Here's my latest update from my dreadful therapist who I need to keep seeing until my 6 month course is complete, in order to help me with my disability benefit appeal.

She asked for a review of her therapy and I said it hasn't helped me. She said my problems are poor health and lack of money, therapy can't fix that. (so it feels like she's just whiling her time away on a lost cause to get her paycheque). I said therapy can help with those, helping me get my benefits and reducing anxiety, getting food. She said that's not what therapy is for, and seemed annoyed. I said I thought we'd do deep dives, into my psyche to clear it out and reduce my depression, she said that won't benefit me because I'm still in the situation that is causing my depression. According to her, therapy is for helping you process a difficult experience once it is over, and not suitable for supporting you through a hard time. So again, seems like she's just wasting time to get her money rather than actually trying to help me. I told her I'd started therapy in good faith, expecting something deeper, but that's not happening so at the very least one benefit I can get from therapy is to be allowed to complete the course so the DWP don't use me quitting as ammunition to deny my benefit appeal.

Some people here recommended I speak to her about Maslow's hierarchy of needs - how can I concentrate on higher things like therapy when I'm struggling to get my basic needs met? She said then quit therapy. I said I can't, I need it for my benefits claim. She said that's not what therapy is for and it just went on and on, banging my head against a wall until I gave up.
I spoke about the fact that I see no way out other than suicide if I lose the benefit appeal, I've already made one suicide attempt (was in intensive care for 5 days) and have since made a suicide pact with someone to help me when the time comes. I would rather kill myself than be moved from shelter to shelter, or potentially be out on the streets, in winter, while having cancer treatment and recovering from a stroke. Therapy, surely, can help heal my suicidal ideation? She said no it can't because my suicidal ideation is triggered by external factors rather than mental illness. She said if I lose my benefit appeal she can give me some leaflets on accessing emergency shelters. That's all she had to say about that.

I told her more about my suicide pact, how I'd found someone on a suicide forum to help me this time as I failed trying on my own last time. I told her the method is planned out and the guy is trying to procure the equipment, each of us is just waiting to see how our situations pan out before we decide whether to go ahead with it. She just said, "Don't meet someone off the internet, he could be aremoved for all you know, he could hold you captive, it's dangerous." And that's all she had to say about that.

I can't afford for her to "fire" me, so I just said OK we'll do it your way, and we did more drawing with crayons and another crappy meditation. She got the crayons out and told me to draw whatever I'm feeling. I drew a rich man living in a castle with piles of money and food, while poor people in rags starve to death in the cold outside. This triggered another conversation about my benefit appeal. She asked how I feel about it, and I said it's horrible listening to society talk about how it's too easy to claim benefits, and how most benefit claimants are fraudsters, when actually it's very difficult with endless assessments and appeals. She then said "But some people really do scam the system, so you have to understand where the people who criticise benefit claimants and call them frauds are coming from." I reminded her of my serious illness and major disability and how difficult it has been for me to claim, and she spent several minutes defending people who call benefit claimants frauds because it's hard for working people to see their taxes go to people who pretend to be disabled just because they don't want to work. She seemed very much of the opinion that it's more important to prevent fraud even if it means genuinely disabled people will slip through the cracks.

We spoke more about my destitution and fear of homelessness and she said this isn't what therapy is for, she can refer me to shelters and debt crisis people but that's all. She said if the therapy isn't benefiting me she can refer me to free classes like art or meditation. I'm not sure how that's meant to help.

The meditation she did with me involves her telling me to breathe, roll my ankles, move my legs, turn my head this way and that, etc. And this time she scolded me because my left side wasn't keeping up with the right side. I said, "You do know I've had a stroke. My left side is affected and can't keep up with the right side. I've told you I've been having physiotherapy. What else can I do about it?" She said "Try harder." And seemed annoyed. She's never brought up the difference in my left and right sides in a meditation before, I think this time she was just picking on me out of annoyance at everything I'd said.

Because my physical health has worsened, she agreed we can cut the number of remaining sessions down even further, and just do the final one in January. However, she said if asked by the DWP she will tell them I haven't been to all the sessions, although she did at least say she'd acknowledge that it's because of a deterioration in my physical condition. I hope they won't use that against me.