OPM Medical Disability: When reality exceeds the nightmare

At what point do we describe a dream as merely a dream, and not a nightmare, and does the contrast between the two as set in comparative standing against one’s daily reality change the equation at all? Are some people more able to tolerate greater tumult of images ensconced within the framework of the “inner eye” that receives the moving reels of dreams, nightmares and memories? Is there a connection between reality and dreams, reality and nightmares, and dreams and nightmares?

If one can maneuver with greater functionality in the reality of the objective world, does it manifest an indicator of greater capacity to withstand and travel through the detours of subjective consciousness depicting dreams and nightmares? Does the ability to remember dreams or nightmares make a difference, as well? Is rumination, obsessive recollection, screaming nights from images perpetrated by past experiences – i.e., war-time images diagnosed as PTSD or other traumatic events that cannot be compartmentalized or otherwise set aside – a symptom of a fragile ego too sensitive to tolerate for some?

Is a nightmare an expiation of the unworkable problems of daily life, such that the subconscious mind is attempting to sort and sift so that greater survivability can be achieved upon awakening from the slumber of sleepless sleep? Is a person who experiences constant and relentless nightmares, who wakes up just as exhausted because of the reliving of the experiences of prior trauma, actually asleep, or does the conceptual paradigm of “being asleep” necessarily include attaining a restorative plateau of rest?

It is, indeed, a complex interaction between the tripartite components of our daily experiences, both subjective and objective.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a reality which exceeds the nightmare, but more importantly, that dashes the dreams – both in the real sense of a dream while asleep, as well as the figurative dream in the sense of hope for the future – that paves the pathway for future anticipation, it is always important to balance the spectrum and pendulum between the deteriorating medical condition one suffers from, against the dreams one experiences, and contrast them against the nightmare of daily agony and the sleepless nightmares that awaken one with sweats and pools of angst.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted and waited upon with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, can sometimes appear to be in the “nightmare” category; but for those Federal and Postal employees who have to file such an animal, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the objective reality is that the medical conditions themselves already constitute a tumultuous reality that exceeds any nightmare conceived, and that is precisely why it becomes time for the Federal or Postal employee to prepare, formulate and file an effective OPM Disability Retirement application because, when reality exceeds the nightmare, it is time to wake up and tackle the monster of reality in order to be able to return to a restful slumber where dreams bring a smile upon the grimacing lips that shy away from nightmares.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Left to our own devices

This is a world where loneliness prevails.  Despite all of the “connectivity” that is bandied about, the fact is that the suffering of human relationships has been on the rise since the industrial revolution, and perhaps even before that.

The proverbial term itself has taken on a double meaning (for those who are comfortable with a more sophisticated linguistic and grammatical ascription, that would be a “double entendre”) – not only in the traditional sense of the phrase as encapsulating the abandonment to make our own way in the world, but in the sense of modern technological overload, of the very pragmatic sense that each of us are surrounded by the electronic contraptions we have embraced in pursuance of connection and social constructs that have resulted in a foreboding sense of growing isolation and angst at the loss of a human touch.

It is that loss of tactile warmth – of holding hands in a movie theater, picking up on the subtleties of facial expressions and looks; of being able to read the soul’s essence through intonations and the mystery of sense impressions.  We are all, in the end, left to our own devices, and more so in this universe of appearances and medium of messaging through words and abbreviations of words where illiteracy parallels the self-delusion of relationships created, maintained and transmitted by light’s illumination.

As Philosophy lost its pinnacle of wonder and incessant questioning when the pragmatic successes of science overshadowed queries perennially posited but never resolved, and as British Empiricism relegated all problems to mere linguistic wastelands where the tinkering of word-orders resolved long-held philosophical conundrums as mere confusion over grammatical misunderstandings and incomprehensible definitional mishaps (as only the British could so arrogantly decide for us how we should speak our language – although, oops!  — the greatest culprit was not English at all but that Vienna-born rabble-rouser, Wittgenstein); so we have now come full circle and find ourselves lost in a paradise of our own seclusion, like the image of the Cave in Plato’s Republic, where we see only shadows, only our own devices, and forever isolated within the illuminated tablets of devices made in foreign parts unknown.

That is the same sense that Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers feel when they are hit with a medical condition that cuts short one’s Federal or Postal career.  Isolation, being left to one’s own devices (in both senses of the phrase – of having no help from one’s own agency and presented with a number of puzzling and confusing forms to fill out), and like the boat up the proverbial river with no paddle, a reduced chance of success with the behemoth of all agencies, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Fortunately, however, there are “repair-shops” and refund policies for devices which don’t quite work; and the first step is to consult with a disability retirement lawyer who specializes in doing FERS & CSRS law.  Left to our own devices, we are bound to come up short with inadequate answers; for, in the end, it is the devices which we use, in the proper and most effective way, that makes the difference in an otherwise mad, mad world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: The incoherent narrative

The squirrel jumped into the rabbit hole.  Then, the floods came, and Noah didn’t like the color of his shoes because they matched the starboard and not the bow, and when the rudderless drift occurred, then did the turtle finally come out from the squirrel’s nest, high atop the water’s edge. The medical conditions caused a lot of stress, and if it wasn’t for the Supervisor who constantly harasses me, I wouldn’t have filed a complaint against him, but the doctors never said I couldn’t work except when the heart attack occurred and Bessie my dog ran across the street and got hit by a car.

It is, ultimately, more than just a sequence of lettering; greater than the combination of consonants and vowels in logical arrangement; indeed, the language of the narrative must form a coherent whole.  Can a jumble of words provide the requisite narrative in order to meet the legal criteria in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?

Must the “Statement of Disability” as reflected on Standard Form 3112A provide a sequence of information such that it:  identifies the medical conditions suffered; informs the OPM administrative specialist of the nexus between the medical condition and the positional duties of one’s officially-slotted job; and meets and addresses, whether explicitly or implicitly, the burden of proof in showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the Federal or Postal employee is eligible and entitled to Federal Disability Retirement benefits?

To all three questions, the answer is in the affirmative.  For, preparing and formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted through one’s agency (if the Federal or Postal employee is still employed with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service or, if separated from service, not more than 31 days since the date of separation) and then to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is not merely stringing together a series of words, phrases, concepts and factual truisms; and it is often the incoherent narrative which not only fails to meet the legal burden of proof in a Federal Disability Retirement claim, but further, is harmed by providing too much information, whether intentionally or not.

The predetermined defeat of a Federal Disability Retirement application is not necessarily denied because of the substantive incoherence of one’s statement of disability; rather, more often than not, it is the unintended divulgence of information neither necessary nor true, which often provides the fodder for the fox to further the stealth of his slyness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Government Employment: The Beat of Life

Have you ever had a dream (or nightmare) where you are the only one out of sync?  Whether in a choir or perhaps playing an instrument, and everyone around stares with irritation or dismay, and no matter what efforts you expend, nothing seems to allow for a synchronization of movements, sounds or stylistic applications?

Or in other similar circumstances, whether in sports, dance, or other events requiring coordination of efforts and timing of actions, the personification of self reflects a complete lack of capacity to become a quiet pendulum of rhythmic beats.  And much of life is like that; there is a rhythm and a beat, and one day we wake up and everything seems out of sync, out of kilter, and no matter what we do, how hard we try, the beat of life seems to go on without us.

The phrase itself, “The beat of life”, of course, has a sense of double entendre; the first implying the rhythmic march of one’s existence, and the other denoting the thrashing inflicted through the existential encounters experienced daily.  Both, in either form, connote the consequences of the spectrum felt and the degree effectuated upon the soul of an individual.  Medical conditions tend to do that independently of any control we attempt to exert upon the environment surrounding us.  Control and our ability and capacity to determine one’s fate, is not confined or unique to the proverbial “Type-A” personality.

We all desire to be the master of our defined universe.  To lose control is to relinquish the beat and rhythm of life.   It is to be banished from the comity and security of the fiefdom we have ascribed and announced our liege to, and for which we have dedicated out lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the discovery of a medical condition which impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, is tantamount to a moment in a dream when the beat of life begins and ends.  The old rhythmic consonance of mellifluous comity terminates, and the new and adversarial relationship, both against the medical condition itself and the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service which fails to accommodate and refuses to cooperate, must be endured and confronted.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must be considered, precisely because a new beat must be found, and the band which played the tunes before can no longer comprehend the stylistic differentiation which you have now experienced, like a religious awakening expanding beyond the horizon one may have expected at the beginning of the journey.

But whether one lives a life in a small town and never leaves the security of the neighborhood born, or one travels through and traverses the cultural divides of the world, the beat of life one carries is somewhat like the backpack of the pilgrim, and for the Federal and Postal worker who must move on to the next phase of life, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with OPM becomes a necessary step to allow for the beat of life to continue, lest you allow life itself to beat you down.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The idealist, the skeptic and the cynic

The idealist possesses the dreams of hope and promise; the skeptic, the singe of hurt enough to dampen the spirit; and the cynic, well, he is the grumpy old man who has seen it all, been battered about by the reality of experiential confrontations where tales make the sweat pour from salted wounds too hurtful for words to embrace.

Do they represent a tripartite spectrum of thoughts, feelings and motives, or merely unconnected differences demarcated by time, encounters and length of procrastinated envy?  Do we all begin with the zeal of idealism, pass through the comfort of skepticism, then end up bedridden in the cocoon of cynicism?  Does generational wisdom conveyed by the old to youth ever pause the bursting bubble of naive relish, where mistakes foreseen and palpably avoidable allow for the wounds of time to be delayed, such that skepticism never enters into the unwelcome gates of a soul’s purity?  Or, does destruction of the essence of a person necessarily result in a society where generational transfer of wisdom is scoffed at, and youth and its folly is celebrated merely because beauty is defined by age, sound judgment by pharmaceutical ingestion, and where mistakes made are linguistically altered by clever euphemisms which extinguish not the pain of experiential confrontation, but the narrative which meekly follows?

Whether as inevitable stages of growth and decay, or dots on a graph of spectral divergence, either and all are extremes which reflect the stage of life, experience and historical context which an individual has encountered.  For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker whose calloused soul has already been deadened by time and degree of harassment, the additional burden of a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one, if not more than one, of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the time may have come to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, once the Federal or Postal employee reaches the minimum years of eligibility criteria, the proof by a preponderance of the evidence must be shown.

For such a Federal or Postal employee, it matters not whether life has yet to dampen one’s idealism; nor that experiential harassment in the workplace has failed to turn one into a skeptic; or if cynicism has already prevailed, all the more reason to file for OPM Disability Retirement before the pain of the medical condition consumes to the extent that life’s despondency has already wrought.  In the end, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is a necessity because of life’s encounters, and no man or woman can escape the scars of time, truth of weariness of soul, where the idealist lives on in the forgotten youth of our memories, the skeptic in the hardening callouses of our experience, and cynicism in the dying disregard of one’s mournful essence in losing the sensation of one’s inner being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Life’s wisdoms

The term, “decapitalization” often refers to the deliberate and systematic process of imposing harsh government policies in order to alter the private sector’s hold upon society’s commercial entanglement and mercantile involvement.

In some grammatical contexts, however, it can denote the reduction of capitalized lettering into “small” letters, and thereby change its appearance, import, and even “meaning”.  e.e. cummings is a fine example of this.  Or, on a “title page”, one would expect that the concept of “Life’s Wisdoms” would be capitalized, for essentially two main reasons:  The first word, “Life”, is too great a theme not to ascribe the signification of it, as well as being the beginning part of the title; and the second, well, if it was good enough for Solomon, then we should certainly designate and captivate with a position of priority.

So, why has it been “reduced” in the heading of this short blog, you ask?  Because most of life’s wisdoms are not provided at the time of birth on a silver tray packaged in a unitary compendium; rather, they are “dished out” in small increments, over time, through encounters both expected and unasked for; and always when we least desire it.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal Sector and the U.S. Postal Service, seeking out “information” in order to begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may take on many and variegated forms:  Internet Research; contact with the Human Resource Office; call to an attorney; discussions with others who have gone through the administrative and bureaucratic process; unloading upon family and friends, etc.

Always remember, however, that there is a vast chasm of differences between “information” and “wisdom”, and the mere fact that much of information provided “out there” is capitalized with blaring trumpets of fanfare and glitter, ascribing signification by making something into an “upper case” designation, or otherwise in priority of sequence, does not transform the “it” into anything more than what first the skeleton of the entity originated.  Saying it doesn’t make it so; dressing it up does not complete a substantive metamorphosis begun in nascent shivers of intended good.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who must make wise decisions concerning one’s future course of actions because filing for OPM Disability Retirement has become a necessity, the conversion from aggregating mere information to obtaining life’s wisdoms must come about first through a decision to decipher and sift through the vast and irrelevant information “out there”, and then to implement a course of action which sounds right, considers the differing interests at hand, and then to emulate the experiential factors we have accumulated over these many years of trials and turmoil.

Just remember that Solomon made his share of mistakes, as well.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under: Duplicative Duplicity

We can lie to others; others can deceive us; one can persuade oneself of a falsehood in order to live a deception; and we may even be able to persuade others, despite knowing the truth, to tell a lie and come to believe it in order to create an atmosphere of believability for third parties to concede.  The capacity for human nature to construct walls of deception, and double-walls of duplicity, is fathomless and without competition.

Everywhere else in the animal kingdom, the stark reality of the innate essence for survival prompts and compels in order to meet the day’s needs and arrive at the horizon’s end so as to lay one’s head upon a pillow of restive sleep; but not for man.  It is not just that we can ignore and set aside; we can repress and play-act, and convince others of the finery of the emperor’s clothes.

We can engage in sympathetic acts of criminal endeavors, join the Symbionese Liberation Army and claim the Stockholm Syndrome as a defense against our prosecutors, and live life within the parameters of the lie told and the deception accepted.  But then, one day, an obstacle is encountered.  Reality tends to slap one in the face, flush where the pain will not go away.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the revelation of duplicative duplicity normally arrives when the pain and purview of one’s medical condition exponentially exceeds the spectrum of tolerance for continuation beyond overwhelming turmoil.

When life becomes unbearable, we tend to act.

Only in the antiseptic universe outside of the general laws of Darwinian behavior can we survive beyond our own making of deceptive parallel universes.  But our bodies tell of truths; our instinct, the need to act; and despite expanding our natural arc of flight by duplicative duplicities, the flickering depths of our animal essence can never truly be extinguished.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Hoarding Hordes

As homophones, they are often words confused and confusing, both in usage as well as in application; but it is the perspective by which they are utilized which refines the proper insertion into a grammatically correct context.  Thus, the former pertains to volume of items in vast storage supplies, collected for purposes often beyond want or need; while the latter is attributable to the invasion of foreign forces in greater numbers, in overwhelming tides of armies by invasion.

History is replete with instances of both, and the present day migration and waves of immigrants world-wide is a testament to that.  Hoarding defines an affirmative intent, and the will to refuse to get rid of or let go, while the entrance of hordes of people or other entities may have nothing to do with control or affirmative actions.  Where one is the gatekeeper, it is often important to recognize the elements which one has any control over, as opposed to those which are beyond such capacity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, it is important to not confuse homophones and to conceptually distinguish between similar entities, whether by sound, identity or some other means.

Hoarding hurts, tragedies, defeats and setbacks, is something which the Federal or Postal employee has some semblance of control over; the hordes of aggressive actions and behaviors initiated by one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service upon the Federal or Postal employee in order to harass, intimidate or force a resignation upon, is beyond the borders of control (although they may certainly contribute to the anxiety felt, the anger festering, and the deep depression settling).

Recognizing the homophones of life is an important tool in maintaining clarity of purpose and acuity of determined planning for the future, and at some point, it is necessary to realize that the hordes of comity are nowhere to be found, and preparing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may first require getting rid of the hoards of emotional baggage accumulated over the past years of insensitive encounters.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Lore of Yesteryear

The past is often the attraction of selective memories, the passion of antiseptically expunged yearnings, and represent less about factual accuracy than emotions bound to images.

With modern technology, mixed with the relative value of truth and the abandonment of universal principles transcending beyond time and cultural norms, the obsession with oral tradition and a clinging to unnamed tombs of yesteryear, when causes were worth fighting for, a handshake meant the seal of a deal without a follow-up fax or an email confirmation; and when people didn’t check the labels of food ingredients to verify MSG, GMO or other terrifying acronyms which undermine the palate and appetite; those were the days gone by, and the yearning that defines the embellishment of heroism as each day marches in the timelessness of forgotten marshes of mindful embrace.

Time was…but then, we pause, and realize that it is the “now” and the “today” which must be faced.  Reminiscences are good for the soul, but rarely profitable for the pocketbook.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition (whether physical, psychiatric, or an intersecting compilation and aggregate of both) prevents the Federal or Postal employee under FERS or CSRS from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the attraction of the lore of yesteryear will often grow exponentially in parallel form as the medical condition progressively deteriorates.

That is because the convergence of present pain and the increasingly selective memories of past freedom from pain, extends to a future yearning for a time of quietude and peace where the medical condition has resolved itself and the body, mind and spirit can be free of the confinement of the debilitating medical condition.  That is a natural reaction of the human essence to be free.  But in order to do that, affirmative steps must be taken.  Life just doesn’t happen.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is just such an affirmative step.  One cannot continue to cling to a fading past, and expect that the present will get any better, or that the future will result in greater peace and tranquility.  The future is now; the present is something to be acted upon; and the Lore of Yesteryear must be replaced with a growing sense of urgency to embrace memories not of fading photographs of unidentified tombstones of yore, but of living and vibrant experiences today encountered, to be savored for future generations.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire