TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Come on.

THERAPIST: Yeah, how's it feel?

CLIENT: Feels awesome. I already got like stuff done, got here early. (yawns). It's been a crazy fucking few days. Mostly good but just...wow. There's like so much to talk about I don't know where to start. So Sunday was my uncle's 50th anniversary thing, I may have told you about that maybe?

THERAPIST: I think you had mentioned it briefly.

CLIENT: Yeah. So the church was doing a thing in the basement to honor it, well I think all the churches were but because my mom and I are here, whatever, they had invited us to, you know? It was really interesting. I went really for my mom and it was exactly what I thought it was going to be, it was a little bit like amateur hour and kind of pathetic a little bit. Not pathetic, I don't know what the right word is but something kind of amazing happens. First of all the priest gave a really nice speech about my uncle and then...

THERAPIST: This is the 50th anniversary of his death? [00:01:20]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah, 63.

THERAPIST: I don't think you told me details about it.

CLIENT: Yes, he was the one who was the pope of...

THERAPIST: Yes, now I remember that.

CLIENT: So people got up and sang, some children got up and did...whatever. There was food and all that stuff but then towards the end they kind of surprised us. He has a very famous sermon that he gave a year after he was ordained. It's not because he's my uncle but really it's like the Assyrian version of "I Have a Dream."

THERAPIST: Yeah, I remember you saying that a little while ago.

CLIENT: I mean, it's unreal. So they surprised us by saying they had taken a recording and they were going to make a CD of it and they played a lot of it and the minute...I was like "Oh fuck" because that gets me, that speech...so I started crying, kind of. It just was very moving. [00:02:24]

THERAPIST: What's in the speech?

CLIENT: He's basically like yelling, he's saying...the whole kind of "I Have a Dream" phrase is something like in English "Lord let our eyes be opened and let light fill our eyes," or something like that. It's amazing because it's not even particularly religious, it's really much more...it's a very human...and he's like pleading. I've never seen any film of it, I don't think there is any but I mean it sounds like he's crying kind of. It was such a bad time politically and just...it was awful. It's just a man kind of that's at the end of his rope and yet above it somehow. So I was sitting there kind of man-crying, sitting like this but the tears are coming and then on top of that they got the recording from this guy, this old guy, who would give tailoring work to my grandfather who kind of looks like my grandfather. I thought this guy was dead. I hadn't seen him in years and years and he donated or he gave his vinyl record, he gave that to them to turn into a CD. [00:03:54] So that moved me because I thought he was dead and then my grandfather...It went from being this kind of like blah thing I'm doing for my mom to a very moving...I was like "You know what, whether this is amateur hour or not, these are all people that have gone way out of their way to honor someone that died 50 years ago."

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You know? So it ended up being very touching. So there was that. Then my aunt's in the hospital with high blood pressure we found out. Then I have my reading tonight. Then I'm like six hundred dollars short to get the CD's manufactured. So I don't know, I've definitely been very anxious, just stressed and anxious for the last five days.

THERAPIST: Gosh, that's a lot.

CLIENT: It's a lot, yeah. [00:05:04] It's really not bad stuff per se, even my aunt, she's okay, thank god she'll be okay but it's just a lot. It's more the stuff it brings up it's not the actual stuff. Like the reading tonight. I'm sure it's going to be awesome but it's that I've never done one of these here in my own town, they'll be family there. I don't know, it's a little nerve wracking, a little bit. The CD, I hate that I'm going to have to ask someone to loan me some money. I can't fucking believe that but everything is done. The artwork, it's ready to go, it looks amazing. It's going to get done but it's frustrating that...Oh and the headlining band dropped out of the CD release show. I forgot about that. So I've had a headache for days trying to e-mail bands on short notice. [00:06:15] (pause) The good part of it is it makes me feel like "Wow, I'm doing stuff." I feel very engaged, you know, I just drove out, I paid the credit card bill, for whatever reason I just decided I was going to go myself to Sears and pay the bill. It feels more...I pay it early and pay more than the minimum. Something about that feels good. (pause)

THERAPIST: Did you say to Sears?

CLIENT: Yeah we have a Sears...the one credit card I have is a Sears MasterCard. Citibank MasterCard, whatever it is through Sears. [00:07:27] (pause)

THERAPIST: It's your life ticking onward, you know in this week and any one thing, something ordinary or daily routine, the daily pushing ahead but I can imagine how any one of these things could be ruffling your feathers some.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah because when I think about it it's like "What is bad about any of these things?" There's nothing bad about any of these things. I was talking to Kelly, was over last night and I was telling her "I can't believe I have to ask for some help?" She was like "Pfff. So what, I've had to do that. There have been a few times where I was in a bind but I'm sure whoever you're going to ask is also someone you would be there for too, or you have been there for." She's like "It's always a shitty feeling to have to ask but once you do it's really...people that care about you, care about you, they're not..." [00:08:56] (pause) I think it's just more like a lot of emotion and a lot of stuff and a lot of adulthood, everything feels very adult now, do you know what I mean? In a weird way? (pause)

THERAPIST: Good?

CLIENT: I was going to say I wonder if it's kind of cathartic Sunday. Even when it was all over I had to kind of go. I was still getting choked up so I went around and personally thanked the priest and some of the people. Even when I was thanking them I felt things welling up so I wonder if that was kind of, something about that, I've never done that. Or experienced that.

THERAPIST: It's so incredibly moving. I think I'm struck as you're telling the story but you feel like you shouldn't have been feeling so much? Or something? [00:10:10]

CLIENT: I think maybe I wasn't expecting it to be that, to that extent. But I guess I forgot about all this time I've been much more compassionate I mean I was a different person going through this thing than I would've been in the past. So I just felt I wasn't judging, I felt much more compassion for these people then I felt like "Well what a thing. All these ladies made all this fucking food. They didn't have to do any of this shit." And I felt proud to be honest. I felt like "That's my uncle." You know what I mean? I've never met him but my dad had a lot of those similar humble kind of...you know? I don't know. I'm proud of that side of my family, I mean it' s not that I'm not proud of this side but this side is much more standard immigrant story to a certain extent but my dad's side is sort of unusual. Not just their personalities but their achievements. [00:11:19] My cousin teaches at the university and I've done some stuff and my uncle... I don't know. They're just very well respected. That's an amazing thing for people to not forget you and to have such strong feelings. (pause) And I hadn't even thought about it but tonight, once I went to this thing, I was like "You know what? Like tonight I'm going to dedicate my reading to him." He died like two days ago, fifty years ago. That'll feel good. I think like right now it's mostly been like just me trying to calm myself, calm my mind, kind of racing and feeling a bit...having moments of real anxiety. (pause) [00:12:35]

THERAPIST: I'm also just struck because you're saying more about what the speech actually contained and how it sounded ...he is incredibly emotional in his speaking and speaking about opening one's eyes and hoping people will see the light, I sense is a metaphor and how painful seeing is, there's a lot of complexity in your relationship to even...he's as emotional if not more than you are and you hear him in this place begging for more knowing and seeing and understanding.

CLIENT: Mm hm. (pause) I don't know. Oh and then there's another big thing. I was at George's house and we were talking and I had this great idea. I don't know I'm going to approach him, I don't know if he'll be up for it but I told him I want to partner up with him and do an online root beer business because this place now has by far the biggest selection of root beer's I've ever seen in my life. So we were just...he mentioned something about if I had time there's people that want all these crazy root beers and he's like "Dude, wait a minute. Why don't we, I'll partner up with you and we'll build a website. We'll find a way." [00:14:29] Like that's kind of what I've been looking for. Some kind of business that you can do that generates income where you're your own boss. So I don't know, there was that too. Saturday I was really thinking about this, I'm seriously going to talk to him about that and see if he'd be up for it.

