Just finished grad school, meaning I no longer have student health insurance or free university counseling. Yay! I feel like I genuinely need to continue seeing a therapist, but I’m worried about whether I can afford it. I’m on my parents’ insurance, but that doesn’t mean anything since their deductible is $5000. After doing a LOT of research on therapists in my area, I found someone who meets my criteria (female, specializes in specific areas, can be reached without ubering) and went to a consultation. She’s really nice, easy to talk to, and has an approach to therapy that I like, but her sessions are $150. If I go for eleven weeks this semester, that’s $1650 that I’m paying out of pocket total.
There’s a chance I may get to teach an extra class this semester that would pay $2000 (I’m doing a teaching/writing fellowship at my university), and I have a few side gigs that will most likely bring in around $500 before the year is over. I pay $900 a month for rent with everything included and $45 for my phone bill. I also made an extra $2200 this year from writing contests. Due to this, I have a bit of extra money in my checking account (in total, I have around $10,000). After reasoning through this and doing a lot of math, I reasoned that I should be fine to go to therapy, at least for this semester. It’s just hard for me to get myself to spend that much money, because I keep thinking about how much I could save. I’m trying to think of it as an investment in my mental health.
If anyone has any advice, please let me know!
Edit: not sure if this matters, but I didn’t have to pay rent for June because I wasn’t there, and in the prior months my rent was $850.
Submitted September 13, 2019 at 11:05PM by the-secret-history https://ift.tt/2AiJJ1M
