TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: How are you?

CLIENT: I’m alright! (inaudible phrase at 00:00:13)

I grew up in Aberdeen. Did I tell you that? You know where I grew up?

THERAPIST: I do. In Aberdeen, right?

CLIENT: I told you that.

THERAPIST: Are you going to need a pen?

CLIENT: I can grab (inaudible).

And I lived in two different places in Aberdeen. The first house I grew up in, effectively. In my mind, I always just think of it as “the red house” because it was a big red house. And we moved out of that house right after fifth grade and we moved to this much bigger it was actually a huge house, it was like a new development, this massive house on the other side of town, but it was still in a sub. [00:01:15]

THERAPIST: I’m embarrassed to say though, I don’t know much about Aberdeen. Give me the thumbnail of what kind of town.

CLIENT: Not much to know, man. Quiet little suburban town. Really white around the edges. A lot of minorities in the center of town. Very kind of “town-y.” Not a place I wanted to stay any longer than I had to, really. There’s some nice areas to it, but it’s just a quiet little center of town with businesses that open up and close down every couple months. But pretty standard (ph?), I guess. Just suburban.

THERAPIST: And socio-economically? [00:02:11]

CLIENT: I’d say predominantly middle-class. Lower middle-class around the edges getting towards east-end, Montrose, and Abroath. A little more affluent in areas but definitely not rich or anything by that stretch. Lots of little old capes and split-level houses and stuff. A nice town. PTA’s and stuff. People in Aberdeen seem to like Aberdeen the ones that stay there, I guess. [00:02:53]

THERAPIST: Where was the red house and then where was the other house?

CLIENT: They were on polar opposite sides of town. The “red house” was over by one school, which was over in the corner and then the other house was over by the school. The neighborhoods were broken up by what elementary school you went to. It was ineffectual because everyone went to the same Middle School. I think that’s why my parents waited to move, so I was going with all the same people anyways.

The houses that we moved into, though I hate Aberdeen now. I don’t even like going there. I rarely ever will for anything. Just being there, it’s just I think the town itself has decayed, apart from my own associations with it that I superimpose. I think, just in general, the town has gone downhill a bit. But I just don’t like to be there at all if I don’t have to be, and I rarely have to be. My Mom doesn’t live there anymore, either. [00:04:09]

THERAPIST: Where does she live now?

CLIENT: She lives in Westhill now.

THERAPIST: Westhill, and your Dad...

CLIENT: Gainesbury (sp?)

THERAPIST: That’s right. Inverurie. (sp?)

CLIENT: So, then we moved to this much bigger house. I guess it was probably in the 90’s, when everyone had all this money and everything. A house that was absurdly big for three people. By the time my Dad moved out it was just stupidly big for two people, particularly given all the upkeep and stuff. [00:04:45]

It’s funny, because I always associate the “red house” with my parents being together and the new house the (inaudible), the bigger onewith my parents splitting up. But I guess, technically, my Dad didn’t move out until High School. That would have been maybe four years living there, I guess.

THERAPIST: 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th...

CLIENT: 9th, and then that summer. I guess, I think even if I went back and looked at it-

THERAPIST: Summer of ‘93 is when they split up.

CLIENT: Yeah, after freshman year. But, I guess, as I kind of explained to you, the extent (sp?) towards that kind of began quickly (ph). And I think for all intents and purposes, my Dad kind of didn’t live really there. You know, if he was out – [00:05:40]

THERAPIST: Those were the years he was in law school?

CLIENT: Yeah, in law school or doing whatever he was...He just was very much not living there, at least for how my memory serves it. And I had gone back, sometimes like if I was at Will’s house or something, or if I had to go through Aberdeen for some reason, sometimes I would go and I would drive around and see the second house that I lived in and shit, and I’d go back and kind of just drive around the neighborhood like you do sometimes. You see if they changed the garden or something.

But I don’t know when the last time I went to the red house, or the first house, was. That I hadn’t been to for a really long time. But as I explained to you, I think the last time I was here, I had been to the Dentist recently. The Dentist is in Aberdeen, because it’s the place we started going to when we were in Aberdeen and we’ve continued to go there. Even now we take the commuter rail back to Aberdeen to go to the Dentist. Partially because we have a relationship with them there. [00:07:03]

So I went the other week, when I told you that I didn’t have any cavities, but it was like a weird miracle. I felt like they didn’t look hard enough or something. But I had to go back because a cavity they had filled recently had to get reworked on. And I had to take the commuter rail, so I had three hours after I got out of my appointment with nothing to do. So I just started walking around town and I ended up walking-

THERAPIST: Three hours to get to the-

CLIENT: -because I had taken the commuter rail so the next commuter rail back into Boston was three hours. There’s no tier (ph), you know what I mean?

I started kind of walking around and I didn’t really have any kind of clear idea as to where I think I was going to go, I was just kind of like, “Oh, I’m just going to kind of see what has changed.” I ended up walking a decent ways. It was definitely a longer walk than from here to the town square. Longer than I thought I was going to walk. I ended up walking right up to my old house. [00:08:19]

THERAPIST: The red house?

CLIENT: Yeah. It’s not red anymore I learned the other day which was really weird to see. I walked all the way over there and right onto the street. I really don’t know the last time I would have even (inaudible phrase at 00:08:44).

And it was kind of odd because I wasn’t really thinking about it until I got pretty close to it, because I don’t even think I was intending on walking by it. But there’s sort of a point at which you turn off the main road to go toward my house, and it’s a turn that you wouldn’t really take unless you were going. There’s a little cul-de-sac, so you’d never be on that street just passing through or anything. It was really bizarre. Really, really bizarre. [00:09:22]

It was partially kind of bizarre because I felt like I did it without even really saying, “I’m going to go and see my old house.” I felt like I just kind of wandered, like I was sleep walking or something. It was weird. But it was really odd because I can remember right before I got to the turn right onto the street that I lived on, I hadn’t really even thought about it. I was thinking about other stuff, but I started to feel myself getting really fidgety. Like just straightening my pockets out for no reason or just taking stuff out of my pockets and putting it in my bag, or something. I was just getting kind of fussy. I think I started to feel nervous. It was really weird. [00:10:19]

I went down the street and went up to the house. It’s on a big hill and I kind of stood down at the bottom and I saw a bunch of neighbors come out that I recognized, actually. They wouldn’t have recognized me because I would have been like 11 or something when I was there. And it’s a super quiet street to the point that if there’s some dude walking around on the street, people would know if you didn’t live there. So they were kind of looking at me like, “Who is this dude just staring at this house?” And I remembered the names of the neighbors and I considered saying “Hi” to them being like, “This is who I am.” They probably would have remembered me. They definitely would if I told them who I was. But I felt weird. I felt really antsy and really, um, I don’t know. [00:11:35]

THERAPIST: What came up? What came up for you?

CLIENT: I was walking up the street and it was weird. Because it literally, like the way in movies you see someone walking. Like someone in a movie was doing exactly what I was doing and you’d be seeing the movie from their vantage point. And then these little mirages were sort of suddenly (ph) happening when they’d (ph) walk by a bush or something happened, or like on this corner, they had a memory or something. Something close to that started happening. I remembered the time I was out on my bike with my mom and dad and I was really young, and we were getting close to the house and my Mom started running and racing me when I was on my bike. [00:12:32]

I remembered this time my Dad played a prank on me when I was in the backyard and he screamed at me saying that he fell down and he got hurt and I ran into the front lawn and he had the hose and he sprayed me. Just little things like that started popping up in my head. It was really, really bizarre.

THERAPIST: Why did it seem bizarre to you? Or what was it that seemed bizarre?

CLIENT: What seemed bizarre to me was that I think I just said, “Oh, I’ll go for a walk through the old neighborhood.” You know, just kind of go for a walk through the town square to kill the time or something, but I guess the discrepancy between how (ph) uncomfortable I felt when I got there. I didn’t really think it was going to be that weird. But it was just really, really, really strange.

THERAPIST: It was strange how uncomfortable it was? [00:13:59]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Would bring up a lot of -

CLIENT: And I imagined talking about it here when I was doing it. It (inaudible phrase at 00:14:13).

And I remember I walked back down and kind of around the block. I walked by this place in the woods where there was this huge rock that I used to like to play on. One of the things I noticed too, was everything was smaller. The hill that my house was on used to be like Mt. Washington or something. I remember shoveling it and bringing trash barrels up it. This rock that used to be like this boulder, I almost looked over it now because it was so small. [00:15:00]

THERAPIST: So like the house is on a hill on the plot of land so you can look up at it. It seemed farther than that.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. If you’re on the street, then it’s a big hill and the house is up there with a driveway up it and then there’s a cul-de-sac and then there’s some woods on the end of it with some trails and stuff.

THERAPIST: On the end of the road?

CLIENT: Yeah, right on the bell of the cul-de-sac.

THERAPIST: And you’re where on the cul-de-sac?

CLIENT: I’m not the last the cul-de-sac is a street with houses on each side of it and then the houses stop and it’s kind of like a bell and there’s just woods. There’s trails. Some of them were even paved by the town to walk through and stuff.

THERAPIST: But there’s no houses on that cul-de-sac? [00:15:48]

CLIENT: No, not once you get to the bell. But there’s this big rock where I remember When I was young I was really scared of the dark. I never liked to go down to the basement. [It sucks.] (ph) [00:16:05] You have to go to the other side of the basement to turn the light on. You have to be in the dark for a few seconds. I never liked to do it.

I remember one time my Dad brought me out and we got a shitload of candy and we went into the woods and we went and sat on this huge rock that I always used to play on. It was at 7 or 8 o’clock in the summer, so it was still kind of bright out but the sun was going down. And we just sat there and talked and talked and ate candy. And my dad had brought enough candy that I was just on auto-pilot eating candy. And then the trick that he played was then it was us I didn’t even notice we were there in the dark and we were talking and we were eating candy and I wasn’t scared. I was like, “Oh, wow!” And it was like a Hollywood (ph) moment. [00:16:56]

Just things like that, when I would see something I’d remember it.

THERAPIST: You have these memories, the one with your mother, it sounds like warm memories.

CLIENT: They were.

THERAPIST: [I don’t know how you could...] (ph) [00:17:15]

CLIENT: Yeah, they were memories of nice things, but which were uncomfortable to arise. They were all very nice. They were all great things. [00:17:34]

(27 second pause)

Another thing that really struck me was the memory that I have of that street, I guess like everything I remember of it, it was inconsistent with the way that I saw it when I went back because everything was really nice. There were beautiful gardens and I have this decayed I thought the house would have looked like that house in Great Expectations that the woman is sitting in with cobwebs everywhere as if time had stopped. But everything was the house was nice (inaudible at 00:18:51) when I was there. People had painted it. [00:18:57]

THERAPIST: What an interesting fantasy that it was going to be decaying.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That it took that shape in your fantasy.

CLIENT: It’s not even like I have a fantasy of that. I realize that I thought that in reaction to how surprised I was that everything was really nice. I wouldn’t even have probably described it like that, if you asked me what that street was like beforehand.

THERAPIST: It was unconscious. [00:19:32]

CLIENT: Yeah, I suppose. But not all of it was when I got off the street, actually, I remember I went by a couple places that brought up things that were not super happy. The elementary school was kind of close to there. Just like a 10 minute walk through these very quiet kind of -

THERAPIST: North? Is that what it was?

CLIENT: Yeah, it used to be called one way. It’s called something else now, after the principal who retired.

THERAPIST: Doss? [00:20:20]

CLIENT: Named after the principal when he left. They named it after him.

And one of the things that I remembered was the first time that I walked home with a couple of kids from the neighborhood, instead of taking the bus, instead of having my mom come get me. I kind of went up the street and took the turn so I could see my house and my mom was almost at the end of the lawn. Almost like she had a leash on and she was trying to she wanted to see me, so that I was okay. She probably wanted to just keep walking and meet me right when I stepped out of the door and that I wouldn’t have walked home alone (ph) and she would have (inaudible at 00:21:10) at me. [00:21:12]

THERAPIST: You were on your way back?

CLIENT: I was walking home and when I got to the house she was on the lawn looking at me like that. And I remember being not even annoyed in a childish way like, “Mom, I’m fine.” Not even like that. But me I was really young but I remember feeling like, “Oh God. My mom was worrying about me.” Like, oh man. I felt like I was making my mom my mom was upset and I felt like I had something to do with it or something.

THERAPIST: She was anxious.

CLIENT: I don’t know if I thought any of that through, but I just didn’t like the way that that played out. [00:22:10]

THERAPIST: So you not liking that kind of feeling that you had of her being there waiting.

CLIENT: And me doing it. Me hurting (sp?) her.

THERAPIST: And that being because of you? [00:22:22]

CLIENT: Yeah. I was surprised. I just assumed she was going to be home when I walked through the door. Oh, man (inaudible at 00:22:30) going on or something? Definitely (ph) the other moms weren’t doing that. Like my mom’s so worried. I don’t know.

I remembered walking by this is funny, this made me think of you, too the home of this girl who I don’t even remember. I think her name was Ellie or something, but it was her mom that my mom was talking to in the supermarket and who I made that comment to about, “Oh, my parents fight all the time.” I remember walking by the house and I thought, “Oh, wow, that’s where” – I only remember the mom, I don’t even remember the daughter. I remember that. [00:23:21]

And the last thing that I remembered, and this was something that made me really sad at the time, I went by this house where maybe in 4th, 5th or 6th grade I was out trick-or-treating with a bunch of kids in the neighborhood. And we were sort of still at the age where our parents would still go out with us and sort of chaperone, but they’d try to kind of pretend they were off in the distance, and kind of let us feel like we were off by ourselves. I guess we were at this one house. And there was a bunch of us kids, and we were running around and having a blast, and there were a couple of parents out. I don’t even remember who the other parents were. But I remember me and some of the other kids were up at this front door and it was a lawn that had all these funny, Halloween things, like moving, inflatable things and everything. And something happened and all the parents started erupting with laughter and I turned around and there were three or four of the parents that were all out kind of watching the group of kids that I was with, and they were all laughing, having a blast, and my mom was off in the corner like...not even one of them; just kind of quietly watching. Just removed. [00:25:12]

If you just swap those kids, swap the parents out and put nine year old kids, you’d think that it was a like a kid getting outcast at school or something. That’s what it was like to me. I think I was still in elementary school. Well, I would have had to been in elementary school, because if I was in that neighborhood trick-or-treating I was still at the house. But I remember being, kind of like that thing that happened when I was walking home, I don’t remember really thinking it through, but I remember just feeling really sad when I turned. I was doing this thing and was having all this fun, and then I turn around and I saw this and I was like, “Oh, God. Am I doing this to my mom?” And I remember I went up to her, I was probably in like the 4th or the 5th grade, and I remember I said to her, “Do you want to go home?” “Do you want me and you to leave?” And she was like, “Oh, no, no, no,” of course and kind of brushed it off. [00:26:30]

But I remember...it’s funny, because I didn’t really ever remember this until I walked by the house, but I can literally remember the moment when I turned around and saw my mom there and a bucket of butterflies were dumped into my stomach. I was just really I don’t know. Everything else kind of...I was ready to just say “F-it” to everything else and I would have gone home. I was 5th grade at Halloween trick-or-treating. It seems like not many things probably would have made me want to go home. I wanted to leave. I was angry at the other parents, or something, like they were excluding her or something.

THERAPIST: Well, you wanted to just take her home. [00:27:31]

CLIENT: I wanted to give her a hug or something. It was weird. Weird because it’s something I can relate to, like feeling now, like when I see my mom sick and stuff.

THERAPIST: Yeah. There’s something about the way she’s sick. I mean that in terms of your sense of the aloneness and isolation.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. (16 second pause) I just remember that night. I remember just -

THERAPIST: It sounds very sad. [00:28:34]

CLIENT: Yeah, I was sad, but I was angry, too. I wasn’t like head-down. I wanted to punch someone or I wanted to I felt like I was breaking out of my skin. It was a very kind of pulse-increasing, sadness, anger, etc. It’s not that sadness makes me want to just go to sleep and get in bed...

THERAPIST: You were angry at the parents.

CLIENT: I don’t know what I was angry at. I think I was, but that doesn’t encapsulate it. I was just angry – stupid stars or something. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Ah-hah! Yeah, the stars.

CLIENT: It’s just that the cosmos, or God, or something. Nothing in front of me, per se. [00:29:38]

And that was the last thing that I saw and then I was out of my old neighborhood. The little haunted house ride was all over, so to speak.

It felt like at the carnival, you know in haunted houses you sit in a little car and it brings you through? That’s almost what it felt like. And the other thing that really stuck out to me, and that I noticed at the moment, was I went on this little walk and it wasn’t lost on me that it was effectively stirring stuff up. But then I got out of the neighborhood, I got back onto the main road, and it was just like it was off.

I remembered I walked maybe a block or two and I noticed it was gone. I felt like that would have been something I would have thought about, but I couldn’t get out of my mind. But I think I was walking and for a minute I was almost like, “What did I...?” Maybe I was imagining talking to Laney on the phone. It didn’t even come to me what I did. I imagined, I think, talking to Laney. Like, “Oh, you know I’m just walking around in Aberdeen. I went to...” It was gone. [00:31:41]

THERAPIST: It was gone. I hear that it was almost like a state (ph) change.

CLIENT: It just turned off.

THERAPIST: It turned off. All that feeling?

CLIENT: Even my immediate recollection, that I just kind of...right there.

THERAPIST: The whole thing?

CLIENT: Yeah. It tied back. Click “X”.

THERAPIST: Close document; get on through.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Out.

CLIENT: Yeah, and it just surprised me because I literally, for a moment there, had almost forgot what I did. For a second I had to re-remember what I did. [00:32:47]

I went home and I didn’t even tell Laney. It just was not my memory of the day was I went to the Dentist and then -

THERAPIST: But that wasn’t part of the narrative of the day.

CLIENT: Yeah, it was really, really, really bizarre. I didn’t talk to my parents about it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, or Laney, huh?

CLIENT: I ended up mentioning it to her the next day as I was reflecting on the fact that I didn’t even mention it to her. I was reflecting on the fact that I came home and I was like, “I (inaudible) to the Dentist, kind of walked around, looked for a place to eat, took the train home.”

THERAPIST: And then it dawned on you when I was talking about all of this [00:33:46]

[There is cross-talk between the Client and Therapist here and is difficult to discern who is saying which line.]

CLIENT: And I was like, “No, I actually did something that was a [big deal] (ph).

THERAPIST: Tremendous significance. Something in your mind had kind of clicked that off, like you said, “I hit the X button and it was gone.”

CLIENT: And in the same way when I was walking there. When I go to my parents’ house now, two days before hand I’m bracing myself for like, “Oh, God, it’s going to be uncomfortable.” You know it’s (inaudible at 00:34:25). Literally I walked onto Ewing (sp?) drive and I walked into a bubble and I just left (ph) it. I don’t know. I don’t even know how to explain it. I found it odd how disassociated I was able to feel from the (inaudible at 00:34:54). I went from nothing to very, very kind of deep and pervasive that just not like... [00:35:04]

THERAPIST: Kind of like a haunted house ride? Once the ride’s over it’s no longer...(inaudible).

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s pretty easy to not remember any of those things.

THERAPIST: It’s its own unique world on its own.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Recount (ph) the dream.

CLIENT: It felt very much like a dream in a way. It really did. It felt very much like the dude in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Wander (ph) through these scenes, wanting to just remain anonymous and I didn’t. I made a very conscious decision to just not talk to my neighbors.

THERAPIST: Oh, you mean like Jimmy Stewart’s third person (ph) and he’s watching himself. [00:36:04]

CLIENT: Like [that’s what I was] (ph) of doing and I was looking at or imagining these scenes of me and stuff.

THERAPIST: I was just thinking about how much that time just meets you and maybe the meaning of it all is the reason why the power of it is in some ways is part of it being sequestered (ph) in that area.

CLIENT: I assumed as much.

THERAPIST: There’s a lot there. Some joy. It’s a mix of joy and sorrow and anger. It’s really a mix of (inaudible). [00:37:01]

CLIENT: It was all [in how] (ph) I remembered stuff like that thing about Halloween. I almost feel like that’s easier for me to talk about. It fits a frame of experience that I’m more familiar with. My mom was upset. It drove me crazy. I was really bothered by it. I don’t know. I feel, even just thinking about that, I feel like I spoke about that a lot longer with you even. I get that. I think one of the things that really irked me about it was even with the nice things I had the same I kind of pushed back at it or reacted to it in the same way as these things that make sense to me that I would (ph) be bothered by. That makes sense to me why that would really upset me at the time and why I don’t like to think about it. [00:38:11]

But like that thing with my dad. You know maybe this is helpful for you, with some of the things that I say. I don’t know what to do with that. That seems like evidence against the case I’m trying to make for myself that I can be angry at my dad. That was really nice.

THERAPIST: It’s a nice memory.

CLIENT: Yeah, in a way. It was a nice experience when I had it.

THERAPIST: Nice experience. A complicated memory.

CLIENT: Yeah, a complicated memory of a nice occurrence. (10 second pause) The nice things like me and my mom and my dad, how we went for a walk, and me on my bike and having fun. That’s a lot. It’s just a lot more uncomfortable because it just makes it hard for me to feel like I can know what to do with something that I already feel like I don’t really know what to do with. That was one of the things that surprised me a little bit. [00:39:53]

I think it reminded me of that weird feeling that weird feeling that I have a hard time explaining, why I don’t like to be out (ph) in May. In a way it’s kind of similar. It’s this place where my parents used to be and I have a lot of other memories of me and my cousins having great kid vacation times and stuff.

THERAPIST: Those were good times.

CLIENT: Yeah, those were the times I was really happy. That’s the way to put it. Not that they were good memories, they were the times when I’m doing that “It’s a Wonderful Life” thing and I’m looking at myself. I’m happy. That’s what connects those. It’s almost like I’m looking at myself like, “Oh, geez. You don’t know what’s coming,” or something. [00:40:54]

THERAPIST: It seems to me like it’s somewhat brings up “Great Expectations” and the woman at the house who does that presumably because she wants to keep things the same. Hold on to something.

CLIENT: Well, Jesus, right? What is that (ph)? There was a party, right, if I remember the book. Was there a wedding? I don’t remember but she had a big dress on. Nothing about it moves from the same. It’s just kind of stagnated (ph). [00:41:46]

THERAPIST: Holding on to that and in doing so there’s something about that [love decaying] (ph) and [another way] (ph).

CLIENT: It’s insane. It’s irrational. It’s disconnected from reality. That woman is delusional in the plot because she’s so -

THERAPIST: She’s trying to keep something alive. [00:42:19]

I was thinking about the idea of preserving something and vacuum sealing it. You never let it have any air. It’s almost like the psychic equivalent of that when you walked out of there. When you walked out off the street. Some sort of seal, hermetically (sp?) sealed or something.

CLIENT: Stepping in and out of that really felt like falling asleep and waking up in the same way as sometimes you have a dream you remember it a day later. A day later I was like, “This is what I did yesterday, Laney.” It’s there. It’s not there. You don’t know what you’re going to dream about until the second before you fall asleep. You don’t even know what’s going to be in front of you or something. [00:43:30]

THERAPIST: It makes me think of the movie “Mud.” Have you heard of it? It just came out and Matthew McConaughey (sp?) is in it. It’s a story about two boys who live in Louisiana or Arkansas in the bayou or something. They’re these two kids who like to go out and explore and they stumble upon Matthew McConaughey (sp?) on this island. Turns out he’s on the run and you find out, as the story goes on, that he’s killed Reese Witherspoon is his girlfriend who ‘s his kind of on again, off again girlfriend and he’s killed a boyfriend that she took up with, or a guy that she was dating because the boyfriend was abusing Reese Witherspoon so Matthew McConaughey kills him. [00:44:51]

So now he’s on the run and he’s trying to link up with Reese Witherspoon and he ends up enlisting the boys to help get them back together. And you find out that the woman, the Reese Witherspoon character, is very ambivalent about hooking up with Mud. Always has been, but Mud holds on to this kind of dream of the two of them being together. Just really hopeful that love can work and everything. In time you find out that one of the boys, out of the two, there’s one boy who’s the main character. The other boy doesn’t really get caught up in all this as much as this main boy. You find out that the main boy’s parents are going through a rough time and eventually divorce. He’s trying to hold on to family love and he works his ass off to help Mud (inaudible) this girl back. [00:46:07]

(18 second pause)

CLIENT: Real quickly. I feel like I understand this character you’ve just described extremely well but I’m [less certain on] (ph) your speculation about how it parallels with...

THERAPIST: With yours?

CLIENT: I guess I just want to push you. I mean, I could probably go multiple ways thinking but I’m curious what you’re...

THERAPIST: I was thinking about the trauma of divorce and what it meant to you.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: And something about Well [it’s talking] (ph) about trying to keep something alive that to you felt like, well it’s too traumatic (ph) to say that something that felt like kind of died. [00:47:23]

CLIENT: It’s funny that you put it this way. Just trying to elaborate on it and try to explain to you the way I think about it just comparing it to that. That scene is different to me because, yes I feel like I’m trying to put boundaries around that neighborhood and those memories and some of that stuff and I’m trying to contain them, but not in a way that you try to catch a firefly in a jar so you can look at it and marvel at it and put it in a box so you can push it under your bed and not have to think about it. In my mind, that’s the way that I think about it. [00:48:17]

THERAPIST: The Mud story is like -

CLIENT: Mine.

THERAPIST: Oh, your story.

CLIENT: Me. I feel like not like, “Oh, my God, I love this. This is going to die. I need to protect it.” It’s more like, “This is nice, but this is really...” I would be much happier just eliminating this from what I have to look at. Pretend it’s not there. It’s just complicated. That’s just to think about, just the thought about how I was feeling about it. I didn’t want to preserve. I wanted to (inaudible phrase at 00:49:01) so I could shoot it into space. Maybe those people (ph) aren’t necessarily proposing (inaudible). [00:49:15]

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmmm...

CLIENT: It’s a good movie?

THERAPIST: Mud? It’s a great movie. No, like the other thing, that element I think it came to mind because something about some different meaning of your It’s just seeing that movie, I think the power of the parents being in love and together and when it goes away what it can mean to a child. There’s any number of ways to react to that. This kid wants to make sure it’s still alive somewhere and tries to recreate it and stuff. [00:50:20]

CLIENT: I agree with you that the distinction between the two, the importance of that distinction and of love not being and then love being is a divide (ph) that...definitely on that walk I felt doing something pretty strongly and demanded (ph) my attention or something in a similar way, like what you’re talking about.

THERAPIST: What’s your other side of the (inaudible)?

CLIENT: I didn’t see me as doing the same thing in reaction to that. [00:51:09]

THERAPIST: No, right.

CLIENT: (inaudible phrase at 00:51:12) That sounds like a kid that is really upset about his parents splitting up. That doesn’t seem like what I have thought about myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: Thank you. Thank you.

THERAPIST: That’s a hell of a day.

CLIENT: Yeah. It was like 15 minutes.

THERAPIST: Is that right? God, that’s not a long walk. Well, time is funny. Sounds like it’s longer.

CLIENT: Well, we talked about a lot.

THERAPIST: I will see you on Monday. Thank you very much.

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