FERS Disability: generalized anxiety disorder as a secondary condition service connection disability retirement

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement: Life on Hold

February 4, 2019

There are periods in our lives when life is seemingly “on hold”. Of times when we know not what to do; of careers that have hit a brick wall; of unhappiness over present circumstances; perhaps even of deteriorating family relationships that fail to reveal a glimmer of hope for improvement; and of a medical condition that becomes chronic with the realization that we must accept it, live with it, and endure the accompanying symptoms for a life-long struggle. […]

Federal Disability Retirement: The mediocre medical report

October 5, 2018

One can, of course, obtain an “excellent” medical report — i.e., one that has full, unequivocal support in providing a clear diagnosis, description of symptoms, impact upon specific job functions, etc., with an unequivocal conclusion of disability beyond the specific elements of one’s job functions, etc. — and yet get denied by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. […]

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: The sparrow

July 13, 2018

It is a bird that remains unappreciated — that generic entity which, when not identified by the wandering ornithologist, is simply referred to as a “sparrow”. They are like the “default” bird, unassuming, pervasive, lost in the underbrush of time and history, and are taken for granted in their existence, presence and attraction — sort of like most of humanity. One doesn’t hear the wandering bird-lover with his or her oversized binoculars strung heavily around a neck that is straining from a disc herniation […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Life Lessons

February 2, 2016

Most of us stumble through it, and somehow end up down unexpected corridors of unplanned venues; and then we have the nerve to think that we can have kids and impart wisdom we never learned, refused to lived by, and rarely listened to. It is said that hypocrisy is the characteristic of the common farce; it just happens to infect everyone else, and never ourselves. But there is an evolutionary determinant even in the comedy of life; it used to be that Western Philosophy would teach us to always seek out the substance of a thing, […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Frustrated Purposes

January 7, 2016

The linear attempt is the methodology of direct purpose; it is the measurement of length — of a straight line from point A to point B, of a one-dimensional character. Any obstacle placed in its path represents a frustration of that purpose, and merely delays and obfuscates the attempt to accomplish a stated goal. How to ad lib in circumstances where obstacles appear; the consideration of options and alternatives in the face of detours and unexpected deterrences; what malleability of core values must be shown when necessity arises; these are all challenges within a universe of expectations otherwise untested. […]

OPM Disability Retirement: Beyond the Pablum of Life

January 4, 2016

Once a cereal brand, a glob of mush whose nutritional content was suspect at best, and the bland taste of which represented the monotony of modernity; now, it is mere pap, where the lack of substantive content belies the true nature of harm, insipid and incremental, creeping daily and slowly deteriorating. Isn’t that how a medical condition destroys? Yes, there are traumatic events — where loss of limb and even of life suddenly cuts short the vibrancy of a human narrative; […]