TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: We'll work around it.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Where are you going today?
CLIENT: It's a school, [inaudible].
THERAPIST: Oh. Yeah.
CLIENT: I don't know. I don't know the schools in this area.
THERAPIST: Yeah. It, I think that one has a pretty good reputation.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Maybe not like a very (inaudible) those are pretty good.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: I think they like maybe have strong creative arts.
CLIENT: Okay. So, that would be nice. I mean a place like that is going to have its ups and downs. You know, I feel, I feel very comfortable in independent schools. I feel pretty good about my ability to like navigate one of the like very cut throat top tier places, but they do tend to be cut throat, so.
So, yeah, last night went much, much better than I expected. I ended up going out for a drink after work with a friend which, yeah. She and I have been planning and putting it off and planning and putting it off for at least a month. So, I was happy to do that even though I'm going to need to take a nap this afternoon. It sort of feels like okay, all of this stuff gets pushed to one side. And I'm, like but I'm still there and you still have to deal with it and I don't really know how to or what to do other than to, you know, call you which seems to work okay. [00:02:00]
THERAPIST: You should call me over the breaks the same way as any other time.
CLIENT: Okay. Thank you. I meant to ask you about that.
THERAPIST: If I get away from my phone or somewhere I'll let you know.
CLIENT: Okay. Thank you. I'm hoping that it will be a good visit.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, we have ducked all the planning. So, that's good. Often when we go home, it's like everybody wants to do things, but no one's very organized and so James and I end up taking over a lot of the planning and the fear James's just kind of told everyone we can't do that. So, yeah. I'm really looking forward to going home, which is good. [00:03:20]
I feel like I don't, I'm not going to know what to say to my parents. You know, I've been kind of avoiding my dad which is helped by the fact that the last several times he's called me it's been like a butt dial and so we haven't really talked. I don't know. You know, it's like I guess I must be angry, but I don't necessarily feel angry at him when I talk to him I don't feel angry at him. When I think about specific past situations I get angry, but it's like I'm angry at this person who doesn't exist anymore. [00:04:40]
Every time James leaves the apartment or I like leave him and go somewhere, like every time he goes to the bathroom or something, I think I could do it now. Yeah. You know. A couple of times it's like I picked up a pair of scissors and put them back down. I really want to be trustworthy if that makes sense. Yet not so much that I, it's not that I want help, although I do want help, but like even more the reason to call you has been like I want to be trustworthy. [00:06:00]
THERAPIST: And, that's sort of in a way the honest thing to do you mean?
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. It feels like the fair thing to do is to tell people if I I'm not safe how I'm not safe. You know, that saying you can get used to hanging if you hang long enough.
THERAPIST: I haven't heard that.
CLIENT: No. I think it was in reference to the uniform, but it's okay. Somehow, shockingly enough, it's one of my favorites or one that has been in my line a lot. But it's like, you know, you can get used to feeling this way. Yeah. Feeling like you're repeatedly walking to the edge of something and looking over and then stepping back and then walking and looking over and stepping back. You know, the problem is when you get too comfortable with it. [00:08:00]
Yeah, I, part of me really wishes that I would have like a psychotic break or something to have it not be so clear in my mind that I am actually in control of what I do. So, this was a thing about being helpless. I was thinking on Friday. We talked about, you know, how it seems to be a common thing of I have a hard time in situations, you know, I don't want to feel helpless. I don't want to feel like I don't have control. The thing is, it's like helpless should mean you are unable to help it, right? Like, you are, you cannot help what is happening. You don't have control over it.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I feel like, I feel like that it is never actually the case. So, I feel helpless. I feel like I don't have control over something, but I should have control over it.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: And, so, the, the thing that's kind of panic inducing is thinking like I'm going to be punished for not controlling the situation, even though I don't have control over it.
THERAPIST: I see. [00:09:45]
CLIENT: Like, it, I never think well, I can't help it, so it's not my fault. Like, it's always my fault. It's easy, in some ways, to think, well, sometimes, you know, sometimes your spouse is going to be mad at you. Like, sometimes you can't help that. But, I always feel like I should be able to help it. I always feel like I'm responsible for it.
