Welcome Zephercan,
The Chronic Pain Forum Welcomes all people who wish to share experience and support, but I think you're a little misguided in what you are seeking from our forum here. Your post seems to be asking us what you should tell the "shrink" so you can get picked up by an Advocacy group for the journey that is SSDI. Frankly, that's not very smart. Essentially, what you are telling us is that you want to be on SSDI, and asking us how to cheat on the test. If you are truly "depressed", and it sufficiently hinders your ability to make a living for yourself, then you deserve to be on disability. In that case, any honest answers you give to a professional in the field of psychiatry should serve you well. You should be just fine on your own, being truthful about yourself and your history is always the best policy. Being deceptive, leaving out information, or any other alteration of the truth will inevitably catch up with you. Heck, I know for me, just trying to keep my own medical history straight is complicated enough. I sure as heck wouldn't want to have to worry about trying to deliberately leave out things or cover anything up. KEEP IT HONEST. IT's the best way.
Personally, when I applied for SSDI, I did it as a straight person...without even hiring a lawyer. All I did was to heavily document all of my medical history, basically snowed them under with paperwork/medical records. I was approved my first time through the system, so it does happen. Not everyone is automatically rejected, regardless of what you've heard.
Good luck and let us know what happens.
CRANKY 1
(Been away so long my sig stuff disappeared...LOL!)