THERAPIST: That's huge too.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think it'd be great and I love root beer, he doesn't even really like root beer, he just likes the business part of it. (pause)

THERAPIST: it's another place where you're thinking about some idea, something in reality, your adult reality might support your life. It actually might be doable. (pause) Which can be a little scary. [00:15:37] And exciting.

CLIENT: Yeah it's been one of those weeks where like everyday I've had one of those like band headaches, kind of tension right here so...(pause) But it feels good to know that it's all good, to know that this reaction I'm having is just me, there's nothing...it feels good to objectively or whatever see that. (pause)

THERAPIST: Maybe that's what still feels a little unclear, at least to me, is what is that? What's the reaction you're having?

CLIENT: I'm not sure I think it's just...last night I was thinking maybe it's just pent up stuff, do you know what I mean? Just pent up life, unlived in a way. It's like unnerving kind of. Maybe it's kind of like a crazy adrenaline rush or some kind of boost of energy like "holy shit I don't know what to do with all this?" Like things are happening, real things are happening. I'm not just like thinking of things then not doing them, you know? [00:17:27] I mean I'm sure it's so much stuff. Fear of like, like then what? Like being let down by the...like "alright, well, now I'm doing it. So what?" I don't know, it's a weird...yeah. But whatever it is has definitely been causing more of that physical thing that I get, headache, kind of feeling whacky, little...Like yesterday was the first time in a long time I took one of those Propranolol. Beta blocker. I was just feeling really...and also some of it is just the simple trigger of my aunt being in the hospital.

THERAPIST: That's what I was just thinking.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, just that is like "Oh fuck, here we go." (pause) That's where the PTSD, that's been tough. I can deal with it but it definitely triggers...hospitals, anything like that, that's a tough one. I've gotten really good at it but it's just, it's there. It's still tough. It triggers all this hypo, or hyper vigilant physical kind of stuff.

THERAPIST: Or even there may be this kind of mild symptoms happening because there's a lot of feeling . Right now you're describing feeling anxious and excited, feeling like there's energy pulsing through you to get doing things and then it takes just a story like that to kind of concretize those feelings in something's...being afraid of what's going in your body, your chest or your head...

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: That you've been traumatized by. [00:19:33]

CLIENT: Now this all interestingly raps into last night. Kelly came over last night, that's going really well by the way but when we were sleeping I saw my first Cecelia dream.

THERAPIST: Hah!

CLIENT: It was kind of scary, like I had a dream about losing her, not her dying but actually losing her. I was...I've never seen a dream like that. We were in some kind of subway station and I was...I've never had a dream...I was like yelling, trying to run up two platforms and I was like climbing a fence, yelling. Oh my god! And when I saw her she was like in this red or some kind of carrier thing with mesh. I was so relieved. I was so fucking relieved. Before that or after that I saw this, I was like living with a bunch of people or something, in a house and everyone seemed to have a pet. At one point Cecelia had some blood on her and she was like scratched but she was still Cecelia, you know? I was like completely like "What the fuck?" I was like holding her, it was weird. [00:20:50]

THERAPIST: Protective of her?

CLIENT: Yeah. It was crazy.

THERAPIST: Interesting. What are your thoughts?

CLIENT: Some of it might have been, I mean, she's been waking me up like at 4:30, 5:00 in the morning, she's been meowing a lot and wanting lots of attention so I'm not trying to deflect anything I just don't know if I'm sleeping and she's meowing and somehow it's getting into my mind or something? I don't know but...

THERAPIST: That can happen but she's in your mind in a very particular story.

CLIENT: I mean I love her, you know, I love her. So maybe ...I think there are times when it's just me and her and we're having like these crazy little snuggle moments where I think I'm like "Fuck man, someday this cat's not going to be around." Maybe that's...I've never had that where it's like wow. (pause) [00:22:02]

THERAPIST: You remembered the dream after a time of feeling traumatized about your band and death and...

CLIENT: Just like losing. That things are going to go away.

THERAPIST: Afraid of losing people, including now Cecelia.

