TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: So I did a lot of thinking about the combative side of me and how I do, you know, think about ways of just, you know, engaging and confrontation. And there are a lot of situations that I’m faced with that, you know, I don’t even think about, but they are combative.

The whole thing now that we’re planning a wedding is, you know, like I mentioned last week about inviting my aunt. You know, I’ve had conversation with my fiancée, my mother, and you know my siblings about I don’t want them there. About how, you know, family members keep talking about putting things in the past and moving forward. Well I am doing that. I am moving forward; just I’m choosing not to have them as a part of my life. And my whole theory on that is if they don’t understand why that they’re not a part of my life moving forward, then I don’t give a shit about them either. They don’t have to like me; they don’t have to do nothing.

[01:16]

Again, this is where the stubborn side comes with me in order to help myself out; I will make it clear that you’re not welcome in my life. And I, you know, if you want to see me, that’s great. If you don’t want to see me, you’ll make it clear by, you know, keep putting this on me. Well then that’s fine. Then I’ll show you the road that I’m going to take and nobody will ever know my family moving forward. And I know how hurtful that is and how, you know, over the top it is, but that’s how I control things. That’s how I feel I have the leverage over situations.

THERAPIST: What kind of control do you feel you have? What control does it help you to have?

CLIENT: Control over myself, over my own life. Like I mentioned before, I feel like my life has always been guided to how it’s supposed to be instead of what I wanted it to be. And I feel with this leverage I have the ability to take my life where I want it to go instead of bringing it to the way that everybody else wants me to go. And you know it’s starting to make more sense to me. You know, how independently I am becoming. It’s because I know it’s – this is getting off topic – but I had this conversation with my fiancé a week or two ago is that the people that I hate most right now in my life that I’m having major problems with is my family.

The more and more I analyze it, the more and more I see what’s happened to me, what I’ve been through in my life, the more and more agitated and hateful I have, and anger I have towards them. Not just on my dad’s side; on my mom’s side too. Those are the people that are supposed to be closest to you that you’re supposed to love. Those are the people that I feel like I want to butt heads with most. Those are the people I want to just exclude from my life for a period of time.

[03:35]

You know thinking, it’s really messed up, but it’s what I do to cope with things. It’s what I do to heal myself. Being able to finally forgive and finally forget. They do say that time heals all wounds. Well I believe that, but you know, do I know how much time? No. You know. It’s like we talked about earlier, that inner circle. You know once you’ve crossed my path and you really hurt me to an extended extent, the…what am I trying to say, the appearance of you coming back in to my life and being the same as it was before is extremely difficult. I’m very protective of myself and of my past. I know I wasn’t perfect, but I do have values and I guess I do have that trust issue, you know, because when I was doing the drugs and dealing with drugs, there was only one person I could really trust and that was me.

You know, I did have situations where you constantly have to look over your back. You constantly thought you could trust people and in the end they screwed you out of thousands of dollars and that’s when I, you know, started really disliking people and you know, having this hatred come about me of losing trust. Because there were people that I trusted, you know, like my family that really stabbed me in the back.

[05:35]

And after experiencing it, that’s why I’m always on my guard. I say I’m not going to let this happen to me again and I think that’s why I am so defensive towards stuff like this, towards my relationships of being hurt, you know, so bad because I feel like I let my guard down a lot. I’ve let people take advantage of me; kind of like my dad. And I’ve seen, you know, where it’s gotten him. It’s gotten him in to a place where he’s still backing down. He’s still not standing up for himself and for what he believes is right. He’s still masking it. And that bothers me. You know, that’s not who I want to be. I’m not going to mask anything anymore, and I don’t want to.

I told my mother last night, you know, because we’re trying to put together the guest list that you know, when you get it together I’m going to have a talk with my dad about why I don’t want his sister or her family there. And I know it’s going to be hurtful. I know it’s going to be, you know, a tough conversation to have. But it’s something that I just feel is right right now that I don’t want them associated with me.

