TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: One link I couldn’t click on for some reason, but I was having a problem, my computer had just rebooted, so I’ll try it again. Can you send me another one I’ll see if it works?
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: As far as the letter requirements, if you want me to put this address of the English Department.
CLIENT: Yeah. Or do you want me to just send it to you?
THERAPIST: If you want to just send me how you would like it to be, to appea.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: That’s one question. I mean, he said it didn’t really matter, but you might want to still have…
CLIENT: Yeah, it’ll just look nice, yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah. If there’s a particular person you should put a name to it. Is it dear… is this a person [unclear]?
CLIENT: I mean, I would think this… he gave those two names. One is the Department Chair, but I guess there’s this other person. I don’t know how…
THERAPIST: To them? It’s up to you.
CLIENT: Can you do that, attention to those two people?
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Is that what makes sense?
CLIENT: It makes sense I guess, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: I also don’t know [unclear], if they’re… like I don’t know how far this…
CLIENT: Oh, okay. Then, you know…
THERAPIST: You may not want that in there, but it…
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: You just need to communicate that to me if you want that to be part of the letter.
CLIENT: Yeah. I guess maybe it should in a way. Maybe I’ll e-mail him about that, just to find out if they want specific dates or they just want a general kind of…
THERAPIST: Well, what would at least be helpful to me is [unclear], I don’t know. I can say for as long as I’ve seen you, but I don’t know how much of that… when you actually stopped. Do you know when you stopped?
CLIENT: Well, I was actually there before I saw you.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: I was there before.
THERAPIST: How long before, do you know?
CLIENT: Just like two years. Two or three years before, yeah.
THERAPIST: Okay. And I don’t think that necessarily needs to be [overtalk].
CLIENT: I mean, I was more fucked up then then when I saw you, so it’s… yeah, I’d be covering… I mean, yeah.
THERAPIST: The part that’s a little bit of a challenge for me to speak to from a clinical perspective is why you shouldn’t get charged fees. I don’t know that I… [00:02:00]
CLIENT: I don’t know if you need to even address that.
THERAPIST: Okay. Because he wrote that in how they specified it, and I don’t… it’s just a little…
CLIENT: Yeah. It may be weird for a doctor to have to be like, “He shouldn’t be charged.” Yeah, no.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: I think he just means…
THERAPIST: You should describe what’s been happening to you…
CLIENT: Yeah, so it’s then…
THERAPIST: … and then have him continue [unclear].
CLIENT: Exactly. So then to them that’s like, okay, so this is why he has a…
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Okay, I just wanted to make sure of that.
CLIENT: Does that make sense?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: So forward me the address if you want me [overtalk].
CLIENT: Yeah, I’ll forward you the address. And anything else I should… is that about it?
THERAPIST: Unless you want the dates in. It doesn’t sound like… I can just say what I said in that letter essentially…
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Yes.
THERAPIST: … [unclear] asking you [unclear] this time, et cetera.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Thanks Claire.
THERAPIST: Yeah, sure.
CLIENT: So let’s read Jason’s response. [pause] Okay, let’s see. I did blind copy Walter.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: I decided that I think that’s better than separately e-mailing Walter and being like…
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: You know. So anyway, Jason says, “Dear Brian, it was not my intention to be hurtful. Very sorry if I was. I confess I was historically now disappointed when you changed direction in your Ph.D. and seemed to be leaving poetry behind. I was sorry that…”
THERAPIST: What’s he referring to in that?
CLIENT: I don’t know. Like that I’m willing to let slide. I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but that’s fine. “I was sorry that the Assyrian Diaspora anthology did not make progress. It might now that you have the Assyrian job. And I was especially sorry to lose a start student who was just beginning to establish himself in England. I wasn’t clear that you had gone and I was asked many times by colleagues and the university authorities whether you were coming back, to which I generally replied that I thought you would be. And now here you are. I hope your return will be triumphant and that you will complete the Ph.D. I look forward in due course to seeing the script for your next book, and if the company likes it for publication to working with you on it.” [4:20]
THERAPIST: What do you think?
CLIENT: It’s not… Yeah, I mean, it’s… yeah, it’s nice. I mean… well, what’s he going to write? You know what I mean? Like I think that’s a very nice response.
THERAPIST: Although he sounds like he feels that he was unclear that you had even left.
CLIENT: I’m sorry?
THERAPIST: He says he didn’t even know that you left when you left?
