TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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CLIENT: I parked a little far away. I'm a little sick so I didn't walk very quickly. I'm much better but I got really sick Friday, something like a kind of dry cough or something.

THERAPIST: You mom had been sick.

CLIENT: Yes, my mom, everybody has been sick. It's unfucking believable. I tried to resist it as long as I could but it's just going around. I mean luckily I'm the way I felt Friday I said oh I'm fucked. I just felt really shitty but I kind of bounced back quickly so I'm kind of walking it off. But, yes. It definitely did, I mean I think when people get especially when the weather's warm and you have a cold or allergies, you get a little down, do you know what I mean? So I didn't like that. I mean I kind of -

THERAPIST: You get hard on yourself when you have a cold or allergies.

CLIENT: Yes, well I guess so, yes, yes. I think it was because I was I've been going so full steam ahead, which is great but I've been kind of also ignoring or putting on the back burner certain things or just the fact that I'm just kind of pushing myself really hard. So I don't know. So that stuff kind of came up, since I had to slow down and just kind of do nothing. The Kelly thing's kind of depressing me now a little bit.

THERAPIST: How so? [00:02:24]

CLIENT: Well Bethany and I kind of kissed a little bit so that I don't feel awful but I don't feel great either. I just feel like eh, and it's not because, it's not mostly because I feel that oh, that's not right or something. It's not so much that, but that is part of it. It's more that I it almost depressed me. It was like well what is this? So if she were my girlfriend now, I'd still be in the same boat. Right? There's something in me that's not, you know? So I don't know.

So that just kind of bummed me and with Kelly it's bummed me out because now I'm like, not that I'd almost rather not see her, but in a weird you know what I mean? in a weird, I don't know I'm tired and I'd just have my nights to be, to just be mellow. I don't feel like I don't know. It's weird. I just kind of don't know what we're doing in a way. She's told her son about me and this and that and that's great but then she has trouble, she doesn't like the L word. I mean, I don't know. I feel like some things are a little wacky. I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't know. [00:04:16]

THERAPIST: I think you're not sure how intimate it really is at this point.

CLIENT: Yes, kind of. Yes, yes. I've never had a relationship like that where I'm not, it's she's not acting weird but we don't see each other often and somehow it's not yes. I'm not sure what to make of it kind of. Maybe that's really a healthy thing. Maybe I'm not recognizing it because it's really healthy. But, I don't know.

THERAPIST: I also wonder if you're not so sure of what to make of what's inside of you around it either. Do you want more or do you want less?

CLIENT: Yes, right.

THERAPIST: You were in a place of wanting more and then she said she told her son about you. And all the sudden the next week you find yourself wanting less and saying I think I'm going to go see which way they are. Did you get claustrophobic in other words?

CLIENT: Yes. Well I also didn't note that conversation where it's just yes, she said I don't know. I think it's always going to be an issue because I just don't like to talk about emotions or I'm not very forthcoming or whatever. I said well that's I don't know, man. I just don't know. Yes, I think I'm just tired from not knowing. I don't know what to do, I'm not sure what [00:06:03]

THERAPIST: I have a feeling of your, it's almost like simultaneously feeling smothered by whoever her is. She could be needy for you and that could be sort of frightening and causing you away and you could also feel needy for her and want a kind of closeness that you experienced in her saying well I don't know, like that, I don't know if this is going to work. So you're left feeling like you're the one who's sort of like the hot potato. Who is it? And it goes rapidly back and forth who it is. And it's just sort of staying there without no one moving away, but no one's moving that much closer either. And Bethany becomes a thin, safe respite in a way, there's nothing on the outside, there's no strings.

CLIENT: Right, right, right. Yes. Part of me said maybe I should talk to Kelly and explain this process more to her, be like you know, I'm just going through some shit. And I kind of have but I don't know if she gets it kind of because and see this is the thing, when I talk to her sometimes I feel like I have to pull back because I feel like I'm being too do you know what I mean? Like I'm saying too much or I'm divulging too much emotional stuff. I don't know because she's just not that way so I feel like well, then, I feel like I'm blathering or because I was kind of thinking about that too. I said you know this is a big deal what's going on here.

So it does effect, at least for me I think, it's effecting, unless I'm so just fuck*king in love, just like a Samantha-type or Michelle-type or Meredith-type, then I just feel like it's just kind of, it ends up being, it's like going to the gym. It's like well listen I have a gym regiment that I do five times a week and then I'm tired and do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like with Kelly I feel like, especially because there's also distance, that's the other thing. We can't just be like like with Bethany. That's the thing. It's like hey let's have coffee. Boom, and we just have coffee, done. But with Kelly everything's a plan and I think that kind of stresses me out too. I don't know. [00:10:14]

THERAPIST: Like how much would she really want to be there. It's just a plan, you know a planner for the week or something.

CLIENT: No, not so much that. It's just that there's no kind of spontaneity. There can't be okay let's just. It's not like what was it yesterday? It was a nice day right? Yes. Let's just grab, I'll meet you at work for lunch and let's have a nice coffee and walk around a little bit. I don't know, those things are kind of important. I don't want to make that into an excuse but I'm seeing all of these little things are I don't know.

THERAPIST: It feels still like it hovers on the line of you're not so sure if you want more of her or less of her. [00:12:11]

CLIENT: Right. Or of anyone right now unless it's I don't know. I don't know. But it's also that voice saying yes, but if you don't want more of her now it could just be another thing that you're brushing away, thinking that somehow something's different and you know what I mean? I don't fucking know, it's just tiring.

THERAPIST: Well I think that's what you're saying is in some ways it's hard to know yet how you actually feel about Kelly the first time you asked do you want her in your life in the long run one way or not. When if what if this is a dynamic that would play itself out no matter what? Wanting more or less of someone?

CLIENT: What? I don't follow.

THERAPIST: In other words, if it's not Kelly it could be with Bethany. You could use Bethany and this would do you want are you the one wanting more and she wants less or is she the one wanting more and you want less? It always seems to be there's some kind of -

CLIENT: Oh, you mean it's that pattern that's the part and not the person?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Yes, yes, yes. Well that's what I'm saying. That's what's tiring. I'm getting that that's the case. So that's exhausting. Which then but then that's like well but then that can also be liberating in a way. Maybe I need to accept that I just want to date around. But that scares me because what the fuck? I'm not 22. I mean, yes, I mean I do okay dating but one day I'm going to be older obviously. But I don't know. I just don't know. [00:14:08]

THERAPIST: The passing of time then can also be really important. We (ph) want to know who our love is.

CLIENT: I saw my whole family in my dream last night. Even my aunt, my dead aunt, and I think even, I'm not sure my dad was there but and it wasn't really a bad dream or anything but at the end my uncle, who in some ways was like my because last night I quickly went down because the tenants were moving and I wanted to save some things for my mom, and she did that thing that she does sometimes now where she'll go oh my head, I feel dizzy, whatever, and she'll be standing up and she'll be...

So last night in the dream, my uncle, as I was saying goodbye to every person, I said are you okay? He said no, I don't feel good, I'm kind of dizzy, I just don't feel good. I said well you're just stressed. He had a lot going on, just stressed with the new house and things like that. And I said, lastly I said uncle you should take some ativan (ph) or propranolol, just calm you down, whatever. So at the end of the dream I said hey, you know I have some that I carry around with me. Do you want one or two? He said yes. And as I was leaving I blew some kisses to my aunt who passed away. That was interesting.

THERAPIST: On your way out the door?

CLIENT: Passing by their oh it wasn't at their house. I don't know who's house that was but going by the house, I saw her in the house talking to some people that I didn't know. [00:16:20]

THERAPIST: [New results.] (ph)

CLIENT: I mean I think it's I don't know. I mean I think I've been thinking a lot about that stuff obviously so I think that's one. It's all projecting in a way. I mean the stuff I was telling my uncle is really stuff that's about me as well as about him. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Do you remember what you felt in the dream?

CLIENT: Not really.

THERAPIST: [inaudible at 00:17:46] you blew the kisses with?

CLIENT: That was where I said oh, I should say bye I did say bye to her as I was leaving.

THERAPIST: It was kind of casual, kind of good-bye.

CLIENT: Yes, it was kind of yes, yes. The one thing about the kisses, I think I used to do that for her. Yes. I think -

THERAPIST: For her specifically?

CLIENT: Yes. I think so. Or something. It struck a chord.

THERAPIST: It seems familiar. [00:18:11]

CLIENT: It seems familiar, yes. I think I used to do that when I was little.

THERAPIST: There's separation from your family happening in the dream. You said [inaudible at 00:18:46].

CLIENT: Yes, kind of, yes.

THERAPIST: You, with what you know about yourself and your body and your anxiety, trying to help him with something, this outside thing, this ativan is not a part of your family, right? No one else is on the inside loop (ph). [Family community] (ph) on the outside blowing kisses to your aunt? Leaving?

