TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: So, goodness. So much is going on. So, Edson actually did show up for the hot tubbing party after not communicating with me for two and a half weeks and it was all terribly awkward and none of my friends liked him and they were all creeped out by him and I'm now completely not trusting my intuition at all because all of my friends were creeped out by him. Even the ones who have not heard any of the relationship drama going on. Like, including like guy friends of mine who are usually oblivious to these sorts of things. So, I'm wondering like what's wrong with me that I didn't pick up on whatever my friends are picking up on?
THERAPIST: I see. [00:01:03]
CLIENT: So, yeah, it was all, it was very awkward and unsettling. I tried IM'ing him later on, like a couple day afterwards, to be like, you know, I think we're done and he didn't respond to any of my IM's. So, now I'm both weirded out and irritated that he's playing communication games with me. What the fuck. Why? It's just very frustrating and upsetting. [00:02:15]
THERAPIST: Is there anything that comes to mind about it?
CLIENT: So, I was thinking over a couple conversations I've had with this guy and realizing that really, there's no, no way I could ever have a successful relationship with him because we just clash on too many things that are too important to me. You know, he has this thing about not wanting to save people from themselves and like he has some emotional trauma back story too that involving an ex of his. Like, it was all very codependent and dysfunctional and unfortunate, but the way he kind of swung to the opposite end of that of like never intervening when someone he's close to in a bad situation is really a little bit repulsive to me. I very much believe that when you are in relationships with people or in communities with people you have a mutual responsibility for each other's well being. Do you know what I mean? To a point, right? [00:03:35]
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: Like, obviously you can't be totally responsible for someone else's decisions, but, you know, if you see something they don't, I feel like you have a responsibility to point that out at least once.
THERAPIST: Like, you try to help when you can?
CLIENT: Right. There was another conversation were had where he said, you know, someone being too drunk to consent would not stop him from having sex with them. Which, I don't know why I didn't flag that in the moment when we were having the conversation. It was like days later on that caught up to me. It was like wait, what? What was going on with that? So, I'm very worried that maybe like my intuition isn't working or I'm shutting it down in some way or I'm not being appropriately cautious or protective of myself. [00:04:40]
THERAPIST: I see. Yeah. I imagine you're pretty disturbed this.
CLIENT: Yes. [00:06:15]
THERAPIST: And I imagine that's quite scary and makes you feel really quite vulnerable to think about.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I mean including as you're sitting here now?
CLIENT: Yes. Well, mostly I just feel foolish and embarrassed to be admitting any of this right now.
THERAPIST: Oh, I see. Because it reflects how you're an idiot?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Just making sure we're clear.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:07:10]
THERAPIST: I'm thinking because if you were smarter or not generally, you know, I don't know, airheaded or something, but something, then the kind of stuff you're afraid is going to happen in the way that it did.
CLIENT: Right. This all circles back around to this sense that I'm just bad at interacting with people in all arenas of life and that, I don't know, I just, because it's always the voice of my parents in my head. You know, it's my parents telling me when I was little, you know, you'll never have any friends. You're not good at interacting with people. You're such a loner. Why can't you be more like your sister? Why can't you be friendly? [00:09:00]
THERAPIST: Well, maybe this is all of a piece in a slightly different way. I'm like, tentative about this because this is more like in the nature of hypothesis I'm throwing out there. It's not something that I have a lot of confidence in. But, who knows? It could be worth thinking about. So, I'm struck as well by three of the things that you mentioned about what happened to him. One is you're not having flags that come in at the time.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: In part because, you know, I've heard you describe picking up very readily other, you know, other offensive or inappropriate comments that people make in situations where in some sense there wasn't as immediate. You might have been one of the people insulted, but it was in a more attenuated way than having somebody you, you're sexually involved with say something like that about what he, you know what I mean?
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:10:30]
THERAPIST: And the second one is the creepiness to you. I've sort of interpreted that your friends, sounds like pretty consistently, have this reaction to him that you didn't.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And third, so you could put it this way, I'm a little struck by the way that you're upset by him not getting back to you. In that it sounds like you don't really want to be interacting with him, you know.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: In some sense, like just as well. But I don't think that's how it feels.
CLIENT: Well, I guess I just, at the end of the party he left and said he would get in touch with me.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And so, I kind of had this low grade dread of having that conversation and how it might go. So, I wanted to preempt that by telling him no, actually don't get in touch with me.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: Like, he's, I almost feel like he's trying to maintain control over our interactions by holding it over my head that he'll get back to me and then not responding when I try to get in touch with him. [00:12:00]
THERAPIST: Right. I guess I had the impression that this makes you again feel quite vulnerable.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And as though you are weak or maybe you have something to feel bad about or have done something wrong.
CLIENT: Maybe a little bit. I think more consciously I'm mostly feeling insulted.
THERAPIST: I see. Yeah. Sure.
CLIENT: Like, I'm maybe more like wounded pride that I feel like I'm being jerked around. Which is crazy because I've decided I don't want him in my life anymore, so why should I care what he thinks about me? But, I do and that's what's setting it on another level.
THERAPIST: Yeah. That's the part that I didn't quite get at. That was kind of, yeah. And where does it lead you? It leads you to feel in some broader way like you're lousy socially and whatever. You know, like you kind of do it to yourself then. [00:13:30]
CLIENT: And at first, the elephant in the room is the other Brian.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Who I was so wrong about for so many years. It has nothing to do with Edson except both these situations are happening concurrently.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: So, my ability to trust and my judgment of other people's character is at an all time low right now.
THERAPIST: So, one thing I'm wondering about is whether you kind of, but this is more of a specific blind spot than it is a kind of general inability to discern about people. In which you set yourself up with these maybe particular types of guys. Who are, seem pretty self absorbed, I guess and pretty uncaring about other people's feelings, or at least can be that way.
CLIENT: Right. [00:14:50]
THERAPIST: And, you know, in their thoughtlessness can be sort of cruel and hurtful. It may or may not be sadistic in a way, but the data for you I think feels a bit sadomasochistic. Where you feel like the one who's, and I don't mean this in like a fun, sexy kind of sadomasochistic way. I mean it in a way that, you know, where you feel like you've messed up and you're not good enough and you're vulnerable and they have the power and they're judging you over stuff like that. And I guess I, you know, certainly with your father and the background, like that's something that's also raising its head. Again, this is sort of like a tentative thought I have about putting those together. Where I think, it's not necessarily it doesn't seem to me that like, you know, you generally aren't that tuned in to what people are like. You know, where you just don't have a good sensibility that way and maybe more so that you, for particular reasons, you don't see when you get caught in this particular type of relationship that I've so far heard about with men. [00:16:45]
And which you at times may get, at times there's a lot of participation in the dynamic on the part of the guy and then other times, like, now with Edson, you've sort of set it up that way for yourself. In other words, he doesn't get back to you. You feel jerked around because like this whole thing is going on, but at another level, you're kind of scratching your head because you're like I don't want to fucking hear from you anyway, you know?
CLIENT: Right. [00:18:15]
THERAPIST: What's on your mind?
CLIENT: Well, I just had the thought that, you know, I wouldn't get in to these situations if I could just be happy being monogamous which isn't entirely true because Brian and I were never lovers. We've been friends. That was pretty emotionally devastating despite never having dated him. But then there's the other sort of parallel thought which is, which makes me feel awfully bad about myself. I don't, I don't particularly find my sex life with Dave very satisfying. He's very vanilla and very conventional. I've tried and tried communicating with him and asking him to explore kink with me. You know, even asking for different positions even. Anything that would make sex better and he's just not. Like, he tries and it's awkward and terrible and we both end up frustrated and it's just...
THERAPIST: That must be very frustrating. [00:19:35]
CLIENT: It is.
THERAPIST: And upsetting.
CLIENT: And it's not that he's, you know, callous or only cares about his orgasm or, you know, is inconsiderate. He's just boring. I feel terrible saying that. I feel terrible saying that because we're so good together in so many other ways.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But, I don't know. I've been really, really sexually frustrated ever since Jenny (sp?) moved away. And I worry that just in my eagerness to have sex that's exciting and interesting; I'm ignoring red flags or taking risks that I wouldn't otherwise take. [00:21:00]
THERAPIST: The kind of stuff that's more erotic for you just doesn't really turn Dave on?
CLIENT: It doesn't turn him on and some of it he actively finds the opposite of arousing. I'm failing to come up with the I word I want for that.
THERAPIST: Turn off?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: What were things like with Jenny (sp?)?
CLIENT: We were both very much in to playing with power and control and dominance and submission and things like orgasm denial or being tied up.
THERAPIST: Like, you mentioned that you were both in to that kind of thing in ways that work well.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Like, you do that stuff and play it out with each other.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Was it also part of like the kind of emotional and social relationship that you had or was it mostly confined to the sex?
CLIENT: It was mostly confined to the sex. [00:23:00]
THERAPIST: Then you're worried that in being so sexually frustrated and so eager to find somebody with whom you can do more of that kind of stuff that you're ignoring warning signs or being indiscriminate.
CLIENT: Yes. I feel like there are multiple layers to that. Like, I think there is a legitimate concern for my emotional well being, but I think there's also a level of shame that's not as legitimate. You know, I can remember friends teasing me in middle school for being boy crazy and being desperate to have a boyfriend and even my mother telling me that it was, you know, disgusting how boy crazy I was. Just a lot of shaming of women's sexuality going on.
THERAPIST: Yes. [00:24:15]
CLIENT: Well, it's true that like my parents are from another culture, so like, yeah.
THERAPIST: Girls are supposed to kind of sit around and wait to be pursued?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And (inaudible at 00:24:34)
CLIENT: And, like, and it's hard to tell what's like a legitimate concern that I should address and what's just angst for the purpose of self-flagellation.
THERAPIST: What do you have in mind? Like, as being possibly one or possibly the other?
CLIENT: Nothing in particular. Just kind of a general, it's all sort of vague in my head.
THERAPIST: I've been meaning to say and I think I'm going to say something. So, you know, the answer of how much of it is like a legitimate concern and how much of it is just a fling about which kind of self flagellate
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: And you're referring to like the stuff with Edson?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Got you.
CLIENT: Or Brian or Tom.
THERAPIST: Who's Tom? [00:26:05]
CLIENT: Tom is the boy who's a play partner of mine for about a year and he pushes boundaries and just... Did I talk about this with you? I can't remember if I did or not. He, he started attempting to initiate foreplay with me and with two other women at a party at my house and it made everyone uncomfortable.
THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.
CLIENT: It was just.
THERAPIST: Yeah. You did mention that.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, yeah, like I'll have this thought like, you know, maybe I should stop dating new people for a while. Is that because I'm in a bad head space right now with everything that's happened and I need some time to like reset? Or is that because like I've got this shaming voice in my head saying well, you should be satisfied with your husband or there's something wrong with you if you aren't. Right? Like, what's, which motive is driving the impulse to say shut down my profile? [00:27:45]
THERAPIST: I don't know, but it sounds like it plausible it's a combination of things that maybe you are a bit drawn to these kind of guys who are prone to like play these things out socially, not just sexually and I guess it sounds pretty clear that you're pretty sexually frustrated these days. I mean it's not as if there's a question about that. I mean why not just say it?
CLIENT: Right. Yeah.
THERAPIST: It also sounds pretty clear that you've known for a while that in some important ways you and Dave aren't that sexually compatible.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: Or at least it's not working well for you.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I'm not clear how well it's working for him.
CLIENT: If it's not, he hasn't said anything.
THERAPIST: Well, what's your sense?
CLIENT: My sense is that he's happy with our sex life. I mean, we have sex fairly frequently. I mean he seems happy and satisfied and content afterwards.
THERAPIST: Right. As best you can tell anyway.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:29:00]
THERAPIST: How unexciting is it for you? I don't have a scale I'm going to ask you to use.
CLIENT: I don't know. On a scale of one to ten, I'd say maybe a six. I mean not terrible.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: Just not mind blowing either.
THERAPIST: Do you generally have orgasms?
CLIENT: Yes. I orgasm ridiculously easily.
THERAPIST: So, that's not what's missing. It's like the degree of arousal and like intensity of it.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And where were they with Jenny? Like eight, nine, ten? [00:30:00]
CLIENT: Probably around an eight.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Sometimes a nine. I think part of what was so compelling about Edson was, you know, with most of my lovers, like, it usually starts around a four and improves with time and communication. The one time we had sex it was a nine right from the get go. He found all of my buttons and pushed them all at once and it was amazing.
THERAPIST: That's pretty cool.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: It's certainly that.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Who knows where it could have gone.
CLIENT: I joked with a friend, you know, maybe I can keep seeing him. I just need, you know, to gag him the entire time or whatever.
THERAPIST: Was it about like his kind of style or character in bed or was it he just sort of automatically or intuitively or coincidentally did things that you like? What I'm wondering about is how much to a degree in which he turned you on relate to kind of socially what he's like? You know, how much is the sexual part tied in with his being that kind of guy and how much is not? [00:32:00]
CLIENT: Yeah, I'm not sure how much is. I'm not sure. I mean we spent probably about five hours in bed together, but a lot of that was talking. So, we were talking like having conversations about whatever. Math, art, politics all at the same time we were engaging in foreplay and that was secret to playing for me. The fact that he was keeping his brain engaged and my brain engaged while we were doing sexy things.
THERAPIST: Is he a smart guy?
CLIENT: Very smart. But I think I made allowances for his social awkwardness because I knew that he lived at a dorm which kind of has a reputation for reverence for not quite fitting the social norm. And Dave lived at there when he was a student and I was there for a year before I switched to another dorm. Like, I think, like there was a part of me that was making allowances because I had that knowledge. [00:33:25]
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:33:35)
CLIENT: It's random.
THERAPIST: Oh. That explains it. Yeah, I guess it probably sounds like you wanted to like him in a way.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And you really wanted this to be feasible.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: I guess it sounds like that's possibly why you overlooked some stuff about him.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Or kind of gave him a pass.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Well, we should stop.
CLIENT: Next week, Friday.
THERAPIST: Right. Or I'll e-mail you with something else.
CLIENT: Alright.
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