THERAPIST: Right, like stepping back you can say you know that's just going to happen, but in the moment, it's always your fault and something you could have averted or avoided.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and one of the things that I get the most angry at my dad about when thinking about this is the camping trip that we went on that he just was so mad and we got in so much trouble and it was just miserable and he just yelled all the time and so, it's like in the past year he told me oh, well, I decided that I wanted to stop taking my medication because I didn't want to be on anti-depressants and so I just decided to go off them on this vacation without telling his therapist. He just went cold turkey off of them. I guess, like, I get so, I get so mad because like in this one situation, I can see sort of clearly that like his being angry didn't have anything to do with me.
THERAPIST: Right. [00:11:45]
CLIENT: But, that's not the case any other time when I think of about being angry and always.
THERAPIST: Otherwise it's...
CLIENT: Thinks I should have been able to fix this.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like, I should have been able to avoid it. Yeah. So, those situations were like it's very clear and obvious that I'm being asked to have responsibility for something that I don't actually have control over is, like, that just like sends me off the edge really fast. [00:12:30]
THERAPIST: Well, I think one thing you're struggling with is the extent to which you sort of lean on or make use of other people with this and it's my impression that you really couldn't, generally, make use of your parents or lean on them when it came to this and that's related to how you felt so responsible.
CLIENT: Yeah. You know, I would, it felt at least like when the situation was, it felt like it was out of my control, I asked for help. I would be blamed for not having control of the situation and not get help. But, I can't think of any specific instances, so that might be more or less true.
THERAPIST: Well, it's probably true at just about any time anyone could get angry with you and there probably wasn't anything you could do about it.
CLIENT: I don't know. Yeah.
THERAPIST: I have yet to hear of a time where somebody got angry at you as a kid for something that you sort of willfully did that way on purpose rather than because you were wrong or you couldn't handle something, although you wanted to.
CLIENT: Yeah. I don't think, I can't think of any time ever.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:14:20]
CLIENT: I used to cry all the time. Like, multiple times a day, every day. I would cry and it was just over very, very small things. I just could not keep myself from crying. It was really embarrassing and then as I got older, it was really awkward because like I would recognize that I was angry with somebody and like wanted to have a fight, but I would be crying and so they would try to comfort me. Yeah, just, it's just weird to be crying at the drop of a hat all the time. I don't do it anymore. I find it very difficult to cry these days, actually. But, I don't know. I suspect that might have something to do with medication because it does it, but maybe not. [00:15:35]
Yeah, I always felt like I should be able to fix that and I feel like I got in trouble for crying a lot. Yeah, I would just try really hard to hide it or not cry or, you know, control it in some way. Like, I learned eventually, you know. When I was like 25. Part of it had to do with not wanting to cry multiple times a day every day and part of which I think had to do with being able to exert more control over like my physical reaction to grief. Yeah. I think I was a pretty whiny kid, but there was always this disconnect because like people would say like you are whining and I would not have meant to do that at all. Like, I would have wanted to say I need something or say I'm upset about something or and I couldn't get the way to ask for things that didn't seem like whining to people. Like, that people didn't find annoying or obnoxious or, you know, repulsive in some way in the like literal sense. I just couldn't do it for a long time. You know, I figured it out when I was like a teenager. Or unless I figured out just don't ask for things. [00:17:45]
THERAPIST: It's just so terribly wrong and not with you, really. I mean entirely wrong with you.
CLIENT: Yeah. I guess I just don't cry all that much.
THERAPIST: No. No. You were really a pretty depressed kid. You were crying multiple times a day. You couldn't control it. You always felt like it was your fault. You had done something wrong. You were trying as hard as you possibly could to hide it from everyone and at the moment you're faulting yourself for not having been quicker able to find a way to say things or ask for things such that you didn't get criticized for wanting it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I'm certainly not convinced you were whining at all. Although, I wasn't there. Maybe you were.
CLIENT: I don't know what whining actually looks like.
THERAPIST: But clearly, nobody wanted to hear about it.
CLIENT: Yeah. Nobody wanted to hear about it. I just, I don't know. I wasn't trying to criticize myself or my past self.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: I was more trying to describe criticizing myself in the past.
THERAPIST: I see. Yeah.
CLIENT: You know. Like, when you look back and you think oh, kids should be allowed to ask for things.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:19:00]
CLIENT: I don't know whether nobody knew what to do or nobody knew that this was unusual or what. You know, in some sense it doesn't really matter why my parents treated me the way they did. And then in another sense it really matters to me. Yeah.
THERAPIST: You couldn't bear to see it. Your kids crying multiple times a day like for years, I'd think you want to know what was going on.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think it was a lot of this is just the way Tanya is sort of rationalization. Like, she's really sensitive or something. Yeah. I mean what were they to do? [00:20:10]
THERAPIST: You know, it's not that hard in a way. Like, what were they going to do? What's wrong? You know, why are you upset? What's going on? How can we help you? Do you need help with this? Maybe you should check in to that. I mean, you know, could they have said the thing that was going to stop you crying forever? No. But, could they help whatever you were proximally upset with in the moment? Sure. It might have made a world of difference if they had something like that.
CLIENT: One of my things.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: I, I work so hard not to have people ask me questions like what's wrong. Like, not to let people do that because it always felt like, it still feels like there are these situations that like nobody was terribly happy with, but I was the one who started crying and if, if I didn't, like, disguise that in some way, I would get what I wanted. Not because like it was reasonable for me to get what I wanted, but because it just felt like I was blackmailing people with my emotions.
THERAPIST: I mean, were you in addition to also being just legitimately depressed and upset and so forth? I mean, that wouldn't be the least reasonable or craziest thing in the world if you were, although I don't know.
CLIENT: I don't think I was.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:22:00]
CLIENT: I mean really I was trying very hard not to.
THERAPIST: Yeah. I'm sure you were trying very hard.
CLIENT: I tried very hard to ask for what I wanted without, you know, like the psychiatrist at the hospital can order to get treated and you have to act like you don't need it. Ask for things without asking.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know. You know. I figured out...
THERAPIST: Like, I wasn't asking you a leading question. I just...
CLIENT: Wanted to know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. No, I don't think I was. I figured out eventually that I could kind of short circuit my dad's temper, sometimes. In that, if I spoke to him as reasonable a voice as I could manage, which was usually amid sobbing, but said like this isn't right the way you're treating us. You need to do this. Very often he would back down quickly and apologize. But, that's really hard to do. It's still really hard to do.
THERAPIST: Absolutely. Sure. [00:23:35]
CLIENT: I remember a couple of years ago we were at the airport and I was talking to my mom to try to like get schedule's sorted out and she really needed to talk to my dad to like have them communicating, because they both really wanted something. I don't remember what it was, but he was like no, I don't want to talk to her. Like, no, no, no. You say this. Like, say this, say this. So, eventually I hung up and I was like look, you have to talk to her. Like, this is not helping us. You have responsibility. I know you don't like talking to your ex-wife, but you just have to do it because you're making our lives really hard. In some ways, it was like, it's like my family has learned to not pay very much attention to the fact I am like a wreck and crying and just listen to what I say. And that's made it really easier. Like, made it much easier to deal. Which, I don't know what to say about that. I certainly asked for it.
THERAPIST: I had a sort of, you know, after hearing you say that, that you were going to, like, I didn't sort of in a way actually think you were going to follow it this way, but I sort of imagined you saying, you know, so that's what I said and then I went off and I wanted to kill myself.
CLIENT: No.
THERAPIST: Like, I get this sense of there being some terrible cost. [00:25:30]
CLIENT: It depends on how it goes. If I think I'm, if I think my grievance is absolutely, 100 percent reasonable and not very much to ask, then I only feel like mildly to moderately guilty about it. If it's something that I want for no other reason than I want it, and I get it, and I'm upset about it or I'm upset when I get it and then I feel horrible.
THERAPIST: Then, in that instance, when you felt quite justified.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And not guilty.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: About saying what you said.
CLIENT: But, really the only time I actually speak up like that is when I feel like entirely firm ground justified.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: When it's clear that like dad's being absolutely unfair or like is absolutely in the wrong and I just need to say you need to do this.
THERAPIST: I see. I was imagining, like, the sort of emotional self sacrifice that you're making in a moment like that.
CLIENT: How do you mean? [00:26:40]
THERAPIST: Well, you were working really hard not just to like fall apart and be a puddle. I think.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: But to sort of shunt that side of things away so that you could say the thing that needed to be said and move things the way they needed to be moved to resolve what was going on and I guess I imagined that sort of shunting is one of the things that can then sort of boomerang on you.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: But, you're saying quite different from that which is that it's really the times where you feel terribly guilty and that's what you're associating it to anyway. Is that what you mean?
CLIENT: Yeah. I think I do that kind of shunting emotions aside like so much that when I get something good out of it, like, when I feel like I said what I needed to say and stood up for myself and it's worked out well, and one of the things that I really have to give credit dad credit for is that like he doesn't give me a hard time. He doesn't make me feel guilty about standing up for myself in that way. It's like all the pushing things aside serves some purpose and so I feel good about it, and sometimes I like need to go away and cry for a while afterward and, you know, it takes me a while to like settle down, but it feels like I did the right thing. Like I did well. Where I, yeah. [00:28:40]
There was going to be a corollary to that, but I don't remember what it was. Yeah. The worst is when like I feel like what I want isn't reasonable to want or like it doesn't make for me to have it or to ask for it. And, then I just spend all of this time like, you know, putting those emotions aside and if I'm unsuccessful at doing that then, you know, somebody asks what's going on and I say well, there's this and sometimes I get what I want and then I feel horrible. Like, I didn't do it well enough. Even if I don't get what I want, I feel horrible because I didn't get what I want. [00:30:15]
So, yeah. I think dad is proud of me for those times when I do stand up for myself and then say no, you need to shape up. I think, like, he really values that in me because it was a long time coming. It took me. Yeah, it's still really hard. Still, I mean the main reason I can do it is that he doesn't really lose his temper anymore. You know. If he's outwardly angry or actively angry, like, I have to leave until that's over. Maybe not leave, but I can't say anything until whatever outburst is happening is done. Yeah. I never know what to do in the moment. [00:31:30]
THERAPIST: I'm sorry, you never have to do...
CLIENT: I never have to do it in the moment.
THERAPIST: When he's angry?
CLIENT: Yeah. Angry or when, I when I feel like there's some injustice happening I have to like go away and collect myself and then come back and say okay, that's not fair. I don't know. I'm leaning a little bit in to thinking of this guy in the coffee shop. He's a regular. He's always kind of a jackass, but like he was being really creepy and like trying to impress me slash pick me up, by trying to do like the avuncular older man thing which, does not ever impress, ever. Like, I don't fucking care if you can speak Italian. Like, I really don't. You're not impressing me. But, like, I didn't, I didn't handle it as well as I feel like I could have. I feel like I should have been just like you're not being appropriate or something. All I did was try to indicate that I was not terribly impressed. That kind of, you know, coming from a more or less cute, young woman you'd have to be pretty specific in order to demonstrate that people are not being successful. I don't know. I'm not saying that well. It just felt like I feel like I was passive and got taken advantage of as a result in some small way. Like, I guess it's the connecting framework. [00:33:50]
THERAPIST: It seems to me that probably for being very scared, you really lose touch with how infuriating.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: A situation like that is and what a douchebag.
CLIENT: Yeah. That is exactly the word.
THERAPIST: You know, you're working hard trying to make everybody happy. You've been on your feet, god knows how many hours. And, so, he doesn't know it. You know and to some extent I know what kind of week you've had and like he's going to come along and I'm wearing a wedding ring and I like I try to speak Italian and pick you up.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:35:00]
THERAPIST: And not...
CLIENT: And, it's like I don't mind people trying to pick me up. I mind people being condescending to me as they're trying to pick me up. Like, not, not helpful. It's the opposite of what you want to be doing. I mean, I mind people being condescending to me, but I mind people being condescending expecting me to like it. Yeah. Yeah. And a week that inclined me to suffer fools gladly. Like, I didn't know what to do. I felt like I didn't know what to say. [00:36:20]
THERAPIST: I might be wrong. I guess I had the impression you were like pretty furious at him in a way that was very hard to be ahold of. I know you were afraid of what would happen because you were so angry with him and, you know, so sort of disconnecting yourself from it. You know, you didn't know what to say. But, if you had felt it, you would have known exactly to say. It just wouldn't have been something, it would have been something you imagined might have bothered you.
CLIENT: It's true. And like, realistically, given the women who was my shift supervisor was the woman I went out for a drink with, like, that I would not have gotten fired because of, you know, anything I said to that guy. But, I didn't, like, I didn't know that and it's not even the like fear of getting fired. It's, it's like if I react with anger, then I lose this image of myself as like a pleasant person or a nice person. And, I don't particularly like being a nice person, but somehow I really can't bear not to be. And, yeah, I, I was really angry afterward, but like in the moment, I, it's like I started to get angry and just shunted it off.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Sometimes it may be your anger that is really dangerous.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Kind of having that feeling is so dangerous to you.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: We should stop for now.
CLIENT: Thanks.
THERAPIST: Sure.
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