Imagine yourself ill. Then imagine you are caught up in a tangled web of bureaucracy. Imagination became reality for me 18 months ago when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My employment ended in August 2006 and my nightmares began.

Already feeling confused and insecure about myself, I was given the arduous task of completing applications, making appointments and undergoing specialized testing in my attempt to secure disability benefits. In the wake of all this I was also receiving treatment for this disease by health care professionals. My first denial from Social Security for disability benefits would soon follow.

You see, there is an overwhelming lack of emphasis on treatment. In the eyes of the Social Security Administration, mental health is looked upon as a disorder or condition rather than being classified as a disease.

Additionally we have become statistics in an otherwise normal society. Categorizing is not on an individual or case-to-case basis. In the interest of saving time and the administration uses old outdated standards and guidelines to simplify the process, thus resulting in a misguided conclusion. This means we are being misunderstood and ignored.

The main basis for the decision are the results of testing designed to measure responses to certain questions to determine your ability to listen and understand. This testing is a smoke screen, a measure of intelligence rather than ability. A useless tool, it is still being used as an important gauge for measuring one’s ability to perform a particular and multiple-function in a specific environment with the workforce. Cognitive responses are conducted in a quiet controlled relaxed environment. How present is that in the real world?

Ability and performance are two totally separate factors, yet the Social Security Administration treats them equally. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to reach a conclusion that the same result will manifest itself in a practical environment. It is also inconceivable to believe, particularly in today’s society, there are jobs that lack the requirement to be able to function in a fast-paced environment. So instead of helping patients (claimants), what could be a manageable situation now becomes an out-of-control episode.

In this fast-paced, hard to handle society patients’ environments become unstable from being shuffled around. We are an assembly line of defective minds with no hope for a recall.

Advocacy groups are a welcome force and encouraged to speak up. But it is time for new voices. I am referring to those with symptoms and not clinical backgrounds. Instead of being heard we are herded behind closed doors.

Granted, group therapy is healthy and often diffuses erratic behavior but it is only a temporary fix, not a solution. We should continue to express ourselves behind those closed doors but we also need to be recognized and maintain our dignity as well as our identity.

To this end, further examination is needed and new guidelines instituted. This is where reality and statistics collide. Unfortunately reality is the fallen hero of this battle and statistics will forever stand victorious unless changes are made to the crumbling system. It is paramount, imperative that focus and emphasis be placed on obtaining solid clinical evidence in the future determinations of mental health disabilities.

As of this writing I remain without benefits. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Perhaps. I am scheduled for a hearing in a week. Is this just another piece of the bureaucratic puzzle? The only positive thing is that I have an attorney representing me; something I recommend highly at this juncture in the process.

Granting benefits is not a gift. We have all contributed to this system through payroll deductions. Having benefits offers us financial security in the form of a fixed income. It also eliminates a great deal of the pressure associated with the ability to satisfy financial obligations. But most importantly it offers us hope.

Perhaps then and only then, society, as well as local, state and federal agencies, will no longer shun us.