Counselling Schmounselling
I am just being reassessed for my sexual abuse counselling funding as we speak, which I find quite difficult to deal with (no counselor in the mean-time.) New Zealand has an interesting system to say the least.
ACC funds most ‘accidental injury’ rehabilitation. This includes ‘mental injury’ suffered through sex abuse – in other words, you get public funding for your counselling, if you can prove you have an actual mental injury.
If this sounds too good to be true, it is.
ACC has a raft of confusing, technical rules & definitions that limit who can get help, for what, and for how long. They’ve just tightened up on them, too.
The worst bit, however, is that ACC legislation means that you cannot (that’s right, CANNOT EVER) sue the perpetrator of your abuse for counselling costs – it’s the payoff for having the system.
My counsellor warns me my new request for funding may get turned down. ACC may consider me to be ‘un-sick’ enough to stop. I may get asked to prove I have a psychiatric illness.
I have to weigh up my tactical response. If I say I’m not THAT nuts because of What Happened, they might cut me off. If I am brave enough to point out my eating disorders (a very common symptom of sex abuse, some counselors say ‘inevitable’) – then they might throw me onto the useless and downright scary mental health professionals round here (what a joke.) Probably some odd bloke with a bow tie, who will bill ACC $200 for staring out the window while I bare my deepest secrets for precisely one hour, when he will reach for the prescription pad.
You know what I get pissed off about? In the U.S. – I hear – you are allowed to bring a civil suit against the person who abused you for – I don’t know – mental injury? – it would be a real help here. The amount awarded is basically to cover your counselling (ie to ‘undo’ the harm he – yes it’s nearly always he, isn’t it – caused. I think that would be the most appropriate form of justice, I really do…show us the justice!
I know this man. He is swanning around, being a pillar of the community, living in a large house with several bathrooms and a tennis court and a swimming pool. He doesn’t have to get hysterical at small noises in the night, paranoid of strangers, gut wrenchingly fearful every time his kids leave his sight. He’s got it sweet.
Him going to jail – which is bound to NEVER happen anyway, although I’m doing my best – doesn’t really help anybody, does it?!
. But you aren’t allowed to do that here as ACC covers (ha!! HA HA) mental injury blah blah…and you can’t sue for costs that ACC covers. If there was any proof that big socialism doesn’t really work for individuals, that’s it.
And my challenge (like everyone else!) is to not care about ‘who knows’ and just trust myself to be the way I want, so I like myself, and then wait & see if anyone else likes it. I am very bad at this, having spent a long time thinking other people’s opinions matter too much…..but I’m giving it a go.
Is very hard though.