TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Claire, [ph] can you wait on that? Like, I mean it’s already the holidays.

THERAPIST: Sure. I actually was going to ask you, because I haven’t deposited, maybe, about, I think, four checks.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: So I went to do it yesterday, and I realized I probably should ask you.

CLIENT: Oh, that’s so thank you so much. I appreciate it. Is there if I mean if there’s any way you could like split them up somehow.

THERAPIST: Sure, absolutely.

CLIENT: Yeah, like deposit like two sometime next week and then another two the week after.

THERAPIST: Next week after what time, do you know?

CLIENT: Oh, after anytime after Tuesday.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry.

THERAPIST: That’s okay.

CLIENT: But thank you for thinking of me.

THERAPIST: So a week makes a big difference, some really nice changes. So that was a bit of a rock bottom last week I think. But some good things came out of it. [00:01:01.22] My mom I gotta give my mom a lot of credit on this one. I think she sees she gets it, that I think she gets what I’m trying to do in terms of making like a bigger change for myself or whatever. So she called me down, obviously I was just like hibernating, like I wasn’t going down there because I was just not in the mood or whatever. Called me down, said, I have an idea. So I go down there and she sits me down. She goes she’s like, I was thinking, why don’t we just condo the second and third floor as one condo. She’s like then we could get a lot for that. And then we’d pay off the mortgage, I’d just move downstairs so I don’t really because she doesn’t want to move right from there. She’s like it’s really the same thing. I’ll just move downstairs and that way it’s even easier for me to get in and out with groceries and this and that.

CLIENT: Sorry, just so I follow, condo the second...

THERAPIST: We’re a three family; it’s a three family.

CLIENT: Condo them to separate units.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Because it’s a three family, with one of those like attic apartments. [00:02:01.23] My unit is like a nice one bedroom. So there are people in Cheshire or other places who are turning those into like nice big condos, bedrooms upstairs for the kids or...

CLIENT: So make it all one unit.

THERAPIST: All one unit.

CLIENT: Okay. And you’d move down...

THERAPIST: Well for a while I’d have to live with her on the first floor until but her thing was like can we pay off the mortgage. Then there’d be money left over, then you could go buy a condo or whatever, and I wouldn’t have a mortgage. You’d be able to do buy something else. We’d still have one unit equity and blah, blah, blah. That was very nice, and I thought about it, but then like two days later I was like wait a minute, why would we I went back downstairs; I was like what? I was like if you’re okay with that then let’s just sell the third floor unit. I was like let’s just sell that for like it would basically just pay off the mortgage, right. I was like we wouldn’t have a mortgage, and we’d have two units. We’d have we’d have a two family. [00:03:02.16] And you could still live here, live downstairs, do whatever you want. I mean I’d have to kind of stay with her for a little bit to figure out what’s what, but then you’d have two family equity. It’s all now equity, no mortgage. So now that other rental now is just income. That’s like 22 grand a year. So that’s what we’re going to do. So that’s and I can tell with her if she’s not she’s on board, like I can tell.

THERAPIST: She means it.

CLIENT: Yeah, she means it. Yeah. And she liked my idea even better because she doesn’t want to lose the house, like she doesn’t want to so at least having two units is most of the house. So I don’t know, that’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to try to start fixing I’m going to do my research, and then it needs to be fixed up a little bit. And I don’t want them to lowball us because they have work to do on it or whatever. [00:04:01.20] But yeah, and in a way it’s very simple. That doesn’t mean we have tons of cash on hand, but in a way we do. Then all that equity is simply equity. It’s not you know what I mean? Banks will give you money a lot easier, and you have income. That rental income isn’t going to your mortgage; it’s going into your bank. Plus, one way or the other I’m going to be doing something work wise by summer or whatever. So I just gotta be more patient.

But that was, I think, the big lesson, anyway, with this whole thing. I think it was like rock bottom of just losing my job and being frustrated with a lot of things. So I think it was kind of like the the other upswing was talking to my friend Olive and my friend Lily. [00:05:01.00] I while this was happening with actually it was maybe before with my mom, before we made this decision. I don’t know. But it was right around that day or whatever. It was like 10 o’clock at night. I was just at home. You know how I am. Like I’ll I feel like I gotta get out of the house for a little bit. If I came home like late in the afternoon, it’s getting dark early, and I’m just so I’ll just go for a drive or something like that. So I went to the market to pick up some things, and I was talking to my friend Olive. It was just a really good conversation. And she was like dude, like she helped me realize things just like here, right, like then I get it. Like then it finally absorbs. I was like yeah, I was like I am really hard on my I gotta like now I’m really starting to get it, how hard I am on myself kind of. Because we were talking, she was like dude, I mean she said, you haven’t really been unemployed that long. She’s like times are tough. [00:06:01.23] It was June, the end of May, so she’s like okay, yeah, it’s shitty, but you have your unemployment, and you can’t just take any job because then you won’t have your unemployment. So if you yeah, if I temp or if I work at a coffee shop or and I’m not I don’t want to do those things anyway, but that’s the other problem, is that if I took some even an editing job, if I I have to report. If you get found out then you’re really fucked. So if you report that well this week I made $250, they have all these fucking things about well then we can’t give you unemployment this week. You have to reapply. So she was like dude, just, you’ve never even had unemployment before. Just fucking take it. You’re somehow getting by, right? You’re getting by. So that was that. And then the other thing she helped me with, which I’ve also been thinking about, is that she’s like dude and like don’t give up on your business exactly or don’t like she’s like just don’t give up on anything you’re doing, but don’t just don’t let yourself you just you can’t be that hard on yourself about all these things. [00:07:05.02] She’s like most people try to do one thing and they can’t get it done. She’s like you’re doing a million things and you’re kind of getting them done. Kind of yeah, it’s not perfect and it may take longer or this or that, or it’s not exactly the way you want it, but she’s like it’s still a lot more than pretty much anyone that I know does. So I don’t what it was. It was all these conversations or whatever, but I ended up now I’m ready. I started I just sat down and I’m like writing kind of like a memoir thing. And it’s like coming out, like and it’s coming out kind of like effortlessly, which is weird.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah. I even like had a good op I didn’t even it was weird. I even had an opening, just like it was weird. It’s like it’s what I always say, like it’s percolating. And...

THERAPIST: When it opens, it opens. [00:08:01.00]

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: But you’ve been working on it.

CLIENT: Yup. Yup. So it’s basically going to be about this idea that I always talk about, of like how when I look back on my past I kind of don’t see myself, I don’t recognize that person, and how strange that is. And like I always describe it as just beige or like this fog or whatever. So it’s kind of about it starts with the moment I realized that that was the case. Like when I was like 30 or whatever. I was at a New Year’s Eve party and someone asked me, oh, you they’re like I didn’t even know you lived in San Francisco. The fact that people don’t even know, like not that I should be telling people everything, but they just don’t know certain things about my life. And then when this guy asked me, he was like what was it like or what I it was that was one of those moments where I literally didn’t know what it was like. Like I had flashes of memories of me in San Francisco, but I couldn’t connect to those. That is weird, right? [00:09:04.03]

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Okay. What is that that’s because of PTSD or some form of PTSD? Or some kind of...

THERAPIST: Something along those lines.

CLIENT: Because that’s not usual, right, because you should be able to look back even when you’re 15 and that’s you. Like you feel a right? Okay, so that is weird. Okay. But anyway, so then I start writing about like that, like what is that and so I don’t know what’s going to become of it, but it’s coming out. So so that’s good.

THERAPIST: Really exciting.

CLIENT: Yeah, that’s good. I mean we’ll see what I don’t want to get over excited about it, but the fact that it’s already coming out pretty I’m not overthinking it, I’m just writing it. I’m just writing my story.

THERAPIST: But even the idea there’s a coherence to what you’re describing you want to write about [inaudible] and never told me about about this the idea of [inaudible] particular aspect [inaudible]. [00:10:00.21]

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, because I feel like that ties into everything, right. It ties in with me being bicultural. It ties in with the PTSD. It ties in with anxiety disorder, questions about like identity and who you really are versus who people think you should be. And it’s like a cluster fuck of epic proportions. So I feel like that idea ties into all those things that sometimes you I mean I have a tentative title that’s just I can’t tell where I’ve been. Because that pretty much sums it up to me. Like I can’t I can’t articulate or even understand the things I’ve gone through. Like I can’t locate myself. So yeah.

THERAPIST: A self that is so divided and parts [inaudible] from each other. [00:11:03.07] But it because it’s about identity, culturally also [inaudible] solidify [inaudible] broken up into pieces. There’s a story about [inaudible]

CLIENT: Which that’s why even the narrative, it’s going to be that way. It can’t be some kind of it’s going to be a broken, fragmented narrative because I can’t write it any other way. I just can’t. There’s just too much in my head, you know what I mean? I have bizarre memories that just don’t you know what I mean? You can’t be a kid who already has these fucked up whatever issues you have unlike the Little League soccer team in North Carolina, but then have your mom telling you stories about how their fucking house in Assyria was just a dirt floor and there were wolves that would scratch at the door sometimes at night and she remembers giving like rotten bread to POWs. [00:12:13.13] That’s just you know what I mean? You can’t just write some kind of that doesn’t make any fucking sense. So but it’s I think it’s gotta be told. I think now it’s just coming out. But part of it, too, is that just I think it may be coming once I stopped it’s not like I feel great, but once I took a step back and stopped just fucking whipping myself, it’s coming out more. So yeah, no, my friend Olive and me, we’ve both always been good. I mean it goes both ways. I think we just somehow connect on these deeper issues of I don’t know what, like just we’re all very different but just struggling to be ourselves or whatever, or balancing. They’re more plugged into the just workaday world. [00:13:21.05] But they hate it, they know that it’s all bullshit, like there’s somewhere we really connect on a lot of these things. But yeah, it just made me feel good. And also she they’re both so like Olive was like dude, you do you understand how talented you are. She was like do you understand all of the things that you’re capable of doing, and doing well. She’s like you’re not half assed. You’re not it’s not a hobby. Like she really like they’re really just I appreciate that. It’s like you just need to hear that from people sometimes in a genuine they mean it. They’re not trying to just make you feel better. [00:14:00.29]

[pause]

THERAPIST: I wonder if [inaudible] our conversation on Thursday as you were talking about these conversations.

CLIENT: Well the only thing that stayed with me was I was exhausted. I was like wow, I’m like this is rock bottom, which is why I went to the symphony the next day. I went yesterday, too, actually. Yeah, I was just like, you know what, I gotta and I’ve been feeling like shitty. I thought I had a cold, but now I think it’s allergies. I don’t know what but like I just I kind ofI haven’t been feeling so great, like a weird dry throat or something, like a dry cough. So I was like, you know what, I yeah it was a rock bottom definitely kind of thing. And it still is kind of. [00:15:04.08] I mean I feel really super tense and but I also feel just relieved. Sometimes you gotta just hit the floor.

THERAPIST: I have a feeling that being as much as you call it rock bottom, in a kind of clichéd way there’s something that felt like hitting on another layer of something that was waking up, and I guess you can call it rock bottom but more in the kind of something about the loan not working out felt like coming to terms with a reality of some part of where you are.

CLIENT: Well the reality and also like the I think I just realized that I was feeling that I just feel frustrated and kind of not desperate but just really frustrated. [00:16:07.13] So I was really just trying to so it’s hard. You get your hopes up. You try not to but you do. So that but that was a good lesson, kind of, then all right, listen, I gotta take a step back here, and there are other ways to get this done. I just gotta be patient. I can’t and also realizing that it’s still even this situation is better than a lot of people. That’s what’s crazy. Times are fucking hard. I’m complaining because I have a three-family house. Not complaining but you know what I mean? Like I have a roof over my head that I own, that me and my mother own, this beautiful home. So whatever happens it’s going to somehow work out one way or the other. It’s just going to take longer, a little bit. I mean it’s really not a big deal. So that and then the work thing, yeah, I just I was like dude, I just gotta calm down. [00:17:04.14] You feel guilt. Especially my kind of that’s how it is, right? I mean I have a history of what am I doing, am I being lazy, and what’s this stupid fucking poetry shit. Like you just you can’t focus, you start having all these arguments with yourself. Just like calm the fuck down. People get unemployed all the time. I’ve never even had this situation before. That’s saying something. So...

THERAPIST: Yeah, so there’s some way when you get up against some of this stuff, it does sound like I don’t know how to describe this. It’s like it becomes inside even more proof of something more extreme than it actually is.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Like somehow the feeling could be you’re the only person that’s ever been on unemployment, or what’s wrong with me, or...

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Badness that that is just as much not in reality as pretending it’s not happening, or finding a bubble, [inaudible] the whole things going to disappear. [00:18:11.10] Of course you’re not alone. Like well how many people are on unemployment for longer or take a lot years and years to find a job, right. That but that’s its own form of bubble, except it’s one where you’re everything’s bad about you. Which isn’t true either. Like there’s something sounding like coming more into more of the reality. That’s also not true. Just as there may not be some magical cure for this place. It is there’s something really hard about where you are, and it’s going to take work and patience and a lot of research and investigation, just as writing a book would take, but that you sound like something opened up about being able to be more peacefully and a little bit closer to reality.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think that is what it is, yeah. And also it’s about letting go. [00:19:06.04] I was thinking about this like music. Like I’m getting better, I think, slowly, finally, about like this is just it, kind of. You know what I mean? I am going to make records. I am going to and hopefully really good things will happen with all that stuff, but I’m getting better at just kind of not projecting, either, how I want it to go or why didn’t it go a certain way already, or I’m getting a little bit better. You know what I mean? And the way I’m doing that is just it’s just what Olive what people are saying. I mean [inaudible] all these years, is just when you really just embrace that I am like I’m okay knowing that I’m talented. I don’t need that’s hard, when all your life you’ve been kind of you feel like you’ve been kind of slighted or hidden away or ignored. [00:20:03.28] You want fucking validation. That’s all. I never I don’t want to be a rock star, I just want I just want a little miniscule percentage of that. You know what I mean? And but it’s two things. It’s one, realizing if that never happens that I can be a little more of a realist and just that doesn’t change the fact that I’m a serious artist. Millions of very serious artists get no recognition in their lifetime. That’s just the way it goes.

THERAPIST: And are really talented.

CLIENT: Yeah, are real artists, right, yeah. But two, that also some of it is when I can think that way then I actually start producing more. That’s when things then in a weird way then you do get what you wanted in the first place because now you don’t give a shit as much so you just do it. You record, you put shit out, you don’t obsess over details or getting it just right or this or that. [00:21:05.25] You just do it. And then you realize oh, that’s how these other assholes are doing it, who aren’t a lot of whom aren’t really talented. They’re just putting shit out there constantly. So they have to be reckoned with. It’s just there. So it’s yeah, I think that’s all helping to kind of (pause)

It’s funny, too, because it even helps me kind of prepare for tomorrow. Like now I really don’t care. [00:22:02.11] Like I just I don’t care what my aunt says or my uncle, like you know what I mean? I’m not even going to get into when they’re like how are you. Great. You know what I mean? There’s no point to I because I still want them to I love them. I’m close with my I part of me you know what I mean? It’s not like I don’t like these people. I love them. So part of me still wants them to take a little more of an interest and get me, understand. But that’s not working. So the best thing to do is just say that you’re fine, and just be with them and let them talk about their ridiculous things, but that’s it. I’m just not that’s a good feeling. I mean hopefully that’s the way it’ll go, but in the past that’s why I’d get worked up at these family things because part of me still wants someone to just stop and like take an interest, a real interest in me, instead of just like asking me once how I’m doing and then just [00:23:14.06] But that’s it’s a it doesn’t excuse that stuff. But at the same time there’s no point in getting extreme about it. Like they’re not trying to be dicks or something. Of course they love me, you know what I mean? Like if I said any of this they’d be like appalled and saddened and like freaked out that I feel this way. But so it’s just better to just be with people that you care about and just not take it so seriously and not read into who cares. [pause] So I mean really what it is, all these things are actually making me they’re actually renewing my focus on my art, right? It’s all this peripheral stuff that just doesn’t fucking matter anymore. [00:24:09.13] Kind of like the girlfriend thing or I mean that’s all nice. I hope that all works out but I there’s more important things I’m trying to get done.

THERAPIST: Well it’s a fundamental l thing, in a way, before any of that other stuff can really matter in a way is what you’re feeling about yourself.

CLIENT: Exactly. Which by the way, of course these things are always this way, right? They’re ironic. But of course now, Okay Stupid, it’s an avalanche of fucking dating suddenly. I don’t even nothing’s changed. But whereas before I’d get a fair amount of attention, now it’s like I’ve got this whole new roster of chicks I’m supposed to be seeing or whatever. So it’s ironic how as if it’s a cosmic thing, like people just sense that you’re in a different head space or something. [00:25:14.13]

[pause]

THERAPIST: Is it hard to hear you say how you feel about yourself?

CLIENT: No. Is it hard for me to hear you say how I feel about myself? No. No, because you’re right. You’re saying things that I you’re articulating things that, yeah, I mean make perfect sense. [00:26:17.16] Is that what you mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean [inaudible] things [inaudible] but there’s something...

CLIENT: Well no, not always that I so much know, it’s that I feel but didn’t know are exactly that. That’s another thing that I wrote for the second paragraph. I was like what happened that night was something that was like pestering me for years already, all through my twenties; suddenly in my thirties became something I couldn’t I told this guy Stoops [ph] that was the first time. I told him, I have no fucking idea. I’ll never forget that. I still know him, he’s a wacky guy. He was telling me about his panic attacks and shit. So maybe I just felt comfortable with him [inaudible] whoa, this guy’s really like this interesting, sensitive wack job or something. [00:27:04.04] But when he asked me about San Francisco and what’s it like, blah, blah, blah, I was like I have no idea. I have no fucking idea what it was like or what happened or but so you know what I mean? So it’s kind of like that. Like something I was feeling but I couldn’t right? Even that metaphor that I always use, it’s just a beige. That’s relatively new. That took me years to or the coma metaphor, the so sometimes you just need to either hear someone else say it or you finally somehow articulate something. But yeah, it’s just like I’ve got this feeling.

THERAPIST: I [inaudible] was just wondering [inaudible] follow this, but something about your immediately [ph] I said this, what matters is how you feel about yourself. You immediately then said that’s true, but it felt like your mind was already running to something else, and you then said because lately guess what’s happening [inaudible] stupid is an avalanche. [00:28:07.26] It like I wonder if you had to remind yourself or even remind me about being desirable. Like there’s...

CLIENT: On some level, maybe. I was just trying to say that it’s you’re so right...

THERAPIST: I totally follow that point, but if unconsciously there’s like even just a...

CLIENT: But it’s a good feeling that oh...

THERAPIST: How do I feel about myself. Okay, there’s this proof.

CLIENT: Well yeah.

THERAPIST: Proof right now.

CLIENT: Well of course that’s part of it, yeah, of course. Because it’s like oh, I still have my mojo, still got...

THERAPIST: Yes, and in other words that’s a little microscopic moment of still turning to that for proof.

CLIENT: Needing outside proof, yeah.

THERAPIST: Instead of just knowing it.

CLIENT: Yeah. The only thing I’d say is that’s absolutely true. The only thing I’d say is that’s the irony, though, this time, I think. This time I think it is this attention.

THERAPIST: You’re feeling it.

CLIENT: I’m feeling it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and I totally get that.

CLIENT: But I’m with you.

THERAPIST: You’re in a different place. [00:29:02.25]

CLIENT: Honestly? Honestly, man? I don’t think that’s ever really going to go away. Maybe that’s why I feel better. I’m feeling you know what I mean? It just like I know that I’m never not going to have I’m never not going to have to manage anxiety and melancholy, you know what I mean. You don’t cure that shit. You manage it.

THERAPIST: Until you move to the couch.

CLIENT: Right. That’s slick. But I think even on the couch. I don’t know. I think that some things are maybe they’re semantics.

THERAPIST: Actually I don’t agree. I think it could go away.

CLIENT: All right. Well...

THERAPIST: Just we can think different things.

CLIENT: I think for maybe it could. I knowing enough about art and artists, maybe a lot of artists just don’t work on themselves. I don’t know. I feel like it’s that’s kind of why you are an artist. [00:30:01.14] I’m not saying it can’t completely go away. I’m sure obviously it’s gotten so much better that yeah, of course, I’m sure I get even I agree with you on that. I’m just saying part of the reason I think it gets better in my case, that’s why I stopped, even before I saw you, I stopped having major panic attacks because I found those like you know what? I yeah, I get panic attacks. It could happen right now as I’m sitting here, right now. Right? It’s almost like I started just making that part of who I am, and then suddenly I got less and less panic attacks. So I don’t you know what I mean? Now I guess in a it’s just semantics, so I guess it did go away. I don’t know. But I just feel like that’s just kind of a part of my it’s just a...

THERAPIST: The fabric of your being.

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s just a part of my fabric, yeah, yeah. And then as an artist, I don’t think you can ever you’re lying if you don’t want some validation. Art is about and even with Okay Stupid, right, it’s because art is about artifice, on some level. [00:31:06.21] It is about beauty and about so I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but I also think [inaudible] for any [inaudible] that’s actually...

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, but I’m saying for artists in particular it’s even more of a you know what I mean? Because generally they are more sensitive. Generally they are more fucked up even. Or generally they are more focused on beauty and this and that. So and generally they’re more anxious and depressed. So that’s why I’m saying it could all go away, of course. It could get better and better. I’m just saying I think part of the reason it could go away is when someone says yeah, it’s just I’m going to have some days, I think, when I feel a little panicky or whatever. I mean I never maybe I never will again. But the fact that someone says that yeah, I could I still when I’m in a crowded place sometimes I suddenly feel anxious or whatever, just saying it even though it never has happened, it hasn’t happened in years and years and years, in a way that’s part of why it’s not happening. [00:32:10.07] You know what I’m saying?

THERAPIST: Yes, I do. I mean I another way of putting that, though, that I think actually is a deeper change happening than you’re giving it credit for, is that what is happening when you get to say yeah, sometimes I have panic attacks is that your shame about who you are is starting to lessen. Like that doesn’t have to be something, then, to be so terrified about saying out loud, saying it to yourself. It’s not that big a deal anymore if it can be spoken.

CLIENT: Right. That’s true.

THERAPIST: Like saying you’re an artist, actually getting that to be a real spoken thing that you say to people, that is your identity. Instead of something you have to feel ashamed over or compromising around or wasn’t good enough.

CLIENT: Right. Yeah. No, I totally agree. That’s I mean that’s instead of cliché, right, that’s like a paradigm shift, right? [00:33:04.22] That’s like a very internal deep, deep shift in how you define yourself. Yeah, that’s true. So wait, does and so it all makes sense now, what you said? That original thing that you said?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think we’re agreeing that you’re saying right now there’s a different thing, a new thing happening, where it’s not just that you’re turning back looking for validation, but I’m only picking up now on the subtler like moment by moment places where I actually think there might be a day where you don’t even have to tell me people are...

CLIENT: I suddenly get what you’re saying. Okay, yes, yes. The fact that I have to verbalize that.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that I’m totally and I catch myself with that. That’s why it’s gotten better and better. I absolutely, absolutely. Yup.

THERAPIST: And not even catching it, like but catching it and getting...

CLIENT: I don’t mean it in a bad way, I just mean in a way where I can I do exactly...

THERAPIST: You’re understanding it more, yeah. [00:34:04.28]

CLIENT: What you said.

THERAPIST: Yup, yup.

CLIENT: Like I’ll sit like I notice all the time with my friends the way I say things. I might say that yeah, Okay Stupid, but I’ll also know like it’s hard to because these things happen so quickly in your mind. It’s like a millisecond. But I’ll it’s just what you said. I’ll just be like wait, why am I telling you.

THERAPIST: You’re following...

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, like...

THERAPIST: ...motivation.

CLIENT: I’m not trying to tell like I better not be telling these people this because I want them to think that I’m so cool with the ladies or something. You know what I mean? So I agree with you. I totally agree with you. Sometimes we articulate things without realizing that we want a certain response.

THERAPIST: Why we’re doing it.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely.

THERAPIST: And again, the implicit thing there is that you wouldn’t know that I would know that people are following you on Okay Stupid. Know what I mean?

CLIENT: Wait, what?

THERAPIST: That you...

CLIENT: Oh, that if I didn’t tell you... [00:35:03.17] If I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t think that oh, Arto’s [ph] a handsome guy that probably gets a lot of attention from women.

THERAPIST: Right, right.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

THERAPIST: But that’s not the...

CLIENT: Of course. Of course. Of course. Yeah, because that’s years of feeling like okay, I guess if no one’s going to tell me I’m cute I gotta somehow make sure they know that I’m you know what I mean? It’s a childish not childish, but it’s a childhood you feel like you want someone to say, well you look nice or whatever. It’s...

THERAPIST: Because it wasn’t a given.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, and as much as it’s been like a 180 now...

THERAPIST: Of course.

CLIENT: But you’re right. No, I think it’s exactly because it’s changed so much that in those moments of yeah, I totally get it. I mean either if you bring it up or if I’m out and about, why did I. Even if I don’t get it in that minute I’ll be like hmmm, why did I so like with my Assyrian friends now I’ve realized when I talk to them about this, I don’t the other way that it can become healthier is I just talk about it like it’s like in a joking, half joking way. [00:36:21.11] Do you know what I mean? Like I just embrace it. Yeah, it is kind of crazy that, yeah, I guess I do kind of date a lot sometimes and but that’s not because I’m great. It’s kind of funny and like I almost embrace the with my these older Assyrian guy friends I play that role of just being a guy and whose boobies are firmer and because it’s just fun and funny. But I don’t I no longer am trying to none of it is like disingenuous. You know what I mean? Or if I’m on the phone with my friend Scott and I’m being more serious about it, I’ll just be honest. [00:37:05.10] You know what I mean? I also slip in I find myself slipping in real things like I’ll be like I mean I’ve been doing that for a while now, which is good, but I’ll say things like yeah, it’s nice, like I feel grateful. I’d say that a lot. Like I don’t know, I feel grateful. I don’t know. These chicks somehow think it’s nice or whatever. Like much more there’s a lot more honesty in things I say, or I’ll say things like yeah, but I haven’t I’m supposed to see this chick, this yeah, she’s really hot, whatever, but honestly, I just want to stay at home with Sophie. You know what I mean? Like I’m much more...

THERAPIST: Which is its own form of acknowledging there’s something else going on there.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, this isn’t like I’m not this isn’t...

THERAPIST: You’re not having to prove to him you’re desirable anymore.

CLIENT: That’s right. It’s not an advertisement for anything. And sometimes it’s even the opposite. I remember a bunch of times I’ll be like yeah dude, it’s kind of it gets old. And it’s nice but then it actually makes me sometimes even sadder because then it’s all these chicks but not nothing is so it makes me it almost makes you feel lonelier in a weird way and all that stuff. [00:38:13.28] So yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: Or even a capacity to say no one called me this week or something. That alone is a kind of...

CLIENT: Oh, like the opposite.

THERAPIST: And the opposite.

CLIENT: That happens too.

THERAPIST: ...that happens. It’s a kind of there’s enough comfort with it that it can’t it’s not that you have to hide that, but that will show...

CLIENT: Yeah, who the fuck cares. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, that happens too. Yeah, I’ll be like well it’s...

THERAPIST: Of course, to everyone.

CLIENT: Yeah, I’ll be like oh, that’s weird. I’m not [inaudible] with my photo. Like not get why are they not but not in a way where you’re like dwelling on it. It’s more I think it’s more like it’s almost just embracing the fun of if you’re going to do it, this online crap, you might as well just have fun with it and not take it seriously, and when it’s nice it’s nice. [00:39:11.20] When it’s weird, it’s weird, whatever. (pause)

THERAPIST: I think you also get worried when I bring up a little moment like that, that somehow I’m saying that’s how it is all the time and it’s very loud.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Of course it’s changed. [ph]

CLIENT: Because I’m so like yeah, because it’s the fear of going backwards or yeah.

THERAPIST: Which is so ironic because actually, because of how far you’ve come, you get to now notice the little moments, that it you wouldn’t even have been able to see those had you not come this far. Like the fact that you’re being able to say to yourself, wait, why did I do that? Like that’s the work you’ve done already. But it can make it look like it’s worse and [inaudible] it just means you’re getting to notice more of what was there all along. [00:40:09.11]

CLIENT: That’s true.

THERAPIST: And it’s much subtler. That’s a very small subtle [inaudible].

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: I think that’s the only reason I say the couch jokingly is that that’s kind of a place where you it’s not the loud things anymore. [inaudible] day to day [inaudible] but the subtle things [inaudible] to experience them. (pause) As they are here [inaudible] couch. (pause)

CLIENT: I think the only thing that that’s the much longer or deeper work or whatever is that I do find that no matter how like even on the best day I find that sometimes on the best day is when the that old kind of teenage freakout anxiety thing about like physical stuff and like death and all that is when that’s the loudest. You know what I’m saying? [00:41:20.24]

THERAPIST: On the day when you’re feeling best about yourself.

CLIENT: Yeah. So I feel like that’s probably a one of the more like the final frontier. Not final frontier but that’s a you know what I mean? Because that’s saying a lot if even I mean what else is there? If you’re feeling great and there’s just one thing that’s kind of like what is that? So...

THERAPIST: And you’re referring to like specifically be reacted by the symptoms or thinking about I’m going to die soon?

CLIENT: Yeah, like a day like today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll feel like I feel like I’m a little tight here and like breathing wise and or all these weeks not this week, this past whatever weeks [inaudible] do I have a cold? [00:42:07.29] Why the fuck do I feel like I have a cold? Why do I have a dry cough, like an itchy throat? But I’m not getting sick. So it’s an allergy? What the fuck. Like it’s just all this stuff . Getting much more attuned to like if someone mentions an illness or something, having a mini like I don’t want to fucking I’m doing well today. I don’t want to hear about cancer and so that’s the one thing that. I think it’s that like don’t get too happy because something bad’s going to happen. And I don’t want to be that way. That’s not because that means that no matter what you’re secretly, if nothing else you’re still wound up about this one fucking thing. And that’s...

THERAPIST: [inaudible] thought about it when you are feeling more depressed, and I don’t mean diagnostically depressed, but I mean on that end of the spectrum, where it’s more run by a kind of helplessness, hopelessness kind of feeling, it’s not about being anxious about what could happen. [00:43:21.05] You’re already in the place where things aren’t good inside or externally. But when things get better and you start feeling very hopeful again, and excited about the future, then there’s something to lose.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: So that’s, I think, when the anxiety creeps back in about the things that are out of your control that could suddenly take this away. It actually happened. This is where it’s a kind of PTSD...

CLIENT: Exactly.

THERAPIST: ...experience.

CLIENT: Right, because this is I mean that’s I mean that’s the other thing. That’s, I think, what a lot of this writing is about, or going to be about, or whatever, is that, well, like I mean that’s a fucked up thing, that since I was 19 I’ve had I mean in a way it’s an optimism. [00:44:19.13] In a way it’s actually an uplifting thing because the fact that I’ve even accomplished anything, and these aren’t little things, the book, the records, getting in this fucking cluster fuck. Forget about finishing, getting in to these places, getting to the places I’ve been, traveling, whatever, that’s amazing because that’s what I’ve been dealing with, is that I know very well or I’ve become better and better on a deeper level now. I understand what I’m really capable of and it’s way beyond I get my potential now. I think I get it. And it’s really a lot. I think I can do really amazing things on a forget about what other people I don’t give a shit. I know that I can. The sadness and the hope it’s like sad and happy at the same time. But the thing is that I haven’t gone all the way in a lot of these things because of that, exactly what you’re say I get I see that more and more. [00:45:30.07] Every year I see that. Why? Because I’m scared that once of course I know what my potential is. But if I had stayed in Europe and married Julia [ph] and had a nice little life with her happy little European parents who are well to do and we’re having a nice life, then something bad’s going to happen. You know what I mean? Or if I finish my novel and it gets published and I go on a book tour, suddenly I’m living the life I wanted to live, something bad’s going to happen. Or...

THERAPIST: Because it did.

