Was told by disability lawyer to not even try to apply for benefits until I have been unable to work for a year. Mostly a rant. This crap is frustrating.

I developed LC after getting Covid in January 2024. I couldn’t work more than 10-15 hours a week from the get-go, but my work bolstered my pay by comping me hours up until I had to stop working completely in April when I went on STD. I just conferred with a disability lawyer, and he said that, because I only stopped making gainful income in April 2024 when I went on STD, I haven’t been unable to work for long enough to prove that I will still be unable to make any gainful activity in May 2025 doing ANY type of job, not just the job that I have been doing (molecular biologist and lab manager, definitely high stress type of work). He also said that it’s not helpful that I have only been coordinating my care with my primary care physician, because my PCP is not in a position to speak to the severity of my disorder, and that I need ongoing care with a specialist (or multiple specialists) because only they are able to provide objective findings on examination and testing to evince the ongoing severity of my condition. I have had a referral to a cardiologist for two months, and the earliest I can get an appointment is in October (though I’m hoping that an appointment will open up sooner).

The reality is that I have been slowly recovering (and have benefited significantly from LDN), and that I WANT to be recovered and able to work again, but that I still experience enough episodes of fatigue that I can’t actually commit to a schedule or even a set number of hours because I never know if/when I will feel well enough to do anything on a given day. To add to that, I am finding that stress from attempting to work (even a reduced schedule) is having a dramatic impact on the severity of my symptoms. I can’t tolerate stress at all. Will I be able to by May of 2025? Will I be able to tolerate a less stressful job than my current position then? I feel like it really depends on whether I continue to recover over the next several months, if I can actually just not work so I can continue to let my body heal. It seems like I have episodes/stretches of time where I feel good, but that at any moment, with just a little too much exertion or stress or some other unknown factor, my progress gets reset, or I even get worse. I am currently being treated for Lyme disease, and that affront to my body has f’d me up and set me back tremendously.

So anyway, the lawyer said to reach out next spring, because trying to apply for benefits any time before that is not worth it because I will get denied.