This is supposed to be a jubilant event, the graduating from therapy and moving on free as a bird into the regular world with the tools to handle it, and the understanding of how things work. Except in this case it’s not. There are no celebrations, no champagne, no new hp laptops or cars. This is not graduation, or flunking out, this is withdrawing.
This past week I had to “break up” with my therapist. I was upset going in. Hubbie and I had nearly had an argument about the whole thing. I was feeling marginalized, as though my mental health was having to take a back seat, and I left the house still angry, even though I was the one who’d initially voiced, several weeks ago, that I felt we wouldn’t be able to afford to continue therapy, and with me having to quit work that’s a definite. We’re down $120 a month, and have to cut back where we can. We’ve lowered our cable package which saves us $90 a month, and thankfully I have other work from home earnings which have tripled that are helping making up the rest of the loss; but still we have a $1200 deficit between our deductible and our HSA that we have to account for.
Elsie understands, of course, there’s nothing she can do. She’s tried and tried to get permission to give me sliding scale but because I have insurance I don’t qualify. We technically make too much for Medicaid, and especially since I only have a set amount of visits it’s best to keep them for emergencies or crisis time than try to work through things in such a condensed form. We talked about game plans for the future, things I can do to help keep things flowing and going, the best way for us to continue to work together to keep improving our health, to stick to our diets and keep track of things, of the fact that we can send her updates by the mail and stay in touch by cell phone periodically, and hopefully disability will come through and we’ll be able to afford therapy. In the mean time we’re in limbo.
I was feeling good about the way things ended for most of the drive home, and was distracted trying to start our taxes given I have all our W2s and insurance paperwork and everything, and then the feelings of loss really started to hit and the anger and frustration that it has to be this way. Elsie told me that when she first started her practice in the 80s the Mental Health Act had just been passed. She called it the “Golden Age” where she could see whoever she needed to and they paid whatever they could and the government paid the rest, but now it’s impossible to do that because when Reagan came into office he repealed the act and things have been screwed up ever since.
I’ve been rejoining support groups in the hopes I can still work through some things, but I find them to be overwhelmingly negative places at times. I hope that I can find a place where there’s as much, if not more, focus on the positive than the negative. I know that I have things I need to work through that are overwhelming, scary and terrible but at the same time I feel if the support groups spent more time helping people see the positive aspects of being a multiple, the fun and jovial things that can go on, the ways that it can benefit us rather than harm us, I think more people would be able to deal with everything and it might help them get better. Take a leaf out of Patch Adams rather than Dr. Kevorkian. We’re not lost, we have so many great qualities, and we need to remember that
I’m going to look for a place like that, and if there is not one I’m going to try and create one because it’s something that a lot of people could benefit from.
