TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: So, last week. My goodness. I was out last weekend visiting friends going to a party.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: It was mixed.

THERAPIST: I remember you had been pretty psyched to go to it, to this party.

CLIENT: I was. So, the Wednesday night before I left, I got an e-mail from a friend of mine saying, you know, holy fuck I have to drive to Chicago. This friend who doesn't want me to mention her name is in an abusive relationship and her ex isn't leaving her building and she has called the cops on him and she needs someone to be there with her. I was like I'm really sorry that this is the situation, but I have no idea who you're talking about because you said she doesn't want to be named. I'm not mapping this to anyone I know because it doesn't sound familiar to me at all. So, I was like, you know, I'll provide whatever support I can from here. I can't go to Chicago with you. [00:01:10]

So, more information came out over the next couple of days. The friend in question was dating a friend of mine. So, the abusive partner was my friend. So, I don't know the woman. She's like ten years younger than me and like I guess she graduated last year and got a job in Chicago and I've never met her. I don't know the first thing about her. My friend was claiming that she was abusing him and not the other way around and I was like this all sounds really odd. I don't know what to do. Then my friend just stopped communicating with anyone. He went completely off the grid. We were all really worried about him. And then, like, more details came out. [00:02:05]

Like, then it turns out she wasn't just accusing him of emotional abuse. She was accusing him of having raped her multiple times while they were together and then he distributed an audio recording of what was very clearly an attempted rape of her that he was saying was proof that she was abusing him, but that's not at all how it sounded to me or to anyone else who heard it. And then she made public some private logs, some logs of their private on line chats and then he went and started talking about the situation in a public chat room and it was just like all this was happening. It was developing while I was out of town away from home.

THERAPIST: Right. [00:03:05]

CLIENT: Like I've completely lost track of the time line of what happened when because it was just so awful. So, this friend, his name is Ethan. We've been friends since high school. I first met him at a high school speech, like speech and debate tournament. He was from a school across the state and we only saw each other at tournaments and I had this huge crush on him. Then we both ended up at the same college and we've been best friends for like 14 years and I'm just.

THERAPIST: This is a guy you were really close to.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. We've been friends my entire adult life.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: You know, when I was a sophomore in college and my boyfriend was abusing me and no one believed me, Ethan was one of two people who had my back and helped me get out of that relationship. You know, for a while, he was working for me at my start up and then after that went belly up, I got another job and then I had to leave that job and he hired me at his start up. [00:04:05]

So, like, I mean we have so much history and it just it was really hard dealing with all of this information coming out. The thing that really, that really killed me was some of the things he was saying on like public chat channels about his ex really mirrored, like eerily similar wording to things my abusive ex said about me. It was the same chat network. We're all on a program which is an internal chat protocol for students and community members. It's kind of similar to IRC if you're familiar with that. No?

THERAPIST: What does IRC stand for?

CLIENT: Internet relay chat.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. [00:05:00]

CLIENT: So, it has classes which function like chat rooms. So, anyone can join an open class and a lot of people have classes that are named after them that are just kind of for, I don't know, we'll call it rambling. Maybe narcissistic is a better term there. I don't know. But like, so class Constance, for example. If I'm like frustrated at work or read a really awesome book or can't decide what I want to order for take out.

THERAPIST: You just sort of put something out there?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. And so everyone has one of their own classes and then there are some general discussion classes for like news and then there's a weather class where a guy texts the weather updates for his class for discussion of gender issues and like. So, yeah, Ethan started ranting on his personal class and then on his ex's personal class. It was just so, so gross and I didn't know what to do and so happily almost everyone who knows him was at the rave for the weekend because we were all there for the reunion. [00:06:05]

So, we all got together on Saturday morning and had a conversation about possibly having an intervention and just what Ethan really and the party was that Saturday night and Ethan had been saying all week that he wasn't going to come because if he didn't come then everyone would hate his girlfriend because I don't know. Crazy logic.

THERAPIST: Yeah. He usually does come?

CLIENT: Yeah. He usually dj's for the party. Like, the big thing about this party is that the person who hosts it, Lori, usually has like six or seven dj's and there's like excellent music for like seven hours straight. Usually about half of them are pro dj's and half of them she offers a platform for friends of hers who want to be dj's. Ethan is semi-pro. It's not his day job. He's a software engineer as his day job. He's pretty good and he does get paid by real venues, so he usually spins with that and he's usually there like helping set up and he's been saying for a week that he wasn't going to come because if he didn't come then everyone would hate his girlfriend and take his side. [00:07:20]

So, he turns up half way through the party insisting that he's going to spin a set after Lori had like scrambled to find a replacement dj. And he was sort of high, but like he's been a casual drug user ever since any of us can remember. You know, whatever. He's a high functioning drug dealer. But after his set he started snorting lines of ketamine and then he left with his dealer who he brought to the party with him and came back an hour later and just completely trashed. Like I don't think I've ever seen anyone...

THERAPIST: Ketamine?

CLIENT: Ketamine? Special K is its street name. I don't know what it is.

THERAPIST: I've heard of that, but I don't know what it is.

CLIENT: Other than that like usually people take it in pills and snorting of it is kind of intense. It's a depressant of some sort, but like.

THERAPIST: Alright. I mean I've heard of it.

CLIENT: I'm not in the drug culture or the latest party drugs. I have used drugs before, but... [00:08:20]

THERAPIST: Right. You know, I was asking to get a sense of what kind of influence he's operating under.

CLIENT: Well, everyone thought he was doing lines of coke when he was snorting it because like, I don't know, I guess this is what kids these days do. They like snort coke in public instead of taking it to the bathroom and doing it. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Kids these days.

CLIENT: So, it was ketamine and then he left with his dealer and he came back and I've never seen anyone that trashed. He was making sounds that weren't words and acting like he thought he was communicating with people. Just like glassy eyed and could not stand up straight and was just it was very heartbreaking. I don't know what to do. Like, at this point, the evidence is pretty, pretty damning, but like even if, like, it was a mutually abusive relationship, he was being pretty abusive. Like, regardless of what she was doing or not doing or god knows what was going on there. [00:09:20]

THERAPIST: How long were they together?

CLIENT: Six months. But, like, just looking back I can see red flags in hindsight.

THERAPIST: How so?

CLIENT: His behavior was, at least four other girlfriends that I know of, was borderline controlling, isolating from friends. Belittling and humiliating them in public. I think it's also kind of telling that he stopped being romantically interested in me around the same time that I started getting therapy and growing a spine and not putting up with pick up artist bullshit from the men around me anymore. So, yeah, it's just, it was really rough.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I would imagine you've been kind of a wreck over this. [00:10:20]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean this is, like, a best friend for a long time who's not only totally melting down, but doing horrible things as best anybody can tell I gather.

CLIENT: Yeah. And so a bunch of people in our circle have just cut off contact with him. We just like cannot deal, don't want to deal with that. I don't know. I wish, I wish he would answer my calls. Like, I've been trying to get in touch with him and he hasn't been responding. I really I don't want to burn essentially a lifelong friendship without hearing his side and not in some kind of distorted like public performance of break up aggression or whatever that was. [00:11:20]

So, I don't know. At this point, realistically, I don't think there is anything he could say that would make me believe his behavior was okay. I don't know. If he was willing to go to rehab or go in to treatment or something. So, after the party on Saturday. So, Saturday night was the party. Ethan showed up. He was, as I said.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And I did not feel well with that at all. I drank entirely too much. I brought a stranger back to my hotel room and had ridiculous sex and it was very poor decision making on my part all around.

THERAPIST: You're okay with it though?

CLIENT: Yeah. All consensual. He used condoms. Still not the best decision I could have made under the circumstances.

THERAPIST: Sure. Sure. No, I understand. [00:12:25]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That was probably, as I guess, if I'm understanding it, like if I'm reading it correctly that it was being flipped out about what was going on with Ethan that led you to drink and then hook up.

CLIENT: Yeah. It was a great party though. I was having a good time until Ethan came back and it screwed up my mood. Yeah, Sunday I had another conversation with a bunch of friends. Mutual friends of mine and Ethan and we tried calling around to see if there are like, I don't know, like 12 step programs for domestic violence abusers? Like, surely there must be, right? But we tried calling RAIN and RAIN was ridiculously hostile and aggressive towards us. Like, you know, they accused us of not caring about the victim, of perpetuating rape culture of enabling rapists. We're like...[00:13:50]

THERAPIST: What is RAIN?