I told my mother, I go if I have to talk to my aunt and explain to her moving forward my situation on how I don’t want to be a part of their lives moving forward, I don’t want to be associated with them, how the day when I have children, they’ll never meet them; she’ll never meet them because I don’t want her to. I don’t want her…I will have that conversation. Whether or not she understands it us up to her. But I just feel after talking to my fiancé that it is a conversation that needs to be had. It is a conversation that needs to happen sooner rather than later because I’m tired of covering it up. I’m tired of masking how I feel. And if I have to do it, I’m going to do it that way. You know, and they can say whatever they want about me after that. They can tell their side of the story however it wants. You know, I just want to get it out there that I don’t want you part of my life moving forward. You can say anything you want about me because I know you’re going to. And you can take this however you want it.

[08:17]

I go, but this has got nothing to do with the past and that’s what I want them to understand. I go what you did in the past I can’t change. I go, but I can change moving forward and I am making this change and I’m excluding you from my life. I want nothing to do with you. I go you know it really hurt me, you know, most when my grandmother died and her stepson who’s not even blood, was mentioned as a grandchild and was involved more than I was. And that’s one of the questions that I want to ask my aunt is how was someone who is not even blood to your mother considered more of a grandchild than her own blood? And I want to ask my dad the same question as I’d ask my aunt, is why is it that when your mother was so mean to your children and to your nieces and nephew, why neither one of you had a talk with her? Tried to get her to talk to her grandchildren. How neither one of you came in to the defense of us innocent kids? Those questions really bother me.

[09:40]

THERAPIST: It doesn’t sound like your aunt and uncle and cousins were the only people that you want to shut off.

CLIENT: No. I don’t.

THERAPIST: You’re really angry at your parents.

CLIENT: I am.

THERAPIST: Maybe you’re most angry at your parents since they were in charge in most protecting you.

CLIENT: Well I am angry at them. I really am. You know, because I do feel like my whole life I put on a happy face when I wasn’t happy. And then will I miss my parents when they go some day? Absolutely. You know, but right now I have to, you know; it’s like what we talked about. It’s really difficult shining them off. It really is. Because they are in that close inner circle. And you know, I’ve had this conversation with my mother and I told them if my father ever purchased my grandmother’s house, I told them I would never speak to them again. I would never associate with them. I told them they’d never see their grandchildren because that part of my life was so hurtful and so emotionally draining to me and emotionally hurtful that everything that I’ve ever gotten from my grandmother I’m getting rid of to get it out of my life because I don’t want to remember her. Because it’s just an extremely bad memory that I have.

[11:17]

THERAPIST: Well not to be too cute about it, but one thing you knocking your grandmother; it’s your father.

CLIENT: Well, oh, I understand that. But you know, just the way you know moving forward. Like I’ve been talking about if I have to move forward without those people in my life, you know, I’m fully committing to do that. And I think the threat to my mother, you know, kind of sunk in because she started crying. And she started to understand like where I’m coming from. And I don’t know if my dad thinks my threat is serious or not. But they’ll understand it when I don’t speak to them, when I have no contact with them because that’s just the type of person I am. It’s just…I’ve just been hurt too many times by the same people that I can’t hide it anymore. I can’t hide my frustration. I can’t hide my anger. I can’t hide my misery at the thought of just seeing how uncomfortable it is for me. It really does; it bothers me and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve grown up in such a negative environment where that’s been brought on me, but that’s how I feel. I don’t…I don’t want anything to do with a lot of people, you know. I’d rather move on and start my own life and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to move on and move away from all this negativity.

[13:12]

I mean do I want my parents in my life? Absolutely. But enough is enough. They need to understand where I’m coming from. They need to understand how hurt I was; how hurt I still am.

THERAPIST: You really desperately want to communicate with them.

CLIENT: I do. I really do. [Phone rings.]

THERAPIST: Sorry about that. I mean really desperately. And it seems like how you feel. I’m not questioning your judgment on this; that the only way that you can communicate this and have influence over them is to, you know, break off from them. That there’s no other way to get through to them.

CLIENT: That’s how I feel because I feel like I’ve tried everything. I feel like I’ve pleaded my case. I feel like I’ve tried to have a conversation and it always well this, this, and this happens. And then, you know, ultimately I end up caving and go because I do have that emotional attachment to them. But I think I may have, you know, started climbing, starting moving a new arrow when I finally didn’t go to my cousin’s wedding. And I think that was the first step in getting to my father; getting him just to pretend to hear me a little bit because we had a conversation in the car about how I told him I wasn’t going and he was very upset and it was a screaming match.

THERAPIST: What were you screaming about?

CLIENT: About how I didn’t like him. How I’m tired of supporting behavior like this. How I’m tired of people constantly using us and doing everything, you know, to hurt us. And I have to continually put on a happy face and pretend that everything’s okay, that we’re one big happy family. I said I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not doing it. And I go if you don’t like it, that’s too fucking bad. Excuse my language.

THERAPIST: That’s okay.

[15:16]

CLIENT: You know, but it really…it really pissed me off and it really, you know, I hope he finally understood where I’m coming from. And I hope that with this new conversation maybe I’ll open his ears a little bit more about how bad this was; how bad, you know, he let this get to be when he could have controlled it. He chose not to. And instead it just expanded and expanded and expanded and now it’s expanded so much that I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do it anymore. I’m not putting on a happy face. I’m not hiding my emotions. I’m not hiding my feelings. I really; I can’t do it anymore.

You know, and like I said, if that’s the case, then I will just exclude myself from all family events. I will stay away because that is what I know what is best for me. Because every time I get home and get in to the negative environment, I don’t like the person that I am. I don’t like the person that I become.

THERAPIST: Do you feel like when you’re describing this, do you feel like I understand where your decisions are coming from?

CLIENT: To an extent. Not fully.

THERAPIST: What’s the not fully part?

CLIENT: Because you haven’t lived it. You haven’t been through the events that I’ve been through. It’s like we talk about, you know, even with my mother and my siblings. It’s people like yourself are on the outside hearing stories that are coming. They’re not the ones that have actually lived it. They are not the ones that were actually hurt by the events. They’re not the ones that were actually, their lives were affected by the events.

[17:11]

You know everybody can say they’re own opinion, but then when I ask them to put themselves in my shoes, or in my grandmother’s shoes; like for instance, one of my aunts is a grandmother of three. I said do me a favor; don’t go to your grandchildren’s birthdays for the next 20 plus years. Don’t have any contact with them for 20 plus years and see how they perceive you in 20 plus years.

THERAPIST: What does it mean to sort of be on the outside?

CLIENT: What does it mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah, you’re saying that you know people like me who haven’t been through it.

CLIENT: Basically, you know, it’s…they’re the people that know the some of the facts; not all the facts. They’re the ones that, you know, for all I know are putting on a happy face trying to figure out why we’re so angry at people for no reason when we’ve been perceived as the bad people for all this time. You know, and it is; it’s frustrating because I do feel that people just don’t understand my side of the story; how everything I say is just, you know, whatever.

THERAPIST: I do get the sense, at times, when you’re communicating to me what you’re feeling that you’re almost pleading your case to me.

CLIENT: I’m just trying to get somebody to listen.

THERAPIST: Yeah, well that’s what I want to talk about. Trying to understand what you feel I don’t understand and maybe there’s something for us to understand in that. I can understand you’re hurt and your pain and how deeply betrayed you feel by the people who were supposed to take care of you.

[18:55]

CLIENT: Well it’s, I mean for me it’s just difficult because those are people that are supposed to do that. Those are the people that are supposed to love you, who are supposed to care for you unconditionally. And I guess my issues are that I’ve never felt like that, especially in the last 10 – 15 years, I never felt that unconditional love. I never felt that they always had my back. I always felt that they were always attacking me. They were always beating me up and beating me up and beating me up and I kept getting up and taking it. Because that’s pretty much what I was told to do at a young age was it’s okay; just move forward. Turn the other cheek and take it on the other side and it’ll get better as you get older.

