scene in Infinite Jest where this poor kid who's trying to quit pot cold turkey and having a really tough time, asks for a reference to an AA meeting. And he goes to the one that's the farthest away where he's not going to know anybody. And he goes in and it takes him a while to get this out but it's not an AA meeting; it's a bunch of men sitting around holding teddy bears having a Nurturing the Inner Infant session. And there's this, oh God, I can't even describe it, it's too grotesque. But basically just he clearly thinks this kind of therapy, the Nurturing of the Inner Infant, is A, stupid as f**k, and B, is exacerbating the feelings that they're talking about, that's like wallowing in how miserable you are rather than reaching for some kind of catharsis and it's making people more childish and more infantile and helpless. It was really funny, really funny. [00:26:47]
And the sadness is that this kid never gets to go to an AA meeting, misses this whole thing of support that's there. I don't know, I'm thinking, if that's actually autobiographical Wallace, but it sure feels like it's me. There is this support that could be there and didn't raise [inaudible at 00:27:30].
THERAPIST: Are you thinking how that's familiar?
CLIENT: I was more thinking well I have no support now; I don't know what I'd do with it. And sometimes I'm not getting up and sometimes I don't know what to do. Just continues to...
THERAPIST: Well you don't really have no control over this at all when you feel helpless.
CLIENT: It feels like I should it feels like I don't have any control but I sure think I should. Sometimes I don't have to feel how bad it is and sometimes I do and I don't know how I go from one to the other but it sort of feels like that's a choice I'm making. But it seems like both when I feel like I have a choice and when I feel like I don't have a choice those are both of those are illusory.
THERAPIST: I guess that's again reminiscent of what things are like growing up with the appearance already controlled or something but I guess in another way really not being able to affect the things that matter the most at all. Or even have any confidence that you'd be heard about them, which you weren't. [00:30:37]
I had one last thought before getting into the advising portion of the program. So there is I was clear that I had some sense of how awful you have been feeling, how much and at some part intensely you'd rather be dead, and how precarious things have felt, I mean a lot especially over the last few days we've been talking about it now. That said, there should need to be some kind of good things about this, obviously not about how you're feeling which is unmitigatingly awful pretty much. But it is pretty true to your experience and what's happened to you and it seems there's a lot we don't know but we also kind of have, kind of have a clear sense of what's going on, why this weekend, why in some of the ways, why isn't that in some of the ways that you are, how what's going on now...[00:32:51]
CLIENT: All of which is an improvement. I've been feeling really bad and have no idea of why.
THERAPIST: Well, yes, that's true. What I have in mind also is that it suggests you won't necessarily feel like you have this weekend for the rest of your life. In other words, it seems like you're very, very overwhelmed and feeling very, very awful but also in a process that's digesting something in a way, which isn't you shouldn't have to, it isn't fair I'm not trying to justify, I'm just really kind of in a diagnostic and a prognostic vein.
CLIENT: Yes. No, I agree. I agree with you.
THERAPIST: And I guess I probably am saying that partly to be a little positive but at the same time I think it's true. I guess it makes me sort of think I'm not convinced you could never work at Starbucks again. You may decide that you don't want to and it's not worth it and it feels too much like you're going to die if you ever go back there and that's your call. But it seems to me plausible that in three or four days you might not feel as uniformly that way. I'm not trying to tell you you should definitely go back to work again. I don't know what the best thing is, but it does seem to me that we don't know quite how this is going to shake out or whether working there will continue to feel like a fundamental of frontier being, or whether that will soften a little bit. It might and it might be, I don't know, but I think it's probably at least for me it's hard to know that today. Does that seem reasonable? [00:35:43]
CLIENT: Yes, that sounds right. Don't know what the thing to do.
THERAPIST: Yes, I know. That's a different question. Yes.
CLIENT: Yes. I think I might -
THERAPIST: [inaudible at 00:36:07] you should go back there.
CLIENT: I should've been out.
THERAPIST: I mean practically can you tell them you're sick?
CLIENT: I mean I did tell them that I was sick -
THERAPIST: I mean you are. [00:36:17]
CLIENT: they don't care. I mean they said if you're not contagious we need you to come in. And I said I'm not coming in, so I don't know.
THERAPIST: Well okay.
CLIENT: I'm just going to go home and see. I don't know. At this point they have the option to fire me because I didn't show up for work. I don't think they will -
THERAPIST: I see, even if you're sick they can -
CLIENT: Yes, if you're not contagious. I don't understand why or how that works but I think they will fire me because I didn't go in.
THERAPIST: [inaudible at 00:37:02] a good worker. Would any sort of doctors note...?
CLIENT: That would be really helpful.
THERAPIST: Be helpful?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: I mean, I might be willing but you probably don't want it from me. I mean, in other words if it comes from somebody with a Ph.D. it's going to be clear what kind of problem it is. Whereas -
CLIENT: Yes. Someone with an MD might be better.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: I can ask Dr. Vaughn then. Since I know her, I'll call her.
THERAPIST: Yes, they got to like it. I'm not at all hesitant to write it, but -
CLIENT: I understand. Yes, no I'll do that. That should smooth things over for them. I mean if there's documentation on this, I checked off that I had a disability. I got hired there after I was in the hospital three weeks ago.
THERAPIST: Yes, and it's a no-brainer that you I don't quite know how to say that you weren't medically fit to go into work and not today. [00:38:03]
CLIENT: [inaudible at 00:38:03]. It's a no-brainer to you -
THERAPIST: Yes, no I see your point. I will also, it may take me a little while but I will look for a time for us on Monday. I think that might be a good idea.
CLIENT: Yes, that would be helpful.
THERAPIST: You got three days.
CLIENT: I still overhear that three days is too long, but -
THERAPIST: No, it's the way it would be. I mean I understand the way these kind of things work. So we should stop for now for sure, but keep me posted. Would it make sense to plan a check-in by phone later today or do you want to just keep me posted and if it does we'll talk?
CLIENT: Can I just do that? I think I'll go to bed. Yes, [inaudible at 00:39:01].
THERAPIST: Yes, and you probably want to have a look around.
CLIENT: Yes, I will do that. I think that will work out.
THERAPIST: Okay, good. All right. [00:39:18]
END TRANSCRIPT
