I have definately suffered from major depression since I was in high school I spent 2 years in the twelfth grade simply because I missed too many days because I felt so down I couldn't drag myself out of bed till about two in the afternoon after going to bed about ten at night I had an alcoholic father who beat my mom a lot and verbally abused me daily I saw counselors in high school also psychologist and no one wanted me on meds that young when I was 22 after having two kids I saw a psychiatrist and I got on meds I went through several jobs always missing too much work and quitting before I would probably get fired meds would sometimes work for months elevating my mood and then wear off even after I was on highest dose possible so for the past 18years I've been off and on all meds imaginable gained a shitload of weight have suicide thoughts often but I try to stay alive because I know my kids need me three years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar depression took a shitload full of meds up until last December made me very groggy gain more weight and also wore off again I also have 3 herniated discs in my lower back how more depressing could that be I just quit taking methodone for my pain 2 months ago because of chest pain I have a back appointment end of September I guess to get more pain meds because chest pains supposedly is acid reflux it took me 3years to get disability long years I don't know when my review is maybe a couple of years but I got mad at my last psychiatrist and haven't had meds for almost a year and probably need something I want to know will this screw my disability review up I really can't afford a psch anymore and feel meds only temporarily work for me anyway it's hard to hang in there but at least I do have an income now most of the money is spent on my kids lives so they'll enjoy I just worry since I'm not on meds anymore will the judge think I'm okay because I'm really not but I know I couldn't hold a job am I on trouble for next review

My best friend is currently caught up in this terrible MESS of trying to get disability. He's been at it for 6 years now. He has/had 2 seperate cases before the court. The 2nd was approved first and he got his little bit of back pay and how gets a monthly check. BUT..the 1st case drug on for years before finally ruling in his favor in July of 2008. Isn't it ODD that they said "yes you are disabled" in the 2nd case, but had to go throught all that CRAP to proove his 1st case. The SSA is terribly broken. The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. But back to what I was getting at. He was notified the 1st of July of 2008, by his lawyer, that his case was ruled in his favor. Weeks went by with no work from SSA. Calling them is totally a waste of time. All they will tell you is "it's in the payment center." By the way..you can't call the payment center..nobody knows their phone number. Well FINALLY about 3 weeks ago he got a long letter from them. They advised they were holding out a certain amount for attorney fees. Also, they wanted to know if he wanted insurance withheld from the back pay. HA! What a joke...he had no insurance benefits during that time so why withhold insurance from the back pay. Also, they were withholding the first 5 months because you have to be disabled for 5 months. Well...when his 2nd case was decided in his favor, they withheld 5 months and now they want to do it again. I think that is double dipping and is totally ridiculous. The case has been in the payment center now for almost 3 months. This is just totally unacceptable. I realize there is a backlog but HIRE MORE PEOPLE to help with the processing. This government of ours is currently doing BAIL OUTS of some financial organizations and doing it overnight. YET...they can't get my friends little bit of money to him which he so desperately needs. I could preach on this for days but to no avail.

I spent over 5 years in the "system" before I was judged disabled from my original claimed onset date. A huge back pay but woefully inadequate considering what they did to me.
I suffered through the anthrax scare; comms that used to take weeks were taking months all of a sudden.
I was lied to by my ALJ's office.
I was lied to by the ALJ during my hearing and in front of my relatives who were there to help me out.
The ALJ lied and even contradicted himself in the long opines he made in his refusals, he refused to listen to mistakes in my file, refused to listen about data that was missing from my file and in general turned out to be prejudiced against me in my opinion because I put on over 100 lbs from the inactivity of a previously healthy and active lifestyle.
I suffered "lost" forms, one of which was even hand delivered, with a table of contents to my local SS office. There were just too many "losses" of forms to have been coincidences. The last form "lost" on me never would have been discovered at all, IMO, if it had not been for my representative, J McHugh, who insisted on some answers he was not getting from SSA. After that, things began to move along at their regular snail's pace again; once more, too much of a coincidence since my rep was now one of the ones I think were outright lied to. I am of the opinion that the "losses" were intentional and a result of the ALJ's prejudice against me.

After I was awarded disability from my original onset date of 5 years earlier, I submitted a complaint about the judge. On the advice of my lawyer I did not do it sooner because there is a record of ALJ's taking revence of claimaints in this area.
I found out only through the grapevine that the judge apparently received only a slap on the wrist but was still hearing cases I noticed several months later. He even complained during my hearing about how much he hated having to make these trips up here from Syracuse (~120 miles each way). I watched one of his daily routines; he spent approximately 4 1/2 hours in hearings in the motel meeting room and saw two claimants. But I also noticed 4 claimants waiting. I was asked to leave and told not to come back by the motel management.
There have only been two men in my lifetime (not counting military battle duty against the enemy) whom I honestly hated. The other died many years ago. That judge is still alive as far as I know. Apparently my treatment was pretty common; it turned out I was only one of several to submit complaints about him, including accusations of practicing medicine without a license during the hearing.
I was even successfully refused a transcript or copy of the tape recording of my hearing. FOIA did nothing for me; they were a simple black hole and I didn't have the money or the body to pursue it further. Otherwise I probably could have sued the bejeepers out of him and won. I documented nearly every step of the process fortunately and have posted excerpts of it on my web site for others to read.

THAT is what's wrong with the system! It's a damned goold old boy's network and the ALJs know how secure their jobs are and how little work they can get away with and have absolutely no consideration for the claimants in front of them.

If for some strange reason someone decides to contact me about this missive, I seriously recommend not going it by telephone. I have a serious problem with memory retrieval and even give answers and say things I am not aware of and will have no memory of. However, I can work fine with the written word. Thus, e-mail, snail mail, or even facsimile is the best way to communicate with me.

Boy, it felt good to unload that! But my hatred for that ALJ and others like him that I read about almost daily on the disability newsgroup will never dissipate. I'm afraid the only way to save the SS system is with a bull dozer, honestly.

OK, I'm done. It felt really good to vent; it's been a lot of years and I'm still very, very upset over what they did to me.

I am a Marine combat veteran of Vietnam and I have been a lawyer for more than 23 years. I have represented clients ranging from small corporations to an elected official facing removal for poor decisions, to indigent parents whose children were removed by state authorities, to families torn by a divorce, to auto accident victims and injured workers seeking workers compensation benefits, to criminal defendants. In none of these arenas have I seen more abuse of the legal process than in my last 4 years as a Social Security disability judge. It is a rather classical example of a well-intentioned government program to assist the weakest members of our society transformed into a cash-cow for the avaricious among us. Occasionally - but rarely - do I see a claimant with an entirely fraudulent claim. The clear majority of the claimants who appear before me do have some physical or mental impairment. The real issue is whether that person can meet the definition of "disability" which was intentionally set very high by Congress to provide income to only those whose injuries/illnesses are very debilitating. Unfortunately, that very high bar is approached with deception and falsification in many cases. Some doctors go overboard on diagnoses and treatment because they sense the "pot of gold" in having a fairly young patient (on Medicare for many years to come) with a reliable source of payment for constant treatment. Lawyers and other non-attorney representative can receive fees as a percentage of the back benefits awarded to a claimant. Once a claimant has a legal representative, one can actually track how the alleged impairments become much worse, with new impairments and symptoms added as the case matures. A judge with some experience can almost recite verbatim the same story we hear from virtually EVERY claimant, suggesting they have received training from the national organization of the claimant's attorneys. The government is complicit in this boondoggle, because the Social Security Administration actually publishes lists of symptoms for various impairments in the form of rules for judges to follow. Is it any wonder we hear those lists of symptoms at almost every hearing? For 15 of the past 16 years congress has funded the Social Security disability program at amounts below the amount requested by the president. In the past few years, the growing backlog has been discovered by the mainstream media and suddenly there is a major push to eliminate the backlog. Not a moment too soon, as we are seeing the advance wave of the "baby boomer" generation, those who claim early disability to avoid waiting for their statutory retirement age to come up. Judge Haberman was correct, and Commissioner Astrue was not completely candid in his statement that he doesn't tell judges which way to decide a case. SSA places enormous pressure on the judges to eliminate the backlog by granting benefits to as many claimants as possible. Certainly not by direct means, but by many, many indirect means. Because a judge who denies a claim must provide an extensive explanation for the reasons (and nearly every claimant alleges the symptoms embodied in the published SSA rules) a denial Decision is much more complicated and time-consuming to write, taking 2 to 3 times as long as Decison granting benefits. Yet at one point, Mr. Astrue was threatening job action against any judge who did not meet an arbitraty number of dispositions per year. Mr. Astrue has been a lawyer for a long time; he must certainly be aware that the congress created administrative judges in the Social Security Act and in the Administrative Procedures Act. In those laws, congress specifically forbid administrative agencies (such as SSA) from taking any action against administrative judges on the grounds of their decisons or acts of judicial discretion in managing cases. Just as the framers of the U.S. Constitution divided political powers into three branches to prevent the "political passions of the day" from taking this government down unwise paths, the congress created a form of "separation of powers" between the government agencies and their own administrative judges. Mr. Astrue knows that, but because of the political pressure on him to eliminate the backlog, he is blaming everything on the administrative judges, and deliberately attempting to circumvent the controls congress emplaced for exactly such political circumstances as these at present. Unfortunately, as in most political controversies, Truth is the first casualty. Mr. Astrue speaks loudly and often about the judge who "hasn't held a hearing in X years" or about the "judges who dispose of 40 cases per year." Unfortunately, Mr. Astrue refuses to identify those persons (purportedly because of "privacy issues") and there may be valid reasons for such situations. For example, judges who are appointed to management positons in this agency are stil counted as "judges" even though they may do few -if any - hearings. Judges who are union officials may be involved in extensive litigation against the agency (enforcing the intent of congress against agency behavior) and may spend relatively time disposing of disability cases. We can only speculate because Mr. Astrue will not provide the necessary information to back up his accusations. Finally, some truth may be discovered by congress itself. The General Accountability Office (an investigative agency of congress) was tasked to look into the performance of the SS disability program. The conclusion was that there were some judges who were less productive, but that it is impossible to tell why, because the cases vary to the extreme in the number of issues which must be considered and decided by the judge. An extremely difficult case would naturally take much longer than a relatively routine case. The one GAO finding Mr. Astrud doesn't want the public to hear about is that the GAO found the chief reason for the backlog is agency mismanagement "for decades" and that the SSA is still using business practices which were discredited as ineffective "years ago." That may be the real reason Mr. Astrue wishes to place the blame on the administrative judges.