I did my initial interview over the phone. I was a little nervous about that, but it went fine. They sent me information ahead of time about things they would ask me (doctor's names and contact information, names & contact info. for hospitals, medications I take, diagnoses I've been given.) They also asked some questions about jobs I'd had and what had happened with those.

They then ask your doctors for copies of your records.

The people doing all this work for Disability Determination Services in your state.

If they do deny your claim, try to keep in mind that it is totally impersonal. Someone who doesn't know you and has never talked to you looks at your medical records and compares those to their list of what impairments qualify for disability.

If they decide that yours don't, you will generally end up having to go to a judge hearing (this is an employee of the Social Security administration, not a regular court judge).

The judge is allowed to award disability even if you don't quite fit the rules for being disabled. For example, if you have 3 conditions and each one is not quite bad enough to qualify you for disability, but all three together make it impossible for you to work, the judge can declare you disabled for that reason.

The whole thing is a 3-step process, and you can be awarded disability at any step. Step 1 is the interview and doctors' records.

Step 2 usually involves sending you to see doctors (this can sometimes happen in Step 1 as well.) Step 2 is pretty much just like Step 1 - disability determination services gathers more medical information and takes another look at your claim.

Step 3 is the judge hearing.

If you get a letter saying that your application for disability has been denied at any step, appeal it. That usually means signing a form they enclose saying that you don't agree with the decision and returning it within a specified time period. If you don't appeal, the process will stop.

If you decide to do this, good luck to you. Having SSI income can help to take some of the stress off. If you become able to work or want to try to work in the future, there are rules in place that will let you do that.

I was just awarded SSI earlier this year. I was worried about doing the interview (I chose to do a phone interview rather than going in to my local Social Security office,) but the interviewer was very nice.

I don't know what to tell you about the likelihood of being approved. Based on you've said, I'd say you have a good chance, but it's impossible to say for sure.