One thing it is important to know is that if you choose to file yourself you do not have to gather your medical records yourself. Social security will do that. You just have to give them the information about any records that exist, as far back as they will let you, especially if it related to your disability/ies. This took quite a bit of organization and note-taking on my part but I was able to pull together everything I needed for them with some effort. At the time I was filing I needed things to keep my mind off of everything and so I found it helpful to sit with a notebook and try to remember any dr I had seen and approximately when. (I also did not have that many drs on my list as I've seen most of the drs. I see now for at least 10 years. It also helped that my pdoc is part of the hospital system where I go IP so those were not separate records).

I was able to do mine myself and was approved in 11 weeks I think. I had a few things that helped with that: I filled out government evaluations for a living and so knew how to do it so that my illness was emphasized over what I could do. But I had decided to do step one myself and then hire an attorney if I failed. I'm glad I did it that way but I do think it is not for everyone. The forms have to be filled out from a specific view emphasizing what you can't do and what is very hard for you and how you manage to do things that are hard. You have to manage to organize in a fairly short time period all those medical record information they will need, etc. But it did work out for me.