TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Can you stay until 40? Is that okay?

CLIENT: Yeah, that’s fine.

THERAPIST: Is that okay with you?

CLIENT: No worries. Yeah, I’m on vacation this week so I don’t have much going on. Things are easy.

THERAPIST: Oh, speaking of vacation, by the way, I’ll be out the week not this next Friday, the 14th, but the 21st I’ll be… oh no, I’m sorry. I’ll be back. Scratch that. I’ll be here.

CLIENT: So no…

THERAPIST: I’m sorry. I planned previously to be out on the 21st but I’m actually back the 20th. I’m working the 21st.

CLIENT: Cool.

THERAPIST: So sorry. I’ll be… yeah.

CLIENT: You going away?

THERAPIST: I am. I’m going to be going away for… from Saturday the 15th to the 20th.

CLIENT: Cool. Going anywhere fun?

THERAPIST: Going to Georgia. Going to Savannah.

CLIENT: For work or…

THERAPIST: No, just to have a… some time… actually I’ll probably do a lot of writing.

CLIENT: A lot of writing? [1:11]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Work writing or…

THERAPIST: Yeah. I’m writing for this… I’m giving a talk in April. Yeah, I have actually two different things in April so I’ve got a lot of writing to do.

CLIENT: At a conference?

THERAPIST: One’s at a conference in Baltimore and then one is a talk in town. Yeah.

CLIENT: That’s cool. Are you… are they long lectures that you’re giving? Do you have to… are they paper conferences or…

THERAPIST: Yeah, the one in Baltimore is kind of like… it’s supposed to be more of a kind of a discussion. But I’ll be reading a short paper that’s probably 20, 25 minutes or something like that.

CLIENT: Oh wow, that’s a long… that’s still a long time.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what, is that probably 10 pages or something like that?

CLIENT: I would’ve thought more than 10 pages but I guess I’ve never thought about it. [2:14]

THERAPIST: Yeah, it takes me a couple of minutes to get through one page, something like that. It won’t be that…

CLIENT: Have you done stuff like that before?

THERAPIST: Yeah, not for a while though. Not at a conference like that. Not in a while.

CLIENT: That’s cool.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and then the one… the other one that’s here is an hour and a half thing. I’ll read a paper that I already have written and… but I’ve got to figure out how to…

CLIENT: Hour and a half.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You’re just going to read verbatim off the paper?

THERAPIST: No, I think what I’m going to do is probably read…

CLIENT: That’s a long time.

THERAPIST: That’s a long time to be able to listen to a paper. I’ll probably read for about 45 minutes and then talk… and then just have a discussion, because there’s a lot to talk about.

CLIENT: Yeah, discussion for a while, yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, for it to be more interactive.

CLIENT: That stuff will keep you busy for a while.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that’ll keep me busy for a while, that’s for sure.

CLIENT: You nervous about that stuff or you just want to get the work done?

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, I… it’s nervous in terms of the just having time and space to be able to think about it for a while.

CLIENT: You feel pressed for time? You feel like…

THERAPIST: Well because I have those two things that… they’re actually within two days of each other. [3:39]

CLIENT: Really?

THERAPIST: Yeah, it just worked out that way. So it’s a little bit of a nightmare. So it’s hard to go back and forth between those two things. The other one’s pretty much written but anyway…

CLIENT: You have a lot of work, it sounds like, though.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: [inaudible]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Everything on the same day.

THERAPIST: Is that right? Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah, just like… yeah, just a lot of stuff to do. Just seems like that… no, I was just away, actually, in this last weekend.

THERAPIST: Vancouver, right?

CLIENT: Vancouver, yeah, which was really cool.

THERAPIST: Have you been there before?

CLIENT: Yeah, I’ve been there once for New Year’s with… my dad were out [inaudible] and just for a couple of days. I think we were both 18 or something. So it was a while ago. It was a lot of fun back then and we had a really nice time. Pretty cool. We took a bus up on Friday. We left really early on Friday and yeah, it was cool except the weekend was cold as hell. Oh my God. I don’t know how people live up there. [4:55] It was so cold. But it was nice. We just kind of… we had sort of… got a nice little hotel and we just kind of walked around during the day and just kind of saw stuff. And it was really nice to just kind of get away from… I didn’t bring any books or anything with me. So it was really nice to kind of have that… it was cool. It was a really nice time. I enjoyed it. And I’ve just been on break for the rest of the week.

THERAPIST: How’s that been?

CLIENT: It’s been nice. Haven’t really done too much work or anything. Just, yeah, just trying to kind of relax. I still feel like I’ve been doing stuff every single day, feels like I’ve been incredibly busy the whole time.

THERAPIST: Law school or other stuff?

CLIENT: I haven’t been doing any school work, really.

THERAPIST: Oh, you haven’t.

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: You’ve been able to take a break.

CLIENT: Well yeah, I mean I just haven’t done anything. I probably should’ve been but no, it’s been a nice week in that sense. [6:09] I got to spend some time with Laney, which was nice. And yeah, I’ll be back in it next week. And I’ll be nice and busy again. But…

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, what… we didn’t meet two weeks ago. What… yeah, you said something had happened.

CLIENT: Yeah. I just, oh God, it was just a… that was just a day from hell. Right from the moment I woke up there were just these… stuff was going on with the apartment and class, and I ended up having to go back to the apartment just… I didn’t know where because it was just a miscommunication with my landlord about these people coming to fix the heat. And he called and there was nobody there and yeah, it was just a… it was just one of those days where you wake up and the moment you wake up it’s just chaos. I felt…

THERAPIST: Did you guys lose your heat?

CLIENT: I mean we didn’t really lose our heat. We didn’t have heat for one night, which wasn’t really an issue. Our apartment’s pretty warm as it is. But my landlord was coordinating with Laney about having some people come over to fix it, and they needed someone to let them in. They didn’t have a key. And I think there were just too many people talking between too many different people. And yeah, it was just a calamity. [7:57] And it all got fixed but it was just a mess. I felt so bad about that. I’m super sorry about that. Yeah, that was just like a day from hell.

THERAPIST: A day from hell, huh?

CLIENT: It was, yeah. I just… it couldn’t have ended soon enough. Yeah, so apologies again about that. I hope it didn’t put you in a… I hope that didn’t inconvenience you too much there, or it wasn’t too horrible from your end or anything. I felt pretty bad about it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but no, it wasn’t… I was wondering what was going on for you.

CLIENT: Yeah, it was just sort of…

THERAPIST: I was worried about you.

CLIENT: I just felt like… I just felt totally incapable of handling things that were going on around me, incapable of managing the stressful situation. Which I don’t usually feel like I get to that point. I feel like usually I can at least kind of try to keep some kind of control, at least to kind of ride through it. You know what I mean? That day my brain was just like fault lines were [inaudible] And I was just… yeah, God I felt horrible. It was just a crappy day.

THERAPIST: And you felt horrible that you felt that I’d feel really…

CLIENT: Yeah, I felt like I just totally… yeah, I had to text you right before our appointment, and I was planning on being there and yeah, it was just like… I was just on the phone and there was multiple things that had to be attended to, and something was going to… and it got to the point where all right, something is going to have to give here. And it was just really frustrating. I wanted to feel like I could not have to let something…

THERAPIST: That sounds like a lot to manage man. [10:26]

CLIENT: It was just a frustrating day. I was just really sleep deprived as it was and I was just trying to think about school and…

THERAPIST: You were getting pulled in three different directions.

CLIENT: Yeah. It was just… I just wanted to get in bed and just roll up and cry and fall asleep.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I got the feeling, somehow, from you that… when I asked is everything okay I got the feeling, you know what, it would be better if you just didn’t ask, just let me do this.

CLIENT: I mean it was like…

THERAPIST: I don’t know if it felt that way. You were kind of like just let me…

CLIENT: No, I appreciate it. I really appreciated the… I mean that was… it was nice to hear because it was, I don’t know, I mean that you didn’t seem pissed off or something. It was nice to read that. You know what I mean? But at the same time in my head I was like oh my God. I mean if you wanted to talk about it you probably need to have a session and I should, you know what I mean? Just like a text message. I didn’t really know how else to kind of go about talking about it. I was just like yeah, I’m just going to talk about it next time. Yeah, it was just… oh God it was just such a… that was just a stressful day. [11:45] I think I probably did something along those lines afterwards, just got into bed and fell asleep.

