TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: This job is kind of sweet for you. I mean you sit and listen to people talk and then help them in that way. But over time your heart will be filled with sorrow.
THERAPIST: Yeah, you think so?
CLIENT: And you'll be crushed under the weight of, not failures, but like coming short or something.
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: By the (bulk of) (ph) memory or something, and need to like take drugs or become like a spiritual aesthetic or something to clear it all up.
THERAPIST: You're thinking it's a bleak future for me, huh?
CLIENT: (laughter) Not bleak, but this is a problematic aspect to this. The weight of memory. [00:01:03]
THERAPIST: Hm. Hm. Huh.
CLIENT: Let me just look. (ph) (long pause) The weight of memory. There's some song, some line to a song came up. I heard it in my car. (inaudible) There's a whole line. I don't know what band it was, Talking Heads or something. It's like, "Never forget the past, it just accumulates." I was like, "Fuck that," and I just changed the station.
THERAPIST: Fuck that, huh?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Huh. What did you think of it?
CLIENT: Not much. I guess I didn't want to dwell on it. [00:02:02]
THERAPIST: Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. (long pause) Yeah, you said something too about coming up short. Feelings coming up.
CLIENT: (long pause) See if I come in here without a problem I feel compelled to like call one up. [00:03:42]
THERAPIST: Huh. (pause) You do?
CLIENT: Yeah, right. Why should I? Yeah. It's like (long pause and a little mumbling) I want to put the time to good use. I don't know what to throw out there though. [00:04:09]
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: (long pause) I'm feeling pretty good today but I didn't really do anything. Like I just laid in bed, you know? (pause) You know what I mean? I'm at a point where I recognize like if I sort of organize my experience and (inaudible at 00:04:53) I'll probably be happier than if I'm just lying around. But most days it's largely a theoretical appreciation of, you know, the power of scheduling and organization. So, I mean as much as I (did some of that) (ph), I think for a long time I sort of detested the idea of being subject to the arbitrary judgment of someone else's theory, of a professional superior.
It seems like something I kind of need is to have someone either to fight against or to fulfill their expectations. But I could use someone there. (pause) One problematic thought I did have, I remember now, is that with my Dad particularly, it's like he never asks for anything. I only recall one conversation where he never asks for anything but whenever I tell him something that I think I'd like to do or that I find promising, he's always disappointed. [00:06:18]
THERAPIST: Hm.
CLIENT: So there are no demands but there's no satisfaction there either. (pause)
THERAPIST: I see, yeah. It's a little bit too, well there's nothing you can kind of bounce up against or (pause) and (so you're saying there's) (ph) no way no feedback, kind of.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think his father was like a war veteran and the family was, my grandfather's my grandmother, my grandfather's wife (sp?) she was like a kindergarten teacher. So they're kind of like a traditional family with some sort of rules. So the father was kind of a stern figure. The mother was providing and very active socially, but also had expectations for her children being, you know, good, active people. She was a kindergarten teacher. So I think in response to his father, my Dad's much more laissez faire. [00:07:49]
THERAPIST: Hm. Your father is a laywer?
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: What kind?
CLIENT: Family practice.
THERAPIST: Family, okay. And he was quite laissez faire with -
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Hm. And again it's kind of a reaction to what his Dad being more -
CLIENT: I think so.
THERAPIST: demanding.
CLIENT: I think so. See he probably resented it, but the fact is the resentment probably helped him overall (pause) in life. (pause) Yeah, that's another thing, like I think parents want to give their kids what they felt they didn't have, what they wanted but couldn't have. So one of the things my Dad past on was that I didn't really have to take on debt for college. I got grants, so he didn't pay for everything, but I never took college loans or anything like that. [00:09:14]
That's terrific, in a way. I mean he spent a lot of his, you know, young adult life paying off these interest rates, these loans leftover from college. But in another sense, it's sort of deprived me of that contact with the world. You know?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Or that force of (laughter) unyielding reckoning with some sort of pressure.
THERAPIST: Yeah. You know I've never asked you, but how do you get by now financially? How do you handle the rent and spend money and all that stuff?
CLIENT: Yeah, basically I just make it month to month, but I think around last September or October I got some help from my parents. It's like a thousand dollars and I'm making another thousand dollars in December. So that's kind of weird for me.
THERAPIST: Otherwise, what do you get income from?
