Just Applied for SSDI

I'm 38 years old, diagnosed with GAD, depression, PTSD & BPD. All my life I have tried really hard to work a regular job and be normal. I was able to for a few years until my marriage fell apart, my grandma died, and my family turned against me all at the same time. This was in 2012. Since then, I have not held a job for longer than six months. I am currently working from home as a self-employed person but I don't make enough to pay bills.

I just finished my application for disability today. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've heard that they deny everyone the first time, and that you have to get a lawyer and appeal it and it can take a year or longer to get it. I'm prepared for that, and I'm doing this because it is my last resort. If I knew I could go get a job and be able to keep it, I would.

I would start thinking now about which attorney you want to represent you. They usually offer a free consultation. It would be good to get their opinion about whether the at-home work you're doing now (assuming it's "over-the-table" and taxed) will affect your efforts to be approved for disability benefits. They can probably also tell you about how long it's taking in your area for cases to come up before a judge for a hearing.

There are two approval/denial stages before the judge hearing.

You sound like you're mentally prepared for the process and it's great that you've already done your application.

It's good that you're eligible for SSDI because it gives you much more flexibility to do work trials in the future.

Best of luck to you.

I won the first time around without an attorney. It happens. A lot more than people think. They don't automatically deny anyone. You may get approved. Wait and see what happens before consulting an attorney.

Make some phone calls to those law firms that specialize in helping people get disability. They advertise on TV and on the Internet. Call a few of them. It will cost you nothing. Believe me, you will get responses quite soon from just about any of them. The person who returns your call will most likely be a paralegal, though some lawyers will actually call you, themselves. For this you pay nothing. And you will learn a few things, without having made any commitment to any of them.

You can learn from the questions that they will ask you, what questions are important to the Social Security Administration. #1) Do you have a doctor who is supportive of you applying for SSDI/SSI? #2) Are you on medication? #3) Have you failed at jobs?

I found pretty much all of them quite nice to talk to. They are all looking for more clients and they can't charge anything, until they win your case for you. (There's some exceptions to that, but you will be informed of that before you get a bill.) If they think you have a pretty good case, they will be chomping at the bit to represent you . . . which you can accept, or decline, as you choose. If they don't think you can win, then they will indicate that they have misgivings about your chances. They are experts at knowing who is, or is not, likely to get approved. So just getting some feedback from them can tell you a lot about where you stand.

Personally, I would advise getting a lawyer on board your case before you apply. A lawyer might help you avoid making some mistakes that could be hard to correct down the line. In any case, get a book on the subject written by a lawyer. Also, wants videos on YouTube about the process. There's plenty of info out there that is very good to know.

Who gets approved the quickest isn't based on who deserves it the most. It's based on whose application shows the best preparation and best meets their criteria. You need a lawyer to explain that to you, whether by book, by video, or in person.

I got approved within a few months, partly due to the homework I did ahead of time and to the law firm getting all my medical records collected and turned in. The law firm ended up getting no fee for their services to me because my case went through so quick that there were no back benefits accrued. They were fine with that.

There are also non-attorney representatives who can help you. I approached one of those and ended up a bit turned off. I'm glad I didn't follow their advice. One piece of advice they gave, which I did follow. Tell the SSA that you do not communicate via e-mail. I would avoid submitting anything on-line. Fill stuff out by hand and mail via snail mail. Use a method at the post office that gives you some verification of when you submitted stuff. Let the law office take care of getting your doctors to submit medical records. They know what those records need to contain. They have clerks who do nothing but pester docs and hospitals till they get everything they need.

A history of job failures can work in your favor, but you need to know how to explain that in the right way. A lawyer can't actually tell you to give up any job you are currently doing, but I would strongly advise that you do not have a job of any kind at the time that you apply.

No one gets automatically denied the first time. Lots of people do get denied the first time, even though they have valid claims, because they did not understand what evidence of unemployability the SSA needs to see. Often they innocently made statements that undermined their application, out of ignorance of what the process is about.

The SSA doesn't care how sick you are. They only care about how your illness interferes with you working. It can be all a matter of how you explain yourself. That's where legal advise, in my opinion, is essential . . . even if you just get it from books.

Good advice, Rose!
I'm currently in the second appeal process. I was turned down even though my psychiatrist outlined my issues and told the SSA that I experience psychosis with hallucinations.
They sent me to their own pdoc who told me straight out that I had so many issues it would be difficult for me to hold a job.
On top of the mental problems, I have a list of physical problems. But still, the SSA determined that I could work some sort of job.

Who wants to be my co-worker when I start hallucinating? Smh.

The SSA will send you to a psychiatrist of their own choosing, who is on contract to do assessments for them. I thought that pdoc would be the "devil's advocate" looking to cast doubt on my claim. Like Disorder, I found the pdoc they sent me too very supportive, much to my surprise.

As I was leaving the office of the pdoc working for the government, that pdoc said, "I'm going to do my best for you." I never expected that. So the process can play out very different from how you might expect.

(((((freespirit))))))) hope things work out.

Most of my experiences have been that applicants get denied the first time as a triage mechanism to see who is really serious about their claim. Most of the clients I have worked with have waited 1-2 years to get benefits. Having a lawyer might be a good idea even if you need to pay them a percentage as the process is cumbersome and exhausting and having an advocate who can help with the paperwork might make it a good investment.

That's what people tend to believe. Perhaps, there is some truth in that. To do that would actually be illegal. Plus, how do you explain the considerable number of persons, like myself, who do get approved right away?

I really don't consider my own barriers to employment to be among the most serious that the SSA sees on a daily basis. I don't have one of the conditions, like end stage renal failure, that tends to get one approved automatically. I happened to have a very extensive paper trail, due to years of diligently seeking the best treatment I could find. (That included paying for a lot of help out of my pocket during times when I didn't happen to have insurance.) Secondly, I studied hard what the SSA needs to see to approve a claim and was very careful getting that relfected in the paperwork. Some things I delegated to the law firm, like rounding up medical records. Some things I would not trust anyone to do but myself, like filling out that 13 page questionnaire about my job history and daily life.

I knew that most work in the early stages is done, not by attorneys, but by clerks in the office. Somethings I knew I would do better at than would a clerk. Plus, I went to the law firm's website's client portal to check on anything that the clerks did. Then I would correct their work where necessary, which was needed when they did not taken down addresses correctly that I gave them over the phone.

I think most claims get denied due to lay people just not understanding what they need to do. Without some legal advice, I doubt anyone, no matter how educated or how careful, will know really what to do. People, I believe, think they can rely on their doctors to get them through the process. That is not a physician's job, and no doctor is going to make it his, or her, job.

Going about this on your own, IMHO, is like trying to do a complicated tax return without the help of a tax professional. It is a very special, and unusual, person who can cope with that.

25% of applicants are approved on the first try.

You hardly ever hear about them because the other 75% gets on the internet and complains to high heaven. I have been called a liar by people who actually believe that everyone is denied on the first try!

I was lucky to be approved on the first try. I had 20+ years of medical records dating back to childhood and a number of major hospitalizations. I was unavailable for an interview so everything was done via paperwork. I was approved in about 5 months.