TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: How are you?

THERAPIST: Good! Let me —

CLIENT: Oh, good, I just hang on to those things. Last time when I was filing taxes I was trying to see if I can do something with all of it, but I’m hoping that maybe someday —

THERAPIST: You can.

CLIENT: I don’t know. I put it into the Turbo Tax thing and it didn’t seem to change anything with all the information.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: I filed them; this was for the year that I was in school, so it was a very low amount of money that I was even claiming anyways. So I kind of just hold on to those things.

THERAPIST: I have something that I’ll give you as well, which I’ve been meaning to give.

(34 second pause) [00:00:49]

It was 3/12 right?

CLIENT: 3/12, yes. So then you do 4/12 and I can give you this one.

I’ve been forgetting to give this to you every month. That’s my own little way (ph) of just kind of keeping track of that. In the future (ph) I’ll just give that to you.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Then you can see it’s (out of place) (ph).

THERAPIST: Thank you.

CLIENT: So what were we talking about last week? I seem to recall enjoying our conversation last week. [00:02:06]

We were talking about my little trip through my old neighborhood and what that was like. The experience of it. Some of the memories and stuff.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Kind of reflecting on my reaction to it and my surprise to my reaction to it and what not. I don’t really recall where we left off with it. Maybe that was all we really talked about.

THERAPIST: One thing that — [00:03:08]

CLIENT: I’m just trying to recall if there was any more concluding point to the conversation or not. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Well, the thing that I think I said was I started talking about that movie, “Mud.”

CLIENT: That’s right. I went home and I watched the trailer for it actually.

THERAPIST: Did you?

CLIENT: Yes, I did. It looks like a really good movie. The trailer looks like, with the exception of Matthew McConaughey being both your description of him and the trailer, nothing else seems to be similar to it. It seems like a thriller, like an action thriller. Yes, that’s where we finished. That’s right.

THERAPIST: That’s interesting. It seems like more of an action thriller.

CLIENT: I mean the preview of it.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Oh, yes, absolutely.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:03:54) I guess there were, so...

CLIENT: I would definitely like to see it, though. The trailer said it was Matthew McConaughey’s best performance of his career (inaudible at 00:04:04). Don’t know if he’s (ph) saying too much, but... [00:04:07]

THERAPIST: Well, “Dazed and Confused” seems very (ph) good.

CLIENT: Yes, fair enough. Fair enough. (inaudible) memorable.

THERAPIST: You were talking about the distinctions of what I was getting at, or what I kind of was talking about that story, “Mud”, and how I thought it kind of applied in certain ways to what — well, I brought up the whole idea of divorce and what it means (ph). [00:04:52]

CLIENT: I remember it was right as time was running out, but I kind of said something along the lines of that strikes me as a little different than the way that I was thinking about it. I guess I didn’t immediately identify with the character; the boy who is trying to reconcile his wishes, perhaps his ideas about his parents being in love and together, and his family being together and then the reality. I guess I didn’t see myself as “that kid” who is trying to connive and get his parents back together or something. That just is never the way I viewed it. [00:05:47]

I was never upset. The way that I (seem to have) (ph) made sense (of it) (ph), but I wasn’t upset. Hell, I was happy with how good it was feeling. Those are just the actions of someone who was experiencing something very different than what I seemed to have kind of remembered or thought at the time.

THERAPIST: It did make me think about what my point was about that.

CLIENT: I remember what I said was about that, yes, the dynamic of trying to make sense of those two things, the fantasy and the reality, which being real tense friction between the two, obviously. [00:06:39]

THERAPIST: I guess why maybe it brought “Mud” to mind to me is — and I think this is maybe what I meant with the whole divorce is traumatic for the child, and these notions about love and things like that is — I’m not even trying to be traumatic about it, I think it’s (inaudible). But I think what struck me about your going down that road, I mean that kind of metaphorically but also literally, was you got in contact with these memories of a family together, of a mother with you, racing with you. What was it on the — ? [00:07:41]

CLIENT: Yes, she was running. I was biking.

THERAPIST: Your dad in the front lawn. And then how, when you were describing it, it shifted. You shifted to these reminiscences of your mother being on the outside of things; a very different mother from the one that was chasing you down the road. A very different mother. There was just a different feeling.

CLIENT: They were from different categories of memories. Different, yes.

THERAPIST: And it seemed to me like it was getting at some of your feelings about that home and what that home represented to you. As you were saying, it was the red house that was associated with this time of your family being together. It just rubbed (ph) me as very important. And something about what was that life (ph) for you in the … that reminded me of that boy who really saw something important in the family being together under the same roof. [00:09:13]

In fact a lot of it, actually, now that I remember it, is about this house that they (ph) want to keep, too.

