will i wake up, is it a dream i made up

[erika]

in the last two days:

• my psychiatrist put me on antipsychotics


• my therapist suggested I shouldn't be so worried about going to the hospital, like, just to take a vacation from my craziness


• Teyla scratched her stomach and acted like she was deathly ill, freaking me the fuck out


• they shut off my internet access because of file-sharing and I had to sign a form saying 'I am so so sorry I forgot I live in a police state, I will never do it again'


• my cousin and I had a fight, again, because he has no respect for anyone else


• to top it all off, today, I got a letter from the SSA stating they turned down my initial application for disability.

antipsychotics: because apparently I have severe depression with psychosis. All I need now is a manic episode and I could probably collect every other diagnosis in the DSM-IV.

hospital: are you fucking kidding me? They lock you fucking in. (To which my therapist says: Not if you can say you're not planning to kill yourself! Great. So I should voluntarily go somewhere where I have even less freedom than I have now... for them to ... make sure I do exactly what I'm doing now, i.e. eat meds, food, and wait for something to change—like the moon's phase or something—in hopes that my depression will recede.)

dog: I had to ask someone else to take care of her for the night because her pain was making me feel like the worst dog-owner in the world for not immediately taking her to the vet because she was acting like she was in shock. because she's a drama queen. possibly she may have learned this from me.

file sharing: see above re: police state. also I feel like a dumbass because I know I should've done something to get around it.

cousin: go sit around and watch TV/play computer games all day somewhere else. the one position in this family for a lazy ass has already been taken by me.

ssa app: I should've expected this but I really wasn't. After all the soul searching I had to do and the fact that it spurred a depressive episode just to fill out the fucking paperwork——they tell me I'm not crazy enough? Great.

Comments

[yirimyah.livejournal.com]

christ, don't take antipsychotics

[erika]

i'm on abilify. i seriously contemplated whether i was going to do it, but considering my other options... mood stabilizers OR amphetamine [still on the table! whee] or ECT... I chose the class of drug that was most likely to get rid of the ruminations and quasi-delusional thinking common to my particular brand of depression/anxiety.

[yirimyah.livejournal.com]

i would take mood stabilisers or amphetamines

[myparade.livejournal.com]

this is why i haven't bothered apping for disability either. i mentioned it to you i think how here in tx its based off if you have been hospitalized before. which makes all of those treatments and medications to keep me out of the hospital kind of pointless right? it just doesn't make any sense. shouldnt the responsible crazies be qualified also @_@

[erika]

yeah, they disqualified me because even though they don't think i could do the type of work i did before, i could do something very simple, like assembly line work.

and that's just bullshit. it's not going to happen, not with the social and emotional problems from the depression & anxiety. fuck theeeeeeem. i'm appealing.

my therapist also said "oh hey, also, not that this is a reason to do it but... if you go to the hospital it would make your application look better" which cracked me up because it's what i was thinking.

[myparade.livejournal.com]

how long have you been seeing your therapist and stuff? is there a lot of trust or is it one of those that you keep seeing every week cause if you cancel they charge you for the visit D: cause for mine the point for the last ten years or so has been to keep me OUT of the hospital, even at the points when i was begging for it so i could just live in a tiny room and not have to think (which seems bad logic cause im sure i would think even more)

my mom told me yesterday my ass is big so i should exercise to be less depressed. lets make a date an exercise to cheer up cause of big butts together!!

[erika]

Six months. This is a new therapist, my last therapist I'd been seeing for 2 1/2 years. I don't really ... she's not bad but I miss my old therapist, a lot.

Yeah, trust me, in the hospital there's nothing but time to think.


I love it when parents say shit that is totally detrimental. And by love I mean fucking hate.

[chanfaina.livejournal.com]

You might check with the local legal aid society to see if there is someone who can help you with the appeal. In addition to lending their legal expertise, they might also have funds to call an expert or two (your doctor, perhaps a vocational expert), write a letter brief to the admin judge in charge of the appeal (and maybe attach a declaration or two from the doctor/expert). If not, there are some books you can check out of the library to help you prepare your own appeal.

Sorry you have to go through this. In my (admittedly limited) experience, pretty much everyone gets denied at the first level, even people who quite obviously cannot work. I'm pretty sure they do this hoping that applicants will give up. Peristence and documentation are your best weapons.

[erika]

Yeah... next step is to call a lawyer. Apparently my therapist knows a good lawyer who deals with disability. I would love to save the money but without a lawyer I'm not sure I have the energy to take it far enough to actually get the money.

Also I've had another two psychiatrist appointments since I applied (because of a severe depressive episode), so hopefully updating the documentation will help.

My therapist & psychiatrist both said that only around 20-30% of the people they help apply get it on the first try, but for some reason I was being hopeful. Maybe I'll get it on the next appeal!

[platypus]

Initial disability applications almost always get denied, but like 2/3rds of appeals get approved. It's a fucked up system, but appeal may really be worthwhile. Hang in there.