Quote:
Originally Posted by LaborIntensive
One of the issues I have is not knowing the name of specific doctors and clinic names. Here is my issue in brief:
- Cannot hold a job, fired from almost 40 jobs in 25 years.
- Diagnosed with knees that have a birth defect leaving me in pain often.
- Very bad back but not diagnosed by doctor yet, always they put it off when I asked to have an MRI of my back done, instead they focused on my diet and weight control which failed miserably.
- Just saw the psychologist for the first time to do intake papers and testing but no diagnoses made yet.
This is what I have. I am at the point where work is destroying me in my mind. I life now without any self confidence or love of myself. This has caused me to become a hermit and I never go out. One, because of the emotional abuse and two, because I am always in debt (8k at the moment) from living on credit while unemployed then paying it off in time to lose my job again.
My psychologist gave me the impression that he thinks I am very smart and chose to work for jerks. But I know there must be more to it.
I wondered if I should just apply with no paperwork, get denied then try to get an attorney and gather my papers OR if I should get everything now and apply once I have all my papers and a psychological diagnosis.
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You have a decent case, but you have a huge problem because you have not established the right "paper trail" of treatment. It is obvious to me that you are seriously depressed. People with less mental impairment than you get approved for disability all the time. But you will get turned down because you haven't laid the foundation. You need to see a psychiatrist. Social Security pays much more attention to a psychiatrist than to a psychologist. They won't consider you to have a mental illness, if they don't see where you have been on psych medication. If you feel depressed, as you obviously do, then you have a right to be tried on an antidepressant mediation. Your regular doctor can order that. If it does't clear up your depression, you have a right to ask to see a psychiatrist.
If you've been fired from 40 jobs, it is very likely that your psychiatric condition is complicated and involves much more than depression. You need a shrink to figure all that out. The regular doctor can't and won't. The pdoc may eventually give you a bunch of psych diagnoses. Social Security won't care much about your application, until you've been given treatment for your psych issues and it turns out that the treatment doesn't fix you up to where you can work and hold a job.
Having physical problems will help your claim. Get the back problem diagnosed.
Stick with the psychologist, too. That psychologist doesn't think that your whole problem is that you worked for a bunch of jerks. Like you say, "there must be more to it." Social Security doesn't approve claims based on somebody losing jobs due to working for jerks. You have to convince them that you lost jobs because you have a lot of trouble coping in the workplace due to
you being both physically and mentally unwell. That doesn't make you a bad person. The smarter you are, the harder it is to get approved, so it doesn't help you for your psychologist to be evaluating you as smart.
Go ahead and call some of those disability law firms that you see on TV. They'll probably tell you to call them back after you get processed in by the psychologist and get on some psych medication. Tell the law firm about your back and knees. If your are very over-weight, that will help your claim.
Good luck.