Darius Muniz

Professor Mapel

Counseling Interview

October 11, 2010

                                                                Interview I

            This was the initial interview of client E and was recorded audibly for a twenty minute duration. This interview was unstructured and set up as a one on one dyadic session. E is a Puerto Rican male, twenty four years of age, who resides in the Bronx with his wife, child, mother, and little sister in the same household. E is currently unemployed and has been for an extended period of time. E arrived early and was dressed casually in some black jeans, black shirt and a black baseball cap. E appeared mostly at ease and was ready to begin the session with no hesitation or delay.

Darius:      So what brings you here today?

         E:     Life….stress…..the usual.

Darius:      You said stress. What seems stressful to you?

         E:      uhhh…household, society, education, uhhhh…reality…yeah it’s all kinda of aaa….

       big blob of ……stuff……

Darius:      why would you describe it as that?

E:               because the blob eats and still gets bigger….so everything is still like… always…..  

       growing in its Stressfulness…you know…………..… short pause………………..

Darius:        Let’s talk about these stresses then. You say that they keep…umm… growing in their capacity and keep getting larger and larger and more stressful and stressful. So   what in particular… is stressing you out?

E:                uhhh….life…the necessity to stay alive and uhhh….take care of those around        

        me…that you have to ahh….. provide for……

Darius:        like your Family.

Darius:        are you finding it hard to provide?     

E:                 at times……financial, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual….its ahh….kinda all

Jumbled together ….I feel like life is ahh…how can I put this….ahh…………..like  

people call it a game…you have to find yourself to the next level….I feel like I’m

stuck on level 22 haven’t reached level 24 yet………..Laugh………..

Darius:         so your having problems going up in levels as you put it and bettering

         yourself….making a better situation for yourself………

E:                 yeah……. Nods in agreement…….yeah…….

Darius:         Why do you think that is?

E:                  lack of ahh…..lack of a lot of things….myself holding me back…..basically is the

          main thing….. ahh…..the reason why I say holding myself back is

          cause…..sometimes things just don’t fix themselves… you just have to fix

          them….however long time that takes……

Darius:          that is one fact of this society ahh… to constantly better ones self, work hard, to

          strive. So where do you find yourself lacking? Which area?

E:                 the striving part……..Laughs…………

Darius:         so you’re saying you’re having a motivational issue?

E                  motivation as well as ahh…..the will to ahh…..want to do better but not cause ah….like if I take another step in another direction umm try to finish you know

      stuff at hand which is ahh.. Basic survival and… I feel if I stray away from that for a minute even if it’s to better my education and my my like ahh…I might flip on my back and I might end up in a worse situation……………….

Darius:          so you’re saying that you can’t…you can’t progress and move forward in your life?

          That you have no stable foundation to stand on first?

E:                   yeah……….short pause……………..

Darius:           Why is that?

E:                     it goes back years……laughs…..it’s ummm…..I guess the reason that I found it

            hard to ummm progress in life is because I never really ahh found myself. I

always knit picked at others personalities and ahhh try to absorb what I can from

them to better myself. but in doing so…I kinda lost myself you know cause I’m just taking on someone else’s ahh personality without having the thought about the influence behind it that comes with that personality…you know so it’s like…your absorbing something but don’t know how to adapt it and apply it…….you know………that’s a problem……

Darius:             you said it goes way back….were you referring to your childhood?

E:                     granted my mother had her ahh…..boyfriends…..you know…..

Darius:             what happened to your father?

E:                     ahhh…jail…..seven……..still in there…….short pause……….why I say

            Boyfriends….my mom ahhh…..really…… wasn’t the best….boyfriend

chooser…..laughs……. she was always going ahhh…meeting different

people…introducing us to different people….having a rotation of men in

my life and it just pretty much screwed me up…….from what I see…….from what I gather…...never really had the ahhh…push to do better was always ahh….everyone else was important………..short pause……….

Darius:             are you speaking about your mother?

E:                     umm….yeah…..my mother, my family, everyone in my family was more

important than me and I had to….to this day it’s still true….to this day I still

believe it….cause she shows it……..

Darius:             so everyone in your family? Your immediate family?

E:                     yeah……I’m the n***er of the family……laughs……….

Darius:             the umm….the black sheep?

E:                     yeah…………

E:                     middle child, the only boy, mother didn’t know how to deal with men, she would

never admit it….that she didn’t know how to raise me….you know…sort of like

the mother saying that…that she’s the mother and the father….but meanwhile

didn’t know what on earth she was doing in the first place and ahh…screwing my

life up and thinking that she did a good job about it and want to take credit for

when I do good things and ahh when I mess up its like ohh your just like your

father… you know like ok so if I’m good I I automatically am a… you know…. a

king to you and crap…you know like a …………she acknowledges when I do

something good…oh yeah you get that from me….but let me do something

wrong..oh you get that from your father ….uhh do you not realize that you had

like fifteen different guys in my lifetime that you introduced me to…and I know

not where the hell I belong…you know……so……laughs…….

Darius:            let’s talk about your father? How did that affect you?

E:                     umm…he’s ahhh…. I don’t know how old now…I can’t believe he’s in his early 40’s…. 44..45..

Darius:             How old are you now?

E:                     I’m 24…and he’s been out of my life since I was like seven…I met him maybe

three four times max…..never really had a bond with him….never found the need

to….even though there was a neeed….but…. I never found the need

to….cause….I’m grown already and ahh can’t really ahh fill a new cup when its

already full….you know…..got to empty it first…..

Darius:             You blame them, your mother, for all the circumstances that have happened in          

your childhood?

E:                     Possibly… yes…but I also know and take into fact that she’s not stable in her

right mind….so I know that ahh…she’s not all up there

herself…..she’s….she’s a human just like anyone of us and she made bad

choices and to this day she still….. doesn’t get it……none of us are perfect……

Darius:             are you still around her influence now? Are you living with your mother?

E:                     yeah at I’m 24 and I still live with my mother…..

Darius:             so it’s a constant ahh…

E:                     Struggle?......yeah…..the reason why I say struggle is cause it’s not ahh…it’s not

ahh your regular household family…you know…it’s ahh more like we’re

roommates in one apartment…. and ahh…everything has to go her way or no way

at all…even if she’s wrong….she’s the parent right? But ahh sometimes she just

doesn’t make sense…try not to argue with her…doesn’t matter shit doesn’t go my

way anyway…as long as everything is quiet and their happy…I’m out of the

picture…I leave them alone….that’s why I don’t have any involvement with my

family…uhh….she tries to look for me….i don’t want to be found…all these

years of trying to look for her and you know reach out to her

and…she….sometimes it’s just too late…you know….not all the time

but….maybe in the future I might change my mind but now I feel as if ahh she’s

wasting her time….you know….you already did the damage…..short pause…..

Darius:             It seems like the ahh…animosity you feel towards your mother is affecting your

own personal life.

E:                     very much so……..short pause……..

E:                     I choose not to do better cause umm maybe ahh I’ll fail again who knows where I

might end up again you know….every time I try to do something good….it

always comes back…. like crap in your hand….you know……

Darius:             Your saying that she’s hard to please……….. that she’s always negative towards you.

E:                     at times……..

Darius:             now wouldn’t there be times that you’re doing well because you mentioned

earlier that when you’re doing well she’s happy for you….but when you don’t do

well she’s always  all over you…..

E:                     which a parent should do……but  ummm…..i guess she just really never knew

how to be a parent…..she’s already in her fifties and to this day I still don’t even

think she knows how to be a parent……she makes ahh wrong decisions……you

know…….of course…..but ummm at times its just things that are like common

sense…..like are you serious….you know…….i don’t get it sometimes……she

really doesn’t get me……ahhh I have a closer bond with my older sister more

than I had with my mother…….she raised me at a certain point in my life…….

Darius:             How old is your sister?

E:                     she’s ahhh thirtyyy…..thirty……..

Darius:             she took care of you?

E:                     yeah……

Darius:             So she was there to watch out for you?

E:                     and I strayed away from her too

E:                     The reason why I said I strayed away ahhh…..I got tired of hurting 

everybody….you know….everybody was disappointed with me ahhh and I went

on my merry way….you know……of course your family always wants better for

you this that and the third but your own sibling or your own mother is capable of

doing something to you that you wouldn’t even believe a stranger would do to

you that’s when you have problems….you know……who would of thought that

ahh your parent would kick you out of the house and have you sleep in the

streets….., train stations, telephone booths ahh for weeks, months at a time…..

Darius:             How old were you?

E:                     ahhh nineteen….i started messing up in school…had a lot on my mind and she

just didn’t give a f**k…..you know…..like I said she wasn’t ready for me…..she

didn’t know how to raise a man……she had so much trouble with men during her

life that she didn’t know what she was doing when it came to me and I believed

that…you know cause if you can’t even hold a stable relationship…. with a man

….and you have a son…… chances are you…you…you’re going to have a lot of

conflict with him because you…you….I guess she has an animosity towards

men?.....you know….and I guess that reflects on me…

Darius:             at the time you were living with your mother?

E:                     yeah…yeah it got pretty bad…and ahh that I wasn’t there so it’s always one

persons word against another…..

Darius:             so at what point did your mother leave your father?

E:                     ahhh…he….she never left him….he just got arrested and she moved

on……………………..as all women do……..laughs………you know….that’s

what they’re here for…there here to ahh cater to you…… until you are ahh no

longer a need to them….then they move to the next one….and the next one or the

next one….and yet they keep going on finding people……laughs………

Darius:             this is what you seen your mother do?

E:                     yeah……yeah……

Darius:             It sounds like you have an animosity towards women in general

E:                     I am disrespectful towards women that’s because ahh …..I do have animosity

towards women …..and it does stems from that and…. and I am

aware of it…..

Darius:             stems from your mother?

E:                     yeah…..my sister as well…umm….

Darius:             Which?

E:                     the eldest…..my little sister I got love for….you know….she’s a pain in the butt

but she’s still innocent. ….you know……the women in my life….i mean one

time….hear this crazy stuff I was in my sisters’ house this is when I was living

with her and she actually tried to kill me with a butcher knife…..and to this day is

why she has back problems.

Darius:             What do you mean she tried to kill you with a butcher knife?

E:                     she tried to kill me with a butcher knife…….i was in her house and ahh she didn’t

appreciate me calling her a bitch and ahh ……

Darius:             why did you do that?

E:                     she had said something that had offended me about ahh my mother and my father

and the fact that ahh nobody was there for me but her gotta be a bitch about it….i

mean f**k you who do you think you are…your just my sibling didn’t give birth

to me…..that’s pretty much how the conversation went oh I’m a bitch…I’m a

bitch I’m going to show you bitch….then she went to the kitchen…came back

with a butcher knife and lunged……. at me and if I wouldn’t of…if I wouldn’t of

grabbed her hand and like….i donkey kicked her into the radiator and that’s why

her back is messed up…..if I would of allowed her she really would have cut

me that day……………my sisters psychotic……….

Darius:             You said earlier that you and your sister had a good relationship.

E:                     yeah we had a good……….we….had…….a good relationship…I don’t speak

with her anymore

Darius:             But at the point the incident happened, how was your relationship with her? Was

that the good portion or the bad portion?

E:                     That was the good portion…..it was just a mishap that day and from then on I just

said you know what I’m not having it….that was the night I decided to go stay on

the streets….and then ahhh her neighbor in the building had noticed that I’ve been

in the park after awhile and a couple of days she asked me  ….you know….what

was going on then she took me in …..she never knew I was in the

building……..laughs…….

E:                     it’s just…it’s just like….who would think of something like that….like

that……you know …….I’ll kill you for calling you a

name…………………..long pause…………..

Darius:             you stayed with your neighbor for how long?

E:                     ahhhhh….three…. four months and then ahh my mom she didn’t know at the time

but then she found out and told me to come home….alright….let’s see how long

this lasts…..

Darius:             so you stayed with your neighbor four months and then you went home?

E:                     yeah…..yeah

Darius:             you were how old at this point?

E:                     ahhh…..say anywhere from 15 or 16 at the time……maybe younger…..yeah……

E:                     so it’s just like…..my mom was unstable when she raised us…..my sister became

unstable and I’m unstable all because of my mother’s instability…..you

know…..we were all brought up seeing violence….seeing things a child should

never even think of in their lifetime……exposed to it…….that’s why I try to be

happy all the time….I’m tired of being miserable……but I’m always

miserable……..laughs………..I try to laugh a lot…………..short pause………

Darius:             you say you’re always miserable……do you always feel like that?

E:                     I am miserable……I mean I have a wife…a daughter….I live in my mothers’

house with them…I do jack with my life…..I’m in a bad situation…..times are 

hard….getting even harder……

Darius:             Financially?

E:                     yeah….financially…..you know stress builds up…builds up and it does come a

point you be like I don’t want to go through this shit no more and you want to do

something about it but I haven’t reached that point yet….I’m tired of what I’m

going through but I don’t have the motivation to do something about it……and I

don’t get it…..you know the will is there but I don’t have the motivation to do

anything about it….

Darius:             maybe you feel it’s not worth it?

E:                     yeah……….short pause…………….

Darius:             since all you seen when you were little is chaos and anti social behavior, do you

feel like it would just be a never ending circle with your wife and your kid?

E:                     yeah……

Darius:             Wouldn’t you want to change that?

E:                     I would love to change it……………….