CLIENT: Well, you know, I've worked jobs for a couple of months then stopped working. Like I worked at a restaurant, I was a legal courier for a year, I delivered flowers just now and that's going to pay for another month's expenses. [00:10:38]
THERAPIST: Is that right (ph)?
CLIENT: Well not just now, but this past week. (laughter) The funny thing about that was it was really busy. Like on Valentine's Day I woke up or I got to the shop at like three fifteen am and I ended at ten.. It was very, it was good. There's an urgency to it. There's a lot of bricks (ph). Like, you know, over a hundred flowers, that's like a hundred illegal parking places, you know, two hundred people cut off, or who knows how many driving arrests. You get in one accident and all your money's gone.
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: It felt really good. Like I had sort of been all over the city from before dawn to after dusk. Yeah. Yeah, I felt gnarly. Dirty with the city and sort of like a sailor on a very tricky stretch of sea. Like I knew it well. Sort of savvy. I felt savvy. But the fact of it is, after working that supposedly profitable week, getting paid, you know, just under ten dollars per delivery, it's like you know I only made as much as like an average person would make just working a week for whatever. Whatever man. (laughter) Whatever, you know, white collar job and it was substantially more risk and less continuity. And it was a funny thing to realize. [00:12:31]
THERAPIST: Hmm. So you've (got an income) (ph) of about a thousand dollars there.
CLIENT: Yeah. Just for that.
THERAPIST: But it was kind of like with all this risk and if you were at a white collar gig, you wouldn't have to encounter. Is that the idea?
CLIENT: Yeah. But then I wouldn't want to do the thing without the risk.
THERAPIST: Ahhh.
CLIENT: Or so I say. (pause) I play a little of acoustic guitar and I played a three song set. The first song was called "Lakes of Ponchartrain," and it's sort of an old Irish ballad. (pause) (whistle) (singing) "It fills me heart with longing for the Lakes of Ponchartrain." It's about Ponchartrain and this Creole girl who he meets in Ponchartrain and it's a sort of place where things are the way they're supposed to be. The second song was "Bitches Ain't Shit," by Ben Folds. Do you know that one? [00:14:05]
THERAPIST: Yes, I do.
CLIENT: You do?
THERAPIST: It's a cover of Eazy-E or something.
CLIENT: Or Dr. Dre.
THERAPIST: Dr. Dre.
CLIENT: So I did with a nylon string and that was good. And then the last one was "Sisters of Mercy" by Leonard Cohen.
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: Do you know that?
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Oh good. (pause) Yeah, the first one is kind of a warbling song and I'd never done it. Or it was (pause) the first time in front of people, so it was kind of, I don't know how it came out because I felt like my voice was like kind of too much tremble or something. Then by the last one I was pretty -
THERAPIST: Hm.
CLIENT: into the groove.
THERAPIST: Where did you You played in front of some people?
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. (pause)
THERAPIST: It as just friends or was it at the open mic?
CLIENT: Yeah, I won't disclose. (pause)
THERAPIST: Are you afraid I'll come out and want to watch or something?
CLIENT: (laughter) No, no. It's personal. (laughter) (inaudible at 00:15:32) (laughter)
THERAPIST: I want to see what the kid's got.
CLIENT: With your iPhone. You're going to send the recording (pause) to the government. (laughter)
THERAPIST: The government wants to know if this guy sounds like (inaudible)?
CLIENT: (laughter) Have you ever been to Four Courts?
THERAPIST: Yes, at the Square.
CLIENT: Yeah, I want to go there. Yeah they put a lot of Irish (ph). I've heard good things. I have a gift card to there that I bought supposedly for my parents but I never gave it them for Christmas. I gave them other things but I didn't give them the gift card. (long pause) Yeah, I'm pretty lazy. Pretty lazy. Like I can conceive of a proper course of action to take or I can see something that might be advantageous, but I don't often act on the impulses. I'm rather inert. I mean if you put me in a social situation where I feel comfortable, I can be very active and effective. But when I'm by myself, which is most of the time, I don't tend to do much. [00:17:14]
THERAPIST: Do you have a sense of a course of action you find yourself wanting to take?
CLIENT: Yeah, I do. I do. I guess it Previously, I had this idea I wanted to start a business based on my delivery experience. I know that if you can deliver something, a product, to people who are very close together you can save a lot of money on gas and a lot of time too. In that sense, if you charge any amount per delivery you can make a lot of money. Like if I deliver to five houses on this street in the same window of time, I mean that's incredibly cost effective and it would take them less than like thirty minutes. You know?
So I had an idea for a grocery delivery business that you order groceries online. And actually, I mean, I guess that's active, but it's just not working. (I just need to like advertise on some things.) (ph) And people use iPhones, for one thing, and they're also hesitant to try. Like grocery shopping is like a habit people have so they don't change it easily, I don't think. The fact is most elderly people are pretty receptive to the idea. But what it comes down to is I don't really don't want to do it. [00:18:41]
That's something else I realized doing Valentine's Day stuff. Like I don't want to be the guy carting those groceries around. I'm interested to learn about the programming side. I threw up the website in like two days without previous experience, and it's still functional.
THERAPIST: Without previous experience?
CLIENT: Yeah. I was pissed. This roommate I was with was just, it was a girl, and she was just like really bitchy and, I don't know, I just got pissed because she was disrespecting me. So I just holed up in my room for like two days and made this website. (laughter) [00:19:17]
THERAPIST: Hm. Hm.
CLIENT: (laughter)
THERAPIST: There's that whole, like if the personal life, if something's off in the personal life, you go to the professional life.
CLIENT: Yeah. Academic or something, yeah. Only it doesn't last though.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Yeah. That's weird.
THERAPIST: But so you threw this site up pretty fast and then you kind of -
CLIENT: Yeah, I mean I sort of generate prospects and like prospective courses of action as fast as I can carry them out. (Well I put up) (ph) ads for fun, because they're very discreet, you know, messages where you just craft an ad, in my case a print ad, and try and get the layout right and then you print it. I bought my printer for like one dollar and the cords for ten dollars and then ink for, the first ink cost sixty dollars, but I got like ten or twenty more supplies for like four dollars each. So I had that going. [00:20:46]
And the idea was to sort of build that up for two years until I didn't have to deliver the groceries myself and then hand it off to my brother, who by that time might be feeling disenchanted with college. He might or might not be. If it's not him I'd pick someone else. But I imagined he'd sort of be wanting to take it over and I would go away to school support myself on the proceeds.
THERAPIST: Oh yeah?
CLIENT: Yeah. I don't have a Bachelors because I left school, but I think biology are something I'd be very interested to study.
THERAPIST: Do you have a program in mind or a specific college?
CLIENT: Yeah, yeah I do.
THERAPIST: So you'd go there, apply, do a Bachelors and then anything with Masters or PhD or anything like that?
CLIENT: Yeah, I do have a plan for that but I (inaudible 00:21:49). So, like I was saying, that was the idea but I don't want to deliver the stuff. Sooner or later you crash your car or, you know, it's just not worth it. (pause) I'm continuing (inaudible). Yeah, do da do da do, so I sort of changed that aspect of it. The latter half remains the same, like a potential to go to school, but the idea is more to get some work that's sort of transferable to the college where I want to go or the city the college is in.
THERAPIST: Mm hm. You mean a job then that you could transfer? That you can do some work here and then transfer to the other city?
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: I was thinking of being an EMT too after the experience. I like the rush. I like being more important than everyone else, you know, when driving. [00:22:57]
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: And I like that urgency, that imposed sense of urgency. But I don't think I The other parts I like are that with flowers, you know, I'm compensated in relation to my work, so each delivery I do it's another feather for me. It's something each thing I do is rewarded. And plus I was I was (inaudible 00:23:25). I got pretty good -
THERAPIST: Hm.
CLIENT delivering flowers. (laughter) So it's an unusual art that involves full contact with the urban cross-section.
THERAPIST: Did you like that part of it? Like you being in the city?
CLIENT: Yeah. It's random challenges. But, yeah, so an EMT would be kind of institutionalized and I probably wouldn't be recognized as an individual so much. Also, the wage would be salaried, although more substantial than delivering flowers, it would still be, like it's not my favorite way to get compensated more. I'd probably be recognized more if I did like a particularly good job on one rescue, maybe I would, (but I'm not thinking about that right now). (ph)
THERAPIST: But having those kind of incentives is appealing about -
CLIENT: I think so. I think so. It's pretty theoretical. I wanted to call my Dad about it, but he didn't answer, so. [00:24:34]
THERAPIST: About being an EMT?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: He didn't answer you about it?
CLIENT: Well, yeah, I just called him once. (pause)
THERAPIST: Huh. (crosstalk)
CLIENT: I just feel like sort of distressed because Cleo (sp?) said the wrong thing I was sort of expecting her to say. I just needed to talk. Like my father's a pretty reassuring presence. So I called him and I called my cousin Victoria. Neither of them answered (whispered). So, yeah the EMT thing is appealing to because it's transferable, very transferable. I could go from city to city, it's reasonably compensated, you could do well in it, it's important.
But the importance of it is pretty arbitrary from like you know x-person (ph) gets hurt, and so you get there fast. It's not like I value this so I'd like to do it. It's just like it just needs to be done and I'm tossed under the pressure of it. Which would be thrilling for a while but probably not long term. [00:25:58]
THERAPIST: Yeah, there's a challenging aspect to it, but it's not as incentivized or something in the way other things are. Yeah, I don't know, it's like you're getting a commission kind of thing. Yeah. What about Cleo (sp)? Where are you?
CLIENT: Well, last time I said, you know, there's one thing she could say and I would trust her. (inaudible 00:26:31).
THERAPIST: What was it again?
CLIENT: It was, "Do me a favor and don't talk to him."
THERAPIST: Oh yeah. Okay. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: Not "Do me a favor," but, "Don't talk to him."
THERAPIST: Uh huh. Uh huh.
CLIENT: Of course she (inaudible at 00:26:51). (long pause)
THERAPIST: Yeah, but where has that left you?
CLIENT: (loud breathing) Well, I won't want to talk about it. (loud breathing) (pause then mumbling sounds) Well, where has it left me? I guess I feel good. It was a process. Like I went through just trusting and (inaudible at 00:27:28). And I sort of used contact with her to (inaudible). (long pause with mumbling sounds) I was feeling pretty good about it. That's one of the things. It's like, and I had to stand up and she (inaudible) like, I guess. Which is sort of disrespectful. But there's nothing I perceive. Like I see things happen and I see them in advance. Like interpersonal, sort of the development of relationships. Like I see it play out weeks and months or whatever in advance. And what I see is typically not encouraging. [00:28:53]
THERAPIST: Hm.
CLIENT: And it's, yeah its, uh (pause), yeah, I wish it looked better. (pause and tapping noises) In this case I think I'll be fine, but it's like the relationship is not going to continue to develop and that's fine (ph). But in other cases I, like with the girl Christina (sp?), I saw everything that was going on without her telling me anything because she was someone who lied very frequently. I had to postulate the existence of other men, figure out who they were based on like single encounters. Like I visited her at work twice or three times when it seemed like we had something going, and then one of those times I met her boss and she asked me what I thought of him. And from the way she asked if I figured out that she liked him. And so I figured he was another guy. [00:30:15]
But it's just very, very like thin strands and I can't use other people to verify them. Or I guess I can't use women to verify them. This is something I hope I can work through, is that I don't really understand. It's like a lot of the women, a lot of the females I've met, it seems like they don't communicate to me in relation to reality. They communicate what they think I want to hear or what they think will make sense to me. And like their explanations for things are very provisional. Like they're not, yeah.
And I see my mother do the same thing. It's like her response to an inquiry isn't the truth or even what she feels to be the truth, it's what could make sense in a given context based on what I'm saying. So at the time some, whatever, the answer to whatever query or whatever test could make sense, but then it changes later. And I guess I'm not being clear about it, but it's just the reality becomes much more complex than it seems at first. [00:31:39]
THERAPIST: Messy. (ph)
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah, and then, I mean, I think with at least Cleo (sp?) it must be a sense of, like Well I was just thinking that she did something that made you feel like you couldn't really trust her anymore. It kind of, she does this thing where she sort of saying, "Don't talk to this guy. My ex," or whatever he is to her.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: You don't know what the hell to believe or not to believe.
CLIENT: Yeah. Well that's like an absolute that's just a big sign that says, "Don't trust me." And I never since October, since she was kind of courting me, but then she slept with the other roommate. I don't trust her. You know?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So like I communicated I don't, I didn't really put all that skin in the game emotionally, but that statement was big "no trust" sign. [00:32:39]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But we sort of argued. Like we talked about it and worked through that. And so -
THERAPIST: But it must also leave you not knowing exactly what you should trust or shouldn't trust. It's quite ambiguous. I'm saying in some ways it's a sign not to trust them but it's a sign also that, I mean it's also unclear what you can trust. Is it a total wash or it just some things? Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)
THERAPIST: I was wondering here too. You know I noticed today you sort of bring it up that it's not felt too comfortable to talk about certain private things with me today. I guess I'm kind of wondering too. I'm thinking in my mind that there's something about the question of trust here too.
CLIENT: Hm.
THERAPIST: Something about the question of trust and maybe also seeing down the road or wondering what's to go on down the road between us. [00:33:44]
CLIENT: That's possible. It's probably a better explanation than the one I have which is, from my point of view, certain parts of me are still in development and I prefer not to classify them or talk about them until I've brought that into a more secure state. Or if I have a project that's sort of close to me it might seem ridiculous or, that's not the most likely thing, or it might seem (pause) far-fetched, or it might be impractical, or it might be (pause) implausible. I mean I'd like to work through them rather than talk about it, work on it. You know, you could easily brag about things that are in the making or that have just happened and by doing so it's my experience that you sort curtail the efficiency of whatever process you're working on. [00:35:00]
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: You know, it's like you cash out. In my experience. I don't know how accurate that is, but like I have some distant axiom that sometimes comes to mind that, you know, if it's true you don't say it.
THERAPIST: Hm.
CLIENT: (laughter) You don't need to because it's true. And, you know, if I talk about things I feel like they don't happen. If I talk about my plans they don't come true. You know, you cash out. I'll take your understanding of what I say I'm doing rather than actually doing whatever it was and reaping the rewards.
THERAPIST: I was wondering if you felt that in Birmingham, is a case of that?
CLIENT: Yeah. Very good. (pause) Because all I took from that My view at the time, a very closely held belief, was that I do feel the academy was just a nominal success. It was like a label that worked in that people like thought it was a good institution and I went there and so I prevaricated (ph) some rewards from the label. But part of me did fear from that experience that Birmingham would be the same sort of thing. It was just, and in fact, I actually pursued it as such. Yeah. So I mean I got to that time where I just wanted something to pad my resume. [00:36:44]
THERAPIST: Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah.
CLIENT: So, yeah, it was as if achieving acceptance to Birmingham, and then sort of snubbing it, it's almost more unnerving (ph) than going. You know? (laughter)
THERAPIST: (laughter) Well almost like in a certain way, or at least one aspect of what you wanted you got.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Snubbing, I guess, in some ways, it's a -
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, Victoria pointed out too that she thinks like, she thinks she and I we sort of crave recognition. (pause) You know, why, if you have the recognition, why go down into the dirty, dusty possibilities of, you know, (contact what might actually work.) (ph) [00:37:51]
THERAPIST: Hm. (long pause)
CLIENT: Yeah, but also I might be in insecure with you. You know, the thing with Cleo (sp?) I felt like I sort of resolved it. And it's a case of trying to, like digging stuff up. You know?
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: That's kind of, I mean, we meet pretty frequently, so it's weird. But like I went through I feel like a whole stage of distress and then recovering.
THERAPIST: Mm. (pause) She had brought it up to you after Tuesday? The whole "Don't talk to "
CLIENT: (strained vocal sound) Well, I sort of forced her to bring it up. I forced her to make a choice, basically. [00:38:57]
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: So, yeah. (pause) She flipped it right there. She said, "Well you " (laughter) I forced her to make a choice and the next day she's like, "Well you know I'm with, you know we're together, right? With my boyfriend?" Whatever. And I was like, "Oh, really?" (laughter) "First I've heard of it." (laughter)
THERAPIST: (laughter)
CLIENT: So, but -
THERAPIST: Of course you'd know.
CLIENT: And (inaudible at 00:39:32) today, she's like, "Why are you disrespecting me," or whatever. So that was bad. (ph) (pause) Yeah, the boundary shifts. It's like, yeah. (laughter and crosstalk)
THERAPIST: Yeah. Right.
CLIENT: WTF.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like who are what am I doing with here? Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah. She redraws the lines.
CLIENT: I told her (it's messed up). (ph) It was helpful that I had sort of talked to you about it. It's like I was able to express how that's a little strange or possibly unfair to turn around like that.
THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause)
CLIENT: Well, okay.
THERAPIST: The time will be okay for you, you think? (The quarter of thing?) (ph)
CLIENT: (pause) Yeah, it'll be good.
THERAPIST: Parking?
CLIENT: (laughter) It's all about the parking.
THERAPIST: (laughter) Right. Where did you park this time?
CLIENT: Oh, next door.
THERAPIST: Aaah. (inaudible at 00:40:54) Alrighty.
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