CLIENT: Rape, abuse and incest national hotline.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: So, they're like a national hotline for rape and abuse. So, that was really terrible.

THERAPIST: So, they had no constructive or useful information about how to help?

CLIENT: No. Like they basically just shamed us.

THERAPIST: That's horrible.

CLIENT: I was like of course I care about his victim, but I don't know her and her friends are taking care of her and seeing to it that she gets help and she has counseling and support and there's not a whole lot I can do.

THERAPIST: Right. Why shouldn't he get some kind of help? Clearly he needs it. Like, that's clearly irrespective of what's going on with her.

CLIENT: Yeah. So, we tried calling the rape crisis centers and they were like oh, we don't know, sorry. [00:14:50]

THERAPIST: Really? I've heard some good things about some aspects of this rape crisis center. Like, they have a good group of programs. I've heard good things about it, so I'm surprised that they...

CLIENT: They don't have programs for perpetrators.

THERAPIST: That doesn't surprise me, but they don't even know any?

CLIENT: They gave me the number of a national hotline that they said would help. When we called that hotline they said yeah, no, we only deal with child abuse. It's like well, that's not the situation here, so. And I'm glad that resource exists, but that's not what I need.

THERAPIST: Right. It's not what you're looking for.

CLIENT: So, yeah, we've, we've been calling around trying to find a drug rehab center that has an open bed and there are none that have open spots because that's the world we live in. There's not enough. It sucks.

THERAPIST: You are looking for rehab in where? In what city?

CLIENT: In Portland.

THERAPIST: Oh, he's still in Portland?

CLIENT: Yeah. So, he lived in Portland and she lived in Chicago, but they both worked for companies that have offices in both places, so they just flew back and forth together. So, they were spending two weeks in Portland, two weeks in Chicago.

THERAPIST: I see. And now they're 3,000 miles apart? [00:16:15]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That part sounds good.

CLIENT: Yes. And they both have restraining orders against the other.

THERAPIST: Terrific.

CLIENT: So, they're yeah. They're not going to interfere in each other's lives and that's crisis averted. I don't know what I can do. I don't know what I should do. I don't know how much I'm willing to do or able to do and it just, it sucks.

THERAPIST: Well, in an effort to sound like a horrible cliché, how do you feel?

CLIENT: Angry, hurt, betrayed. Full of rage. A little bit stupid. [00:17:40]

THERAPIST: I guess my thought is although I know you've thought a lot about this and we've talked about this as well, like, I imagine here that given how much you've thought and talked about it, that sorting through your like feelings and reactions will help to partly catch me up. I don't know where you're at. Or if you want, I guess we can talk about what you want to do. You know, sort of keep up.

CLIENT: I don't know. I feel like everyone I talk to about this has also been like intimately involved in like reacting with scenarios that might be useful to talk about how I feel when someone causes resistance.

THERAPIST: Another thing that occurs to me is, and we can take this up at the end if you like, is I did have at least one other time free this week if you want to set up another session so we can work on and talk about this.

CLIENT: I would like to, but my schedule is so packed this week.

THERAPIST: Okay. The times I have are Thursday morning. That won't work? Okay. No problem. [00:19:15]

CLIENT: I mean part of it is, you know, in hindsight I can see all these red flags about his behavior and I'm wondering how on earth did I get taken in by him for so many years? Like, how did I let myself get that close to him? And then really angry that he stepped up his drug use to the point where he can't have a coherent conversation because god dammit he owes us at least like some kind of explanation for his behavior. Jesus Christ this is all horrible and he's not even aware of how much pain his friends are in and just like how fucking selfish can you get? Yeah. [00:20:30]

THERAPIST: Do you love him?

CLIENT: I'm terrified he's going to overdose and kill himself.

THERAPIST: You must be worried he already has.

CLIENT: I'm pretty sure someone would have told me.

THERAPIST: Would you know?

CLIENT: I mean there are plenty of people who know him who live in Portland.

THERAPIST: Good.

CLIENT: Yeah another aspect of this is one of his ex's, Marcy, has been a friend of mind since we were freshmen. You know, Marcy met Ethan and me at orientation our freshman year and she and Ethan hit it off instantly. I had already known him from high school. She and I hit it off. We've been friends ever since. They dated for a while and then they broke up because Ethan was cheating on her and claiming that she had agreed to a poly amorous relationship when she hadn't and it was all kinds of, all kinds of drama that she, she still cares about him and she's still friends with him and for the last couple of years she's kind of been his caretaker. Like, he has his salary direct deposited in to an account in her name and then she gives him an allowance because he just can't be trusted.

