TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: (yawning) Hi.

THERAPIST: Hi.

CLIENT: I don’t know why I can’t get [off to anywhere on time,] (ph) and it’s not just here; this is not uniquely bad for me in terms of tardiness. (pause) You’re not special. (laughter) (pause) It’s really frustrating, because I end up being, you know, on average 15 minutes late to everything, even like lunches with friends who I’m excited about seeing.

I don’t know why I procrastinate so much. [0:01:00] (pause) Last night, I had friends coming over for dinner at 7:30, which I needed to leave work at 6:30. I didn’t leave work until about 5 til 7. And so Roger and Dana were sitting on my doorstep for ten minutes, and luckily the weather was nice. But still, it’s rude. (chuckle) (pause)

I was distracted and unproductive most of the day, I finally got – I esteem going at like 4-ish, and then at 6, I said, you know, I should start wrapping things up, so I can leave at 6:30. And then I just sat there, picking around, and tweaking things that didn’t really need to be tweaked for the almost hour, because I don’t know why. (pause) [0:02:00] (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, you know, I mean, and I can imagine [it can hurt me some] (ph), to do with not having a very productive – and have forgotten what you wanted our the thing you’re leaving for; be anxious, you know, something about being friends; about how it’s going to go, or whether they want to see you, or something like that. Or I can imagine that it’s a way of kind of preemptively kind of punishing or embarrassing yourself, when you’re already going to feel bad and guilty. (pause) (inaudible at 0:03:05). (pause) [0:04:05] (pause)

CLIENT: The only thing on my mind right now is there’s a new installment in the soap opera with Cricket. I can’t remember if I mentioned this to you last week or not, but I completely lost track of what has happened when. But my friend Vanessa is very worried about her friend Tom, who lives abroad and has fallen in love with Cricket, and his primary relationship is kind of falling apart.

He hasn’t worked for years, because of mental health stuff, basically. He can’t hold a job, and his partner is sick of financially supporting him, and like him being home and unemployed. And mentally ill, and not getting treatment has stressed their relationship. But he has fallen in love with Cricket, and is talking about immigrating to the US to be with her.

Vanessa is in a panic about this, and keeps calling (inaudible at 0:05:25) about it, (sigh) and has asked me to – like it’s so ridiculous; she doesn’t want to say anything to him directly, but he’s good friends with Lucy, and thinks the world of Lucy. So if Vanessa asks me to ask Lucy to talk to Tom about how bad news Cricket is, then it’s like – I was like, “No, (chuckle) absolutely not. There’s no way that ends well for anyone involved at all.”

It makes me look bad to Lucy, and even apart from that, Lucy’s life is very stressful right now; she’s had some medical stuff going on. She was in the ER a week and a half ago; she hasn’t talked about why, just that she’s been at the doctor a lot, and there’s an ER visit. Regardless of what it is that’s going on, she doesn’t need the added stress of like getting sucked in to other peoples’ psychodrama. [0:06:19]

I’m kind of surprised at how protective I felt towards Lucy, or about Lucy; I not sure what the correct preposition there is. But, I’m just like no, absolutely not; I’m not going to have Lucy intervene with this guy. I don’t know; like I have no obligation to this Tom dude than anyone, and I feel bad for him, but there’s only so much feeling bad for other people I can do, and I’m kind of taped (chuckle) out right now.

All I know, this was upsetting for me. But I really don’t see that I could have made any other response. It’s so ridiculous.

THERAPIST: And so why didn’t Vanessa want to say anything to him?

CLIENT: Because Vanessa has terrible social anxiety, and she’s afraid if she does, then Tom will stop being her friend.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:07:14) I don’t know, I want to say it’s broken. It’s probably not (caring) or it’s not kind, but – (pause) I wonder if maybe I would be doing better mental health wise, if you know, I had friends who weren’t all so depressed, and anxious, and sad all the time.

Like maybe this stuff is contagious. I mean not like physically contagious, but (pause) [0:08:20]-[0:10:20] (pause)

THERAPIST: Well (continue) (ph) between that and your what you’re saying about (inaudible at 0:10:44). (pause) The impression that it’s like everywhere you look, things are all fucked up.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Or there are reminders of how things are all fucked up.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Time and people. (pause) I think that maybe partly, it makes you want to crawl under the bed.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Or like hide from it.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [0:12:40] (pause)

THERAPIST: [Someone else is coming by.] (ph) (pause)

CLIENT: I’m angry at Cricket for obvious reasons; I’m also angry at myself for falling for her bullshit for so long. (pause) [0:13:40] (pause) I really should stop looking at her Facebook and her life journal. (pause) Every time I do, it just makes me upset and angry again.

Like the latest ridiculousness that I read that was upsetting was, you know, she’s been talking for the last three months about how she ignored (inaudible at 0:14:57), and she’s been in crisis mode, and she is not going to date anyone new for a very long time; in like capital letters. Because she needs to figure out who she is. And now like less than a month later, she’s dating someone new, and it’s all hearts and roses. It’s like, “I have been out of crisis mode long enough to heal from all my trauma.”