THERAPIST: Is that right.

CLIENT: Yeah. Sometimes I like to do that when I get stressed out. Not usually.

THERAPIST: What do you feel like in bed? What does that do for you?

CLIENT: I get in bed and I just watch something and then just kind of…

THERAPIST: What, watch a show or something?

CLIENT: Yeah, something, just what I do to fall asleep usually.

THERAPIST: Oh and you fall… you try to sleep?

CLIENT: Yeah, that’s usually… I mean I think [inaudible] long time ago but that’s the only way I really fall asleep. I need to be kind of watching and listening to something or else I just won’t fall asleep.

THERAPIST: That’s right. [12:33]

CLIENT: Oftentimes I’ll be able to be watching something and then I can kind of fall asleep. And then if there’s a noise in the show I’ll… my eyes might kind of crack open a bit. And then I can kind of shut my computer and fall back asleep. I can if I can kind of stay in the sleep zone. But without that I can’t. I really can’t get to sleep. It used to be that I could get to sleep by listening to podcasts. [] But now I can’t fall asleep unless I have something visual as well.

THERAPIST: Visual, too, yeah.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I get, I don’t know, I get uncomfortable when I’m laying in bed without that. Sometimes I can play a game or something and fall asleep but I’ll literally have to be like playing the game and me fall asleep and it drop out of my hand and go to sleep. That’s the… that’s been the way it’s worked for a long time. [14:03]

THERAPIST: Yeah, something about that… something that would kind of… that would be there for you in the absence of all that.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, I’ll just start getting really anxious. I’ll just start thinking about stuff.

THERAPIST: You will. You’d be [inaudible] go over specific things in your mind or…

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. And…

THERAPIST: It’s not just a feeling, it’s a…

CLIENT: It’s a… yeah, I mean it’s both. I mean now it’s… I would just get uncomfortable, not… I mean it’s sort of like an addiction in a sense. If I… I would be uncomfortable if I didn’t… if I knew that I couldn’t watch something to fall asleep. Even before I actually laid down in bed without it. You know what I mean? I would start to get anxious about it already. Yeah.

THERAPIST: What’s that? What are you…

CLIENT: I don’t know, I guess I just started thinking about it. I think it’s been so long since I’ve been doing that. I don’t know, I guess I… I don’t know if I could go into my bedroom, get in bed, turn the lights off, and lay there until I fell asleep.

THERAPIST: When you went to the hotel in Vancouver…

CLIENT: Oh we watched something. [16:05]

THERAPIST: You watched something there? Okay.

CLIENT: I mean it’s kind of like Laney… it doesn’t really seem… Laney can usually… she can fall asleep on command and say… when she’s stressed she falls asleep. That’s her escape, which is like… just as she closes her eyes she’s asleep. It’s just really hard for me to get my head around. I couldn’t imagine doing that. She can fall asleep with something playing very easily. It doesn’t bother her. So yeah, [inaudible] it’s just part of our going to bed routine. I’ll have something on or whatever. Yeah, I mean I don’t know if I could fall asleep in the absence of that. [inaudible] without having talked to her for so long I kind of just thought that’s what everybody did. But it’s weird.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s almost…

CLIENT: I imagine there’s a lot of people like that, right?

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s a common thing, I think, that kind of… I mean it happens for… a lot of people do describe that. But I think it’s because of the… I think it’s the… I mean it’s different. It manifests in different ways where it means different things. But I think there’s something around just the focusing your mind away from something about going to sleep. [17:43] And I guess, first of all, that anxiety that’s sort of there. I mean I see it… yeah, one is a way just to kind of shut off that kind of… that side of your mind that might be worrying or thinking over things. But I think it’s also kind of like when people are about to fall asleep that there’s, yeah, that feelings arise in those moments.

CLIENT: It is like some particularly anxious thing about it, impending sleep.

THERAPIST: Or it can be. Some people can not have that.

CLIENT: My dad’s neighbor, Francis, I always notice that… she lives alone in this big house and she has all these dogs, and she sleeps on a pullout couch in her living room. And she… you can see the living room from her… from my dad’s kitchen. So I can always see that she falls asleep at night with the TV on. It’s on all night. And I always kind of just notice that. And I always kind of thought to myself oh wow, that’s interesting that… somebody else who does what I do. And she’s a horribly anxious person. You can see a mile away from her. [19:25] And yeah… and I don’t know, my dad told me that she takes Xanax every night before she goes to sleep or something. She takes a little bit of it or something. And I remembered thinking to myself Jesus, I hope that I never have to do something like that.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Why, what is it…

CLIENT: I don’t know, I hope I don’t need medicine to fall asleep or something or…

THERAPIST: What would that mean if you did?

CLIENT: I don’t know, it would just be like a layer on top of what I feel like I have to do already to fall asleep. I [inaudible] it’s a thing I have to do to fall asleep. It’s already now… I feel like I don’t know if I can fall asleep without doing that. I’d hate to have to, I don’t know…

THERAPIST: It would feel like another thing to… you’d have to kind of rely on.

CLIENT: Yeah, and it’s another just sort of thing that I feel like I can’t do.

THERAPIST: I see, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t know.

THERAPIST: So but…

CLIENT: There’s sort of like a common thing that in different ways people will need to watch TV, specifically.

THERAPIST: I think some people do it. [21:13]

CLIENT: Like listen to something or…

THERAPIST: Yeah, I think… well I think some people will do that, yeah. I mean people talk about… they’ll watch TV or listen to something or they’ll feel a… they’ll feel anxious without it. Could be noise, anything. Sort of something that’s… kind of distracts them from whatever arises and they…

CLIENT: Yeah, I don’t know. I guess just like putting it into words, listening to something, sounds way too innocuous or something. Or just too… it’s like if I don’t… if I’m in… I’m awake before bedtime and I’m at room temperature, whatever that is. You know what I mean? Then bed… I start getting ready to go to bed. If I… and let’s say maybe I’m a little bit anxious about something, school or whatever. And [inaudible] can give it five minutes of anxiety. If I went and got in bed and didn’t watch anything, if there wasn’t anything, it’s not like my… it would just stay at five. It would shoot up to something like ten. Whereas even if, in the same period of time, I just didn’t even get in bed, it would probably would’ve stayed at five or something. You know what I mean? It’s not even just a calming thing, it’s… without it it literally will sort of balloon. [22:59]

THERAPIST: Yeah, okay.

CLIENT: And then I have to get out of bed. Stuff like that happens.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. Because I… I’m only making myself more anxious. I’m less anxious if I just get up and just do something, eat something or watch TV on the couch or something. But if I just stay in bed it just gets way worse. A lot of times after I… and I have to do… I’ll go out and have a cigarette or something, or some ice cream or something.

THERAPIST: Well are you saying sometimes it’ll break through anyway, even if you’re watching something?

CLIENT: Sometimes. I mean not typically. For the most part it’s pretty good, if I can be watching something. I don’t know, I think about my dad. He just goes to bed and just lays down in bed and turns the lights off. And then he’s like… then it’s the morning time and he’s awake.

THERAPIST: Yeah, right. That whole distinction you were drawing between you and him in terms of the worries. He’s got what? How did you put it? He’s got time to dust things?

CLIENT: Yeah. He’s just, I don’t know, it’s just so… yeah. Goes for runs and…

THERAPIST: Goes for runs.

CLIENT: Thinks about his cholesterol, stuff like that. [24:48] (pause)

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: I don’t know, just (pause) I don’t know, I just feel like when I lay in bed sometimes I just feel like, I don’t know. It’s like there’s someone screaming or something. I don’t know. A lot of times I’ll feel like my heartbeat will start increasing and stuff if I don’t have something to watch, and I almost feel like maybe I have a little kind of an anxious kind of episode or whatever.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah. That’s definitely going on.

CLIENT: And sometimes I feel like my back gets kind of [inaudible] and stuff. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I wake up like that sometimes.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, I hear what you’re saying, like this is not about just something that soothes you and relaxes you to go to bed. It’s that there’s an anxiety, there’s an outbreak of anxiety if you don’t have it.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: There’s a great big anxiety outbreak if you don’t have it.

CLIENT: And it’s like I guess I can’t tell if that’s just going to sleep or if that’s just not having this thing that I feel like I’m used to, like not having a blankie or something. [26:32] If it’s just the absence of having this TV or this ritual that I’m used to or if it’s just an act of going to sleep itself.

