social security

[kissym83]

i am 26 and my bipolar started when i was 25... i applied in feb last year went through the whole thing and was denied. I reapplied a few weeks ago and this time they said i did not have enough CREDITS to qualify. See I ran my own business 2 years prior to my first episode. I was building up a restaurant that had been closed for many years and working my a** off like 80 hrs a week. well even with all my efforts my business suffered a loss its first two years so i recieved no CREDITS for those two years. So now I am fu****. Because I thought that I could do anything and make that restaurant work, now I have to suffer for it. Before that i stayed home with my babies i had three pregnancies the 3 years prior. But does SS consider this at all...NO! How is this fair...now I have no INSURANCE and cant see my pdoc near enough and am struggling to afford my meds and bloodtests every month. I am so pissed at our government. After all if I knew that this were going to happen I would have worked for someone not myself. I would have done those high stress jobs that I always wanted to persue. I never let anyone tell me that somthing wasn't possible... I proved them wrong. Now I feel helpless and confined and aggravated. Anyone have any suggestions? I don't care about the money i just want my meds and therapy!

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Yeah the government is pretty stingy with who get social security disability.  There's a lot of people out there who should be on it but aren't and probably will never get to be.

[ILADVOCATE]

You must be speaking about SSDI. You do need a certain amount of credits (work quarters) to quality. But the disability aspect for SSI and SSDI is the same. If you are too disabled to work you could qualify for SSI regardless. If what's specifically important to you is medical coverage you still should be eligible for Medicaid at any time as that is income based not disability based. For more information on Social Security go to their official website at ssa.gov. For specific assistance with benefits issues you can speak to your local independent living center:
http://www.ilru.org/html/publications/directory/index.html