You know, she has set herself up for the (inaudible at 0:15:21) as like the expert on recovering from trauma, and especially sexual violence. She’s saying these things that are ridiculous; she dismantled, that’s her word, a PTSD trigger in a day.

And I was like, you’re dismantling brain pathways related to the trigger, and a month is enough time to be fully recovered from her two years of intimate partner emotional abuse. Which I question now whether those relationships were actually emotionally abusive. Or if they were which direction the abuse was going in.

But she set herself up as the expert, and I’m worried that who will this, and think of course we [talk recovery from trauma works.] (ph) (pause) I mean yes, everyone reacts to trauma differently, and then have their own recovery times, but I find it not credible at all.

THERAPIST: True.

CLIENT: To be fully recovered at such a thing, even real in such a short span of time. Especially be like dismantling you PTSD trigger in a day. [0:16:31] (pause)

THERAPIST: Sketchy?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [0:17:15] (pause) And also, I question my motives, like I don’t – I’m not confident that all of my anger is because she’s behaved badly, and hurt people, including me, and how much of it is just sour grapes that she didn’t want to date me. I don’t think it’s that, but (pause) Then there’s the shadow of a doubt.

THERAPIST: I see. Yeah, it seems like kind of in your mind you’re (pause) (inaudible at 0:18:04) to her and being critical of her, but also like anxious about it and so got angry at?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: [Your inside anger.] (ph) (pause)

CLIENT: And she keeps posting things on Twitter, trying to bate me, and Lucas, and Emma and Vanessa into a public confrontation; like she’s really itching for a big ugly public confrontation. So far, none of us have risen to the bate, but (pause) I know there’s no winning if anyone does. It’s hard to sit on my hands and not respond. Especially since she’s trying to poison the well with mutual friends. [0:19:08]

A friend Jerry’s birthday party is this weekend, and I chatted with his wife Caitlin a couple of days ago. And she was like, “So, I really don’t want to get in the middle with you and Cricket; like Cricket’s been talking to me about you, and I’d really rather just try to stay neutral.”

He having said that, on one hand I wanted to tell my side of the story, but on the other hand, after she said she wanted to stay neutral. It would be disrespectful, and violating the boundary that she just drew if I like been like feelings barked all over her.

So I said that, I said, “If you want to hear my side of the story, I’m happy to share it with you; I’ve nothing to hide. But since you want to stay – not get in the middle of this, I will respect that, and not talk to you about any of it. I suspect my version of events differs from Cricket’s, and I’ll leave it at that.” [0:20:03]

But it’s just so galling that she just (pause) is preemptively trying to poison mutual friends against me. (sigh) (pause) And there’s a part of me that just truly wants to destroy her social reputation, and turn everyone against her; have her completely ostracized from the group; alone and miserable. And that’s ending it; that’s not taking the high ground.

I don’t want to be vindictive, and cruel, and it would be dishonest to say there’s not a part of me that wants that. (pause) [0:21:07] (pause)

THERAPIST: Isn’t this like part of what (Cricket) (ph) did? Having both protect yourself, and feel like you are taking the high road at the same time? (pause)

CLIENT: No, because I think I can do that. I think it’s not to cue into the temptation that -

THERAPIST: I see, just mixing it up with her?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [0:22:28] (pause) I mean as much as she’s going for a public confrontation, there’s also a part of me that wants a public confrontation too, even though the rational part of my brain knows that that would be bad and would end badly for me.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And for her, but, you know, that doesn’t matter if you want to wrestle with the pig. Both get dirty and the pig enjoys it. (pause) [0:23:28]-[0:24:28] (pause)

THERAPIST: But I guess your hope, unrealistic, though you think it is, would be that in the like public (pause) scoreboard between you, people would end up seeing what she’s really like.

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:24:59]

THERAPIST: And to make good what you’re really like in this.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And what kind of [noticed and where[ (ph). (pause) Then in the (pause) thought of people seeing you in that kind of a positive way. Also seeing her for how she really is.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: A (inaudible at 0:26:01) appealing. (pause) Maybe you want to think that was part of a situation also kind of goes beyond that. (pause)

CLIENT: So that not how it would actually play out; how it would actually play out as she has enormous charisma, and social gravity and all of her friends who don’t me would dog pile on me and like spew (inaudible at 0:26:36) all over the Internet, and we won’t actually read what happened; it would depolarize the entire whirlwind. (sigh) (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, and I’m not saying that with the idea that anything good would come from it. (inaudible at 0:27:03).

CLIENT: Right. Yeah, it sounded like you were describing the fantasy.

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah.

CLIENT: It’s a really compelling fantasy.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) [0:28:03] (pause) As some people would say that you had [departmental backup] (ph) dealing with people like this before.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: We should stop.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to mention this earlier. I’ll be out two weeks from today, just the one day.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: So (inaudible at 0:28:54).

CLIENT: Okay.

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