Due to its negative impacts on society, there is a question is anxiety a disability? This blog is going to answer that question, guide you on how to apply for Social Security Disability & support your anxiety disorder claim. Before that, let’s explore how anxiety disorders affect society in a gloomy way.
What is Anxiety and General Overview of the Impact on Society
Anxiety is a feeling of worry, fear, or dread that can cause physical and psychological symptoms. It can also be described as an unpleasant mental state in which a person feels restless and has difficulty concentrating on other tasks.
Anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental health problem in the United States with over 40 million adults suffering from anxiety. It has been found that anxiety disorders have a large impact on society because of their social nature.
Anxiety disorders can have both short-term and long-term effects on society. The short-term effects include increased rates of absenteeism, reduced productivity at work, increased healthcare costs, and increased risk for suicide attempts among adolescents and young adults. The long-term effects include decreased life expectancy, and poorer physical health outcomes such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
With its adverse effects on society, it’s reasonable to have a question: is anxiety a disability?
5 Types of Anxiety Disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
GAD is characterized by excessive worry that interferes with daily life. It can cause physical and psychological symptoms, such as muscle tension, sleep problems, heart palpitations, and dizziness.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder involves recurrent panic attacks that can lead to significant distress or impairment in functioning. Symptoms include excessive worrying about having a panic attack or recurring panic attacks without any obvious triggers.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Social anxiety disorder is marked by extreme shyness in social situations where the person fears being judged negatively by others or embarrassed. It is also associated with avoidance of social situations and feelings of inadequacy.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD often involves uncontrollable thoughts and unwanted behaviors, such as repeated checking for germs, constant hand washing, counting, or hoarding objects.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. The symptoms of PTSD typically occur within at least three months of the trauma and continue for more than six months. The symptoms are severe enough to impair, curtail, or cause distress in many daily living activities.
Is Anxiety a Disability? The accurate answer
Anxiety can be regarded as a disability if you can provide well-documented evidence that your anxiety makes you unable to perform simple daily activities, study, and work for at least 1 year. If it is the case, you can be qualified for Social Security disability benefits.
According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), disability is defined as“any medically determinable mental or medical impairment that has prevented an individual from performing substantial work for twelve months, is expected to prevent an individual from working for twelve continuous months, or is expected to end with death.”
To apply for disability benefits, you are supposed to demonstrate that your anxiety condition meets the SSA’s Blue Book criteria.
👉Related Reading: Tips to Explain Anxiety to Others.
How to Apply for Social Security Disability
If you wish to obtain the benefits from Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance, it’s fairly hard. This is because the medical evidence showing the anxiety disorder diagnosis is pretty subjective and determined by difficult-to-document standards. They include behaviors and feelings happening outside the clinic and reported by patients themselves.
To succeed in claiming disability benefits for your anxiety condition, make sure that you have a history of treatment from medical specialists to establish that your anxiety illness is recurring or chronic. In other words, you need to convince the SSA to believe that your impairment makes it difficult or impossible for you to operate every day.
You will be asked to sign a release form permitting your medical providers to transfer your health records to the SSA. The following information should be included in your health records:
How regularly did you report symptoms of anxiety to your mental health professionals?
Mental health checks revealed any anomalies in your thinking, like losing your line of thought often or trouble recalling recent events.
How did you respond to medications (both effectiveness and side effects)?
Remember that you must describe how negatively your anxiety affects you. The SSA considers the aforementioned elements in determining whether you are medically handicapped. Taking excessive breaks, being absent too frequently, or failing to complete your job obligations, etc. may indicate that no company would recruit you for full-time work.
If you file disability benefits in the case of Anxiety-Related Disorders, you need to fulfill the requirements of either paragraph A + B or paragraph A + C in the Blue Book:
How to Consolidate your Anxiety Disorder Claim
If you have been seeing doctors for a long period of time, you’re encouraged to ask them to write medical source notes on your mental illness. They can mention the causes and dire consequences of your anxiety on your work and normal life.
Plus, if you worked before but got fired because of your anxiety symptoms, you could ask your past employer to write a work evaluation paper. It shows how your anxiety disorder makes you absent frequently, unable to concentrate on work and accomplish tasks.
In that sense, the SSA might conclude that you won’t be able to get a job in the future. It’s more possible for you to get disability benefits.
Is anxiety a disability? Final words
When it comes to the question: is anxiety a disability? The answer is: Yes if suffers can prove that their anxiety has been influencing them adversely based on medical documentation. They are even unable to perform activities of daily life and find sustainable jobs. In general, their anxiety symptoms must meet the requirements of the Blue Book.
Anxiety disorders are mental disorders characterized by excessive, unreasonable worry and fear that can be difficult to control. They may occur without warning or come and go without any obvious trigger.
People with anxiety disorders tend to feel anxious or worried for no apparent reason. They also find it difficult to sleep, eat, work, and function in everyday life. Sufferers often have physical symptoms such as a rapid heartbeat, sweating, and dizziness.
