TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: If it was anything normally I could have been driving but . . .

THERAPIST: Which direction do you take the Metro from? Do you take the Red Line?

CLIENT: I take the Orange and then the Red. There is a possibility I could take a bus that comes here, but it's very unreliable.

THERAPIST: The Red Line going from Bethesda to Dupont Circle that area was fully backed up. But, anyway . . .

CLIENT: Today I had a feeling we couldn't do it. I don't know why. So I thought it's phantom impulses.

THERAPIST: Oh that I wouldn't be able to meet?

CLIENT: That we wouldn't be able to. I don't know why. [00:01:03]

THERAPIST: I'll call if for some reason I can't get here. I live so close by that it usually doesn't affect me. If it was like the Saturday of that blizzard, maybe I wouldn't. Obviously they ban driving. But otherwise I live close enough that . . .

CLIENT: Okay. (pause) So the thing I I'm not sure if this is still an issue but the thing I forgot last time I can remember exactly where we left off and I was going to share a poem I read, which communicated part of the problem I was wrestling with at that time. In all my virtues broken, longing for your touch. I'm 21. I'm old at love. I was reaching for your crutch. And that's it. [00:02:05] What I mean by the problem is like when I look back about a time when I care, I feel like an arched bow or like you know. "My virtues broken, longing for your touch," is like someone is reaching towards me but I become concave; too contingent. I talked to my roommate about this not Cleo, but to my roommate about this, too. The other alternative is kind of like you feel manipulative you don't feel a particular attachment. [00:03:04] Then I think you're sort of cheating or sort of fibbing to yourself, too, because you can't really engage with someone for any length of time and not become closer to them or be affected by them in some way. It might just be a sort of mental device.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I didn't mean to show you disrespect by being like you know.

THERAPIST: It feels kind of disrespectful.

CLIENT: It does? (pause) Well I really I don't apologize, but I ran a mile and a half through the snow and then I ran here from the station. [00:04:10]

THERAPIST: Ah, wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think I should work on that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I've noticed it's not your usual all the times we've met on Tuesday, you're always right there. Is Friday a harder day for you?

CLIENT: I don't know. There's no specific I can name. (pause) [00:05:05] I am like that. I'm always late. It's in my family, too. My uncle is a professor; he's always late. Dad's usually late. I don't know. (pause) But I did that to my family, too, when I was younger, like 20 years old. We'd be going on a family trip tomorrow and everyone is all ready to go and I'd be like, "Oh, I have to take a shower." I'd take a shower. Obnoxious. (laughs)

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: I'm thinking you were very afraid at calling me out on being late, but we're on the bargain floor if we delve into lateness as some sort of psychologically analyzable issue. (laughs) [00:06:08]

THERAPIST: It sounds like there's something there, right?

CLIENT: And that could be the thing. It's like I'll show up late and I'll try to fix it.

THERAPIST: (laughs) [ ] (inaudible at 00:06:23) extra time. (pause) I was sort of struck by the poem. What did you the arched bell? What's that? [00:07:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. That's like my code sign. I wrote that actually there's another girl. I took summer classes at Georgetown (sp?) and there was just this waif of a girl, like a nice, smart, passive, kind girl. We ended up partners in the lab. I was like a foot taller than her. I can distinctly recall this moment when we were alone in the lab. The lights were out. It was us and the professor. The professor excused himself. We were there and the lab was like done. We were there for like two minutes and I could feel the sexual tension. You could cut the tension with a knife, but I didn't act on it. [00:08:03] And then you could feel it sort of pass. Afterwards I was like, "Fuck. Why?" My reaction afterwards was that strange things happened. I became suspicious of the professor this was like in later weeks of hitting on this girl or something and I called her from a pay phone once to ask if everything was okay. I'm not sure why. The pay phone was incidental, but it was still strange. I think she'd let me in on little details of her life. Plus this I was taking another class, but I would skip that class to spend time with her in the library. It was not good. [00:09:00]

THERAPIST: What? Why? Because of the class you were missing?

CLIENT: Yeah, I flunked the class.

THERAPIST: Oh, you flunked? How romantic. (laughs) Very romantic.

