In case anyone’s been following my posts, about this, I was given a 6 month course of therapy to deal with depression and anxiety. It seemed a bit pointless to me since my depression and anxiety are caused by poverty, which therapy won’t fix, but if I refused the sessions it would adversely affect my benefit appeal. The therapy was shit, the therapist was shit, and today was my final session, and I’m so relieved it’s finally over.
Here are some of the highlights of my sessions with her:
Said she can’t give me the good treatments like EDMR, because I’m still living in the bad situation that is causing my problems, and these kinds of therapies are for after the problem has ended, to help you get over it. So she can’t do anything for me other than meditation and drawing pictures.
When I spoke about traumatising things that have ended that I’d like EDMR for, such as a time I was violently assaulted, she instead tried to get my to sympathise with my attackers, and imagine what problems they have in their lives that drove them to assault a random stranger, and feel sorry for them.
Shamed and disparaged me for asking for food vouchers on here, even though she knows I have no money whatsoever.
Basically told me that me killing myself is a good idea - she said, given my issues and the fact that they can’t be solved, it seems a reasonable plan that I would aim to commit suicide one day. She said she’s done all she can for me and there’s no point putting me forward for further therapy. I mean, I do agree suicide is the eventual answer for me but it seems a bit unprofessional for a therapist to agree.
She thinks it’s no big deal that I could be homeless soon, she said she’ll just give me the number of a homeless shelter. She doesn’t seem at all concerned about my financial situation and even said she might tell the DWP I have missed some of her sessions, even though she knows this puts me at bigger risk of losing my appeal. I wonder if this might be retaliation for the fact I’ve missed some sessions with her - maybe she doesn’t get paid for those sessions so she wants to punish me?
The “therapy” has consisted of nothing but meditation, drawing pictures and her writing timetables for me to stick to. Then she gets angry with me that this isn’t making any difference to my life.
Told me off during a meditation that involved body movements, because my left side wasn’t moving as much as the right. Even though she knows my left side is affected by the fact I’ve had a stroke.
Puts me in the most bleach and perfume smelling room even though I’ve told her it triggers my migraines.
Has often turned up late and dismissed me early so the sessions only last 3/4 of the time they’re meant to.
I’m sure there’s been other stuff too that I can’t remember now. Anyway I’m glad I don’t have to see her any more but I’m worried about her telling the DWP I’ve missed some sessions, they might use it against me at my appeal.
Comrade, I had no context about your hardships. I was shocked to see such things being said by a therapist, and I might’ve acted too emotional about it. I had experiences with suicidal ideation throughout my whole life, and maybe it was my own self-repression speaking. I have rephrased the part about suicide being a “stupid” decision, and changed to “often a narrow” decision in reaction to your comment. It’s judgemental to those who might be having thoughts about it.
Considering your conditions, you shouldn’t really listen to anyone about how you should live your life. I’m sorry that I sounded too patronizing, this is a website about communism, I don’t see engaging in “propaganda against the bourgeoisie”, which is what I mentioned, as “doing something for a cause”, I see as an act of class survival. We need to do that.
You already know every single hardship you’re facing is because of capitalism. Your life, your example, is precisely why we need to destroy the system we live in. By reading what you wrote, your harsh criticism of my comment, I can see you’re intelligent, articulate, and extremely self-aware, so much life, so much energy, all of that being destroyed by an exploitative and oppressive system. Don’t you think that’s naturally revolting? Don’t you feel like screaming from the top of your lungs how much we need to destroy this state of things?
Of course, but all your energy can only be channeled to survival at this point… If you consider suicide is the only option for you, then not even that, you’ll channel your energy into fulfilling that particular objective. Then, what are you waiting for? Why did you write a full block of text scolding me to make me understand your position and your life? Why are you answering me instead of buying material for the particular suicide method you chose? Whether you see it or not, it’s that part of you that wants to live that keeps struggling with the part of you that wants to die.
I don’t want to be patronizing again and tell you how you should live your life. I want to suggest you things based on your conditions. Well, you’re well aware you’re not the only person to suffer this. I’m pretty sure there are hundreds of thousands of people like you. If you share with others on every social media possible about your life, your conditions, your struggles, I’m pretty sure you will catch the sympathy of many people. Not only people who have personally suffered this, but also their relatives. This can give you a bit of influence which can help you receive donations to survive (if you want that), and even have your surgeries in the future. This may require some consistency and discipline and a few hours of daily work, which I understand if you have no energy to do. Through this method you can earn enough money to buy a gun and kill yourself quickly too, if that’s what you really want.
It isn’t as easy as you are making out. I have already made one suicide attempt. I researched methods for months, taking into account what materials could realistically be obtained, what methods I’d be likely to succeed at, what would hopefully be the least painful and most likely to succeed. In the end I chose a method that had easily accessible materials, seemed easy enough for a disabled person to accomplish, and was said to be fairly painless and likely to be successful. I spent some time obtaining the materials, made sure I had a suitable time and place where I would not be disturbed, and carried out the method exactly as instructed. It turned out to be very painful, was obviously not successful, I spent 5 days in intensive care and have permanent physical damage from it. So I clearly am going to be very, very careful about any future attempts. I live in the UK so cannot access a gun. I joined a suicide website to find someone to help me to do it (after my stroke I can barely use the left side of my body and have become partially sighted so I need help to do most things), but every time I met someone and we made a plan, they changed their mind and let me down. If I had money I would go to dignitas. It would be absolutely pointless for me to rush into making another failed attempt on my own. There is no part of me that wants to live, I simply don’t want to be in intensive care after another failed attempt again.
I also will not “catch the sympathy” of people on social media. I mean, look at your response to me, it’s just judgment about why I’m not rushing out to kill myself right now, without a thought about the difficulties involved in it. And you’re joking if you think people are sympathetic to the unemployed, disabled or suicidal. I was treated like absolute shit in hospital after my suicide attempt. People judged the hell out of me because I was wasting a bed being in there through my own fault. Nobody was interested in what had driven me to it. Same thing with being on benefits, people have been rude and judgmental to me about it without a thought of the struggles that drove me to give up working.
I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are really young without much hardship in your life, because if you’re an adult and have been through anything, you are shockingly blasé and censorious about other peoples’ suffering and what they should do about it.
Thank you for your response, comrade. And thank you further for your honest criticism. I’m being honest too, so if I’m sound judgemental it’s my difficulty to empathize and arrogance speaking. I’m grateful for you pointing it out to me.
Do you have any loved ones that will miss you? If so, have you talked to them about your decision?