CLIENT: Because it did, exactly, exactly. Or if I married Meredith, because I imagined a perfect girl that I wanted and then I found her, right? That’s that can’t happen. You know what I mean? So that’s on the one hand, because I have my grandmother’s wacky optimism, on the one hand I see that as a great track record that okay, well then that means that’s just who I am so that will, in different forms that’ll keep happen if it’s not the book it’ll be the record. If it’s not Meredith it’ll be some other nice person that I meet who is amazing or whatever. [00:46:39.27] But the difference is now I gotta start embracing those things and seeing them through instead of just manife because really that’s me. I’m fucking manifesting this shit. Like I’m my own life coach. People are telling me not to be a poet and I’m like oh no, I’ll just go publish with the most prestigious press in Europe. And I don’t even know how the fuck that happened, but I made it’s like I willed it against all odds to happen. Or this place, whatever. It’s like all right, fine, you guys want me to go to college and fine, I’m going to go to the best one. I might not finish it but like I’m willing these bigger things, symbolic things, to happen. The difference is, though, the next step is then to really embody those things and build on them and just that’s your life now. Instead of like more like pinball where it happens but then I’m recoiled by...

THERAPIST: Or willing it sort of against all emotional [inaudible ] It’s very different. [00:47:44.12]

CLIENT: Yeah, then again, it’s not just the external stuff but my own yeah, that you don’t deserve this, how did this even happen.

THERAPIST: So it’s like it’s remarkable but it’s as much has happened has and yet it also shows how much more could happen.

CLIENT: That’s right. The difference now, though, is that I don’t get as depre like now I just look forward to those other things that are going to happen. You know what I mean? Instead of...

THERAPIST: Starting to.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. No, of course. It’s not a lot of work to be done.

THERAPIST: I mean this thing, even, with the mortgage could’ve felt like a minor repetition, Arto, I could imagine. Like a little trauma in the way it played out. But this like things are going to be okay and then they’re not okay. [00:48:38.06] All of a sudden getting hope up and then the fear that something bad’s going to happen and it happens. It’s not actually that. It’s more just the reality of mortgages and [inaudible]

CLIENT: Before we finish I had a question. Are there any good like what all these things I’m describing, these main things, the like has someone written like has a psychologist or psychiatrist written like, you know what I mean? Is there something good I can read? Because I do feel weird writing about it without having some more because a lot of what I’m writing is just based I mean obviously this is a fucking lot of stuff here, but you know what I mean? Like is there something that...

THERAPIST: On trauma? Like this...

CLIENT: Something that somehow might speak to these things that I’m articulating. [00:49:31.24]

THERAPIST: Yes. It’s just so...

CLIENT: Is it very like medical and...

THERAPIST: It’s not medical. And there are a lot of [inaudible] authors who speak to this. But probably 50 of them. So I don’t know...

CLIENT: Okay. I’ll do some research and see what yeah, okay. Because I just it would be cool if you’re going to write a whole thing like a it just would be nice to read like what do people. Because I want to say something, but then someone like you or someone who knows is going to read it and go, well yeah, that’s this thing that you’re describing. Do you not know what that is? You know what I mean? Like it’s just good to understand.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and yet I also I mean there’s more for us to look at this question even [inaudible] You will capture it, Arto, in a way that a psychoanalyst never would.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. No, I get that. But I’m almost I’m just curious, like so I don’t know. [00:50:32.15] I feel like it’s nice to know what you’re...

THERAPIST: The area.

CLIENT: Just a little bit, to understand like I don’t know. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe you’re right. Sometimes, yeah, that’s always the trick with writing. Sometimes you just gotta write it and not worry about...

THERAPIST: That’s what like I can even come up with a bibliography to give you if you would really want that, but I think there’s still the question of like is that a version of not trusting your own voice and experience [inaudible]

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, forget it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Do you know what I mean? Like I would actually worry about those diluting what it is you would know artistically and internally. Not necessarily. Of course writers do research in the area...

CLIENT: You’re right. I could do plenty of research after it’s written. I mean editing or whatever. Yeah, yeah. No, you’re right, you’re right. The story’s already so insane that the telling of it is the important part.

THERAPIST: So next week then.

CLIENT: What are we doing next week? We’re not meeting next week? [00:51:34.05]

THERAPIST: No, we are.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Just not the next two days.

CLIENT: Oh right. Right, right, right, okay.

THERAPIST: I just meant I’ll see you next week.

CLIENT: Oh, okay.

THERAPIST: Was that..

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: You were expecting that.

CLIENT: Yeah, but there’s other days we’re not meeting, right? Other than tomorrow and...

THERAPIST: A Christmas holiday, yes. But not for a while. So I’ll see you next Wednesday.

CLIENT: Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

THERAPIST: Thank you, you too.

CLIENT: Thank you.

END TRANSCRIPT