Soon, I will have a hearing with an administrative law judge to see if I can get approved for disability benefits… again. I’ve been told by friends of mine who are more familiar with the process (yes, the process) that the best thing to do is to put in applications, and advance them to hearings, until I am eventually approved, because Social Security wants people to give up and stop applying for benefits even though they are disabled and should not have to fight as hard as many of them do to receive benefits that they are otherwise entitled to. To make it easier on myself, I’ve begun to keep notes on my computer to remind myself of things that I want to say at my hearing even though it will be over the phone due to this pandemic. This is the same judge who has already denied me once when I put in an application for disability with my asthma as my primary disabling diagnosis… now, at the advice of my second neurologist, I’ve put in an application with chronic, intractable migraine disorder as my primary disabling diagnosis. If she remembers me, which she may, she will probably find some reason to deny me. I’m willing to play the game of putting in applications until I am eventually approved, as one of my friends’ mothers had to advance applications to a hearing four separate times to get them approved for disability benefits when they were a child on something that should not even have had to go to a hearing… that was how obvious this disabling impairment should have been to Social Security when their mother applied for them, but I digress. Seriously.

Another one of my friends said that they “deny, deny, deny” hoping that you pass away for people whose disabling conditions run the risk of death so that they do not have to pay out on any benefits. And I mean, I can get behind the deny, deny, deny part since that’s been what has been happening to me right now. I’ve been getting contradictory reasons for denial on my migraine diagnosis alone. Personally, I’m still trying to figure out how someone with between fifteen and twenty “migraine days” (yes, days) lasting between four and twelve hours who can’t even engage in hobbies that she wants to engage in to the extent that she wants to engage in them in can work, but whatever. Maybe if I keep putting in applications they’ll get it…