I finally got a phonecall back from the CMS, but it wasn’t the phonecall I expected.

In the last appointment, C3 seemed like she understood what I meant and was happy to talk to her team about sorting out what I can do next. But the phonecall was a lot more negative.

Firstly, she said that she didn’t want to progress further as I only met some of the criteria and not others. Considering depersonalisation disorder (the closest thing I could see to my experiences, and what I wanted to focus on) is basically defined by experiencing depersonalisation that causes negative effects and isn’t caused by anything else – in other words, exactly what I experience, and what I tried to explain to her is probably the thing underlying everything else-  I don’t really see how she could have reached that conclusion.

Then she spent the next few minutes talking about a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis- which got mentioned once, by once person, at the most chaotic time I’ve ever been in. It only half-fit then, it’s even less close now, and I’m sure I mentioned that in the meeting.  Once I corrected her and said that BPD was something raised incorrectly, and was in no way something I thought was true or wanted to pursue, she went quiet.

Then she went back into talking about dissociation, and proceeded to make no sense because now she seemed to be talking about it from the perspective of me fitting the criteria, but her not wanting to officially say that.

Some “highlights” from the rest of that conversation;

… I don’t want to give you that label … have you thought about what effects it will have?

Surely the important part is whether it’s true, and whether it’s helpful, not what she thinks about it? It’s my effects to experience, not hers.

…Have you thought about what will happen if you go abroad?

Why is this even relevant to wanting things to be better now?

…You’re only a young girl, you’ve got your future ahead of you…

Yeah, and my future would be a hell of a lot easier if I had the chance to fix the stuff that could screw it up.

…I think the main thing is anxiety- I would say that you have an underlying anxiety disorder instead…

Even though I already explained that it’s dissociation/depersonalisation which usually causes anxiety, not the other way around?

Anxiety is something I’m familiar with, and I did mention anxiety stuff in the meeting. But it’s only high at the moment because of a) doing a master’s degree, and b) living opposite somewhere that keeps being broken into- both are fairly logical things to be anxious about.

…If I put down that it’s an anxiety disorder instead, people know how to react to that, it’s less severe…

I don’t think that I should have to give false answers just so other people don’t have to face something confusing- if anything, that will make things harder to explain to people.

I’m just going to leave on your notes that you’re vulnerable to stress…

That’s helpful <sarcasm>

 

I don’t get it.

Overall, she seemed to assume that because I’m not experiencing the same things as two years ago (i.e. having fairly interesting dissociative episodes where I did damaging things without remembering), that I’m fine. Things now are not the same as then, and I’m glad about that. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing I need to fix.

Either I was in an alternate universe or she wasn’t listening to a single thing I said.

So I was trying to explain things in the phonecall, trying to give her the correct information- now me trying to explain the truth and all the things that got left off my notes sounds like I’m lying.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry in my entire life, and I have no idea what to do now.

12 years of dealing with this, and she shuts down my chance of finding an answer in one phonecall…