Qualifying for Social Security Disability benefits for an illness can be difficult, as any of our readers who are familiar with previous posts here know. Applicants oftentimes need to put together all of the medical documentation they can muster, as well as meticulously describing how the illness limits their ability to work. This is no easy task, but it can be even more difficult when the illness is a mental impairment.
This is true despite the fact that we are all learning more about just how prevalent mental impairments are in America. For instance, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which attempts to keep statistics related to mental impairments, states that an estimated 43.8 million Americans suffer from some sort of mental illness in any given year – that’s one out of every five adults in America.
Beyond that, of that number an estimated 10 million people are suffering from a mental impairment that is so serious that it will limit or interfere with the way they live their life. It is likely that those Americans who will be applying for Social Security Disability benefits based on a mental impairment would come from this section of the populace.
Mental illness can be just as debilitating as a physical illness, in many cases. Schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, for instance, can make it very hard for a Los Angeles resident to go about life like most of us do. Applying for SSD benefits can help these individuals when working to earn an income is no longer an option.
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness, “Mental Health By the Numbers,” Accessed March 20, 2016