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Trudi's Story

Basking in the sun’s warmth on my second-story back porch, eyes closed, I remembered a similar lazy afternoon under Greek skies. I waved good-bye to my girlfriends, who in the safety of numbers, chose to cruise the blue waters to view picturesque islands with whitewashed houses and blue shutters. Instead, I chose to wander the brick and stone streets of Athens in search of gardens and sidewalk cafes. I sat at a small establishment, with its canopy of trees, sipping thick Greek coffee waiting for the sun to set. Across the street, a religious store with its copper prayer plates dangling in the doorway beckoned me, offering treasures inside the darkened rooms filled with the scent of incense. It was perfect. Life was perfect.

I was a lucky woman, until I found my health eroding. Invisible at first, then one-day, life became a struggle. I was no longer able to hide behind the fear of being a hypochondriac. The changes within me were real, to my friends and family, unmistakable and obvious changes. I wasn’t the vibrant, passionate woman they remembered. Or, for that matter, the person I remembered myself being. I struggled to get through the day. Fatigue and pain overwhelmed me.

My joys became less and simple pleasures became complicated. The medical community offered no solutions, only dubious labels, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome, CFIDS. Knowing the name of my ailment accomplished nothing. My symptoms grew, evolved, and working only magnified them. Discouraged and confused, I sought help through therapy and reluctantly accepted that my life as I had once known it was never going to be the same. Torn with guilt and a desperate need to stop the downward spiral, I followed my doctor’s advice and stopped working to rest and hopefully heal.

For eighteen months, the state of California financially supported me while I sought a cure for my disease. I set out on a quest to find new, undiscovered ways I never thought about before, to improve my existence with less debilitating pain and more energy. The theft of my health was and is tragic. What wouldn’t I do to get back where I was? What indignity would I not suffer to see life as I used to?

I shivered in aqua therapy, ached with physical therapy, was cracked by chiropractors and endured excruciating trigger point injections with no permanent results. Only in biofeedback techniques did I find relief and methods to conserve vitally needed energy. At my lowest point, I purchased a Jack Allan juicer and supported several organic orchards as I drank endless cups of carrot-apple juice on the hyped advice of a paid-program-advertisement.

When I wasn’t in therapy or at the doctors, I sat in front of my computer, surfing the internet. It became a passion. It was a relief to see my symptoms on the screen, validating what I felt as real, not some figment of my imagination. In time, I knew more about my disease than my doctors. Despite this wealth of knowledge, it contained no cures.

Finally, I was forced to accept what I could no longer deny. I took the first step, and really, it was more like crawling then stepping, to accept the fact that I was disabled. Disabled is still a harsh word to my ears. My next course of action was to file for Social Security Disability Insurance, SSDI.

Once again, I turned to the internet to investigate Social Security’s disability insurance and the application process. Advice on how-to complete the application was hard to find and the number of people denied benefits was frightening. Social Security denied over sixty-three percent of the people who applied. I was astounded. The only recourse to a denial was years of waiting for appeals with a slim chance of winning. These odds were unacceptable.

With unwavering determination, I made a compact with myself to win my benefits the first time I submitted the application. There was no aspect of my application that I would leave to chance.

In my former life, for more than twenty-productive-happy-years, I was a competent management consultant. Fortune 500 hundred companies such as American Express, General Motors and Express Scripts sought my talents. I was good at what I used to do, very good. I am well versed in analyzing and presenting information. I viewed the application in the same way, I determined what SSA wanted, I analyzed and dissected my symptoms and conditions, I solicited support from my physicians and careful wrote and formatted the information for the application. My years as a professional analyst and writer supplied the skills needed to complete the application.

Despite the profusion of data on the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) website, useful information on how to fill out the application was non-existent. With little help on the internet; I sought books on the subject. The few books I found were either written by lawyers who focused on what they knew, the appeals process, or ex-SSA employees who concentrated on the social security process. These books offered little advice on how-to complete an application.

Equally disappointing were the hosts of legal websites offering questionable advice and the common belief that the way to win benefits was in the appeal process. Determined to avoid the grasp of the legal professional I focused on the goal of having my application approved the first time I submitted it.

After many hours on the internet, hours that stretched into weeks, I synthesized all the application information and success stories into a few simple guidelines for success. One absolute for success is to submit evidence with the application. So, I systematically set out to collect medical records of my illnesses, consult letters, lab tests, imaging, procedures and studies. I summarized all kinds of data for easy perusal by decision-makers I would never meet. I collected affidavits from my co-workers, friends and family. I wrote letters for my doctors, who proofed, edited, and once printed on their letterhead, signed. Every ounce of my limited energy was spent gathering evidence to prove my case.

Next came the writing. With a solid background in technical writing and a thorough knowledge of my diagnoses and numerous conditions, I was ready to write the answers to the some thirty-six, sometimes complicated, questions in the application. Writing answers as descriptive narratives was another universal technique used by those who won their cases.

In Section 1 of the application, I documented a variety of afflictions, offering Social Security their choice of disabling illnesses from which to consider me disabled. Section 2 documented, with depictions of debilitating symptoms in explicit detail, my inability to sustain work in any environment. Without exaggeration or fabrication, I painted a picture of my life filled with pain, emotional reactions with the least provocation and an embarrassing inferior mental functioning level.

What in my former life would have been a matter of weeks to write, took me three months. The accomplishment was bittersweet. With the skill of a professional familiar with writing proposals, I formatted, indexed and tabbed the application and supporting documentation in a three-inch-thick 3-ring binder.

With my binder under my arm, I met with the intake officer at the local Social Security office. She validated my confidence as she flipped through the pages.

“I’m really impressed. Did you do all this yourself?” she asked.

With a soft smile, I replied, “Yes.”

I instinctively knew my efforts would bring me success. Only later, did I discover my efforts may have been too good, when my therapist mentioned the SSA called her to ask how could any disabled person put this together?

“You’d have to know Trudi,” the therapist said, “Her mind is in tact, her body isn’t.”

Other than a form letter confirming the receipt of my application, months passed. I was in limbo. I don’t want to be melodramatic and say my life hung in the balance but, certainly, the quality of my financial life did.

Mysteriously, one day, a $10,000 deposit dropped into my bank account. It was an unannounced check from the Social Security Administration for my back benefits. I won. After three months of waiting, I won.

Today, my life is slower than it used to be. I’m discouraged with the medical field, accepting that it holds no cures for me. I live with chronic pain, striving to find the right combination of medications and exercise, so I can function. And, I struggle with depression. I‘m not apologizing or asking for sympathy for my life with all its obstacles and challenges - it’s my reality. With the protective love of a power greater than myself, I’m safe and content. I believe that one day my lifelong dream of wander the halls of the Loeuve in Paris will come true.

For the past two years, I’ve held another dream. I’ve worked from my bed, couch or desk to research and write a book that will help deserving people win their Social Security disability benefits the first time they apply. Too many people feel the devastating effects of being denied, needlessly experiencing emotional, physical and financial hardships while enduring years of appeals with the Social Security Administration. It’s my deepest hope that Win Your Disability Benefits Now helps to stop the unnecessary cycle of denials.

I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to help you complete the application and receive your benefits in the least amount of time possible.