My therapist told me I didn’t have impulse spending issues when manic because impulse spending is “taking out a loan and going into debt to buy a boat” and that’s when I realized that she has no concept of what spending $100 is to someone with $102 in their bank account.

It’s frustrating because I know I have impulse spending issues, I know I derive a temporary feel good burst from rampant consumerism and it hurts me when I spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need but I have compulsive and *impulsive* spending problems.

I’m not going to go into detail about my spending habits or some of the ridiculous things I’ve overdrafted my account for when having manic episodes because it’s not twitter’s business (and it’s embarrassing) but like... trust me. My spending was at the time out of control.

I presented this to her because I was begging for someone to help me stop compulsively and impulsively spending money on things. Right now it’s especially bad because I’m locked away and every shiny ad that comes up when I’m manic is like “damn, I could get that” *$5 in my bank*

I have an established trauma of being denied access to basic things I *needed* so I have literal resource issues and diminished impulse control. It was obvious what was happening especially when it caused blatant harm to me when I was *missing bills for fucks sake*.

However, I couldn’t address this with her because her view of impulse spending was so skewed towards a specific experience I don’t have. It was really harmful to me because when this conversation happened, I was still manic. In my mind it was her co-signing my spending habits.

Despite this, there was still a part of me that pushed back against it and said “but wait, this is hurting me and when I spend money I don’t have on x randomly, then y happens and my mental health worsens”. She, intentional or not, dismissed it and acted flippant.

To her, what I spent money on was just pennies. She did not understand the percentage of my income that was getting burnt up by impulse spending no matter how I tried to explain it and I ended up feeling like I was being unreasonable but also felt validated to keep doing it.

That same day I *literally* spent more money than I had to spend because I did not have the mental clarity to see that it was harmful and basically had the one person who could’ve said “that’s not a great idea” say instead “well, you’re not buying a boat, have at it”.

I’ve gotten a lot better since then but I had no other choice but to do the hard work on my own and wasn’t even given a chance to hash that out with my therapist or get her professional advice on how to move forward because I wasn’t buying enough for her to think it was an issue.

Wealth inequality makes it very difficult to find mental health care that can recognize your experiences and adjust accordingly when your financial situation impacts your mental health because of poverty. It completely diminishes the care received.

What’s so frustrating about this is I openly discussed why I was using that specific mental health service (couldn’t afford it elsewhere, didn’t have insurance also because I couldn’t afford it). There is an established baseline for where I was at and I was unheard at every turn.

I’ve said this before but again, capitalism is one of the biggest barriers to access to mental health care, not only because many of us can’t even afford it when we want and need it but also because the people meant to help us frequently don’t understand fundamental parts of us.