TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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THERAPIST: How were your holidays?

CLIENT: Yeah. They were good, thanks.

THERAPIST: You go home?

CLIENT: I went – Yeah, I went to – I have family in Vermont. And then, I went to Ohio for a bit to see some friends.

THERAPIST: So you’ve been around a bit. Can we just look at the schedule real quick and chat about that then.

CLIENT: That’s right. Did you get my e-mail?

THERAPIST: I did, yeah. I didn’t respond, ‘cause I just figured we’d chat about it today.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: So I had said, if it’s – so I can do the 1:40 to 2:30. But if there was something a little earlier and you said that there was something at what time?

CLIENT: Yeah. So that class I’m teaching, it ends at – I stop teaching that the second week of February, so the 14th I’m done teaching that class. And then, I’m teaching another class starting two weeks later on Friday, but I think it is actually at 12:30. [1:27] That’s what I’ve been told. That’s not set in stone, but I’m pretty sure. That’s what I’ve been told. Wait – no, that’s not right. It would be at 1:00. It would be at 1:00. So anyway, starting the 21st, I can start meeting at 11:45 on Fridays.

THERAPIST: Starting on – So for the 24th.

CLIENT: Was it the 24th?

THERAPIST: The 24th is a Tuesday. So the 24th.

CLIENT: Are you sure?

THERAPIST: Of January?

CLIENT: Oh, no, so February.

THERAPIST: Oh, we’re looking into February.

CLIENT: So February 20 – I’m not done with that class until February 14th. [2:27]

THERAPIST: Okay, so you’re not done until February 14th. Cool. So then, the 21st, you could start at – what time would be -?

CLIENT: 11:45.

THERAPIST: That would be – Yeah, so I’m out at 10:50, 11:00. Let me put this in here. I don’t want to forget 11:45, and that would go until 12:45. Sweet. Yeah that would be ideal, actually. [3:16]

CLIENT: When do you start up classes again?

THERAPIST: I start Tuesday.

CLIENT: Oh, you do. All right. And I know, by the way, I think starting – I think you said this doesn’t work. But on Friday, starting the 17th of January on Friday I also have a 10:00 a.m.

THERAPIST: I have a class at 10:00 a.m.

CLIENT: So that doesn’t work anyway.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That doesn’t work. Sweet. And we’ll say that starting until the 21st, we’ll keep this time. And then starting on Friday, February 21st, we’ll do 11:45 to 12:35. Excellent.

CLIENT: Okay. Good. [4:00]

THERAPIST: Are you teaching another class, too?

CLIENT: Yeah. That’s the thing that I should put a disclaimer, yeah.

THERAPIST: Asterisk, yeah.

CLIENT: Is that my understanding is that it’s at 1:00, but I haven’t gotten that confirmed. Well, like I said in the e-mail. It would be cool but – It’s that coordinating project thing I was talking about last semester. It’s from like, 2:00 to 6:00. I kind of help people assemble their papers and stuff. I mean, I could – If I was leaving here at 2:30 I could get there a little late.

THERAPIST: A lot of people do that. So if it comes to – It’s really not kind of an all or nothing type thing.

THERAPIST: Well, it works, that would be sweet. It’s been a while. It’s been a while, man. It’s been two weeks.

CLIENT: Yeah. I can’t even remember being in here two weeks ago. I haven’t the slightest clue what we’re even going to talk about. I had a dream. It must have definitely been after the last time that we met. But I actually did kind of a shouting out in my sleep thing. It happened – That had happened a couple of times, maybe, since I moved into my new place. But it was always very kind of like, quiet. Sometimes I don’t even think it woke Laney up. It was never like, the full scale kind of screaming, you know, close to at the top of my lungs. [6:12] I feel like that happened a bunch of times. And we talked about it when I was still at Providence College. But this time, it was really interesting. And I had an interesting conversation with Kaley (ph) about it that I wanted to share with you. My dream was that I was in my apartment in Belmont.

And for a couple of days leading up to this, and since I got out of school and was on break. Laney was working a lot. And for the whole semester I really hadn’t had any opportunity to clean the house or anything, which was really kind of frustrating. ‘Cause I really like to keep the house clean. So I spent a couple of days just really cleaning the house out. And it felt great. So this is just as a lead in to this dream, because it seems relevant. So in the dream, I was in the apartment. And I could kind of – In my dream it was relevant that I had just been cleaning it up a lot, you know what I mean? And really kind of got it the way that I liked it. And my mom was in my apartment, and she – without even telling me, she rearranged everything by putting cabinets in different places and tables and chairs in different places. [7:38] And I saw it and I really didn’t like it. It just looked bad in itself for one thing. And also it was just angering and frustrating that she did this again, without talking to me. And I told her about it and she kind of really took this really kind of paternalistic approach, just saying, no, it’s better this way. You don’t understand or something.

And in my dream I remember I was just enraged. And I woke up, because what I screamed out was like, extremely clear. I screamed out, fuck you at the top of my lungs almost, which is interesting. ‘Cause usually in the past, whenever I would do that, I would never really be articulating anything clear. It was always kind of, blaaah. You know what I mean? But this one, Laney woke up and she even kind of confirmed that it was crystal clear what I was saying. That at first, I don’t even think that she thought I had said it in my sleep, just ‘cause of how kind of clear it was. [8:57] It was odd. I mean, at first, I just kind of brushed it off as another example of, you know, one more time that I kind of would yell stuff out in my sleep. And I was having a conversation with Kaley about it. We got together for dinner after New Year’s. And she kind of just noted that in this dream, compared to my other ones in the past, which I had told her about – a number of them – and She seemed to have remembered them very clearly, which surprised me.

She kind of drew a distinction between in the past when I would be kind of yelling things out from like, a place of help – like powerlessness. You know, like hanging no a cliff and screaming out of fear or screaming in this weird person’s face, ‘cause I couldn’t get my hands from behind my back and they were putting their face – you know what I mean? And in this situation, I was not only even in my kind of – where I have home court advantage or something, you could say. You know what I mean. I wasn’t hanging from a cliff. I was in my apartment, a place that I feel really comfortable. And I also was like, pushing back or something. You know what I mean? It just seems very different from just sort of screaming out of fear, as opposed to like – even just a clear message in anger as opposed to anger or something. And she just noted that very quickly. [10:51] I just thought it was very interesting. It didn’t even really appear – It didn’t occur to me at all. I just thought it was very interesting.

THERAPIST: Yeah. What do you think of the shifts that she and you noted?

CLIENT: Well, we were talking about it kind of in the context of the holidays in the past. I had spoken with Kaley about – You know, I spoke with her a lot in the past about how I don’t really enjoy doing family stuff in general, and particularly around the holidays. I don’t really look forward to the holidays, because it’s really just a big kind of family time thing. She might have been one of the first people that I really spoke to about that. And I even kind of told her when we got together last week that – I think it was in a conversation with her that I kind of like, first kind of communicated the fact that I actually don’t like spending a lot of time with my family. I feel like Kaley has kind of a similar experience. [12:10] She kind of echoed that. And I think it was the first time that I really felt that that was something I could feel. That was a defensible position. It wasn’t something I had to hide. That’s ground I could stand on and actually – without just being an immature little boy that just doesn’t want to do what they’re supposed to do or something. You know what I mean?

So we talk about this a lot. And it was within that kind of context talking about the holidays went by. I spent Christmas Eve at my apartment. Eric and Tommy came over and slept over. And Laney stuck around and some of my old roommates who were international students came by. And it was really nice for Christmas Eve to do that. [13:04] And it also felt like an accomplishment, because I managed to push back on the family thing. I was able to kind of create a space outside of that which felt really good on that level. And then, I went up to New Hampshire for Christmas day. I took my mom’s car up and she hung out with my aunt in Newton. And I just went up for the day by myself. Even just for the afternoon. I got there about 1:00 or 2:00. We had dinner and then I left at like, 6:30.

THERAPIST: Your mom didn’t go up.

CLIENT: She stayed with my aunt in Newton. I ever tell you about Lola?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: She has some developmental issues. It’s not Downs Syndrome. She hears voices and things like this. You speak with her for two minutes and it’s very evident that she’s working some stuff out. And she didn’t want to go up to New Hampshire. My mom asked her if she wanted to go up with me and her, and she just said, no. [14:27] I always joke with my mom –

THERAPIST: Schizophrenia?

CLIENT: You know, I’m really not sure. I’m very curious. And I find it really weird, because I ask my mom this a lot. And my mom – you know, she deal with – She works with psychotic patients day in and day out. You know, she’s not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she’s well-versed in these things. And she seems to have no clear kind of label to put on it, which strikes me as really weird. I think she even said something one time like, the doctors that she goes to with Lola sometimes don’t even really have a clear kind of categorization or something. But since she definitely has sometimes – I know that she definitely goes through some like, manic episodes where she won’t sleep for a while. And she’ll be very tired sometimes. She definitely hears a lot of voices, and she’s on a lot of medication and stuff. [15:34] My mom hung out with her. And yeah, I went up for a little while. It was nice. It was nice to talk to my grandparents for a bit without my mom kind of breathing down my neck. And my aunt and my uncle came over, and my two cousins came over. Then it just got really frustrating, because – Beaver Cleaver family. Just kind of –

THERAPIST: Yeah. How do you find the –

CLIENT: It just drives me crazy. I hate it. I can’t stand it. They’re just – And we’ll be sitting at the table eating dinner and literally, my aunt and uncle will tell their kids what questions to ask their grandparents – our grandparents. Right in front of them. Right in front of the grandparents. Ask grandpa about this story from when he was growing up. [16:35] And then my cousin will be like, grandpa, tell me about that story. And sometimes I wonder what that looks like to my grandfather. Just stuff like this. And it’s just so obnoxious to me. They’re like – Barry’s like 30. And my aunt does that to him. Yeah.

THERAPIST: It seems to be – I mean, it seems to me that it’s somehow linked to this idea or this sort of feeling of things being arranged a certain way.

CLIENT: I mean, it is – Yeah. There’s a huge parallel between that dynamic with my mom in that dream. Like, I’m just going to just completely determine what you do here. [17:33] You know what I mean? I do really think of it that way. I was really, really, really annoyed with just being in that group of people on Christmas day. Maybe not any more than I have been in the past, but I really just kind of acknowledged it. And just made note of it in my mind.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I mean, when you talk about it, you really get right to a strong feeling that you become aware of. You become really – You find yourself frustrated by them. Kind of turned off sort of.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t know what it is. Sometimes I almost feel like it’s just like trying to display like, how not a good grandson I am or something, you know. It just doesn’t seem modest at all in a weird way. [18:55] It seems arrogant.

THERAPIST: Like they’re – these very kind of demonstrations or performances.

CLIENT: It’s a huge performance. It’s a very, very contrived type of performance in my opinion. I don’t know. I think it’s just horrible. Bad. Just toxic. Just the last type of thing I – (inaudible due to simultaneous dialogue at 19:55) In my family, I would do everything I can to – Those are the type of people I feel I would do everything I can to avoid if they were in my family.

THERAPIST: What are your grandparents like with the reaction to that?

CLIENT: They’re like grandparents. They’re old. They don’t hear super well. They seem to just not notice it I guess. I don’t know. [20:36] They – when we’re all sitting around the table, they don’t seem to be up within the kind of boundaries of that dynamic. They seem to be kind of outside of it or something. They’re very – just in general, very non-interventionist in a way. I haven’t really said anything about her. (inaudible at 20:59) It’s just very status quo. They all live there. I mean, they all live down the street from each other. It’s not that they just do this stuff when I’m there. This has been, you know, their whole lives.

THERAPIST: I see. Yeah, it’s not – I see the dynamic is that your grandparents aren’t kind of expecting it.

CLIENT: Oh, I don’t think that at all. It always seemed to me very much like the parents working out their own issues or something. [21:50] I don’t understand how sometimes Barry and Melanie, my cousins don’t just like, flip the dining room table and walk out. Fuck you with the I almost wanted to.

CLIENT: We were talking about that kind of stuff. Talking about the fact that I just don’t – I spend very little time with my dad. He came over to my place for the evening after work when Laney and I were home. Gave us some gifts and talked for a little while and he went home and that was it. That was our Christmas. So in a sense I feel like I kind of renegotiated the terms dictating this time of the year. In a way it left me feeling kind of good, you know. I felt like I had kind of accomplished something in my own sense. But that was the context that we were talking about. In that sense, I was oh, that really seems to make sense with all that. You know? Like, in the past, those dreams like, when I would wake up screaming were always very disturbing. I just kind of woke up and my heart was pounding, you know. Sweaty back or something. Sometimes I’m fucking like in a pool of sweat. This time I just didn’t really – I didn’t feel physically rattled at all. It wasn’t a nightmare, you know. [23:36]

THERAPIST: Yeah. it’s a lot less – I guess the word I was thinking about was perscatory (ph). It’s more like you’re much more feeling in touch with anger. Standing your ground of the sense of it being somewhat where you’re able to assert your own ground.

CLIENT: A sense of agency. Which I guess seems in a way – The lack of that is kind of a common thread in some of those other dreams I can remember.

THERAPIST: Yeah. It’s interesting. I guess the image that came to mind about your cousins is kind of a – You’re – as if you’re seeing them as like – it being very choreographed and being puppets or something.

CLIENT: Very much so. Yeah.

THERAPIST: And if it’s your aunt more than your uncle or your uncle more than your aunt. But in some way a puppeteered kind of manner.

CLIENT: That’s not stretching it at all. [25:04]

THERAPIST: And this is – your aunt is your mother’s – Is it your aunt that’s your mother’s sister or you uncle that’s your mother’s brother?

CLIENT: My aunt. Yeah.

THERAPIST: And then Lola.

CLIENT: Then Lola. Lola, she lives in like, government housing. She doesn’t work or anything. You know, she’s the only one who can afford a nice apartment in the Square, you know. I joke she’s the only one in the family who can say she doesn’t want to do stuff with the family and everyone says, it’s okay.

THERAPIST: She doesn’t have to go there.

CLIENT: I love that. I didn’t know it was that easy, though. I got a cat. Yeah. Laney and I got a cat on New Year’s Eve. [26:07] I just felt that I had to mention that at least once. That’s the big news.

THERAPIST: Tell me about it. How did you guys -?

CLIENT: We went down to the shelter and we just saw him. We had been talking about getting a cat for a while, and then a few hours later we were home with the cat.

THERAPIST: What kind? Old?

CLIENT: Seven years old. Kind of a short-haired gray cat. Very friendly. A little old. Got surrendered by someone else in December. We just took him home. It was cool. It’s a good feeling to have a third being in the house. [26:55]

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s nice. It’s cool. It feels like having a kid or something, maybe. Yeah, you got to think about feeding this thing every night. It’s funny.

THERAPIST: Male or female?

CLIENT: It’s a female. Named her Delilah. We didn’t know what her name was before. So we named her Delilah.

THERAPIST: Where’d the name come from?

CLIENT: Laney’s mom suggested it. I thought, that’s a cool name. I like it.

THERAPIST: What’s Laney’s background? Maybe you told me this. I forgot.

CLIENT: She had a – technically, it’s Portuguese and Italian. They don’t have any attachment to that stuff. I mean, they don’t have any kind of a cultural traditions associated with it or anything. Another thing I did over break I did last night. I wrote a letter to my grandmother in Wales, actually. [28:16] It’s kind of weird that I decided to do that. And I did it kind of on my own volition. I was talking with my dad. My dad hasn’t talked to her. I don’t even know when the last time he spoke to her was.

THERAPIST: Years?

CLIENT: Maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t talked to her since we were both talking about – since I was in the 7th grade. It could have been that long. I mean, he speaks sometimes to one of his brothers and he’ll get word that she’s alive, I guess. But I don’t know. He’s never mentioned to me that he’s spoken with her. Isla, Reese’s (sp) mother, my sister, moved to Edinburgh right after the wedding this summer to be near Reese, from Wales. And she just moved back to Wales. I have no idea why she left Edinburgh so quickly. [29:23]

THERAPIST: But she was there less than six months?

