Hi HG. I have been struggling with this recently too as I am unable to pay my T the full price and she has suggested I pay her helf of her rate. I have really struggled with this but she said she operates on a sliding scale and she wouldnt offer it if she didnt mean it. It still makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and sick to think about it but I agreed to take her up on her offer of seeing her at a reduced rate. I have to say that it has caused issues as I dont believe I deserve her time and I want/need more. It is a really uncomfortable situation for me. I want to pay her her full rate but I just cant at the moment. It is really difficult. I understand exactly where youre at with this. I am so sorry you are struggling. You are an amazing person, you have given so much support and encouragement to me and others on this forum. I am so sorry and wish i could offer you something more positive. I understand.

Yes go for phone sessions - that's a good compromise.

Boy. This sounds like much more reason for you to NEED to take it, if only for a while, just to give yourself the opportunity to break out of this mindset. Its like you're holding onto these feelings and you can use lack of money to hold onto these feelings. So your t is saying - okay, lets take the money excuse away; now what are you going to do, to say? Kinda pulling the rug out from under you. Your security blanket of no security. I wont even make my bed up nice because im afraid i'll have to pay for that feeling of security. So no fair saying your t is doing it out of ethics. You dont get to talk for her.

My husband often lives by that philosophy of "I'll reject her first rather than to have her reject me", and it drives me insane. What poppycock! I am not his screwy family that rejected him and hurt him and only showed him very conditional love, but he sometimes pigeonholes me into that role in his eyes. It is unfair. I am worthy of better consideration and trust than that. I am NOT his family.

Neither is your therapist. You can choose to see her as the individual she is, or you can pigeonhole her into the same crappy category as everyone else in your life. Not fair to do that to her though. Perhaps seeing her as the trustworthy, kind, gracious person she seems to be would be more honest and fair.

I can tell that this is really, really hard for you. Sometimes it takes a loooong time before we can change the way we think about ourselves when it is so set in. My therapist once told me that I was like someone with cortical blindness, when the eyes can see, but the brain can't process the images. Now that I've progressed, that's really what it was like. People could tell me something, but if it didn't make sense to me, it was like it didn't exist. The way I saw it was the only possible reality.

Even though you can't see it yet, you do deserve the help and support that she is willing to give. Therapy is hard, it's incredibly hard. It takes enormous bravery to face fears like the ones you're describing, but if you go with a willingness to hear what your therapist has to say about this without deciding for her, that's what you're doing, you're being brave. For me, that's what therapy has been all about.

Life really doesn’t have to be so hard, it can be better…and you deserve that. But I know that I’ve had to accept help so that I could get to a place where things are better. It’s so easy to feed the negative fears, to continue finding things that will prove that the fears are true, or to run from the fears and still be certain that they are true (and so it was right to run). It’s hard not to run and to stand and face those fears…but I’ve found that confronting them, just allowing the smallest bit of space for another possible outcome, is what has kept me moving forwards.