CLIENT: Yes, the fact that that’s an important and big thing to a kid.

THERAPIST: And not just abstractly. But then you got really in contact with that somehow. Those reminiscences. In your own —

CLIENT: What was weird to me, and I think I said this last week — one of the things that really stuck out to me (at the time) (ph), and also at the moment, and also even thinking back on it —was not so much this feeling like, “Oh, my God, my parents split up. This is horrible.” But some of those memories that were just memories of happy experiences. [00:10:17]

THERAPIST: Yes! Yes!

CLIENT: And I remember what was weird to me right at the moment; the fact that they were happy experiences but they were very uncomfortable. Almost uncomfortable in the way that I would expect, but seemed to have never even really felt so directly. Like experiences with my family splitting up. I think I even said to you that I felt less able to make sense of that. I was more comfortable with these unsettling things.

That struck me as really odd. I’ve thought about that. That really stuck with me. Why was that so shocking? Why was that so hot (ph)? Why was that such an experience? [00:11:20]

(9 second pause)

I guess I would speculate — I don’t know, maybe this is reaching too far or something — but I think that remembering some of those things and really enjoying it and remembering them as really happy, as things that I really liked or something. To use a phrase we’ve used here, doesn’t really fit into the narrative. Like to the extent that I loved when my family was together seems to challenge the notion that it was totally cool. [00:12:20]

THERAPIST: Yes!

CLIENT: They seem to be vying for the same space or something to the extent that I would have explored that and really thought about it, reminisced on it and felt nostalgic for it. Now there’s this tension between — I guess like what that kid was doing, which for me felt like something that I never embodied and never should embody. That just (would be) (ph) like an area that I could see all my friends in, that I just wanted to… If I could stay out of there then my whole family would stay out of there or something. Do you know what I mean? [00:13:14]

THERAPIST: Yes, I was thinking that me bringing up the idea of this “Mud” movie actually is kind of in some ways like, “That boy went through that, but I did not.” [00:13:35]

CLIENT: Right. I feel like going through it, even though I felt like I never identified with that, I felt like that was never me. In a way I feel like that was always in mind (ph). That’s a very archetypal image of the little boy going through divorce like, “I want my parents to get back together. Why can’t we be a family again? Is it my fault? Is this because of me?” Those are all things that never… It seemed really important to me in hindsight, looking back on it I suppose, that I stay far away from those things. [00:14:21]

I don’t know. I guess this last week I thought about it a little bit. Like why would it be uncomfortable for me to think about enjoyable times with my mom and my dad?

I used to have this one picture of my mom and my dad and me, when I was really young, when I was still crawling on my dad’s back and stuff. And it was my mom, my dad, and me all doing a pyramid on each other laughing, like real happy, awesome family. I literally don’t even have a memory of it, I was so young. I remember no instances of that type of interaction.

And I remember, I think someone… Somehow it came into my possession, maybe when I was moving it was in a box or something, I couldn’t keep it in the house. I could not have it near me. I think I threw it out or something. I didn’t even want to give it back to my mom because I felt like it was a bad thing. [00:15:40]

THERAPIST: A bad thing.

CLIENT: Does that make sense? That I’d do that (ph)?

THERAPIST: Yes. I’m thinking about how there are these windows into more of that feeling around you. I was thinking about your father crying and then (it would go away) (ph). You caught (ph) him crying that day. That something important was happening and then not to be referred to again, or it was almost like a “did that really happen” quality, although you know it happened.

And your mother. Seeing your mother on the sidelines at the soccer game or on the outs at this Halloween situation. Not to say that that necessarily had to do with something going on, but a different kind of — something your mother was feeling about. Some sadness she was in contact with.

CLIENT: I can remember one time when I was — it was right during the time when my parents split up, actually — I was dating this girl named Carlie, from high school. Maybe it was after my dad moved out, or maybe it was before. Regardless, he wasn’t around, and it was before we were driving so she got dropped off at my house before I got there one day. I was coming back from somewhere else, so she was hanging out with my mom for a little bit. And my mom always used to like these home videos that she made. She really loved that, actually, now that I think about it. She really held on to them. She still has them all. But in the same way I don’t like looking at the photo albums or anything, I don’t think that I’ve ever watched them. [00:18:01]

But I remember one time I came home and Carlie had been hanging out with my mom and she said my mom was watching these home videos from when we were in the old house — really young. There was a scene where my dad had the camera or something and started filming my mom and… This is even weird for me to say. It feels uncomfortable even saying it. He’s saying something like, “Oh, there’s my beautiful wife,” or something. You know, like I do with Laney probably, a hundred times a day. But Carlie said she glanced at my mom, maybe because she felt awkward at that moment or something, and she said that she thought my mom looked super sad or something.

