Posted by Dinah on February 12, 2008, at 12:09:45
The subject came up today, because I've been thinking about it since watching "Band of Brothers", that I am way too self indulgent. He agreed that I, like many people including himself, could be too self indulgent at times. Ok, fair enough. I said so, he agreed, and it is true.
But then somehow he got stuck. Somehow we got on the topic of mission or service volunteering. My position was that this is not really something I'd be very good at since I really don't like being around people. And he's saying that not liking being around people is part of my self indulgence. Now, I'm not sure this is true. I think introverts aren't necessarily self indulgent and extroverts aren't necessarily lacking in self indulgence. But I didn't argue the point, I just said that this really wasn't germane to what I was trying to say. I wasn't trying to be more giving to the world, what I meant was that I wanted to be more giving in my family.
So we move to money. My idea is that I need to spend less. His idea is that I need to spend money on charity. So I think I should return a recent purchase and he thinks I should give that money away, while I think it was irresponsible to spend money I didn't have and the return should count against my credit card balance, not be spent on something else. I pointed out in a reasonable way that what I was talking about was spending less money that I don't have, eating less so that I don't end up like my mother and a burden to my family, doing more chores around the house, doing my work during office hours so it didn't steal time from my family, etc.
And he couldn't let go returning this item and giving the money to charity. I finally told him I didn't think it was any more responsible to run up credit debt to give away than it was to run it up on something I wanted for myself. But that if he was so sure I needed to give money away, I'd skip my next session and use the money and what I earned during the hours that therapy uses up and give that to charity. Oh no, he said. The money had to be given from returning this item.
I'm pretty sure we were both angry. He was angry enough to set next week's hours without asking, and write them down wrong at that, and to forget to tell me to call if I needed him. I was angry enough to almost walk away without having him tell me to call if I needed him, but I turned around and knocked on his door and let him tell me.
I'm wondering whether to go back next time and say that I think that we were miscommunicating because I expressed myself badly, and the term I meant to use was irresponsible rather than self indulgent. To get him pried out of the incorrect track he's on.
Or whether to make my first act of renouncing self indulgence to quit therapy.
poster:Dinah
thread:812222
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080210/msgs/812222.html