TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi.

CLIENT: Hello.

THERAPIST: Come on in.

CLIENT: Good to see you.

THERAPIST: Good to see you, too. [00:00:57]

CLIENT: It's just been crazy lately the last couple of weeks with her grandmother's sudden death. Everything going on has just been an emotional wreck for me because her grandmother's death was more sudden. She got sick on Wednesday, she talked to her on Thursday, and Friday she was gone. I compare it to my grandmother where my grandmother was sick for a number of years. Every year we thought it was going to happen, thought it was going to happen, and it never happened until it finally happened. The whole time while I'm down there I'm looking at the atmosphere. Her family has a very small family. [00:01:58] At the wake and the funeral there was probably only a total of about 70 people, where at my grandmother's wake there was probably like 500 and at the funeral there was probably like 300, so it was just two totally different backgrounds from where we're coming from. As I'm there and I'm watching this small family, I could just feel the presence of love. I could feel the presence of connectedness, a togetherness that they genuinely had for her grandmother. I kind of got choked up a little bit because in the three years that I got to know her and the three years I got to be around her I kind of felt a bond that we had that I wish I had with my grandmother because before, all my talks were, "As soon as my grandmother passes we're going to get married. [00:03:07] We're going to get engaged. We're going to do all of this stuff." Well my grandmother passed. Then we got engaged and when we got engaged I made sure her grandmother was there to share it with us. We were talking all excited about the wedding because I was real excited that her grandmother was going to be able to share this time with us, and now she's not going to be able to share the time with us.

That being said, it's just my emotions are mixed. I have a lot of mixed emotions. I have a lot of emotions that I wish I could have felt, I could have had, when my grandmother passed. I guess you could say I was craving them a little bit after seeing her brother and her and her aunt and her uncle just being like that. [00:04:05] Unfortunately, this is the second person very close to her that has passed because she lost her father back in 2006. After the funeral we went back to her aunt's house. She and her uncle just talking really made me emotional because I look at it like her uncle, like my dad, both of them lost their brothers roughly around the same time. Now they lost their mothers roughly around the same time and seeing her uncle and her being emotional, sobbing, crying, relating stories and talking about the future and getting all emotional kind of choked me up because that's the kind of relationship that I've kind of been looking for, I've kind of been craving and have been searching for and trying to find. [00:05:15]

I don't know if it's because her family is a lot smaller and they're a lot more close-knit, even though the all live around the country or it's because my family is very big and we're all compact here that we take a lot of things for granted. For me it's just been difficult because I'm confused. I'm confused in the sense that, again, it comes to me comparing things and looking towards the future. This is what I want with my family when I start my family. However, I know I can't keep it small because my family is already very big and her family is not. [00:06:11] I want to start all these family traditions. I want to have this family bonding because I do see what she just went through and I do see how they do have a very good relationship with each other. Then I look at my relationship with my family and I'm analyzing it and it's to the point where we were talking earlier about before, all my hatred was towards my dad's side. Now my hatred (sniggers) is towards my mother's side as well and I'm kind of in the middle where I dislike my dad's side and I dislike my mom's side. I'm just really confused because I don't have any emotions towards my family like I had before. [00:07:08] I hate to say it, but I kind of feel like I've become emotionless towards them, where I don't get angry, I don't get sad, I don't get discouraged. I just don't care. I don't care about what's going on, I don't care about this, I don't care about that that's going on in the family who's pregnant, who died, who did this my mind has just completely shut off from that emotional attachment. It really is leaving me confused because we had the holidays with my family and I was there, but for some reason I felt awkward, just because of the bad blood that I had in the past with my aunt and my uncle and my cousins. [00:08:07]

There's something there that, I don't know what it is, but it's just very uncomfortable. I'm not comfortable being around them anymore. I'm not comfortable talking with them. I'm just not comfortable just talking about them in general. This is my mom's side. It's just been really difficult. I feel like I've been through so much and now that I'm engaged, my parents are all excited and we're talking about our wedding plans and my cousin's fianc� made a comment that, "You didn't pick that ring out by yourself. You didn't do this by yourself. You had help with that, right?" And I'm like, "What's going on here? What's the competition?" I do see that there is a lot of competition in my family. [00:09:12]

THERAPIST: What do you think everybody is competing over?

CLIENT: I don't know. I don't know. There are two happy stories going on and we should be happy for the same amount for both of them. We shouldn't be happier for the one than for the other. I was kind of getting the vibe from my cousin's fianc� that he's a little upset that I proposed, even though we've been together the same amount of time, I was already planning on doing it this year, I had no idea what he was doing, I was doing my own thing; so I don't know where the problem is. The fact that everyone is asking us about the wedding and we have all these plans and are moving forward with it and I guess they were asking my cousin and she hasn't done anything. [00:10:09] I'm at a loss for words because I'm trying to figure out where the negativity is coming from for this. I'm really feeling it and it's just an uncomfortable feeling. It's a feeling that I don't like, that I don't want to be involved with because I personally, for once, I feel like I've done nothing wrong. My fianc� have done nothing wrong. My parents have done nothing wrong. This is a joyous time, and yet I still feel the tension in the room and feel the butting of the heads and this, that and the other thing. For me it's uncomfortable because I do know that my family is very competitive. [00:11:02]

I do know that the fact that my fianc� and I have allowed my parents to contribute to the catering portion of our wedding is going to be over the top. He is trying to impress people beyond impressing people. When I try to bring him back to reality that I don't want that, he doesn't understand why just because for financial reasons we don't want him getting this extra raw bar that's $2.00 apiece of raw seafood. "I was just at a wedding and they had it and I think it would be good. Don't worry about the money." This is what I'm trying to get over. I'm trying to get over this competition part where I don't give a shit if they have it. I don't care what they did. It's not what I want. It's not what we want. [00:12:04] I understand that we are giving them a portion of it. I understand they're very excited to be doing this, but on the other hand, I feel the motive is to outdo this one, outdo that one. It's not what I'm looking for. I'm just looking for simple, plain, move-forward, and get it over with. But with my parents and I guess that's where it comes from for me. This is why I need to get this, I need to have this thing, and I need to have this thing because I look back and I've just been around this competition my whole life. My mother was always trying to compete with my dad's sister. My uncle, my aunt's husband was always trying to compete with my dad. [00:13:00] It's just been growing and growing and growing because the more successful one becomes, the more successful this one becomes; and they're just constantly trying to outdo the other.

THERAPIST: It's an interesting question to think about what the competition is for.

CLIENT: (sniggers) You got me. To be honest, I would love to ask that question. It's a very valid question. It's a very to-the-point question where I don't know what we're competing against. I really don't. My dad has four children; my aunt has three. My other aunt has two. Is that a competition that we have more children? It's also a battle of education. Everybody went to school. That was always a competition, too. I think, to be honest, it's like bragging rights. [00:14:08] "Look at what my son and daughter have accomplished." "Look at what I've accomplished." "Look at what we're doing now."

THERAPIST: To feel more important or more special?

CLIENT: I think so. I do, I really do. Is it stature? Status. I'm looking for the other word.

THERAPIST: Stature is an interesting word, too, though.

CLIENT: They're looking to be placed somewhere. They're looking to, "Oh, he's up here because he's in this level or this bracket." I really do. I think it's a status thing. It's a status that, "As parents, we put our kids through college. We put our kid through graduate school both of them. One of them is going for their PhD. [00:15:04] "We've put one through law school." "We own a business." "My children are running a business." I truly, honestly think the competition is still going. To be honest, I don't want to be a part of it anymore. I don't want to be in the middle of it. At first, I didn't even recognize that I was in there. Yes, I was jealous of my cousins and I was jealous of what they had and what I wanted. Essentially, I eventually wound up getting that, but the more I'm seeing things in different perspectives and the more I'm actually processing what's going on, the more I'm feeling like pushing myself away from it, getting away from it, eliminating myself from the competition. [00:15:59] I still, in my heart, want to believe that I'm over it, but I still have that addiction. I still have that drive where I do want to show off what I have. I do want to show off my accomplishments. I do want to be able to brag about this, that and the other so, in a way, I'm confused again because I want my life simple in this essence and I want my life luxurious and over the top over here.

THERAPIST: What's in the middle?

CLIENT: The middle? (sniggers) Try and figure that out. I'm trying to figure that out.

THERAPIST: Is there right now a gap in the middle?

CLIENT: Yes, there is. There is because I don't want to pick and choose this one or the other one. I eventually want to funnel them so they go to the middle and stay in the middle because right now I'm jumping from this side to this side, and it's very, very complicated. [00:17:12] No matter how tough I feel I am mentally, the peer pressure, the easiness of stuff being there at your fingertips waiting for you to grasp, it sometimes gets the best of me. Sometimes it really gets a hold of me and I feel like I can't control it. There are times I'm not even thinking and I'm just like, "That sounds great." Boom. Or "Wait a second. I don't want to do that." It's just one of those things where do I feel I'm making progress towards the middle? Absolutely. Absolutely. [00:18:01] Do I want to be in the middle right away? Yes, but I know my long-term goal and my journey has got to bring me there and, unless I can come over these obstacles and be able to right my ship, I don't know if I can succeed. I want to succeed, I have the right mind-track to succeed, but I just feel there are different demons pulling me away and I go back to the addiction where, whenever I get stressed out, there are always calling my name. They're calling my name. (sniggers)

It's interesting because I asked my girlfriend the other day if I could smoke. [00:18:57] She looked at me and goes, "Why do you want to do that?" Because I was seeing a buddy who I hadn't seen in a while and I knew he still smoked and I haven't smoked in almost a year. (sniggers) The craving was getting to me. I was thinking about it because I knew I was going to see him. I was thinking about it when I talked to him. I was thinking about getting high. I wanted to get high. It was just one of those things where yeah, I'm going to smoke. I had convinced myself all these things of why it's a good idea to smoke. I had it set in my heart that, fine, I 'm going to smoke. I told her about it and she was like, "Why are you going to do that? Why do you need to smoke? I thought we were over this part of our lives," and that got me thinking. I call it the guilt coming into me. [00:20:07]

THERAPIST: When was it that you thought about smoking?

CLIENT: Thanksgiving because I knew I was seeing my aunt and my uncle, so it was Thanksgiving night. It was after we left, but I knew where I was going after my aunt and uncle's house because she was coming with me and she knows this very good, close friend of ours. She knew about it and that's why I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her that this is what was going to happen just because she doesn't like it when I do it behind her back. She can tell when I'm high. Thanksgiving came and went and, when we went he asked me if I wanted to smoke and I ultimately didn't smoke because she got me thinking, "Why do I want to do that?" [00:21:03] And I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, why would I want to do that?" I've worked so hard to get to where I am, to do the things that I'm doing; and then here I am, planning on getting stoned. In my head I was ready to get stoned. If I hadn't told her, I was getting stoned. There's not a doubt in my mind that I was getting stoned. I don't know if it wasn't preparation for visiting at my aunt and uncle's house; because when I'm around them that's the only thing that I did on a consistent, regular basis, was use.

THERAPIST: You didn't have to tell her.

CLIENT: I didn't. I wanted to.

THERAPIST: Did you feel that by telling her she would kind of serve the purpose of having you reflect on what you were going to do? [00:21:57]

CLIENT: No. I just didn't want to lie to her because our communication in the past was that I was lying and withholding a lot of things from her and she didn't like that because she'd eventually find out. I'm talking about product things. I guess that's the addict in me, where the sneakiness comes in. You think you can not get caught and you know you're not going to get caught; but with her, she knew every time I was high. Whereas my parents had no clue when I was high or if they did, they just never said anything. During those times, she told me how she felt when I was doing that and I didn't want her to feel like that anymore. I didn't want to be beating myself up over this over and over and over again saying, "Why don't I just come out and talk to her?" [00:23:01]

I want to gain her trust again, and that's why I'm telling her the things that I'm thinking. That's why I'm telling her the things that I'm doing because I know I hurt her a long time ago. I know we had trust issues before and I feel like I'm slowly gaining her trust back by telling her what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling. Unfortunately, I told her the motivation behind it because I knew we were going to our friend's house and I knew he had it and I knew he was going to smoke. I just feel that by talking to her and having a conversation about it, it really helps me connect with her. It helps me connect with our relationship. It helps me connect with more relationships that I need to develop and work on because I do feel that I can't hide everything. [00:24:05] I shouldn't hide everything. If I'm going to be where I want to be and talk to the person who I claim I care about which I do and I love, why am I going to keep her in the dark? Why am I going to not tell her the things that I'm doing? It does help me out because she is my partner who talks me through things, who does play devil's advocate, who's not the one always saying, "Do what you've got to do. Here you go. Let me help you." She constantly motivates and pushes me to be the person that I need to be. She hasn't given me anything. She always has made me earn it and I think that's what I love the most about her. [00:25:00] She constantly keeps me going, constantly keeps me motivated, constantly, when I'm ready to get derailed, brings me back into my center point where I need to be.

To be honest, I feel like I haven't had that most of my life because I always had people that were enabling me. If I didn't have any money because I do all this stuff, my parents would give me money and I'd go blow it away on product. The one thing I need to get off my chest is that when I was using, I never stole from my parents and my siblings because I knew I never had to; and that was the worst part of my addiction, was all I need to do was ask and it was given. There was never any question of it. [00:26:04]

THERAPIST: So maybe it felt like they were almost giving youthem.

CLIENT: A little bit. A little bit because I always knew I'd never run out of them unless the dealer didn't have any.

THERAPIST: It sounds like the way you describe candy. It's like, "You want candy? Here's candy. Keep taking it."

CLIENT: Yeah. Exactly.

THERAPIST: Candy is drugs to kids, for sure.

CLIENT: Exactly. I honestly feel that, where I honestly feel like I was never going to run out of my supply. I was never going to be left in the dark. With my fianc� it's always like, "Okay, you can do it. But just know X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to help you." (sniggers) And it gets me thinking. It gets me processing information like, "Whoa. Do I really need to be doing this?" [00:27:01] "Why am I doing this again?" "Okay, yep, she makes a valid point." And then we just talk about it.

THERAPIST: It sounds like she creates a buffer between action and thought.

CLIENT: She does. She plays devil's advocate a lot and I love it because, for once, there's no negative spin on it. It's always, "Okay, let's talk about it." She gives the positives and the negatives where, at home, it was always the negatives. There was no positive about it. There was no reward. Where here, she goes, "Okay, this is what's going to happen if you do do it; and this is what happens if you don't do it." There are always two ends to the stick instead of just one end. It's not heavy on one end. They're both equal. [00:28:04]

It's something that I'm adjusting to and it's something that I feel is really helping me center my course because, without that, I don't feel like I have that support. I don't feel like I have that person that I could talk to about different things, who I could talk to or relate to my habits because both my brothers have issues. My sister has health issues. I don't feel like I can talk to them about that stuff. Growing up, I didn't want to talk about these issues with my parents because they just wouldn't listen.

I go back to the day that I got real sick, where my mother was crying like, "Why did you do this? We had no idea," and my dad was bullshit that I was selling out of his house. [00:29:02] How did you not know? I was doing this for over three years, right under their noses and there wasn't a sniff of it. What was sad was that I got my older brother involved in it and he and I were both doing it. We were both doing it. That's why I couldn't talk to him about it because he knew what I was doing. He was involved in it. I didn't want him going to my parents saying, "Oh, shit. Chris has a problem. We need to do something about this." The more I think about it, the more I think I could have gone to my brother and he could have gone to my parents, but I don't think they would have believed him because I felt the feeling that they didn't believe me when I got sick, that it was really happening. [00:30:08] I think it was just a state of shock like I'm heading to work and my nose is bleeding and I can't feel anything and I'm feeling like my heart is ready to explode, and the next thing you know I'm waking up in a hospital bed, just lying there. My whole family is there and that's it. What do you do? What do you say? From that point forward I've not been the same person.

