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Disability Community @lemm.ee
dogerwaul @pawb.social

applied for disability due to mental illnesses... wish me luck, i guess

this is mostly intended as a vent post, but it's also a bit aimless and might contain questions anyone is more than welcome to answer.

i am 35 years old. i entered the American workforce at the age of 17 with my first job at an outdoor restaurant stand. over the next 18 years i will struggle to hold down a job for over a year. i am unable to function in the capitalist society i find myself trapped in.

every single job i have had since entering my 20s has gone horribly wrong. i'd find myself leaving my work area to have crying fits in the bathroom, anxiety attacks and depressive episodes would follow me all day, and i'd experience physical sensations as if my skin was crawling off my body telling me to remove myself from my environment and relax because i'm overwhelmed and stressed. jobs have tried to work with me by offering me unpaid time off to take care of my mental health, but when i inevitably come back the progress i made slowly fades away. i have had hospital stays and medication adjustments to no avail. i simply cannot reconcile my existence against the way our world operates.

capitalism and the profit-seekers of the world have made human life not worth living, imo. the point of life is to make it our own and these parasites have robbed the rest of us the ability to navigate consciousness freely. instead of organizing together as a community and assisting each other as needed, we enslave each other to a 9-hour, five day work week and compensate with barely fucking anything of value. then we all go into a ton of debt and never find peace, all while our corporate overlords usher in a technocratic fascist future to the benefit of fucking nobody other than themselves.

the depression, anxiety, panic, and fear i have felt for 18 years all stems from having my independence as a human being taken away and controlled. turns out, i can't fucking deal. and it feels like i am mocked for it by people who i would even consider friends. "it seems like you merely don't want to work, leander" is something i've heard before. trust me, i'd love to not have to worry about money and how i'm going to eat or afford to live. i promise if i could work i would just fucking do it.

i have been fired several times for taking too many days off, calling in, calling out, tardiness, etc.. just because getting out of bed is such a hurdle to overcome i simply cannot do it sometimes. i try, i always do, i promise i try my hardest to be what everyone wants me to be, but i can't do it reliably so can i get some fucking help, please?

i just want to not worry about being alive. give me federal money, i'll admit i'm a loser and a leech and a mooch and live my disabled ass away from good ol' exceptional America and her citizens. i'll live in the woods and only come out to go shopping. do we have a deal?

15 comments

  • I relate to this so much. not being able to operate in this bullshit system despite your best efforts. I'm still struggling just to complete the paperwork. it really seems like if you have an invisible disability it's impossible to get help sometimes.

    the worst part for me was finding a job I actually really enjoyed and was good at only to watch it slowly slip away under the crushing pressure of constantly having to perform and appear normal.

    second to last paragraph sound exactly like my experience. I'm so done with it all. thank you for taking the time to write all this, it's really validating to see someone else struggling with the same things.

    • i have struggled with understanding my "lack of drive" concerning employment ever since i became aware of my issues. i used to blame myself and think of myself as fundamentally broken or selfish and cruel. i'd think to myself "other people can do this, this is a normal expected thing, do it" without realizing that while performing labor is normal it isn't normal to be forced into working an excessively long schedule in order to remain alive. the problem i have isn't that i have to do things and i wish people who reject my limitation would understand that. i want what i do to fucking matter to the community i exist in. i want the one life i get to experience to be tilted more towards our individuality and not the demands of the oligarchy. i guess not being able to handle living in a fucking prison makes me "disabled." fine.

  • Well, you gotta know ahead of time, it's almost guaranteed you'll get denied and have to appeal. Likely, you'll have to follow the appeal process all the way to a hearing before a judge that will make the final decision.

    You're going to be sent to doctors that want to get their job done fast rather than well, and usually end up giving the least beneficial report possible.

    When it's a mental health thing, it is a grueling process, made more so by the fact of why you're applying in the first place. So you may well want to find a disability lawyer, despite the hassles and eventual cost. Even that doesn't guarantee success, but it can help

    • i'm ready to do whatever is asked barring anything associated with a cost like acquiring a lawyer, unfortunately. i have had the same doctor for the past 11 years and he encouraged me to try and apply. he can verify and vouch the many things i have tried and still struggle with, but.. idk the process, so i'm sure i'll be sent to specialists i have no rapport with. either way i'm at a loss here. this is a last resort. next step is more permanent.

      • Well, the thing with lawyers that specialize in this is that they pretty much exclusively work in contingency. They won't take the case unless they're confident they can see it through, and they only get paid at the end, and that will come from what you're paid out at that time.

        So, consulting one doesn't have a cost in the way that a lawyer usually does.

15 comments