TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: So, again, next week until . . . back the 25th.

CLIENT: Are you going to be okay without me?

THERAPIST: Well, we'll see. (both laugh) Wonderful stories.

CLIENT: You'll be gone until Tuesday? [00:01:04]

THERAPIST: Yeah. We'll meet again on Tuesday, but I'll be back in town Saturday or Sunday, I think.

CLIENT: Georgia or Mexico?

THERAPIST: Georgia. (pause)

CLIENT: I feel pretty good today. This whole week has been kind of a wash, though. I haven't accomplished much. Tuesday I intended to fast but then broke my fast to eat for some reason. [00:02:01] My sister she's in college and she plans ahead. She does these papers, like if she has five papers due in a month, she'll get them done in the first three weeks so she has an extra week to sort of like I don't know if the family is visiting or she wants to take a trip or whatever. She's really good at planning and organizing her time; but I feel I'm like pathetically bright. I'm not nearly as good at planning or organizing my time.

THERAPIST: Is that part of that feeling of the week being a wash then?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean it's Friday again and . . . I did some stuff. I electronically submitted a resume to three jobs, I think. But the one job I know I want, I need to develop a creative portfolio for. It's something more nebulous. [00:03:02] It's exciting, but it's not discrete or bounded into what I can do. I have a snappy resume, I think, for an journalism job; but I needed a good portfolio to go with it. And it would help to have a connection in the industry or somebody who could find me a good way in. I need to work on that. (pause)

THERAPIST: You've been thinking about an ad job?

CLIENT: Yeah. (chuckles) I can already sense it, sort of. Well, that's not true. A few days ago I sensed it sort of fading, like I kind of passed enthusiasm to go into architecture school or going to film school maybe. They don't exactly tick. I think getting a job is something I can focus on. They're boring me, too, I guess. [00:04:13]

THERAPIST: You sort of see the idea of journalism starting to fade away?

CLIENT: Yeah. My enthusiasm for it. There are any number of good systems you can legitimately make and I would have played in the past because it's an journalism job the sincerity, the sort of bland surrogation of actual creativity with commercial appeal. I'm sure there are others just working for the man, but my list started to come back when . . . I'm not sure what triggered it exactly. [00:05:01] I feel good lately because I watched a couple of videos about people who had done well in the industry. I like the challenge of getting to people and also being sort of creative about it. And I like competition and being under pressure. It's like it would work well. It sure is finding a place where I can actually be utilized. I don't think they put much stock in college, either, which I haven't completed.

THERAPIST: How many credits shy are you?

CLIENT: About two years. It occurred to me . . . it was one of those waking moments where you have a moment of clarity and it's like an indisputable personal truth. I woke up and I realized Grinell, where I'd gone, something . . . I can't recount that now, but like the balance of the college experience, the fact that it was completely separate from society and its own little conclave or a contrived society of its own that fact sort of . . . It's not a very good college experience. If I were going somewhere like Yale or it's in the middle of the city, completely interacting with life, it would be a completely different experience. I got very bitter about college and education in general, going to rather secluded, small schools.

THERAPIST: Where is Grinnell?

CLIENT: It's in Iowa. It's west of Cedar Rapids, sort of the west suburbs. [00:06:56]

THERAPIST: What town is it? Is it Grinnell?

CLIENT: Yeah, there's a town, Grinnell.

THERAPIST: It's like a main line?

CLIENT: More exactly. It's like diabolically upper-middle class. Like they sell Maseratis and Porches instead of the main line; but the college is separated even from that.

THERAPIST: It is? Okay. How many people is it?

CLIENT: It's like 1,200 for four years.

THERAPIST: Lawrenceville is quite a bit smaller?

CLIENT: Six hundred, maybe, something like that. (pause) [00:08:00] I think in a city, like at Yale or someplace like that or, perhaps, Capilano, it would be very difficult to maintain an academic air divorced from the realities surrounding. I think your subjects would have necessity over your first classes, as a professor would necessarily take on a more interactive tone or more connective tone. That's not what I mean to say. What I mean to say is it couldn't really be anything but more influenced by the life surrounding you. (pause) [00:08:48]

THERAPIST: It's all a different atmosphere. At Yale it's very alive, like a city feel. It's embedded in the city. It's not removed. There's no sense of separation.

CLIENT: Yeah. I feel as if I've done my time. I've been out of college for a while, for five years, and I've had an experience of life that's not college life, that's very different from college life. I think it's lent me the particular brand of realism, which is probably not useful to anyone but me; but that's sufficient. (pause) [00:10:08] If I can approach education through a relatively personal end, if it's something I want to do, it would probably be a good thing to do. I need money first. If I get a journalism job I can transfer to Baltimore if I do well. I will do well if I get a job. And that's it. It would be nice if I got this business going, too. If I were in journalism, it would help me with this a good deal. They asked me if I wanted to be on the board of trustees at the Catholic meeting. [00:11:14]

THERAPIST: What did it mean to you?

CLIENT: [ ] (inaudible at 00:11:17) from temptation. I got sort of an impulse that would be . . . that's not true. The people on the committee are not the types of people I gravitate towards except one. (pause) I'm dealing with this car. My dad owns the car. It's really my younger brother's car. I use the car because he's at school. I brought it home for my brother to use because he was home. I got an oil change before I gave it up. And there's been this problem where when I turn the wheel there is this clicking sound if I turn the wheel or I accelerate quickly. They've figured out it's because there's this boot that has these ball bearings and it was cut somehow. They said if I want to have it fixed sometime, just call ahead of time and we'll get it fixed. (pause) I set up so I could have left and I set up an appointment so what's today? Friday, so this past Wednesday I set up an appointment. They said they had the part and they'd go ahead and fix it. Tuesday my mom texted me saying that the repair guy said they can see you first thing Wednesday, so be sure to bring it in or something like that, which pissed the fuck out of me because I set up the appointment. What is she doing texting me about it? It's like when you're going to do something and someone tells you to do it. I don't think I was very courteous in my response. Then she started trying, perhaps successfully, making me feel guilty for texting something back to her. She said something like, "That's no way to talk to your mother," or something like that. I don't know. [00:15:00]

THERAPIST: What did that mean to you when she sent the text to you?

CLIENT: The first one? It pissed me off. I responded just out of hand something.

THERAPIST: Like as if she was going to assume that you wouldn't do it? In other words, what meaning did you take from what she wrote?

CLIENT: That she was assuming a responsibility that was out of her . . . she was encroaching on my boundaries. That's what I'm doing, and it's none of her business. So that's how I felt.

THERAPIST: You want to go hey, this is my thing. [00:16:08]

CLIENT: Yeah. The stupid boundaries, if we're dealing with those, she's sort of encroaching on my boundaries and I'm saying "no". And when I say no, she's like, "Oh, you're hurting me. You've violated me," in some way. Her boundaries have been drawing me into the pity for her or something like that. I can't just be like "this isn't your business". I've said it a couple of times that I would take care of it, and she even said, "Okay. I'll call the repair guys to get them to arrange it," and I was like, "No, I'll take care of it." What occurred to me also is that she has nothing better to do than fuck with me, you know? (laughs) She has nothing better to do. I wasn't terribly affected by it, but I think it does get to me quite a bit. Again, the sad fact is that I don't have anything better to do. I'm kind of like a mirror for her. She's not using her talents or employing her gifts at all. [00:17:12]

THERAPIST: Her gifts?

CLIENT: Yeah. [ ] (inaudible at 00:17:15)

THERAPIST: Boy, it reminds me of you saying how your mother, earlier in her life, but in your life obviously, too, was able to get a lot.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And you feel very grateful about that. And yet, it also kind of leaves you feeling like you've left it squander or something like that; or her feeling like it's been squandered.

CLIENT: Sure. She has said as much at one point. As I said, I was home for two years or something and never really attacked on one occasion, she got quite angry. She said something along the lines of, "I put so much work into you, so much sacrifice, and what have you given me? What do you have to show for it? Nothing. Nothing." I parried back and she said, "Well, we've basically given up on you," or something like that. It was said in anger, but some of it was true. [00:18:23]

THERAPIST: Something about that, though, seems very relevant even with the Meinecke calling. My reaction to what she said was that "you're my investment" in some way.

CLIENT: Well, yeah. I'm her excuse, too. I'm her alibi somehow. It's kind of like I'm some sort of bull. I'm some sort of obstinate animal beast of burden and she's got me yoked or something and she's in the cart. I went for a while, (sniggers) but I'm kind of looking back at her, questioning. Whatever. I'm just being obstinate because she's not doing anything and my progress would be enough to justify her imputed sacrifice; but I won't move. [00:19:52]

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. Why move when it feels like it's all being you're yoked to her?

CLIENT: Yeah. It's probably just a cop out. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Really? What?

CLIENT: I mean I practice a profound laziness, I think, and it could be psychologically complex and there could be fears of failure or traumas which are layered in there, but on the surface it's basically laziness.

THERAPIST: What occurs to me is that it's like an association of a child TV star or a child actor.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. True that.

THERAPIST: Like in some way the association to the child actor where they're the embodiment of a lot of dreams of the parent, and then the child catches on and goes, "Wait a second. I'm yoked to this person and my only way of getting out of it is to doom it in some way." The only way to get one's liberation from it is to cut the cord in some way by doing it. [00:21:30]

CLIENT: Yeah. The curse of caring parents. I need to become a derelict or something. You said "doom it"?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I said "doom it" because I was thinking about an actor that has "self-destruction", goes under some strain. I don't want to work anymore. They're doing it because they feel like there's too much confusion between their parent's ambition and who they are. They can't differentiate sufficiently. There's some way of wanting to feel like this is my own. My life is my own, really, at a certain point. (pause) I wonder if this time in your life has been a way to try and get that sense of yourself. "I want this to feel like it's for me." [00:22:35]

CLIENT: Yeah. I didn't want to go to college. It's too automatic, too procedural. (pause) In the same sense I feel like I should almost inherit college culture, if that makes sense. I feel like I'm the natural, the listed heir of an academic tradition, just in who I am and where my strengths lie. At the same time, college did not feel like my own. It was nothing. It was like a skiff, sort of coasting down a lazy river. There is no real way to shape it or get a handle on it. [00:23:41] I mean I was doing the [ ] (inaudible at 00:23:43) once, but I was doing what I had been doing. At least I tried [ ] to make friends, change the experience in some way, but it was somehow not a lot of give to it. It was like plastic. You could reshape it for a few minutes, but then it's the same junk in there. The dean had sort of given to me at Grinnell had said, "Your professors think you're very intelligent. Every single one has lots of praise for you, but they also acknowledge that you're not working." That's not what I meant. He said that, but he said, "They acknowledge all this praise for you, but it doesn't seem to be enough for you." And it was true. It didn't matter to me in the dramatic sense that I didn't care. [00:24:59] There was one professor who offered to be my advisor, who was like inhuman. I respected him because the other professors I thought if I went through a year or two of training, I could probably be about as good as they were. I mean it wasn't too hard, but this one guy was really good. He was a Shakespearean scholar. He studied jazz and African-American culture. He was an incredibly compassionate man. He could feel everyone's comments and make them significant. Apparently he graduated from college when he was like 12 or something, but he was quite an academic. He offered to be my advisor but I didn't take it I think because I was afraid of not being able to answer to him in some way and I dropped out of the school. I haven't liked to use that word, but that's what basically happened. [00:26:15]

I remember being up late nights. I would seclude myself in the highest room of the science building. I wasn't supposed to be there, but I'd go in and lock the door and just try to work at reading some English paper or something. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't make any progress. That is something with me that I might need to address before I can become productive, is that I need to absolutely be in control of what I'm doing. It can't be anyone else's project that I'm working on, which is kind of a curse. [00:27:16] I used to be like my twin cousin. I used to fulfill everyone's expectations perfectly or exceed them, but after whatever, I know . . . (pause) [00:28:08] With Cleo, I feel like she helps me in that it doesn't really matter. It's enjoyable and it doesn't matter. At the same time, I get this apprehension like I'm losing something like some sort of distance or like a very important arrogance.

THERAPIST: That's what you're losing?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:29:17] She's moving out. I don't know how I feel about it. I recently thought about . . . I had this something about this is funny I had this soap that I used at the George Washington Friends meeting and it was really good soap. It smelled awesome. I was thinking, "Cleo would like this soap." Then I was thinking, "I should get this soap." And then I was thinking, "I should get this soap," or maybe this was all one thought, but it was all built into one impulse. I was thinking, "If I got this soap, then Cleo would probably stay." I was thinking, "I shouldn't get the soap because I don't really want her to stay." I was thinking, "I should get the soap because it would be tough to find someone better to live with." I was going through this "should I get it or shouldn't I get it". And clearly, it's not just the soap, but that's the decision that I'm really struggling to make. Should I stop at the store and get this soap? [ ] (inaudible at 00:30:26) Those kinds of things like little decisions take on significance. [00:30:40]

THERAPIST: Well they're wrapped up in your ambivalence about her moving out.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's something I don't have control over. Really I could, if I wanted to be an asshole because she signed the lease. But I said, "If you find someone else who's reasonable, that's fine."

THERAPIST: Or I suppose if you really wanted to tell her you want her to stay.

CLIENT: What do you mean?

THERAPIST: I was thinking that in one way it's hey, don't break the lease or whatever. I was thinking is there some way, too, that you were feeling "maybe I just want her to stay"?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah I don't know how I feel about that. I don't see it going very far.

THERAPIST: What's the part that you want her to stay, though? What's behind the part of you that wants her to stay? [00:31:46]

CLIENT: She's nice. She likes me. She makes me happy, I guess, sometimes not most of the time. It's very difficult to make me happy, but she imparts some sort of contentment sometimes very occasionally. (laughs) I'm hedging this question. (both laugh) And why I do, I don't know.

THERAPIST: Is there something, though, that happens is you start to notice wait, I just said that. I want to scale back what I just said. Something about you finding yourself feeling when you . . . [00:32:37]

CLIENT: Let's not go there. (chuckles) Objectively, I don't feel happy because of her very often, but to me I can conceive of it now as no matter what complex justification this is, I think it's either almost like losing a battle if she moves away; or like losing a contest because she is, ostensibly and probably truthfully moving out to do those two words can you use ostensibly and truthfully together?

THERAPIST: Works for me.

CLIENT: Okay. Because her fianc� is going to be moving here. She wants to silence that relationship, I think, or probably. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. So in some sense she's choosing another man over me. Also I don't care about her that much, but she has been helping me a lot. Like I feel better. I feel better in talking to other women and I mean I got two girls the last time I came here I took the train and I got two girls' numbers in that stretch. And so I've just been feeling pretty good. She's like a good base. [00:34:17]

THERAPIST: It makes you feel kind of desired.

CLIENT: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I do. And that's what it means. I mean, if she moves out I'm not as desired, I guess. I'm not desired enough to keep her here. Like I've said, these questions of use, like you think you're using someone else, is kind of a loser-y. It's just a way of padding your ego because no matter what you think, you're still getting more involved with the person.

THERAPIST: Well, yeah. I was thinking of what you were mentioning last time, the feel of "use to her" is important to you. Yeah, using her in one respect, but it also means you are of use to her. You know that is . . . what a complex business the whole "people's expectations of you" and you trying to free yourself from them, but also wanting to feel of use it becomes. [00:35:35]

CLIENT: Yeah. My roommate where I live, Edgar, got a job and he needs to fax the paperwork; and so he said, because I have a printer, "Can you print out these documents?" I said, "Yeah, sure." And then I said, "I'll staple them for you." And he said, "No, I don't need that." He came back later and he was like, "Oh, actually I do need to staple them." I said, "No. You can't use the stapler." I was joking around, but I was also serious. It's weird because it's something so small for me, using a stapler, but I don't want to let him do it because I feel used in some way. I don't know. I feel like he's jerking around. He asked very nicely, but actually because he asked nicely, I decided not to let him use it. [00:36:26]

THERAPIST: Because you felt jerked around?

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know. I struggle with that quite a bit because, to me, it's nothing. It's the same thing with Cleo. She asked me to edit a message. I previously offered to edit her papers. It's what I do. I can look at it and make it more natural sounding. She asked me to edit an e-mail she sent responding to an interview, and I just said no because she'd come into my room and we'd snuggled quite a bit we'd kissed and whatever; and she said, "Okay, I'm leaving. I'm not coming back." And then she came back and she said, "Here. Can you do this?" I just said, "No. Get out of here." (laughs) I figured that out. If she has a block we can't get too intimate with her because then she feels like she's betraying her fianc�. But then her response to that is for her to say, "Do this paper for me," to prove that we care about each other. For me that's not what I want. I want that tango. I want to dance. I want an experience in the present moment, but she can't do it. She can't stay on that path unless I push her a little bit, and then she can. But to a certain extent, she always needed to back off and say, "Okay, I'm moving out, but I'm coming back to you with this favor," or whatever. [00:38:12] That relates to the data thing because in both instances they're asking for tiny little thing that mean a lot to them and I can't do it for some reason because . . . I don't know why I can't do it. I'm not sure if I should. The Cleo thing I'm fine. But the Edgar thing . . . [00:38:40]

THERAPIST: Jerked around in some way.

CLIENT: That's what I said to him. I don't know if I actually felt jerked around, I just wanted to establish control over it. Because why would it matter? I mean it seems possible to me maybe he'll move out, too. He gets this job, he staples his papers, he moves out; but I don't know. I'm not sure what it is, but it's . . . I don't know. My mom does the same thing. I ask her for a recipe and she tells me to look online. I know she knows how to make some dish incredibly well, but if I ask her about it she just says, "Oh, look online." It's something I want to consult her for, but she won't that is somehow threatening to her, to have me need something from her and her give it to me without any sort of recompense because she's already given up so much and da, da, da, da . . .

THERAPIST: Oh, okay. [00:40:02]

CLIENT: In one way, maybe Lawrenceville threw us into this limbo where she wanted to provide for me and then I didn't want her to provide for me and there's more of an ambivalence now about the providing relationship.

THERAPIST: The continuing thus into you that kind of thing?

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't want to talk about it, though. I want to talk about the damned stapler. (both chuckle) I mean is that wrong? It's not inhibiting it certainly is inhibiting that I can't give freely.

THERAPIST: I suppose so, but it's pointing to something about the interaction there that strikes you as unsettling or definitely disagreeable. To me, I feel like it's something to unpack as opposed to determining whether it's right or wrong. There's something in that to you. The thought I had was that you were trying to honor yourself to be of some use to him, just by this little gesture of the stapler, and he says no. Then he comes back and goes, "Well, I'll take it after all." I don't know if that had something to do with that or not, but that's just kind of the direction I went with that. [00:41:50]

CLIENT: (laughs) You just like prodded me by restating what I said.

THERAPIST: What you feel I prodded you?

CLIENT: Well, yeah. Prod isn't pejorative. Like you take what I've said and rephrase it and then I may or may not be stimulated to say more.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I think because I'm kind of curious about unpacking it. I feel a little bit like there's something that you're trying to get at about that interaction.

CLIENT: Okay, well potential other choices would be I freely give the stapler, he staples his papers, and he's on his way. I don't know why, I guess, that is mildly threatening to me that he just takes from me and goes on his way. I don't know if I have a particular impulse to keep other people down in simple, petty things, but maybe it's as simple as that. [00:42:58]

THERAPIST: Huh. Well, let me fill this out. My associations to your mom, in some way, the things your achievements in some way enhanced her kind of sense in the world, sense of who she was and value in the world. You became the stapler. (chuckles) I was thinking in some way you became maybe you kind of experienced yourself as somewhat of an enhancement or justification of her life in some way, of her efforts. And you grew wise to it. (pause) You're using me for their benefit. While being of use, you're also being used. [00:44:11]

CLIENT: Yeah. Also I had a distinct sense at one time that the better I do, the more separate I would be from other people. That's also true of the family as well. Like by going to Lawrenceville or succeeding, I was separating myself from them, but I'm sure there is a part of me that didn't want to leave the family yet. And so, doing well was equivalent to breaking away. Also my mother, like I've said, when I did something good like getting into Birmingham, she reacted negatively. So I guess I'm just a mama's boy or something. I don't know. It's an understatement. [00:45:18]

THERAPIST: That's another aspect of that whole dynamic, right? You being successful means more of a break. With Edgar and Cleo, you being on the other side of it, you're helping them to move on from you. The stapler, he needed it for his Cleo, kind of enhancing her.

CLIENT: Yeah, I'm doing the same crap. Or what I feel my mother has done, which is support me. But then cut back when I actually reach some sort of success and fight me and try to keep me in her sphere. Actually, yeah, she lobbied quite strongly for having me return home when I got into financial trouble. Every time she did it she brushed her hair back like this which to me is sort of a signal of attraction and I found it sort of repulsive. [00:46:19]

THERAPIST: Attraction?

CLIENT: Yeah. She'd say like, "Well, it seems like you should have stayed home," and brush back her hair.

THERAPIST: And you were repulsed?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I'm starving. I have to eat something.

THERAPIST: That whole dynamic with your mom is unsettling. Is that what you're feeling, too? I just remember you sort of saying a few minutes ago, "I don't want to talk about my mom anymore." [00:47:21]

CLIENT: No. (pause) She's okay. She's gotten better, I guess, in this way. I mean I've communicated there is my former mother, and then there's my post-cancer mother and she's gotten better than she was in terms of functionality. She's still crazy, more or less crazy. What did she do? (sniggers) [00:48:15] In that message about the repair shop, she said, "Also the door was open. Did you come home?" I hadn't. I said, "I already called them. No, I don't know what you're talking about." I was more rude than that, but she's kind of paranoid. I'm sort of paranoid, too. It's annoying. I don't know whether I can prevent this sort of leakage into my character by separating myself, but it's sort of a clich� of becoming an adult that you become like your parents, no matter what you do. I've been paranoid, as well. Some nights I've knocked on Edgar's door. The nights or occasions where Cleo pushes me away, I've had feelings where I feel like it would be good if Edgar went on with Cleo again because maybe it would keep her in the apartment. But then occasions where she pushes me away a little bit . . . One night I looked into Edgar's room because I thought she might be in there. I came in ostensibly there's the word again to say, "Okay, those documents you had me print out . . ." This was just another occasion. "The thing you sent to me, I'm not going to look at because it's W2's or whatever." He was like, "Yeah, okay." But I was really looking in to see if Cleo was there, and she wasn't. So I'm sort of paranoid, I guess. Yeah, there was that whole period where I figured she and Edgar were having sex and I communicated to you as if it had actually happened because I was absolutely convinced that it did happen. It's entirely possible that it didn't. [00:50:18]

THERAPIST: It was an assumption that you had made?

CLIENT: It was an experience, an experience of truth. Yeah, there was a lot that might not hold up. I mean I was in the doorway sort of shaking. Like should I go and check or open the door or something? But I decided against it because it would strengthen the dependency. Like if Edgar was in there and they were having sex, I would be like this was in the past. I'm less attached now. But if Edgar were in there, what good would come of that except hurting her and saying basically [ ] (inaudible at 00:51:13). Or if he wasn't, I would just be like reinforcement. I don't want something silly.

THERAPIST: I'll see you in a week and a half.

CLIENT: All right. Enjoy Georgia.

THERAPIST: Thank you. Thank you. And be well.

CLIENT: I'm so hungry all of a sudden.

THERAPIST: You suddenly got hungry, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah. Maybe it was the coffee I drank. Take care.

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