I remember Carlie told me that and she wanted to talk about it. I think she wanted to report that to me so I could go console my mom or something, like “You just got home. Your mom is sad. You should go talk to her,” or something. But — (11 second pause) — I definitely didn’t entertain that at all. [00:19:39]

(9 second pause)

I don’t know. That just came to my mind. It just seemed to pop up in this list of my mom standing on the side of the lawn, my mom at the soccer game, my mom...(8 second pause)

THERAPIST: Yes, these are powerful. Powerful to you.

CLIENT: I don’t even know where I’m going with that.

THERAPIST: Where did you just go in your mind?

CLIENT: I don’t know. That just popped into my head for some reason. I don’t know why. [00:20:36]

THERAPIST: Are you feeling just kind of surprised by it?

CLIENT: I feel like I’m bouncing around or something. I feel like I’m trying to talk about things that I’m more comfortable talking about or something. When I’m talking about this stuff, I feel really comfortable for some reason. I feel like I’m in territory that I’m familiar with, talking about my mom being really upset. It makes me upset that that’s a place I’ve...I don’t know.

THERAPIST: You were just at that point, just a moment ago before that, talking about the feeling you had when you said your dad was saying these things. That didn’t (inaudible phrase at 00:21:42).

CLIENT: (13 second pause) Because that’s the same thing. It feels different from talking about me thinking about maybe missing some of that stuff, too. That’s a lot harder for me to think about. I’m very comfortable with the idea that my parents split up and it was really hard for me because I had to see how hard it was for my mom. It was hard for her. It was hard for me, indirectly. Kind of as a result of seeing...do you know what I mean? But, that has no direct association with me and that experience. But thinking about that stuff seems to feel different in that sense. Maybe those things were upsetting for me, too. [00:23:14]

(8 second pause)

THERAPIST: Yes, when you even said the words that your dad was saying on the tape, it had some personal kind of resonance. It wasn’t just about your mom. It was, but it wasn’t just about her. [00:23:50]

CLIENT: When I think about my mom being upset, I just think about her alone in the house. I don’t know.

It gets back to the fact how last week I was just really surprised that I felt like all of my memories of us in that house were wrapped up in a little bubble. I feel like my mom got divorced from a relationship that I just wasn’t even a part...she got divorced from my dad but that wasn’t even my...I wasn’t even in that. I literally just watched my mom as if I was watching a good friend of mine break up with a girlfriend. I never felt like I was implicated. I wasn’t going through it. I don’t even have any firm memories of that family that split up. That just seems so weird to me, going to that street. It’s kind of like, “Wow.” I never even think about any of this stuff. It’s like my life began in that new house. I don’t have memories before that.

I guess that’s just what seemed kind of startling (ph) about going to that street. It was like, maybe I kind of miss this stuff. The tension quickly started to come about. It was very unsettling. [00:25:48]

THERAPIST: Well, in some ways, the bubble is kind of a preserving kind of thing.

CLIENT: It’s containing.

THERAPIST: It’s containing.

CLIENT: To say the least. I don’t know. I was saying this in the last session. My impression isn’t that I’m holding on to keep it alive or something.

THERAPIST: I didn’t hear you feel like it was experienced that way at all. It sounded more like you were surprised that it was there.

CLIENT: Yes, I didn’t even expect it. I feel like if anything at this point in my life I’d be reasonably capable of being able to expect certain situations that are going to be... particularly in this, though. That’s just why I just felt like this is out of the ordinary or something. [00:26:46]

(20 second pause)

I didn’t even tell my parents. I didn’t even want to talk about it. I just feel like if I mention to my mom that I went down that street it just would — I don’t know what it would do, but it just seemed very clear in my mind that there’s no reason to do that.

THERAPIST: I hear it both as it seems like it’s one part not wanting to have your mother get in contact with some sadness, but it also means that it preserves that. It also means that you don’t go into it, either. [00:27:54]

CLIENT: That’s what seemed to get rattled (ph) a little bit. The view that sees it as me being upset about it because I had to see how upset my mother was. You know, in theory that wouldn’t necessarily suggest that if I went down that street it would be particularly difficult for me in the way that it was.

THERAPIST: Yes, exactly.

CLIENT: That’s kind of inconsistent the notion that these are not things that weren’t (ph) difficult for me personally, purely because I had to witness my mom suffer so much. [00:28:48]

THERAPIST: It’s just like the picture. The picture of the three of you.

