Can anyone tell me how you knew going inpatient or intensive treatment program and/or going on disability was the right decision at the right time?
Those are very broad questions. It might help if you break them up into individual threads and give more specifics about what pros and cons you have for each option for yourself. The members of the forum would likely be able to give a lot more feedback on these difficult and important decisions you are considering.
In regards to going inpatient, are you talking about a trauma/PTSD specific inpateint program or an acute adult psych inpatient unit?
If you are in danger of likely hurting yourself or others, or you are "gravely disabled" and can not take care of your basic needs such as feeding and clothing yourself, then it would be a good idea to talk with your current treatment providers about if going to an adult acute impatient unit would be a good idea. In general these general psych units will do a good job of keeping you alive and safe, and helping come up with a treatment plan to keep you alive and safe... and that's about it. They will not really treat any of the underlying trauma. Some places may be somewhat re-traumatizing, but this risk is worth it if the person is in severe danger of harming themselves or others.
If you are struggling in daily functioning due to PTSD and you are having chronic problems staying safe, but you are not in imminent danger of harming yourself or others, then I would recommend investigating more about one of the specialized inpatient PTSD treatment centers in the US. I have gone to two of them and they have helped my recovery greatly. It did some at some considerable cost and time away from work, but in my case, it was worth it.
There are also alternative options such as partial hospitalization programs, adding group therapy to individual therapy, etc. In my case, none of these options were available to me locally, but if they had been, I would have tried them first long before I went through all the time and expense of going inpatient to a specialty PTSD treatment center in another state (or even if there was one close to my home.)
One of the key factors for going on disability or not, is considering if you would qualify or not, and if the potential gain would be greater than the potential losses of going on disability. If you are referring to SSI or SSDI one possible gain is government insurance and income. An important loss to remember is that it is limited income, and there are limited treatment options through medicare/medicaid.
It's also important to consider alternative options to staying in the job you are in vs. going on disability. It may be that with some training through Dept of Voc Rehab or on your own through a variety of educational options, you may be able to do another job better than you can the one right now. This may even be true without additional training. For example, when I first had string PTSD symptoms, I could not continue to work as a teacher in a classroom of 30 very active kids. However, I could work as a teacher in special education with small groups of children.
If you went on disability, did you have to disclose why to your employer or to future employers? How protected is the information? Like actually protected... not supposed to be... legally... but really is water fountain fodder.
No. In the US, it is usually illegal to require applicants to reveal past disability status. It is also illegal (and punishable by possible jail time for your doctors and therapists to reveal your past disability status without your authorization.) However, that being said, you will have to somehow address the gap in your employment history.
One alternative option to look into: see if your employer or your state offers the benefit of short term disability, and to take time off for intensive treatment, and utilize the family medical leave act to ensure your job will be there for you when you return.
