Federal Medical Retirement under FERS: Vicious Circularity

There is a direct correlation between the growing mental health crisis and the increasingly focused reliance upon cognitive insularity — where engagement with “the world” is not between the subjective (our own thoughts, senses, moods, etc.) and the objective (the world “out there” in what Kant deemed unknowable, as encountered in the noumenal — not the phenomenal — universe), but rather, between the subjective and the perceptual apparatus of the meta-universe.

Whether at work or play, everyone, everywhere, at most times, is engaged on the computer, Smart Phone, etc.  A growing consensus says that a healthy mind requires engagement with the objective world for some period of time each day — of taking a walk and leaving your Smart Phone behind; of making some connection beyond the vicious circularity of your own thoughts within the meta-universe of a virtual reality.

The corporate giants clearly have a monetary self-interest in having the world become insular; for, the greater use of the electronic devices results in greater profits and increased dependency.  No one asked the common man whether we wanted a world made up of this vicious circularity, but here we are.

With the growing mental health crisis, more Federal and Postal workers need to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.  Fortunately, the MSPB and the Federal Courts of Appeals have recognized that there is no stigma to be placed on psychiatric medical disabilities.

Psychiatric conditions are just as valid a basis in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS benefits system, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as physical, non-psychiatric conditions.

As for the vicious circularity magnifying our mental health crisis?  That is for Psychiatrists and Therapists to deal with; but in the meantime, take their simple advice: Leave the Smart Phone and the Computer behind, and take your dog out for a walk.

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 from OPM: Knowing the Law

If ignorance of the law were a valid excuse, we could all get away with murder.  Not knowing what the law is; claiming to have been without knowledge of the law at the time of the occurrence; failing to address the law when involving one’s self in an administrative procedure — these are never valid excuses in being held to account for such lack of knowledge.

There are, of course, certain “natural laws” which cannot be avoided, such as taking another’s property without consent or harming someone, such that the only time “knowledge of the law” can be used as a defense is if the perpetrator claims lack of mental capacity — i.e., the classic insanity defense.

In all other areas, “knowing the law” is an important first step before initiating any process, and that is why Federal Disability Retirement Law is important to “know” before beginning the process of applying for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS.

It is, first and foremost, astounding that anyone would begin filling out the Standard Forms for applying for Federal Disability Retirement benefits before first understanding the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits — by first “knowing the law”.

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 from OPM: Difficult versus Disabled

To the statement, “I am having greater difficulty in performing X, Y and Z” follows with the query: “But are you still able to?”

There is a conceptual distinction to be made between “difficult” as opposed to “disabled”.  Of course, the former may be an indication which may naturally and progressively lead to the latter, and may merely not be there, yet.

The operative word is “may” (a potentiality of disablement), here, as opposed to an established, present reality.  Or, it may be that the person speaking is misusing the language, and is trying to put the best face forward, and should have stated: “I cannot perform X and Y, and am having difficulty in doing Z”.

Human beings have a wide and strange capacity to endure and to cover things up.  Perhaps the person is having difficulty but no one sees it because he or she is simply “pushing through” and hiding the pain and disability quite well.  Or, perhaps the medical condition has approach a critical juncture where the impact of the medical condition is clearly manifesting itself to a point where Federal Disability Retirement needs to be contemplated.

In any event, the first step in making a valid, objective assessment in considering Federal Disability Retirement under FERS for Federal and Postal employees is to distinguish between “difficult” and “disabled” — where the former may not qualify you for FERS Disability Retirement, while the latter surely would.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Beyond Politics

Aristotle viewed man as a “political animal”.  What does this mean?  Essentially, that we interact, live within a social context, intersect with conflicting needs and contentious ideas, etc.

In short, we live in a society where a common purpose is engaged and, in the course of merely living, we must by necessity intersect amidst competing interests.  In our current age, being a political animal is viewed in heightened extremes of partisanship.  Some view this as self-destructive; others, as a healthy outlet for society’s needs.

Whatever the political nature of each individual, what party affiliation, what views — whether conservative or liberal — everyone still has to live their lives, beyond elections, crisis, pandemics, etc.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, the fight to obtain a disability retirement benefit from OPM is the “living” of life.  Whatever your politics, living life always should be the focus of your life.

Contact an OPM Medical Retirement Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and pursue the living of life beyond politics.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Medical Retirement under FERS: Giving Up

It is, and historically has been, an option of last resort.  There are those, of course, where it is simply never an option; at whatever cost; sacrificing whatever means; it is simply not a consideration to be entertained.  Is such a “principled” approach ingrained within the DNA of an individual, or is it merely a trifle of stubbornness which prevents a person from giving up?

It is certainly not a character trait which is taught; in fact, more of the opposite is true.  We tend to teach our children the pablum of perseverance: “Keep at it, and one day you will…”; “Don’t give up; you’ve only just begun” (a paraphrased lesson for young children of what the American revolutionary, John Paul Jones, purportedly stated, “Surrender?…I have only just begun to fight!”); and other such lessons where the fine line between intelligent perseverance and fatalistic stubbornness must often collide.

Yet, there surely are times when it is prudent to give up — and perhaps come back to fight another day.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows the Federal or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of his or her position, “giving up” may be a matter of filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Of course, “giving up” may also be the thought when the U.S. Office of Personnel Management denies a person’s FERS Disability Retirement application, as well — but in the opinion of this writer, that is the time when the approach of John Paul Jones should be taken.

Consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not “giving up” is a prudent option to consider, given your unique circumstances.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: What Kind of World?

It is one thing when chaos is rampant within one’s life; but when the “objective” world turns into a pandemic of chaos, we feel helpless, out of control, without hope.  For, the reliance that one has upon the world “out there” is the following: Within our own lives, there is always some amount of chaos — of divorce, a medical crisis, a family tragedy, etc.  But we still believe that the greater world retains some semblance of order and continuity, and thus do we rely upon the calm that surrounds and the rationality of an objective universe.

When that crumbles, as well — when the outer, objective universe becomes a flashpoint of people dying, a pandemic infecting, of men and women in strange space-suits carrying bodies to the morgue, and where the economic deterioration becomes seemingly endless; well, then the reliance upon the outer, objective world can no longer be, and chaos reigns both within and without; we feel helpless.

Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition already understand that feeling.  You cannot rely upon your own health; and, as it turns out, you cannot rely upon your Federal Agency or the Postal facility to be supportive.  You ask yourself: What Kind of World?  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is meant to allow for some semblance of stability — of a base annuity to secure your future so that you can focus upon getting your “inner” world in greater order, regardless of what kind of world is offered by the “outer world” that can no longer be relied upon.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Rational Discourse

In the world of academia, whether as a student or a professor, the ivory-tower atmosphere tends to de-couple and de-link reality from perception.  There is, to begin with, “the world” and its events, causations, occurrences and peoples intertwined by engaging in the politics and activities of daily living; and then, there is our “perception” of such events, which — in their aggregate — is comprised of and by our backgrounds, our beliefs, our interpretive faculties and the paradigms from which we operate.

In college, the world within which one operates is a limited, protected, self-contained universe in which ideas, books, deadlines for term papers and testing for knowledge retained are all experienced through the tunnel vision and narrow prism of a fantasy-world created for rational discourse.  The fact is that the universe is comprised of much irrationality and phenomena otherwise unknown or not capable of explanation.

In a Kantian manner (uh-oh, here we go with the rational discourse prism), we bring to the world the belief that everything must have an explanation, all events must be able to be explained by a rational discourse — but reality hits us hard in the face, or upon the backside, whichever metaphor you prefer.  Perhaps that is what is meant by “growing up”.  For the cynic, the universe has become a jumble of irrationality; for the proverbial optimist, everything yet to be explained can simply be set aside for future revelation.  Somewhere in the middle is where most of us belong.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer form a medical condition, and where that medical condition betrays the fond memories of our youth when health was taken for granted and mortality was never even considered, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may seem like an ugly choice.  In a world where rational discourse should prevail, the irrationality of a chronic medical condition seems to be an unfair event that requires explanation — or, at least a good defense.  We can question and puzzle; we can fret and worry; but in the end, the stark choices are there before us.  Whether, ultimately, there is a rational discourse that can adequately explain the medical conditions by which a person suffers — or not — is often besides the point.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS and begin the process of obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, and let the questions concerning rational discourse remain a mystery to be solved in some unknown days ahead.  Life is difficult enough to maneuver without worrying about one’s future, and getting a Federal Disability Retirement annuity at least softens the blow in a universe that often seems impervious to the private hells of individual troubles.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Childhood wishes

We had them; some of us still remember and harbor them like sacrosanct relics of priceless value; and still others know of them and recollect some general idea long forgotten, once delighted in, but now rotting in the vestiges of abandoned buildings hollow but for the frame that haunts in the midnight moon.

Wishes remain throughout one’s life, whether in the stage of adulthood or old age; but it is the childhood wishes one remembers that reveal the empty soul of what one has become, may still be, but struggles to abandon with a hope for tomorrow.  Some of them may be set aside as silly thoughts of an immature time; others, a revelatory insight into who we were, what made us become what we are today, and a telling hint of our present-day bitterness of embattled constitution.

Perhaps it was a love thwarted; a Dickensian tale of another Scrooge who foolishly wanted to pursue one pathway at the cost of another; or, maybe the childhood wishes were merely promises of correcting the sorrow of yesteryears, where neglectful parents and inattentive love left one yearning to promise corrective action when one became a parent yourself, but somehow such commitments were waylaid by daily life – of money troubles, relationship squabbles and expectation bubbles bursting by fits and starts.

It used to be that, before the age of Facebook and obsessive hounding for revelatory information about past friends and acquaintances, people would try to “better themselves” when they went away in order to come back and “show them” how successful one had become upon the glorious return and reentry at gatherings such as high school and college reunions – much like the Tom Sawyer effect of coming back from the dead – but not anymore, as everyone already knows everything to know about everyone else before such a re-gathering is effectuated.

At some point in one’s life, the comparison between childhood wishes and the reality of a daunting world magnifies the contrast that leads to an inevitable conclusion: the naïve innocence of those former times either worked as a detriment, in which case cynicism prevailed; or, those childhood dreams allowed for an expansive, healthy and positive outlook such that they provided a foundation for growth and potential for happiness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are struggling with 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 job, perhaps contemplating 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, is the next step beyond for one’s future and security, and thought to be the “end” of something.

The difference between the two approaches may be nominal, or momentous, depending upon how one looks at it.  Is it like the proverbial attitude of the “cup half full” or “half empty”?  Or, is it because childhood wishes were never resolved, and that lonely and unhappy child one remembers never quite grew up, and the debilitating medical conditions now recall the dreams never realized, the hopes barely reached, and the potentiality not quite cultivated to fruition?

Look at it this way: Medical conditions are a part of life and daily struggle; filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits should not be viewed as either the end-all or the be-all, but a necessary next step with a view towards advancing beyond the childhood wishes one still awaits to fulfill.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: Erasing imprints

We spend half of our lives trying to accomplish that which may never be done; go to others to obtain guidance; take medications in order to stamp out the cacophony of voices from a past regenerated in mindful moments when reflection is not what we want but quietude away from the cackle of memories.

Imprints are those stamps that remain with us, like burn-marks seared indelibly into the far corners of body parts unreachable and unseen but by the telescopic lenses of our own souls.  Perhaps the memories have faded, or we simply cannot pinpoint that precise moment when the stamp was made, the mark of the devil was inked or the scorching stab wound rutted; but it remains upon the child, grows with the malignancy of the young one, and becomes magnified into adulthood like the burdensome satchel filled with rocks, each day adding another, never able to open it to lighten the load, except here and there when one accidentally falls through an unnoticed tear before it is quickly sewn up again to reinforce the nightmares of our lives.

Try as we might, through pharmacological modalities of treatment regimens or embroiled by years of therapeutic encounters, the monsters within from our childhood past of flashes when the mother turned her back upon a child in crisis, or of anger devolved when fury left the frustrated child in a chasm of loneliness unattended; it is the trembling of innocence that remains forever, and a day.

Erasing imprints is what we try to do the rest of our lives, when all that can really be done is to contain, bifurcate, box in and restrain.  Of course, there are “good” imprints, as well – those marks which developed the personality and characteristic traits considered “positive” to our lives; the trick is to recognize the difference between the negative and the positive, and that is not always easy to do.  Further, what if we erase the “good” imprints in the process of stamping out the “bad”?

Being human carries with it the compendium of complexities all wrapped into a conundrum of puzzling packages of personality quirks, and sometimes it is those imprints we attempt to erase which characterizes the very uniqueness of our being.  Then, as we grow older, the callouses form and the attempts to replace imprints become less effective; for, presumably we have learned to resist the influence of others, or at least found ways to limit them.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering 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, remember that the road to obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a long and arduous one, and it is likely that you will have to encounter many obstacles, many “mean” people who themselves have likely been harmed by a lifetime of imprints.

Focus upon erasing imprints that harm, and disregard the imprints exhibited by others; for, it is a lifetime endeavor identifying the negative ones in yourself, without worrying about needing to erase imprints manifested by others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The precarious self

Self-preservation is said to be high on the list of instinctive survival mechanisms – that which society cannot “un-learn” because of the inherent nature of such evolutionary entrenchment of DNA-coded characteristics.  It used to be that, whether in the mythical “State of Nature” as advanced and envisioned by Locke, Hobbes or Rousseau, or the more fossil-based models as posited by anthropologists, the individual who was widely considered as a precarious survivor was quickly extinguished from the gene pool either though acts of foolish daring or by neglectful carelessness.

Survival was, until recent times, always high on the list of priorities.

In modernity, we rarely even consider it, and that is why we cringe with disbelief at horror stories of sitting placidly in a café or restaurant when suddenly innocent bystanders are being shot at, or become the victims of an explosion where shrapnel and other ravaging debris aim at the human flesh – not for predatory hunger, but for mere destruction and devastation.  Laws become enacted and govern safety; mechanisms are put in place to prevent industrial accidents or massive catastrophes impacting a wide swath of population centers; these are all, in modernity, for the most part, avoided and of rare occurrence.

Thus, the precarious self has become an irrelevant concern, or not at all.  The incommensurate dilemma of an individual being lost in his or her own thoughts as he walks upon a den of wolves out to find and devour dinner, is not of a major concern; perhaps, the closest we may come to in considering the precarious self is of a person lost in thought who crosses the street without looking for oncoming traffic; but, even that, the new technology arming every vehicle with sensors which automatically prompts the braking systems are attending to that potentiality, as well.

It is, in the end, more in the arena of making mistakes, proceeding in ignorance and creating circumstances of irreconcilable self-destructiveness, that the concept even becomes applicable or comprehensible, in these days.  For example, in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application by a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, does the Federal employee or Postal worker know enough about “The Laws” governing Federal Disability Retirement in order to proceed successfully?  Have you spent enough time to familiarize yourself with the statute, the case-law and precedents of recent import in order to successfully maneuver your way through the administrative process?

This is, whether one likes it or not, a highly bureaucratized universe, and the ability to avoid the precarious self often requires a great amount of investment of one’s time, energy and concentrated focus upon the details of daily, unavoidable complexities.  Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee falls under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is something that requires avoidance of the precarious self, at a minimum; and, more than that, to maneuver around the precarious “others” as well – including the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire