· you have a STEM degree (an associates’ in Biology obtained before the onset of any disability)
· you’re intelligent, so you can adapt to work (when my disabilities are all physical)
· “your functional limitations line up with your neurologist’s report on you, but we still believe you can work”
· the migraine aborters actually work 100% at taking all migraine pain away, so I “can work”
· “you may have some limitations” (ha), “but you can adapt to work” (and absolutely no work is listed)
I had a friend whose mother had to apply for disability for them four separate times while they were a child, just to get them approved. That was four separate applications that she had to put in. Another case that I heard about was the friend of several friends waiting for a hearing after having been denied twice, just to die in her sleep. And I read about someone who had to advance it to a hearing for leukemia, at which point they were approved, but they died soon after because they could not start therapy for their cancer in time to save their life. This is literally what disabled people in the United States have to deal with. They have to put in application after application, or advance it to a hearing and wait up to two years to get in front of an administrative law judge, hoping that they can hold their heads above water while they do, also hoping that they don’t actually die before disability benefits are granted. Like I’ve mentioned before, 13,000 people die per calendar year here because they actually are disabled and they kept being denied benefits. That is one hell of an “oops”. I’m starting to think that it’s intentional on the part of this country, a feature, not a “bug”.