I can understand your dilemma. I was 41 when I applied for SSDI.....had been a firmware design engineer for military communications systems for 15 years after graduating from college. I ended up in a position that I didn't fit into at the company I was working for & had a complete breakdown. Horrible mess & they wouldn't allow me to transfer back to the technical end of the company....I was trapped. Couldn't find any other jobs as aerospace was declining terribly & other companies wouldn't hire me because my technical experience wasn't up to date even though I went back to UCLA to take classes....they wanted ON THE JOB experience. I was so messed up & in & out of the psych hospitals....tried to get workman's comp but lost that case.....but my pdoc was the one that put through all the paperwork for my SSDI & I got it immediately. I don't remember much about that period of my life honestly......but just remember that in was only about 6 months after I left the company & while I was still on medical leave that I was approved for the SSDI. It felt even worse because my career was the only thing in my life that I wanted at that time.....which did make it worse....that was in 1994.

I went to voc rehab testing in spring 2004....a complete disaster. They only dealt with people who did NOT have degrees....assembly line stuff which only made my anxiety 200 times worse. I totally blew away the tests on the physics & other technical things, but they had NOTHING that they could even consider appropriate job wise for me......thought of going back to school & going into interior design, but they wouldn't approve of that either so I resigned myself to being on SSDI forever until I am old enough for Social Security retirement income which I'm sure will be much less then the SSDI I am getting now.

The worst thing was that I ended up going through a trauma that caused horrible PTSD issues the fall after going through the voc rehab....so I wouldn't have been able to follow through on education or anything for that matter. That situation messed me up worse than loosing my career, but probably worse because it was ON TOP OF that.

When one is not able to hold down a job/career, then SSDI is the best solution & for me, they said for me if I were not able to hold down a career equivalent to the one I had, then SSDI was an acceptable answer. I couldn't have worked if I were forced to at that point....NOW, I don't know how much work I MIGHT be able to do....but not worth attempting it at the age of 58....other than to supplement the SSDI.

Know it's a hard decision to make because the feeling of being on SSDI is hard at accept.....but it's most of the time the best thing we can do for ourselves.

Wishing you the best in working through your decision.