CLIENT: Yes, it’s not the way that I think about it.

THERAPIST: A pyramid. An intact triangle.

CLIENT: Oh, yes. It could have been on a Christmas card or something. It looked like a lot of fun. I looked like I was having a lot of fun. My mom was young and happy, and that makes me uncomfortable. I know that. I can tell that it’s different from what I’m used to sort of surrounding myself with in terms of images (ph) of my family and stuff, but I only subtly speculate that maybe I miss that. I don’t know. I’m not even confident that maybe I miss that. I don’t know if I do. [00:30:00]

It still seems like kind of a leap for me to think, “Oh man, maybe I’m really sad that my parents aren’t together anymore.” You know, which is different from, “Oh it was a really traumatic experience of them splitting up.” That’s different from me being like, “Oh, I wish my parents were still together.” [00:30:35]

That’s just weird. I feel like that’s why I get uncomfortable with pictures like that. This makes me sad? Why am I sad? This makes me uncomfortable. Do I miss this? Do I want that? That’s (ph) the only thing that seems to make sense about that.

THERAPIST: I’m having the feeling of it’s not quite sure what it is but it’s more like some feeling that arises when you look at a photograph or you walk down an old street. It’s something that’s no longer bubbled in some way and something kind of creeps out of that experience and starts to touch you. And I think in a way you’re sort of going, what does all this mean? And wanting to kind of keep it. It starts to become unsettling in some ways so you keep it kind of hoarded off in (inaudible phrase at 00:31:51). It has to stay in that place of the familiar. And in some ways the familiar narrative (ph), too. [00:31:59]

CLIENT: It very quickly produced a tension that just felt way more uncomfortable than it felt before I started (thinking last week) (ph). So it makes sense to me. Keep it —

THERAPIST: And I’d say, too, is that it seems to me that what you’re getting at is that it’s not kind of clear what it is you might be feeling about it. It’s not like you go, “Boy, if I open that a box of tears are going to come my way or I’m going to be in this (inaudible).” It’s not quite clear. [00:32:45]

CLIENT: It’s very (inaudible at 00:32:51).

THERAPIST: And maybe that is unsettling in and of itself, not knowing what the hell is in this thing?

CLIENT: And I’ll say it, too, even here. Even me saying that to you. Even raising the question, I don’t even really know what I feel about that, but I know I feel something really strongly. [00:33:09]

When I just said that to you, I was really gauging your response because that feels…

THERAPIST: What were you doing? Tell me about that. [00:33:25]

CLIENT: That feels something I just would not want to say to people. I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t know how I feel about memories of my parents together, or something.

THERAPIST: And what were you looking for in me, do you think? I’m just trying to —

CLIENT: I don’t know. Because I’m not sure how that — I don’t have a lot of experience putting that into conversation to see...

I feel silly. It feels stupid. I’m not sure if that’s cool to talk about it or think about it. That’s just what I feel like when I bring it up.[00:34:43]

THERAPIST: Silly as to wondering (ph)...

CLIENT: It’s just making me feel really uncomfortable talking about it. When I talk to you I don’t know if I’m bringing this in a weird direction or something. I feel that (in order to) (ph) —

THERAPIST: Well, I was struck by it because I was struck by you sort of saying that you felt, earlier, that you were bouncing around, and it makes me think about you trying to... As you get maybe a little bit more close to a feeling you kind of connected (ph) with all this stuff. That it opens up an area, a new space. An unknown space in some way. Including the idea of starting to write something new and how you feel when you start to do that. Unsure. What’s this going to be like? What’s this going to go if I start writing this down? [00:36:15]

CLIENT: Yes, which feels very similar to the feeling like what is this going to feel like in the same way when I was even walking around (ph) the street like what does this feel like? Is this sadness or something? I don’t know. I guess to describe it, even asking that question I feel like I want to ask it quietly or something almost. It feels taboo or something.

THERAPIST: Ask it quietly. [00:36:54]

CLIENT: (51 second pause)

I guess it’s just a lot of ways that I’m sad and upset seem to really do a lot. Seems to be a lot in terms (inaudible) or something. If anything, that seems to be something I can make some sense of with (ph) this. Even seeing that maybe I’m really sad about this or something, and (seeing that on the horizon) (ph) seems just like bells (ph) started going off or something. [00:38:25]

(34 second pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible phrase at 00:39:02)

CLIENT: I just feel like I left (ph) some… It seems significant on some level for me to… I guess it just seems like, for whatever reason, thinking about family and some of those happy times or whatever — like with my dad on that rock or something — even if it’s just me alone (inaudible phrase at 00:39:48), it doesn’t even have to be a picture of the three of us being a big, happy family or something. But even just that time when family was a fun place. When I’d run onto that porch when my dad came home from work. For whatever reason, really engaging with the fact that maybe those were really happy times, seems to just carry some implications that seem to forget (ph) I guess, (even if) (ph) I don’t know what they are. Which is not something I feel like I’ve really observed before.

