FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Law: The Carousels of Summer

The mounts littered throughout the roundabout can be diverse and captivating; in the swirl of the rotating platform, the child in us wants to sit upon every creature, from unicorns to zebras, the traditional horse and the mythological creatures of one’s limitless imagination.

As we grow older, we come to realize that the spinning sensation itself remains static; the difference between climbing into the bosom of one creature as opposed to another, is indistinct and ultimately irrelevant; when one’s childlike imagination and excitement wrought in ignorance of the cruel world becomes extinguished, the fun of being naive and clueless is no longer an option.  Cynicism comes with maturity; the older we get, the less likely are we to allow ourselves to travel into the realm of the unreal.  Life tends to do that to us.

The road of hard knocks is littered with tales of turmoil and turbulence; storms come and go, and while the devastation left behind can be somewhat repaired, the psyche and soul of damaged people can rarely be glued back together, as fragile porcelain leaving behind fissures wide and gaping as the childlike wonderment we once knew.

Federal and Postal employees know the experiences of life:  the internal battles, the power struggles and the herd-like mentality of agencies and departments.  Then, when a medical condition hits, and the Federal or Postal employee is no longer the golden-boy of past cliques, one is cast aside like the child who is left outside of the teams picked in linear sequence, until the silence of being ignored becomes a reality as shame and embarrassment shouts in muted suffering.  Sometimes, the wisest move is to move on.

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, is the best and only option remaining.  To attempt to stay is like the biblical admonition of “kicking against the goads“; to walk away and do nothing is merely to spite one’s self; and so the Federal or Postal employee who has a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, should always opt for the best remaining alternative.

To prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is ultimately not an admission of defeat.  Rather, it is to enliven that imagination once grasped, but since forgotten; of the child who discovered that changing from the seat of a dragon on a carousel to the bosom of a resplendent unicorn makes all the difference not in the change itself, but within the comfort of the limitless imagination of one’s mind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: The Paradigm of Disarray

One can go through life with the belief that the wider geopolitical universe as reflected through countless media outlets represents the true state of everyday existence; as wars, earthquakes, floods and famine destroy families, communities and conduits of chaos, so such a paradigm of disarray can color the subjective perspective which we carry about in the monotony of routine existence.

The extreme rejection of such a model viewpoint is to be a hermit; or, the balanced approach is to “keep things in perspective”, as the general advice goes, but what does it exactly mean to keep something in proper perspective?

On the one hand, if you carry forth the aggregate of transatlantic turmoil as representing what occurs or can potentially occur in the parameters of one’s locality, then that would certainly provide an imbalanced perspective.  On the other hand, ignoring and rejecting all events and occurrences outside of the artificial confines of one’s back yard would negate the reality of the intersection between information, knowledge and wisdom; for, as ignorance constitutes bliss, so deliberately ignoring events outside of one’s living room may represent the pinnacle of ecstatic living.  Then, when one throws a medical condition into the mix, the attempt to maintain a balance of perspective becomes exponentially difficult to maintain.

Medical conditions have a tendency to exacerbate the paradigm of disarray.  For Federal and Postal employees 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 necessity to maintain a proper perspective and balance of one’s life, accomplishments and future potential can become so skewed as to face fears of cognitive mountains insurmountable.  It is hard enough to maintain a balanced perspective in this world where media rules and interjects every aspect of life; where computers feed messages and track buying habits in order to invade your conscious existence; and where the 24-hour news feed is the norm.

Whether from chronic pain which tips the capacity to process information overload adequately, or psychiatric conditions which by their very nature create an imbalance of certitude; the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition will feel that the world once balanced within a universe of rationality, is now turned topsy-turvy through an inverted prism.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a benefit offered to all Federal and Postal employees who seek to escape from an exacerbated imbalance of perspective resulting from an on (or off) duty injury, physical illness or a mental condition which impacts the ability to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.  It is an avenue to make upright that which produced the paradigm of disarray through the intersecting forces of physical or mental debilitation — that medical condition which one never asked for; which one barely supposed; and of which the greater geopolitical world is unaware.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire