TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Okay. (long pause) [00:01:00]

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CLIENT: I haven't been talking about family much over the last few weeks because it's my birthday. I don't feel -

THERAPIST: Is today your birthday?

CLIENT: Yeah right.

THERAPIST: Ah, happy birthday.

CLIENT: Oh thanks. I don't really know how to respond to it. You know it's like my mother, that's just pretenses to badger me these questions I have to answer. So I need a little less Father's Day so I got kind of for Father's Day or whatever. [00:06:00]

It's like a it's like when you have a foot that's asleep. You not getting signals, but like the foots still there. Kind of like banging around. It's kind of clumsy. That's how I get like like I I'll just have problems like with my family or be normal and then I'll be slighted in some way or I realize that the relationship can't work as it as it is and I just cut them off. And then over time you know there's still your family. The relationship is still there. But it just I don't remember what how to handle it. [00:06:40]

Yeah, so I guess like I want a new relationship or a different kind of relationship then I know that if I go home which will involve a long train ride, not a long train ride, but an inconvenient train ride and or you know get a ride from my brother and my parents. It's just not going to be (pause) something of what we have, but I'm not going to like it. And maybe it will go okay but still the whole time I'll be sort of looking around, where they? Like the warily, where are they not the entire time. [00:07:39]

THERAPIST: You're looking around warily for a slight that's likely to happen?

CLIENT: Some affront too. [00:07:50]

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: And I I got through today (laugh) and you know I couldn't get this loose. For my part you're completely justifiable. But they can they can bring me into trouble because for instance last night I was saying to the trustee of friends being in Amherst, and this guy who was giving me a ride there was like six feet three or six feet four, he sort of like manhandled me on the back and saying like, oh look at you, like a big he said look at you, a big weighty trustee now. And it's like yeah, I am, it's not like you don't call me, that's acknowledgement, but I do have some influence. I don't need you to say it, you're not my only friend here. [00:08:45]

It had taken a while to piece together why I was so upset, but it was the contact was not welcome. So I sort of bristled. [00:08:53]

THERAPIST: Um-hum.

CLIENT: At being disrespected. You know like how I got through the job today, I mean I'm learning a trade from someone who knows it better than I do. So there are instances where he can he can try to denigrate me. But I mean I I give as good as I get. And I refuse to be disrespected. [00:09:18]

So you know that works as far as that's when I'm in charge of my life. But when I'm home, I'm kind of helpless like with these people who have known me since I was zero. So (pause) I can't what do I do? I'm just (pause) [00:09:56]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess in some way by not going or by detaching a little bit it's kind of like signaling on that and to be slighted or disrespected.

CLIENT: Well the tricks not that clear to them. I think I should communicate something, but I don't know. Like I don't know if I were to get on the phone I don't know if I should tell my parents about my new job or what I'm doing. I don't want them to judge it or have an opinion of it. I don't' want to hear what they think about I don't want to have to not tell them if they ask a question that's that relates to my life. I just I'm not sure what to do. [00:10:45]

I missed a call from my brother this morning while I was working.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Well I do love them, but I I think they are very good parents too. But to me it's becoming clear that and it's hard for my brother to understand as well, because he's still in the thick of what I was in when I sort of have this resentment to I was being provided for, but I felt guilty about being provided for in terms of them paying for my college education. And the college education not being worth the money in my estimation. I'm still having to suffer through college being bad and my parents making me feel guilty of, or at least my mother. I don't know. [00:11:41]

Yeah my college not only being painful, but to some degree seeming really worthless. Of course nothing's worthless, but it's not what you expect. [00:11:56]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Yeah, but that I'm coming to an understanding that you know the I guess this whole the whole like parents being nice and friendly with their kids, I don't know if that's ever really work. Or like that's really been prevalent for very long. I don't know if that you know, I don't know if that's like a sustainable, or you know a feasible model. Like one generation of lovingly you know, being maintaining not filial, but almost platonic relationship to the next. I don't think it works. [00:12:41]

Not that my parents are as far friendliest as some friends I know, but yeah there's a if I had to (chuckle) I feel I yanked the breast out of my own mouth, you know. [00:12:58]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: It's there for me. You know my mom, and her message is hard. Like a message from my mother it's she'll just escalate things. So fortunately I have my siblings to talk to about this, but the latest message is pretty goofy. He said that it says we need to know about what should I do with the insurance, so she talks about that. Do you want to see us for your birthday? Are you coming for Father's Day? [00:13:26]

And also an old, sort of professional relation of mine, who happens to be a selectman in Concord had asked about me and may be interested in meeting me. Some Brown graduate lawyer, who knows what he wants and whether my mother talked to him about my I don't know, my needing guidance or something. I have no idea. But she says well he he said he wants to talk to you so. [00:13:49]

I don't know how to respond to that. It's that her connection that she's giving to me? Has she prepped him in some way. I don't know what to do with that. I mean she's coming at me on a number of different levels and I don't want to deal with her at all. But it's I'm not sure what to do with an opportunity like talking to him. [00:14:09]

THERAPIST: That's the lawyer?

CLIENT: The lawyer. I guess I could see him just without telling her. [00:14:19]

THERAPIST: How do you feel about getting from her is there something about -

CLIENT: About what?

THERAPIST: About getting from her. And her being the kind of conduit?

CLIENT: Uncomfortable.

THERAPIST: Well what about it. Tell me about it.

CLIENT: Because I don't know the background. I don't know why he's asking about me. Or how much [00:14:38]

THERAPIST: What she said about you?

CLIENT: What she says that's always been a point of discomfort. I mean it's a cross to me.

THERAPIST: Okay, uh-huh.

CLIENT: I felt when I visited my uncle in Chicago, he was he seemed to be well off. And I don't know what he did. Some sort of consultant with the government at any rate. [00:14:58]

When I when I visited there, it's wonderful because it's like he and his wife recognize what's possible in me. And they want for me something pretty close what I want for myself. [00:15:11]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Like they see potential. They see what's valuable in the world in a similar way to what to the way I do. And they they probe at that. And that's that's something I keep pretty closed off. [00:15:26]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Not only because I don't believe it's useful in most cases to share, but because I don't come in contact with many people who can talk unguardedly about use values in the same way I do. But it's wonderful being with them and their propriety is boundless. [00:15:56]

But you know circle back to my parents, I don't know. Yeah I have no idea how like when my mother talks about me to other people. I guess that's sort of a strange anxiety, because the uncle and aunt I was talking to you about, I just mentioned, they have a (chuckle) he was the first man to say, oh well you mother tells me something about dah, dah, dah, and that was sort of flattering. And I said oh, I'm surprised my mother speaks well of me. (laugh) [00:16:36]

That she just thought I don't know what she says. And I guess I told you in the past that she seemed to brag quite a bit about my going to Lawrenceville or whatever I would do as if it was some some extension of her own body. [00:16:52]

THERAPIST: Um-hum.

CLIENT: You know like what do you call those things, like a prosthetic. Like there was a prosthetic there. You know.

THERAPIST: Um-hum. But now is it the way you describe it, I almost get the I almost get the impression that you wonder if she's talking about you as a charity case or something like that.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Is that?

CLIENT: Well I've been wondering whether that's the case for a long time. [00:17:20]

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: (pause) And like I said, she's different. I mean she's been sort of broken. I respect her, she used to be who knows. I don't know what happened. I mean she got cancer. I was at Lawrenceville, we lost touch. There's some aspect of her wanting things for me that were maybe didn't have me so much in mind or my experience of in mind. They're still worthy ambitions. And something about my suffering made me sort of throw those away somewhere. I have no idea. It's entirely possible to me that my you know my father was unfaithful, or she was unfaithful. Although in my entire experience and my father seems to have been a very good husband. [00:18:23]

THERAPIST: It sounds you feel like something broke her.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. Yeah so I mean she'll push me into it. The thing is she's usually right. It's just painful that she's so observant. She's right on target at like a you know, a quarter pace in front of you when you're not thinking. So if something goes wrong, she's got the perfect answer but you're still recovering from the loss or something and so it's it's painful to reconsider. [00:19:01]

But she's not really there.

THERAPIST: Is she not there painful?

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: She not there in the painful piece, she moves two fast ahead?

CLIENT: She disregards me.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah the way I deal with pain is I find the most effective is like if I have a migraine, if I can sort of be mindful of the contours of the pain. And just sort of experience it, it's not a problem. It's like a it's like a hunger. A pain is something you I don't know how to define it. But there's some real definition there that I'll have to come up with. But if I you know, if I not think about the pain, just hold the pain, it's okay. I mean you experience it for what it is. And it's discrete. It sort of dissolves. [00:20:06]

THERAPIST: It's finite. Uh-huh.

CLIENT: It dissolves. But she she believes in pain that you're supposed to disassociate yourself from it. That's what she said she did.

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: During pregnancy, whenever she had great pain, it's like she would take it and just imagine she was someone else who wasn't experiencing this pain. That's certainly how she goes through life too. It's like she has no regard for her own pain. It's something to be spurned. And so she's a very difficult person to comfort. She had various trouble. [00:20:45]

THERAPIST: And not so good with other people's pain?

CLIENT: Oh yes, not very sympathetic.

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Sometimes she is. (pause) But yeah, my mother too in both cases, early and late, she's she's someone who would rather be feared then loved. [00:21:12]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: To some extent I'm the same way. I don't really know whether I'm connected with someone until I can hurt them. If I hurt them in some way, it proves that I have some sort of fealty or connection, even as a it you know, dissolves it. [00:21:34]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Hum, hum. (very long pause) What did you just start thinking about?

CLIENT: (pause) What did you say you sort of trailed off? [00:22:27]

THERAPIST: What did you start thinking about?

CLIENT: Relaxing. I stopped thinking. (long pause) I don't know. (pause) [00:23:00]

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THERAPIST: I'm think maybe you have irritability? Maybe towards me or?

CLIENT: I don't know. (chuckle) (pause) [00:23:37]

THERAPIST: Because I was wondering about the pain.

CLIENT: Oh. Oh yeah, it's like but yeah it was interesting, I guess I tried to hurt you or something. [00:23:46]

THERAPIST: Yeah, that has made me think about that. (pause)

CLIENT: But exactly. It could be good though. And if you take the woman out or if you keep the woman make the whole foreground and background more goofy and sound it would be fine. It would keep the base line at least. [00:24:11]

THERAPIST: But I get the feeling that there's that you want to see me personally kind of wounded. Maybe not crushed, but affected.

CLIENT: Yeah, probably. (pause) Probably. I don't know.

THERAPIST: (sigh)

CLIENT: I'll let you lie for a little bit. [00:24:41]

THERAPIST: Yeah I mean, to me it didn't seems like a the main motivation didn't seem malice, it seemed to be like a way to affect a feeling in me. To see if I was feeling something. If I could feel something. I don't know, that's what I think. I mean not to mention your own personal feelings about the painting -

CLIENT: (laughing) [00:25:04]

THERAPIST: Discount. Your take on that was offered. (pause) One of New England's finest painters by the way.

CLIENT: Who?

THERAPIST: Edward Hopper.

CLIENT: Oh. Well, that's serious. (laugh) [00:25:31]

THERAPIST: I am. (long pause) [00:26:00]

(continued pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, maybe if I sense you're to distance or something, just want to cut you. Sort of bring you back down to [00:26:13]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Some sort of something where you're personally vested. Hope to grab you. I'm not sure. [00:26:26]

THERAPIST: I wonder, was I feeling a little too disconnected last time?

CLIENT: So you were disconnected.

THERAPIST: I think too high and mighty or something, I don't know.

CLIENT: Yeah I don't like it when it gets too clinical. But I don't know if that was the case last time, I don't remember. Could well have been. (pause) Did I miss something? I don't remember. [00:27:01]

Yeah and then there's the fact that you're not scared of me, so that makes it difficult. Like someone has to be a little bit scare of me for me to trust them I think. Up until that point, I can be pretty guarded with them. [00:27:18]

THERAPIST: Huh. Yeah?

CLIENT: (pause) Not that I'm innately intimidating, but it seems like it's a condition of my my relationships. [00:27:35]

THERAPIST: Fear of the loss. But I mean, I think to be feared is also a sign of respect that like some sort of power, that it's an acknowledgement of power.

CLIENT: Right. [00:27:57]

THERAPIST: Like a capacity potential, all that stuff.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: I think you're mother felt I was wondering if you're mother felt very impotent.

CLIENT: Hum? When? [00:28:22]

THERAPIST: I guess it made me think about you saying that she's she never lived up to certain aspirations she had or potentials that she had. Yeah, I guess I felt that.

CLIENT: Hum.

THERAPIST: Somewhat impotent and then she looked to you somehow to fulfill that.

CLIENT: Interesting. You know I found sometimes that that this was like a Chinese fortune or something, but like if I have a lot of things to keep me busy, like the more things I add on, the better I do. But if I just had like one thing going or like two things, it's not much of an impetus. If I had like a you know, a hurricane of primaries, like I can work pretty effectively. [00:29:13]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: And I mention that because there was a period in my life when you know, to hear my aunts tell it, I mean she was juggling quite a bit, but she was taking care of brother and sister, I was maybe in the sixth grade, so she was doing like babysitting, co-op thing and involved in the community. She was going to architecture school nights. She was probably working as well. And so she was being a mother, a worker, a student, she was doing all that at once. [00:29:44]

And sometime when she hit the workforce or she puts the end of her school she just she sort of fizzled, which I think coincided with my entrance into Lawrenceville. She sort of she didn't meet with success and it seemed like she got discouraged and I guess I remember particularly she a conversation when I was somewhere between middle school and high school and or in that time, in that range inclusive. All right, where she was driving and she started complaining to me about one of the aunts on my brothers side and you know, who does this aunt think she was? [00:30:25]

And you know I was 15 or something. And you know I consider myself you know like I can understand what's being said but at the same time I didn't see the usefulness of complaining about this person. She was complaining to me, her kid, you know. And I remember that feeling a little strange. But that sort of set a precedent for how she behaved from then on. I mean, she complained a lot. A lot. And everything was just a complaint. About her job, or about you know, eventually about me. About I don't know. [00:31:08]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: But yeah, people in the family. Don't you think this family's a little too like provincial. No she didn't say that. She said they're just too not very ambitious or something. [00:31:25]

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: So she complains, on my father's side they are sort of hoot nannies and music and rag tag clothing. And on my mother's side you have sig sigma, you know corporate retirees. I don't know. Common apes on the one. (laugh) And Delaware, mountain nicks Delaware. So it's the comparisons on the debutants she would bring my attention are apt, but they were tendentious or what's the word? They trended towards you know, complaints. Complaints about this, that, the other thing. [00:32:14]

THERAPIST: Hum. (pause)

CLIENT: I don't know, so how'd we get there? [00:32:24]

THERAPIST: Well it sounds like talking to you that in losing in your mom losing her kind of like I don't know, her frustrations with the limitations, whether they're imposed by the family, something about the family or herself, better to kind of turn in to, she sort of saw a lot of things to complain about. (pause)

CLIENT: That's interesting. Make or break. That's how it is with my mother's side, it's make it or break it. My father's side they're all kind of not totally, but they're like American organic. You just take one of their families and you put them on a poster or something. [00:33:28]

Then my mother's side you're either yeah (chuckle) it's like I had a grand finale here, you like the first two siblings, yeah so the eldest was a woman and she was one of the first women to become a doctor. And she married the uncle I was telling you about. And in a sense that impressed them too much, she was an achiever. [00:33:59]

The next in line was the brother who was like sigma engineer for some big company, he has a couple of patents. He was a manager. And then the other two siblings besides my mother, two women, they one of them complains incessantly. The other one's just a a favorite aunt of mine. A very likable aunt who's she married some, I don't know anything about her husband or her former husband, but he got involved in a motorcycle accident. They had been divorced previously I think, and a very soft and a very nice person. [00:34:42]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: But you know, prone to complaining as well.

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Yeah, It's like live by the sword, die by the sword. Just sort of very sever standard of judgment on that side of the family. Papa, my grandfather on that side, was sort of like a minor investor in STM, it's a leather factory I think. And you know the two siblings who succeeded, they had standards and they lived up to them and they expected you to live up to them. And the others I guess, my mother's in the other side of the poles. Although she's transitioned, but I don't know. [00:35:33]

Such a forever subject in this (chuckle) unforgiving. But in my sub consciousness, the choices she made. My mother's sort of I'd like to think she's transcending points, just kind of she's accepting what she has. [00:35:56]

THERAPIST: These days she is?

CLIENT: Seems that way.

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: And she's been proficient at something or other. I mean she doesn't have standards any longer, but she has she's starting to access some form of contentment I think. [00:36:15]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: I think.

THERAPIST: Hum. Well yeah, yeah, some sort of like as you say, live by the sword, die by the sword. Make it or break it. It's the break kind of situations that I guess define one's own kind of stature. Or have attention to it I guess on your mom's side?

CLIENT: Yes. [00:36:45]

THERAPIST: I see it as something it sounds like you need you're dad's side not as much? Not as more of like what's in your heart or like fun.

CLIENT: Right, something like that. They still you know they still influence, but it's not, there's no longer a judgment you know. Who need to exercise stature, you know? (chuckle) [00:37:21]

THERAPIST: Well, I don't know this is I was just thinking about you the well it was a family picnic or something that you were describing and like your dad and you kind of playing this song that was really, that it was really moving to a lot of people and your dad sat there with like his arms crossed and kind of he's imagining envious or somehow -

CLIENT: Yeah, something. [00:37:50]

THERAPIST: And how in some way I was thinking about how either way you go, ambition or not ambition, it's going to be met with some sort of rancor from one of your parents.

CLIENT: (laughing) Um-hum. Yeah. I that's actually really true. Because I remember I bought this I bought two 12 string guitars and please hold the thought if it goes on, but I bought two 12 string guitars because I wanted one. And since a lot of things are going on line at that time, I wanted to try both of them out. And one was like a white birch, or like it was white wood throughout. A blonde blonde maple or something. Bird's eye maple. But it wouldn't really I don't know, it I didn't like the sound as much as the Fender. And so I figured I'd turn that one off. You know I'd sell that. And so I made a profit on it, like $70 bucks, so I wrote some Craigslist ad and there was 20 at the time, some Craigslist ads saying you know, blonde, bird's eye maple, descriptive adjectives, etc. etc. And some guy came and bought it for his friend for his birthday. [00:39:14]

And you know my dad said well that, you know the high string didn't stay in tune or you know you sold something about me selling it for a profit was just like wrong to him. [00:39:25]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: He just it wasn't acceptable. It's kind of weird. [00:39:31]

THERAPIST: Hum. Hum.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yet it was ambitious. It was a bit you know it had some ambition in it as sort of you turned a profit you know.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: But I was thinking like in some ways does it does it serve to become a bit of a to become a kind of an internalized conflict in some way? Just thinking about you sort of saying what it meant to be at the head of your class or the standout student and how it was something that I think on the one hand was had some importance to you and on the other hand kind of you felt what I had the impression of, that you felt that you wanted to stay humble. But if you work for ambitious without with and lost your humility that it was you'd lose something important. [00:40:38]

CLIENT: Hum.

THERAPIST: Both sides being in it, so both.

CLIENT: The humility and ambition, yeah.

THERAPIST: Heart and ambition, I don't know.

CLIENT: Yeah, you don't want to be center of the human beings. [00:40:56]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: In fact don't we all know someone ambitious is just an asshole. (laugh) [00:41:01]

THERAPIST: Yeah, you don't care anymore, do you? (long pause) [00:41:42]

CLIENT: I guess it's sort of the like we're so privileged it's that I don't know the curse of privilege is that it drags you on (pause) the curse of privilege it's the curse of privilege that it deprives you of purpose. You almost need a love torn down, or a [00:42:08]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Or a challenge to your existence in order to (pause) yeah it just occurred to me, I don't know if they still do, it seems like my parents sleep together again. But there was a period of about at least five years when my dad slept on the couch downstairs. My mom slept upstairs. They never us any reason except that my dad said my mom didn't like how he snored. [00:42:56]

THERAPIST: Hum.

CLIENT: Maybe there was some sort of affair? I don't know. But that explanation is rather plausible and it's in keeping with my mother's behavior which is sort of an imperialist fashions sort of take over different sections of the house. Like she will yeah. She's very possessive of like her bed, and her rooms always messy and she always wants to take over some new room in the house for an architecture project or things that she won't ultimately finish. [00:43:34]

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: But keeping in line to her sort of adjusting, your thought about an internal struggle with depending on the values of different parents I don't know, less the external, I mean they're not they're not really happily married I wouldn't say. To all appearances, they I guess every marriage is different, but it's not like electricity there. There's some chemistry sometimes, but (pause) there's a divide even even between them and I guess it's a struggle for me to reconcile the different aspects of my character, of whatever they've given me. [00:44:39]

THERAPIST: Well yeah, it's not a happy marriage between those aspects of yourself of those values that they have and your values.

CLIENT: It seems apart.

THERAPIST: What do you do you recall the age you were when they were sleeping apart? [00:45:06]

CLIENT: I don't. I guess it was when I was about 19. Not really though. [00:45:23]

THERAPIST: College, so around college then?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) Whew (big sigh) I think I'm going to get out of here. [00:45:44]

THERAPIST: Yeah, what are you?

CLIENT: I don't know, I got birthday stuff to plan.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what do you want to leave early?

CLIENT: Yeah I have to. You'll forgive me, I'm not relishing every minute, but [00:46:07]

THERAPIST: (laugh) No, no, I'll certainly forgive you, but what do you mean disappointed? I don't what to hold you up either but?

CLIENT: What do I make of it or what do I?

THERAPIST: Yes, is it because of something right now that we're talking about?

CLIENT: Well I don't know, I feel like it's been a good session. I feel the impulse to leave. [00:46:27]

THERAPIST: Huh. (chuckle) Okay. Okay, well just one thing quickly, is so I'll be out the week of July 4th, well not the week of July 4th, but starting July 4th through the 12th, and I was thinking, let's try to figure out next time we meet, a way to meet that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday before the 4th.

CLIENT: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday -

THERAPIST: Because we won't because it will be like two, it would be like three weeks if we didn't.

CLIENT: Okay. Uh-hhh. July 4th. July 4th is a Thursday?

THERAPIST: It's a Thursday, yeah.

CLIENT: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? All right that sounds doable.

THERAPIST: Okay, good.

CLIENT: All right enjoy your birthday all right.

THERAPIST: Thanks, have a good day.

CLIENT: Have a nice weekend. [00:47:20]

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