I do not say anything that I'm about to say to you to be harsh or mean, but I say this because I care about your wellbeing in life.
There are a few things you misunderstand about disability and how people are in life. It would be mean to not clarify them to you as clearly as possible. It's up to you to consider this information and input from everyone, or to continue to discard it.
I am incapable of doing something. That is exactly what the SSA was saying when they gave me my disability.
No. This is a completely incorrect understanding of what SSA evaluates. They basically evaluate if you can manage "sustained gainful employment" which by law means 40 hours a week of employment with the skills you have at this time, for a time period (I don't recall the exact time frame).
It is unlikely they awarded SSDI to you at your very young age unless you paid a lot of money into SSA through high paying employment prior to becoming disabled. You most likely have SSI, not SSDI. They are two different programs but the difference is irrelevant to my point.
Being awarded SSDI or SSI is NOT a declaration that you can't work at all, and will never be able to do so for the rest of your life. It is NOT an official declaration that you can not do anything at all now or ever again. That is not what SSA even evaluates.
That is what YOU have decided based on your self evaluation. Not SSA.
In fact, everyone who gets SSDI or SSI is given what is called a "Ticket to Work" - this allows people who are SMI and who also have severe physical disabilities to go to Voc Rehab or other agencies to get resources to gain greater employability. They help people train for other jobs people are able do that fit better with their very real disabilities. The idea is that while SSA may have deemed the person too disabled to be gainfully employed with current skills, that new skills will help the person find a line of work that does better fit their disability.
If SSA approval of disability means the person getting the disability can never do anything ever, then the entire Ticket To Work program that is helping many people on disability get an education and go back to different lines of work... is a complete sham.
One Ticket to Work program, called a PASS grant, actually doubles the disability award for people like me who have SSDI (or SSI) who are using the extra funds to pay for school and other things I need to be more employable. I'm considered to be SMI and I have a severe physical disability. (I'm going blind and have severe pain from the treatment for the eye disease.) They still are helping me train for other employment at great cost to SSA.
I do not know if I will ever be able to work again, but I am giving it my all to try and do what good I can with my life, even if I can not work.
No matter what, even if you are in a coma, SSA will re-evaluate your case ever 3-5 years. It is not a lifetime decision. They will re-evaluate your case and see if you continue to be unable to work 40 hours a week. They do this for every single person on SSI and SSDI.
You have been awarded SSDI or SSI, for now. Emphasizing your disability and how much you feel you can not do anything at all to everyone around you will not help you keep SSDI or SSI. It will actually make you look even more like you are malingering, i.e. exaggerating,
even if you are not malingering. This will destroy the credibility of your claims.
And second of all I would not make enough money to pay my bills if I worked part time and didn't have my SSDI anymore.
You can work part time while on SSI or SSDI and still keep the SSDI or SSI payments too. If you contact your local Vocational Rehabilitation department, they can explain this much better to you.
You do point out one of the things you feel you gain by not working on your recovery or your life: a way to pay your bills without doing anything at all.
That is a benefit you have. For now.
I am going to be staying on my SSDI for the rest of my life. My husband will be taking care of me and fortunately he is not abusive.
I understand that it is your goal to be on SSDI (or SSI) for the rest of your life. I have already addressed that SSA reevaluates cases every 3-5 years. Every single case. Your case will be reevaluated. It remains to be determined if they will continue to award you disability.
SSA may decline your disability in the future. They will want to review all your files. (Which goes back to how important it is for you to find a doctor who will put your legitimate confirmed diagnoses into your file.)
SSA will be more likely to terminate your SSI or SSDI in the future if they see a track record of you turning down every single treatment option given to you and your pattern of asking for diagnoses that your doctors do not agree to put down in your official medical records and files for SSA to review.
Additionally, the SSA system is projected to go completely bankrupt in 10-25 years. They are projected to have no money to pay out to anyone they deem too disabled to work. You are making claims that SSA will pay you disability for the next 60+ years when so many things could change over a lifetime.
I fear that your plan for survival will only lead to a return to homelessness because it depends so much on others and many variables that you can't control, and no action on the variables you can control.
As I stated I will have a husband to rely on.
Until he loses his job in the current economic downturn, gets sick, becomes disabled himself, passes away, etc etc. There is no guarantee he can sustain anyone for the next 60 years of your life, even if he wants to do so.
You started this thread basically venting that you are unhappy with others not supporting you enough and doing enough for you already. You can't change them.
If you keep doing what you are doing, you will continue to get the same outcomes. If you want different outcomes, you have to choose different options.
Since you show no desire for change, there really doesn't seem to be any point to this thread other than for you to vent about people acting in a manner consistent to how they have acted in the past. It stinks, but it is how it is. *People will not change unless they want to.*
You are posting on a forum of people who are generally working their asses off to do the very best they can with what they have. Some do not work, some do. If you keep posting all the reasons you absolutely can not do anything for yourself at all ever, then you will likely keep getting the same responses and encouragement until those who respond come to terms with the fact that you will not change your current choices in managing your very real disability until you are ready to do so.
And you are clearly not ready. It is what it is.
