OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Perilous times

Last Updated on February 12, 2018 by FERS Disability Attorney

It can refer to the particular or the general, interchangeably almost without thought.  To refer to these “perilous times” is to ascribe to a particular period, an epoch or an era, an acknowledgment that the surrounding days and months are unique from all other timeframes of perceived dangers and tumultuous upheavals.  Or, it can be quite personal — where one describes specific circumstances concerning one’s own life, one’s situation and the peculiarities of a life otherwise undisturbed by circumstances that stand out.

There is that expansive “we” form that can distinguish between the particular and the general, as in, “We live in perilous times.”  Or, one can personalize it and declare to a friend in confidence, “I live in a state of peril” or “My life reflects these perilous times.”  The latter, of course, implies both the particular and the general by including not only the personal aspect of one’s upheaval but the generality of the historical context within which we all walk about.  Perilous times, indeed.

Medical conditions tend to specifically impact individuals in this way — for, in the particular, it hits upon us as a crisis of quality.  How we have lived; the lifestyle we have chosen; the priorities of what constitutes “worthiness”; all of these are challenged by a medical condition that begins to insidiously eat away at our body, our mind, our spirit.

Whether by intrusion of pain or something within us that no longer “works” normally; of private functions that have become worn out, or perhaps it is the memory, mental capacity or ability to cope with daily stresses; but of whatever origin or outcome, we look about for cures and comfort and often find none but some palliative form in a pill or a surgery that fails to correct.  Times become perilous because of circumstances beyond our control.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, perilous times often require perilous choices, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, becomes a necessary next step in attempting to forestall the inevitable results of these very times that we deem to be perilous, whether in a particular sense or in a more generalized historical context.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire