Federal Disability Retirement from OPM: The Fall of Life

Seasons are often metaphorical and analogical applications for communicating a personification of our connection to the natural world.  The Autumn of our lives — or the Fall of Life — is that period when the apex of our lifespan has passed and we are now in the downward trend when viewed from a spectrum of our life’s entirety.

There is the Spring — of birth, early childhood, and the indiscretion of youth; and of Summer, the height of our creative powers, the vigor of battling, tackling and “living” to the fullest; and then of Fall, when experience and wisdom begins to set in and where life is of a more settled nature — of the leaves floating down upon the earth, quietly and without fanfare, where the acquisition of wisdom is of greater worth than of exuberance of accomplishments and conquests.

There is, of course, that last phase — of the Winter of Discontent, the snowfalls and frozen tundra representing the barrenness of that last stage, whether of an eternity beyond or a nothingness and void. Whatever the theological belief-system, what we do know is that it is a mystery never to be known.

But as for the Fall of Life — either of the season, the time, the period of meditative quietude, or of the all-encompassing quarter extracted from the whole; or, in the other sense of the concept, a period of downturn, when the descent of our physical and mental capacities begin to manifest.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are experiencing the Fall of Life — of a time when health begins to deteriorate and you are no longer able to perform all of the essential functions of your Federal or Postal job — you may want to consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

If you can no longer meet the performance expectations of your Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, contact an FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law and begin the initiation of a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application in the Fall of your life, before the deep darkness of winter sets in.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Of Grief

Chekhov was a medical doctor and knew about death, human suffering and the plight of spectrums involving emotional turmoil.  His profession as a doctor resulted in encounters with human suffering; his love for writing often reflected the experiences gained from his medical profession.

He possessed a profound comprehension of grief, and his short story, simply named, “Grief”, conveys the two-tiered phenomena involving that very fundamental human emotion: The feeling or sense of grief, to begin with; but further, the need for the grieving person to tell his or her story fully, and in so doing, coming to terms with the loss which is the basis of grief.

Every loss, to a greater or lesser degree, results in some sense of grief, and death is not the only basis of that most brutal of emotions.

For Federal Government employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the health condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, part of the grief felt is the loss of one’s career, of a diminishment of finances, of reduced circumstances and the severing of that collegial sense of working at an agency.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management can be a difficult choice. To do it effectively and properly, contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and allow that emotional turmoil of grief be somewhat blunted by having an experienced advocate do much of the groundwork on your behalf.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Legal Assistance: The Fragile State

There are perhaps times in which we all face such a state — of a death in the family; financial or other problems; an unexpected accident or incident; a medical condition.

The fragile state of our being does not have to come about as a result of a single event; it can, as well, creep up on us over a period of time.  Perhaps it begins with a minor irritant — of trouble getting to sleep, first for a few hours, then growing into nightly turning and tossing; a chest pain; a sudden outburst of anger, uncharacteristic and surprising even to the individual; a sense of depression which begins to overtake you on mornings; a tiredness that turns into exhaustion, which then incrementally follows the lead of profound fatigue; and like the seasons which change but of which we fail to notice, we look up at the trees one morning and realize that all of the leaves have disappeared from the trembling branches of the maple tree.

When does a medical condition turn from incidental to chronic?  When does the state of a person’s being turn into a fragile state?  When did you become “disabled”?

Medical conditions are more often than not — not a point of pinpoint accuracy, but over a continuum, a spectrum of time.  You may never be able to pinpoint the exact moment when the fragile state arrived, but when it occurs, it is time to begin preparing for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, knowing that the fragile state has unfortunately arrived.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Medical Retirement from the OPM: The Strategy

Is it always necessary to possess one?  Must one always have to be able to articulate it before moving forward?

How would you respond and react if, say, you were in the military and about to embark on a major mission, and your platoon leader turns and says to you, “Now, this is a dangerous mission and we have to do it, even though we don’t really have a strategy as to how we will go about accomplishing the mission.”  Would such a statement empower you with confidence?

Or, would you smirk quietly and whisper to the person next to you, “Wow, that’s a confidence builder!”

Or to a child who one day declares, “I’m going to be a billionaire!”  Would you suppose that such a declaration is without a strategy because of the age and youthful exuberance exhibiting folly?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is important to have a strategy — a thoughtful, sequential plan of how to go about preparing the application; what legal arguments to formulate; when to file.

Contact a Federal Disability Lawyer to discuss the further particulars of your case — one who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law exclusively.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Employees with Disabilities: Simplifying the Complex

Genius is to comprehend the complex; competence is to utilize it; adequacy is to merely get by with it; to be lost is to become mired in it.  The world is complex.  Balance in a life is complex.  Trying to survive in a complex world requires a balancing act that even the most skilled tightrope acrobat can barely accomplish.

Once, when a reporter asked a mountain climber who had successfully scaled the North Face of the Eiger “why” he does what he did, the reply was: “When I am climbing, my only focus is to survive.  I do not need to think of anything but the next step, the next hold, and to ascend inch by inch.  Nothing else matters but the moment.”

But that life could be lived within the paradigm of that philosophy — of “living for the moment.”  To do so, of course, would require setting aside the baggage from one’s past and ignoring the tumultuous considerations for the future.  For most of us, we simply cannot live like that.  In this complex world, we try and “get by” through simplifying it — bifurcating it into comprehensible and digestible components; attending to each one at a time; then starting all over again at the beginning of the next day.  To simplify the complex is a skill-set that one must attain in order to just survive.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the complex universe of an administrative process like filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a bureaucratic morass that will often require legal advice, guidance, assistance and counsel.

It is the job of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to simplify the complex.  Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law when preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, lest you find that the complex remains too complicated and the next mountain to climb has become too steep an obstacle, like the North Face of the Eiger.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The historical data

How much historical data is too much?  Is there a correlation between “too much” and “loss of interest”? In other words, when a history book is written, does the interest shown by the reader begin to wane when a certain point of quantitative overload begins to overwhelm?  Further, does the audience for whom the historical data is written depend upon the extent given?

Certainly, “popular” historical narratives provide “juicier” content than more “serious” biographies, where the salacious aspects of a person’s life or of an event are put to the fore, as opposed to relegating them to footnotes or in those “fine print” pages at the back of the book.

If, for example, data is compiled for an internal study for the “Historical Society of X”, then certain detailed information without limitations might be included — i.e. how many times this or that civilization went to war, went to the bathroom daily, ate one kind of fruit as opposed to another, etc. But if that “study” were to be made into a biography of an indigenous tribe, to be sold to the general public, it might leave out certain of the more uninteresting data, or placed in footnotes or “background notes” at the back of the book.

At what point does a historical narrative become “tedious”?  Again, is there a correlation between “interest shown/sparked/waning/losing” and the extent of data provided?  Is there a “qualitative” difference as opposed to sheer quantitative overload?

These issues are important to keep in mind when a Federal or Postal employee begins to write one’s narrative in response to questions posed on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability.  For, there is always a tendency on the part of the Federal or Postal applicant to have this unquenchable desire to “tell one’s story”, as opposed to answering the question on SF 3112A in as precise, concise and incisive manner.

At times, some amount of historical background may be relevant and somewhat necessary, but unlike “internal studies” that have no cognizable consequences in providing “too much” information, an overabundance of irrelevant data provided may have a duality of negative results: First, it may take away from, and diminish, the “main point” of the narrative, and Second, you may be providing information that is inadvertently harmful to one’s OPM Disability Retirement case without intending to.

Remember always in a Federal Disability Retirement case, that the eyes that once see cannot be blinded after the fact, and it is better to provide information as a supplemental means in a Federal Disability Retirement case, than to have to explain, correct and amend after a denial is received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Of myths and unicorns

We too often consider myths and unicorns as those ancient stories based upon an error in analysis of transcendental or metaphysical concerns; that, somehow those “old folks from the past” (you know, the Celts, the Druids, the Normans and Romans and all of those other funny-sounding names once remembered for multiple-choice tests but otherwise lumped together as so many knights in shining armor with large red crosses painted across their chests) just didn’t understand the laws of the universe, Newtonian Physics or Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (even though we ourselves, or most of us, barely comprehend even the surface of such conceptual constructs), and that through misapprehension of the underlying “scientific” principles that were yet undiscovered or unrecognized, our sophistication in modernity can easily dismiss those beliefs of yore, of myths and unicorns.

But of our own myths and unicorns, of course, we can justify, though we cast away objective truth by a mere dismissive wave of the hand with certainty within the insularity of our own opinions, and declare dead the Platonic Forms or Aristotelian logic that once dominated the Western sector of the universe, and thereby cling to the very myths and unicorns we have created, though new and refreshing they may be or seem.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is important to distinguish between myths (i.e., those stories of the ancients that are told around bonfires and sacramental declarations in the corridors of echoing halls), unicorns (those folklore creatures still believed to be in existence by some, like hobbits and gnomes) and The Law (that funny creature that creeps about in the dark recesses of doubtful minds, that somehow governs the day to day activities of most, and for the particular Federal or Postal employee who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement, some specific application to protect one’s rights).

Before you begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement, know The Law by consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law so that you do not mistake the misapprehension of the universe of Federal and Postal actions like so many myths and unicorns that yet pervade among us.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Best/Worst Case Scenario

It is a procedural approach, and those who engage in it often have the greater talents akin to science, engineering, mathematics and symbolic logic.  It is the person who views every contingency in terms of best and worse case scenarios before deciding upon a determined course of action.