CLIENT: Yeah. Much less. Who knows why. But Isla moved back to Wales, but not to the part of Wales where she lived before. She moved where all my father’s family is. I guess she had a friend there. And she ran into my grandma, my dad was telling me. And she wrote a letter to my dad saying – or she wrote an e-mail saying, I saw your mom. I guess in the correspondence she mentioned my grandma was asking about Reese and I. My dad mentioned that to me and I just said to him like, you know, maybe I’ll just write her a letter. And I just asked my dad for her address and he gave it to me. Yeah. I wrote her a letter last night. It was interesting. [30:26] It’s kind of weird that I decided to do that on my own.

THERAPIST: Yeah. What about it?

CLIENT: I always say that if I could do anything I want, I would never talk to any of my family again. I feel like I say that a lot. And here I am. My father would certainly never ask me to contact her the way that my mom would ask me to contact my family in New Hampshire.

THERAPIST: What did you write?

CLIENT: I just said – It was kind of weird when I started writing, because I was just like – I told her, this is Robbie’s (ph) son, Geoffrey from America. I just wanted to – we haven’t spoken or seen each other in a long time. I just told her I wanted to say, hi. Connect with you. I told her I’m 28. She probably has no idea. Told her I’m in school and I’m dating a girl named Laney. That I live in Providence. I didn’t really know how to end it. I just kind of wrote, you know, it’s been a very long time since we spoke. I just wanted to, you know, let you know that I think about you and I have warm memories of you from when I was much younger. [32:08] I was writing it, and I was kind of like, I remember I wrote that and I was thinking about it and in a way you can almost just say, you know, just be like, I just wanted to write you to differentiate me from my dad in your mind or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: My dad probably isn’t too concerned with that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Differentiate yourself – In what way were you thinking from your dad?

CLIENT: My dad knows she’s there and chooses not to be connected with her, you know. You would have to be able to assume that I wouldn’t blame anyone for coming to the conclusion that, you know, he just didn’t care about his relationship or something with her or her feelings about what that must be to not speak to her son or something. [33:30] I put some pictures in.

THERAPIST: Of what?

CLIENT: Of me. I assume if she saw me she wouldn’t recognize me if I walked into the same room.

THERAPIST: I bet

CLIENT: I probably would recognize her.

THERAPIST: Did you send one of you and Laney?

CLIENT: Yeah. I sent – all the pictures I have are of Laney and I. So I sent those. [34:08] I didn’t mention my dad once. I didn’t write the word dad once. I kind of noticed afterwards. That felt kind of good to do that. I clearly wanted to do it enough to do it.

THERAPIST: Yeah. It seems also like there’s a contrast here between this – the way you’re describing your family in New Hampshire and you’re reaching out to your – Almost like there’s something kind of like almost a responsibility to your New Hampshire family you have to do it. But then saying that was the kind of way you felt after you took the initiative.

CLIENT: There’s definitely inverse between those two things.

THERAPIST: Yeah. You know, the way I was thinking about it is that in some way, it seems like it’s, you know, these two kind of ways of – these two kind of sides of relating to family. You know, on the one hand, you not wanting to feel like, you know, pushed into doing it, but that not meaning you don’t want to have contact in some way.

CLIENT: The fact that was really interesting, I really liked being up in New Hampshire until my aunt and uncle got up there. When it was just my grandma and my grandpa and I sitting around and talking we had a very nice conversation. I felt like it. I was enjoying it. You know.

THERAPIST: And you wanted to see them? Did you feel like you wanted to -?

CLIENT: I wanted to keep doing that conversation. [36:38] I was enjoying it and it’s kind of a rarity. I need to go to the bathroom real quick. I will say though, that I don’t like the idea that I don’t want to do stuff in New Hampshire because my mom tells me to do it, but I do want to get to know my grandma, because no one tells me to do it. [39:26] As if it could be compared to a kid who doesn’t want to do their homework because their parents told them to do their homework, you know. Once their parents tell them to do something, then they don’t want to do it. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. There’s a way that you kind of feel like it’s reduced to that?

CLIENT: Yeah. It just feels infantile. It just doesn’t – I wouldn’t want it to be just a feature of something like that. [40:00] It doesn’t – It seems reactionary. It doesn’t seem – I’d like to see there’s something more there or something.

THERAPIST: You know, in one way, I think that’s a way you’ve described you’ve come to feel that response you had to, you know, some kind of feeling you’ve had about this – I don’t know whether it’s control or kind of strings or something. Like, it’s almost like you feel like, well, if I was just kind of mature or whatever, I’d be it wouldn’t wrangle me. But I think what you’re sort of saying is, what I’m struck by is that there is this very important kind of response to this feeling of things being arranged and choreographed in a certain way that means a lot to you. That has a lot of deep, really is – There’s like a really deep response to that. [41:22]

CLIENT: No, absolutely.

THERAPIST: And I hear what you’re saying. In a way, you’ve kind of been, and one way you’ve come to understand it is being kind of stubborn and I don’t want to be told what to do. And certainly, there’s an element. I mean, it starts to be like there’s this element of it – Part of the description being somebody being told what to do. But it seems to me like there’s a lot more to unpack from that.

CLIENT: I guess I hope – I hope so. There’s no doubt that it definitely really impacts me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Just the reaction of the – what the – your aunt and uncle and the kids, your cousins reacting in that setting. It wasn’t you that was being, you know – the strings weren’t being pulled on you, but you could see it right in front of you. It’s really strong. Brought some strong feelings for you. And in fact, in some ways it really – It sounded like to me, it was like, almost like they were sort of – I was imagining you feeling like they were rubbing it in your face a little bit. Like hey, this is how you treat grandparents, don’t you know? [43:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. They weren’t like, doing it to me, but it – I felt like I then was subject to those terms that were being laid out in front of me or something. I guess I, you know, when I found myself in this kind of position, you know, I thought how defensible is it. How could I justify this. You know. Sometimes I feel like it just comes down – I worry that it’s just something like don’t want to do what I’m told or something. You know how you get uncomfortable and second guess it. You know what I mean? [44:22]

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: I mean, it says nothing about how it makes me feel good. That’s not in question. Like, it felt good to reduce the amount of stuff that I did and it felt good to write that letter to my grandma, you know. But it’s an entirely different question of to justify an item and equating that with being correct or something. You know what I mean? [44:53]

THERAPIST: Being correct, huh?

CLIENT: Well, a lot of things are enjoyable that aren’t necessarily. You know. Feel great to punch certain people in the face or something. It’s not a reason for doing it per se. It was definitely a better holiday season, though. That goes without saying. It definitely goes without saying.

THERAPIST: Very interesting.

CLIENT: I think so.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Reaching out to your grandmother.

CLIENT: And the extent to which I feel less my parents pulling on me in either direction.

THERAPIST: Yeah. They were both cool.

CLIENT: These very minimal things. A couple of years ago it would have kind of been scandalous. I have to assume there’s something there, too.

THERAPIST: Yeah. It’s something about standing your ground or that dream being a reflection of a kind of a change that’s kind of occurred among all of you and yourself.

CLIENT: I like that. I’d be happy to have some of those dreams. I’d take them.

THERAPIST: Yeah. You really put a voice to it. I’m struck too by the fact that there were words and feelings that were more embodied in the dream as opposed to – I remember, you know, some of the – at least my memory of some of the descriptions of the dreams – I’m not sure what you were yelling or even feeling that you were being heard.

CILENT: No. Yeah, all those things, yeah. Very different in that sense.

THERAPIST: Hanging. Groundless.

CLIENT: Yeah. Hanging off the cliff. Yeah. [47:13] Plenty to talk about.

THERAPIST: Okay, we’ll pick up next week.

CLIENT: Next Friday?

THERAPIST: Yeah. I’ll see you at this time. Yeah. Back to the 1:40 time.

CLIENT: Yeah. Is there like a $50 yearly deductible with this thing with the new year that you’re going to need?

THERAPIST: I don’t know. I’ll –

CLEINT: You don’t even know yet?

THERAPIST: Yeah. I won’t know probably until February.

CLIENT: All right. Well, just let me know.

THERAPIST: With you guys, I bet they do it by the academic year. I bet they don’t do it by calendar year. They might, though. But, yeah, I will let you know.

CLIENT: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

THERAPIST: Yeah. See you.

CLIENT: Take care.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Thank you.

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