TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: What's up? (pause) It's nice out.
THERAPIST: At last.
(pause)
CLIENT: So I've been feeling a little more steady. (pause) So that's nice. (pause) Pretty much the same as I felt last time. I feel pretty (pause)...a little more (pause) self-aware. (pause) I don't feel so conflicted anymore about the Kelly (sp) thing kind of. I just feel like whatever, we see each other once or twice a week. We get kind of indirectly how to talk. It doesn't seem like she ever wants to get married again. And we both (pause) don't feel so great about just living with someone, (pause) which from her end that's a little...so I don't know what that means. (chuckle) But I think basically she's trying to say that maybe she would maybe marry again one day but not just like shack up with somebody. And I don't really want that either. (pause) So I don't know, I guess we're in this kind of interesting... [00:01:33]
And then it was her idea, she's like, "Yeah it would be really cool if we shared an artist studio. That way the things that we care most about, we could be together and working on stuff." (pause) So yeah anyway, it's not really bothering me one way or the other anymore. (pause) And I still don't feel guilty about fooling around or whatever. I just kind of don't really care.
(pause)
THERAPIST: I think you're in this place where it's just confusing right now of what's going on. [00:02:22]
CLIENT: (chuckle) Yeah it is, yeah. Have you seen that new show "Rectify?"
THERAPIST: No, is it good?
CLIENT: It's good. Yeah, it's really good. But I kind of feel (chuckle) like that dude, literally getting out of prison after many, many, many, many years and just like, "What?" It's like...yeah. (pause) I mean, I am confused but in a way I'm not. That's the thing. I'm kind of not...I'm just going to date her and see what happens and if I happen to meet someone else I like more or something then that's the way...I don't know, because clearly she's in no rush to...I mean it's a little bit ambiguous not ambiguous but it's kind of like she wants her cake and to eat it too. So doesn't really ever want to get married, doesn't necessarily want to live with anyone, and yet we're in this kind of committed thing that's kind of...I don't know. So I think (pause) it's like we both just decided, "Let's just go with it and see what happens." It's all good for now. So, I don't know. [00:03:30]
(pause)
THERAPIST: I guess what just sounds confusing about that at the end of the day is what that feels like. Is that freeing you up to say, "Okay, I don't care either," and really feel that genuinely that now you can look around more and not feel so guilty about it or is that hurtful in some way?
CLIENT: For some reason it doesn't feel hurtful. I think just because (pause) again I'm at that place now where that wouldn't hurt me. I just feel like, "Eh, she's probably being smart." (chuckle) She was married forever and obviously that went really badly so she's almost like teaching me. Yeah, she loves her job, she loves where she is and everything is in its right place right now so why should we meddle with something that's...?
(pause)
I don't think this is the kind of thing or maybe it can, I don't know like maybe this is a very mature...like two artists who have priorities in their art who just want to hang out together and have this relationship. Maybe that's what it's going to be. Maybe that's fine, I don't know. But I guess what I'm saying is for right now I just kind of...like if it plays out in a way that keeps going, great. Like I just feel like now again...now that things are a little more...marriage has come up and I don't know, does she want to have kids again? That kind of sounds like she doesn't although maybe she might. Like it's all very ambiguous so I'd rather just, yeah, we'll just organically play itself out. I don't feel... (pause) I don't feel over-invested in it so I'm waiting for her to decide what's going to happen. [00:05:32]
(pause)
But I would say the thing that's still bumming me out is I'm still not (pause)...I'm still in this place of being hard on myself about not being as productive as I want to be and all that stuff. And that (pause) is kind of like, "I give up." I don't know what to do about that anymore. This is the most content I've ever felt and yet I still can't seem to just sit down and...so I just don't know.
THERAPIST: When you say, "I still can't," you haven't been saying that for quite some time.
CLIENT: I haven't? No, I think it's been because I've been waiting to see how this is going to play out and also being a little less hard on myself but, I don't know, the other day...I don't know. It is bothering me a little bit.
THERAPIST: Like it's coming back in other words? Fill me in. [00:06:37]
CLIENT: No, it's all been the same. I haven't been kind of the productive...but what I'm saying is the last whatever period of time I've just kind of laid off. I'm like, "You know what, yeah if I want to sleep till two, I'm going to sleep till two. I'm going to try to just go with it." But now it's getting to the point where I just don't get this part of me. I don't understand it.
