Claim for disabilty.

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So we, me and my mom that is.... (mainly her) are attempting to file for disability on my behalf, due to my Aspergers.

((WARNING: Long scroll of text where I whine. Fell free to skip down to arrow))

We have gotten turned down twice already. They basically tell me there is SOME job out there I could do, but then offer no help whatsoever in attempting to obtain said jobs, or even telling me where said jobs are. I think in my case it is because I come across so, well... normal and intelligently.

That is only a very small snippet of me though. They don’t see the meltdowns and near panic attacks I have when forced to interact or how I break down so easily when yelled at. I wish they could come to my home and watch me for a week and actually SEE how I am. An hour is not enough to judge someone. I feel like an airplane with a faulty engine. On first appearances I appear normal, perhaps I can even get in the air for a short duration. Then suddenly, when you are just as starting to get comfortable, I falter and send everyone hurtling toward the ground to die in a firey crash of doom. </end melodramatics>

Currently, unless I was simply shoveling shot s**t in the sun all day(which I would jump at the chance to do if it was offered and I got paid), I don’t think I would be able to work.

It isn’t that I don’t want to work, as I do. I am often repulsed with my current self and my inability to do anything worthwhile. I can almost freak out when ordering a f*****g hamburger, or else wind up in tears from having to make a simple phone call. Even the thought of having to ask for a job makes me tear up up in simply contemplating the sheer thought of just asking.

I also feel I have the emotional and mental age of a twelve year old. I don’t feel like an adult, at least not now. I take a lot longer to mature then most. I feel I am slowly gettiong to where I should be... it is just taking me a long longer to get there.

Plus I don’t drive.... very huge phobia of mine. Hell, I’ll flinch up and cower when I am a passenger and a car passes us or else pulls out in traffic in front of. God knows what sort of basket case I’ll be behind the wheel.

I hope one day I will work, but at the moment unless a lot of help is offer it is doubtful

Anyways, enough of this train of pity, lets get off before we crash head long into self despair.


--->

The point of this rambling bit of nonsense is tomorrow I am getting another chance. We have filed again and tomorrow I am going for my appointment on my claim for disability. I am meeting with a doctor of sorts to see if I qualify yet again. (The letter was from South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department.)

I’m unsure of exactly what this entails, by my mom and I am are thinking it is some sort of examination on my mental state. I think last time I ended up doing various test… although that is has been so long along that might have been for something entirely different. The paper we received alerting us of this appointment said very little except to bring your glasses, hearing aide/etc.

So yea, my question to you all is have you ever been through something similar.. and if so can you tell what will happen in said appointment? (what they called it)

Last edited by McCann_Can_Triple on 04 Feb 2009, 12:51 pm, edited 3 times in total.

yea, good luck with that. You'll need it.

Thanks.

Let me share with you a couple of "tricks." One is, get your dr to re-write, "A high functioning autistic disorder" instead of AS on a letter or note for your file. This works better for SSI/SSDI than AS.

Get an attorney. Ask him to write an "on the record" statement. It can save you from going to court. Basically, he points out all the errors in the previous turn-down reports.

That is how I got my SSDI, a year and a half ago.

Here where I live it is very difficult to get disablity as a result of an AS diagnosis since in effect the state doesn't really care if you are almost nonfunctional in any particular job function so long as you can showup and standup. If you're symptoms are fairly well exhibited and you can act somewhat stupid you can usually get past the appeal of a case.
I personally think there is a heavy bias towards physical handicaps at least out here.

I haven't tried to get disability so I don't have any advice on that. I can relate to the phobia about driving as I have only recently faced my phobia of driving and I can still become a wreck behind the wheel. I am also painfully aware of the fact that anxiety can make working almost impossible. Have you tried applying at a retail store on a truck or stock team. I found this to be ideal for me for a while because I was allowed to zone out and focus on a physical task with absolutely minimal social interaction. The problem for me though was that my manager was a jerk and he started to constantly call me to the registers where my anxiety became a problem again. I loved the freight job but his doing so basically led to me having a breakdown and quitting. So I would suggest looking into a job where you can work in a warehouse without many people but do *not* get trained on the registers or they can call you there whenever they like.

Thanks for the advice guys as we will look into it. Sadly living in a small town and with my mom also on disability (bad back, plus other issues) it is hard for us to do a whole lot




So I had my meeting. It went… decent.

I first saw the doctor guy who asked me various questions about how I was feeling, to why I felt I couldn’t work and what I felt my problems where and why. He also asked me who the president was and what the year and month was. He saw me for fifteen minutes tops and then spoke with my mom.

As to how anyone could draw any such conclusion from that short duration is beyond me


However, he did say I was very anxious and likely suffered from mild to moderate Aspergers. He actually mentioned that my anxiety and not aspergers was likely causing a lot of my problems.

Then I saw this woman and was given various tests. I had to answer a sheet of math problems that started with 1+1 and went up to adding mixed fractions… which I had forgotten how to do. (It has been years since I’ve done the darn things)

I had to do these block things where I had to put them together to form a design. I failed horribly at that.

I was also asked various questions, such as who Martian Luther King jr was and what continent Brazil was in.. neither of which I could answer.

And I knew the answers to said questions. I was just went totally blank when asked. I couldn’t even name one continent at the time.>__<

Plus I had a hard time getting my thoughts out. With paper I could have done loads better, but having to speak out loud totally screwed me up. I was asked to define various words and I would KNOW what the words meant, but actually saying the definition out loud left me stumbling over my words.

I had to do other things such as answer math problems out loud, pronounce various words, find what was missing in a picture and put a sequence of pictures together so they made sense, tell how two various words went together and other things that have slipped my mind.

I will not know the result of the test/etc for a while sadly. I have a feeling though I will be turned down.

Sounds like a lot of stuff I had to do when I got expelled from school once.

I did really, really good on that test.

And then the social worker asked me the next day if I remembered smiling when the woman told me that, and I said "no"