A Blessing for my Therapist

That's amazing! I hope he is able to give you the support you need. I can tell from reading your posts on here that you're an upstanding person and you deserve nothing but the best of happiness and inner peace.

And to everyone else on here considering therapy: it's scary, but make that phone call and schedule that appointment.

 

Thanks for your honesty. I just had session 3 last week.

Our stories are different, but sure enough they intersect here and there. It sounds like you like and trust this therapist. Therefore, you're blessed, as well. I will say this - take it slow. Don't make this a tea bag that you pull out as soon as the hot water in the cup gets enough color. Let it steep. I mean, allow time for thorough analysis. I plan to take my time, though the beginning of the next year will see higher co-pays for this line of service, so I'm seeing him weekly through 12/31. I was told that I could call him on boundary trespasses, and that he would do the same to me. You should discuss boundaries. You should also discuss goals, though not repeating the past sounds like it's one of your major goals. A productive therapeutic relationship is both trying, because it's work, and a relief.

 

I wish you a great adventure with your therapist... and that you find in your therapy all you need to make life's adventure deeply satisfying, and (after Stevens) that you may find yourself ever "more truly and more strange"
Harold Bloom Recites ‘Tea at the Palaz of Hoon’ by Wallace Stevens | Open Culture

 

Pro bono? Wow! I don't suppose this therapist would like to move to my area!?!

I considered therapy last spring, until I bravely faced pricing reality in my area. (Question to Therapists: "How much do you charge? I'll be paying cash; no insurance involved." Answer to Me was basically: I'll financially rape you for one-hundred dollars-plus per hour! Have a nice day!). In time, I decided I'll just go on suffering for free...

---------- Post added 27th Nov 2013 at 12:06 AM ----------

I think this question is well worth asking.

I have a church sermon on tape (remember tape?!?) which brought up an interesting thought that has stuck with me. Life often seems like a TV show that is new, but beneath the "newness" is something we've seen before. All that has changed is the surface appearances. But the core situation remains the same with the same problems, situations, etc. coming up again and again. And the only way to break this rerun is changing ourselves...

 

Depends on how "plus." $100 per hour is fairly reasonable, in 2013. In major urban areas, it's a lot more. Those in training may charge less, like $70 or $80, but between their lack of experience and typical age gap, I'm not comfortable with that. I had a therapist like that, and I got very little out of that year with him. He did not challenge me at all nor did he help me work on key issues. He was the epitome of "rent a friend." Nice guy, though.

 

$100+/session is the going rate in my area from what I can see. (I can't remember how much "+", but all quotes were over $100, but well under $200.)

My "therapist line" of "I'll financially reap you" was probably unfair. But...and this is probably a little childish...it is how I felt, given my cash flow situation.

Being realistic, the therapy rate is what it is. And the fact that one therapist was booked solid for a month suggests that that therapist is competitive for the market.

Also being realistic: that is too much money for my current cash flow. So I simply do without.

 

Many do. When I've gotten decent rates in the past, I've paid on my own. I didn't like that there would be a linkage to my MD.

My current therapist says that it's coordinated because of the insurance and possible updates in regulations, but that the communication is very generic and boilerplate, unless something organic or eye-opening needs to be communicated. That's fine with me. I don't know about you, but I've found few physicians I like, because they care more about money, maintaining 15 minute patient intervals, and their golf membership (more so for the men) than about patient care. That's what I sense, and I am a fairly low maintenance patient in most cases. One doctor said "oh, you're not a frequent flyer," which I guess was a compliment.

 

We aren't certified but you have to admit that talking to us here is priced right. Of course, there is always the possibility that we are worth exactly what we cost. :icon_wink

 

I am hoping to discover with my present therapist that I was always homosexual. I found him in an LGBT referral service and he offered me a sliding scale. In some ways he has built his practice on faith qualifying as a theologian. We all have to bless those who support our interests, and those who are understanding of our being diverse, unique and having characteristics that are of value to other LGBT individuals who we may come to know.

 

Ha. As the expression goes "Friends are cheaper than therapy."

With that, Happy Thanksgiving!

 

GW... this idea that gay men who choose to marry women suffer from a character flaw is something I think about a lot. Even among our age group (and older) there were plenty of gay guys who didn't give in to the social pressure to marry. So what does it say about those of us who did? It's a difficult question to face and I hope your therapist can help you answer it. I'll explore it with my own therapist and maybe we can compare notes.

Regarding the cost of therapy... many cities have community counseling centers that offer free or low-cost therapy. There's even one in my town, which is no major urban center. Try googling your city name and "free counseling" or "community counseling". Of course if you live in one of those commie European countries or Canada, you're home free (kidding). Hope you non-Americans are enjoying our pathetic political drama over trying to get the most basic health care implemented in this country.

 

Spaceman, it wasn't all just about the courage to swim against the tide, it was also about understanding which direction you needed to go, when there were no clear directional signs and literally no one else swimming the direction you actually needed to go. When I look at just this forum, and the communications going on, and the help being voluntarily offered here to youths (anonymously for them as well as us), the difference between today and the 1950s is staggering, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The legal and workplace protections falling into place, the social acceptance maturing, the media support of movies like "Prayers for Bobby" or "Latter Days", the pride parades and political support outside the Bible belt, and even inside it in larger cities. This is a whole different world from what I grew up in in the 1950s and '60s, in every way for people in progressive countries.

Consider what we say to people in countries in Africa. "Be careful, don't risk being killed, don't risk being shunned by your family, don't get thrown out of your church or school, try not to get arrested and beaten or raped in jail." All of this same stuff is what was going on here 60 years ago in a large part of this country. I blame no gay person, including myself, for the lives we ended up leading; they were a product of our times, as were we. This is one reason I am here trying to make "it get better" for others. We are the force of change, one person at a time, one small problem at a time, one person helped to get by day by day, while we work on ourselves trying to straighten (no pun intended) our own lives out. NONE of this existed in 1960, when I might have been a candidate to come out; I don't think the term "come out" even existed; I didn't even know that I was "in". Just confused and unable to understand what I was feeling. I applaud the people for whom it was clearer and who dared to swim against the tide I didn't even know I was in. But, I can't rewrite history and say the choices were clearly there but just not taken.

 

I need to weigh in on this issue. My guilt and my shame is that I feel very strongly that I used my wife as a means to have a "normal" life and kids, live in a nice house in the suburbs, etc. I feel so certain my awareness of what I was doing was just beneath the surface. I definitely had a shadow of a sense that I was engaging in dishonorable, reprehensible, manipulation because I wanted what I wanted. So now I pay the price. I always knew who I was. My denial was very shallow. Sorry for the negativity but it's the truth.

Regarding therapy. I've hardly ever been without it. It's hardly ever really helped me. There are many well meaning but less than competent people out there. In the New York area it would be impossible to get an experienced therapist for less than $150 hour and that would be cheap.

 

I agree with greatwhale. There is no single simple explanation which covers everybody. We are all totally different individuals .. exactly like everybody else is.

 

GW Said :

Fact is, there were reasons to enter into this arrangement, one which involves (at the very least) two people. Let's assume that the soon-to-be-wife felt that something was not quite right (as most of the research on this topic suggests) then what was her role in that decision? I am not absolving myself of the blame by asking this, but it takes two to enter into a marriage; most do so with their eyes wide open.


Although my wife never asked me if I was gay or questioned my sexuality before I came out to her she did once say “I wouldn’t have married you if you were the typical beer swilling sports fan who sits in all weekend watching football etc. on the TV”. I recon deep down inside she knew before I did that I was gay, I was someone she felt safe with.

Sale Gay Guy