Where do I go with this?

[starbunny]

My CPN who I have seen for the last ten years on and off has recently told me some stuff that's got me confused. She told me that she disagreed with the pdoc's diagnosis of bipolar and in all her years she has never seen anyone with bipolar behave like me. When questioned she said that people with bipolar are high functioning most of the time but for a few weeks every few years where they become manic, have no insight need hospitalisation and recover where they are fine again for a few years. As I struggle with around two mood shifts (seasonally) a year and function at a generally lower level but have some insight she totally disagrees with the diagnosis.She even implied I have a personality disorder because my mood problem was chronic.

She told me that she thinks that my problem is behavioural, that my mania is just excitment and lack of impulse control. She also said it is largely my own fault because I could calm down if I wanted and that I could easily excercise choice over my mood. She also told me straight several times that she outright did not believe me when I told her I rarely drunk, never did drugs and smoked very little, and told me that I spent all night surfing the net looking for illnesses and implied that I was making most of my symptoms up for attention.

I spent most of the last sessions disagreeing with her but this has become a regular thing now where she repeats the same old thing. She is the only CPN for the county but I feel I cannot work with someone who doesn't believe me. Every session I ask to see the pdoc but she tells me I don't need to see him. I so badly regret telling him I was cured and I was absolutely fine when my hypomania (excitement?) started this spring.
Do you think it would be a good idea once and for all to pay privately to see a pdoc and get a second opinion? Would my CPN/GP be able to find out I have done this? and could I travel out of county to be treated? as I really can't work with anyone who thinks I'm a fraud. Have any of you ever had the same kind of experience?

[starbunny]

Wow thanks for all your advice Xila, paranoid-cataclysm, adel_ezz ! I would have written sooner but for the fact that my laptop temporarily broke and that I had to attend a tribunal regarding my entitlement to sickness benefit last year.

I WON!! Yipee :-D the whole thing which should have lasted about an hour only lasted ten minutes before the decision was made to grant me my backpayments. I felt believed at last! I would advise anyone who has been wrongly refused welfare payments to do this as it is your right to recieve what you are entitled.

I think my situation also highlights how we don't all fit into neat little boxes regarding mental health labels and so forth. Whatever condition I struggle with it is improved by my mood stabiliser and AP and life would be very much more difficult without them. adel - we share so many similarities and every time you respond I learn something new. I will certainly read the post you mentioned.

I am switching GP for a start. A temporary GP who stayed in our town briefly to cover another GP who was ill then left :-( has started in one of the surrounding villages :-D. He was fantastic and so good to me. I'm sure If I spoke to him he could help me to sort out another opinion / therapist which would be a great start.

I actually feel quite bad for 'telling' on my CPN :-( but I really diddnt know where else to take my concerns which I felt safe - and here within this community is a place where I can really be 'myself'. She probably does not realise the way that she's coming accross, but you know when the same things gets repeated like that you know the relationship is heading for an end.

[adel_ezz]

strange i have the same experience with my pdoc. he says always i am like mercury changing all the time and not a classical BP type pt. Truly i think nobody knows anything,

however i happen in my good days a few weeks ago that i posted a message entitled " bipolar or no bipolar, it's the mania which counts" so really having a BPD along with BP or only BPD is not important. In my view there exists a category of human beings us within who can get manic and those we call having BP and try to make them avoid it as much as we can.

However i would take another opinion. I myself consulted all the bloody bunch of pdocs in cairo i can count thirty stupid <> ones and came to the conclusion that none of them convinces me he can be of help. Only that i kept seeing them in order to convince myself that i've done all my effort but in vain of course.

don't take on your nerves. one day you will open ytour eyes and find yourself very well then you perpetuate again and again. the french call it "folie circulaire" meaning cyclic madness.

fetch for another stupid one. who knows !!  

[Xila31]

If you switch to a new doctor and that doctor calls your old doctor and asks for records, then you don't need to sing the release. It is for continuity of care for if you are going a specialist or hospital, etc, and say, if they need lab results or whatever they request the information. However, if you are switching doctors and want to personally bring your records somewhere, then you have to sign a release. It is rather stupid, I know.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

That's weird, I always had to sign a release form for my records to be transferred between doctors.  Maybe it depends on the state or something.  I did not know in other places you didn't have to sign a release for other doctors to get your info.

[Xila31]

Oh wow, I would be so insulted and angry and not want to speak to that woman again. What a horrible attitude! She obviously does not understand bipolar at all. First off there are all types of cycling and even a long cycling person can end up having more cycles eventually or even become a rapid cycler. Has she never heard of rapid cycling? Also what does she mean everyone with bipolar is high functioning? If that is true then why is it that so many people become disabled by bipolar? That is idiot to say. They don't label something a disability if "everyone" is high functioning. And then also you are not just bipolar but also schizoaffective, right? So, why in the heck would she not think that maybe, just maybe, you are dealing with quite a bit more than just the "normal" bipolar issues....

And to suggest that you just surf the net finding symptoms is horrifying for a health care worker! Just me thinking about it makes me so mad.

Although paranoid_cataclysm is right about HIPAA protecting you in the USA, it does not protect you from other doctors. HIPAA protects you from solicitors and family/friends who you don't want knowing your business. Your personal health information (PHI) is shared between doctor and health insurance companies, and doctor to doctor when another doctor is taking over your care or consulting on your care. But regardless, I would not care if they knew I was seeing a new doctor. You do not deserve to be treated that way. As a patient you should fire your CPN, meaning you need to stop seeing her and file a formal complaint to her superiors about her treatment. She obviously does not know her job and her manner is horrible. If she is concerned about a patient's honesty, then she needs to have them consult with the psychiatrist and not pass out her random judgements on her own.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I would not listen to the CPN.  She would of insulted me greatly with her accusations if I were in your shoes.  It's not like everyone with the same mental illness has a cookie cutter clean cut version that is the same for everyone.  Mental illness is different for everyone.  I think they aren't even qualified to be diagnosing people at least in this country even though they have some knowledge of the mental illnesses and she shouldn't be keeping you from your psychiatrist if you want to see him.  This is the way things work in the US when they are in working order anyway.  If you psychiatrist was a good one he wouldn't of believed you were cured when you told him you were because in this day and age mental illness can't be cured yet.  I don't know if your country has laws like HIPAA but in this country they are forced to keep your information confidential unless you sign a release form for a specific person they want them to release your information to.  They have to do this with each and every person as well, you can't just sign a piece of paper saying they can release it to anyone and everyone.