Mentally Preparing For A Disability Appeals Hearing

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The appeals hearing coming up in a couple weeks leaves me conflicted. Winning validates the opinion of autism and disability experts who all claim I'm unfit for competitive employment. The thought of a judge discrediting those people is a happy one in my mind. It would give me a strong reason to get these mental health and disability people away from me.

Losing isolates me even more than I already am. My circle of people I associate with is extremely tiny. Lack of money means lack of socializing options. Admittedly, my social skills and social aptitude are pretty weak. Denial of that check would also be a showstopper with regard to my efforts to go back to school.

So that is that. You win by losing and lose by winning. Neither scenario thrills me. I don't know. Am I thinking of all this in the right way? Feel free to say my attitude about all this sucks if that's how you see it. I can take it.

Thank you, BeaArthur. Let me attempt to adjust my attitude.

For one, the road to hell is sometimes paved by well meaning people who both care and truly do know their domain. Let me emphasize. The people I would dearly love to get away from ARE GOOD PEOPLE who wanted to help me.

The psychiatrist who dumped me is a good person.

The BRS vocational person who early termed my vocational assessment is a good person.

There was a vocational assessor who tried to work with me and ultimately ended up writing in his report that I am unfit for "most competitive employment without serious intervention". He's a good dude too.

My therapist is also a nice guy who I can trust to speak his mind even if I don't agree.

All that being said, I can say with a straight face that my life would be better off without them. And it's not that they're bad or that I'm bad. I'm better off not being involved with gay rights groups anymore. I'm better off not being involved with a religious cult or any other religious organization for that matter. The world is full of good people who I'm better off staying away from. My suspicion is that the mental health community could well fall under that umbrella too.

So how did I do with the attitude adjustment thing. Did I do good?

It's all good. For the record, I'm not sure I know me that well either let alone whether or not I'm too disabled to work. I don't know what to tell a judge. Just the facts?

* I hid in a McDonalds bathroom on my first and only day because I was overwhelmed by the environment and the people in it.

* At a video store I worked in, I was in a confused tear filled panic struggling to find out where my "attitude" mannerisms were coming from that got me "this close to being fired".

* I was fired from a convenience store because I couldn't adjust to the change of working without the out-of-order cash register.

* I am the type who gets laid off because someone determined me to be "dead weight".

* I'm the kind of person who gets banned from a workplace for office behaviors that I'm too oblivious to be aware of.

* I scare people so much that they even go as far as being afraid of letting me box up my belongings at my desk.

* I take up hours of time from peers trying to explain verbally how to do things and then failing to perform anyways.

* I am the type of person where supervisors feel the need to warn my peers to keep communication to a minimum.

* I am a documented poor performer.

* I am documented as having a perception of work that is out of step with competitive employment unless I get some "serious help".

* BRS people only tolerate me being on a work assessment for one day before cutting off a paid vocational assessment.

Apparently, I'm a stiff, wimpy, creepy, poor performer that appears to be generally unwelcome in the workforce. Over the past 3 years or so, I've dealt with people in the mental health world who all believe I have HFA/Asperger Syndrome. I've spent over two years trying to get on disability on the advice of those people. I've also been largely socially isolated beyond my wife and mother-in-law.

That being all been considered, I still can't convince myself with a straight face that I'm actually disabled. I consider myself a decent enough programmer whose open to learning and working with the right kind of team. The Github repository, live web site, and blog all speak for themselves I'd like to think.

So yeah, I don't believe I'm disabled and, yet, I have to somehow convince get a judge to rule in favor of my social levels being disabling by ....... communicating a convincing case and getting him to like me?

I've had to deal with going through one of these without a lawyer. It failed miserably without enough evidence of being unable to work.

I suggest getting a disability appeals lawyer. Having one familiar with your case definitely can increase winning the appeal considerably.

It's tough...double tough if you're in the hidden valley. It's also tough because unless you fit classic autism, it's an invisible disability.

As for the ideals and such....you need it to survive. Without it, you cannot get certain services. I have been on disability before and i can tell you, it made a difference in my ability to progress when I was in recovery.

It is not shame, it is not validation of other people. It is just a recognition of your real and actual needs.

Good luck!!

The hearing is done. Here is what I can say about it.

First, I concur. Having the attorney is important. I'm glad I had mine with me.

Second, yes there is that "invisible disability" factor. In my case, the trick was to just be myself. It worked out for me. I show a lot more visible symptoms under conditions of extreme stress. There's a lot more "home-alone-hands-to-face" stimming. There's more stuttered sentence chunks in my speech.

And I kind of hated being "visible" like that. This was the sort of reaction I actually do have to stressful situations. However, I was also aware that my symptoms were being put on display. It was understandable why I was in this situation but also kind of humiliating. I felt like I was stripped naked in front of complete strangers.

I'm told the chances are better than not that I will win. He said I was being straight and sincere with people and it showed.

The one snag I can see there being is the lack of a psychiatrist in my life. Simply put, the quality of care I got from the psychiatric world was poor, drugs and all. The quality of care from a therapist who gets autism, on the other hand, was really good. So I found myself asking a judge to buy into two things. 1.) I'm too mentally disabled to work. 2.) The best provider of care for my disability comes from someone who isn't an MD and can't prescribe drugs. I can't imagine everyone would be willing to accept that.

So now is the waiting game as no decision was made on the spot. But such was my experience with this system and I thought this was interesting enough to share.