Posted by Tabitha on July 27, 2012, at 11:54:54
Just noticed it was only 6/7 when I last posted about terminating. Since then I got diagnosed with breast cancer and had the most intense anxiety of my life. Then had a really good session that made me question terminating. Next session after that was the same old stuff. There was some good, and some stuff that just made me angry and took me some time to shake off. I came to a point of thinking this just isn't right, there shouldn't be this much conflict and so much doubt at this point. Plus I just shouldn't be spending energy and attention on conflict with *anyone* at this point, certainly not paying big bucks for the privelege. Now is the time to take maximum possible care of myself.
Then to my irritation the insurance company paid *her* instead of me what they owed me for this year. It's wrong, I already paid for the sessions so the check should come to me. She left a message saying I now have a credit. This happened before and she said she couldn't just write me a check, there's some tax reason, so she had to return the check and get a new one issued directly from the insurance. I'm so incensed she would just assume I'm OK paying in advance for what works out to about three months worth of sessions. I'm not OK with that at all!
Then we're arguing about how to manage my cancer diagnosis. There's a lot of uncertainty for breast cancer outcome. At first I was giving too much weight to the worst-case possibility and she pointed that out and I did manage to stop assuming the worst. But she wants me to assume the best, picture myself having that best-case outcome and all that. I really don't want to spend energy trying to convince myself something is true when there's no way to know. I want to live well with the uncertainty. That seems truest to me, and strongest.
Then she gave me a very flaky bit of advice. She told me I should stop wearing diamonds because they're bad for cancer. I kid you not, it was something about how the root chakra is already too strong with cancer, and diamonds strengthen the root chakra. I wear a diamond necklace and two rings including my wedding/enagement ring. I've been wearing the necklace 24/7 for 9 years, and the rings slightly less. So it's no small thing to stop wearing these.
For a bit I actually considered this, even though I know it's some totally made-up notion with not a shred of evidence behind it. I had an impulse to stop wearing jewelry early in my treatments, but it passed. Then her bringing this up just resonated enough for me to consider it. OTOH, I really don't want to be a silly superstitious person going through cancer treatment. If there was some personally meaningful thing to wear for comfort I'd do it, but some crackpot theory about diamonds is not personally meaningful.
I was angry I even had the distraction of considering this stupid theory and debating how hurt my husband would be if I stopped wearing the lovely engagement ring he bought me, only a week after our wedding. Does it not sound kind of f'd up to tell me to stop wearing my diamonds when I'm a newlywed, out of fear they'll hurt my cancer treatment?
The other thing I've realized is I'll be spending less money on cancer treatment than on therapy! My medical insurance has an out of pocket max for medical that is much less than my annual out of pocket for therapy. It seems sooo wrong to spend so much on a little bit of coaching and emotional support.
Sorry for yet another rant about my bad fit with my therapist and my anger over the expense. I hope I'm back here in a few weeks saying Well folks I finally terminated.
poster:Tabitha
thread:1022225
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20120518/msgs/1022225.html