What Downplaying Your Symptoms at the C&P Exam Actually Costs You
Short answer: a C&P exam is evidence gathering, not treatment, and it rates how bad your condition gets, so understating your symptoms out of pride lowers your rating. "Describe your worst day, not your average day" means report your flare-ups accurately, not exaggerate them.
Picture the exam. The examiner asks how you're doing. "Oh, can't complain." You mean it as manners. Twenty-plus years of being the one who doesn't complain doesn't switch off because you walked into a different room.
The examiner writes it down. That is what the examiner is there to do.
I see this more than anything else at this stage, and it has nothing to do with paperwork. Veterans minimize. We were trained to. Suck it up, don't be the weak link, somebody else has it worse. That instinct kept you functional in service. In a C&P exam it works directly against you, and the cost is measured in percentage points and dollars a month for the rest of your life.
A C&P exam is not a checkup. Nobody is treating you. It is an evidence-gathering appointment, and the evidence being gathered is your description of how this condition limits you. If your description is stoic, the record is stoic, and the rating follows the record.
You'll hear the advice "describe your worst day, not your average day." It's good advice and it's usually misunderstood. It does not mean exaggerate. Exaggerating is a genuinely bad idea. It is detectable, and it can poison an otherwise strong file.
There is a way to be accurate about a life you've gotten used to not mentioning, without talking yourself up or talking yourself down. That's what the C&P session teaches, and it's one of the most important things you'll prepare for.
That's the whole thing: not talking yourself up, and not talking yourself down either. Just being accurate about a life you've gotten very used to not mentioning.