Disabled seems to have some new meaning!

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I am amazed at how many young, seemingly healthy 20somethings come in with medicare for insurance, since they have SSDI-completely disabled. From what I've seen with my friends and family, getting approved for disability is about as likely as winning the lottery on the way to pick up your Nobel Prize. Any tips? My bones are killing me. I can barely walk to my car after a 12hr shift. My personal med list is longer than any patient I've taken care of in the last year. What is the magic that gets these people approved? I'm not criticizing them, I'm envious. At the rate I'm going, my only hope it to end up in a permanently vegetative state long enough to draw my pension. Even then, I bet the government will declare my decomposing as proof that I am capability of gainful employment-as a flower pot.

Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.
I'm a little confused about you saying your envious of people being on disability? If you have two trained eyes and see that half (very consrvative estimate) of people on disability SHOULD NOT be on disability it does not make you envious, it makes you MAD! Why should I pay somebody to sit at home and abuse my money because they have a "ETOH" "Drug" or ADD ADHD problem?! Does not make any sense, people are again lazy and I should not pay somebody to have a nicer phone and car than me because they like to drink and do meth (but who knows I can be wrong). No lie, one time a patient came onto the floor and the physician asked what the patient did and the patient said "I am disabled" and he said "Why?". The words that came out of her mouth was "Umm, well, because I have anxiety". They use and abuse the system that is in place that is for the geniune people who need it (congenital birth defects, TBI's, and that sort). Not alcholics, meth abusers and people who have ADD, ADHD or anxiety problems.

Wow! In the first place, YOU are not paying for people on disability. Their money comes from them working & paying into Social Security. In the second place, who are you to judge whether someone's anxiety qualifies as a disability?

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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.
My mental picture of this made me literally "lol". May just be me...but what in the world is a "service cat"??

I am trying to picture exactly what "services" a cat could provide to someone other than companionship. I've never seen a cat on a leash leading someone or anything else that I'm aware service dogs usually do. Admittedly, I'm not a cat person and have little knowledge of the animal service industry, but I'm just baffled.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

I have 2 cats. The only service I've ever seen either of them do is help me type when I'm using the computer. They do so by walking on the keyboard. Let me tell you, they know some words I've never heard!

Seriously, though, I don't think there is such a thing as a service cat.

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Why don't you ask who THEIR Physician is.......*hint* *hint* *hint*

Totally off topic...but I just had to say that I love your user name! Creative :)

Okay, sorry. Back to the disability debate.......

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ADD and ADHD are not mild diagnoses. Some are mild cases. Some are not. And medication does not work for all of the sufferers.

thank you. from personal experience, non-stimulant medication was completely ineffective, i might as well have been taking a sugar pill. Stimulant meds brought severe side effects like rapid heartbeat, panic attacks, migraines, dizziness and fainting. I also went down to 75 lbs because while on these meds i would literally not feel hunger for 2-3 days at a time. (slightly disturbing that you can go to a doctor with a BMI of 16, and straight up tell him you're anorexic, and still be given stimulant meds!) Thank GOD all of these side effects and symptoms went away after i stopped taking ADD meds.

Could I have kept trying other meds like a guinea pig, hoping to magically find one that wouldn't knock me on my ass and make me feel like i was constantly having a heart attack? yeah i guess. but i'm not willing to do that, and i don't think that's unreasonable.

ugh. i wish there was some kind of way to make others experience what it's like to try to function with ADD/ADHD. You (general you) really don't get it unless you've experienced it yourself.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

As pointed out earlier, most people on disability aren't living high off the hog. How can one fully enjoy life on 700-1200 bucks a month when one can make triple that working? I don't know about everyone else, but I love my shopping, traveling and going out...disability wouldn't even begin to cover a middle-class standard of living known as the American dream.

As for the people who abuse the system, I don't hate them...I pity them. This world has so much to offer, I couldn't imagine a person voluntarily giving that up for a grand per month. As someone who has struggled with depression, severe anxiety, Borderline personality disorder and has been been hospitalized for suicide attempts and anxiety attacks, I know what it is like to be disabled, to not be able to function in society, and to have other people not get it. I am stable now, but I realize that many disabilities are permanent and that even in my medicated state I could relapse.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to voluntarily attach themselves to a label that is sadly very stigmatized in capitalistic America and further limit their opportunities in life. And for those who really do need it, get it. It is there for a reason.

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Just today our local news station ran a story about a disabled veteran who was upset over a mail carrier parking in a handicap space. I got the point of why he was upset-the space is for the disabled. But a LOT of other people didn't get it because of their perceived misused of handicapped placards and people who claim a disability when they don't look it.. Just because someone doesn't look disabled doesn't mean they are not.

I don't envy anyone who is on disability.

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This reminded me of something that happened to me a few years ago. I was out shopping and as I was getting out of my car I saw a police officer walking towards me. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I was parked in a handicapped spot and had a placard hanging from my mirror. The officer asks me if I am using "grandma or grandpa's" placard so I could park there.

It's none of his damn business why you have the placard. You applied and was approved for it. I would have gotten his name and badge number and reported him for harassing the disabled.

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You beat me to it.

The truly tragic part of this prediction, is those people who simply cannot work. I'm thinking more of the DD population and their families. The young people who live with their parents. Can you imagine the financial hardship on these families when SSI runs out?

A whole new segment of society will slide into poverty trying to provide for children who'll never grow up.

I have another neighbor who has a 19 year old son with a chromosome defect. She has been fighting for some time to receive benefits for him. He can't drive and probably can't work and probably will be institutionalized when she dies because he can't take care of himself.

My sister is mentally unfit and received SSDI. She truly is disabled from schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.

What will happen to people like this? People who truly need the money because they ARE unable to work. I'm not talking about my other neighbors I mentioned before-the one truck driver's daughter told me I should apply for disability. I told her why-I'm not disabled. I have my own business and work at home so I guess she thinks I have no income yet I do. When someone says that to me it makes me wonder how disabled her Mom really is.

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Specializes in SICU/CVICU.
It's none of his damn business why you have the placard. You applied and was approved for it. I would have gotten his name and badge number and reported him for harassing the disabled.

It is his business to find out if she was using someone else's placard. He did t ask why she had the placard, just was verifying that it was her placard. That hardly rises to the level of harassment.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

You need to retain a lawyer that specializes in SSDI. Sad but true.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.
I have 2 cats. The only service I've ever seen either of them do is help me type when I'm using the computer. They do so by walking on the keyboard. Let me tell you, they know some words I've never heard!

Seriously, though, I don't think there is such a thing as a service cat.

Companion animals for emotional stability. That is their service. No joke.

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Specializes in ER.

A She "trains" them to do things except in the videos she posted I didn't really see any "amazing training." Sometimes the cats would "stay" and sometimes "come" but it seemed more based on what it wanted to do.

Las for the gamestop comment, that is what she said about being the only place she "can" work besides writing a novel.

Could she get disability based on her mental issues? If she did, I'd respect her more than her trying to get it based off of her physical ailments. She complains constantly of hospitals and she is one of the frequent flyers who insist that there is something more wrong than a uti. She also will sometimes use a wheelchair and a walker.

She had expensive neurological testing for seizures and before the results came back, she was having "absent seizures" a few times a week and posting about it on Facebook. She stopped posting about having those "seizures" after the results came back normal.

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