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How to Cure the Credibility Cripplers for Your Social Security Disability Case

 

There are very few things that can kill your social security case.  If you apply for SSI and you win the Powerball multi-million dollar lottery, you probably won’t win your SSI case.  If you were out of work for 11 months and went back to work full-time, you probably won’t your disability case.  I know the process is long but it is a process.

Fortunately there very few situations that may kill your disability case. However, there are a bunch of situations that may cripple your case.  You would be surprised by the things that people do or say that hurt their disability case:

Are you still using drugs or drinking alcohol?  Yes.
Are you still smoking even after the doctor told you to stop? Yes.
The doctor told you to exercise.  Are you exercising?  No.

It’s amazing.  What’s even more amazing is how people will try to tap dance around these facts in court:

Why are you still using drugs or drinking?  Well, see, what had happened was…….
Why are you still smoking?  I know I need to stop but I’m cutting down.
Why aren’t you exercising?  It’s too hard to get out of the bed.

Really?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in court and my client has blown up their case right before my very eyes.  What’s the most amazing part is that almost all of these situations are fixable.  So why not fix them?

If you have a few crippling facts that may have a negative impact on your case, you should employ my E.F.M approach:Embrace it, Fix it, and Move on.

Embrace it
You would be surprised by the number of times people will sugar coat, downplay and even straight out lie about a negative fact in their case.  Why are you ducking it?  It’s in the file.  Everybody knows about it. And, guess what?  If you’re in front of the judge, you will not be looking very good to him/her if you’re not straightforward.  Stop tap dancing and just admit it.  A negative fact comes across much better coming directly from you as an acknowledgement as opposed to the judge asking you to explain something you’ve intentionally omitted.

Fix it
Stop making excuses for the problem.  You know what it is well in advance, fix it.  If the doctor tells you to stop smoking, stop smoking!  If your attorney or representative tells you to stop using drugs, stop using drugs! There is nothing in your case that can’t be fixed so stop making excuses and fix it.

Move on
You can’t undo the negative facts.  You can’t pretend like they never happened.  The best thing you can do is acknowledge the facts, highlight what you’ve done to fix them, and then stress how you have conducted yourself after you fixed the problem.

In the end, you have the ability to heal the cripple in your case.  So you have to decide.  Do you want your case to walk into the court room or limp into the court room?

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