I should see if there are advocacy groups near me; I dread filling out those forms; it’s like willingly taking on another thing that makes it harder for me to get through the day.

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I shouldn’t talk about this, it makes me so angry in a very short time. And I work, I hate to think the effect it has on someone who can’t work due to their disability.

it is so dehumanizing to fill out the forms when you apply. and if you don’t catastrophize your life, they seem to invariably deny you benefits. i run a support group for people with one of my disabilities, and one of the women in the group right now is stuck in the extremely unfair position of trying to simultaneously prove that she isn’t able to work for disability, and prove that she is a capable parent in a custody battle with her emotionally abusive ex. and the disability people are perfectly capable of using the court case as evidence that she is lazy and lying. she is terrified the court situation will get hold of information about her hospitalizations, because of course it’s worse to be mentally ill than to be abusive. and the money she is spending on the court case makes it harder for her to provide for her child, when she is unable to work and receiving no assistance.

the lazy argument boggles my mind, because it is such an exhausting process to get disability. another member of my group got denied twice, and i think part of the reason was that she had such trouble filling out the paperwork. as rosemary mentioned, definitely a full-time job.

i never thought i’d thank my lucky stars for involuntary hospitalizations, which were a special kind of hell, but i have every reason to believe that they were why i was approved.
.-= myriad´s last blog ..not much. =-.

My therapist at the time told me that many people working on applying for disability ended up depressed because it does have such an impact on your mind to have to constantly focus on the negative. Having been through it with clients before, she knew I had to keep focusing on the negative in those forms, but she worked with me on focusing on the positive when not working on the forms. Talk about some cognitive dissonance.

Even now, I get reviews sent to me every few years and I have to adjust my thinking from trying to think positively and say things like “well, I can do this” and “my meds have helped me to do that better” and just go for the negative gusto – describe the worst days, the worst symptoms, the things I can’t do even on my best days, all of the reasons I am incapable of working, etc. I have to basically catastrophize my own life in order to continue to be eligible for the things that help me to live it. It’s a strange strange thing. And while reading my doctor’s reports on how disabled I am can feel bad, I’m grateful that he knows all the right words to put in those reports to make sure I continue getting the assistance I need.

So my message to you is – keep doing what you’re doing. Because that is what your clients need. It’s unfortunate that the system works that way, but as long as it does, it needs advocates like you to know how to go for all of the most tragic descriptions possible – and then be able to sit down and talk and laugh with the person as a real PERSON afterward, too.

I may not be able to remember to eat some days, but I also knit beautifully.
.-= thetroubleis´s last blog ..What It Is To Be A Monster =-.

i definitely agree that the problem is based on the definition of disability as a binary and as totally based on ability to work at the exclusion of any other areas of functioning. it’s also based on leaving decisions to judges who import a whole host of ableist assumptions with them, making them an intrinsic part of the decision-making. having someone’s financial survival dependent on an opinion of what people with disabilities can do based on stereotypes of course leads to outcomes that don’t make sense. i blame it partly on tradition – the regulations and definitions were created decades ago, based on their conceptions and models of disability at the time – and partly on morals and the concept of the ‘deserving poor’ that demands that anyone getting government assistance must either be totally functionless or a child. it’s a shame that this effort to ensure that “fakers” don’t scam the system and get benefits ends up depriving people of the benefits they need to live.

there are some provisions in both SSI and SSDI that allow for minimal work without losing benefit eligibility. they give a “trial period” so a person can attempt work without losing benefits, so if they can’t maintain it past a few months, they don’t have to reapply all over again. there are very very complicated requirements, though, and the programs are clearly based on the binary assumption that a person is either disabled, can’t work/earn enough to live on, and thus deserves benefits, or is not disabled, can work fine, and thus does not deserve benefits. i have seen some people be able to make good use of them, though. there’s more info on these work incentives at the SSA site.

Yep. I find, just in filling out forms about myself, I can be writing something entirely accurate and feel really bad about myself. Thanks for this.
.-= Chally´s last blog ..Peeling the sticky tape away from sex ed =-.

The Social Security Administration’s policies are the inevitable outcome of a disabling system, where disability is a binary, not a spectrum. Either we’re total wrecks or we should be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Are there any governmental support systems which permit us to work part-time, and also receive some benefits?
.-= Jesse the K´s last blog ..PSA: Don’t Tug the Magsafe from your Macbook =-.