I’m a jerk who doesn’t pay for therapy. Or at least not what it’s worth. Maybe.
I have been seeing R consistently again for four years. Last fall, when he suggested that I should come in twice a week rather than once, in part of my litany of protestations I commented that I couldn’t afford it. Knowing some of my other medical issues — and the ridiculous medical debt that my family carries because of them — he suggested that I fill out paperwork to have the fee reduced or my insurance co-pay waived for the second session each week… or something. I didn’t pay that much attention because I didn’t feel comfortable with not paying what I should. R gave me a copy of the form I was supposed to fill out, and who at the clinic I should send it to, but I never completed it. I started seeing him twice a week anyway.
Then, our insurance plan changed — and we needed to come up with thousands of dollars up front before insurance kicked in at all. My husband was irritated with me for not applying for financial assistance. I stopped taking my meds. I told R that I wasn’t going to see him anymore. My husband got more irritated with me. R, in that “therapists can’t tell you what to do” way, helped me feel like an asshole for not just filling out and sending in the form.
So, I did it. Everyone else is apparently happy enough even though I feel like a jerk.
I haven’t received any official word about what I will be paying yet, but I’ve been led to believe that it will probably be ok. I feel awful about it, even though I know my other option really was to stop seeing him, or cut back to seeing him once a month or so… which probably isn’t that helpful for the kind of anxiety-producing therapy I’m apparently doing.
The few people who know I see a shrink are probably sick of hearing about this by now, but I am just so uncomfortable with the idea of not paying what I should for therapy. (1) We aren’t really poor, we just have debt; (2) R is actually a pretty competent shrink and if he’s going to let someone see him at a reduced rate, it should probably be someone more troubled — or capable — than me; (3) I will feel guilty ever mentioning anything we spend money on in therapy (even though my family is pretty conservative on what we spend); (4) I have additional pressure to talk in session since I’ll really be wasting his time now if I don’t… which is bound to make it even harder to talk; (5) I don’t want to owe him and bring a new kind of indebtedness into the dynamic; and (6) R will care less about me if I’m not paying like I should be. A pretty good list, I think.
But then I read this article (which might be by some total hack), and now I’m worried that therapy will fail — or continue to fail, or fail more disastrously — because I’m not dropping the $250 per session that I should (although this also seems to indicate that poor people in general are less capable of healing, which may have more to do with factors beyond financial investment, but whatever).
The moral of this story: I’m a jerk for not paying what I should for therapy. And I’m a jerk for complaining about potentially not paying enough for therapy.
And I’m a jerk for bitching at all about a shrink that schedules me twice a week and acknowledges my financial situation while other people can’t even get one lousy appointment with a psychiatrist.
Basically, I’m an asshole. Any way you look at it. I’m an asshole.