CLIENT: And on some level me, we're all going to go, so I think if I'm not careful it goes to this very panicky place of "we're all going to die" one way or the other. It becomes a bit panicky and unsettling. (pause)

THERAPIST: You always talk about those kinds of existential feeling as though that's just kind of ordinary part of experience and you just have to be careful and try not to think about it too much. But there's a way...I also get the feeling that you've thought about that kind of thing a lot and had things gone differently...it's not that it wouldn't still occur to you but it might not be as preoccupying.

CLIENT: Yeah, of course. [00:23:37] That's why I envy so many people, I feel like everyone knows their...I mean what? I didn't discover anything.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: People are somehow able to, yeah, exactly what you said, somehow it's way, way, like they're able to totally live their lives and somehow that fact doesn't do the things to them that it's done to me. The one thing I will say about that is I do remember thinking about that before my dad died and being like petrified.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: So I think it was just an unfortunate, you know my dad's death just unfortunately as if it just validated something I was already sensitive about and scared of or whatever.

THERAPIST: Yeah but it's a feeling that your dad's death may sort of have solidified but does feel like it's been with you a very long time and feels more connected with just feeling vulnerable.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So, so alone.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: And the idea of one dying at the end of a lonely life is sort of, it just feels like an extension of that existential permanent aloneness where had you not felt as alone as a little kid, I don't know that your mind would go there as much.

CLIENT: Right. [00:25:09]

THERAPIST: Cecelia now appears though as this character in your dream where she's...how you were talking about her lately is someone you feel unconditionally loving towards and who you feel that from and that feeling...you often said "where is it coming from" "I've never felt this before" " I feel kind of gay feeling this kind of thing" but it's so real. Not feeling alone with her, feeling in the presence of someone you adore, something you adore, some critter you adore and who adores you back and that then being threatened as a loss. There's something about the dream as much as it's about losing that also feels like a sign of how tremendously attached you are to her.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, yeah. I've never had a dream like that. Ever. About anything similar. (pause) [00:26:20]

THERAPIST: Cause in the end you find her.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You aren't alone at the end of the dream.

CLIENT: I think ultimately that might be going on too. I mean Kelly, Cecelia, this event that I'm doing. I'm connecting with people in a way I've never connected before and I think that's stirring up a lot of things I guess, or things I don't even know...I just don't know what's happening, kind of, it's just happening. Like yesterday it was so nice, I went with the moderator, I went to the museum to check out the layout, then we went out for coffee together. It just felt so real. I wasn't self-conscious about anything, I wasn't feeling anxious, I wasn't...I think there's something that's doing things when I'm having those moments. Saturday night I was out with Mike and a bunch of people...you know the [inaudible] right here?

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: It's a nice little bar in there, they have a fireplace...It just felt nice, I don't know, I felt different, I feel like I'm connecting to people and it was crazy Mike and I...Mike never has these like touchy feely moments that much, not because he's a rough guy, we just joke around. It was really weird. Mike's like "Yeah buddy, you seem kind of like really happy and different than before. You just seem like you're in a different place." Just out of the blue. [00:28:01] So I don't know. I think that's all...just makes me...sometimes it feels like almost sensory overload or something, I think, I just feel kind of like "Who is this guy doing all these things?" (pause)

THERAPIST: It's very, very new. Good changes and even if it means you're connected, you're saying you feel like you're connecting, it's new.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It's actually being a whole person with normal contact instead of just preoccupied in your own mind.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, I don't know. So far I've got like a really normal girlfriend.

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: She came over, we just hung out at my place, we drank, we talked, I got some snacks for her, we were eating cheese and hummus and olives...she came with me to Sears, we grabbed coffee. It feels so...I don't know. It just feels right, like I'm not overthinking it, I'm not overinvested in it, I'm not...I don't know it feels like the way these things should go or something. I think that's what it is. Even that like...it's all just a lot of stuff. [00:29:40] (pause) (drumming)

THERAPIST: It's a change for us to have Wednesday instead of Monday, I was thinking about coming in...

CLIENT: Yeah, it's awesome.

THERAPIST: It is?

CLIENT: Mm hm. Monday, because I hate Sunday's, so that automatically means kind of very slow start on Monday. Wednesday is good. It's midweek, so I feel more...I don't know, ruminated or something. [00:31:07] (pause)

THERAPIST: So there's a day of the week and the meaning of Monday, the heaviness of Monday and there may also be something different about having Wednesday, Thursday, Friday instead of Monday, Thursday, Friday.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: Having that succession but then also having a longer break until the following week.

CLIENT: That's really weird. Kelly was wearing the exact same color nail.

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: That's bizarre. What the fuck? That's crazy. It's an awesome color. I think there's something...I like the idea there can be continuity instead of "What did we talk about Monday?" You know how I am, my mind is so scatterbrained sometimes so it's like "What the fuck were we talking about?" There' s something about...like that feels more like psychoanalysis to me, like back to back to back.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) That sounds like it will outweigh the break in a way. Yeah, it makes sense. [00:32:22] (pause) You may want to eventually pick up a fourth time possibly.

CLIENT: Mm hm. (pause) You went to Medical school?

THERAPIST: For my internship yes.

CLIENT: Oh that's cool. I didn't know that. Oh that's why you were at the bureau?

THERAPIST: That was post-doc.

CLIENT: Oh cool.

THERAPIST: Which was also (inaudible).

CLIENT: Right, right. You know what it is I wonder if it's as simple as just a lot of pent up emotion and that's why I feel the way I feel. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: In some ways that makes the most sense to me, because I told you that I've have a major bawling/crying thing and then I somehow I feel like something's unburdened or something. (pause) [00:33:43] I think there's a lot to that. There's some deep well of emotion (pause) that hasn't been able to get worked through through my art because it's been very kind of secluded and private so even that's been alone and now that it's out into the world slowly like the record and sending out poems and...it's kind of like it's uncorking something.

THERAPIST: Well some feelings are also just hard if not impossible to process alone. I think that's part of what we've been talking about is your asking about what it would be like to cry, to sob here for example, instead of by yourself and I think the more you are exploring some feelings and more feelings open up. There's just a lot about all different thing right now, stirring, and they're less and less about the actual external life you're leading which is going along kind of fine. Like a hang up of 600 bucks. [00:35:12] In the grand scheme of what you had to get done falling 600 bucks short...it's not a big deal.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: Even though it might be hard to ask somebody for money but it's not a crisis.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: But it's connected to things that were once crises inside. (pause) [00:36:38] Where did your mind just go?

CLIENT: It's just kind of drifting, I was thinking about lunch. I was thinking about taking a nap. I was thinking about the event tonight, I'm like "Wow this is going to be very interesting." Having like family there and...it's whacky.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean...

THERAPIST: Who's coming?

CLIENT: All of them.

THERAPIST: Everybody?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Your mom too?

CLIENT: Oh yeah, yeah. My mom of course, she's very proud. My mom and some of her girlfriends, my uncle and aunt, my cousins.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That's a big deal, Brian.

CLIENT: Yeah I'm trying not to...I just want to get through it so I'm trying not to go there but...I mean it is and it isn't in a way. This is what I do. It's a big deal for them, I mean I've been doing this...they're the ones who haven't seen this side of me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That's more what I mean, it actually feels like two separate worlds are coming together tonight and that the symbolic level of what's happening tonight is a pretty big deal.

CLIENT: Yeah, they're going to have to sit there and see me be of value. [00:38:09] Do you know I mean? And being taken very fucking seriously. (laughs)

THERAPIST: That's what I was thinking, to see you taken seriously.

CLIENT: Yeah and especially with this moderator. She's a professor who fucking really takes...I mean her, the museum asking me to do this...they're going to...it's kind of cool. I'm only nervous because like any kid would be in front of their family.

THERAPIST: Of course.

CLIENT: But I'm kind of psyched. I'm going to fucking kick their asses! (laughs) The more overall, it's like a hometown boy, in some ways I feel like "it's about fucking time that someone asked me." I love being from here and I want to do things like this so it is kind of a big deal. I have a weird feeling that this is also kind of like an uncorking because I know myself and I know that I'm a good speaker, I'm a good...I'm good at this shit and I have things to say and I say them in a fresh way and stuff like that so...Hopefully a few of them will have enough brains to ask me in the future maybe to do some other...I would love to do that. [00:39:35] To me that is my own form of activism. It's not that I don't care about my community I just think they're a bunch of dopes. People like me who are kind of either marginalized or choose to be on the margins have things to say that might actually mean something to some people. (pause) [00:40:49] I'm also trying not to make it a big deal, like it's a fucking poetry reading (laughs) I don't want to get to...hopefully it's the first of many and it's not...then I don't want to read into it and "why were there only 20 people there, why...?" (pause)

THERAPIST: I find myself wondering if there...it could feel both like it's a tremendously big deal in reality that these worlds are finally coming together but that also then knowing that it doesn't undo for how long they've had to be kept apart. It doesn't get undone.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah.

THERAPIST: And you know that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It's some feeling of letdown still, it happened and that it took until now and then this is just one reading and could've been part of a whole career, could've started years ago...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Had you felt more believed in, in who you were all along. [00:42:20] (pause)

CLIENT: I think too what happens is that typical...some of this physical stuff, it's funny how it always happens when I'm about to do something good. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: It's like old, like maybe there's a way you won't do it, you know what I'm saying?

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: There's some small voice back there saying "Just cancel it" or....more negative commentator trying to just fuck with me. [00:43:38]

THERAPIST: And saying exactly what right now? Like you won't do it because you'll get sick or what do you mean maybe there's a way you won't do it?

CLIENT: Just that...it's not really saying something like articulate but just the feeling of like if you're used to one way for a long time, even if it's a bad way, you just want to stay in your apartment and...do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So that causes anxiety too. Feels like there's two sides. There's the side that's here now that's like "Yeah, this is going to be awesome! It's not a big deal." Then there's still that small side that's been there, that was the dominant side, that now is almost insignificant but it finds ways to...(pause) Oh I made business cards too.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: I thought that was a big deal. I don't know why. I'm doing this event I should have cards I could give to people.

THERAPIST: Of course!

CLIENT: Yeah it came out really well. It was awesome. Kelly was like "That's so cool, give me one!"

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: I was like...I felt a little douchey saying like "Brian, I'm a writer, musician." She's like "Well but that's what you are!" (laughs)

THERAPIST: There's the old voice. [00:45:01]

CLIENT: That's the thing though, but I did it.

THERAPIST: It's not so douchey that you didn't do it?

CLIENT: Exactly. I was like "That's fucking cool man." (pause)

THERAPIST: You keep covering your mouth and nose?

CLIENT: It feels cozy.

THERAPIST: I was wondering that because you didn't say you were sick. The way you were...

CLIENT: Oh, no, no, no. I'm not sick.

THERAPIST: I've never seen you do that before.

CLIENT: No, just usually when I wear scarves it just feels kind of comforting, especially if you have a little bit of a headache. It just feels like...cozy. I'm not really sleepy but just getting woken up like at 4:30 or 5 has been a little bit...just tiring a little bit. (pause) Oh and my friend Stephen is hooking up with some...I didn't have time to process this but he sent me a text of some small non-profit something or other, so he's like "They want you to do the grant writing if you could maybe do it pro bono or something like that." So I don't know. [00:46:25]

THERAPIST: As a first experience to build your resume?

CLIENT: Mm hm.

THERAPIST: That's great. (pause)

CLIENT: He was really cool. He was like "I told them to come to your reading so they could meet you." It was nice. (pause)

THERAPIST: To be continued tomorrow?

CLIENT: 12:50?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Cool.

THERAPIST: Have fun tonight.

CLIENT: Thank you so much Tricia, thank you. Take care.

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