[19:48]

Well, as I was getting older it wasn’t getting better. It was actually getting worse. Whenever I tried to express my feeling, express my hurt, and express, you know, how difficult it was for me to be in these situations, I always caved in to yeah, yeah, yeah, and I just caved in and moved on. You know. Like pleading to my mother when I was working at the restaurant about how, you know, how can they treat me like this? I’m supposed to be their flesh and blood. I’m supposed to be their family and they are constantly attacking me. I go, can you please say something to your sister? Can you please call them and say something because it’ll mean more coming from you than from me? And I was denied.

Same thing with my dad growing up. Can you please talk to your mother? Can you please have her come to my birthday? It would mean the world for me. I don’t need any other gifts. I just want her to be there. And once again, I was denied. I was denied. Can you please take me to a game so I don’t have to get a ride and get picked up? Over and over and over when I pleaded when I wanted something; when I was asking for help. You know, when I was kind of down in the dumps. I felt deserted.

THERAPIST: Do you feel like I can’t relate to the feeling of desperation?

[21:39]

CLIENT: Not to the desperation that I felt.

THERAPIST: How do you know?

CLIENT: I don’t. I just assume you don’t. And that’s what…that’s what I’ve been doing is, you know, I felt like…in reality I felt like I’ve been on my own for a long time.

THERAPIST: But then assuming that other people can’t understand the pain that you’re growing through, then you continue to be alone.

CLIENT: Uh huh.

THERAPIST: I think I understand the feelings of desperation, even if I didn’t have the same experience growing up.

CLIENT: I mean I just…I just look back on it and know, you know, how difficult it was just yelling for help and crying for help and just not getting it; being constantly denied. You know, I think – you know, and this comes back to when I overdosed on cocaine I think that was me reaching out trying to get them to help me; to understand what I was going through. And did they get it? Not at first. Not at first. I mean my mother got it a little bit, but my dad was more mad that I was selling drugs and doing drugs in his house. He didn’t even ask why I was doing drugs. Didn’t even care about the hurt that I was going through.

[23:37]

Looking back on it, that bothered me most. That really did bother me the most. I mean there are times that day, sure, I wish you know my life was taken so I could have ended the hurt and ended a lot of the pain. You know, and even after that, I did think about suicide and all that stuff. I was just too scared to do it. Because I felt like if nobody was going to listen to me, why would I keep talking? Why should I keep talking? Why am I wasting my breath?

I do feel like that, you know. I feel like that sometimes when I’m with him, but I don’t feel it when I’m with my fiancée Lucy. I don’t. Because I generally feel that she does care for me. She does finally listen to me. I finally feel like I have someone who’s finally hearing my calls for help and who’s finally helping me take the necessary steps to help better myself. And it is difficult, you know, because this is what I’ve wanted for so long from the people that I love the most. And I’ve been rejected so many times. And I guess that’s why I just keep coming back because I want just that one time to be accepted. I want that one time to finally just be heard.

And unfortunately, I don’t know what it’s going to take to get them to finally hear me. I really don’t. That bothers me. That bothers me. Because there a lot of things that I could do that would hurt them that I know would get their attention. But I don’t want to do it. And I don’t know why. I’m just very scared to move forward with it because it involves me not speaking to a lot of people. And it involves just getting up and moving away. It involves that with nobody knowing where I am. Because I kind of feel like I need to just get up and move on and start fresh and just move forward that way. That’s how I feel. That’s how I feel would best suit me was to move forward and to not be around, you know, family. And that’s a thing that I fear for, you know, moving forward for when I become a parent, you know. Everybody says you want to give your children everything you didn’t have.

[27:13]

How do I give my children grandparents that I don’t even want to be around? It’s difficult because I see what I went through. And that thought pops in my head all the time. It really does. And that bothers me. It bothers me a lot because everything that I wanted I want my kids to have and I wouldn’t be able to give it to them because I want to turn the next leaf and make their lives better than mine. And the stuff that I would do, like, it wouldn’t allow that to happen. It wouldn’t. And I don’t want that for my children.

It’s just; it’s just a lot thinking that I’ve been going through and a lot of emotions that I’ve been feeling that I just, I can’t; I can’t move forward with. Again, I want…do I want to? Yes. Can I? I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Move forward with?

CLIENT: Not seeing anybody. Eliminating everybody from my life, you know. All the people that hurt me. All the people that, you know, who keep telling me to turn the other cheek. I don’t want that. I don’t want you to keep telling me to turn the other cheek. I’ve already done it. I don’t like it.

[29:20]

THERAPIST: Do you feel like those are your only two options? To turn the other cheek or to sort of erase them from your life?

CLIENT: Yes. Yes, because that’s all I, you know, I feel I’ve been taught. I feel I’ve been programmed to do. It’s to turn the other cheek and take it and deal with everything that’s going on. Or isolate yourself, move forward with nobody in it. And it’s just who I am.

THERAPIST: I wonder if there’s a middle ground; a middle ground. I mean turn the other cheek seems to me like it means, you know, ignoring your feelings or stopping your feelings or something like that. And it seems to me that there might be a way to appreciate that your feelings are valid and not necessarily let go of them to have them, but just sort of be…not be, go along with the system but at least be there in the kind of way that it feels good for you and not be available in the kind of way it doesn’t feel good.

CLIENT: Yeah, but I don’t feel that whatever system I’m putting is going to be good because it all comes back to the communication where I try to communicate my side, my feelings, and for me they just keep getting rejected. It’s been like that for a lot of years. Whether it’s my parents rejecting me; it’s aunts, uncles, cousins. I just feel like I’ve been rejected over and over and over and over. And nothing’s changed. It’s like the job search again. Everything I do and worked hard for, I just kept getting the reject button.

THERAPIST: You got a job.

[31:28]

CLIENT: I did. I did. You know, that’s part of the positive that I do want because I got the job by myself. I did not have anybody help me like I did before. Nothing was handed to me. And this is what helped me build who I’ve become; helping rebuild who I’ve become. It’s an independent person and that’s why I like the road that I’m living now; the path that I’m taking because there are a lot of positives. And there is good communication where I feel everybody understands what’s going on where with my family I don’t think anybody understands what’s going on. I feel nobody listens to anybody. And it starts from my dad. You know, if he doesn’t want to listen, why should anybody else listen? My mom doesn’t want to listen. Why should anybody else listen?

THERAPIST: Is that why you think people on the outside can understand?

CLIENT: Most of the time, yes. Because those are the two people in your life that are supposed to listen to you. They’re supposed to back you up. They’re supposed to protect you. And I don’t feel that I got that to the best of their ability. I don’t. I feel like I was just left there, abandoned, you know, emotionally. I feel emotionally they abandoned me on more than one occasion. They weren’t that support system that I really needed. And looking back on it, it bothers me.

[33:40]

THERAPIST: Needed and craved.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: And you still crave it.

CLIENT: Uh huh. I still do. I just want to be heard from them, by them. And I feel like everything I do is not heard from them. They don’t hear me. I mean perfect examples; getting a job on my own. My mother, the first thing she does it slam it; negative. No positive in it. Buying an engagement ring without them having any involvement. First thing they do is criticize and slam me. Positives; should be excited about turn in to negatives like that. Don’t hear me until I have to blow up and explain to them what’s going on and then they finally get it. It bothers me. Listen to me the first time. Be happy for me because I know that first reaction is how they really feel.

And the other part is just bullshit because they know that after my reaction, they know they messed up. And that’s what I’ve been getting a lot of is a lot of messing up and then trying to cover it up. And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of it. I know their reactions too well. You know. I mean any other parent would be ecstatic that I went and bought an engagement ring. They wouldn’t be upset that I would be part of it. But if I got a new job; try to work and see if you can call this guy and see if you can get a better one. No. I don’t want to do that. I did this by myself.

I feel that everything I’ve done I’ve achieved on my own. You know, they get upset about it because I do think that they want to be part of my decisions. They still want to hold my hand in making, in directing where my life goes. And I don’t want that anymore. And I kind of empathize with my siblings because I know the grasp that my parents have a hold of them. It sucks. And it took me 29 years to finally get out of their grasp and they don’t like it.

[36:40]

Now they have three children who they have in their control, but their fourth is doing their own thing. And I think my sister is finally starting to see it too. She’s talking about moving and getting away. And my little brother has a girlfriend who he spends 95% of his time with. And it’s just my parents and my older brother. And I feel like they cling on to him a lot more because they can’t let us all go.