CLIENT: Yeah, I wrote that poem. And afterwards she sort of had a boyfriend, but she complained to me about the boyfriend, as women often seem to do to me. I've never had a relationship with a girl who wasn't with another man in terms of ostensibly ostensibly with another man. (pause) They always complain to me about their damned boyfriends. I didn't act and I think I was actually 22 at the time. The poem says 21, but I think I had just turned 22. [00:10:01] I became very cringingly dependent or sort of contingent is a good word, but there must be better words. I don't know if I'm conveying the way I was, but it was very (pause) abject or wishy-washy; to the point where actually the final paper in the class I did attend was a series of writings. I wrote poetry on a physics exam for a couple of the problems. It mostly revolved around Cheyenne (ph?). And they weren't bad. They were pretty good. (chuckles) The professor is like, "You clearly have creative talents." (both laugh)

THERAPIST: You wrote poetry on the physics exam?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: I barely passed it. [00:11:19]

THERAPIST: You still passed it?

CLIENT: I don't think I should have, but for some reason I did. (both laugh)

THERAPIST: That must have been good poetry.

CLIENT: It was. It was damned good. Something about It was good. I wrote a letter to her and, of course, she has this boyfriend who is like rich and whatever. Well, it shouldn't matter, it's really strange, but she had this boyfriend and after I didn't act she sort of turned back to him. And, from my perspective, I wrote this sort of unwelcome letter with similar kind of poetry which artfully described her naked in one of them. I afterwards received two or three belligerent texts like, "Stay away from me, you freak." (laughs) I was like, "Oh, shit." It's a really bad feeling. [00:12:18]

THERAPIST: How did it turn to that -to calling you a freak? You guys had a falling out before or something?

CLIENT: No. Like I say, I became this sort of cringe worthy . . . Don't you understand? I'm becoming this dependent wretch.

THERAPIST: You kind of feel like you're becoming like you get single-minded about her, obsessive?

CLIENT: Yeah, obsessive. In kinder times, if they ever in fact exist, they might call it romantic; but in my experience it's a very ineffective way of pursuing someone. [00:13:03]

THERAPIST: Well, there's also this element, though, of the tension that's there, and then it passes. The tension that's there to me it's kind of reflected in the poem around like what you feel like when you can you say the poem again?

CLIENT: In all my virtues broken, longing for your touch. I'm 21. I'm old at love. I was reaching for your crutch.

THERAPIST: I was thinking about two things. One is that "all my virtues broken" at that moment of tension, and that in some way where my mind was, was that kind of a sexual reaching for, in this case, her occurs. I was wondering if there was a question about where does that place your virtue. Do you lose a sense of your own virtue? The other thing just to say "reaching for your crutch" I thought "crotch". [00:14:30]

CLIENT: Yeah, there is some play. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Reaching for your crotch. Crutch. (pause) With these women it seems to me and this is completely my own kind of reverie about it, is that something about your own sense of virtue might get lost when a physical embodiment of desire and sexuality comes into play. Is that the case at all? To make a move, to be . . . [00:15:33]

CLIENT: Yeah, Cleo might have helped me get over that, but it was a very prominent issue for me for many years; definitely a moral repulsion. Not repulsion in the sense of disgust, but a push-back. You were saying it better than I can. But definitely, yes.

THERAPIST: Arched bow pulling back. But if it was to get released, it shoots an arrow.

CLIENT: It's helped me a lot to see I hadn't thought of this phrase before, but all is fair in love and war. It's helped me to see love as an amoral or an extra-moral enterprise. Morality isn't really relevant. One of the wonderful things about contact with the opposite sex is that it brings you to a space where you can experience a range or a multitude of pleasures or characteristics without a binary imposition of right or wrong. But those binaries are very helpful in terms of clarifying or moving about your day-to-day life. [00:17:08]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well I was thinking about the whole question of boundaries and what line do you cross? Stuff like that. Is that what you were thinking, along those lines?

CLIENT: I'm sure it's relevant if I'd finish my thought. Yeah, the boundaries could be thrown in there. (laughs) In a kind of way, you're like "what the fuck"?

THERAPIST: I meant with this woman, this girl in the lab, if you were to cross the line from friendship into romantic kind of . . . to cross that line. There's a line there, right? You don't cross when you're friends or something. And then I was thinking at that moment you could have crossed over. But where was she going to be? How would she react to crossing the line? [00:17:58]

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. And at that time, I didn't have a good sense of that at all and I was [ ] (inaudible at 00:18:06) a little bit. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Or these guys that are on their kids about things being too short. Because we have good stuff. (both laugh)

THERAPIST: What were you thinking about? Good stuff? That's where we're going?

CLIENT: I think it's a pretty dense exchange.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I agree. (pause) [00:19:18]

CLIENT: I was very at risk over this terrified even of rejection I think in that moment. That thought occurs to me. In the past before I became a total loser, I was a very calculated person and I'd calculate the possible risks of rejection or if things didn't go well maybe in that situation where maybe I kiss her or, you know, [ ] (inaudible at 00:19:45) kiss her and whatever happens afterwards, happens afterwards. But my other experiences with grown up women in my life, I had expected some sort of reprisal. Yeah, I definitely expect reprisal. (pause) [00:20:11]

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: Any attempt at intimacy with my mother typically ended with a reprimand. Any attempt to discuss your feelings. She registers eventually what you're saying and concedes with you like a human being feeling stuck. The initial response with her is to push you back. You know, if I ask something like, "When you were in college, I know it was tough for you sophomore year. What were you thinking about and how were you doing with that experience?" Or "How did you finish up your work?" She would completely throw me off. She would say something like, "Well, you've just got to keep trying." Or, "You've got to get back and put your nose to the grindstone," or something like that where a lot of "you gotta" phrases; "you should" dynamic. Nothing related to how she felt or the actual essence of her experience, but an imposition of a desire, a "should". A non-existent or phantasmagoric like a phantom moral imperative. [00:21:52]

THERAPIST: Yeah. It sounds like your interest was to see how did she emotionally grapple with this in some way; for her to open up in some way.

CLIENT: Or share an experience that I was having.

THERAPIST: Where she'd share.

CLIENT: That side of . . . I don't know. She also one of the things that were very tough for me to deal with, this has been in later adult life, nothing earlier. I mean throughout my life I tried to get close to her, I think . . . I think . . . I mean, if I was crying or something, she would be fine with that being there. She would help me. But any peer quality, there was no peer quality or there was no personal reference on any sort of ground. She'd often accuse me of being selfish. [00:23:01] She'd ask me to do something and I wouldn't do it; and then she'd accuse me of being selfish. It's really confusing for me because if someone is asking me to do something they want me to do and my refusal to meet their wish . . . In other words, it's impossible for me to distinguish if I'm correct in repudiating someone else's demands or selfish demands or whether I'm, in fact, being self-centered. My little brother, she tells him to do stuff and he does it. He's very pliant. It doesn't seem to bother him. (pause) [00:24:18] I think I figured that out, too, though. I had occasion to think about it. I realized I think she loves me very much, but in order for her to control that she needs to push me away because she can't control it herself. She can't get a grapple on how much she cares about other people; and she does truly care, so the only effective device is to basically hurt the other person (chuckles) into withdrawal because she would help another person to her own detriment. And she did for many years. [00:25:03]

THERAPIST: Your dad?

CLIENT: She helped him. She helped me. When I was younger she was a totally committed mother, if harsh. Totally committed to raising children who embrace what's important in life and succeeded in no modest way. As I said, she's changed. Probably in no small part due to my own trajectory.

THERAPIST: Because of your trajectory? What effect has it had on her?

CLIENT: She's softened up. Well me and the cancer. She's softened up. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, you've kind of alluded to that she had ambitions for you. Is that what kind of changed her? That you didn't live up to her expectations in some ways? [00:26:22]

CLIENT: I think so. I think my failure has sort of changed how she approaches life.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Failure. You may have reacted to that word in terms of what I shot for, it's not the expectations are . . . I don't spend my time anymore pontificating about it; but in terms of the expectations on the aggressive, my life now compared to what was expected is a failure. So . . .

THERAPIST: What do you think?

CLIENT: Nothing.

THERAPIST: You were looking at me like [ ] (inaudible at 00:27:10)

CLIENT: Trying to fix it. Yeah.

THERAPIST: What's that? Trying to fix it?

CLIENT: Make sure it sticks.

THERAPIST: Make sure what sticks?

CLIENT: The point.

THERAPIST: It made me just think about some level of responsibility you feel then for your mother in that regard.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. That was a big thing. I saw another psychotherapist and that was a big theme there. She would always ask why I felt this. I mean, my mother is an adult, so why should I be concerned about her? But it's a lot easier said than done. [00:28:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah. [ ] (inaudible at 00:28:12) between sons and mothers.

CLIENT: I mean I witnessed her capitulation from an upstanding, liberally-thinking sort of a "mannish" woman is what Shakespeare would say a forceful, ambitions woman into a blithering, Fox news-watching, plump, complaining . . . I could go on. It's just like a total repudiation of everything she taught me to value. It's been quite painful. Hearing her talk is painful. The way she tells stories is painful. She's terrible at telling stories. Her stories are about the most bland and idiotic things you can imagine. [00:29:09] it's not just me either. I recognize people turn away. Also, it bothered me earlier in my life, maybe in the Lawrenceville phase, the college phase, how she would take credit for things I did. It was almost as if my achievements weren't my own. The phrase comes to mind, I don't know if it's true, but they existed only to increase her own influence and prestige. Anything I did or could potentially do she would brag about to my aunts and uncles and whoever she could find and sort of assume a hauteur from that; and nothing now. That's one of the reasons I might not tell my parents if something good happened or something was important to me, too. Not only that they would disregard it or belittle it, but then they would view it as an instrument to increase their own social lives. Something about that bothered me. I'm sort of particular and I can be [ ] (inaudible at 00:30:25) and something about other people claiming my achievements as their own maybe I'm possessive but it didn't rub me well. [00:30:40] After I explained that when I sang a song about one of my uncles, it was almost a watershed moment. At that moment I saw my father looking something that bordered on envy not approval. Also my patriarch, the uncle I realized it was in the same performance he looked quite sad because, in fact, the patriarch that drew me there had asked that when he passed that we all come together and make a song for my uncle. But I made my own song and it was better than his by a lot. Why? Why am I talking about this? [00:31:21]

THERAPIST: What it made me think about was that you were trying to have something of your own.

CLIENT: Right after the performance my mom came up to me and she said, "Did you write that yourself? Was that . . . da-da-da," in front of everyone. I was just like, "Get the fuck away from me," because she has nothing to do with it. Nothing.

THERAPIST: She might have taken it away.

CLIENT: It had nothing to do with her. If I had been practicing at home, she would have shit on me. She was like, "Well, it doesn't sound that good," or "Why don't you do something useful?" I didn't think of it at the time, but that's also true and relevant. She would not encourage anything like that; and then when it comes up, there she is. [00:32:11]

THERAPIST: Because it's like a success, some sort of . . . You were a hit?

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like all the family's attention is sort of . . . it was like a confluence of attention. What do you call that? A nexus. A nexus of attention was focused on me in that moment. Years later people extended relatives I haven't met would say, "Oh, you're the singer." Just after two or three this is sounding absurd but after two or three performances like that, I sort of withdrew. I just didn't want to do it. It's weird, but I felt a pressure. In the most comfortable of atmospheres with my extended family in a no-pressure situation, I felt like something was expected of me and I didn't want to be bound by that expectation. They would ask me to sing things and I would decline. I didn't want to. [00:33:15]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking in some way it can amend that with the idea that something is now expected of you, it changes the relationship that you have to your own work or your own product.

CLIENT: Yeah, it does.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And I know that's some of it, but before I was just thinking about the whole comment around you being late and how there was some way it kind of played out. It sounds like it felt like it was played out in terms of what was you were expecting of me. In some way, I was thinking about my expectations. In other words, not that this wouldn't be part of what you're feeling, too, but I was thinking what did emerge, for instance, was hey I'm missing out on my time for myself because it's my time. It was imbued with my expectations. I was thinking that did my expectations in any way kind of blur what's yours and what's mine and you're expected to live up to. Add that into the hopper. I was thinking, too, about your comment about "are they getting what they want?" Are they getting what they want from you? Is there enough time? [00:34:53]

CLIENT: I'm the eldest child and I do think I try to meet everyone's expectations. That's usually attributed to the middle child, I think. I'm aware of when I try to . . . that's absolutely true. It's been a huge issue for me. I can't differentiate what I want from what other people want. It makes me really functional in certain environments because my practically-twin cousin, Victoria, is the same way. She's really good, really good. Everyone loves her. She's perfect [ ] (inaudible at 00:35:31) because she knows what people want and she [ ]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. In some way you kind of not doing what's expected of you is one way to differentiate, as opposed to the blurriness of you doing what you want and it being expected from you, too. [00:35:58]

CLIENT: Damn. It's your best yet. I still have to do the copay, but do they cover it or what's the deal?

THERAPIST: We haven't talked about that. Let's talk about it next time. We hadn't talked about it. I didn't realize that.

CLIENT: I was pretty short.

THERAPIST: Let's figure something out. I'm not going to put you in a position where you can't pay or something like that. I just kind of assumed or I didn't realize when I was writing it. But let's talk about it. Don't worry about it.

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm honest and I value your services, so let's work something out.

THERAPIST: Okay. Sounds good.

CLIENT: Stay warm.

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