Pookah's Psych Clear Saga: Part Three

Hey everyone! It's me, pre-op Pookah/Indra. :) This is a lengthy post.  If you make it to the end give yourself a pat on the back.

So today I went for my third attempt at getting my psych clearance. The first time was with the clinician at my bariactric surgeon's office. She said she would have cleared me if I didn't have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but as she has never seen a dissociative before, I needed to get my clearance with someone else.

My second appointment was with an unknown that happened to take my insurance. I got an approval but the first therapist wasn't happy with it because she didn't really go over my DID.

So today I had a third appointment with the same doctor, except she wasn't in. Instead I got the nurse practitioner, and man was I impressed with her questions! She asked about losing time, about self harm, about current issues.  She didn't seem fazed by my diagnosis at all. 

I told her I mostly loose time when I am in extreme pain and how I avoid it and deal with the switching if it happens.  (When I say extreme pain, I'm talking an 8 on a 1-10 pain scale)  I didn't get the all important clear by the end of my appointment.  She wants to talk to my pain management doctor and my old DID therapist.  Hopefully she can get a hold of the therapist.  He is a professor now, and I am not sure if that will be a problem with records.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. This is my last hurdle and then it gets sent to insurance!

I'm sorry you're having so much trouble getting clearance.  I guess I was lucky, I just had my psychiatrist that had been treating me for several years do my psych eval.  It was no problem.

Your former therapist should keep records for 10 years, I think.  Health care providers are required to keep them, by law, for a certain amount of time.  If he belonged to a group practice, or sold his practice to someone else, the records might be there instead of in his possession.  But they should be somewhere, if it's been less then 10 years.

Thanks for your reply.

I am a touch worried because I think its more like 11 or 12 years ago.  I haven't had much luck finding a therapist in the past few years.  It seems most of the ones that specialize in dissociative disorders don't take my insurance and many of them have moved to cash only.

I've tried a few times but I got tired of feeling like I was doing more to educate the therapist than I was receiving in counseling, if that makes sense.

After this psych clear is over, I'm thinking of asking the nurse practitioner if she is willing to counsel me or refer me to someone.  I trust her judgment.

I do think you are lucky to have a therapist you can work with.  Many of the good ones got spooked off with lawsuits etc.

I'm not in therapy currently but do still see a psychiatrist for meds.

I have never seen a therapist that specialized in DID.  I had a couple that had a fair amount of experience with the condition, and a couple that had very little experience with it.  One had a lot of experience with PTSD and the other was just a good therapist, and she was willing to learn. She asked if I could recommend a couple books for her, and I did, and she also found another therapist with more experience to consult with.

Of course, I've had a number of therapists that did not work out well, for whatever reason, that I didn't see for very long.