Sharing Our Successes
Using the Listings to Assist an Artist in Minnesota
Jon Katherine Martins of Emma Norton Services in St. Paul, Minnesota shared a beautiful success story:
My client is a visual artist. I have seen many marvelous examples of her work. Her dream is to have her own loft/studio in St. Paul, Minnesota where she can devote her life to making art. That dream has been illusive for her because of her mental illness, inability to work, and the experience of homelessness.
While working on her SOAR Social Security Disability (SSDI) application, she was reluctant to talk about the trauma she had experienced. She was quick to anger when she felt that I did not understand her mental illness and would often present with paranoia and a guarded reluctance to share any personal information. I also learned that she had periods when there where gaps in her memory, and that these gaps where filled by other personality states. In the course of our work together, I was introduced to and interacted with at least five distinct people.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) does not have a specific listing. In order to qualify, I concentrated on how her signs and symptoms, in her medical records, met or equaled the following listings:
- 12.04 Depressive, bipolar and related disorders
- 12.06 Anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders
- 12.08 Personality and impulse-control disorders
- 12.15 Trauma- and stressor-related disorders
I then related how her signs and symptoms impaired her functioning. I did this through the things my client said, my own observations, and those observations of other providers. In addition, because DID usually develops in response to a traumatic event or events and being mindful that stress could worsen her symptoms and cause greater problems with functioning, I developed as safe and as trusting an environment as I possibly could. The greatest compliment that she paid me was, "I trust you."
I received notice in May that my client was approved for SSDI. Because Social Security set her entitlement date in 2016, she has received back pay in an amount that is over $24,000. She will also receive over $1,400 each month. Using the SOAR process and all the SOAR tools that were at my disposal worked for this client. And through that process and those tools, her dream of a home to make art can come true.
Do you have a success story that you would like featured in a SOAR eNews? Use our new form (with easy-to-follow prompts!) to submit it to the SOAR TA Center!