THERAPIST: Because he spends it on drugs? [00:22:15]

CLIENT: Not just drugs. He spends it on all kinds of stupid shit. Like, one time he decided he needed to own his own servers to do Math Art and bought like 30 grand worth of computer equipment in one binge buying session and like it was ridiculous and he gets paid well enough that, like, he can do a few things like that and not, like, completely wreck his life. He needs a minder. Like Marcy does his taxes for him because he's just incapable or incompetent or something. It's kind of dysfunctional.

THERAPIST: I mean, yeah, he's a software engineer by day.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. So, Marcy, you know, I saw this myself and many of our friends recorded the same, but when people try to talk to her about the situation she just like blanks out. Like, she'll just act like you didn't even say anything. Like, do you want a drink? Do you want to talk? How are you feeling?

THERAPIST: Do you mean the situation that just happened with Ethan just now? [00:23:40]

CLIENT: Yeah. Just now. She'll just be like yeah, the sushi is really good. Thanks for asking. Like completely, like.

THERAPIST: Apparently unaware that she's completely evading the question?

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know if she's doing it on purpose or if she's just that in shock that she can't handle it?

THERAPIST: Right. It can't be pretty tough for people to get over those things.

CLIENT: Yeah, and it's hard to tell.

THERAPIST: Sure. I know it can be.

CLIENT: Marcy is something of a space alien. Like, I've known her for 12 years and sometimes I don't understand the things she says. She doesn't really speak English. She speaks her own language and like other people have noticed this too and like even her longest, closest friends, like sometimes we're just like this is like trying to communicate with like gorilla. We feel like Jane Goodall or Jane Goodall. Yeah. The woman who studied the apes.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:24:45]

CLIENT: So, I'm worried about Marcy and how all this is affecting her.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I'm sure.

CLIENT: Like because I'm sure she's concerned about him.

THERAPIST: Is she in Portland as well?

CLIENT: Yes. I mean she looked really worried when she saw Ethan at the party Saturday night, but she's just refusing to engage. I feel so hopeless being all the way on the east coast and not able to actually be there in person. I've been communicating regularly with a core group of friends who are in Portland. You know, but there's only so much you can do for someone who doesn't want to be helped. [00:25:45]

THERAPIST: Does he have bipolar disorder?

CLIENT: Who knows? He, I know he's been in and reclaimed twice. Once, because he was a stupid freshman and stayed up for 100 hours straight taking amphetamines to see what it would do to his music composing ability and he had a psychotic break. Yeah, it turns out the human body does actually need to sleep. Who knew?. The second time I don't know what it was for. I know he briefly saw a psychiatrist and was on meds for an anxiety disorder, but then he decided that his psychiatrist was stupid and stopped taking them and started self medicating with god knows what. I kind of don't want to know. [00:26:45]

THERAPIST: Yeah. No, I'm not asking because like I'm diagnosing. It's just that if he were that, if there are some things sound like that if you're that in particular there are very clear and sort of different treatment of vocation. You know what I mean?

CLIENT: Right. That would require him to be willing to see a professional and stick with a treatment plan.

THERAPIST: Yeah and it would also make all of you pretty helpless.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Which I guess is part of how you're saying very clearly may be very much feel about this anyway.

CLIENT: Like I don't want to get sucked in to a savior complex, which I know I'm susceptible to. Like, I will try to fix things for my friends to the point where it's not healthy for anyone involved and I don't want to get in to one of those spirals again.

