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I Am Not Hypothetical

I went to my disability hearing.  I sat in a room with my legal counsel and a stenographer.  The administrative law judge was in another state, so she appeared on a large TV monitor.  In the room with the judge was a phone with a vocational rehabilitation expert on speaker.
The judge asked my legal counsel some questions.  Then she asked the voc rehab expert some hypothetical questions.  Then she asked me some questions.  I don't know how I did.  I wish I'd had the opportunity to prepare what I would say.  I tried to be clear and concise.  I entirely forgot to address her as "your honor."  My legal counsel said afterward that he thought the ALJ wanted to decide in my favor.  As of this writing I am still waiting for her decision to arrive in the mail.

The thought that I might be denied what I deserve because I mispoke or failed to explain something adequately is disquieting.  I am grateful though that the hearing was recorded; the ALJ can watch the whole proceeding again to inform her decision.  Maybe she will get from that some idea of the insurmountable obstacles I face in the workforce.  But there's no way one interview could be sufficient for anyone to grasp the scope of my struggle.

I don't look disabled.  My extremities are intact and functional.  My cognitive function is normal.  I'm like one of a pair of pictures in a spot-the-differences game: you have to look hard to see how I'm not like others.  Each subtle difference has a big impact.  The human condition is a machine with a million interlocking parts.  Some of my parts are abnormal and, small though they may be, each abnormality makes a significant contribution to my disability.  Considered together, the myriad parts of my personal human condition make up a misshapen experience - or at least one that isn't productive within neurotypical homogeneity.

What I mean is that one hearing isn't enough to assess me.  Hypotheticals can't describe my real experience.  I hope the administrative law judge makes her decision with that in mind.

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