"Dooced" By Disability

Denise — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:48:52 -0500

If you are a blogger and you are blogging about work, you should be very careful. Everybody knows about Dooce. Everybody knows what it means to "get dooced". But here's something new to think about; a new form of "doocing". If you are receiving disability, your blog might just be used against you. You might be dooced from your disability.

That's exactly what happened to a blogger last week, she use to blog at madrigal of agony. (All of the links in this post are invalid as of this posting. "Madrigal of Agony" has removed her blog entries.)

Don't they want me to be working? I have been busting my ass, maxing out on my "activity level" so that I can prove that I am not only willing to work, but I am also willing to work myself into the ground.

But apparantly they think that my activities are not consitent with the pain that I report, so I will not be reporting in a public way any longer.

I want everyone to remember why I needed to abandon this blog.

I've been reading "Madrigal of Agony" since early March of this year and it sure sounded like she was in pain, a lot of it. On the rare day when she seemed to avoid migraines, I quietly cheered for her. When she was able to see Pearl Jam, (she's one of those Pearl Jam fanatics, you know the kind), I was thrilled for her. Those good days seemed few and far between, from my perspective. Apparently her disability company didn't agree.

I was very open with my long term disability company and gave them the URL to this blog because I have nothing to hide. I am in pain all the time, what should I be hiding from? I assumed I was being surveilled, but what does that matter? They don't have cameras in my home, so they don't see my collapses. All they see is me "being active" in the community.

Madrigal of Agony has been dooced from her disablity coverage. I've been thinking about this for several days and I'm having trouble coming to terms with that. I understand the need to regularly review disability cases. I understand the reasons why some people are denied and why some people are cancelled. I don't understand making such a decision based on blog entries. And I really don't understand this decision in particular.

Madrigal of Agony is was a pain blog. This woman has blogged her way through her pain. Was she scamming the system? It didn't look like it from where I'm sitting.

Updated 7/21/6 - Madrigal of Agony has been able to clear up some points considered "inconsistent" with her LTD company and will be reviewed again in six months. Let us hope her blog, if she chooses to re-open it, will not be used against her.

~~Denise
Daily Dose of Denise and Fast Times @ Homeschool High

Photo Credit: Madrigal of Agony

BlogHer - "Dooced" By Disability - Comments

"Dooced" By Disability