The battle against disabling illness or injury is often lonely and long. Your disability has left you unable to do little things like walking to your mailbox without losing your breath. And the pain you suffer from doing simple things like cooking dinner is hard to explain.
But the question is whether or not you will remember to note all of these things to the long-term disability benefits provider. In my experience, the answer is usually no. We tend to focus on the major difficulties we have and disregard or minimize the small details. These small details are important, however.
These little ones add up and count. Things like being winded by walking from your kitchen to your living room. Or how, after tying your shoes, it took you five minutes to straighten back up. And that’s every morning.
In order to help your memory and strengthen your initial claim, a good idea is to keep a diary or journal to chronicle your daily struggles with life. When you go to file your initial claim, you will have your daily recollections recorded and can accurately depict your daily struggles for the claims examiner.
You can do this in a notebook or by creating a simple form on your computer. Whatever works best for you.
Not only may this help your disability claim, many authors feel that chronicling our problems and daily activities has therapeutic value. (I don’t know about the therapeutic value one way or the other, but I’m of the opinion that it can’t hurt.)
By truly understanding the impact your disability is having on your life, a more convincing initial long-term disability benefits application can be created. Start your journal today. Get the full list of the 9 things you should know before filing your long-term disability claim.