THERAPIST: What are you worried you'd do in this situation? [00:28:00]

CLIENT: I get too emotionally invested. Like, finding him treatment plan after treatment plan when he's not willing to stick with it.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Or pour too much time and effort in to it. But, I don't want to just stand here and do nothing. And I don't know if I can continue to have him as a friend and keep him in my life if he's not willing to admit that he did wrong and needs to, like, I don't know, I guess repent is kind of a religious word to use, but I think it sums up what I feel. Like, he's not willing to accept that like he's damaged people. Like, not just his girlfriend, but friendships and the whole community. But I don't know if he's willing to admit that or not because he's too high to answer his god damn phone and that just makes me angry because I can't decide whether I'm going to end this friendship or not until I talk to him and, I don't know, I feel like I'm caught in limbo where I can't quite properly grieve the friendship even though the longer I go without speaking to him directly the more likely it is that this is. Yeah. [00:29:45]

THERAPIST: It seems to me like you're also in, like a couple of your favorite sort of states, like uncertainty.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Not knowing what's going on and not knowing what to do.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: A lot of ambiguity. A lot of powerlessness. [00:31:20]

CLIENT: Well, it puts my own relationship problems in perspective. Kind of a horrible thing to say, but it's true.

THERAPIST: Yeah, maybe, I guess I'm thinking that you're pretty completely helpless in a way that's extremely difficult to tolerate.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: I can't think of, you seem to have the idea that you could and probably should be doing things about this. [00:32:15]

CLIENT: But I have been. I mean I've been calling people who know him and talking on conference calls to discuss finding him a bed in a rehab center and I have a spreadsheet of information and resources that I've collected. That's one of my go to coping strategies. Make a spreadsheet. But, it still sucks. I don't feel like anything I'm doing is actually useful or helpful. It's just a lot of like spinning my wheels.

THERAPIST: I'm not saying yeah because I'm like agreeing that it's not helpful, but just because I can imagine it feels that way and it's certainly not clear that it will be again.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like, I want to be out there, but I have responsibilities here and I have a life here and I can't just take off and fly to Portland for two weeks to help pick up after Ethan's messes. [00:33:20]

THERAPIST: And it's hard to stay here and to sort of helplessly mourn what's going on I think.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: How much have you just felt like emotionally wrecked by this? What does it look like?

CLIENT: A lot of it is just not having the energy for anything else that requires an emotional response from me. Or results from me, words that can... So, yeah, there's been stuff going on at church that I've just been numb about because like I can't sum up the energy to be angry or outraged or relieved or anything really. So, I've just been delaying reactions to everything else. Like, there's stupid drama with my family, but I'm also just not dealing with. There was the news last week which was pretty terrible, but I haven't reacted to that because I just can't. There's no, nothing left. [00:35:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess I sort of get the impression you can kind of like barely or sort of like not even really contain all the things you feel about what has happened.

CLIENT: I mean I still have to go to work and do my job.

THERAPIST: Right. Pay attention to that.

CLIENT: Be a functional human being. I still have to go to my bosses Christmas party Saturday and make small talk and pretend to be charming to my co-worker's spouses. It's just, I don't know I feel even more like I'm wearing a mask everywhere than I usually do. [00:36:30]

THERAPIST: Okay. What I'm going to say is not a criticism, but it does seem to me that there is way that if, I don't know if it's how we were talking about it or something more to do with you in particular, where it seems to me like it's pretty difficult to convey the like depth of the feelings that you have in response to this. It's pretty clear they're there from how you're describing what you're doing.

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm really trying not to cry because we don't cry as I might have mentioned.

THERAPIST: I believe that you have.

CLIENT: And especially a situation, I just, I'm so angry. I don't want to cry over Ethan fucking up until he man's up and apologizes or something or even answers my phone calls. Like, it's just... [00:37:35]

THERAPIST: Well, he has hurt you, like, personally terribly here.

CLIENT: Yes, but not as badly as he has hurt the woman he dated and abused.

THERAPIST: Absolutely.

CLIENT: So, there's part of me that feels like I don't have a right to feel hurt and part of me is also just very stubborn. Like I am not going to shed tears over that asshole. Yeah. [00:38:30]

THERAPIST: Have you shed any so far?

CLIENT: I did on Sunday. Not yesterday, but a week ago when I was on the phone with the representative from RAIN and they were just being horrible to me.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounds really uncomfortable.

CLIENT: And I don't think it even occurred to the person that I was speaking to that I might be a survivor myself. It was vicious. And like I understand that often the people who work these hotlines are also survivors and have their own baggage around it and whatever. You shouldn't be working the hotlines if you can't maintain a professional demeanor in my opinion.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Otherwise, clearly you can do a lot more harm than good. So, we should stop for now. I'm very sorry to hear about what happened.

CLIENT: Thank you.

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