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[00:00:00 00:00:54] Discussion about nearby coffee shops and iced tea.

CLIENT: I'm (inaudible phrase at 00:00:57) because I genuinely was trying to think about what we were talking about last time and I genuinely couldn't remember what our conversation was about last time. I was curious if you could...

THERAPIST: Do I remember what we talked about?

CLIENT: Yes, anything. I remember what we were talking about two times ago. We were talking about me going to my place, the old house, then there was a conversation about "Mud" and I think we talked about "Mud" a little bit at the beginning. [00:01:37]

THERAPIST: Of last time (ph)?

CLIENT: I remember. I shared my impression of it as a fast-action thriller, which didn't vibe (ph) with yours. That's all I remember.

THERAPIST: What do you make of that? What happens to-not that it's unusual or anything, but what do you...?

CLIENT: I don't know. It doesn't happen very often. I don't have a reflection (ph) on it really, yet.

It makes me feel as if it speaks to the value of that time or something. Maybe it wasn't noteworthy. Maybe it wasn't progressive (ph). Maybe it wasn't... [00:02:39]

THERAPIST: That's where it leaves you wondering (ph) ?

CLIENT: Yes, kind of a little bit. Maybe my performance wasn't-

THERAPIST: Oh you're a performer (ph)?

CLIENT: Yes, even to myself even [inaudible at 00:02:50]. It's beside the point because there's something else that I'd rather talk about.

I had a conversation with Laney the other night. I don't know when it was. I think it was actuallywe had this conversation before the last time I was here but it just kind of stuck out to me. [00:03:24]

I was just about ready (ph) to get off the phone with my mom. I hadn't talked to my mom for a really long time, or my dad for a really long time. And then I talked to both of them within one or two days, within 24 hours of each other. It was interesting. I had a pretty run-of-the-mill conversation with my mom and she kind of finished with the same telling me to call my grandparents; telling me to think about them; telling me to be worried about them and that I need to love them. It ended in that conversation.

And I remember I was talking to Laney about it and I was like, "Oh, man, I didn't talk to my mom for about a week. I thought maybe she would have thought that I wasn't talking to her based upon that." I guess I was just like, "Oh, wow. My mom clearly has no idea that this bothers me." Literally has absolutely... [00:04:26]

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: I don't' know. I'm already (out there) (ph) second-guessing. Maybe she knows it bothers me, because I've told her before and I've tried to be delicate with it, but even without (going into the reasons) (ph) I've said to my mom that it really bothers me when we start having conversations like this. I've said that to her that clearly going into why. I don't even know if I can articulate it that clearly, let alone say it to her. But I've told her that it bothers me. I've told her that it pisses me off. And there's sometimes even then when she's saying it, she'll even sort of finish with "Is this making you...Is this bothering you, again?" She'll do that. "Is it bothering you? Do you feel like I'm nagging you when I ask you to do this stuff?"

Sometimes I wonder, maybe she's totally aware that it pisses me off. Maybe she just thinks it's just for...or maybe she just attributes my frustrations to irresponsibility or immaturity. Do you know what I mean? Like, "Oh, maybe it pisses him off, but maybe not for reasons that...", you know? [00:05:39]

THERAPIST: Like cleaning your room?

CLIENT: Yes, I was literally just thinking something like that; like taking a bath when you were kid. No kid wants to take a bath, but it's ultimately in that kids interest to take one, so you push through their own wants. I don't really know where to fall thinking about that. No, she definitely knows it bothers me. It's not important to her.

THERAPIST: Do you think she gets why?

CLIENT: Probably. I get why, entirely, which I think maybe is one of the reasons why I get really frustrated with it because I have a really hard time saying it. I know that it's so easy. Absent some really clear reason, you're just being a bad kid who doesn't keep in touch with your family. That's always there. That's where it's going to go unless there's a more persuasive explanation. [00:06:50]

THERAPIST: Unless there's a really good "why".

CLIENT: Yes, exactly.

This conversation I was having with Laney was right afterwards, and I was really bothered by it like I always am. And I just started talking to Laney and I started saying some of the things that I've spoken with you about. I was listing reasons like how does this seem so far-fetched to my mom, how is it impossible for my mom to wrap her head around the fact that this could genuinely bother me. [00:07:36]

I'd say things like I'm not even allowed, effectively, to talk to some of my grandparents-the one that's alive on my dad's side. I'll never see her again. I'll never talk to her again. I've never protested about that. So, I think it could be bothersome to then be sort of lectured in a very maternalistic way about how to be a good grandson, while at the same time the implicit assumption is "do the exact opposite with your other grandparent. It's really important that you keep in touch with your grandparents. They love you. They're getting old." [00:08:42]

Like every single thing. They might be good reasons in a certain situation, but I think you can be reasonable to sit back and say does this not seem inconsistent or something? I had that, so I was just kind of saying that to Laney. It was a unique conversation because I felt really confident about some of this stuff for the first time. And Laney was hardly listening, she was on the computer just hacking (ph) away, but it really stuck out to me, because the first time I was saying it I felt like I could actually stand behind it, which was weird.

THERAPIST: That's different?

CLIENT: Yes, absolutely. I question sometimes if I'm just being irresponsible.

THERAPIST: It sounds like it fills a substantive "why", a substantive reason to have these feelings, as opposed to just being impulsive or... [00:09:54]

CLIENT: Yes, or lazy.

THERAPIST: Lazy or whatever. Right.

CLIENT: And my (being a good family member) (ph).

THERAPIST: Reactionary (ph).

CLIENT: I was having this conversation and these things felt more substantive. It made more sense to me. I felt more confident with it. And I was saying to Laney, too-I don't know if I spoke to you about this-that I remember when my dad moved out a really common thing that he used to do, but he doesn't do this anymore, was have conversations with me. This was right after he moved out, months after he moved out. And he'd have conversations with me about how much he hated going up to New Hampshire (sp) and how happy he was that he didn't have to do it anymore. Almost in those terms. Sometimes he was a little more subtle, but almost that explicitly. And then there's me, I was about 16, and I remember being uncomfortable with the conversations. I never really challenged them or anything; I just kind of listened to them.

That was really annoying. My dad used to do that about my mom sometimes, too. He would lament about my mother to me. [00:11:54]

THERAPIST: Do you remember anything about that? I'm just trying to get a flavor of it, even if it's...

CLIENT: She would do this, she would do that. She had these quirks that just... This type of stuff. A lot of it was...I think outside of that context, could have been just pretty benign stuff. But within that context it was not...I think I just agreed with him sometimes, I don't know.

Because in a way, there's things that piss me off about my mom, too. I talk about that here, but it's very different the moment I'm talking about them with Dad who just moved out. Do you know what I mean? I have to kind of go back. It was a pretty common thing. I can remember those conversations really well. And it was weird. Sometimes I felt like some of the only times that I bonded with my dad were during those times, having conversations with him about all the things that pissed him off. [00:13:27]

THERAPIST: Is that still you felt he was open to bonding around that or you felt bonded to him, too?

CLIENT: When I said we were bonded, I just mean to say that I feel like it wasn't...I guess those were some of the closest times we had; that's not to say we were very close at all. Those were easier conversations we would have.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: He used to do that about New Hampshire (ph) a lot, a lot. He still does a little bit about New Hampshire (ph). He'll talk about how he just couldn't stand going up there and the personality differences that he had with everyone up there. He didn't like their lifestyle. They were lazy and just sat around and ate all the time. He didn't like my mom's brother-in-law at all. And he really hated it up there.

He used to go up there a lot more with my mom and me, when I was a lot younger, but then as I got a little bit older he kind of stopped going. It would be very sporadic, maybe on a holiday if everyone would be together. [00:15:02]

Yeah, I don't know. That comes to mind. All of that feels wrapped up with that. I don't know. That feels like a thing, I guess. I don't know what the conclusion of that is, but that really pisses me off. I guess what I mean to say is I think that it was probably hard for me to process and make sense of.

THERAPIST: Yes. What does it mean to you that you have those feelings?

CLIENT: I don't just (ph) agree with him, just purely (inaudible at 00:16:25). I mean a lot of those things pissed me off about being up there, too. Quite frankly some of the things my dad would tell me about my mom, they bothered me a little bit.

THERAPIST: It's not the content of it. [00:16:34]

CLIENT: No, it's not the content of it at all. I don't know. I guess it's just one more example of completely different things that were contradictory. I mean, what I was getting from my mom, what I was getting from my dad. My mom said let's go up there and see family, let's love them and let's treat them like they're our family. And I'd go hang out with my dad and have these casual conversations about how much it sucks up there. At the time I don't think I saw that. I think they didn't seem to conflict as clearly as it seems to now, but I feel that the tension was there at times but I don't think I attributed it at all to that. [00:17:33] That doesn't seem really fair, to me.

THERAPIST: That...?

CLIENT: That that was my experience. That that was what happened, I guess. At this time my dad was still-I seemed to think that both of my parents were still this authority that was still in unison. It just didn't seem like something to look out for. They seemed... Well, they were still so together with the way that things happened. I mean, they weren't violently opposed. That wasn't the mind frame I went into it with.

THERAPIST: Mind frame you went into...? [00:19:06]

CLIENT: Like, oh these are two adversarial people that I need to be a buffer between. Even as it was occurring in more subtle ways sometimes. It just didn't occur to me.

THERAPIST: I'm thinking about this being (about two things) (ph) about the conversations with your mom about your relatives that you'd be in contact with. Two things that strike me about it is one is that it's almost like your reaction to her doing and saying these things should be more (inaudible). It's similar to your dad's. It was almost like you were like something that was arising was something that your dad might have felt, too. Something like, "Wait a second." I mean not that you have the same feelings towards those relatives, but something about, "I don't want to go up to New Hampshire. I don't know about all that. I don't want to be in contact." It's like... [00:20:16]

CLIENT: That's not all (inaudible) that.

THERAPIST: But that's important, some element, and you're sort of saying there was all this stuff between the two of them. No animosity, in unison, and underneath it rancor around relatives. And what does your mom see in his family and what does your dad see in her family and you start to get into some real feeling. Some elements say wait, there's a lot here that was going awry. Sub contentious, maybe not so much, I don't hear you say that about what your mom felt about your dad's side. [00:21:04]

CLIENT: She didn't know them.

THERAPIST: She didn't know them!

CLIENT: She couldn't feel anything about them.

It's the same thing. The ultimate fact at the end of the day is they're not...I can't say things and throw things out there and say my parents did this, because there's not that. I can't justifiably not go up to New Hampshire (ph) on the pretense that my father won't let me see his family. Because my mom didn't do that and that's my mom. It's not my dad. It's not my parents. At least with respect to what I can do now.

THERAPIST: But if family's so important then why am I not seeing this one side of the family? Why am I just seeing this side? [00:22:10]

CLIENT: Well on some purely logical level.

THERAPIST: But having some visceral...some feeling about it.

CLIENT: I think the resemblance was the fact that I'll never see them. That's cool. I felt like that was something I could have been mad about. I feel like that would have been a very justifiable thing for me to get angry about and say, "I want to go see my family." In that situation that sounds like a transgression (ph) interestingly, whereas on the other side of my family with my mom that's what's being shoved down my throat. I didn't do that. I let those terms just be set for me and never whispered about it even. [00:23:21]

I mean at this point now it feels really disrespectful to be spoken to by my mother, who wants to try to lecture me about how to be a good family member, while at the same time I feel that she is completely unaware and no interest (ph) in examining the ways in which I have done these things for my family. She's assuming this position of moral authority that seems disrespectful. I've said to you before I don't get (ph) to see my family. That was my dad's thing. It's his conflict. That's cool. I can take that. I won't miss them (ph). It doesn't (ph) keep me up at night. I'll take that and that's fine. But I guess what I just thought would have been assumed was... As my parents, they have sort of sacrificed their ability to dictate to me how to treat the rest of your family. [00:25:00]

THERAPIST: Why is this okay over here, but not over here?

CLIENT: Yes, so it's like let's forget about this, this isn't a thing. And this is just like you're going to act like (Barry and Melanie) (ph) who grew up two feet away from their grandparents, went there every day after school. That drives me crazy! I don't want to be a part of it. I feel like, in going up there, I'm swallowing my pride almost.

THERAPIST: I see. I get it. Almost like you're supposed to just do what's been taught to you to do or to think and to feel about this stuff and to do it in a way that you feel is unquestioningly (sp?) so. Don't talk to these; talk to these.

CLIENT: Love these people.

THERAPIST: Love these.

CLIENT: Don't be emotionally attached to them.

THERAPIST: And don't be emotionally attached to them, yes. I see what you're saying. [00:26:13]

I was thinking, too, that there's something that kind of brings me back to when-I don't really recall if it was you were in the car while your father was having this fight with his family that last time, and maybe the car's wrong, but somehow...

CLIENT: I was in the car looking out the back window. Yes.

THERAPIST: In some way...what it meant to you to just drive off and not see these folks again. And again, not just because of whatever possible potential of emotional connection it was for you (ph), but the importance that I was thinking about was that it was telling you, demanding it, that you just leave your own feelings about all that aside in some way. Not addressing the meaning of all that to you. Not addressing the impact of what just happened on you, but instead asking you to be cool with it. Asking you to be cool with it. In some way to shelve (ph) a lot of whatever was potential for you to feel. Maybe you didn't even know. Now what do you (inaudible)? [00:27:46]

CLIENT: It's definitely not a reaction to not being able to see people that I miss. That's definitely not any aspect of it at all. But that is a dynamic. I guess the fact that anything (ph) was asked of me, that I did anything, which in my mind I felt like I did. That was a big thing to do. Then after that, to take this position, and after all these other examples, too, where I feel like I really, really tried to tailor the way that I dealt with my family.

Like my mom and dad concerned with no one's interests but there's. Genuinely really trying to think about them. Really trying not to make it more difficult for them at possibly a significant cost to me. And then to just take this posture, speaking to me about my grandparents, as if I had no clue what it means to think about your family. That just seems like the only place where those types of comments could come from. And just to hear that, it's just like, "Fuck you!" Is that really where we're at right now? Do you think that little of me, of like... [00:29:45]

THERAPIST: But if you (inaudible phrase at 00:29:52)

CLIENT: Yes, I guess it just seems to suggest the Like it doesn't (inaudible), right? You're speaking to me as if I have no clue how to care about my family which seems to suggest that I haven't worked really hard at times to try to make things go more smoothly. Which I feel like I did. I really do. I really felt like I did. And to speak to me as if she needs to instruct me to be caring when I feel like, geez, my concern and care for my mom is like... I couldn't get out of it for so long. Does that make sense? [00:31:07]

I guess just after all that, after growing up, that there wouldn't just be, "This is your decision, to figure out how you want to relate to your family. Just one little scrap of semblance in your family tree that looks like a normal family. We'll let you make your own informed decision about how to feel." And I'd probably go up and see them, quite frankly. Because I know that my grandparents up in New Hampshire (ph) had nothing to do with any of that. [00:31:51]

THERAPIST: I see what you're saying. There's something about you getting that demand, or the instruction to do something that you already know good and well and that you've already been doing. I was wondering if it feels like it's almost like by saying that, it's not acknowledging what you've already been doing all this time. It's almost like, "What? Does she not get what I've been doing all this time?" [00:32:31]

CLIENT: Precisely. I'm just sick of being spoken to like I'm not capable of taking into consideration the feelings of my family members and I'm also just sick and tired of having people just pointing (ph) directions and telling me how to feel about it and what to do. I don't know. I'm sick of it. I feel like I've done that. It pisses me off. Sometimes it just feels completely ignored. It just makes my family...I think this gets to some of those comments that I've said to you some time ago, that when I'm with my family there's this very fantalizing (ph) feeling of this dynamic where it's right back to everything's dictated. Like it makes me feel like my family is always going to be on those terms. Like there's no...If I don't see my grandparents, I have these conversations with my mom and I want to break my phone. And if I go up there, I feel like I'm giving in to those terms or something. Either way it just leaves me feeling like shit. [00:34:26]

(15 second pause)

THERAPIST: (Where were you just now?) (ph)

CLIENT: I was just thinking to myself, you know we started the conversation. I would not have that conversation with my mom. That would be a hard thing for me to talk about, obviously. [00:35:10]

THERAPIST: What comes to mind (ph)?

CLIENT: Her feelings. The only reason I haven't spoken to her about that is because it would make her feel like shit.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah, because that would be basically revealing the fact to her that I'd be throwing at her something that I feel like would be a cheap shot.

THERAPIST: A cheap shot?

CLIENT: If I said something to my mom like, "Mom, it really frustrates me when you try to lecture me on how to be a good family member, particularly after your own experiences with me." I feel like that sort of sums this up on a certain level, but that's going to make her feel horrible. [00:36:20]

THERAPIST: What do you think it would make her feel like it's a...?

CLIENT: I would just be saying to her that she and my dad have collectively done stuff that is so extremely impactful in my day to day living, which would be a revelation quite frankly, I think.

THERAPIST: You'd be telling her about (that, then showing her) (ph).

CLIENT: Yes, it would necessitate talking about the fact that she made a really difficult experience for me. That's the opposite of what I want. [00:37:23]

THERAPIST: That's the conflict, right?

CLIENT: Sometimes when I might think about this, because I've thought about this in more abstract terms sometimes, sometimes I think that I'm going to have to live with this. I'm going to have to do something. I'm going to have to see my grandparents or something.

I think about making peace sometimes, and the only thing that I can actually, really think about, that gives me a modicum (sp?) of comfort, is thinking to myself, well, if my mom can get to that position and see to (ph) me in a way that, from my experience, is so evidently so far removed from the amount of effort that I've put in at times the care that I've taken into consideration if she's that far out, then on some weird level I accomplished something growing up if that's what I was trying to accomplish, which I think I was on some level. Because that means my mom's not staying up at night thinking that she ruined my life or something. At least my mom's talking to me the way that-My mom's not tip-toeing (sp?) around her divorce guilt. [00:39:05]

THERAPIST: I see what you're saying. And then to say something about what it's felt like to you, or say just what you've fantasized about saying, would give her the potential to undo that or give a reason to stay up at night.

CLIENT: I think it would be extremely upsetting to her, to have that conversation. I think it would really be upsetting to her. [00:39:58]

THERAPIST: There's also this level (of upsetting) (ph) you to see that. Not only in her, but I was thinking if you were to tell her about that it would be entering into this uncomfortable situation for you where you're aware of more feelings about it, too, with her in her presence. There's the acknowledgement of a feeling there that's not cool, that's not "everything's okay".

CLIENT: It would absolutely require me (inaudible) sharing with her and putting that on her. It would definitely require me to engage with it more than I have. [00:41:05]

THERAPIST: Yes, that's right.

CLIENT: Maybe both of those ends are just as significant.

THERAPIST: I think they are. Yes.

CLIENT: And that's what goes through my head every time my mom has these conversations with me.

THERAPIST: You know, just to flush this out a little bit, when you play that out, if you play that out at all If you've played out the scenario and you've told her and she's up at night thinking about it, say for example, what is she up at night thinking about? What is she feeling? What's going on for her? And why? What is she...?

CLIENT: She's alone. She's literally in a house alone, probably sick, arthritis in her hands. Trying to already deal with this medication that she's taking with terrifying side effects, working 10 hour days like she does sometimes, and then at the end of the day having to tie it all up with the fact that she was...I think that's what I was saying. This is what she would think on her standards, she would think she was a horrible mom. On her standards. I know that regardless of how I put that, by her standards, that's what it would feel like to her. And that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to go to lengths to want to stave off. [00:43:05]

THERAPIST: Avoid, yes.

CLIENT: That's what it seems like in my head.

(16 second pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible whispered phrase) [00:43:32]

CLIENT: And I'd agree. I would not be anecdotal when I say that's a comforted thought to think that maybe my mom could be that removed from some of those things (inaudible phrase at 00:43:49). I'm not being funny or ironic (ph) or something. I genuinely wouldn't want my mom to really harp (ph) on that kind of stuff. The same way I don't just harp (ph) in on it. Because I just generally don't think it's provocative (ph).

THERAPIST: That's precisely why you wouldn't ever say it, because you knew it would-well, I assume you came from the position of going, "If I'm not saying this, it's to just make her sicker." Sicker with some sort of malady (sp?) that she can't cure.

CLIENT: Yes. Depressed...

THERAPIST: Depressed. What do I do with this one that I'm not going to... [00:44:34] If you're afflicted with that sentiment from your son, how do you recover from that?

CLIENT: Yes, there's no redemption with that. She's not really going to correct (ph) that. If it gets her hands it's there. [00:45:01]

THERAPIST: Well, it's like you said. It's something about her own kind of standards within herself to be that good mother and that's kind of her undoing (ph). Almost like she couldn't accept the fact that she was doing something that was affecting you and maintain that sense of her own goodness, despite having done some things that had some damage that left some mark (ph). Almost that she hadn't kind of seen herself in some ways. Always doing something good. Not hurting you. Not affecting you. Because if she did that then she'd lose that sense of, "Wow, I'm this good mother still. I can be a good mother and still do things that hurt my son." [00:45:57]

CLIENT: I guess on some level that's her own doing.

THERAPIST: It's just rough.

CLIENT: I don't know if it makes it (ph) unique in any way, though. That's my own doing, my concern for her, on the same level.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: It's the same, you know I wouldn't fault her for being so prone (ph) to feeling guilt about those things because here I am. I'm just saying all that stuff, all those frustrations would be worth holding on to, to avoid me having those same concerns...

THERAPIST: Oh, now I see what you're saying. To you to be the good son. Is that...?

CLIENT: Yes, and I don't know if she'd be able to get over the fact that she really hurt me. I don't know if I could get over the fact that I did something that really hurt her. That doesn't seem weird... That's all I'm saying.

THERAPIST: Right and maybe the other side is that she wouldn't feel like you'd recover. She wouldn't feel like you could recover.

CLIENT: Precisely.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Absolutely.

THERAPIST: (inaudible phrase at 00:47:43)

Yes, I was struck too, by you sort of bringing in the element of not wanting to see your grandparents has much more to do with bringing in something that's not the good son or something like that. How do I put it? Almost like, "Hey, we can survive if I have something that you don't like and causes you some discord (ph) or something."

CLIENT: I'm not following you.

THERAPIST: I was just thinking this might be way abstract and not where you were going with it at all but I was just thinking about how if you're saying, "I'm not going to go see my grandparents," it's bringing in some element of, "I'm not being the good son right now that you want me to be. Are we still okay though, in the grand scheme of things?"

CLIENT: Yes. I didn't (ph) know that by that decision I would (inaudible phrase at 00:49:02).

THERAPIST: It's your way of challenging this whole...

CLIENT: As if my mom would literally be like, "Oh, Dan (ph), before you didn't want to come up and see your parents, we just had the perfect family and you ruined it." Do you know what I mean? It's like that's where the moralizing (ph) tones (ph) start to come out.

(inaudible) another (ph) week.

(inaudible crosstalk)

CLIENT: That was a really nice conversation (inaudible). [00:49:44]

THERAPIST: Yes, yes.

CLIENT: Thank you very much.

THERAPIST: Sure, I'll see you Monday.

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