Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mild to severe mental condition that may get worse with time if left untreated. In order for you to qualify for disability with PTSD, you will need to prove your case with medical records that your condition lasted at least 24 months and interferes with your ability to perform work in substantial gainful activity, SGA. Moreover, your psychiatrist or doctor may need to fill a Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) form for you, which will state the work related complication and limitations you face due to your PTSD. The genuine opinion with medical proof from your doctor may be the basis for your disability claim to be approved or denied.
While everyone who faces a trauma may experience returning symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, schizophrenia or social withdrawal due to sadness, with PTSD the conditions may become severe or life threatening if the patient starts to give up hope and could not take care of themselves.
This may include:
- Feeling hopeless, severe guilt and shame;
- Difficulty concentrating or managing things;
- Difficulty remembering, anger and irritability;
- Excessive fear, anxiety and panic attacks;
- Difficulty remembering things;
- Insomnia;
To fulfill the criteria for qualifying for social security disability under PTSD you should be able to prove that:
- - Your PTSD is due to an exposure to a face-to-death situation, serious injury, a serious accident, a threatened death or violence;
- - Repeating moments of involuntary actions (hallucinations, memories or repetitive dreams of the traumatic events);
- - Avoidance of external reminders of the event such as complete social withdrawal;
- - Abnormal reactions to normal actions, such as a startled response to a normal statement or action, severe sleep disturbance;
- - Disturbance in mood and behavior, going from happy to sad episodes at once, fluctuating responses;
- - Zero to mild adaptive capacity, for instance, the patient can not adapt to new people or environments due to the fear of the unknown;
- - Inability to managing oneself, such as cooking, cleaning, bathing on their own;
- - Interacting with others (in socially acceptable ways);
- - Maintaining focus on a single activity, doing a chore such as doing homework or writing a paper, at a reasonable pace;
- - Learning, understanding and processing new information;
The rules for you to qualify under social security disability eligibility are the same for all states. But you should contact a Social Security Attorney within your own state, in our case, California, to avoid complications including obtaining medical records, written statements from your friends, colleagues, family or neighbors, by your Attorney to file your case for disability properly.