fuzzylogistics
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas
Hi all! Thanks for taking the time to help me. I know I will almost certainly need an attorney, but I have a few questions first.
Background:
I have a cavernoma inside of my spinal cord; high up in my cervical cord, which makes every day that my limbs work a lucky day. ( cavernomas are blood filled capillaries that formed WRONG and cause permanent damage to the spinal cord when they bleed, ooze, and grow) I have some permanent damage to the cord from a bleed, which means I've been symptomatic since that bleed. That was October 2013, and I had just turned 29 in August. I did not leave my job until June, 2014.
June 2014 is the date that has been on my 2 SSDI claims.
The first claim was very strange. It was filed in November of 2014. I started it myself online. December 2014 I received a rejection letter from the local SSDI office stating that they had requested a release form and records from me, which they never received. In reality, they had not contacted me prior to my receiving the letter of rejection, despite clearly having the correct mailing address. My private disability company hired an advocacy agency to handle my first appeal. We provided the paperwork, have proof it was provided, and received a technical rejection, rather than a medical one, because they claimed to have never received the paperwork. After they gave the rejection, the advocacy agency pressed them about it, and it turns out they had the release forms in early January - three months prior to rejecting me for not providing paperwork! They advised the advocacy agency to start a new claim. I guess the advocacy agency waited 6 months? to start a new claim, while trying to keep the old claim open (I'm not sure they did keep the first claim open - turns out they were only slightly better organized than the social security office).
The agency started a new claim, with a disability date of June 2014. I received an immediate rejection from the Baltimore social security office on the grounds that I do not have enough work credits for the 10 year period prior to disability.
They claim I need 20 work credits. Based on the information they provided on how the math is done, 20 cannot possibly be correct for a disability date prior to my turning 30. June 2014 is 35 quarters from the first quarter beginning after my 21st birthday. Worst case scenario, that's 17.5 work credits.
Or am I the one in the wrong?
I have 16 credits over the last 10 years, partly due to some very old tax errors on one return in 2010, and partly due to the fact that I didn't start school until I was 25. I then stupidly decided to make my education my number one priority, and didn't work during some of it. I have also long suffered from mental illness, which makes everything harder.
When I left on disability, it was for mental health reasons, partially exacerbated by the constant pain. 3 months later I was diagnosed with the symptomatic cavernoma, via MRI. Diagnosis of a symptomatic cavernoma did not improve my mental health. It's a truly terrifying illness. I have severe recurrent depression with psychosis, generalized anxiety disorder, "present in all situations," as well as PTSD.
Questions:
Appealing this rejection, can I change the date of disability to October 2013 in the appeal? If so, am I right in thinking I would need 16.5 work credits?
If we can change the date, would we be more successful changing it to a much earlier date to account for the mental illness? Or changing it to October 2013? March 2013? Or should I leave it as it is, and file a new claim in six months after amending the 2010 tax record? (which may not be possible to do - they may not let me amend it)
Thanks for your help. We really need it!!
Edit: Oh yeah - I also had a really awful head injury in Nov 2008. I took 3 or 4 months off - as long as I could before I was out of money. I never ended up filing taxes for that year, and I've never been the same since the head injury. Other than the hospital stay in the neuro ICU, not a lot of medical records regarding it.
And I have cavernomas in my brain that have bled. Some of them very small bleeds. One of them a larger bleed. Damage done. Brain tissue is just not as important per cubic millimeter as cord tissue...
Hi all! Thanks for taking the time to help me. I know I will almost certainly need an attorney, but I have a few questions first.
Background:
I have a cavernoma inside of my spinal cord; high up in my cervical cord, which makes every day that my limbs work a lucky day. ( cavernomas are blood filled capillaries that formed WRONG and cause permanent damage to the spinal cord when they bleed, ooze, and grow) I have some permanent damage to the cord from a bleed, which means I've been symptomatic since that bleed. That was October 2013, and I had just turned 29 in August. I did not leave my job until June, 2014.
June 2014 is the date that has been on my 2 SSDI claims.
The first claim was very strange. It was filed in November of 2014. I started it myself online. December 2014 I received a rejection letter from the local SSDI office stating that they had requested a release form and records from me, which they never received. In reality, they had not contacted me prior to my receiving the letter of rejection, despite clearly having the correct mailing address. My private disability company hired an advocacy agency to handle my first appeal. We provided the paperwork, have proof it was provided, and received a technical rejection, rather than a medical one, because they claimed to have never received the paperwork. After they gave the rejection, the advocacy agency pressed them about it, and it turns out they had the release forms in early January - three months prior to rejecting me for not providing paperwork! They advised the advocacy agency to start a new claim. I guess the advocacy agency waited 6 months? to start a new claim, while trying to keep the old claim open (I'm not sure they did keep the first claim open - turns out they were only slightly better organized than the social security office).
The agency started a new claim, with a disability date of June 2014. I received an immediate rejection from the Baltimore social security office on the grounds that I do not have enough work credits for the 10 year period prior to disability.
They claim I need 20 work credits. Based on the information they provided on how the math is done, 20 cannot possibly be correct for a disability date prior to my turning 30. June 2014 is 35 quarters from the first quarter beginning after my 21st birthday. Worst case scenario, that's 17.5 work credits.
Or am I the one in the wrong?
I have 16 credits over the last 10 years, partly due to some very old tax errors on one return in 2010, and partly due to the fact that I didn't start school until I was 25. I then stupidly decided to make my education my number one priority, and didn't work during some of it. I have also long suffered from mental illness, which makes everything harder.
When I left on disability, it was for mental health reasons, partially exacerbated by the constant pain. 3 months later I was diagnosed with the symptomatic cavernoma, via MRI. Diagnosis of a symptomatic cavernoma did not improve my mental health. It's a truly terrifying illness. I have severe recurrent depression with psychosis, generalized anxiety disorder, "present in all situations," as well as PTSD.
Questions:
Appealing this rejection, can I change the date of disability to October 2013 in the appeal? If so, am I right in thinking I would need 16.5 work credits?
Because, if I can do that, I can just charge my boyfriend for a crappy website I built him, and file the taxes January first to get the necessary half credit. Then I would have enough work credits, and be able to file the appeal before the deadline.
It is well documented that the bleed which caused the more severe permanent damage (intractable pain over a large area of my body), occurred in October 2013. I continued to work because I had a physical job and had been told by doctors that the job was the cause of my back spasms and pain. The spasms started even earlier, in March of 2013, suggesting I had a small bleed or some growth in the cavernoma at that time.
If we can change the date, would we be more successful changing it to a much earlier date to account for the mental illness? Or changing it to October 2013? March 2013? Or should I leave it as it is, and file a new claim in six months after amending the 2010 tax record? (which may not be possible to do - they may not let me amend it)
Part of the problems with my tax record and work history are that I've been a failed adult. I left home at 16, after graduating high school early, to get away from my extremely insane and dangerously unstable father. My first memory in life is of him physically abusing my mother. The depression, anxiety, and PTSD... those problems are almost as old as I am.
My Dad took me to his therapist once... and she threatened to report him to the authorities after talking to me for 20 minutes. I grew up with a lot of adults who were aware of abuse and did nothing. I didn't trust the mental health community. In a single year I had 3 counselors fail to protect me, and one of those was my step mother. It screwed me up. I finally sought psychiatric mental health treatment from my PCP in 2012, and he said he couldn't help at all, then referred me to a mental health facility for people with no insurance (that was far from my home.) I was finally diagnosed between June and October of 2014. I now see a therapist at least once a week and a psychiatrist as frequently as she requests I come see her.
So I'm also curious if a pattern of failure to adult is something that would allow me to pursue an earlier date of disability - maybe even a childhood or adolescent date. The longest I have ever had a job was for 2.5 years when I was a contract exotic dancer... I hardly worked when I was a dancer. Some months I did not work at all. My other jobs lasted 6 months, 9 months... a year and 3 months is the longest I've ever had a normal job. I did well in school until March of 2013, when the back spasms started... but overall, I'm a very failed adult.
Thanks for your help. We really need it!!
Edit: Oh yeah - I also had a really awful head injury in Nov 2008. I took 3 or 4 months off - as long as I could before I was out of money. I never ended up filing taxes for that year, and I've never been the same since the head injury. Other than the hospital stay in the neuro ICU, not a lot of medical records regarding it.
And I have cavernomas in my brain that have bled. Some of them very small bleeds. One of them a larger bleed. Damage done. Brain tissue is just not as important per cubic millimeter as cord tissue...
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