THERAPIST: Why do you think they’re afraid of letting go?

CLIENT: I don’t know. I still think they want to…I still think they think we’re kids and that they need to protect us always and make decisions for us.

THERAPIST: And then the irony is you don’t feel protected at all.

CLIENT: No. I don’t. I don’t feel like they’re helping me at all or protecting me or putting me in the safest environment. I don’t feel that at all. And I don’t know how my siblings feel, but I don’t feel that way. I think also is I think they’re trying to make up for their mistakes. It’s too late. You know, they’re trying to back track. They’re trying to be there for us now, when I needed them then. And it bothers me because now all of a sudden after everything is played out, you’ve seen the mistakes. You’ve seen where we are emotionally, and now you’re trying to back track it to try to move forward and be a part of our lives and actually defend us. That’s what bothers me the most. Why is it now that when we take action, they finally hear us?

[38:55]

You know, when I was talking to you, pleading with you back then to help, you chose to ignore me. But when I do move on, and my actions start speaking louder than my words, why is it then that you’re finally starting to get me? And that’s what…that bothers me because it shouldn’t be taking this long. You know, you should have known this 20 plus years ago and you chose to ignore it. And now it’s…that’s the hurt. That’s the pain that’s coming out now. It’s just all been building and sitting and building, and sitting and building, and building and sitting for so long. And now I’m slowly releasing this anger and I’m glad I’m releasing it here instead of on them because it would be very bad. It would be very bad. And I know for a fact that if I wasn’t talking about it and working on my treatment in here, I know for a fact I’d probably be drinking or doing drugs again. I know that for a fact because I think about it every day and I think about tobacco every day. Those are the one things that I know listen to me. They do listen to me. They do comfort me. They do tell me everything’s going to be alright in my mind. And that’s not what I want. It’s not what I want. It’s not how I want to be.

[40:56]

How I want to live my life is not how I want to perceive myself as someone who was very dependent upon his parents and now is very dependent on substances and alcohol. I don’t want that. Because that proves to me that I am still dependent upon something. And to fight that and to fight everything else is a battle I’m starting to finally understand and starting to finally move forward with. And I feel like I’m taking the right steps to winning the battle.

Do I know when it’s going to happen? No. But that’s how I feel. I feel like the dependency is slowly; I’m slowly understanding that I don’t need to be dependent upon those things or my parents. I can depend on myself, and on my fiancé. And that’s what I want to do. Those are my ultimate goals are to be able to finally depend on me and have the confidence in my ability to get to being the person that I want to be. That’s why I’m committed to working hard and to taking the appropriate steps to doing it. And, (excuse me), only then I think I will be heard is if I just do my thing and become successful. You know, they think that’s a huge part of it.

It is a huge part of it and it’ll be very good for my own self-esteem and my own morale knowing that I was able to do it by myself. I think that is the huge issue that I’ve finally come to the realization that anything I do is going to come from me. It’s not going to come from anybody else. And I think before I was dependent on somebody else making it happen; taking the initiative and doing things for me. Getting my life going, you know, for me. And I would just go along with everybody else and take care of other things. I finally realize that’s not how life works. You need to take your own steps. You need to realize your own things. You need to do your own research and do all that stuff. Nothing is handed to you in life.

[43:58]

To be honest, within the last year, I think it’s finally sunk in with me. That it is me who has got to put in the work. It is me who’s got to do stuff. You know. That comfort zone was there, but I think I officially cut it off because I don’t like it. I don’t like who it makes me feel like, who I become when I’m on it. I just don’t like it because then I do feel like I’m trapped. I feel like I am still stuck down below, you know, at the bottom of the wall again with no way out. Whereas today, I don’t feel like that.

THERAPIST: That’s good to hear. We need to stop.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I will see you next week.

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: Okay. I look forward to the next one.

CLIENT: Thank you Dr. [inaudible – 44:55].

THERAPIST: Okay, bye bye.

CLIENT: Bye.

END TRANSCRIPT