My Support Forums - View Single Post - Advised to apply for SSDI by my doctor and very scared.

Nammu · 04:06 PM

Rose, please talk to your landlord about going month to month as you wait this out. In your heart of hearts you know he will not want to lose you. If you have that good of a deal it might be better keeping your apartment than not having it. Do consider Psych centrals fund drive here, I know I would contribute, you have been a support to me. Do not think lightly how good it has been to have positive and understanding feedback from you. I am sure that I am not alone in valuing your words of empathy and wisdom.

I wish there was more I could say, when it comes to SSDI I always feel like a fraud. I was 28 or 29, college educated, and I had always worked full time right up to the time it all fell apart. When I was pregnant I worked as a CNA in a good nursing home until my due date-then they sent me home for liability reasons, I'm sure you understand that.

All factors against me getting SSDI, I had DID, and PTSD(now changed to CPTSD), in a short time been hospitalized multiples times with serious suicide tries and I am by the federal standards deaf(I have never considered my Deafness a disability-they do) I only applied because both my Pdoc and my reg doc along with my T were constantly arguing with me about it I wanted to work and even I knew at that time I was unable to, but I wanted to anyway-I was in denial. I was slowing down treatment by going on about work, if I just got back to work it would all go away--but all my real job skills(art is not really a job skill, its a devotion for me) are with people. I told them I would only apply once and when SSDI turned me down they had to stop pestering me about it and accept the decision. I have a feeling that statement was used that in the letter the Pdoc wrote. I don't know what was said, I don't know what my precise disabilities were on the SSDI forms, at that time, it was pretty bad, I lost lots of time, dissociated days and months. I do not remember ever talking to any officials from SSDI, I'm not sure if I did, or had to. I was unable to keep food down, I was underweight. I suspect they may have put down anorexia too, but it was just anxiety, and PTSD, I jumped at every sound, I had also recently separated from an abusive husband but he kept finding me. The day I received the letter that not only had I been accepted I had been given long term disability they did not expect me to ever return to work, or get better. I was not yet 30. I tried SU that day, I felt I was being told my life was over.

I feel guilty when I hear how hard it is for other people who need it and deserve it. I don't remember filling out very many papers. I think the doctors did most of it once I agreed to try. I think it is horrible how many people who don't need it clog up the system and worse how many law firms like to drag it out so the first check is bigger and they get more. They do not seem to understand what it is like for those who have to live on nothing to endure uncertainties month after month. Living with the unknown is a far greater hardship than living with any known hardship. I have used up all my work trials plus 18 months extra I got for entering a study. Turns out they were right, I have never been able to keep a job, SSDI doesn't ever keep up with the economy and I have always wanted to go back to work, oddly no one has ever helped me get the jobs I had. Except one job, working for the state tax department that I received when I was "state committed"! I however talked them into a half way house, as the law states you must be placed in the least restrictive placement possible and I kept getting judged on my deafness, which has nothing to do with my disability. On paper it sounds like I am so low functioning I can barely tie my shoes, in person I am a force to contend with and have a large commanding vocabulary, most people do not know I'm deaf if I do not tell them. They think I'm ignoring them, or a snob, or many things. So no one ever thinks I need help. I have begged for help just to have a representative who would fight for me when things start going south, I am either so highly functioning I get no help, or they want to institutionalize me for life! All those jobs! IF I(and you!) had had the help they keep saying is out there. All we ever needed was someone to speak up when things got hard to perform and carry on. Just to give us a break and let us keep a job. Because like you when I'm doing well I do very good work. My employers love my work, I used to get promoted very quickly, now that I'm older, my age is suspicious but they still like my work ethic and values. Not having gotten off of SSDI in over 25 years while inflation has slowly put the necessities of life in USA out of my reach, I would not be able to live without food stamps, sec 8. Medicare and Medicaid. Where I live now a car is a necessity, but I cannot afford gas! I'm supposed to start out patient therapy next week 4 times a week, so I can avoid inpatient. Don't know how I am going to get there, though.

These things(food stamps, sec 8, Medicare, Medicaid) are begrudged to me by a great many vociferous people, publicly, to a great many more cheering public. Like you, I would passionately love to work, but those cheering people who also don't give us a chance to work can't seem to grasp that. There are countries where people with our disabilities are allowed to work, real jobs that fit their abilities when we are well and robust and given RX prescriptions for "rest, vacations" at resort like places when depression or CPTSD takes over. Imagine living in such an enlightened country where you and I could work, and when ill, be treated with dignity and humanity. I had found great volunteer work that helped, it fulfilled something, and when they saw me in an episode, I was "terminated" from a volunteer position! I hope when I come back in my next life it is not as a human, anything but a human. I value life but I'm tired.

Rose I understand your struggle and support you as I can though PC. Keep on going, we may not know all the answers in the infinity of the universe but I do know that you are a very good person. So many of those here at PC are exceptional people, and you truly are. Whatever help is out there you can find it until the SSDI is settled.