But how accurate is the “best” and the “worst”?  How can one determine if the informational input that is “fed” into the substance of that which will result in the output of what is described as the “best” and the “worst” is accurate enough to make it even worthwhile?  Does a gambler enter into a casino and make such assessments? Of thinking to him/herself in terms of: If I place X amount on the table and lost it all, what is the best case scenario, and what is the worst?  When a person begins a career, does he or she begin life with the same approach?  How about marriage?  Or having children?  Or, is it more likely that such an application really has a very limited impact, and should be used sparingly in the daily events of life’s encounters?  Is that a false set of alternatives precisely because there are many incremental and relevant “in-betweens” that may determine one’s course of action?

Perhaps the picture painted of the “best” scenario of outcome determinatives need not be the basis for one’s decision, and even the “worst” case scenario need not be the minimum standard or quality of life that we would accept, but somewhere in between or just shy of that extreme cliff that we have described?  Perhaps they are false alternatives when we present it in that light, with only those two extremes of alternative realities to consider?

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal employee’s job with the Federal Agency or the Postal Service, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application does not need to be based upon false alternatives presented, but should instead be based upon a pragmatic step towards recognizing the reality of one’s medical condition, its impact upon one’s capacity and ability to continue in a job or career that may be detrimental to one’s health, and proceed based upon the totality of factors considered – but primarily with a view towards safeguarding one’s health.

Health is that “other factor” that tips the balance of what is the best or worst case scenario; for, in the end, there is no scenario at all without one’s health.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Here

So much time is spent upon the anticipation of some event in the distant future; or, perhaps merely tomorrow, next week, next year.  Here is where we are; in the “now”, the immediacy of a life being lived.  Human beings are peculiar, unique and devastatingly unaware to that extent; we give lip-service to the notion of attaining happiness, joy and the capacity to relish the precious gift of life, while all the while failing to embrace and embody the here of this moment.

Look at tourists visiting the various wonders of the universe; do they seem to enjoy the experience of viewing ancient relics or places where momentous events occurred?  Or, are they busy trying to make sure that the video camera or the Smart Phone is capturing the smiles, the scenery and the attraction just beyond?  How many videos of the same places exist in the world today, tucked away in the memory banks of a digital chip?  What is the difference between the video chip stored in a personal Smart Phone as opposed to a professional movie that explores the identical tourist destination?

What is missing, of course, is the experience of the “here”.  Thus, when asked the question, “So, did you go and visit the famous ruins of X?”  The answer is too often, “Yes, and let me show you the video I took of X.”  As opposed to: “Yes, and let me try and describe to you the beauty of X.”  Anticipatory living is not necessarily a negation of living the “here” of one’s life, or even the “now”; but it comes close to missing out.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, the need to file for Federal Disability Retirements benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is precisely the “here” that one is trying to preserve, by securing a “tomorrow” worth fighting for.

It is the “here” of one’s medical condition, the “here” of one’s health, and the “here” of some semblance of financial security that is the whole point of a Federal Disability Retirement benefit.  Yes, it is for tomorrow, and the process is a long, administrative headache that may not be approved until many tomorrows and another; but in the end, it is the “here” that is worth preserving, and the first step in securing a worthy tomorrow is by initiating the process of a Federal Disability Retirement application here and now.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Extreme Fatigue

The phrase itself can denote at least two connotations of conceptual paradigms, depending upon which word the emphasis is placed upon:  of an overwhelming sense of exhaustion that is experientially devastating to an exponential degree or, that one is so depleted and tired from the constant state of the extreme.

To experience extreme fatigue is to have a medical condition; to be tired of the constancy of crisis after crisis, is to live an existence which cannot be sustained forever.  Both states can be experienced simultaneously, especially when a medical condition occurs, because the debilitating effects of the disability begins to take its toll upon the individual’s mind, body and soul, and further, because outside reactionary influences tend to make an imbalance upon one’s perspective.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who is experiencing both forms of the phrase, it is probably time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

When an overwhelming sense of exhaustion and tiredness beyond mere overexertion begins to overtake, it is an indicator that the medical condition is taking its toll.  When the daily circumstances of one’s life tend to be interpreted as a constancy of extremes, like the proverbial “boy who cried wolf” once too often, and the daily events become skewed to such an extent that one becomes overwhelmed by the persistence of events, and where the extraordinary becomes the daily norm, then it is also a sign of portending causes to recognize.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not an option of the extreme, although it may be one of the few and limited alternatives left for the Federal or Postal worker who has been struggling to maintain a linear level of normalcy for years on end.

Rather, it is a recognition of human frailty, and the limits of endurance, and ultimately a choice of reflective wisdom in recognizing when the extreme of life’s circumstances begin to take its toll, the resulting impact is often the mental, emotional and physical exhaustion beyond mere tiredness, and where the signs become clear that time is not on the side of health, but where health must accept the timeless constancy of changing extremes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire