SSDI Review--I'm already on SSDI--assigned to meet a Pdoc

Impy - sounds like the one i went through - i too have that issue of appearing ok and shiny on the outside. hated all those stupid "list back the 5 words i say" thing and math questions. i didn't get it thru him. he said see a medical doc. the med doc said i clearly had psych issues. wished they'd have gotten together. but i appealed it and got it.
sadly, sometimes it is just luck of the draw (now that I am thru, i know someone working for an ssdi attorney) - in some cases someone will walk in, tell the workers to randomly pick 12 files - then of those 12, the guy picks six from each worker and passes them without even looking at them, then say deny the rest (again without looking at them). i wish i were making this up - i felt enraged about it.
Keeping the faith for you impy! keep going with it, no matter what. get a good advocate - i did, and it made all the difference.

rofl.
mine asked me the date too - and the ONLY reason i knew it was because i'd been repeating it to myself since I'd gotten the letter telling me; i'd been spacing out so bad, each day I'd sworn I'd missed the apnt.

I wouldn't assume the T didn't know the meaning of the word. Did he say he didn't know what it meant? Even if he asked you what it meant, he still could have known what it meant. You might have helped your chances of passing the review if you came across as someone who feels superior to others by throwing out big words. Those issues can easily affect functioning in the world. I hope this isn't offending you, but I sense a lot of feelings of superiority in what you said and that it could be interpreted to your benefit rather than hurt you because of your "apparent" competence. I get that apparent competence can be very frustrating because it isn't always an indicator of our actual functioning. It sounds like this doctor gets that, which is good.

I am not on disability, so I could be wrong, but I think your chances of getting reapproved are better than if you weren't already on disability.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone.

What my T's would say is that in the aftermath I've let my anxiety get the best of me, hence focusing on the little "mental drills" and his comments about "it will probably hurt you......(that you do so well at explaining yourself and seeming so bright) instead of the bigger picture, which is that, as a few mentioned, in the end he did seem to understand me and recognize that maybe my performance in those ways didn't mean I don't suffer.

In working on my anxiety, we're going over how I grab onto anything negative--even a molehill--and make a mountain out of it, catastrophizing and obsessing about it despite what the big picture is. But I do worry, depending on what he put on paper about his interpretation, about the ways I came across as better than I really am due to some particularly high functioning parts of me. I have suffered impairment of my mental functioning, just not the kind that will affect such simple (to me) drills and brief questions. If I'd been asked deeper, more probing questions I would've displayed some of my impairment more clearly. Which is profound in intellectual ways. I thought about dumbing down my performance, trying to be more confused and less articulate, screwing up some of the number things and Presidents drill, but, as Perna stated, that's fraud, so I didn't.

I'm glad I gave him the spiel my T recommended I give about how I make a better first impression sometimes that belies my problems. It also occurred to me post-hoc that in the past 14 months, I've gone through so many mental health interview/assessments (before him 3 diff pdocs, 8 or 9 therapists, including the masters-levels ones as intakes for things last year) that I know what to say, how to explain myself well after all that practice. Wish I'd had the insight to make that point to him.

On the "avolitional" word use, I did that at my T's recommendation as a way to explain what was going on to the interviewer in a clear way. I didn't know the word 2 days earlier. And for whomever it was, a word isn't a "big" word when it's a common part of the lingua franca for the people involved. As Strunk and White would support, better to use one word than 20 to make the exact same point, which is why people use jargon or "big words" most of the time, and a pdoc should certainly be familiar with avolitional as a word common/concept to the profession. People call things "big words" to belittle when they're threatened by the use of it, and he certainly got caught flat-footed not knowing the meaning of it. The label he used to substitute for the word after I tried to explain is nearly the opposite conceptually in the use of it in the field. That suggestion of hers backfired.

Anyway, I am wary about what will happen for the general reason that out of all the assessments I've gone through, this was the least thorough and revealed less about my--positive and negative--of any I've EVER had in 25 years.

But hopefully, as it seems, he did express some understanding that the things that seemed impressive about me didn't necessarily speak so broadly and meaningfully to overshadow my struggling. There was some sympathy for me, too. I know I'll obsess over the few things, but working with my T's hopefully will help me worry less about them and focus on the forest.

Appreciate the feedback.

Impy - I am the same way; have good impressions that belie the truth. T says that to me a lot "In some areas, Kiya, you function far better than most - but then in other ways..." and she NEVER finishes that statement. *sigh*. Getting out in the world, daily living tasks, functioning in the business world without panic and anxiety attacks or reverting to age 8... but in a regular convo with someone - these things really don't show up, unless there is a trigger.
In my initial ssd psych panel, (he was an idiot, imho) it really didn't go well - and naturally i was denied like nearly everyone is the first time. Yours is far more important at this stage, i know. Do you have a rep?

Yes, yes, yes. I hear that a lot. The unexplained, "but......." He says I'm an outlier in being so extremely well-off with certain talents and abilities--including some coping/living skills, and then being so extremely bad-off in the way I get paralyzed by any conflict, stress, etc.

There's a term used for kids who are gifted intellectually yet have a learning disability. Something like "dual exceptional". That's the sort of dynamic that my T--and seemingly yours--are getting at. And together, they don't make sense to most observers.

I don't have a rep--yet, unless I have to start appealing things I guess.

oh yeah - the other thing you are supposed to do is to ask to continue to recieve your ssd benefits UNTIL the final decision. Evidently they can (and do) just stop giving them to you without warning! So, go call and find out!!!

yeah - I am still trying to make sense of this too... T (and my medical dr) keep saying things like "you're highly intelligent" - ??what?? highly intelligent people don't have problems or mental health issues?? I also keep thinking, if I were *that* intelligent, I wouldn't be in this situation (no life, no job, no ability to hold one down, tons of anxiety, DID...etc). But then T tells me (and books show) that DID is a highly creative coping/adaptive skill. T and GP say that if I could just get things together, one day I'll take off like nothing else. I wish they would speak in concrete terms. "get things together"!?! what does that mean?? I'm going to have to start using T Talk with them: "Tell me, T, what does that mean to you? Can you say more about that, T? Why don't you expand on that, T."
But she points out that I'm making straight A's in Grad School and graduating this May and "clearly excelling in some areas...." Which doesn't help when talking to SSD. (goes back to that whole ssd ppl can't be intelligent - wtf?!?) Just because I can read books, comprehend them, and spew out info doesn't mean i can function in the world as a "healthy adult". Just because I am mature, well groomed, and excelling in some areas doesn't really mean emotionally/mentally I am any older than the 16 yr old I feel like. I plateaued at that point, and haven't found the skill set to move forward. They wouldn't expect a 16 yr old to hold a 40 hour a week job, support themselves, and run a household. They ask how old I am, I tell them 33 - the body age. I know what name I am supposed to go by and what age I am supposed to say - but it doesn't MEAN anything to me. They sure don't ask that in their questions. I guess I should tell them more of what I *think and feel* rather than the everyday facts that ppl can ascertain for themselves.

Wow. I've never heard of this. I'll check into it.