Just as an FYI, most states have programs that will fund a disability lawyer to assist you with your disability claim. Most of the time the lawyers will be paid partly through your claim if it is successful and it's usually free if it is not.
Also do not get discouraged if your claim is initially denied, in my state it's basically an open secret that your first claim gets automatically denied to discourage people from actually getting benefits. With disability, it's all about persistence, documentation, and filing as soon as you can. Even if you get denied for years, when it is successful your claim will be back dated to the date of your initial filling.
Not a lawyer, but I work in a field where most all my patients are on disability, and I have had to help my parents file in an extremely conservative state.
Disability lawyers only get paid by a certain max percentage of the backpay after you win the case. There is no upfront cost to it. Try going for non profit lawyers as the others tend to just not give a fuck. In my experience at least.
Once I had to fill some forms for the gouvernement and I just went to their office and found a wonderfully helpful lady who helped me to do it and reassured me when I would freak out because their questions were not logical or not as closed as they thought.
It was an eye opener and I've used the technique ever since.
Neurotypicals seem to suffer from the curse of knowledge far more than others. The worst part is, they're neither aware of it, nor do they want to be aware of it.
They don't realize how many assumptions they're making about what you know, and that the information they're assuming you have is the same information that they are working from.
For the uninitiated, the curse of knowledge is a concept where, by knowing the context of a thing, you understand it, but others do not because they don't have the context of that thing. It's a curse because the speaker with the curse of knowledge assumes that others have that context, often unaware that context needs to be provided for that thing to be understood.
The easiest demonstration of this I've seen is, try having someone guess a song by tapping it out on a table or something. More than 90% of the time they will not be able to guess what song you're portraying because they lack the context. As soon as you mention the song, assuming the listener has heard the song before, they will be able to hear the association between your taps and the song, but not before being told.
This phenomenon happens a lot, and it's the worst on government anything because often you are not provided any reference to look up what is intended for the question, form, information or whatever that you're being asked to provide, you just need to provide it, but you lack the context to know what they even mean.
I would suggest that NT’s suffer from the curse of assumption and they’re unaware of it. It they read a question like we’re discussing they assume only one aspect of it. Whereas a non-NT like adhd would see multiple angles and answers to the question all at once and suffer the frustration of having to decipher what the asker really means - hence the au/adhd person’s need to over-explain an answer to be sure to corral the information specifically to the question they think is being asked.
I successfully submitted for a short term disability claim for an anxiety condition that arose from my ADHD. A few weeks later I was told that there wouldn't be a role for me to return to once I was recovered. IE in an attempt to avoid a nasty law suit they aren't firing me until I'm off short term disability.
Talk about setting up adverse conditions for recovery!
Nice of them though. I forced myself and it was not impossible since that's what I have done every day until now. Some people seem to expect servants to help them. But we're past slavery. I know how hard it is. But everyone has different challenges in life. Be happy that you are assisted with yours. Not many are.
The point is that ADHD is an executive function disorder. There's a lot of inertia to overcome before starting a task for someone with this disorder. It's not like she didn't know it was urgent or important, that actually probably played right into why she couldn't do it
That's true. While executive functions require training in order to develop at all. And that starts at the bare bone basics.
If you are old enough to apply for disability stuff, you can find a way to get yourself to fill in the form. ADHD makes it hard to, not impossible.
And if you truly struggle, ask someone for accountability, or to help you fill it out. Even if it has to be a stranger online. ADHD people tend to be creative, thrill seeking, out-of-the-box thinking, fast-track minded people right? They procrastinate more than average, but crank out loads of work right before the deadline. Make it work in your favor, as decrepid as the disability may be. ADHD is an explanation, not an excuse.
I think the issue, although it's being raised in meme-style rather than with a straightforward argument, is that asking somebody with ADHD to fill out a long, complex form is as reasonable as asking somebody on crutches to sashay up the stairs to the tenth floor to file their claim.
True of course, but ADHD can be associated with behaviors that make it very hard for someone afflicted to complete such an intimidating and important form. It's a bit of a catch 22.
"Ah yes, I see you claim you lost the use of your legs. That's okay we've got you. Just ascend the 58 stairs to the main office to drop off your form and..."
This happened to my wife a decade or so ago. She has cerebral palsy and struggles to walk. We arrive at the examination center responsible for assessing her needs for continued social welfare. The exam office was on the 4th floor and the lift didn't work. The building receptionist shrugged. We had to go through a lengthy appeal process after they claimed we never turned up for the appointment.
Mental stuff needs an in-person evaluation. I know ADHD isn't necessarily this bad but stuff like PTSD, severe depression, and Bi-Polar absolutely suffer from the same problem. The system is set up to handle physical disabilities but not really mental ones.
how the hell is THAT what you take away from this post?
How do you choose to blame the people with the disability for getting help instead of the system designed to make the process of getting help as difficult as possible?
I didn't blame them. I said it is impossible for those who need it to get help on their own, and therefore it is not their fault. The system needs to provide some way for someone to help people who need help get it because people who need it will not be able to get it on their own.
OP probably isn't as bad as some I've met who cannot even open an unlocked door with a handicap button on their own. Such people exist though, and somehow the system needs to ensure those people are not lost (including finding them!). Once you have that in place you may as well use the same people who get help to need it.