That’s a lot of words.
I never had a review but I just said delusions distort my perception of reality and impair my judgement and decision making ability on my application.
I did list out 7 failed jobs in the 6 previous years. I think that really sealed the deal though.
That’s literally all I wrote and I got approved in less than three months with no exam and my reviews were scheduled for every seven years.
But I got stable on meds and went back to school and back to work soon after.
Yeah, when I was going to go before a judge on an appeal for SSDI way back in the eighties my lawyer told me not to lie, but he also told me I can “shade” the truth in my favor.
if anyone is interested, i updated my daily activity write up. i also included some notes for the general remarks section of the review. and i listed some questions i got from posting at this website. and some times ive been to ERs in recent years. at the end in the next post is info from when i appied for social security. see, a lot of this is stuff i go over with my therapist, so it isn’t just me being anal about my review. we need something to fill the time.
SECTION 9 abilities and typical day catholic mass
ABILITIES
***if i have severe anxiety or manic or psychotic attacks, i cannot do anything on the ability list reliably. however, i didn’t check every task on the list, and only checked items for what i am able to do in my typical life. i often cannot sit, stand, or walk in a reliable way. see remarks section for more on that. i also have problems with my perceptions, due to hallucinations. i also often have bad hygiene, am socially withdrawn, and lack motivation. i have to be in the right mood to do chores, or shop. i also have problems lifting stuff because of wrist surgery. sometimes i am bad at handling my finances, so i’m grateful to have my father as my representative payee. i sometimes have trouble completing normal tasks if i need excessive breaks or have anxiety/manic attacks. for many activities i lack focus and need to be in the right mood to do them.TYPICAL DAY -
-my general approach to daily life is to keep my stress very low, my life semi-structured, and otherwise avoiding triggers of my illness. I wake up and to collect myself I breathe deep and relax from any pent up anxiety. throughout the day, if i am able, i watch news or shows on tv. or, i go through facebook and random internet surfing, and often visit my online mental illness support group. lots of calming music. i decide which to do based on what i’m able to do, lay on my bed with my laptop, lay for tv etc. i usually lay, because i have a problem standing and sitting. sometimes i am physically and mentally incapable of doing certain types of these things. i eat my meals. my medication makes me want to over eat so i have constant battles with that.
-i have problems sitting and standing still. if i am able, i might go out to town to walk around. if i go to a restaurant or movie, for example, my ability to sit often doesn’t last long. i often have to pace in the building or go do laps on the side walk outside, because of my anxiety or maybe a manic feeling. i always keep my car in the back of my mind, because it’s a makeshift place for me to lay down if i need it, in the back seat, or to sit if there are no chairs around. i’ve also found it helps to walk a couple miles first if i need to sit for a couple hours, like watching a movie. sometimes walking doesn’t allow me enough to sit or stand still, or do something like watch a movie. daily walking has lessened the frequency that i go to the ER. one day without walking will leave me feeling explosively anxious. i need lots of free time because i need to walk a lot to be adequate. because of my physical anxiety, i cannot work in an office or sit down role. sometimes i have irresistible impulses to change what i’m doing: when i’m sitting i have to lay down or walk, or if i’m laying down i need to walk or sit, or if i’m walking i need to sit or lay down. often i have to pace around at work, and i’m left hoping that what i’m then doing is conducive to allowing for that. the workers who know me best dont understand my inability to be still. it is very hard for me to go to catholic mass with my family, because it involves a lot of standing and sitting still. when i’m not in town, i either use the treadmill or outside road as a place to work off anxiety problems or a manic attack.
-i have problems with my personal relationships. if i socialize, most of my problems are that i have to pace around because i can’t sit or stand still. i also have to lay or sit, sometimes, in the middle of socializing. i try to keep most socializing with people i know, or going out in public when in the right mood, because strangers find my behavior odd. besides my inability to be still, i also suffer from being socially awkward in general. i dont socialize with strangers much but back when i tried more in the past, id overhear people talking about how weird i am or get strange looks. if i am around strangers, i try to keep my encounters brief, or find ways to get away if needed. i never had a girlfriend despite wanting one, and have trouble making or maintaining friendships
-stress can trigger a manic/anxiety attack. again, i end up pacing around. for instance, going to the therapist half the time is too stimulating and i start becoming manic. besides the mania, i also experience physical anxiety at the therapist… my therapist says i ‘have ants in my pants’, because i often can’t sit still or my legs bounce, or when i’m doing telephone appointments i have to pace and start panting and losing breath while talking… i have to walk for miles before the appointment to stay still, but even then there’s no guarantees. i usually have this therapist issue, and several other examples to tell the psychiatrist each time i see him of simple but stressful events triggering my mania/mood. other examples of manic and anxiety attacks just things related to living life, dealing with cars, health insurance, taxes, rent and living arrangements, work etc. i have thoughts that fly all over as i research a lot of stuff when my mood is increased. i dont think it’s wise or healthy for me to push my limitations by living a life full of potential triggers. and it wouldn’t be healthy for me to work more than a day or two per week, because of how it affects my mood/anxiety and sometimes psychosis.
-i am sometimes psychotic or have other schizo symptoms. sometimes i hallucinate that my cell phone is making sounds that it really isn’t, or i hallucinate my father’s voice. sometimes these interfere with me working. (i have to ask co-workers if they hear the ringing that i’m hallucinating) sometimes i can’t distinguish between reality and hallucinations. (i might think my dad is talking when he isn’t, or i might think i’m hallucinating a cell phone noise when i’m really not, or i think it’s real when it really isn’t) these usually cause me to panic. they usually seem evil or demonic but sometimes are reassuring. stress makes these hallucinations worse. there are always delusional thoughts simmering in my mind to some degree. see remarks for more on that. i also have a slew of intrusive thoughts that are like gibberish or outlandish thoughts.
-night is often difficult for me. usually when it starts getting dark out, i have a panic attack, if i am to have one that day. see remarks section for more on that. before sleep, i try to take my medication at the same time everyday to keep my mood stable, because if i miss or am late in taking it, i feel manic and it gets progressively worse the longer i am not medicated. especially when manic, i fear staying up for days on end and ending up back in the state psych ward. i end up sleeping too much usually, or too little, irregular. an elevated mood is usually the reason i don’t sleep enough. i also squirm when i’m laying down, such as when i’m going to bed, when i’m trying to sleep and am restless. working too much such as more than once or twice a week can wreck havoc on my sleep cycle and it often elevates my mood and causes too little sleepSECTION 10 REMARKS
-as it pertains to work: i can’t sit or stand for extended periods, as my coworkers have noticed. sometimes i cannot work at all or i miss work, i often cant complete tasks because i need extra breaks, stress makes me manic and causes anxiety problems and sometimes psychosis: too much work gives me this stress, experience hallucinations/delusional thought, which i have to straighten out with coworkers, too much work gives anxiety that makes me panicky and erratic, makes me pace, causes my chest to feel tight, and that makes me feel like i’m in a war zone and or want to be in fetal position. when i get home from work, my body feels like it’s in shock, and when i work a lot, my body is that much worse off, and it bleeds over into my mood, making me feel manic. sometimes working too much makes me feel physically sick. the last time i tried to work full time, i lasted only a week. often when i try to work more than about two days a week, i start becoming manic. too much work causes me to de-compensate-i have intense panic attacks around 0-2 times a month. when those happen i am preoccupied with death and i feel like i want to not be alive and the feeling overwhelms me. i feel restless and anxious, like there is nothing i can do to shake the mood, like it is a physical problem even though it’s somehow all in my head. my therapist says it’s probably a problem with my amygdala. i feel like i am going to explode during the worst episodes. usually the only thing to shake the feeling is going to sleep as medication doesn’t usually do much. the attacks are usually not as frequent or intense as they use to be as it used to be a couple times a week id have an attack and they were always intense. now they are sometimes very intense but that is only a few times a month. i get a lot of serious but less intense attacks, maybe several per week. also when i’m not having panic attacks, i am on edge a lot, and have a persistent raw fear that an attack will come on.
-i have a fragile psyche for things outside my routine. i get irritable if i get outside of my routine and also anxious. if i do any socializing i have to take breaks to go pace around or sit or lay. i seem like a strange person to others when i do this. i live with my elder parents who make life bearable and help me with daily living so life is usually pretty tranquil. but if nieces or nephews especially or other people not in my routine come over i get irritated because they make noise or take the TV away from me or take my spot in the living room, breaking my routine. when these things happen i often feel tense and like i’m suffocating. even just little inconveniences in life irritate me significantly
-i cycle between feelings of grandiosity and worthlessness/depression. i feel like i’m smart with money but in reality i’m just barely getting by living off the government, or that i’m astute enough to become president when really i’m just more educated than the normal person and generally smarter, but no where near situated for that position. i am often depressed and feel worthless, because i am not where i want to be in life. i dont have a real career and have never had a girlfriend despite wanting one, and have trouble making or maintaining friendships.
-i have strange beliefs and suspicious/paranoid beliefs and teetering in delusions that i try not to dwell on too much, that i think are part of the disease. within the last few years, sometimes the suspicions seem to be physically overtaking me (the last major time this happened, i was at the mental hospital about to be admitted, but i was too delusional to go through with it), or it might sometimes be more automatic reflex where i’m delusional, or at least borderline so (the last major time this happened i was at the emergency room due to anxiety/mood/phsychosis). in recent years, once i was fearful of being assassinated if i didn’t quite my job, and i almost quit, and sometimes when i’m in a medical setting, i am paranoid or delusional that folks are spying on me. sometimes i get paranoid that the military is spying on me, through a former friend who was in special forces. i dont get involved too much in politics because i had visions when i was psychotic of a scandal breaking out and me becoming famous and then being murdered in various ways, like a back alley or shanked in prision or assassinated. some people might call my fear of getting too political and too well known a delusion because i am convinced something bad will happen if i do, or if i don’t live life properly. folks in my support group say i’m delusional. as was the case when i was first hospitalized in the state psych ward, and has been the case for decades, i still suffer from religiously preoccupied thoughts. and also live in persistent fear that i’m hell bound, especially if i dont live properly. when i think back to when i was psychotic in the past, i feel like i may have prophetic or special powers, or that i am being spied on, as i dont know how else to explain what i experienced. for example, i reflect on when things seemed to be happening around me just as i predicted them to happen or when i seemed to be prophesying bible verses and events that turned out to be true. my past delusions resurface from time to time to various degrees.
i was initially diagnosed with bipolar with psychotic features, when i was unable to sleep for six days and ended up in a state psych ward. the next psychiatrist called me schizoaffective and that i was totally and permanently disabled, for the next nine years. then he died. then recently i saw a nurse practitioner for a few months, and she called me schizophrenic. i told her stressful events trigger my mood to elevate, but i guess she didn’t consider that important enough to keep the old diagnosis. today i just saw another nurse practitioner and she insisted i’ve always been schizophrenic. she also said i can’t be bipolar too. i thnk she is just splitting hairs saying i can’t be bipolar too, as if it should just be called schizoaffective but not both those things. but i wonder if she would conceded i may be schizoaffective. i wonder if she just saw the previous nurse’s diagnosis and went with it. i doubt she went through my records much. if i stopped taking medication i know i’d have an elevated mood and inability to sleep a lot. i strongly suspect my psychosis would increase, but i’m not a hundred percent sure of that. i trust the two psych docs ive seen for a lot longer than this nurse who saw me for ten minutes. with that said, i may only be technically schizoaffective, and actually practically be schizophrenic with some mood problems that doesn’t arise to schizoaffective. i say this, because i was probably manic when i was admited to the state psych hosptial (though there are reasons to question if i met the manic definition, though my doctors thought it was clear i was bipolar at the time), but aside from that, most of my mood problems dont last long enough to count as manic, even if they are for a few days. to my knowledge, i may not usually meet the definition of hypomanic either. for practical purposes, i feel manic, hypomanic, or at least cyclothymic at the least a lot of times. all other diagnostic factors of bipolar i often meet, however. as i said, if i didn’t take my meds, and/or i’m under too much stress, i’m positive my mood would deteriorate over time and i’d probably eventually meet the timed definitions of bipolar on a more consistent basis.
ER VISITS, inpatient coping centers, and rescue crisis:
—rescue crisis: i was taken by police to rescue crisis in toledo, stemming from me confronting my friend because i had started thinking he was going to kill me and him calling police because i was obviously sick. rescue crisis asked questions, and i didn’t want to be admitted, so they deferred to me, despite my bizarre theories about government conspiracies. while i was there, the TV seemed to be sending me messages in code.—ER and inpatient center, i had overwhelming anxiety, a 9.5 on a ten being the worst scale. i couldn’t move. i felt like i was going to burst. i had to call the ambulance because my family was not around. first i went to hicksville ER. i was squirming on the bed and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. then they sent me to a psychiatric place in napolean, where i was inpatient, where i stayed a couple days.
—ER, i couldn’t shake the anxiety so my family took me to bryan ER. i couldnt focus. the doctor assumed there should have been a trigger which he couldnt figure out, and he didn’t know if my lack of bouncing off the walls meant it wasn’t a panic attack and was just a generic anxiety attack. they gave me ativan.
—ER, i was in the ER and felt the worst anxiety i ever felt, a 9.9 on the ten scale. i was also delusional but lacked insight to know it at the time. i was afraid i would be assassinated if they admitted me to the hospital, so i declined inpatient at defiance promedica hospital. the delusions felt like they were physically overtaking me. i had delusional impulses that i should also quit my job, or else a national scandal would break out and i’d be assassinated. i called maumee valley in a crisis desperation, to get advice on meds and how to deal with it. it would have been best for all involved for me to go inpatient at that coping center at defiance hospital but i was too delusional to do it.
—ER, i was restless and couldn’t sleep. my mood was elevated. when i got to the bryan ER i started reflexively becoming delusional that the staff was spying on me. i couldn’t stand/sit still. they gave me xanax.
NEW QUESTIONS to schizo community
OLD QUESTIONS
Do off label users (non schizophrenics) of anti psychotics experience withdrawal psychosis when they get off these medications?
When are you willing to lie to hide a diagnosis from someone?
How much insight do you have during delusions?
Do you think withdrawal from anti-psychotics can cause psychosis that’s not caused by the disease?
How do psychiatrists tell if you just have a brief psychotic episode or something like that?
Does anyone know of someone with schizophrenia who got kicked off disability benefits due to medical improvement?
How does missing a single dose affect you?
What are some auditory hallucinations you hear other than voices?
Does this sound like a typical struggle with delusions?
How much do schizophrenics experience psychosis in later life?
Has anyone ever hallucinated the sense of touch?
Does anyone have schizophrenia with a mood component?
How normal are manic attacks?
What name should i give to lesser manic attacks?
Do you think schizoaffective should be one diagnosis or two?
How much do most schizophrenics sleep?
Are these examples of catatonia?
Are you offended by the term ‘schizophrenic’?
distinguishing between PTSD with psychotic features v schizophrenia?
does anyone know what residual schizophrenia is?
why does schizoaffective have a better prognosis than schizophrenia?
I think it would help if you could also include letters from pdocs … anything and everything as much evidence as you can
Take this with a grain of salt but that’s a lot of information. I usually just write a few average length paragraphs.
Not sure why you are posting this online. Looks confidential. It’s supposed to be between you and social security. If you’re honest and sick, you should get it. If not, a lawyer should seal the deal. Just my 2 cents…
I got screwed on my review…got 3 years which is the minimum for the next review. I didn’t take it seriously and had to redo it and dealt with lack of communication on their part. It’s serious because it’s my livelihood…
Basically, I was at the SS office and wasn’t thinking and just wrote down the minumum that I had paranoid schizophrenia and Aspergers. That I just smoke, eat, go the bathroom, and go on the internet, listen to music, and someitmes take online classes.
Anyways, I was honest, but it was a ■■■■ attempt. They want it done throughly. They sent me a freaking huge packet and had to have my family fill it out. My mom said I was doing better/improving on Vraylar which didn’t work in my favor.
I guess the whole EdX/Coursera thing didn’t help too. I like learning and doing stuff, but I cannot go to school or work because my hygiene and lack of motivation to name two things.
When I redid it, I talked exclusively about my delusions and what bothered me. The doctor reviewing it said I could get better in 3 years, which really annoyed me. It gave me hope, but at the same time given what I wrote about all the crap I posted on this forum, I’m surprised I didn’t get a 5 or 7 year review.
These Drs. Don’t know what the hell they are talking about.
I did try to kill myself with an overdose, ended up damaging my liver and nearly die Drs said in the emergency. Sorry to hear that you went through the same thing.
yeah i posted too much. i should have just posted my daily activities and general remarks section, stuff asked about from my review. my therapist and pdoc can take care of the rest.
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