I still take my life very seriously and I'm still taking a lot of cautions, but I do feel like those addicts, even though I had them before and say I'm not going to do it again, I still have the urgings. [00:31:08] I still have the cravings. I still have the drive to do it, the drive for that crazy lifestyle, the drive for being a sneak and not telling everybody everything. But when it comes down to it, I don't want that. I don't want that. My mind is confused to the point where I'm just like I want to kick everybody away and do my own thing. But, without those people, without the safety net of my parents and all that stuff, I don't feel like I can do my own thing. [00:32:01]

THERAPIST: But it doesn't sound like your parents provide you with the kind of safety net you feel you need.

CLIENT: They don't. They don't, but as I just mentioned before, the safety net was never running out of the product because I'd just ask for something. And here's me trying to pull myself away from that safety net, pull myself away from "here it is at your fingertips." I feel, with the wedding and the catering push, I feel that anxiety coming back of, "Oh, let's just take the bigger one because it's more expensive. It's better." "Don't worry about this. I'll take care of it." Kind of like when I was a kid where if you want this, here you go you've got it. Now I'm telling them I don't want it and they're still going to get it for me anyway. [00:33:00]

THERAPIST: It sounds like it's a safety net when you don't allow yourself to think.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: If you allow yourself to think, it no longer feels like a safety net.

CLIENT: No, it's not.

THERAPIST: So I guess to put it in reverse, in order to feel safe you can't think.

CLIENT: I can't, but that's where I get into trouble is when I don't think. When I just go and do things on my own and I know they're good decisions for me and for my fianc�, then they come in with their information on it and start twisting it different ways. That's when the confusion sets in my head, the confusion about them having a point. They are paying for it. Maybe I'll let them do whatever they want. (sniggers) [00:34:01] This is where it comes back, where I got in trouble before. "Okay, they are giving me money. They are doing all this for me." Why am I going to even say anything? Why would I talk to them about this issue? They are the ones providing for me. They are the ones doing this for me. Why would I even want to do that. That's where the challenging part for me is having that communication with my parents about what they're doing.

I appreciate the love and the stuff and the finances they're giving me, but I feel they're still not listening to me or to her. We tell them specifically that we want this; and all of a sudden it's up to what they want. [00:34:57] It's up to this big, magnificent, glorious thing, back to the competition because they have four weddings in the family to do this year and they want to be up at that level for my wedding. That's where I totally become confused again.

THERAPIST: What I was thinking is that it seems like you feel that they're sort of not only giving you product, but that you're a product to them to make them feel high.

CLIENT: (pause) Okay. I don't see where that connection is.

THERAPIST: That they need you to make them feel good about themselves that sense. I'm stretching things a bit.

CLIENT: Okay. Now that you've clarified that, that does make sense because without us, what do they have to celebrate and get high off of and do? [00:36:05] I do think it is because we have had a lot of successful parts in our lives. That's what my parents want to embrace, but they don't embrace all the negative parts. They don't embrace the fact that I overdosed or had my own problems and my older brother had his problems or my younger brother had his problems with the law. They don't really talk about that stuff. They don't really try to help us out with those emotional sides of what we went through. They've never even talked about those emotional sides of it with either of us. I can say for a fact that after my own personal time, I don't remember my parents ever sitting down and talking to me about it. [00:37:04] I remember it was up to me to go to by myself and I did all the research and stuff by myself. What they did was pay for it.

THERAPIST: Do you feel that there was something that they just didn't want to see or face?

CLIENT: Yeah, I do. I do. I feel like they mask it behind the money. They hid behind it.

THERAPIST: If they let themselves see, what would they have seen?

CLIENT: They would have seen individuals that were really struggling and craving for their approval, for their support, for a love that we were so looking for. [00:37:57] I mentioned before I never really felt the emotional support, the emotional love from my parents, because whenever I was in a bind, whenever my brothers and sisters were in a bind, there was no, "Sit down. We'll talk about it." There was always, "What can we do to move past this as quickly as possible?" and that's how I'm feeling. That's how I have felt. I guess that's the piece I've been yearning for, that emotional love, that emotional connection towards anything that I know I will have with my sons or daughters someday. I'll be able to be empathetic with them. I'll be able to put myself in their shoes. To be honest, I never thought that my parents put themselves in my shoes. [00:39:00] I never thought they'd see the stress that I was going through. They never thought of the emotions and the hardships that I was dealing with. At the time of my sickness, I was in school full time, working full time, using full time. I was just constantly going. There was never any, "Let's sit down. How's school going? How are you doing?" because my grades in school were always really good. So I guess there was no part for them to sit down and talk about it, but they never really asked what I was doing, what I was involved in. I never really had them meet my college friends. It was, again, starting the secret, "No, we can't do that." I never had them over. [00:40:00] But my college friends, I was always going over to their houses, having dinners with their families, meeting their families, hanging out with them. I never wanted that with my family. I never wanted them coming over to my house and seeing my mom and dad and where I lived and all that stuff. I don't know why. This just popped in there, but I guess there was a little shame in me because when people see what my mom and dad have and they see me, they think, "Here's a spoiled little rich kid who always gets what he wants." Now that that popped in there and I'm thinking about it, yeah, that was part of my fears. I didn't want to be looked at as that kid who always had everything, who always had mommy and daddy taking care of him. [00:40:59] Mommy and daddy were always there to the rescue when, in my heart, looking back, I knew that mommy and daddy were there, but they weren't always they rescuing me. They weren't always there to help me emotionally, to help me during my tough times. That sidepiece they were there physically, but I do wish I had more one-on-one conversations with them. I do wish I could have opened up to them more about how I was feeling, about what I needed from them, wanted from them. Looking back on it, it disappoints me that I didn't. It disappoints me that I was scared for my own self of coming out because I always thought I was a tough person. [00:42:05] Ultimately, I'm not as tough as I thought I would be, not as tough as I thought I could be. It's one of those things where, moving forward, like I said, I'm being more open with them.

THERAPIST: What does "being tough" mean?

CLIENT: (pause) Just putting on that happy face and pretending that everything is all right.

THERAPIST: That's a very interesting definition of tough.

CLIENT: It's not being strong and pushing through everything. In my world, the toughness wasn't how big and strong you were. The toughness part was how much you could take before losing it and breaking down. [00:43:02] I took a lot before I broke down and overdosed. Then I took a lot more before I had my incident with my girlfriend. Now I don't want to keep everything in there. I don't want to see how long I can hold everything in there and just let it explode. I want to get it out there. I don't want to put on that smiley face like everything is grand and dandy when, deep down inside, something is bothering me, something is brewing inside of me and eating me away. I don't want that feeling because I felt that feeling for a long time and I don't like it. I don't like where it takes me. I don't like the person I become when I have that feeling. It's just something that I'm constantly working on. [00:44:00] I'm continually reminding myself and having questions with myself about what I need to do to better myself. Until I can do that, I'm always going to struggle with this. I'm always going to be second-guessing myself. I feel like I'm always going to be confused because, again, when I think, it gets me in trouble because I start putting different dips and turns on stuff and twisting it this way; and then this one says something and I twist it back that way instead of just thinking what I want to do and going with that.

THERAPIST: It's interesting because the point I made earlier is that not thinking gets you into trouble; but then you thought about how thinking gets you into trouble.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, it does. I just run around. That's how I'm feeling. [00:44:58] That's how I feel, is that I'm doing laps and not getting anywhere. Do I feel like I'm going up in a positive route? Absolutely. But when I'm on that second level, in order to find the ramp up to the third level, I'm running around in circles on the second level trying to figure out what's going on.

THERAPIST: We are [ ] (inaudible at 00:45:29)

CLIENT: No, I'm good.

THERAPIST: We're going to need to stop for today. It was nice seeing you.

CLIENT: It was great seeing you.

THERAPIST: And I'll see you in two weeks then.

CLIENT: Awesome.

THERAPIST: Okay, great.

CLIENT: Thank you very much. I hope you had a great holiday.

THERAPIST: I did. Thank you very much, Chris. Take care. Okay. See you in two weeks.

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