Agoraphobia and Social Security
Agoraphobia is a condition where the sufferer becomes anxious in environments that are unfamiliar or where he or she perceives that they have little control. Triggers for this anxiety may include wide open spaces, crowds, or traveling (even short distances). This anxiety is often compounded by a fear of social embarrassment, as the agoraphobic fears the onset of a panic attack and appearing distraught in public. This video contains some great tops on how to get on Social Security with this condition.
I wanted to make a video for people who had agoraphobia and wanted to get Social Security or SSI. I know some people in whom agoraphobia develops overnight, just like it did for myself, and in some people it takes years to get to that point where they are full-blown agoraphobic. So maybe they’ll have a little bit of doctor records and stuff under their belt. For people like me who never got treated for anxiety or depression or anything like that, prior to developing agoraphobia, now we’re stuck in a situation where if we’re going to leave our home, we know we need a doctor. But what are people like us to do who develop agoraphobia overnight and can’t find a doctor or anybody who wants to support us, but yet we need money to support our family?
Well, I’ll share some of the things that I did. If you go to my website, there is a link on there called “Social Security and Me” that talks about my little journey with Social Security and what happened to me in 2007. Basically, I signed up for Social Security in November of 2007, I got my doctor in November 2007, she was a psychologist. Basically she came to my house, and the first mistake that I made … and make sure that if you get a doctor that she will support your claim … because I came to find out that she wouldn’t give Social Security my medical records once I asked her to. And basically she was anti-Social Security and I couldn’t get her to give up my records. So that is a major problem to say the least because the thing about it is when you tell people you got a problem they say, “Well, sign up for Social Security or SSI”. And what a lot of people don’t think about, apparently, is that you need proof; just like in a court of law you need proof to make your claim. That’s the same thing for Social Security or SSI; you need proof. I would say at least 6 months to a year.
If good solid proof of going to a psychologist, psychiatrist – whatever it is under your belt – before you should even file a claim. And make sure that this psychologist or psychiatrist or general practitioner or whoever you are going to, will give up your records. Make sure you have that conversation before you even call Social Security or go to the Social Security office.
Yes, you can call Social Security and sign up over the phone. You can do your interview over the phone where they ask you what is wrong with you and all that good stuff. Another thing that you might be worried about is: “What if I don’t have enough medical records and they want to send me to a doctor?” And the common misconception even with Social Security themselves is … because when I had my interview on December 3rd of 2007, I told the lady that did the interview “Look, I won’t be able to go to a doctor even if they send me” because she said, “You don’t have many medical record to they’re going to most likely send you to a doctor. Will that be a problem?” I said, “Yeah, it will be because I have agoraphobia”. And she said, “Well, you’re pretty much screwed”. I said, “I bet you I’m not” and come to find out in the end I was right. They sent a psychologist to my house to do my evaluation. It can be done. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. One way to make sure this happens is to call your DDS examiner. Your DDS examiner is the person who handles your claims. Social Security doesn’t handle your claims. They let somebody who’s called a DDS examiner handle your claims; that’s the “Disability Determination Service”. Those are the ones that determine whether you’re disabled or not for Social Security. So make sure that when you get the letters in the mail that says, “This person is your examiner or case worker”, you call him every now and then and ask him, “What’s going on with your case, do you need anything?”. And if you send him paperwork ask him, “Was that good enough, do you need more?” Because the only thing this will do is speed up your claim and it keeps you in contact with your DDS examiner.
99% of people apparently don’t even do this; they just sign up for Social Security and they wait for Social Security to send them a letter in the mail saying “We need this” and then they send it back. They don’t even know if Social Security got the letter or not. So, keep in contact, keep in contact, keep in contact with your DDS examiner. Call them. I cannot stress that enough.
One time, when I signed up Social Security that day and I had that lady telling me, “You will not be able to get Social Security because you won’t be able to go to a doctor for evaluation”. I called a lawyer; I got a lawyer even before I got denied for Social Security, because the lawyer knew over the phone they would deny me. So basically what happened was everything that got sent to me had to go through my lawyer to Social Security. So basically what happened was one day they needed a letter from my doctor. My doctor did an evaluation of me and I called her to give it to me telling her I need it for a medical card, when actually I was going to send it to Social Security and try to get a medical card. So she gave me this big evaluation saying, “He cannot work right now. He’s got Generalized Anxiety Disorder, GAD” and all that different stuff. Which was the truth; she didn’t lie. She gave me two copies; I sent one to my lawyer. About a week later I called my DDS examiner – which a lot of people don’t do – and I asked, “Did you get that?” and she said “No”. I called my lawyer, they said they haven’t received it. And then the lawyer said “We haven’t even received it”. So from that point on I skipped the lawyer. I sent the DDS people the paperwork myself. In the end, the lawyer might not have paper work that the DDS examiner might have that they don’t have, but they can always get it themselves. Right now I’m worried about myself. That lawyer wants just $2,500 whenever it goes to court.
But right now I’m just worried about myself. So make sure you call. That’s an example; she wouldn’t even have got that, and that was a really important part of my case, and I handled it myself. So anyway, I got turned down and the reason why I got turned down was I didn’t have any evidence, I didn’t have anything to backup my claim. And people tell you, when you get denied, even if you have evidence, file it. Yes, that’s true. File it. l file it. If you have a doctor, file it if you have somebody who will back you up and say, “He is messed up in the head, he cannot work for at least a year”. You need your doctor to be able to say “For at least a year”, not 6 months or 8 months. That is one of the conditions that in order to get Social Security disability you have to be disabled for at least a year. The doctor has to put on that letter, “I think for the next year he will be unable to work.” And so those are a few tips.
If you have any more questions be sure to write to me, check out my website www.anxiety-agraphobia.com. The link on there is called “Social Security and Me“. It tells a little bit more about documents that Social Security sent me that I have on my website. Even what the denial letter said. So if you’re curious about any of that, why not check it out. If you have anxiety or some kind of other anxiety disorder, or if you got agoraphobia in particular, be sure to check that out.
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