Anxiety Reduction

The Global Health Resource for Anxiety Reduction & Improved Quality of Life

Are Disability Benefits Available When Suffering From Social Anxiety?

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Social phobia (what we normally refer to as social anxiety disorder) is a really serious chronic mental illness. Sufferers will experience anxiety that can be crippling in situations where simple social interactions appear. The symptoms that are most commonly met are not being able to make eye contact and an intense fear of many different things. Disabilities can include symptoms that are random or that are present most of the time. Obviously, when things are too serious, disability benefits have to be considered.

Will Disability Benefits Be Available For You?

If you suffer from social anxiety and you have huge problems in talking with co-workers, managers or other people, it means that work will be really hard to do for you. Having to deal with panic attacks and relapses is very difficult. Side effects of medication can also make matters even worse. When severe social anxieties make it virtually impossible to get work, disability benefits may be in order.

The main idea to remember is that you have to be evaluated by the SSA in order to see if the condition you suffer from brings in eligibility or not. When the listing criteria are met, it is possible to be automatically approved for the social anxiety disabilities benefits. The SSA will not even look at work history, education and age.

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The Anxiety Disorders Listing

We have 2 social security eligible symptoms sets that can be considered. Their presence leads to being offered the benefits but at the same time it is important to prove that social anxiety will cause severe limitations. The two sets of symptoms are:

  • Agoraphobia Or Panic Disorder

In this case the person is diagnosed with one of the two and can experience panic attacks that are followed by persistent worry or concerns. The other situation is that in which there is an increase in anxiety or fear when faced with a scenario that would involve anything work related, including going to work via bus.

  • General Anxiety Disorder

In order to meet such a listing part, you should have an official anxiety disorder diagnosis and you need to offer psychological or psychiatric records to back up your claim. You would need to suffer from a minimum of 3 of the following general anxiety symptoms:

  • Irritability
  • Easy fatigue
  • Sleep disturbance
  • Muscle or overall tension
  • Problems with concentration
  • Restlessness

Activity Limitations

The last thing that you should know is that when you look for disability benefits you need to also prove that there are activity limitations that affect your day-to-day life. Extreme limitations are needed, like:

  • Managing or adapting oneself.
  • Persisting at tasks, problems concentrating.
  • Not being able to interact with other people.
  • Not being able to remember information or understand it.

If you have such a limitation and it is marked as being worse than moderate, the official diagnosis is “serious limiting”. When faced with serious limits and the other situations mentioned above, it is almost a certainty that your social phobia is going to lead to disability benefits.

 

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