The happiness of those memories, and how I remembered them being happy, seems more disturbing, more uncomfortable for me to think about and talk about than some aspects of my parents divorcing or something. It just seems like it would be more difficult. I guess I just feel confused as to why those are uncomfortable things to think about. [00:41:16]

(20 second pause)

THERAPIST: I think maybe it opens up the possibility of it having happened to you, too, not just to your parents. That’s what I was thinking (ph).

CLIENT: That’s what I was kind of speculating. That seems to be one of the only things that I can infer (ph) from that. Those memories seemed unique. Like the fact that my mom got divorced and that she was upset about it, that pre-supposes a pre-marriage (ph) divorce that was good so that she (ph) could be sad about it afterwards. That my mom would have been happy beforehand is not controversy (ph), it’s not new. [00:42:19]

But something just seems very different about literally seeing me in the third person as like an actor in that or something. Something that I would have kind of lost, too, or something. That’s definitely new in terms of the kind of series of images and fantasies in my head that I’ve thought about a lot.

THERAPIST: Yes, the pyramid.

CLIENT: And I guess I think I was kind of getting at this earlier. In a way, one way to think about it could be the sense that I never wanted to make it more difficult for my parents. That very experience, that seems like new (inaudible at 00:43:27) to think about was the very thing that I felt like if I could not do the things like that kid in “Mud” did, and like my parents did.

Because those things that that kid in “Mud” did, that’s what a kid does when he’s really upset that his family is splitting up. But, I think I’ve said this to you a while ago, I felt like as if the only thing I could do was to try to not add that to it or something. I honestly don’t know what else I could have done in a situation like that; to not want to make it worse for people. Like, “So you guys are splitting up. That sucks.” I can’t make it better but maybe I can just try to not put that into the mix, too. [00:44:27]

THERAPIST: I suppose, too, that it also meant your feelings (ph) would have an impact on the world around you, but they’d also have an impact on you. To be in contact with that was, of course, you felt like it would be something that would do… There’s both (ph) the level of it impacting your mother in a kind of a way that would make her more sad, or hurt, or broken up about it, but it also implied about you going through that — yourself. [00:45:21]

CLIENT: Yes, I just did it again, right? I started talking about it. That frame (ph) right there. My parents split up. It was tough for them. I tried to make it better for them. I feel like there’s a gravitational pull that pulls me back to that — I just did it again there. I didn’t know where I was going with it and I…

It’s tied (ph) up in a way that is just, I don’t know. It’s like a safe base (ph) off, back on to it. Do you know what I mean? But, I don’t think that’s a radical interpretation of that. The only people whose experienced that is, significant to that is, my mother’s. There’s no consideration of my own feelings about it. [00:46:19]

THERAPIST: And I imagine in some way that that whole narrative that was real and was really true about this need to have a good divorce, but it could also be a way that it meant you would go there with the exploration of your feelings as opposed to, “Hey, this is impacting me, too.”

I don’t know. I (want to) (ph) clear on that.

CLIENT: There’s some tendency towards projecting the sadness — not “the” sadness — but I guess any sadness, any negativity, any unfortunate aspects of it. They exist, right? But they only are eminent (sp?) from my mother. They’re acknowledged. They’re there, of course, but — [00:47:35]

THERAPIST: We’re talking about another level about how this shakes you up.

CLIENT: Yes. (12 second pause)

It wouldn’t have to… That could have been my secret, even as I was trying to display that I was really fine for my parents. It wouldn’t necessarily conflict with doing that, if I acknowledged it to myself and didn’t talk about it. It would almost make more sense, is that I’d actually be having something to hide, right? Yes, thinking about it like that is almost as if I might have… If it’s the case that that’s what was animating it, wanting to make it easier for my parents...it’s almost like get medicine (ph) myself (of it) (ph) or something. [00:49:06]

I guess that’s an easier way. That would be a more pleasant experience, just in general for me, I guess, than to come to the grips of the fact that it was hard for me to —

THERAPIST: That’s (inaudible at 00:49:23). (That’s your out.) (ph)

Well, alright —

CLIENT: Oh, geez, I didn’t realize the time. I’ll see you on Thursday? [00:49:38]

THERAPIST: Yes, I’ll see you on Thursday.

CLIENT: Thank you.

END TRANSCRIPT