CLIENT: Well, that… I mean, I guess that part I kind of understand. Although that’s not really true. I mean, he knows that each time the… well, there was just that one time I left because of money. And I tried to keep in touch with him. See, he’s ignoring what I said about not getting funded. You know.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: Because he has nothing to say about that.
THERAPIST: But it sounds like he feels like you hadn’t communicated that you were leaving. You think you had communicated that?
CLIENT: Oh, no, I mean, I saw him. No, no, he totally…
THERAPIST: You said, “I’m leaving”?
CLIENT: He totally knew.
THERAPIST: Then what is he saying?
CLIENT: I think he’s just trying to… I’m not really sure. I think he’s just… I don’t know. Because I even… like then when I left I would e-mail him, I would be like, “So what funding, what should I do?” You know, “I think I could stay here now and get this job.” So it wasn’t really… Yeah. I mean, he’s not addressing the funding part or the part where I said, you know, “I’ve e-mailed you a bunch of times and I kinda don’t hear back,” or whatever, whatever. But it’s a nice e-mail. I mean, what’s he going to write? You know, “I feel awful. I’m so sorry.”
THERAPIST: It’s a much softer e-mail actually than I was expecting. [00:06:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. No, it’s very nice. It’s very nice, it’s very nice. And I think… yeah. And like it’s kind of not what I expected, but what I hoped. I mean, I’d be really surprised if he was like, “Well, yeah, I’ve been pissed,” you know. And I think it… like I’m going to write back, and like I felt bad because that is true. I can imagine, like he really was, you know, taking me around like I’m…
THERAPIST: He invested in you.
CLIENT: Yeah. And like I really did feel bad. But… You know what I mean? Like it’s not like… I tried to be clear that I feel really… I don’t know how to stay here. I want to stay here. You know. And nothing happened. So it’s like I can’t feel shitty about that. I did my best to stay there. But I also felt bad if I was disappointing him in any way. And I tried to communicate that to him, and just be like, you know, “Although the circumstances were out of my control, it bothered me to think that I was maybe disappointing you,” or whatever. But no, it’s a very… and I liked… you know, he covered… you know, publishing, he threw that in there, that letting…
THERAPIST: Be published again.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it’s all good.
THERAPIST: I mean, maybe what he’s bringing up with the anthology, and not finishing, even though there’s a real money reason around not finishing, but he’s pointing out there are things that you started that haven’t finished, and that you’re so talented and such a strong poet that I really… I want you to get back on these things and finish them.
CLIENT: There is some of that, yeah.
THERAPIST: Which is what you’re doing.
CLIENT: Right, right. And those are the things I did feel… that’s what I feel… Of course, I’m not an idiot. I feel bad about it. That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to… you know. But even those things, some of the reason that happened was because that’s what happens when you’re… I mean, you don’t have any money, you’re stressed out, you’re in a country you don’t know anybody. It wasn’t like I was just like so comfortable. Like I had that initial euphoria. But then when Meredith got there and it was shitty, and I realized the money was running out really, really fast, and I wasn’t able to find a job. That’s… it’s hard to just like, “Oh, let me kick back and work on this anthology project.” It just… Especially back then when that shit really… [00:08:30]
THERAPIST: See, that’s what I… I think now you would have responded to the whole thing differently.
CLIENT: Yeah, absolutely.
THERAPIST: Given what you’ve done and what you’ve been approaching, and just in grounding more in reality. Even when things are really stressful and hard, it would be a different set of communications that would happen.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And maybe something different would have evolved. And that may be only what he’s speaking to there.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: While trying to say to you… what I think is really nice about the letter is that the reason I was disappointed is because you’re so talented.
CLIENT: Right. Right.
THERAPIST: That you really have potential and that’s why I want you to be here.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: He’s not taking ownership of his part in that [unclear].
CLIENT: Right. Right. But that’s fine, that’s okay. And that’s really all I needed. I needed to let him know that, look man, it’s not like I’m… somehow forgotten, or there’s some kind half-ass whatever. You know, there are circumstances out of my control that, yeah, of course I wish that they were different, but they’re not, and I can’t apologize for that. I’ve still made effort. Like I get in touch, I tried to get the funding. I even got back there with… I went through hell with my uncle bent backwards to make this thing happen, and I got back there. But then when I was there yet again I didn’t get a teaching job. It’s not like… You know, so I would have been happy to fucking stay, I didn’t have a problem. I applied to universities while I was there. I couldn’t tell him, “Jason, make a phone call for me.” I mean, either something’s going to happen or it’s not, I couldn’t just stick around. You know, so. [00:10:00]
But yeah, I think those two things are the key, that it makes me feel good to just hear him say that, “Yeah, you were my star student.” Because that disappointment is… I mean, I’m disappointed in that too. That’s okay, because now we can just get right back on the horse and it’s all good. It’s not a big deal. I just needed to… yeah. It just feels good to… because, you know, you start feeling like, “He’s not going to publish me again? Or does he…” You know, I was starting to think like, “Did he think that, well, I thought he was a really good poet, but I…” You know.
THERAPIST: And what does he mean by changing tracks?
CLIENT: That I don’t know.
THERAPIST: No idea?
CLIENT: Nope. I mean, I do know that there were one or two times I also sat in on the fiction seminars and I started to…
THERAPIST: Oh, for writing your book.
CLIENT: You know, this novel.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: But I never ever… I mean, how… that’s…
THERAPIST: You didn’t talk to him about that directly?
CLIENT: Well, even if I did, I never said I’m going to leave poetry. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe he just latched on to a passing comment I made. I mean, we saw each other so often, maybe I just made a comment like… But I didn’t. I’m just thinking, like I could have said something like, “Well, maybe I’ll finish the Ph.D. faster if I just work on this.” But I wouldn’t have said that because that’s not true. I’m a much faster poet so I would never… I think what he’s doing is that probably… because he was feeling these other things that he said that maybe he rolled… he thinks that was something that it wasn’t because things got kinda… you know.
And that whole anthology thing, that was my fault. Not my fault, but it’s a great idea and I do want to do that. But that’s a post-Ph.D. That’s going to take a while, man. My Assyrian isn’t strong enough, there just aren’t that many great Assyrian poets I guess. It’s a much more complicated… And I’m not going to do it half-assed, especially if he’s going to publish it. But I was so excited. It’s such a great idea, and he was so excited about it, I thought yeah, this will be a great way to do a Ph.D. [12:30]
THERAPIST: So maybe you can also take ownership of that to him.
CLIENT: Oh yeah, no, I’m going to tell him, yeah.
THERAPIST: And that part, you’re… I mean, that’s part of your maturity too…
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I’m going to tell him.
THERAPIST: … that he’s actually lacking, he’s not taking ownership for his part.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. No, I’m going to tell him. Like that is a great idea, I haven’t given up on that idea, it’s just it quickly… relatively quickly became evident that that was going to take much longer and I would just rather first finish the degree, and then that is something I want to do. And you’re right, now that I’m going to be in Assyria. That was already in the back of my mind, that I should probably go there and my Assyrian will quickly approve, and also just find out if there are any more contemporary. So. But anyway, it’s a very nice e-mail.
THERAPIST: It’s more loving again.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. That’s… I mean, it’s back to like where we used to be. I don’t understand what the weirdness was. Well, I guess that’s what it was, what he explained I guess. I don’t know.
THERAPIST: It sounds like he had maybe potentially even so much of an investment in you…
CLIENT: Yes. [00:14:00]
THERAPIST: … that it was a kind of narcissistic kind… like almost seeing you as his protégé…
CLIENT: It was.
THERAPIST: … and wanting to see a young him, like you’re him.
CLIENT: Yes, it was. It was, yes.
THERAPIST: And if you were doing anything that was not him…
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: … he was going to find that disappointing.
CLIENT: Yes, exactly. Especially that… I mean, that’s an important phrase, “established in England.”
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like he was thinking of me as like a U.K. kind of this is young me, we’re going to take ownership of this, he’s going to be our… you know.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But again, I was more than happy.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I loved… You know what I mean?
THERAPIST: Just help me a little.
CLIENT: Yeah. I loved that first year of… I mean, I’m not going to lie. He was fucking taking me around, introducing me to very important people, and just non-… like, “This is one of the most amazing poets right now.” And, you know, he…
THERAPIST: And show me the money.
CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, you know. He personally contacted the Atlantic and other publications and gave me e-mail. That’s fantastic. But, you know, that doesn’t make any sense if I don’t have a livelihood. Which I over and over and over explained to him. And that part is still a mystery to me, I don’t under… I’m confused, I don’t understand why he wasn’t able to finagle something there. He’s Jason Schmidt, I’m sure…
THERAPIST: It is weird.