THERAPIST: Well there’s something. All of the above maybe. But the screaming, that’s such an interesting way to put it.

CLIENT: It’s this noise like a white noise kind of in my thoughts. It’s very kind of, I don’t know. I imagine in my head I feel like a teapot is steaming and whistling or something. You know what I mean? I remember when I first started having to watch TV to fall asleep was right after I got out… kicked out of school and I was at home. And I remember because I remember for a long time I watched South Park every single night. And I couldn’t fall asleep for a while unless I was doing it. And I remember when I started doing it I was like… I started noticing then I need to put this on tonight. I’m not going to be able to fall asleep without this. I can remember for a while me kind of saying to myself wow, this is a thing that I’m doing now. [28:05] You know what I mean? This isn’t something I used to do. Yeah, and that was in… that was 2007 and, yeah, so… this is what I mean, seven years. I don’t know if I’m… seems like a long time. Yeah, I guess I would’ve thought that I was… doing something like that kind of was like stressed out about this day [ph?] with school. Maybe this thing with school kind of deals with itself and then I’ll be able to sleep again like I used to. Now it’s like I think school is like… that episode with Providence College is like long gone but it’s still there. It’s just frustrating.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, and I hear it’s… I think it’s… you make this kind of like important link to that time of your life. And what I assume then was a lot of feelings around it that were going on that would kind of emerge, really, would open up while you were in bed. Maybe were going on throughout. But I was thinking about it in terms of you having… well when you’re in bed you really have time just to reflect on what’s going on inside so much more than you do if you’re kind of busy doing stuff. [29:59] But it also sounded like such a tremendous amount of, what I imagine might have been just a tremendous amount of feeling. Yeah, about something that was evoked by the situation at school but something really deep inside of you that the whole situation kind of triggered.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, I mean it was definitely a pretty anxious time. It definitely… that goes without question.

THERAPIST: Yeah, in ways that were so layered and beyond, I imagine, just the incident itself, but all the meaning it carried for you. I don’t know. I don’t have a sense of what it was but you know what I’m thinking about is that how you often describe not wanting to talk to me about it. Do you remember that?

CLIENT: Yeah. No, yeah. I mean I’m just thinking that right now in my head. Part of me just wants to be… that was the one time [inaudible]

THERAPIST: That’s right.

CLIENT: That’s dealt with.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: No, I… yeah, no absolutely.

THERAPIST: And you can kind of come to feel like that’s a big can of worms to kind of go into. I imagine what you… when you were going through it, and maybe even now to some extent, kind of remembered when you said before listen, I’m not sure I want to get into all that. Well there… it has to do with something about… a lot of what I hear is a lot of feeling about it.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I just feel like I… it’s done.

THERAPIST: I want to put that to bed, if you will.

CLIENT: Well I feel… yeah, no, yeah. I mean I felt like it was a horrible situation and all I could do is ride it out. I feel like I rode it out and now I feel like I shouldn’t have to think about it anymore. I put up with it for a while and I let it kind of really just suck. [32:26] And all right. I did it. I feel like I shouldn’t even have to think about it anymore. It’s absolved itself.

THERAPIST: It absolved itself?

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s gone. It’s not a thing anymore or something. Oh God, yeah.

THERAPIST: Like I’ve… absolved like kind of a forgiveness, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s done. It’s over. It’s… yeah, it’s… you… you’re absolved of your sins or something. It’s [inaudible] I don’t know. I just… yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s got this… really, to me, as you’re talking, it’s got this quality of I’ve forgiven this but it’s not done with me just yet. Sometimes it feels like it’s not done with me. I’m done with it but sometimes it’s not done with me.

CLIENT: Well I mean, yeah, it’s still real. I still do stuff like that. I still have to do the same stuff that I was doing then.

THERAPIST: What’s that? [33:56]

CLIENT: Fall asleep.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I see. Right.

CLIENT: It doesn’t seem consistent or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that why should I still be dealing with this if it’s… if the incident is so far removed. That kind of thing?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And these two ideas don’t seem consistent that it would be over and I would be continuing to do things that seem to… triggered specifically by those experiences. Does that seem like when you… if you have an image of me or whatever, my mind or whatever, does that seem like a kind of a black box, kind of like a void area? I’m just curious.

THERAPIST: You know what it seems like? It seems like something kind of froze. I don’t know why the image of a… I mean it kind of has that quality of an area that’s frozen up or something. I don’t know why that’s the image.

CLIENT: It’s weird because sometimes I feel like I don’t think about or I don’t talk about that at all. [35:26] Sometimes I feel like it’s an area that I just avoid and that I’ve not dealt with or maybe [inaudible] or whatever. But then other times I feel like I’ve really been doing nothing other than thinking about it in different ways every second of the day since it happened. Do you know what I mean? So I mean I feel like I’m doing both sometimes.

THERAPIST: Oh, I see. Yeah.

CLIENT: You know what I mean? Every night when I fall asleep I’m engaging with it or something but I’m not engaged.

THERAPIST: No, I hear you. Yeah.

CLIENT: I get confused sometimes about if it’s just…. that stuff is confusing.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well yeah.

CLIENT: There’s never really been a time that I haven’t been thinking about it.

THERAPIST: Right. (pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s just not something I want to talk about. Probably because I guess maybe sometimes I feel like there’s nothing to talk about. Maybe that’s a common thing.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what’s… yeah.

CLIENT: But it’s just not something I want to talk about because I don’t know if there is anything to talk about. There’s nothing there. [36:53] Or nothing that I can think of to talk about. It’s over. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, actually that’s, if I remember right, that kind of… I was thinking how that kind of was one of the ways you would talk about your family in some ways when we started. Yeah, I don’t know if that’s right or not; that’s just kind of my memory right now. What a… you were kind of wondering what I feel. In some way there’s nothing to talk about and yet there’s kind of this implicit suggestion that there is a lot to talk about.

CLIENT: I guess I wouldn’t, I don’t know, I guess I wouldn’t know what to talk about.

THERAPIST: I think that’s what you were… that’s how you described your family too. It’s very interesting. I mean interesting in the sense of that’s kind of like what happens to you. I think, yeah, and in a way I think what I’m wondering if the experience in some ways there’s a topic but there’s not a lot of feeling connected to it or something. [38:18] There’s a… some kind of, yeah, so I can imagine some way, if that’s the case, that there’s not a sense of well, what do I even talk about here. There’s nothing there.

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean I feel…

THERAPIST: I don’t know if that’s clear.

CLIENT: I feel like I know what it feels like for me to be able to talk about something. I generally feel like I can talk about things. I feel like I could do one of those talks like you were talking about if it was on the right topic. You know what I mean? The prospect of talking about something for an hour and a half in front of a bunch of people isn’t… per se isn’t…

THERAPIST: No, right.

CLIENT: …disconcerting. You know what I mean? And if… particularly if it was about something I feel like I could talk about. If there was a connection like… but it just doesn’t feel like anything. There’s just no inroad there. I just… I guess it’s like… maybe it’s like I’m uncomfortable. Maybe it’s his or it’s that… I mean it’s almost just like I just genuinely don’t know what I would say. I just don’t even know what to talk about. [39:33] I don’t know, it sounds kind of simple or evasive or something but I just don’t know. (pause) I don’t really want… I don’t want to. I don’t really want to talk about that. In a way, when it came to my parents and stuff, that topic, I kind of felt the same way, but I had a kind of want, maybe, on some level to be able to talk about it, think about it in a way that’s complicated and not unqualified or something. But I would’ve liked to have had… get a different understanding or work on that topic or something. I don’t even want to… when it comes to the thing at school, I don’t even have any desire to renegotiate it or change the way that I think about it or relate to it. I don’t even want to do that. You know what I mean? Even if someone could offer me we can totally change this whole thing for you, the way you remember it and the things about it. At this point it would just be like you know what, no. I got… when I was going through it I remember thinking to myself at some point I’m 26 or something I’m not going to be stuck in this the way I am now. [41:42] That’s going to be just great. You know what I mean? Court’s going to be done with, won’t be on probation anymore, I’m going to be back at school. This thing’ll be behind me. It’s like I’m at that point now. I don’t really need to do anything else with it.

THERAPIST: That’s kind of the way… that’s like some way that you remember kind of talking yourself through that.

