I think that it is good to keep working as long as you possibly can. At least for me going on disabilty took away parts of my life that you just can't get back. It's really frustrating to rely on a social security check that is barely enough to live on (and I moved onto my mom's property to stop having a mortgage payment and it's still hard) and you lose a sense of accomplishment that is hard to get from other things. If work is a big part of your identity as it was mine it's hard to go from that to staying home and sometimes making a little extra money dogsitting for your mom. You can work a little on disability but I can't yet and part of why I'm having such a bad time right now is that I had to retire this year. As soon as the paperwork for that started coming I started falling apart. It's just not something to do until you are positive. For me positive came when I'd had surgery followed by a bad reaction to meds that messed up my cognition greatly, I tried to go back to work and gently was asked to take more time (while my company continued to support me for 3 months past FMLA, they were awesome), I was dangerously suicidal and had been in the hospital twice in a few months and was living ready to be admitted at any time again (even to the point of being packed for a few dr visits), etc. I think that when the time comes you KNOW it. My therapist says he knew my time was running out for about a year before it did and that he is glad he didn't have to tell me. I thought I was doing well most of that year except I was physically sick from catching whooping cough and that turning into asthma that was flared by many of my patient's homes and we later learned by black mold in our office.

Voc. rehab can help a lot. In fact one of my assistants (I was an occupational therapist) had a traumatic brain injury and voc. rehab paid for him to go to school, supported him through schooling and helped him get modifications to the board exam so he could pass it (I think he got extra time). I still think if they'd decided to give me a computer I would have succeeded longer at least in the job I was in then (because when I did use a computer I had less trouble with documentation) but my testing wasn't different enough from written.

It can take a while to get in to see someone and my experience was the whole process moves slowwwwlllllly while you want it to go a lot faster but I had a caseworker change partway through and that slowed things down and the 2nd caseworker was just learning the job and that didn't help a lot. But they did the computer testing and then I had an occupational therapist come to work with me for 2 days and watch how I did things and then made recommendations to me about how to stay more organized and mostly made recommendations to my supervisors about how to utilize my skills better. She also came and spoke to supervisors at a later job with suggestions there. Some of it was so helpful just in terms of supporting what I'd said. My job required treatments be done in 3 outbuildings that were assisted living plus the nursing home and I worked in a couple nursing homes. Going in and out in the summer made me sick from meds and I had asked my assistant to please do the external treatments in the summer and I'd do them in the fall to make up. She hated doing the external treatments and so she was really mad about that. The OT was able to tell them that yes, heat was DANGEROUS for me and that it was much safer to have me to do as much as possible without going outside. But if you have ideas of other things you might like to do or what issues make it most difficult to be a chef they really can help. For people who are severely physically disabled they'll even provide an accessible van or a driver.