CLIENT: Yes. I think there was also a part where I could overhear them talking, like when I was little but I wasn't in the room or I wasn't I don't know, something like that. (Pause)

THERAPIST: There's been such a tie of maybe an anxiety pulling you to your family, while your family [inaudible at 00:20:20], the way you described for so many years feeling like you just together, together, together, and how different that's been feeling lately as you're separating at least physically some and saying more to your mother in the heat of the moment what you're feeling. But I think it's also scary you're separate, it's lonely. [00:20:50]

CLIENT: Yes, yes, there's probably a lot going on there, definitely. Yes, because I do find myself I have moments where I'll become really sad because Cecelia's going to die someday, which I think all that, I guess pet owners feel that but I think it's got to be related somehow. Even here, for the first time, I mean it's passed my mind before but I let it go. But lately I felt kind of panic almost. I said wow, something could happen and God forbid. I don't know, I just had this bad or even if not, the fact that one day everything ends. So that freaked me out and I think that's all connected.

THERAPIST: If the other side of claustrophobic enmeshment is total abandonment and aloneness, no wonder with Kelly it would be do I want more or do I want less, do I want more or do I want less? Neither one feels good. [00:22:09]

CLIENT: Right, right. Yes. I don't know. I mean maybe there's a tactic I should try that I've never tried before. Somehow trying to express some of this to Kelly, I don't know if that's possible though. I think it would only, I mean if I was dating someone and they started to I don't know maybe that doesn't work.

THERAPIST: You're struggling with being a process.

CLIENT: Yes, just like another sometimes I'm just, I'm getting into {inaudible at 00:23:38] into zone where I'm working shit out and there might be some weeks where I feel more available than other weeks, you know, like there might be some weeks where I just feel like I need to be a be alone, just be more reclusive. But I just feel like that I don't know. It's the truth but I don't know do you want to hear that when you're dating somebody? It does sound, no matter what it sounds a little bit like a rejection. [00:24:28]

THERAPIST: Do you ever feel like here, this space, is too much? Like you feel claustrophobic here?

CLIENT: Not really. I mean there are times but because I'm already feeling high anxiety so that anything's going to feel especially something like this. But no, in general no. No. I mean what I do feel most is I do feel like that kind of outer body, I'm very aware of the process that's happening so that feels kind of strange sometimes but not claustrophobic.

THERAPIST: If anything your more recent feeling's quite the opposite, what if something happened to me?

CLIENT: Yes, right, right. I mean that's the thing. In some ways I'm prioritizing this, which seems a little, I don't know what word to use, I mean I feel like I don't know, whatever's happening here is more important. You know what it's like? It's almost like while I'm here, it's like going to the gym. If you go to the gym all the time, you probably don't also at the same time want to be stuffing yourself with burgers, right? So I've been wondering more, wait a minute, if I'm doing this but then outside of this I've got these confusing situations, I'm almost just recycling the same old I don't know what that means. Don't not don't date? [00:27:00]

No, but I almost do feel like when you do something like this you need to kind of get a little monastic about it. But at least that's what I'm starting to wonder because if I figure some shit out here but then I walk out and willy-nilly just shits, like oh yes I'll take you and I'll figure that out and I'll take that other person out, I'm not sure. Then I'm just coming back here and I don't know. You know what I mean? Like there's a push and pull. There's a whereas if I didn't do any of that, if I was like no, you know what I'm just going to do my work and do this because it's important and just be without being tethered right now to but of course that's not, in a way that's not realistic either because you don't know when things are going to happen. I mean you meet somebody and you meet somebody. I don't know. I don't fuck*king know. [00:28:01]

THERAPIST: Even Freud said tell your patients not to make any major life decisions during the course of the analysis. That there's it sounds in a way that you're describing, there's so much change happening. How in a way just think about just being in a relationship with someone right now having progressed you don't know which pathway it will progress on right now. It could, if we stopped right now, be this way but with a little more work it could be this way. Or it could be not that person but another person who feels it's a healthier, more fulfilling relationship. There's a lot in flux about what you could feel about another person even. Not that in reality many people have to make life decisions, when they make life decisions things, life happens. But I think you're speaking to some of that. Almost period or a part of you wants to put some of that on hold until you can figure some more out. But then you come up to time. Or maybe to your value this is too important.

CLIENT: What's that?

THERAPIST: Do you ever feel worried it's too important?

CLIENT: What's too important?

THERAPIST: This.

CLIENT: Worried that it's too important? No. Why worry about that?

THERAPIST: I just now remember you saying when we started the process that was one of your fears, that somehow would start putting this, prioritizing this over life or something.

CLIENT: Really? Did I say that?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Oh. I think what I probably meant was that at the time I think my worry, I think a lot of people's worries, about this kind of thing is that it can just go on forever and there's really no you realize more and more that there's really no answers per se. It's just one big fuck*king process and it's a lot of work and it's not, there's no guarantees, there's no quick fix, there's no, you know what I mean? So I think that's what I was saying, that the worry that it could drag on and on and on and that maybe I wouldn't be that different in the end. [00:30:36]

But I think what I'm seeing here is if you decide to do it three times a week whatever, four times a week, then maybe it is a little bit like signing up for the service. There's got to be a period of it's not above work but in terms of just dating or whatever, that's got to be a little more that's a grayer area.

THERAPIST: Yes, maybe the fear that you were referring to then was about would this trump work and you didn't want it to be that this became more important than even getting the job done, which is so clearly not happening. Do you know what I mean?

CLIENT: Right. What kind of work?

THERAPIST: Remember how stuck you were feeling in work?

CLIENT: Oh, oh, oh, yes, yes.

THERAPIST: There was something of would this become just another thing that would pull me away from getting done what you wanted to get done? And in fact quite the opposite has happened. So maybe relationships in a way feel like it's a different part of experience.

CLIENT: Stuckness yes. Yes I mean in a way relationships are the last place, territory, where I'm so stuck. I mean everything else is kind of moving, kind of, there's some movement. But I don't know. [00:32:12]

THERAPIST: Maybe there's a way you're saying do other relationships right now become a kind of, almost pull you away from being more here -

CLIENT: That's what I mean.

THERAPIST: you say it as a circle -

CLIENT: Pull me away and also just cause different tensions and unnecessary static kind of. I mean it sounds kind of harsh but maybe it should be more like shore leave. If I just want to hook up with a chick I hook but that's a very clear different objective. There is no planning and did she say she loves me or I said I love her, are we monogamist or are we a whole relationship thing because if I don't know what I want yet, fuck*k, I don't fuck*king know. I just don't know. So a lot of it has to do with the fear of like you said just time passing because well yes, but that's how can I know when, you know what I mean? I mean this could go on five year, okay now I know the kind of person I want to be with. Well, okay but now I have to it's a different, I'm different, I'm older and I don't know. That's why I'm saying maybe it is a good thing to maybe talk to Kelly about because even her reaction might tell me if it's, if this you know what I mean? I don't know. [00:34:19]

THERAPIST: Right. That's the other way beyond putting it on total hold is living it and seeing what you feel every step of the way. That's something you can bring here and say this was hurtful, this felt sad, this made me feel claustrophobic -

CLIENT: Wait, what?

THERAPIST: Being yourself in the relationship, what you're describing in talking to her. That feels like where you are and what feels important and then how she responds gives you information.

CLIENT: Yes, if I just want to look. You know, this thing's taken a lot out of me. It's great but it's a lot.

THERAPIST: So now that we've asked you what you're seeing, is can you be yourself and will she love you as yourself, if that's what your self wants to tell her? You weren't loved for yourself as a child over and over and over and over again. I think there's a part of you that's desperately longing, yearning for a relationship where that could actually happen, but I think there's another part that is as attached to the ways it did happen, where you end up feeling rejected or beneath or the playing out of that scenario over and over again. There's an adhesion to that as the way love works where there are people who are beneath and people who are superior in the story. Not equal people with mutual loving. You okay? [00:37:21]

CLIENT: Yes. I'm just so fuck*king tired.

THERAPIST: Tired of this, too.

CLIENT: Yes, I just feel tired of there's just the actual thing of being sick when it's nice out and cold medicine and all that shit. But yes, I'm just tired of this, I'm broke, it's just stuff. And it's funny because it's good that I'm not, I don't get the way I used to get about it because I know that it's okay, these things happen to a lot of people. Overall things are good. But in that moment it can be pretty tiring when it's all, everything all at the same time. [00:38:13]

THERAPIST: Yes, just because you don't feel like the world is against you doesn't mean it's not exhausting. It's exhausting.

CLIENT: Probably why I've been sleeping a lot more. And I've also been sick and the medicine makes you sleep more but I think my body is just decompressed when it gets into sleep. It's just like oh my God, just need to just check out for a little while.

THERAPIST: Is it strange for you to hear me say that I think that's healthy?

CLIENT: It's been feeling healthy I got to say. Yes, I wake up feeling like it just feels really good to be sleeping.

THERAPIST: Roger you've been going, going, going. The rush of new connections and new motivations, you've had to be exhausting yourself. Actually being tired is a good body signal telling you to slow down and get some rest. You haven't had a lot of rest before, for good reasons, good things happening, but. Get some more rest. See you tomorrow.

CLIENT: Twelve-fifty? Okay. Take care. See you later. [00:40:31]

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