I am scared I might lose disability when I get reviewed. I am doing better than I was when I was diagnosed at age 26…I am 38 now. I tell my pdoc this but she still wants to keep me on the antipsychotic medicine. My only thing is she wasn’t around when I first got diagnosed so she really couldn’t know what my problems were. I agree with the doctors that I had a psychotic break but maybe I got better from that. I think I can work especially if it was part time. My pdoc doesn’t want me to work she tells me no all the time. I guess she thinks I might relapse if I go back to work. It would be hard starting over at age 38 almost 39. I am kind of old to do that but if it came down to it I would have too. My thing is If I think I can work what will the disability review think when I go in? That scares me. I have become kind of dependent on disability. I know I am due for a review and that terrifies me. I do kind of wish I would hurry up and get reviewed so I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. Anyways, just thought I would share where my thinking is at.
Yeah it’s kind of a trap. Your ability to work shouldn’t affect anything. From day one of disability you can work to earn up to 1070 a month before taxes.
Are you still symptomatic and on meds? I don’t think they’ll pull the rug out from under you.
Hope it all turns out well man.
I’m getting back to normal as well. Disability was nice but I know that some day I will have to come off it.
As they say worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. Hard not to worry but try to just focus on the moment and that is getting through the review first.
I am still on meds but I don’t have many problems or many symptoms. I still get kind of paranoid around people or when I have to leave the house but I can manage. I don’t hear voices anymore and my mood is stable. I am doing well on medicine. My aunt who is schizophrenic also says when she tries to come off the medicine everything is worse but she does well on the medicine too. She is not on disability though. She doesn’t work that much either. I don’t think it is a good idea for me to come off the medicine and my doctor seems to think I shouldn’t work but I just don’t know what the review people will think. Anyways I am just nervous about that but like @Dreamscape said worrying isn’t very effective…so I need to try to stop worrying.
don’t be afraid. tell them you can’t work because you can’t sit still and have trouble focusing and concentrating. that was why I couldn’t work and I haven’t been reviewed ever since I stopped trying to work. good luck.
If you havea professional doctor who is saying that you shouldn’t work then that sounds like solid ground for having a legitimate reason behind staying on disability… I don’t know what the review process is like yet just got on disability 6 months ago. I would hope they talk to your doctors at some point of the review process.
Let them know that you can’t work at a lot of jobs, especially outside jobs,because anti-psychotic medications mess with your body temperature regulation mechanisms. You can’t take the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Most factories are too hot in summer for you to work in.
Have your doctor sign something to take to your review that you can’t work. that’s all you really need.
You are allowed to work part time on disability. You have to be able to work a full time job at the prevailing wage in order to be disqualified. I’m not sure what the reviews do but if your therapists reports say you can’t work full time and shouldn’t that should go in your favor.
Not at all. That’s exactly the age I started over. Two months before my 39th birthday I was homeless in a tent and down to 3 pennies to my name literally. I started working, putting in overtime whenever it was available and by age 44 I was a land owner. I actually owned property at age 43 but sold it and got what i have now a year later.
It was a lot of hard work, and some sacrifice as far as living situations for those 4 years but well worth it.
Just saying it can certainly be done.
One note: It’s very difficult if you are on SSI to save money to buy property because of the $2000 asset limit…if that’s what you are looking for.
Also this may be of interest to you
The Trial Work Period
The Trial Work Period (TWP) is designed to allow SSDI recipients to experiment with working while still receiving their full monthly benefit. It consists of a total of nine months, not necessarily consecutive, over a 60-month period. During these nine months, a person may earn an unlimited amount without lowering their monthly cash benefit. The TWP was developed many years ago to encourage disability recipients to go back to work when they can.
A month counts as a TWP month whenever an individual earns more than $780 per month or when a self-employed individual (that is, business owner, freelancer, consultant, etc.) works 80 hours or more in a month.
This link explains how it works for SSI
The Social Security Administration (SSA) defines a substantial amount of work, which it calls substantial gainful activity (SGA), as earning $1,090 a month from working (in 2015). Therefore, if you are earning this much from work when you apply for benefits, you will be denied.
However, once you get approved for SSI, the SSA no longer considers whether you are doing SGA. But the SSA will reduce your benefits by subtracting part of your income from your payment, and terminate them if you go over the SSI income limit. In general, though, the SSA encourages SSI recipients to try to go back to work, and has created a number of work incentives that let a person work without losing their eligibility for benefits.
You’re scaring yourself over something in your head. You don’t know for sure if you can work. You have a doc telling you not too. Go with that. If you haven’t worked in a long time and you have a doc telling you that you can’t then those are the facts you present at your review. Don’t tell them you think you can work! If you don’t tell them, then they won’t know. It’s as simple as that! You honestly don’t know if you can work or you can’t, right? So why tell them that you can? The main objective for you is to keep your disability payments. Achieve that goal first and worry about work second. You think you can work. You don’t know. So leave work for the future. Get your disability.
By the way, I got paranoid schizophrenia in1980. After three years I went back to work. I’m 53 years old now and I work part-time. The longest I’ve been unemployed was a little more than a year. But even with that lay-off I was able to start work again at a new job.
Working is a very difficult thing to do with schizophrenia. You need a support system in case things go wrong and trust me they can. I tried working for 10 years before I applied for disability. There are just so many things that can go wrong when working. Along with work comes responsibility which can be difficult to handle. Stress can make your illness worsen. I found it to be too difficult to manage my illness and work. I was making $50,000 a year roughly. It sucks giving up that kind of money but stability is more important. Tell your doctor that you don’t have a support system in place and the chance of failing is high because your not sure you can manage your illness and work. Just because you feel normal does not mean your ready for work. The fact is you have a very debilitating illness which can become become a problem at any time. Once you loose your disability it would take years to get it back. It took me 6 years to get approved.
My review for ssi was last year. They filled out the forms, and I didn’t have to do my psychological exam by an outside doctor. I was ok with that. They called and told me that I would keep my ssi.
you can earn up to 900 dollars over your ssdi, but they will never take you off of those experimental medications. I asked my doctor to take me off of the meds and he told me I would have to take them for the rest of my life.Actually after your initial work trial period is over the figure is about $1100.00.
Yeah, that should be the approach, and with the doctor saying he can’t work he’s not going to lose disability at the review. I also heard those reviews are usually just a form to fill out and send in to SSA. rarely do they do the in person meeting type review, though they can.
That’s what you want to say if you don’t want to work. If you want to work then you could mention those programs SSA has that I posted. It’s kind of unclear whether he WANTS to work or just feels like he can work. If you want to keep the SSI intact as is and don’t want to even try to work then basically do what 77Nick said, because truth is since it isn’t tested you don’t know if working would be successful or not.
Just go with the doctors reports and what they say, and don’t say “I think I can work.”
SSI (Not SSDI) is a bit complicated but you can earn up to a certain amount, there are exemptions, and you would calculate things based on this:
Earned Income Exclusions
Social Security has several earned income exclusions that reduce countable income and make it easier to qualify for SSI if you are working. Social Security excludes the first $65 in earnings and one-half of all earnings over $65 in a month.
The earned income exclusions mean that in 2015 a person can earn about $1,500/month and still qualify for SSI (though the monthly payment will be greatly reduced). This is how this works. Social Security will disregard the first $20 of income and the first $65 of earned income, If you make $1,500 per month, this would leave $1,415. Then, Social Security would disregard half of the rest of the earnings, leaving $707.50, which is still under the FBR of $733. However, $707.50 would be subtracted from the FBR, leaving you with a monthly benefit of $25.50.
This means people on SSI can work most part time jobs and some full time jobs that pay minimum wage. I’ve known people on SSI that worked. They reported their earnings and the SSA lowered their payments…Medical remained available, as well as rent subsidy, though their rent went up…
I wouldn’t mind trying a part time job at this point…as long as I didn’t lose disability. I read somewhere that if you go back to work even if it is part time that can be held against you. So I am kind of on the fence if I should even try at this point. The dream though is to be a truck driver but that is a full time position and I would be away from home most of the time. I am being told by everyone including my doctor that that is a bad idea. So I am not going to try that right now. I think having a part time job would be nice especially the extra income. I know @77nick77 said he works and claims disability so that is kind of nice to know. I think ill be reviewed here soon because I have been on disability 10 plus years and I know I am due for one. I think I might wait until I get reviewed to try a part time job. Unless my doctor changes her mind for some reason. anyways, that pretty much where I am at.
Yes, I’ve been on disability for years and all my reviews are by mail. It’s a 4 or 5 page form. A lot of it is “yes/no” questions or just involves checking a box. They may also ask you to mail in some extra paperwork like bank statements. At the very end of the form they leave a blank page so you can explain yourself and why you think you should get disability. On this page you can plead your case and tell them a little bit about your symptoms and why you can’t work.
@mat3372 I feel the same way you do. I’m constantly worried they’re going to take away my financial support. I often feel like I am capable of working and wondering if I’m sitting at home because I can or because I need to. I don’t have symptoms 24/7 but I still have them. My doctor doesn’t tell me to work or not too work, one thing she suggested to me was trying some kind of day-program, it’s not work…the one I went to we sat through a few classes of learning about mental health, and then had some activity type classes. I had a hard enough time going to those daily rather than half to worry about going to work like that. I knew I wasn’t ready to handle a job a the time.
My problem is my voices are telling me I’m just being lazy…but then again if I’m hearing these voices isn’t that kind of the reason I’m staying at home to begin with?
If you have a doctor telling you not to work then I don’t think you can have your support taken away from you. If it is you could always try going to SSI lawyers and try and help you fight the appeal and get back on it. I know I’ve seen lawyers here advertise for the rights of those that can’t work and need SSI.
I was original told when I signed up that I could make a certain amount each month have you tried finding part-time work where you can make that limited amount and see if you can handle a job like that before going into a full-time job? I know you may be feeling anxious at returning to work, I feel like that sometimes, but if you do too much at once then you may run the risk of a relapse. I think this is what your doctor is afraid of. Especially if you’re like me and stress triggers your symptoms. Every job you get will have stress, the amount of stress you have at the job depends on the type of job you have and the environment in which you work.
I would not tell your social worker (or whoever it is that does these reviews) that you feel you can work. Tell them (and take written confirmation from your doctor) that your doctor still thinks you should not work. That’st he important thing. You may feel like you want to or can work for a while, but think of it as if you were actually hired could you show up every/any day they need to you rearguards if your symptoms start up again or not? Do you think having a job would increase the symptoms you may have finally gotten rid of? Find something to test this out on like a day program. The one I was signed up for was covered by the hospital which was fully covered by my Medicare program. I would highly recommend something like that before attempting to work. And just keep telling yourself, if your doctor doesn’t think you should work then you shouldn’t have a problem with them stopping your benefits. And if by some small chance they do look into finding a lawyer to help get back on them.
They really won’t hold it against you…I knew someone who worked for something like 10 years part time and kept SSI…Even when at 30 hours a week…you just have to report your wages and any wage changes and SSA will calculate how much to decrease your benefit amount by.
That can be a cool job if you like driving and traveling. Benefits are that you are by yourself most of the time out on the road and only have to deal with people at pickup and delivery, as well as truck stops when you get fuel, food, etc. But it’s not like you are working shoulder to shoulder with someone 8 + hours a day. The money is usually pretty good…
I used to work at a truck leasing place that provided vehicles for OTR and local drivers, so I’ve talked to a bunch of truckers.
The downside is you’ll probably have a delivery schedule deadline and could get stressed when you need to be somewhere at a certain time and hit a bunch of construction that slows you down. That stressed me out just driving my car on long trips without a deadline! LOL…
And as you said, if you are OTR you won’t be home very much. You can get a local route job that can be a day job but probably won’t make as much as driving a semi OTR. back in the 80s OTR drivers were making 36,000 - 40,000 a year and locals were making 18,000 - 25,000… I was making more than most of the local drivers…
Story on the news tonight here in Australia they are thinking of getting rid of disability. Changing the name and is only available to those that can’t work like 8hrs a week. I’m trying to get more information on it atm.