I'm tired.

I want to start this post off by saying that I know that there are people who will read this and know that I am talking about them. I am not trying to start shit. I am not trying to be mean, or flippant, or whatever. I just need to vent, and it is meant at people in general and not necessarily anyone specific.

So, with that said...I am tired of being told that I am doing this to me. I am tired of hearing that I need to be in therapy. I KNOW this. I really do. But I don't have the money! The meds aren't making me all better, but they are having a more immediate impact on me than therapy would. And that is even if I find a good therapist to work with right away. Not to mention the fact that our insurance covers 20 (TWENTY) mental health visits per benefit year. This includes my pdoc appts as well as any counseling that I may go to. So, even if I come up with the $25/ visit copay I will end up having to pay full price after only a couple months, either with my therapist, or even worse... with my psychiatrist and most likely both. My current psychiatrist charges $180 for a 15 minute med management session. I was looking at therapists and the lowest that I saw was $80 a session. You do the math. This isn't something that's going to be fixed in 6 sessions. I say 6 because that was how many visits I had with my last official therapist before he said I was good enough and discontinued therapy. That was 2 years ago. I went back to him for a couple sessions about 6 months later because my life was in shambles, I was having an emotional affair on my husband because I was a WRECK and he just didn't "get it". I was LEAVING him, not to be with this other person, but because I needed to get OUT. Because I was destroying "us" I was. I was trying to hold it all together tho. We started marriage counseling and I continued living at home but was miserable because I didn't really want to be there. So, two weeks into the misery I saw my then tdoc.

And he says to me: If there weren't consequences, your husband didn't take your daughter from you, you didn't have to worry about whether you could afford to be on your own, what would you do?" I told him I would go home and pack my bags and move out that day. He told me, then, that's what I should do FOR ME. Forget my husband, forget my daughter, forget what this was doing to them and think about what it was doing to me and take care of what I needed, what I wanted. So, the next day, on my husband's birthday, I told him I was moving out. I had already made arrangements to stay with a friend. Because that's what my therapist suggested. And I LIKED him, my therapist that is. It helped to talk to him. But I am already selfish, but I live with a guilty conscience, and he basically showed me how to do what was right for ME. Be selfish, do what I need and damn the consequences.

I guess in a way I am afraid of that. I am afraid that my therapist is going to help me be selfish. In a perfect world our actions wouldn't affect anyone but ourselves. It's MY life, right? So, shouldn't I do what I need to to feel good about myself? So says the manic on a shopping spree spending the rent money on shoes. Shouldn't I be able to paint the walls red, regardless of the fact that there are other people in this house who hate it?

I don't know the answers. I know I am afraid. I am afraid that I will make poor choices. I am afraid that if I start counseling and it turns out that what I cherish most in this world (my family) is what is making me miserable. Then what? Leave? I can't change them, just like they can't change me. As much as I try to be, I am NOT the boss of them. I can't make their decisions for them, I can't MAKE them do anything regardless of how much I boss them around or yell. Ultimately, it is their choice.

I am not implying that my family is making me miserable because I'm fairly sure they're not. It's just that situation has already happened in the past. I left. I felt BETTER. But not so much better that I was ready to leave it all behind. I just needed breathing room. I don't feel suffocated by my family as I did then. I feel suffocated by me, by obligation. By the fact that my job was not-so-slowly literally driving me insane. Which wasn't hard to do because almost every job I've had has done that. It's just this job lasted longer because I knew we couldn't afford for me to NOT work. And instead, I had a breakdown. It has been 8 months. I am still not better. I panic even thinking about having to look for a job. Let alone, actually having to get one, and apply for one, and interview for one, and starting one. TERRIFIED. And not just because I have been home for the last 8 months because this was actually stronger 7 months ago when I first decided not to go back to my job. I look back at every job that I have had, and some of them were ok, but I couldn't go back to them. Because I look at ME in that job, and I was a liability. I was inconsistent, unreliable, late, called out at least once a week. And then just up and said "I'm quitting."

None of this was me standing in my way. Of course, I had my moments with each job, but for the most part I liked the job, but then something would happen and I would just LEAVE, or not show up or something. So I would get a new job, wash, rinse, repeat. A lot of time there was no reason for my leaving.

I will write more later too tired right now to think straight