Short Term Disability (any Experience?)

[Powder]

Link Removed

I read through the accommodations and felt the opposite; one or two seemed to be "getting warmer" such as working from home during stress times, going to therapy, calling therapist or supporter, support animal, etc. But some seemed designed to induce severe symptoms for me: I wonder what's up with me?

As I read "Noise cancelling headphones" and "being still forced to sit with your back to the entry, but with a mirror so you can see people approaching though that" I felt appalled. I think I would last maybe 3 minutes like that. I feel fearful and about to be victimized at the mere thought of these two.

I cannot function, even in daily life at home, without my vision and hearing so that I get a warning early that someone is coming!

I have to be able to hear and see. Having someone suggest cutting off my hearing and line of sight to "lower my anxiety" is odd. Why not just labotamize me and get it over with?!

Even non-PTSD people I know can't sit with their back to the door!

 

[Powder]

I don't mean to say I don't appreciate the JAN site. I have looked at it a few times. I just sent them some suggestions about making their description of PTSD more up to date and less derogatory. I asked them to rethink the two accommodations mentioned. Frankly, maybe that would help someone with mild PTS who had no hyper-vigilanace, but then, I don't think that person has actual PTSD then. Ya know?

I'm sad to read here that maddog and others had to go on LTD. :( I'm sorry that I didn't know that. How are you doing now?

I'm also afraid of this happening to me. I have used workaholism to get through the misery of PTSD. But it seems to backfire in the long run. My symptoms jumped up to really bad levels after working a lot and right before a work trip.

I don't know how long I can do this job. It involves a lot of responsibility for others' teens, travel, and fiscal responsibility such that it has been dubbed the ultimate "high burnout" job where I work. Here I am going into year 9 of it.

I can't get promoted out of it. My super wants to dovetail his and my jobs and give me both. I also moonlight, and take on a lot more additional stress via that department.

But I know zero about LTD. I have a policy that doesn't kick in until I have been out for 90 or 180 days (to lower the payments). I guess I should up it to be the policy that kicks in faster.

What do you think? An HR worker told me that she paid the high payments for that one since she was the sole provider. That's me as well. Any thoughts for those of us in the same boat?

 

[maddog]

I'm sorry Muse, I had totally forgotten about this thread, and was shocked and taken aback to realise that so much time has passed, and so much has happened, since I first wrote on it almost 18 months ago.

I am currently on what I suppose could be classified as short-term disability. It's actually income protection insurance through my super annuation fund. I have been on this scheme since I was forced out of work last August. I am very very lucky to have had access to it, and while the process has been degrading and stressful, it has been a financial lifeline for me, and was intended to get me through until I could get back to work.

Unfortunately my employer has seen fit to terminate me on medical grounds since then. That process is in play right now and makes the whole STD process seem like a walk in the park. I will need to apply for long-term disability when I am sacked, and may or may not receive it, depending on the judgments of the super fund, the various medical evaluations I will be subjected to, the retaliation of my employer, etc.

I am not in a very open-minded or neutral space to be commenting on any of this right now I don't think, because for me, the process has proven to be one of the most horrific and demeaning sagas I have experienced. I'm glad I didn't realise how bad it was going to be. Sorry to be blunt, but... it's true.

I am so sorry you are grappling with something like this in your possible future too.

Maddog

 

[Powder]

I'm sorry to hear this news Maddog. I hope for the best outcome for you so that you do not feel degraded by any process. I fully understand what you mean.

Are there any steps you can take to sort of inoculate your feelings to such emotions?

I am always having to think along these lines. I read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. He does not fully explicate "how" he managed to hold his head high in concentration camps but I hope through ozmosis, that some of that will rub off on me by reading and interacting with that text. He focuses on human dignity under the worst conditions of loss of freedom and civility.

I would say that he and other admit that using positive visualization of something you will like to do in the future, setting a goal and acting on it, acts of service/compassion, and loving another as the best things to engage with to take one's mind out of the gutter, where "they" want it to be. We decide.

I applaud your fight.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I also got terminated on medical grounds. I am on Social Security Disability I-I forget what the I stands for.(SSDI). I get that and my long term disability(LTD) until next August, then my LTD is over and I get exactly what my mortgage is. I am hoping to go back to work but my therapist thinks I'm not ready. Plus, my back is terribly painful.

My new adjuster from LTD calls every other month asking me for a return to work date. I tell him that I'm on SSDI, and I'm not expected to return to work, but he says slyly that doesn't matter. It does matter. SSDI is harder to get than LTD, and I got approved for SSDI in four months. That is the shortest time to get approved. I don't like his tone of voice. Last time I talked to him, I told him my T said I'm not ready to go back to work, and he said, "Oh, that's why you don't sound worried".