THERAPIST: Just so I understand, when you say the last period has been like this, you mean like two weeks?
CLIENT: Something like that. Well no, I mean it's been like that the whole time.
THERAPIST: Has it?
CLIENT: Yeah! Yeah, I'm not really getting that much writing done. I'm not really...bits and pieces here and there. Musically, yeah, I guess that's pretty productive but the other stuff really hasn't been.
THERAPIST: So you're talking about writing? In other words you've come in here many days over the last three months saying, "I'm doing so much. I'm top of so many things. I consolidated my loans. I'm writing new music." [00:07:33]
CLIENT: Well yeah, that's all true and the music is true but the writing isn't true. I mean yeah, I'm kind of doing that writing workshop with that friend of mine so there's some movement but no, it's just not...I just don't know what's going on. It's just not happening. I went to Starsucks (ph) yesterday and just sat there, just like checking e-mail every second or whatever. I'd open the file, I looked at it, whatever but I just wasn't feeling it. I don't know.
But I don't even get other things, for example why, if I feel so content or more content, why am I not excited to get up early in the...usually I would hate getting up early because I hate going to work right? I don't have to. Do you know what I mean? I find that odd about myself. Why don't I just get up with the sun or whatever, enjoy the morning, no one's pressuring me to do anything, I'm at home, I can sit down and do some writing, have a coffee. You know what I mean? I don't know what that's all about. I don't know why I start my day so late...I mean yeah I get it, I sleep later. Fine, but okay even if I wake up at 11, when I wake up why aren't I like, "Okay, this is great! This is awesome! I got to sleep. I don't have to get up early. Now I can go and crank out some pages." You know what I mean? I don't feel like this...that's really eating away at me. [00:08:58]
Like I'm not relishing, do you know what I mean? Like, "Oh this is so awesome! I can just write like no one's bothering me!" That's really bumming me out. I don't understand that. And I was telling a friend, "Now it's really bumming me out," because I'm like, well it's not ADHD (pause) and I even tried not being hard on myself for a while. I don't know how else to trick myself into being just a little more self-disciplined.
(pause) I'm not calling myself lazy but I just don't get it anymore. I don't understand what this...the only thing I can think is maybe yeah, I feel content but maybe there's still a lot of emotional blockage or there's something psychically blocking me.
THERAPIST: You think so? [00:09:57]
CLIENT: Because there's no other explanation. It doesn't make any fucking sense.
THERAPIST: You know also it's (pause) gotten stronger again. It wasn't this way for a little while.
CLIENT: What wasn't this way?
THERAPIST: The feeling of being blocked.
CLIENT: Well it wasn't but that was only because I was making effort to not feel this way. I was still doing nothing but I was trying to be a little less hard on myself about doing nothing. Do you know what I mean? I was like, "Well I'm doing the music, I consolidated the loans, I'm paying my bills, I'm paying my taxes." So I was like, "Yeah, let me write that out." Yeah I'm not writing a novel right now. I'm not writing my book of poems but I was trying to not (pause) beat myself up a little bit. I was like, "Alright, I just want to sleep (pause) until two and just watch Netflix."
THERAPIST: But see we're having very different senses of what's happened.
CLIENT: Oh okay.
THERAPIST: So that's what I'm trying to still clarify. Maybe there were things happening that you weren't telling me about and now you're just telling me for the first time. You came in here a number of times saying, "I just wrote a poem today. I gave this talk. It went well. I'm going to do an anthology. I've been in touch." I mean so there was a period where there was forward movement. [00:11:18]
CLIENT: Yeah but a lot of that was up here. What was the concrete stuff? The concrete stuff was I gave the talk. I kind of wrote a poem. I did get in touch about the anthology, but that's all that's happened. (pause) You know what I'm saying? It's all...
THERAPIST: So maybe you've been talking about putting your best foot forward and not so much about feeling as if all the other times it feels like you can't do that? Reporting that it's going well and not that it's not going well for a little while.
CLIENT: Kind of, I guess. I don't know. Yeah I guess I just wasn't bringing...like I said I wasn't bringing it up because it wasn't bothering me. I wasn't being so hard on myself so I was like, "Okay, let's just see what happens." But yeah in terms of concrete stuff other than music, yeah...I don't know. [00:12:11]
(pause)
It's like chipping away at a big iceberg. Yeah the talk was great and I sent out a bunch of poems to magazines and all that so there's been some movement and that's all great. I'm not...that is good. But I really don't think it's too much to ask, especially when I'm not forcing...it's like I just want to force myself to write a novel. I've got a plot. I've got a clear idea. I know I'm a good writer. So like I just...it's baffling. Why can I not, just for half an hour, focus? I just can't. I've tried the prompts, I've tried everything...an alarm, I don't know. It's just, it's really... (pause) it's getting old. I don't understand why I'm not excited. Like it shouldn't be a chore, like, "Ugh, I've got to write for half an hour." Do you know what I mean? It's the opposite. It's all backwards. It should be like, "I'm so excited!" No one's holding a gun to my head and I don't have to be in a shitty school teaching a bunch of idiots. I can just chill and read my book and just write a little bit. That's really weird to me, really weird.
(silence from 00:13:33 to 00:13:51)
THERAPIST: The idea that the two sides of the fuse (pause) are running together again and there's all this energy and production happening, it sounds like that doesn't feel real now that that was happening. You're saying no...remember we talked....
CLIENT: No it was all real but what I'm saying is they're not mutually exclusive. That was all real but then there's also the fact that there's something odd about it doesn't even have to be every day but there's something odd about at least most days not sitting down and just relishing and enjoying the process of writing. It's weird! That's really weird! No one's forcing me. There's no deadline. No one's...I have all this wonderful time. It doesn't make any sense.
And all that other stuff is true, I have been productive in those other ways but this is kind of the most important way, in a way. Do you know what I mean? I mean like yeah, that talk was great but all that talk, all that setting up poems, talking to Jason, that's all kind of predicated on continuing to produce. [00:15:02]
THERAPIST: So maybe it feels more like there's this surge where you're doing some things but you haven't been able to keep going. It's like a little bit of something...
CLIENT: Well no, I just feel like there are two...I'm still able to do...for example, I just sent an e-mail to the school in Assyria, to the Dean of Humanity. I was like, "Look, you guys are doing a lot of English language stuff but you don't have a lit thing going. I was thinking maybe I would like to come out there as like a visiting professor or whatever, maybe for a semester." So that's something. I'm doing stuff, you know? But again that stuff (pause) now I'm able to do. I'm able to send out poems to magazines but I'm not able to every day...
THERAPIST: The writing.
CLIENT: Yeah, the solitary...
THERAPIST: The actual act of writing.
CLIENT: Yeah, that's it.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: The solitary work of just putting one word after another. (pause) And that's kind of not (pause)...I'm trying not to beat myself up about it but it's just kind of not acceptable anymore because I just feel like a chump. It's like, "Wait a minute dude, (pause) you've got this amazing...you're so lucky right now with this job. Come on." And everything else is pretty... (pause) I don't have the chaos in my mind that I had some years ago. Do you know what I mean? There's just no...it's not acceptable man. It's not cool but I can't put my finger on what it is. Do you know what I mean? [00:16:42]
(pause)
THERAPIST: Maybe you're scared.
CLIENT: Yeah, maybe I'm scared. Maybe on some deep level I feel like if my writing caught up to how I feel about music then maybe I'll really be out there in the world, you know? (pause) Yeah, maybe like I can't handle it? I don't know. I'll be out of this comfort zone of whatever this is.
(silence from 00:17:19 to 00:17:35)
THERAPIST: I think there is something (pause) potentially bigger going on that has to do with where things are here too that can play out also in writing, not writing, finding momentum and then losing it, is like being scared in a way. I just keep thinking it feels to me like there's been a shift in you in the last two weeks and we've talked about you're finding these feelings of (pause) becoming aware that you might need this space, need me, rely on this, count on this, and that's scary. Like what if something happened to me is just one idea and then the marathon bombings happen and this manhunt that's in your backyard happened where literally things are happening that are totally out of control where someone could die at any second as if literally concrete die. Forget all of the other forms of metaphorical loss. [00:18:42]
CLIENT: Well and someone did, even though he was an asshole but still, that's crazy that someone...
THERAPIST: Several people died last week...
CLIENT: Yeah, I just mean about the backyard thing. That not only could they die but they did right down the street.
THERAPIST: Yes! (pause) So it's hard for me to imagine right on the heels of your...just the anxiety about feeling dependent or the impermanence of things that got stirred with your father's death and then this happens last week, that just has got to be shaking you up in some way about some...wait, why get too attached to things and people and go back to my old familiar ways, sleep with someone else last week, go back to the mainland instead of the island where you could actually maybe find what you want and need all in one place, you're dream? I just think there's a lot that's been happening that's really...you feel more depressed right now like you're back into kind of, "What's the point?" [00:19:51]
CLIENT: Really?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: See, I don't feel that way. That's weird. I don't feel that way.
THERAPIST: Maybe not depressed. That may not be the right word but it just feels like something...a sadness.
CLIENT: Well I've been melancholy...but that's the thing, it's really just this one thing. I feel melancholy about this one fact that (pause)...I mean all this stuff you said [was troubling me] (ph) I was really down but I feel like, "Wow! I got through it, no Ativan, fucking awesome!" Shitty, lots of things were stirred, that's all absolutely true, but I'm just saying that somehow here I am and I'm doing stuff and I go do my errands and I pay the bills. There's something odd about (pause) why am I not even writing about that, let's say. That's where I cannot...you know that whole thing I was saying about reconnecting the wire back to like my 17 year old self? That's one thing that hasn't been connected. That kid would be up at like three in the morning writing an essay, two to whatever in the afternoon just scribbling, writing essays. Like, "What?" So that's... [00:21:14]
THERAPIST: So why does that part remain stagnant (ph)?
CLIENT: Exactly, and it can't be...I thought well maybe I'm not really a writer or maybe I'm just not feeling...but that's not true. It's just not. Number one because it's a proven fact that I can finish a book and get it published, all that stuff. But mostly because I just...the few things that I know about myself are that I'm a really good writer and a good songwriter. (pause) So yeah, I just don't get it. I don't understand why. I don't have the same (pause) relish, like I don't dive into it. And it's almost feeling like it's another chore. Do you know what I mean? Like it's all backwards like as if it's some kind of (pause) shitty job that I keep putting off or like a school paper that I keep putting off when it should be just fun. [00:22:14]
(pause)
THERAPIST: Should it be? I've heard a writer say it's a chore.
CLIENT: Yeah, it's like pulling your hair out but I'm saying is though... (pause) but you still do it. You know what I mean? (pause) It's a tortuously enjoyable thing kind of. Do you know what I mean? It's like pulling teeth, no question, but what I'm saying is you can't do it for half an hour? (chuckle)
(pause)
THERAPIST: So why not?
CLIENT: Like I said I don't know. I think it's still some kind of emotional, psychic...something's going on that's not unplugged, not unclogged. (pause) And I think I'm just trying to speed it up. I think it's going to happen but I don't want to be 50 and start suddenly working on a novel. I've been trying to do this for years now.
(silence from 00:23:26 to 00:23:41)
And like with the apartment, I'm on top of it, I've been showing it. I can't think of things where I'm putting things off like the way I used to. Do you know what I mean?
THERAPIST: I think that's what does persist as being so different is you're keeping up with it it's not...last week didn't affect your function?
CLIENT: No, even for example I paid my credit card. I paid it a little late so of course they tacked on the fee right? I think in the past I would have kind of let that eat away at me and felt stupid like I was fucking late and of course I got a late fee. And let that little thing eat away and make me feel like an ass or something. Instead I just wrote them an e-mail and I said, "This stuff went down in my backyard. It was kind of a crazy week. I was just like a day late. There was some mitigating circumstance...I really hope..." and that was it. They took the charge off. Like that's a little thing but for me that's a big deal. [00:24:46]
THERAPIST: For sure.
(pause)
CLIENT: So maybe one part of it is that's why maybe for a while I wasn't be sort of bringing up it here. Maybe something in me is telling me that (pause) it's going to happen. I am going to write these things but it's just this process of...you know, getting more unstuck. Because I don't know what else it is. (pause) I think it would be too easy to just say I'm just lazy. That's just not the case.
(pause)
THERAPIST: This process of discovering more feels so scary.
(silence from 00:25:43 to 00:26:02)
CLIENT: I mean I'm even like (pause) my uncle was over yesterday. We were talking and...remember I've been saying that it drives me crazy that (pause) I'm so tired of being stressed about money, this and that, especially when we're not really poor. We live like we're lower middle class but we're not. So I think now, I don't know, like there's going to be a little coup in a sense that I think I just need to take charge of the situation whether...my uncle was over yesterday and we were talking and I was like, "Wait a minute! We could get a condo at our house, which is what a lot of people are doing, three fucking condos. You're talking a million dollars almost! Are you kidding me? We have a mortgage but it's not huge compared to what we would make. Pay that off, get my mom a little condo, something that she likes, be done with that so she is set you know? But then buy another property, start using money to make money, not just tie it up in this house that is just sitting there. So I think my uncle knows how frustrated I am about it so he's trying to give ideas about what we can do and...this is ridiculous. I know that's not a lot of money to other people but it's a lot! I'd be comfortable. And I'd be in control, like, "Okay, buy a house, flip it, whatever. I have my uncle, I have all these people that know how to do all this shit. I know how to do it. All of the mechanisms are there for us to not be in this situation. So I think there has to be, not a coup, but basically I need to get the ball rolling and then be like, "Look Mom this is what's happening. I'm selling the downstairs and then my unit. You stay here. You don't have to move until we get something that you like, that is comfortable for you. Move straight from here into the condo, done." Then I saw this one and I buy something else. Or whatever, finding some way to tap into that equity, keep this house and buy another....whatever, but it's just got to happen. Enough is enough. [00:28:41]
THERAPIST: Your mother's in the way.
CLIENT: Yeah, big time! Yesterday I told my uncle, I was like, "I'm really sick of this. I could have done so many things by now. But I can't when someone keeps being wishy-washy and going back and forth and getting in your way and fighting you on things. Like one minute she wants to then the next minute she doesn't want to, then she's scared, then she's worried that some girl is going to swoop in and take I don't know what, take over the house. You know what I mean? Illogical, crazy...some of it not illogical you know, what if we sell everything and somehow it gets squandered or whatever. I understand that but (pause) it's not going to get squandered. Even if I squandered what I have, you're going to be fine. You're going to have a condo that's all paid for, done. So I don't know what...which is equity, right? So your money is there so she just needs to deal with it.
She's a healthy woman. I want her to be long for a long time but I can't wait (chuckle) until she's such an invalid that then I'm taking...you know what I mean? That's not fair. So anyway, but even that makes me feel good in a way. Like now it doesn't sound like
just words. It sounds like a plan of action.
(silence from 00:30:08 to 00:30:24)
THERAPIST: Was she in charge of the household?
CLIENT: Yeah. You mean...what do you mean?
THERAPIST: When your dad was here.
CLIENT: Yeah, oh yeah. My dad was old school. He didn't believe in credit cards and shit like that, just cash. It just worked. It's not that he didn't know about any of that stuff but yeah my mom wrote the checks. (pause) My mom has kept this house going. I moved to LA. I couldn't handle anything but you know, I give my mom a lot of credit for that. She's a tough cookie, fucking kept that house moving. (pause) But now there needs to be a...she can't be a hypocrite about it. She wants help. She doesn't want to feel alone. She's worried about money. Well there's a set plan of what to do to alleviate all of that so you can't just keep fighting things and then nothing happens and then you just keep complaining about things. It doesn't work that way. [00:31:26]
(pause)
THERAPIST: Although it probably has worked for some time in her life.
CLIENT: Well it has and it hasn't. She's complaining non-stop.
THERAPIST: That's how she lives. That's where she lives being in control and complaining.
CLIENT: Yeah that space, right.
THERAPIST: Falling (ph) out but then rejecting it.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) Like yesterday she likes to, "Well we really messed up when I had my settlement." And I just stopped and said, "Wait a minute, you've got to stop saying "we." I don't know what in the hell you're talking about. I did everything I could. I took you to meet the president of the bank for Christ's sake. They had a hold meeting, just for you to set up a portfolio for you...That's all you. Don't get me involved in that. Yeah I was in grad school but that was even more of a reason to just lock away some of that money and forget about it or whatever, pay off the mortgage completely, or by another I don't know what. I was like, "That's all you. Don't...whatever you think you squandered, that's not my problem. That's not a "we" issue." And also she didn't really squander it. It's in this house. I mean we fixed up the house. It looks like a doll. It looks beautiful. But I was like, "You could have done other things as well that you didn't do. I don't know what...I couldn't force you to do it." [00:32:57]
Maybe I could of if I...I was also struggling but I took her to meet people, I got her information, I...
THERAPIST: You did a lot.
CLIENT: Yeah man! I even told the people in front of her at the bank, "My mom wants a security." She's like "Oh Lord, that money might disappear." You know, just paranoid...like, "I don't know what to tell you."
(silence from 00:33:23 to 00:33:39)
So I was telling her like, "Be happy! What a wonderful thing! We built up the house, you put money into the house, and it looks fucking beautiful! This shit will sell like that! (snap) You have a shit load of money!" For us a shit load and enough money to...
THERAPIST: That is security.
CLIENT: That's security and to make money. That's the problem. We never...she never thought to use equity to make money. She was just complaining and being scared. But what a wonderful thing, you're still way ahead of the game compared to other people, way ahead! So just shut the fuck up and let's do a couple things while we can, the rates are low. We're in a good position. It's really not rocket science.
Yeah it's a change and it sucks to move but you're not going to lift that piano. (chuckle) You know, it's going to be a couple weeks of craziness but what a wonderful thing. You're going to move into a lovely condo that you've paid for in cash. Who can do that?
THERAPIST: No more mortgage.
CLIENT: No more mortgage! No more snow crap, whatever the fuck, leaking whatevers that you have to pay for.
THERAPIST: She's actually really well placed. I mean maybe (inaudible).
CLIENT: She doesn't understand that it's like she refuses to accept the good position she's in. I just said that. I was like....she somehow thinks other people's situations are better, other families 3 family homes are better. "Well that's a quiet street" Like she always finds a way. It's like are you kidding me? It's... [00:35:29]
So I think that's why I...with my uncle here I was like, "Look, what am I doing? This is never going to end, trying to rationalize it. I've just got to do shit. (pause) Because my mom's the type where she's also not going to (pause)...she's not going to "fight" me fight me. She's just going to complain and whine and blah blah blah. But she is going to see that, "Oh well I guess this does make sense," as it happens. Just like with my music "Oh I'm so proud of him." Once you do shit then suddenly she's on board because she sees that it's not the end of the world or bankers aren't stealing your money from you secretly or whatever the fuck she thinks.
(silence from 00:36:15 to 00:36:27)
THERAPIST: She's so immobilized by your own anxiety and paranoia, fears, and yet if someone else really mobilizes something she'll go along with it but she wants to make sure...
CLIENT: Well the other thing I said to her is I said, "How do you think...all these imagined..."Well they're in a better situation. They did this." It's like, "How the fuck do you think they did any of that? They were in this situation and they took..."
THERAPIST: They took some risks and made some decisions.
CLIENT: I mean, what the fuck! It's bizarre! Like you think they magically...I don't know what she...I really don't get it. I don't know what she thinks but it's constant. (pause) It's crazy. Thank God for my uncle I have to say. Otherwise this would be just a war but she can't really say much when my uncle is so successful and he's her little baby brother so she might kind of fight it a little bit but he makes so much sense that she's like, "Well yes you know, money makes money." (chuckle) No fucking shit! You know, all these things I've said over and over again but when she hears it from him it's a little more...you know.
(silence from 00:37:42 to 00:37:57)
My uncle even told her, he's like, "What do you think we did? All the stuff that we've done..." He's like, "I told him (sp)," his wife, my aunt "I told her that we're either going to do really well or we are fucked." (chuckle) He didn't use that word but you know, that "we would go bankrupt" or something. Because he's like, "I mortgaged everything and I put it into something completely risky. How do you know if your fucking disorder clinic is going to do well? Who the fuck knows? How did you know that this practice...you don't know. But what are you supposed to do? Nothing?"
And that's a huge...we're not even doing that! I mean, he has children. He gambled all of it. There's no gamble here. I'm not going to buy a home here. I'm just going to buy a house like ours. This is not... (pause) It's just unbelievable.
(silence from 00:38:59 to 00:39:14)
She was like, "I feel so bad for him because..." she doesn't talk like that but she's like, "I want him to have his own house. He should have his own...this house is his too. I feel bad that I can't do more for him." And I'm like, "Ma, I don't know what any of that means. There's nothing more to do. That's like that martyr talk, you know what I mean? You've done it. You bought this house (chuckle) with Dad and you worked your assess off and now look at all the things we can do." She's like "I feel bad that I can't pay for him to finish his PhD." No, we can't. I can easily once we do this shit I can easily...it's like 15 grand if I wanted to finish and just pay for another year. There's ways to do all these things where we're not scrambling and be feeling like we're humiliated that we don't have any money or something. Do you know what I mean? It's just (pause) unnecessary stress. [00:40:12]
THERAPIST: Those still sound like little daggers somehow, like the "martyr" statement.
CLIENT: I mean, at this point it's just a joke. It's just hilarious. I was like, "Even for you, don't you feel like taking a vacation or some shit? Wouldn't you like to go to Assyria, back to your neighborhood that's been free since '91...or '90?" People are coming in...all these fucking old geezers are coming and going like it's crossing the street. I was like, "Wouldn't you just like to be able to just not think for a little bit and just fucking put it on your credit card, go visit, and come back, whatever?" These are normal things that middle class and slightly more than that people do. That you could easily do without complaining that, "Oh so and so's mother goes with her all the time." How the fuck do you think she goes? She goes to the money tree and just picks money off a tree? They make decisions that are logical and have common sense in them that involve getting return on their money. That's all.
(silence from 00:41:24 to 00:41:40)
So, I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that some of it is also not my fault, but again this whole waking up process is like, "Wait a minute!" Just like I tell my mom sometimes, I used to say, "No one's holding a gun to your head to be with Grandma all fucking day." No one's holding a gun to my head to not go to the bank and be like, "Look, here's the situation. I've got this house, blah blah blah. Here's all this. All I want to do is buy another house. What are the ways that we can make this happen?" Like, no one's stopping me, you know what I mean? But it's taking ownership as well to be like, "You know what, a 72 year old petite little woman, that's up here. That's not..." My mom's not going to take me to court. That's not where we are. She's just scared. [00:42:34]
(pause)
THERAPIST: In a way her fear has been like a gun to your head.
CLIENT: Big time. Yeah, that is true. That's what I'm saying, this waking up process now where I suddenly see...
THERAPIST: Like finding yourself independent from her anxiety. How could you not be afraid of doing that? That's why she's filled with terror her whole life. That's what you've been taught. That's what you've known and the waking up is saying, "You have a different mind about things at last!" But there has been a gun to your head.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) It was so ironic too because my mom's like, "You know, all the things you went through to (inaudible) the house." And he did. The poor kid did. It must have been hard to be an immigrant, to be the only one in their family that got a little bit more Americanized but to have no money, to really be immigrants. You know what I mean? He worked his ass off for all this stuff. I mean he should be...we're all so proud of him. It's amazing! It's like a real success story and really a self-made, as self-made as you can be. [00:44:00]
But what I told him, I was like, "That's what frustrating. So shouldn't this be so much more..." We don't have to...isn't that great? We don't have to do any of that. We have him. We have our own experiences. We don't have to go...you know what I mean? So there's no point in saying...like I don't know if I'm making sense.
THERAPIST: Yeah I follow you.
CLIENT: She's like, "Oh, you went through all these things and you lost all this money. You bought houses that didn't work." And he did but now we don't have to do that. So (chuckle) I don't know what any of that means! Yeah, all that stuff happened but that's the beauty of that stuff happening now. He can sit here and tell us what to do, what not to do. We have our house so we know what to do and what not. It's just really not...it's not betting on some fucking soy bean future or something like that or going to Foxwoods (ph). [00:44:56]
THERAPIST: But there's a way you can never get it right.
CLIENT: Yeah, from her perspective.
THERAPIST: It's like, "Poor him, let's feel sorry for him because he made all these mistakes."
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Today I was talking to my friend and I suddenly had this analogy. It's like, "You know what it's like dude? It's like, 'Oh man that ice coffee looks good. It's good. But you know what it's cold and that might kind of upset my stomach a little bit but I don't know, I'm thirsty. But oh, the caffeine.'" Every fucking little thing! To the point where the ice melts, the coffee tastes like shit. And then it's like, "Oh, why does the coffee taste like shit?" It's like wow.
THERAPIST: And then look at those people enjoying their iced coffee. "They have iced coffees and we don't."
CLIENT: Exactly! "Their tummies must be stronger, somehow. These Americans, they can handle the coffee." (chuckle) It's fucking absurd! It's like an absurd play or something.
THERAPIST: It is. (pause) Tomorrow?
CLIENT: 12:50?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Okay. Thank you! Enjoy the weather! [00:46:15]
END TRANSCRIPT
