Mental Illness Disability

Mental illness is wide spread. It can affect any person regardless of race, age, income or religion. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older suffer from a diagnosed mental illness in any given year. Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disturb a person�s feelings, thinking, functioning, and mood. Some mental illnesses are:

� Bipolar Disorder

� Schizophrenia

� Depression

� Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

� Borderline Personality Disorder

People can get Social Security Disability benefits based upon mental illness. In order to qualify for disability, the mental illness must be severe enough to prevent an individual from doing any substantial gainful activity. The mental illness must also have lasted, or be expected to last, for 12 months.

Disability Examiners use a �Listing of Impairments� to determine whether an individual is disabled under Social Security�s rules. The listings for mental illnesses are arranged in the following nine diagnostic categories:

1. Organic mental disorders (psychological or behavioral abnormalities associates with a dysfunction of the brain);

2. Schizophrenic, paranoid and other psychotic disorders (characterized by the onset of psychotic features with deterioration from a previous level of functioning);

3. Affective disorders (characterized by a disturbance of mod, accompanied by a full or partial manic or depressive syndrome);

4. Mental retardation (the onset must have occurred before age 22);

5. Anxiety-related disorders;

6. Somatoform disorders (physical symptoms for which there are no demonstrable organic findings or known physiological mechanisms);

7. Personality disorders (exists when personality traits are inflexible and maladaptive and cause either significant impairment in social or occupational functioning or subjective distress);

8. Substance addiction disorders (claimants with this must meet the requirements of some other disability too); and

9. Autistic disorder and other pervasive developmental disorders (characterized by qualitative deficits in the development of reciprocal social interaction, in the development of verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and in imaginative activity).

Each disorder must be documented by medical evidence and must be sufficiently severe for a Social Security to award disability benefits. However, the level of severity of substance addiction disorders requires that another disability exists.

Steve Fields is author of this article on Minnesota disability benefits. Find more information about Minnesota ssdi benefits here.