When I was healthy people who were supposed to help me when I was sick pretty much did. If I came down with something I just called the doctor, got an appointment, they asked questions, checked me out, probably prescribed something, I went on my merry way and got better. Never once was I treated with such incredible cruelty, suspicion, and indifference as I have since I’ve been severely ill. The time when I needed the help the most is when I was treated like a criminal, a drug seeker, a mental case, and in a startling number of instances less than human. That makes no sense! In the moment when you are desperate for our medical system to show a little humanity is the exact moment they suddenly turn into sociopaths.
Never has this been more evident than in my disability hearing today. Not only have I already been denied three times most likely because of my age and nothing more. Not only have I been fighting with the system for this for two and half years. Not only have I struggled with medical bills, doctors appointments, insurance companies, pharmacies, medications, side effects, on top of being sick. But it seems to me that everyone, EVERYONE has forgotten that I am NOT, in fact, asking for a hand out. I am asking for MY money back. Since the day I first started working this government has garnished my wages for social security and disability. I have worked from a very young age and believe me, if they just wanted to return to me the exact amount of money that they have taken from me over all of these years with the standard interest accrued over that time, because I am done giving this government zero percent loans, that would be perfectly fine with me. The truth is the government takes these taxes and hopes you die before you can get social security and makes it impossible to access disability, but let’s not wander into politics.
The hearing today was downright traumatic. My hearing was held in Nevada and I had Janice E. Shave for a judge and I have no idea if this is normal, but she was downright mean. She interrogated me, it should have been a darkened room with a single bright light shining right into my eyes. She could calmly unpack all of her torture devices while she asks me questions. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. She asked if I did my own laundry and I said no. She asked why not. I told her that lifting and bending are the most painful things you can do with a bad back. She asked if I changed my own bed. I said no. Why mot? Again, lifting and bending are the most painful things you can do with a bad back. Keep in mind that her voice was somehow consistently superior, suspicious, and scornful. As if it was a foregone conclusion that I was lying and I best come clean before things turned nasty. Next she asked if I drove. I told her that I drove to doctors appointments. She then asked how exactly it was that I couldn’t do laundry or change my bed, but I could drive myself to a doctors appointment. The tears started, but I explained that when you are chronically you have limited physical resources and life is all about choices. So if I have to choose between wearing dirty clothes and sleeping in dirty sheets and trying to get better, I going to try to get better. That was just the first five minutes, that hearing was the longest half hour of my life.
The good news is that their vocational expert said that there was no job that I could perform, skilled or unskilled, sedentary or not. Additionally, my lawyer said afterward that he doesn’t see how they could deny me and if they do they will appeal it immediately, which he explained is something they only do on winning cases. So, most likely I will get it. I won’t find out for one to two months. I just don’t understand why, when these people (doctors, insurances, pharmacies, disability) are supposedly in a helping profession they would compound the misery of being severely ill with cruelty?
Now I just need a lot of hugs to recover from that evil woman.
What a day!
Then Everything Changed 
Pingback: I Just Had My Disability Hearing and I’m Sending Them All My Future Therapy Bills | Then Everything Changed
I’m so sorry you had to go through this awful experience! There are some really terrible judges out there who think everyone is just a drug seeking malingerer. Please have a good cry, lick your wounds, re-group and re-appeal some how, some way. I’m sorry all I can send are lousy virtual hugs, but there you go. Better luck on all fronts.
I hate how nasty the system is for a lot of people who need disability. I know I’m super lucky in that I got mine on the first try- but then, I was almost 60. I know they instantly suspect younger people and it’s ridiculous. I’m sorry you had to deal with that woman and hope they can manage to let you know sooner than the 2 months; you’ve waiting long enough! {{{hugs}}}
Wow I am so sorry that happened. I need to apply for disablity but things like this make me scared. My dr said it would be cut and dry due to me being unable to walk or drive etc but you just never know. I hope you will get it without much more waiting.
Don’t be scared if your doctor is confident then you probably won’t have aa problem. You might get denied the first time but they do that hoping you’ll go away. Just appeal. Ihave my age working against me, I’m in my thirties, and the fact that according to them my major limiting factor is subjective. It’s pain, even though ihave proven nerve damage in my abdomen and aasimulator, also my back is a disaster, it does up on scans, but you can’t prove how much pain you are in. It’s avery beloved loop hole. One thing that really saved me is iI Had a functional capacity exam done with a physical therapist. They test all of your abilities, sitting, standing, walking, fine motor skills, balance, range of motion, everything then they write up a big report with all your limitations. When the judge asked the vocational expert what jobs icould do she rattled off ask all the limitations in that report. However it’s very expensive and of course insurance doesn’t cover it, so see if you can get through via application first and only do the fce if you have to go to trial. Also please start the process now it’s going to be nearly three years before iI have an answer and who knows, if I get it, how long before iactually see any money. I’m in dire straits. Also hhire a lawyer, they all have to take the same rate and it’s a percentage if you win. Otherwise they get nothing. The amount is federal law so just shop for agood one.
((((((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))))
How awful for you! I had no idea the system over there was just as crap 😦
I feel like it’s worse but that may be agrass is greener syndrome. I know every system has major problems but ours feels like it’s about ready to explode. I hope it does. Then we can start from scratch.
We’ve had government assessors ask people when they plan to die so they can cancel their benefits! I kid you not.
It’s farcical.
Oh man, I am SO sorry. I could not relate with your first paragraph more. It astounds me how people are about chronic illness. Sickening, really. My hearing should be finally coming up in the next months and I am scared.
So sorry to read about your experience at SS Hearing. I wrote about my negative trial experiences also, http://theiciexperience.blogspot.com/2010/11/ive-decided-to-write-about-my-social.html, and http://theiciexperience.blogspot.com/2011/02/social-security-administration-does-not.html. That was my second attempt at filing and I was denied. The table I made for the first blog post is gone with the state-of-the-art in blogging tools but I wrote the stats out in the second post. I have since had to file again and got a fully favorable decision in September 2015. Unfortunately I have been trying to work and not too successfully since surgery for endometriosis in 2001. So now my work record over the last ten years does not have enough work credits for me to get SSD, but I did get SSDI with Medicaid. Thank God. The public SSA ODAR data archives are here: https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/DataSets/archive/archive_data_reports.html#&ht=1. You strike me as a person who will know how or figure out how to calculate stats from this data if you want to, but let me know if you need help. I used Excel. You might be on the very cusp of Fiscal Year 2015 and FY 2016. They’ve gotten really good at keeping up with these numbers; they do them daily and have a running log of 2016 stats. It made me feel better to see what a scrooge of a judge I had compared to my 3 friends. If you need somebody to compare to, my data is your data. My judge’s name is Foerester and my hearing was in Savannah, GA on 8/30/15. My positive thoughts and fairness vibes are with you and Judge Shave.