Disability Benefits for Bipolar Disorder

Living with bipolar disorder is chaotic. The bucking mood swings leave you grasping tightly to the reins just to make it through your days and weeks.

While Social Security recognizes your condition as eligible for disability benefits, they don’t make it easy to tap into that resource.

You have to prove that your symptoms—anxiety, depression, over-excitement, and others—make it impossible for you to continue in the workforce.

Social Security created a checklist of symptoms that applicants can use to qualify for disability benefits with bipolar disorder

First, you must have medical documentation that shows you suffer from at least three of the following:

• Fast, hard-to-control talking
• Fast-moving thoughts
• Inflated confidence
• Sleeping less
• Getting easily distracted
• Inability to sit still
• Engaging in high-risk activities without concern for consequences
• Laser focus on certain goals

Then you must show that your symptoms prevent or limit your ability to use information, interact with other people, concentrate, or manage your daily life.

You can also provide a medical history showing you have attempted to manage your bipolar disorder for at least two years, making your condition “serious and persistent.”

Navigating these rules is hard. At Mathis & Mathis, we understand you would rather be working than facing this challenge.

We can help, and you don’t have to pay anything to get a professional opinion on what to do next.

Social Security won’t take your word for it that your bipolar disorder has upended your life. You have to prove it in writing—namely your medical history.

All those times you visited the doctor, the treatment plans you’ve undergone, the prescriptions you take, those reports from your psychiatrist and other medical professionals—all of these become tools for proving your case with Social Security.

You’ll also need to show your work history: the types of jobs you’ve had, the skills those jobs required, and the demands those jobs placed on you.

And you’ll need to combine the two to show how your particular mental health difficulties interfere with the kinds of work you’re able to get.

It’s a lot to gather on your own. But you don’t have to do it alone.

At Mathis & Mathis, our disability advocates for people in Baltimore, D.C., and Virginia have walked thousands of clients through the process and helped them get the benefits they deserve.

Trained disability advocates know the rules, the forms, the deadlines, the types of evidence you can use in a disability case and more.

We do what we do because we want you to get back to what’s most important: concentrating on feeling better and living stronger.

Because applying for Social Security Disability benefits can be complicated, you likely have many questions about the process. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions.