Tag: disability

And Submerging Again

I think I probably haven’t mentioned this anywhere else – after something like two and a half years in the process, I have my final1 appeal for Social Security disability later this month. The irony is, the anxiety produced by the hearing may very well prevent me from effectively communicating why I need disability. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can be dysfunctional enough to demonstrate how dysfunctional I am but not so dysfunctional that I botch the whole process. This is a delicate balance I refer to as the Nugent2 Point.

Anyway the whole thing has kicked me right back into survival mode, which means I’ve been spending as much time as possible hiding from everything. I’ll try again later.

  1. Theoretically, this can continue to be appealed all the way up through the federal court system. In practice I don’t think it ever goes much beyond this point one way or the other. I could be wrong. ↩︎
  2. For those who may be unfamiliar with the story ↩︎

Optimism?

Talking about feeling better and making progress is more difficult for me than bitching about being miserable, which makes a little bit of sense considering I don’t trust not feeling gloomy and on edge. It just isn’t normal. Hopefully this is something I will have the opportunity to get over.

From the above, astute readers may guess that I have been feeling a bit better. Why? Who f@#*ing knows. Again, this is my frustration with brains. There is really no way to determine why they do anything. I can come up with a dozen plausible theories but there isn’t any way to find out which, if any, are even remotely related to what is going on. That said, my baseline mood has been better this month and, over the last few days, I would even say I’m approaching what I think “normal” might be.

One of the contributing factor to this improved mood is almost certainly that we finally got some assistance from the social safety net in the form of SNAP1 benefits. They’re giving us kind of a ridiculous amount of money for food every month, for a household with only two people2. It does carry over month to month, which is nice, and having a dedicated (and more than adequate) food budget has expanded our options somewhat. I’m certainly not going to complain.

Getting SNAP money does not cure all the financial uncertainty going on right now. It has, however, been enough of a relief that if I ever manage to get disability benefits, I’m actually pretty optimistic about what that would do for my mental state. I’m not holding my breath.

  1. Supplemental nutrition assistance program? I think? Something like that. It’s the new and improved version of food stamps. ↩︎
  2. SNAP does not cover pet food which is an understandable but unfortunate gap. With two animals on special diets, the amount per month we spend on their food gets pretty close to what we spend for human food. ↩︎

Clever Title

November kicked my ass all month and then it kicked it some more. Now we’re in to December and the ass-kickings continue. I was denied disability benefits for the second time. Again, I haven’t seen any indication of why. I assume it would be the same reason I was denied last time, which was The Powers That Be not seeing any reason I couldn’t just go back to work.

This was going to be a much more cheerful post about a couple of times I had managed to talk myself out of having a panic attack but then I found out I was denied benefits and I’ve had all the stuffing knocked out of me again1. This is the beginning of my third year of sitting on my thumbs and I can’t seem to even get started without the carpet being pulled out from underneath me.

I am incredibly lucky that I continue to get support from my family but I shouldn’t have to be. I don’t know what The Powers That Be see that gives them such confidence in my ability to just go back to work but whatever it is, I definitely don’t see it. Or feel it. Its hard to not return to my personal favorite explanation, the “Lazy Piece of Shit Theorem” but I have been assured by many people that doesn’t hold up2. I still have a long list of appeals available to me, and the process continues but I don’t see much reason for optimism3.

Edited to add – A while ago, as part of the disability application process, I finally got all the dates of where and when I worked sorted out. It isn’t really relevant to anything right now but here it is:

February 2013 – Start at Swedish CVICU

July 2019 – Leave Swedish Cherry Hill for staff RN position at Swedish Issaquah

October 2020 – Leave Swedish Issaquah for staff RN position at Overlake

March 2021 – Leave Overlake for staff RN position at Virginia Mason

January 2022 – Leave Virginia Mason for RN Supervisor Swedish Issaquah

March 2022 – Leave Issaquah for UWMC

November 2022 – Last worked

So after spending close to seven years at one job I suddenly changed jobs 4 times in the space of two years. That has to mean something?

  1. Please don’t bother pointing out the significance of small victories like this. I’m aware that this is progress, of a sort, but being able to occasionally self-regulate my emotions (a skill most people learn as small children) pales in comparison to the disaster that is this country’s social safety net. I also realize I’m somehow supposed to remember that failures in one area don’t invalidate successes in another but, again, I have a hard time seeing how having a delicious dinner on the Hindenburg is supposed to make up for being horribly burned to death ten minutes later. Call me cynical. ↩︎
  2. Expert opinion is definitely against me on the Lazy Piece of Shit Theorem but all the evidence I’ve seen is, at best, Grade V (things you believe that I don’t) so I remain unconvinced. ↩︎
  3. I have a great deal of difficulty maintaining any sense of optimism about anything but, as a wise person once told me, that’s depression for you. ↩︎