OPM Disability Retirement: Concealment through Repetition

Last Updated on July 26, 2014 by FERS Disability Attorney

It is often through mindless repetition that concealment of truth can be accomplished, and with insidious efficiency.  For, repetition of tasks; redundancy of toil; convenience of engagement in life’s duties and obligations without thoughtful input; these can all be performed in monotonous automation without the participation of the one true essence of human uniqueness and identity:  the creativity of thought.

Life sometimes deadens the soul; or, more accurately, it is we who, as the gatekeeper of sensory impressions which bombard us daily, allow for the toxicity of life to invade and destroy.  Of all moral failings, however, one of the greatest is to allow for the mundane to conceal the truth.  That is often what the human toil of work allows; for, when a medical condition, whether physical or psychiatric, creeps in subtle hiding but progressively deteriorates and eats away at the body or soul, the desperate need to hide behind the mindless repetition of work allows for a semblance of mundane continuation of daily routine, and to trick the mind into thinking that all is well.

It is tantamount to the Maginot Line which the French had erected, consisting of fortifications, armaments and weapons’ placement in anticipation of an outdated strategy of waging war:  it provided a semblance of security, and allowed people to mindlessly live life.

For the Federal and Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, the refuge behind work; the responses to agency actions of retaliation; the prolonging and procrastinating of the one true essence of necessity — of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits in order to attend to one’s health — allows for the repetition of monotony to conceal the singularity of focus which is required to move forward.

Filing for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, is not the “be all or end all” of solutions; but it unravels a truism which prevents inertia of creativity, by allowing one to secure an annuity for the future, and to go back to the foundation of human essence: health, creativity, and the discarding of the repetition of the mundane.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire