"Make Some Room"
by The Suffers
I know how to love
And I know who I am
Come on let me
love you a little
And help me understand
Tell me bout your loss
And tell me bout your gains
I will be everything
that you need in
Just one little frame
Come on let me
cook for you baby
Just relax cuz
I'm cleaning too
I love you like
I've known you forever
I just need you
to make some room
Come on let me
cook for you baby
Just relax cuz
I'm cleaning too
I love you like
I've known you forever
I just need you
to make some room...
Painting's crooked.
Is it one of those Rorschachs?
Oh, they changed the artwork.
Painting's
different this time, right?
No, it's the same picture.
Really?
Yeah.
theme music
Yesterday, I
told her, you know,
so we could try to mix
things up a little bit,
I said, "We're gonna go out
to dinner tomorrow night."
And her first
response was, "For what?"
Yeah.
So that just totally shut
me down and it just like...
"You know what?
I'm not gonna fight about it.
That's it.
I don't wanna go anymore."
When you say
something like, "For what?"
[Tashira] Mm-hm.
[Orna] Do you know what
impact that's having?
How you're coming across?
I may seem like I
don't care to go out.
Even in that split moment, I
had a smirk on my face because,
you know, I thought it was
something special and it just
came out that way.
Like, I was kind of hiding my
smile for the fact that he was
telling me that he
wanted to take me out.
But why are you
hiding your smile?
[Tashira] I don't know.
-What is going on?
-[Tashira] I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Well, no, stop, think.
Why are you hiding your smile?
You're turning a
smile into a smirk.
It just happens that way.
But you're saying the
inside feels the opposite.
That you're happy.
That you're noticing that Dru is
offering you something special.
Yeah.
[Orna] And you're
turning it around
into kind of a
nasty response.
It's just, like...
Like I went to smile and
then I stopped myself.
And I didn't mean it for it to
come out that way because I know
that it's so important for
him, for us to be able to...
go out and spend time together
and have a meal together and...
And it seems like it's
important to you, too.
Yeah.
You're...
What are you feeling?
Um, I don't know.
Just like...
[sighs]
-Right now?
-[Orna] Mm-hm.
Overwhelmed.
Sad.
[Orna] Sad about...?
Because I don't want to
make him feel that way.
And I don't want to make it seem
like I don't want to be happy.
But are you
confused by yourself?
Um, yeah.
I guess you could say that.
I mean, I'm confused as
to why I'm crying right now.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
Maybe you're crying because
you're pushing away something
that's good for you?
And you don't understand it?
[Tashira] Maybe.
She doesn't understand
why she smirked because
underneath the smirk was the
excitement of a little girl
who's happy.
There were several sessions
where she broke down when I kept
confronting her on it.
Broke down in tears or
broke down in some other sense?
In tears.
In tears.
Upset at herself and upset at
the realization that she's doing
it and not understanding
even why she's doing it.
Ah.
[Orna] And then there's this
business of like when people
have a certain script of
how they expect things to go,
they make it happen.
So she'll reject
Dru, so he will leave,
and then she understands.
She understands the world.
It's like a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sometimes I feel like
this relationship could end,
you know?
It's possible.
-Not saying, you know--
-I hear what you're saying.
And-- but my kids are
always gonna be there.
So sometimes it's like, well,
I don't want to put in all this
work and then something happens
between us and you leave and
then, like, my older son,
will be left without having a
step-dad.
Or having to go
through that hurt.
Are you thinking about a
stepfather when you're saying
this?
-Your stepfather?
-[Tashira] I mean, yeah.
My stepfather.
My father.
Mm-hm.
Both of whom did
not stay connected,
involved.
Yeah, I mean, my dad was around,
you know, and my mom got
remarried, but she ran the ship.
My stepfather was there but he
didn't really parent us to an
extent.
-My dad hated my step-dad.
-[Orna] Mm-hm.
You know, he did
some bad things to him.
[Orna] Who did bad things?
My dad.
My dad would, uh, beat him up
when he would come and drop us
off.
Trash his car
when he would come.
You know, he would
wait on the corner.
-[Orna] Really hated him.
-Yeah.
So...
And then my step-dad left too.
There's just always that fear of
my kids not having a consistent
father figure.
Or that fear of me not being
able to hold a relationship with
a man.
And sometimes, like, I do want
to get married and do all those
things so that I can lead by
example and show my son that
it's still possible, but
then there's still that little
voice in my head that tells
me that it's not possible.
So...
ambient music
[Dru] I honestly feel that I
can literally ask her to marry
me right now and go tomorrow and
get married and she would still
have this feeling
of I'm going one day.
I could buy her a whole island
and say, "I'm going to live here
with you" and she'd still think
I'm gonna take a boat out into
the ocean.
I missed this place.
[inaudible chatter]
Why are
you blaming me?
-Hello!
-You were equally
responsible for this.
[chuckling] I wasn't at all.
Been awhile.
[Orna] Yes, it has.
It's been months.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
Yes.
This one has been
keeping the passage of time.
What?
I said this one's been keeping
track of the passage of time.
The baby?
see?
[laughs] I thought you
would notice right away.
-Wow!
-[Michal] Yeah!
-Mazel tov!
-[Michal] Thanks.
[Orna] Wait, so how
many weeks are you?
I'm three months.
-Three months.
-Yeah.
It really was a
decision I made in a day.
Like, I was switching over to
the next pack of birth control
and I just decided not to take
it and a week later I was
pregnant.
I think I was just angry
about it for so long and in my
vehemence and
frustration, I was like,
"No, I'm not gonna
take the pills!"
And I told him
about it, and yeah,
that was it.
How are you feeling about
this pregnancy and about another
child coming?
Uh, like, happy in general.
I remember a time when we were
talking when you really wanted a
baby and it sounded like
you were not totally...
-No, I was on board.
-On board?
Or...
No, he always wanted a baby.
Or more that you felt like he's
not doing-- that Michael is not
doing what you require
him to do to have one.
You know, I still feel that way.
But I feel like there was a
substantive change after one of
the weeks that we were here.
He has been offering to help me
with just a bunch of household
tasks, just randomly.
Just, like, getting
up and doing them.
Taking take of the kids more.
And it's just overall these
things that I feel I've been
complaining about for so
long, he's now doing with having
almost very little
to no input from me.
-Which I like.
-Okay, let's pause here.
Do you recognize
that in yourself?
Does that feel true?
I mean...
sort of?
I mean, like, I see more
the effects of the thing than
just like, uh, a change.
[Orna] Meaning you're looking
outside of you and you're seeing
the effect.
You don't know how
to find it inside.
Yeah, I don't see any internal
process that's all that
different.
-Or at least--
-That's interesting.
Yeah, like, I don't think that
my perspectives on things have
changed that much.
I don't think I'm relating to
anything around me all that
differently than I normally do.
Which, I mean...
It seems like you're actually
refusing to take ownership for
what you're doing.
But I don't so much care about
what specifically I'm doing.
Well, let's try
to care about it.
[Michal] Can I take a detour?
One thing that occurred to me is
that we've been here a number of
times already and I think
that it's kind of been a little
bit unfair towards him because
we've discussed a lot about,
you know, what I don't
like in the relationship and,
uh, the difficulties that
I find in his personality.
And I feel like we're painting
this picture which isn't totally
accurate that he has all
these faults and he's like this
horrible monster and I'm
just like this quintessential
perfect little angel,
which is really not true.
Because I'm very
difficult to deal with.
[laughs]
Wow!
[Michal] I'm not
an easy person.
[Michael] Wow.
And I was just wondering if
maybe you had some comments to
make to me if there are things
that you think I'm doing that--
how I can alter my behavior that
could also make our relationship
better so it's
not just all on him.
Okay.
You're asking her to
critique your wifing?
-[laughter]
-[Orna] Wait, but first of all--
Way to summarize that! [laughs]
But I want to
ask you, do you--
I'm actually stunned you don't
feel like I've been telling you
things like that?
I do, but I feel like a lot of
what you've been telling me is
to sit back and relax.
-Like, I don't know.
-Okay.
[Michal] Maybe there are other
things that I'm doing that are--
I think maybe what-- I will
translate what you're asking
into-- because the way I'm
talking to you is indeed--
Yes, thanks.
Um, I mean, you speak very
cut and dry language, right?
You go for the
jugular in your language.
You want to go
straight to the point.
[Michal] Yes.
And I have not been talking to
you like that most of the time.
I've been talking to you in a
way that I'm trying to actually
convey a feeling, which is,
take two hours a day and relax.
Rather than say to you, "You're
overwhelmed with anxiety and
you're depriving your husband
of the space to become himself.
And then you're complaining that
he's not showing you who he is."
[Michal] That's the thing.
If that's what I need to do,
just, like, lay off him--
But "lay off him" means, um...
address your own
anxieties as yours.
Deal with them as, first of all,
your anxieties rather than his
doing.
So all this build up of
you getting furious, you then
getting indeed revengeful and
sadistic can leave the two of
you.
chill music
Does that make sense to you?
She's kind of developing
this curiosity about herself.
She's started asking herself
questions about her aggression.
Amazing.
[Orna] And about her anxiety.
So all of that is
going very well.
But then it's like I hit a
certain kind of limit there.
You and she haven't done the
self-analytic work that would
need to happen for
her to actually stop.
To help her think about what's
driving it and help her come up
with something different.
You're totally right, and
now that you're saying it,
-I know why I'm not doing it.
-Okay.
Because there's a bit
of a teflon quality which
she won't let me in.
But maybe by now,
out of so many sessions,
you're just gonna have
to put your foot down.
Yeah.
[inaudible chatter]
Let's talk about
Matthew and Gianni.
Gianni can kind of veer towards
being the one expressing more
unhappiness and maybe blame.
And Matthew feeling like
he's continuously failing his
partner.
[Virginia] Gianni's anxiety
and resentment keep Matthew on a
leash, and so Matthew is living
trauma and shame every moment.
-Hey.
-Hi, Orna.
-[Gianni] How are you?
-[Orna] Good, hi.
[Matthew] Hello, how are you?
[Orna] When did you
get panic attacks?
When was it?
Well, I think the first time
that I noticed was when you went
to the hospital a year
ago when I was drinking.
I think I did it more
to get his attention.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
I was like,
"Please call Matthew.
-Please call Matthew."
-[Orna] Yeah.
And then they took me to
the ER and he came and...
yeah.
But I guess you were
really trying to--
Trying to--
Pull him out of whatever
spiral he was going through.
[Gianni] Yeah, yes.
[Orna] Do you
remember how you felt?
I felt very uncomfortable.
[Orna] Say.
That I was there by your side
but I wasn't offering any type
of support in the eyes
of everyone else there.
But how do you mean that?
That it just seemed as
though everyone knew that he
was in a bad state because of me
and what am I even doing there?
You don't deserve
to even be there.
[Matthew] Right.
Is what it felt like.
-Is that true?
-[sighs]
Well, I mean, you
showed up intoxicated.
Yeah.
I wasn't not going to show up.
Yeah.
And how did that affect you?
[Gianni] Well, that was when I
stopped sharing things with my
friends.
I mean, I was maybe a
little embarrassed.
You didn't want to be judged.
[Gianni] Kind of.
Yeah.
[Orna] So...
how are you doing now?
What does it do to
you to think about this?
To remember it?
I mean, I'm sad, I
don't-- I don't want--
this is really hard to
revisit all of this.
It's a lot of shame.
It's a lot of regret.
It was just so unmanageable.
I couldn't even manage myself,
so clearly, I wouldn't be able
-to manage a relationship.
-[Orna] Mm-hm.
I couldn't manage a job.
I couldn't manage getting out
of the bed unless it was to the
liquor store.
Matthew, but I'm noticing
that you're talking a lot --
which I very
much understand --
about shame.
But do you also have,
like, compassion for yourself?
I mean, not so
much compassion, no.
It sounds like your way
of orienting towards it is with
a lot of your own
judgment and shame.
[Matthew] Right.
[Orna] Harsh.
Yeah.
Do you have thoughts
about why this was happening
to you?
I'm just trying to
not think about drinking.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
Right.
I get that.
I'm sort of-- on one hand, I
completely respect the fact that
you gotta give yourself the
pace that you need to do that,
but I also feel a
certain kind of...
um, urgency on your behalf.
Especially because I
hear the level of,
um, self-blame.
I feel like you need to start
understanding what was going on
there for you so you will grasp
why you put yourself close to
death.
At the end of the
day, I don't know.
It's a huge battle.
I don't...
I still blame myself because
it was the decision I made.
To drink.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
[Matthew] What
are you thinking?
I know coming out
for him wasn't easy.
[Orna] Mm-hm.
Tell me.
Well, coming out
was-- I didn't come out.
My parents drug me out.
They found a letter.
A letter?
To someone else who was
a g*y male who, you know,
I was confiding in, you
know, bounced those thoughts
and feelings off of.
[Orna] How old were you?
-13 or 14.
-[Orna] Mm-hm.
Um, you know, that age.
And then, it just-- it was like
a huge b*mb went off in our
family.
I was picked up from
school from my father,
dragged me home.
My mom was there.
We sat at the dining room table
and they screamed and she cried
and he hit me.
And...
you know, it started there.
I wasn't allowed to see any
of the children of the family
because I was a child molester.
What?
[Matthew] I can't
see any friends.
I can't go out.
Everything was
ripped away from me.
We started counseling, which is
essentially conversion therapy,
telling me that I was gonna go
to hell if I didn't change the
way I, you know, acted and felt.
So we went to counseling every
week and I would come home and I
would, you know, walk in the
backyard and I remember throwing
up in the backyard and not being
able to have any self-control
over my emotions
and feelings and...
I remember going to work
every day with my dad.
-Five or six in the morning.
-[Orna] What?
And I would be put to physical
labor to make a man out of me.
My entire teenage childhood
was just taken away from me
essentially to prevent me
from exploring those types of
thoughts and ideas and, uh...
-[whispering] Jesus.
-[Matthew] So...
I'm so-- that's really awful.
I attempted suicide when I
was going through all of that.
-Um...
-[Orna] Yes.
I can imagine why.
[Matthew] Yeah.
And then drinking
as much as I was...
I wasn't purposely trying to
k*ll myself but I definitely--
[Orna] I'm not sure.
I don't know.
Sounds like you were
sort of basically reliving that
message.
I don't like to
think about that. [sighs]
I'm so sorry.
Well, I mean, as far
as my dad's concerned,
I mean, for him,
it's a lost cause.
I mean, I'm a
worthless person to him.
He doesn't want to
ask forgiveness,
and I'll never give it to him.
I don't really care.
I mean, I guess I don't care.
I mean, I don't care.
Well, it's very hard to not
care when he's your father.
I just-- it puts you
in an impossible bind.
[Matthew] Well, yeah, I mean,
it sounds shitty to say that I
-don't care, but--
-Oh, I don't-- it doesn't sound
shitty, I mean, he sounds like
something was wrong with him.
Well, my mom's, you know,
completely different now.
We have a
wonderful relationship.
Yes, I haven't
dealt with any of this,
but I've also moved so
past it that, you know,
I...
I'm kind of, like, in
that "It is what it is."
-Um...
-Right.
But I guess, I mean, getting
into a relationship that matters
to you will kick all of that up.
Very true.
[Orna] Um...
We have to stop for
today, but we have work to do.
-[laughs]
-Oh, Orna.
-[chuckling]
-That's a lot.
-[Orna] Mm-hm.
-Good luck with us.
[laughing] Yeah, you're like,
"Y'all got a lot of sh*t going
on, okay?"
Come back quickly.
[laughter]
[Gianni] 'Kay.
[chuckles]
mellow ambient music
Thank you so much.
Goodnight.
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