I started seeing my therapist after a major crisis in 2016. I’d checked myself into Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, but I wasn’t clear on why I was going there, nor did I know that I sounded so crazy that they wouldn’t let me out for a whole week. It’s called a 5150, and while a lawyer will tell you California doesn’t hold people against their will (I did stay, voluntarily) a doctor will tell you that had I tried to leave, the security guards would have tackled me.
Now that I am coming up on nine months of unemployment and my benefits have run out, I can’t really afford to pay for her anymore. I’m living off my savings, which are rapidly vanishing, and while I look forward to our once weekly zoom sessions (a byproduct of the pandemic that we haven’t bothered to remedy yet) I am growing more worried about the money I am spending on this seemingly non-essential item.
She would argue that our sessions are a necessary ingredient to my good health. Just like with physical health, you have to maintain it; like strength training. Isn’t it true that you cannot stay fit without getting some regular exercise? In my case, I probably have so much mental health capacity because I have her to listen to me and provide empathy and sound medical advice each and every week. To me, she is my primary care provider.
But in America, with a broken healthcare system that separates your mental health from your physical health (what?) getting a coverage to pay for these sessions is tricky. You have to know how to make claims to the PPO provider, you have to sign up on different convoluted websites littered with non-helpful and distracting chatbots. That I even found decent care – let’s face it – immediately following that crisis, is a freaking miracle. She was one of thirteen shrinks that I called, and the ONLY one to return my call. She was very new in her private practice at that time, and I’m pretty sure I scared the daylights out of her more than once.
In adult development, there is probably a study somewhere that shows the different stages that healthy adults move through, just like childhood development. Having been with her for nearly six years and six months, I feel like I am wise enough to do my own counseling, you know, with attentive self-care. Just like my seven year old inner-child would have you believe.