No such thing as a free lunch?

There’s no such things as a free lunch they say…..well maybe not but today there was free therapy (with coffee to boot!)

Yep, you heard it right, today I went to therapy (one of three sessions in a week) and this one was without a fee.

Sounds great? Well yes of course great, we all like a deal and I had no idea that therapists also considered 3 for the price of 2 as a relevant pricing strategy! But, in all seriousness, this was a tough one to square in my head. I’m a businesswoman, a professional, someone who charges for her time and expects others to place a value on the expertise I bring. And, therefore, someone who expects to pay for the time and expertise I receive when I engage a professional. When I am in receipt of a service, I expect there to be an invoice.

More than this though I’m a person whose life’s path has left me with some gaping wounds, gaps in my ability to treat myself with kindness, love or respect and someone who is completely unable to have her emotional needs met or supported by another person without expecting heavy costs or consequences as a result. And so, for that reason the idea that anyone was prepared to sit with me, asking me what I needed, offering me safety and comfort for a time without needing, expecting or taking anything from me felt like a challenging concept.

When my therapist first suggested I might benefit from an extra session and that he was prepared to do so for nothing I was in the midst of an impressive display of self-hatred, acting out, throwing my toys out of the pram, and waving the ‘rescue me’ flag (without asking for what I actually needed obviously!)

I instantly said no, there was no way I could take someone’s time for free. It wasn’t fair and I was not deserving of it. I also didn’t want to feel like I’d accepted a ‘reward’ for the behaviour I was playing out.

Once I simmered down, got my feet back on the ground and (shock!) even managed a sensible calm conversation with my therapist about what was going on I took some time to reflect on the offer (I know it sounds almost like a logical and sensible idea). And the thinking and response went like this…. I always think in nice logical ordered points, not!

1. Blimey – even when I was at my worst, talking about self-harm, suicide, rejecting of support and ignoring requests for contact someone still cared enough to offer me more

2. He’s got it wrong – I am not worth this effort

3. I’ve conned him, I’ve made him think I’m a good person deserving of help. I’m in fact a terrible person for creating this illusion

4. But I do want someone because it’s bloody scary on my own with all this drama in my head

5. Maybe I could accept

6. No – behave like a grown-up

7. I don’t feel like a grown up, not always, not over a lot of this stuff

8. I want my dad, I want him to look after me

9. My dad would really want for me to accept being cared about and looked after now he can’t be here to do it

10. *lots of tears*

11. I said yes

12. I said thank you about a million times

And you know what, it felt good, it felt OK. As my therapist says a lot ‘nothing bad is happening’ and in fact I think maybe something really quite good might be happening.

Of course, at any point I may well stumble and fall backwards, reject the support, start over at number 1 (or find some negative numbers to regress further to) but for now I’m going to sit with the feeling that someone gave a shit and that felt pretty good.