CLIENT: Yeah, and that was… I feel like the way a lot of things I kind of thought about.

THERAPIST: Kind of some promise you give yourself.

CLIENT: Just stomach this for a while. And ride it out. And time will just sort of… you can’t change this. You can’t control this stuff that’s really pissing you off right now. You know what I mean? But the time sort of [inaudible] will change and it won’t kind of be the case. It’s a little similar to my parents’ theory. I can’t see what time it is. I think it’s about 40 but…

THERAPIST: Yeah, it almost sounds like kind of a promise you made to yourself about that. [43:03]

CLIENT: A promise?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I was thinking. You sort of say just get through this and we won’t have to deal with this anymore. We won’t… if you just keep think… if you can make your way through it it’ll all be over soon and you won’t have to go back here again.

CLIENT: No, or yeah. In that sense, yeah, I see exactly what you mean. Yeah, shouldn’t have to do both. The clock is tilted. I can’t see the minute hand so…

THERAPIST: We’ve got… we still have… it’s 35.

CLIENT: Is that so, yeah?

THERAPIST: I’m going to tilt that if you don’t mind. This is my compass.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, that’s right. (pause) That’s for a long… I remember when I came home after school, after the school thing, I worked a lot. But when I wasn’t working, all I did was lay in bed for a long time and just watched stuff on the TV. I think I told you what I think I heard one person one time, it was like a social worker or something at Providence College, he used the phrase oblivion seeking behavior. I think I told this to you once. And I have no idea what… where that came from or what kind of psychology theory that’s [inaudible] in but I remember he was talking about it. And I remember just thinking to myself that that’s what I do. That’s what feels good.

THERAPIST: Oblivion.

CLIENT: Like watching TV. Just that. Get it in my head. I think that’s one reason why I really thought about that thing with my dad’s neighbor taking the Xanax because in a way I remember… I’ve never even taken Xanax but from what I hear [inaudible] think to myself I imagine that there’s a similar thing there. [45:45] Just zoning out, just oblivion.

THERAPIST: What is oblivion like?

CLIENT: Just the absence of anything. It’s not good; it’s not bad. There’s nothing there. It’s just quiet.

THERAPIST: Just quiet.

CLIENT: Just nothing there. Just…

THERAPIST: Quiet.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It sounds like sleep.

CLIENT: Sort of, I guess, yeah. I imagine. That’s like… I feel like that’s what I was trying to get.

THERAPIST: That’ s right.

CLIENT: Oblivion seeking behavior. I was seeking an oblivious state. I wanted to be oblivious. I didn’t want to be so focused on my thoughts. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: Oblivion just sounded peaceful, like release, freer. I wasn’t able to… just that complete counter opposite of what I felt like I typically was going to… a state I was typically residing in. Yeah, and if I could get somewhere along those lines I felt like I could fall asleep. Does that make sense?

THERAPIST: Yeah, it does. [47:48]

CLIENT: I guess I feel like you hear the exact same thing [inaudible]

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s become a kind of, how would I put it, a kind of… just a characteristic way how you deal, you settle yourself, you quiet your mind.

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s a routine. It’s…

THERAPIST: It’s a routine, right. Routine.

CLIENT: Routine reaction, just habitual circumstances or something. It’s not the same thing as checking the oven or something. It’s similar in a way. It’s the thing to do to deal with it. And you wouldn’t have to do it if you weren’t stressed.

THERAPIST: That’s right, yeah. That’s right.

CLIENT: Another thing that I feel like makes me different sometimes from other people.

THERAPIST: Well yeah, how do you be in the, yeah, the feeling is that you can’t… well the sense is that you can’t have these feelings and it be a… and reach a state of quietness in that experience. It’s more like you really feel I’ve got to find ways to remove myself from that experience to find quiet, to find peace.

CLIENT: I mean like remove… yeah.

THERAPIST: I don’t know if it’s… if it feels like removed. What do you…

CLIENT: No, it’s like remove with… not from an experience but just from me.

THERAPIST: From me, yeah. [49:35]

CLIENT: From the last 12 hours since I woke up.

THERAPIST: That’s what… yeah. Well, all right.

CLIENT: So we said no changes.

END TRANSCRIPT