FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Benefits: The narrative we write

The narrative we write tells much about ourselves. That is quite an obvious statement. What is not obvious, however, is the discretion we apply, the self-restraint we reveal, and the manifested fences we install through invisible means of editing and erasing.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS of CSRS Offset, the importance of the narrative we write in response to the queries on SF 3112A (“Applicant’s Statement of Disability”) is merely but a condition-precedent of the foundational evidence we must submit to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Each story is different, and should be guided by the medical evidence amassed, the experience of one’s disability and the perspective of one’s encounter with the essential elements of the position one occupies in the Federal workforce or the Postal craft one is required to engage.

Narratives comprise the coattails of human experience; they never can tell the whole story, and the reader of such a story will never be able to embrace the fullness of the information provided. One person’s experience is but another’s mystery untold, and the nexus that the Federal Disability Retirement applicant must establish is a threefold one: Between the medical condition and the essential elements of one’s job; and between the latter two and the person who will be reading the narrative at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

How can I do that? – is the query most asked, as you will never meet, know or discern the person at OPM. By making the narrative compelling and “alive”. Thus should you restrain from meandering; of getting to the point and not creating an endless maze of directionless misguidance; and as discretion is the better part of valor (does that pithy saying have any consequential meaning, anymore?), so choosing the fact-scenarios to include is an important component of the information to impart.

Tangents can get you into trouble; overreaching, a re-evaluation and a second look; and inconsistencies in statements may provide for a selective extrapolation of targeted analysis. The narrative we write should always tell the story of the experiential phenomena relevant to the subject at hand: The applicant’s statement of disability, in the context of the law, and within the confines of how it impacts, prevents and touches upon the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job. Simple; concise; answering the questions by relevant application; and always, always, with an emphasis upon the medical conditions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS or CSRS: This cold and impervious universe

Is there any doubt?  Does the anthropological perspective favor, by fiat of discourse in fatalism, determinism and Darwinian survival instincts, a “positive” attitude of idealized love, charity, human compassion and empathetic piety?  Are we born with such biological dreaminess, only to have it tested, subverted, undermined and callously tortured out of us the remaining days of our lives?

When does reality sink in, that this societal artifice that permeates like the opiate-based perfume that subdues and subjugates, performs its miracle of infamy by disseminating soft and cuddly lies, while the wolves and other predators knew all along that this cold and impervious universe could selectively devour those doe-like looks of naïve repose unsuspecting of the truth that never tells but for the history of scattered remorse throughout?

Caring is but fodder for the innocent, waiting in line to be slaughtered, and only rarely does a collective revolt occur, and even rarer still of a narrative establishing a successful rebellion; but, then, such stories allow for a glimmer of hope for the rest of us.

Each day, each hour and every minute to the second, the innocent are born into this world thinking that they control their own destiny, manage their own fate and determine their own liberty; yet, truth be told, every sector of the world, civilization and universe is already filled, dominated and controlled; like the wizard behind the curtain, we are allowed to believe in an empty hope within the confines of a cold and impervious universe.  Caring is for the weak; empathy is for the innocent; and love is for those youthful eyes that have not yet experienced the callousness of the world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical conditions prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the reality of having to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may leave one cynical, less than hopeful, and with a negative eye for the future.  But let not determinism guide the silent soul; there is yet more to life than the experience of age has wrought, and the future may still hold some untold treasure troves, and getting beyond one’s medical condition is the surest pathway towards attaining that goal.

Focus on priorities – of securing a future annuity through the vehicle of a Federal Disability Retirement; of one’s health by having the time to attend to it; and surround one’s self with those whom you love and care for, and the rest will rebut the belief that this cold and impervious universe is all that there is.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The party never thrown

Why do we have angst over the nonexistent, the unknown, the yet-to-become, while concurrently failing to appreciate the concrete, that which is realized and the presence of those whom we declare to love, is before us and has stood by for all these years?  What is it about the future participle of life that haunts us?

It is Kierkegaard who gave us an insight and understanding into the anxiety that humans throughout history have felt, of this life of striving for happiness, yet never to be realized because of an inner sanctum of unease and joyless emptiness.  It is like the party never thrown; no one was invited, or no one cared to show up; in the end, whether thrown or no one came, it all amounts to the same thing.  That is the conceptual construct which Kierkegaard posited, for all doubters to latch onto:  The either/or of life, of that leap of faith into the unknown, in order to fill that nothingness and abyss of life’s mysteries.

We feel cheated, empty, withdrawn behind a curtain of unknown and unknowable puzzles, and left to die in the emptiness of an unforgiving universe.  Misery, unhappiness, disappointment, illness, chronic pain, and finally death; is this the best that the gods could do?

The party never thrown is not unlike the one where, you are told of it but uninvited; or, invited, you arrive and find that the host had misinformed you, and the guests had already arrived, had a good time and left, and you have entered into the used bits of paraphernalia, half-eaten plates of crusted and stale cake, and ice cubes still melting in the swirl of activities you can now imagine and picture – without you in it.  Then, to add insult to injury, you are asked if you could help clean up the mess, and perhaps as a consolation, you could have a leftover piece of pie?

The party never thrown is the one you will never experience, and yet you worry with the angst of having never been invited, never been considered, for that which is nonexistent and without a future of foretold happiness.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a chronic, progressively deteriorating medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates the preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the feeling that one is about to leave the Federal workforce or the Postal facility just when there is a party to be thrown, is an understandable abyss of a feeling experienced, a sensation touched upon and an angst still to be faced.

But know that the party never thrown is a mere nothingness, like the man who falls asleep, dreams of a butterfly that awakens thinking that the butterfly dreams of a man who fell asleep, awakens and wonders if it is the butterfly or the man who is dreaming at all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire