Transcription
When I came to this country, I think that people around me had a lot of hopes for me. And they really wanted me to do well, and they pushed me hard to do well, and it's the most clichéd and familiar immigrant story. But I took that and made something really toxic out of it by developing impossible standards for myself.
Mhm. And it is very difficult for me to imagine somebody perceiving me as anyone other than like an unreasonable, ungrateful, and perhaps even threatening dude.
Aha. I think you're really scared of being judged, and you're really scared of that judgement destroying things that you've worked really hard to create.
Yeah. Yeah, I think we live in like, let me just say it differently. I think the concern you're having is kind of an amplified projection of how you're experiencing yourself in the dynamic. Which is that you experience yourself as excessive and as though there's not enough room for you, and that excess seems to you somehow toxic or monstrous. And that is something to figure out. That is not something to just take as a fact.
Sure, but for me to sit here and engage in all of this is to recall the failure to transform myself in these departments, because believe me, I'm very aware that they make my life so much harder than it needs to be, and it misaligns me completely with this person. Do you agree with that?
Yeah, I agree with his portrayal of himself.
Mhm. And I have tried to be more inviting, exploratory, um, what can I do to try to meet you halfway, and I just haven't been able to do the things that he would ask of me.
Mhm. The fact is that there's nothing wrong with this person. She just happens to be with somebody who is built in a different way and has never been able to meet her where she is. And I don't know how to build a bridge.