“Many many people are on SSDI for amazing reasons.”
Tell me about it. I worked in the field. Long ago the government ruled that alc/substance abuse were no longer reasons to allow benefits. There was a mad scramble by social workers and shrinks to get their clients reclassified as having ANY mental disorder to keep the monthly checks rolling in. The most commonphysical reason I saw however was back problems. I recall one guy sitting across from me telling me how he could no longer work because of his bad back, the pain, etc. Then he stopped and said “I don’t sense a whole lot of sympathy coming from you.” I smiled and said nothing as I shifted my position a bit in my wheelchair. LOL! One of my most fun things to tell people on line who are complaining about back problems and being on SSDI is this. “So let me get this straight. Your back problem is so bad that you cannot sit behind a desk and work. But you can sit behind a desk yakking on the computer for hours every day. Have I got that right?” For the record, I am a paraplegic and have never even collected unemployment, let alone SSDI.
I have a wife on SSDI due to fibromyalgia. The adjudication process was neither swift, nor easy. I did manage to laugh when a “physical exam” form came back dated, signed, and completely blank except for her personal contact info, signed and dated by a physician she had never met, BTW.
I am sure that some folks manage to work the system. I think the process tends to weed them out.
Oh, and a bit off topic. When the doc’s were trying to figure out what the heck was going on with my wife, they resisted the fibro diagnosis, as one doc said “You are not the hysterical type!”.
Anyway, I had suggested to my wife that she keep a daily log of activities and meds. The pain killers and anti-inflamatory notes were useful as they were PRN. The administrative law judge remarked “I don’t understand why this was turned down twice.” Welcome to my world, I said.