CLIENT: Yeah, that’s… I don’t get that. I don’t know if he just… yeah. I think a lot of it’s what you’re saying, he has his own… he’s an eccentric guy in that way. Not in a shitty way like this guy, but he’s eccentric in his own way, and yeah, kind of narcissistic I guess, and whatever he has. So those are all his things.
THERAPIST: And maybe he felt like you should be like groveling and make it happen. You know, like it should be with the likes of him.
CLIENT: I guess.
THERAPIST: It’s that, you know, [there’s this thing if?] there’s that much narcissism. [00:16:00]
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Although I don’t know how other ways to grov… I mean, when you’re telling someone, “Dude, I literally can’t stay here if I don’t… I don’t know. But yeah, it could be. It could be, who knows. But anyway that… just it’s… It feels good, like to have that, the UConn thing.
THERAPIST: You’re confronting these things.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And now I can just write to Walter and be like, “Hey man, ready to move forward.” You know, “Had a great talk with Jason.” You know, whatever. Because I don’t want him to now use Jason, “So what happened?” Like he sent this e-mail. But anyhow, I just thought that was important. I didn’t want to write Walter separately and be like, “Uh, I don’t know.” Fuck that. He can just read it himself.
THERAPIST: That makes sense to me.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. [pause] Yeah, it’s a lot of stuff. [pause] And see, now that, it reenergizes me to actually finish the book. You need… when you’re looking up to someone as your mentor… not looking up to them, they are your mentor for whatever, and then it just… you know, it just throws you off. Like things are already difficult. You need that one person to be like… you know. It doesn’t have to be like a… like we said a long time ago, like he’s not my father figure or whatever, but he is what he is, he’s my publisher and someone who I really look up to. So every so often it’s just nice to hear that. [00:18:00]
THERAPIST: Yeah. And yet, Brian, I think one of the things you’ve done that’s sort of starting the chain of events around confronting your family or your grandmother, so sort of symbolisms of the neglect of her, the neglect of her, is the language you used around that was that I’m not going to keep trying to get what I’m never going to get from my family.
CLIENT: Yeah. Right, right.
THERAPIST: And I think in that there is some mourning, real mourning happening. It allows you to now look at Jason not as a father figure…
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: … and sort of then be just adult Brian, not kind of quietly passively waiting for him to reach out as a father…
CLIENT: Right, right.
THERAPIST: … but actually you’re being an adult student in his program who then contacts him and confronts the problem…
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: … and names it, and is trying to negotiate getting back into it. And now you’ve elicited the response that you need…
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: … in the kind of your normal adult waking life.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: Not as though it’s kind of waiting for something to fill in the deficits of when you were a kid.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: He’s very responsive to that. And so’s the UConn program now.
CLIENT: Right, right.
THERAPIST: Because you’re on it.
CLIENT: Right, right. Yup. [pause]
THERAPIST: I found myself wondering yesterday what it was like to have a week break amidst all this last week.
CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I wish I could have come in, it was a shitting fucking week. But, you know, now that I’m thinking about it on some level it’s pretty… like this isn’t a crutch, you know what I mean? So and also like I just dealt with it. Yeah, so. [20:10]
THERAPIST: I mean, it’s interesting that the idea of meeting me or meeting this or relying on this space becomes immediately a crutch, that it’s a very…
CLIENT: Well, no, no, I just mean…
THERAPIST: … pejorative…
CLIENT: Well, I just mean… well, in the past it was. Right. I needed like… you know what I mean?
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: I’m just saying now it’s something I want to do because it helps me. But it’s not like, “Oh my God, I’m not going to see Claire for two weeks.” Or if I go to Assyria, like… It’s kind of what you’re saying about the other stuff, right, it’s like the adult Brian just being like, all right, well, I’m not going to not go to Assyria because I really like to come here. So it’s the same kind of thing, like you have a week where you’re off or we don’t see each other. Yeah, I was definitely like, “Man, wow, it’s a shitty week. It’d be good to be able to talk to Claire about this.” But, you know, that’s a good feeling to be able to be like, “No, I’m handling it.”
THERAPIST: Mm hm. And beyond a shitty week it’s also a week where… before… you’re going soon.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Not a lot of time left.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. That’s true. Yeah. But see, this time it’s not like when I went to London the first time. I don’t feel that. Like I don’t feel these like big like, “Goodbye!” Like these big… you know what I mean? I don’t feel that this time, I don’t know why. I just feel like… Man, I don’t know if it’s like just even in these few years technology is so different. Like I don’t think I knew about Skype, like there were things that I didn’t… iPhones and like… you know, just shitty… like there was a little bit more of a disconnect I felt like. But now between like Skype and this and that, like all that. And also just I don’t… I just feel like I’ll just hop on a flight and come back and visit and see you. I don’t know, I don’t feel like it’s such a… it is a big deal, but it’s not like a cutoff of some kind of…
THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. [22:30]
CLIENT: You know.
THERAPIST: I mean, concretely there’s a possibility of doing a Skype session at some point or sessions.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I think also you’re seeing… another piece that has changed is that it felt like when you went to England at that… the place you were in, it was as though you were leaving and getting into like a separate bubble, like nothing [fits?].
CLIENT: Exactly, exactly.
THERAPIST: You were leaving everything behind.
CLIENT: Exactly, exactly, yeah.
THERAPIST: And it’s more integrated now.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: You’re going to have Darien still even when you’re in Assyria inside you.
CLIENT: Right. Right, right, right.
THERAPIST: It’s not like a cutoff.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: Like going to Oregon, just being in a sort of dissociated pocket state of only having this place, and really forgetting time even passing.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yup. Yeah, that’s exactly… that’s exactly the feeling now. It’s… Yeah. Everything does feel more like just integrated, like whatever, and it’s like… I mean, if I really feel homesick I will buy a ticket and come to Darien. I don’t… you know.
THERAPIST: Mm hm, mm hm.
CLIENT: Some of that might be I’ll be working there so I won’t be on this nickel and dime…
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: But most of it’s just up here. I mean, when I was in London if I really, really wanted to, you know, my mom or somebody, I could have been like, “You know, I’d really like to come visit,” whatever, and I would have.
THERAPIST: Mm hm. [00:24:00]
CLIENT: Or whatever it was. But yeah, I was just in… I was total like disconnect. [long pause] I mean, even the time I was going to go back in the summer to teach in that great program, right.
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: If I didn’t feel things were so like kinda black and white. You know what I mean? It’s like just hop on the plane and go do that thing and come back. Like I didn’t… everything just… I don’t know why. Yeah, everything was just so like you said, like one bubble to the other, no…
THERAPIST: Then I was also thinking about your… that day you confronted your uncle in texts, and then… and your mother’s up in arms, she’s fed up and she’s had it, and you’re being the fist for this. And you came in then the next day and said, “Guess what happened?” All the next day your mother spent the entire day with your uncle and your sister.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: And as though nothing happened. I think actually the expression you used is so for the entire day, before it hadn’t happened.
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: That’s something [made?] too.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: That is a kind of living in bubbles is a thing… other things weren’t happening.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Like you have this huge conversation and then it disappears.
CLIENT: Right, right. [00:26:00]
THERAPIST: And she’s been in the bubble of having coffee and making small talk as though none of that occurred.
CLIENT: Right, right.
THERAPIST: And I think that’s a piece. Like how that could not have built up inside you too, that when you’re in England you’re in England, and it’s as though the history of Brian’s gone.
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: Or the relationships you had here were gone. Or your identity, that kind of holding on to the thread of you that would make you feel like, no, I have to go back and do this, teach this program. Whether this girl’s here or not I gotta go do it. To sort of have all of that, have the continuity of your self-identity so that you do remember what happened yesterday, you do remember what happened a year before, seemed impossible if that’s what your family does around it, that the next day yesterday disappeared.
CLIENT: Yeah. Or no, I mean, she brought it up, but it was that then it was flipped on its head.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. So it’s like there’s no…
THERAPIST: That’s… I don’t mean she literally doesn’t remember it.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s just like the emotional contact of yesterday is gone.
CLIENT: Yeah, it’s like schizophrenic. Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense.
THERAPIST: So how could you then not… the emotional context of why you’d want to teach then could be there one day, but another day something’s pulling your heart towards don’t go teaching and you can forget all the reasons why you wanted to teach.
CLIENT: Right. Right, right.
THERAPIST: And I think that’s what’s just not happening anymore.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: You can feel like you want to teach, you can feel like you want to stay for a woman, and you can feel in conflict about those things and be trying to sort of make an educated decision about what’s the best for you in the long run, which is really different from only doing it from one call it a self-state, one self-state or another, and forgetting all the rest of you.
CLIENT: Yeah, that’s true. Well, because also back then there was no big picture. Because it’s like if you’re in a constant state of anxiety and feeling like everything’s going to end badly anyway—subconsciously, you know what I mean—then go all the way to fucking Edinburgh, what is that? Now that’s not the case. Like, what do you mean what is that? It’s a huge fucking deal is what it is.
THERAPIST: Mm hm. [00:28:00]
CLIENT: But now it’s very different, because now it’s like, well… I mean, that idea that, well, things are gonna end… well, no shit. Like we’re all… I mean, we’re all going to the same place. In the meantime there are things I’d like to fucking accomplish that, I’m good at. So, you know. But yeah, I think back then that was a lot of it, there was a lot of like, “Ah, forget this, forget that,” quickly, like impulsively, because it just seemed doomed, and it just seemed like, you know, I’m not going to succeed at this or that or whatever.
THERAPIST: It’s the trauma of a foreshortened sense of future in a way.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Like this isn’t going to go anywhere anyway…
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: … what’s the point.
CLIENT: Right, right.
THERAPIST: That kind of you created when your father died and when your aunt died.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the same with UConn. You know, once… I don’t even know what the fuck happens. I mean, once that… Although the thing with UConn is weirder, because I did get through all of it. I went to classes, I finished my papers on time. It must have been like a different kind of bubble, where because it was UConn and I felt so much comfort because it was my undergrad school I was able to… you know what I mean? Like everything’s familiar, I just somehow… But then when it got to this final project I just don’t know what happened. I like froze and I couldn’t deal. And then I couldn’t deal with dealing with them. You know what I mean, like it just…
THERAPIST: So I wonder, when you say I froze what do you mean? Did you sit down to write it and then couldn’t [overtalk]? [00:30:00]
CLIENT: No, I mean I just like… it was just a general kind of like paralysis of putting it off, putting it off. And then that’s what happens, right, I put it off and then it’s like, yeah, fuck it. I fucked up. You know what I mean, then I’m just fighting myself. Like two years went by, I can’t finish it now. Or a year went by, I can’t… Or I would try to… I think there were one or two times when I did re-enroll. Actually there were. I even like paid money. There were a couple times where I went and I paid the one thousand whatever, this fee, and it just didn’t happen. And then of course that just builds up. It’s like, I’m an idiot, I can’t finish this fucking thing. What am I going to tell them now? It’s embarrassing. Like it just…
THERAPIST: It snowballs.
CLIENT: It snowballs, you know. And… yeah. Yeah, when you’re just like hating yourself, and just everything’s a fucking waste of time, and this and that. And also back then I still had anxiety attacks, I still had panic attacks, I still… you know.
THERAPIST: It’s so amazing though that you got yourself through all the classes and class work. You finished your classes.
CLIENT: Yup. And what’s even weirder is that, like I said, the final project is nothing for this. I mean, it’s not a…
THERAPIST: Right, it’s not like a 100-page dissertation.
CLIENT: It’s not a huge deal.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why… You know, maybe… I was the editor of the Assyrian newspaper at the time, and that wasn’t going well. Maybe that… just these things like… Who knows. I mean, I was… it’s that beige period, you know, I was still… But yeah, I don’t know how I went, I got things done at the school, I handed in papers, I participated in class. It wasn’t always perfect.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:32:00]
CLIENT: I remember a lot of times feeling like a frog when I was there, and like these other students are somehow… they’re so with it and they… you know, like I used to feel and all that. But I did it, you know, and I got through it. But… Yeah. [pause]
THERAPIST: This makes me start to wonder a little bit, is there some level of unconscious motivation about not finishing?
CLIENT: You mean like not wanting to leave there or something. Yeah, it could have been. Because it is my… like that’s the school I went to right before my dad died, I loved it there, I still love it there. And that… yeah, maybe I just didn’t want to let go of this… you know, on some subconscious level I guess, I don’t know.
THERAPIST: You mean kind of cozy student… even just student identity is a kind of…
CLIENT: Yeah. It’s nice.
THERAPIST: I mean, you move out of that.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s like then what?
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: Then you’re grown up, then you get a job.
CLIENT: Right, right.
THERAPIST: And there’s a way, there’s a part of you I think was so developmentally just stopped when your dad died. It was not… maybe not ready. But that’s where it was fixed for a while.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. No, that’s… I mean… yeah. That’s why it’s a big relief to be like, “Yeah, okay.” So at least I know that that’s a very PTSD kinda… I mean, no, because then I did… I mean, I got in, full paid, everything. And I didn’t go. I just didn’t show up, by the way. It’s not that I didn’t… yeah, I just didn’t show up.
THERAPIST: What was the program you were in?
CLIENT: I was going to get an English Lit Ph.D. all paid. All paid.
THERAPIST: Paid for? [00:34:00]
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, paid for plus teaching. Like I’d be paid. You know, stipend. Like a normal Ph.D. fucking program, like I should have had here, right.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: They took me to lunch, they did, they did… And by the way, I made that happen. Like that was another… there was a woman there who is a memoirist or whatever, I liked her book, I wrote to her, she loved my poetry. Next thing you know I’m in this fucking program. And I just didn’t show up. I got in, everything was all set, I went there to visit, this that. I just didn’t show up.
THERAPIST: The first day. You were planning on going?
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I wrote to them…
THERAPIST: Like through the summer you were gonna go?
CLIENT: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I took my grandparents there with my mom, we walked around, we visited. And then I think at the end of the August I just wrote them an e-mail, some ridiculous… I don’t even know what the fuck I said. You know, “I can’t,” blah blah blah. I don’t know what I said. And then that was it. I mean, insane, that that’s someone who’s having complete cognitive breaks or whatever, not understanding, you know.
THERAPIST: Do you remember at all why you didn’t want to, or was it a…
CLIENT: I couldn’t handle it. My dad’s like… I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle it, part of me still was this shitty voice like, “What’s URI? That’s not a good enough school.” I started rationalizing, like… I mean, that part is true. I mean, I don’t see a lot of Ph.D.s from there teaching at the best universities, I just don’t. But if that was the case I should have handled it differently still, you know what I mean. It’s fine not to go, just to handle it differently, not, “Wait, wait, wait,” because I’m paralyzed.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: So just what you’re saying, it’s like just having an adult… you know.
THERAPIST: Mm hm. [00:36:00]
CLIENT: Fucking idiotic. Not idiotic, it’s just sad and… you know, whatever. It’s just someone who’s completely suffering from post-traumatic stress and has no clue what the fuck is happening. Even when I went there for lunch and they took me out, I felt like… it was those days when I used to just feel like a child. I felt like I was five. And like, wow, professors are talking to me. It’s like, “Of course they’re fucking talking to me, what…” You know. But, you know, “They bought me lunch!” It was like a fucking hamburger or something like that. But I couldn’t…
THERAPIST: Well, in any event the threat of how good it probably felt at some level to be wanted, to be wined and dined.
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: To get into a program that was already paid was so satisfying.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s like being seen that never happens as a kid, and recognized.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: So you didn’t want to let that go, even though another part of you maybe knew at some level this wasn’t the time, or wasn’t right program, or…
CLIENT: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: Do you know what I mean? Like lost something that could be so…
CLIENT: Same with like Brown maybe, yeah, like did I really want to go there?
THERAPIST: Because Brown called me. [overtalk]
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. I don’t really want to go there, yeah.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And then just the opposite, like at Amherst, I loved Amherst. But the one thing did like I found a way to not finish because, well, this is clearly better, and you know. So, you know, it’s just someone that’s not… It’s really like you’re just being toyed around like by cat paws, you know, because you just can’t… you don’t have a sense of self because you’re being dictated by voices and a narrative that’s not fucking yours.
THERAPIST: Even the narrative that this is better. I mean, that…
CLIENT: That’s what I mean, that’s…
THERAPIST: That [overtalk]…
CLIENT: That’s what I mean. I don’t think it’s better, I loved Amherst.
THERAPIST: … [self-aware?] like where I have outstanding doctoral programs in certain areas.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s not necessarily…
CLIENT: No. It’s not English, but yes, they have other programs that are very good.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:38:00]
CLIENT: But no, no, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Of course Brown… why the fuck would I want to… I don’t want to do Assyrian studies. But maybe they’ll like me and respect this, that, you know. Oh, my cousin does it and he’s doing really well, so maybe… It’s just, you know, it’s losing yourself in others’… in others. [long pause] But yeah, I mean, I’m glad I didn’t go to URI. I mean, I’m not…
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: I mean, that…
THERAPIST: Now that you’ve known yourself better, [because you feel like?]…
CLIENT: Yeah, but it’s just… yeah, it’s just very sad to so… not so many things, every single thing just could have been… I could have addressed it differently, that’s all.
THERAPIST: Mm hm. [00:40:00]
CLIENT: And it’s really… lately looking back on it it’s so… it seems so simple. And that’s the part where you’re kind of mourning, it could have been so… And you know, when I think about it, it doesn’t mean that everything was going to be so different now.
THERAPIST: No.
CLIENT: I think that’s the other reason that I feel so much better. It’s not like… what was going to be so fucking different? You save a year here, a year… I mean, it’s more just like… you know, I like myself now, and I just… and I liked myself then, but I kept allowing myself to just be in this fog and not recognize myself and not understand what I would like to do, instead of what pleases this person, that person, yeah. [long pause]
THERAPIST: You don’t know why what you’re doing with UConn and [unclear] putting out there again what you’d like to do and what you think about it. [Do you?] think it’s very scary. When we used to talk about why would you not call UConn anymore [unclear]…
CLIENT: Oh, right. Right, right.
THERAPIST: … what was holding you back from actually asking, to say what did they say [unclear].
CLIENT: Right, right. [00:42:00]
THERAPIST: And that’s such a metaphor [unclear] circumstance for the fears of being a whole person everywhere. What if I’m myself and then that self gets rejected in some way?
CLIENT: Right, right, right.
THERAPIST: So, you know, up until recently it’s been easier to just not in some ways…
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: … like to avoid being yourself, to avoid having your voice.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And I think then keep the risks low of revealing it by being you.
CLIENT: Yes. Yeah, yeah.
THERAPIST: And then getting your [mother?] in the reaction.
CLIENT: Yeah, because when you do all these things that are just you… yeah, it could have been that Hannah could have said, “Sorry, we just…” You know, we can’t, whatever.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And that would have sucked, but anyone else… not anyone else, but whatever. Like when you’re in a different state of mind you just… you’re like, oh, that’s sucks. Well, whatever. It’s still on my c.v. up to that point, and maybe I’ll do a different… another master’s now, or maybe I’ll… whatever the fuck. Or I’ll just finish my book, I don’t give a shit. You know. But when you’re constantly… when all these things are constantly symbolic of the shitty fucking childhood you’ve had then it’s like everything’s riding on each one of these people’s liking your music, like this, liking that.
THERAPIST: Or [saying you’ll still be mad?].
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the same thing with this blog. I edited it again last night, I was like, I haven’t worked on a piece of writing like this almost ever. Especially prose. I’m like chopping, cutting, and I’m like really fucking polishing this thing. And that’s great, but then another part of me was like, I think I just don’t want… it’s a blog. So it’s going to go out there and people are going to judge it. You know what I mean? And when I caught that part I was like, well, who the fuck gives a shit. Like of course they’re gonna… they’re judging my book right now, you know what I mean, I can’t do anything about that’s. That’s a big step. Because then you’re like, yeah, well, I could just write my God damn things. You like it, you don’t like it, I don’t give a shit. You know, that’s a big difference then being like everything has to be perfect already, and then I have to make sure you’re going to like it before… I mean, that’s…
THERAPIST: Which is impossible. [44:30]
CLIENT: Exactly. That’s an easy way to do nothing your whole life, yeah. And to just be miserable… and then be miserable, why didn’t we do this, why didn’t we do that, why didn’t we do this, yeah. [pause]
THERAPIST: To know that there is no one thing you could say that everyone would like.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It’s impossible.
CLIENT: Exactly. Yeah.
THERAPIST: I mean, that’s the kind of experience you also never got to have, because it was so much… there was so much criticism…
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: … that that sort of ordinary disagreeing…
CLIENT: Right. Yeah.
THERAPIST: … within -a loving relationship…
CLIENT: Nope.
THERAPIST: … where being critical constructively is something within a very loving relationship.
CLIENT: Nope. Can’t happen. Which is why then that also affected a lot of girlfriend situations.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: Right. Because if some little thing…
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: I mean, I’d go into a tailspin.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know. It’s insane. It’s fucking insane. And it’s one thing if it’s just that one piece and then there’s a… but, you know, if you’ve got PTSD and you’re having anxiety attacks, and you have… there was already this shit before you got the PTSD from these tragedies or whatever, it’s like, whoa, motherfucker. I mean, you know. So I think now that I see all that that’s why I think I also feel generally so much better. I’m like, wow, I’m a pretty young dude, and, I mean, I’m all right. Like Jesus Christ, you know, considering all that shit. [46:15]
THERAPIST: Tomorrow.
CLIENT: Thanks, Claire. See you at 2:20. I’ll probably e-mail you like later today.
THERAPIST: Okay, sounds good.
CLIENT: Thank you, Claire.
END TRANSCRIPT
