[/B]What does 'dealing' mean in this context? And referring to the amount of 'difficulty' - are they asking whether or not you can successfully do it, or are they asking what it costs you emotionally? I have given hundreds of paid presentations from the American Psychiatric Association to the FBI to an infomercial I starred in. I am incredibly competent - but I'll go sit in a closet for two hours afterwards detoxing from the experience. The 'dealing with' is relatively seamless - I just put on the mask and press play. The emotional toll however, is stratospheric.

[I]We were told by his Pdoc that a fully healthy person is mentally adroit and can deal with people in most(if not all) settings work, shopping, bumping into someone and excusing themselves, business dealings, banking etc and be fine afterwards because the interactions should cause minimal stress and take no to very little mental/emotional toll. So I'd say that is a severe impairment. Yes you can do it but you pay out the wazoo for doing it[/I]

D4.2 Maintaining a friendship.

The section heading says, "dealing with people", in other words, people plural. I've had one friend in my life and I've maintained that for thirty years. She's my wife. I could write a lengthy explanation on this, but I think maybe my problem figuring out how to answer this is obvious. Part of me wants to answer 'none', because I have successfully done this - but part of me thinks I should answer 'severe' because versus a normal person, only ever having only one friend is abnormal.

Pdoc and doc told him that spouse/family do not count as friends. So if your wife is your only friendship then from the criteria that we were given that would be can't do.

D4.3 Getting along with people who are close to you.

Again, does one constitute 'people' - plural? In thirty years I have never had a fight with my wife, or even a serious disagreement. So 'none' if one person qualifies.

I'll be honest I don't remember covering this one with the docs but I'd say one person does not constitute getting along with people. Whether it's that you don't want to or can't it's the same thing IMHO.

D4.4 Making new friends.

I don't want new friends. I suppose I could do it easily if I wanted them...but is someone a friend if you have to detox from the time spent with them?

I agree with kecanoe even if it's just that you don't want to because of the emotional toll being around people takes I'd say that's a can't do.

Thanks to anyone who can help.