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Old Jun 13, 2025, 10:19 PM
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Grand Magnate
 
Member Since: Mar 2021
Location: California
Posts: 3,629
Major depression with psychotic symptoms
General Anxiety Disorder
PTSD
Borderline Personality Disorder

I do not want medications because they make me worse either physically, mentally, or both.

I am trying to get back into mental healthcare but when I try to figure out where I need to go .. my insurance asks me this question after I select behavioral healthcare.

"What are you looking for?"

***

Here are the mappings between the possible selections on your health insurance's website and your several diagnoses:

- stress and anxiety - possibly maps into PTSD on the ^ list if you go with the school of thought that considers PTSD an extreme anxiety manifestation, but not otherwise
- couples and family counseling - does not map into anything on the ^ list
- alcohol and drug use - does not map into anything on the ^ list
- mood - maps into Major depression with psychotic symptoms on the ^ list of your diagnoses, and given the presence of psychotic symptoms, it is probably the most serious of your conditions, so choosing mood (depression is a mood disorder) seems indeed the most appropriate for you
- memory - does not map into anything on the ^ list and you are probably way too young to need memory care, which is primarily for demented seniors; I am also not clear why memory is listed under psych care, since it is usually neuro and not psych care

So it seems that mood is the primary choice. If you select it, the next on the tree of choices is this list:

Professional social worker
Licensed Professional Counselor
Psychiatric Social Worker
Advanced Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
Clinical Psychology
Physician Assistant Behavioral

Of the above, you can select professions that do not prescribe medications, since you do not want to be medicated (I wonder if you have exhausted the list of psychopharmacological options, though, rather than are reacting to bad experiences with just a few medication trials you have been through). One such profession is Clinical Psychology.

An advantage of going to see a Clinical Psychologist is that this person would be knowledgeable in PTSD, GAD, and BPD care as well, and also, will be able to administer psychological testing to you, something that counselors and social workers are not qualified to do.

Do note that `stress and anxiety` is basically a way for clinicians to bill insurance for sessions with patients who do not have real (serious) diagnoses. It is a way to get paid by putting the diagnosis of `Anxiety response,` or maybe `Anxiety reaction` (I do not remember the exact wording), which is essentially nothing serious, a normal human response to stress. Given that you DO have serious diagnoses, it is not that a clinician would need to bend over backwards trying to find a category under which to bill your insurance for sessions. Hence, you do not need to select `stress and anxiety.`
__________________
Bipolar I w/psychotic features
Last inpatient stay in 2018

Lybalvi 10 mg
Naltrexone 75 mg


Gabapentin 1500 mg+Vitamin B-complex (against extrapyramidal side effects)

Long-term side effects from medications, some of them discontinued:
- Hypothyroidism
- Obesity BMI ~ 38
Hugs from:
Crypts_Of_The_Mind
Thanks for this!
Crypts_Of_The_Mind