Nearly all mental illnesses qualify you for SSI as long as the mental illness you have is severe enough to prevent you from working and maintaining employment for at least 12 months or longer.
SSA evaluates claims for disabilities and mental illnesses based on your functional limitations, which have to meet the criteria in the SSA's official Adult Listing of Impairments.
The following mental disorders and mental illnesses are recognized by the SSA, which if you qualify you can get SSI for the mental illness.
Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders, when physical symptoms are present without a clear medical explanation but are also tied to psychological factors.
Trauma and stressor related disorders, with severe ongoing impairments that are tied to past trauma.
Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulimia that severely impact your daily function and physical health.
Neurodevelopmental disorders like specific learning disabilities or extreme developmental delays.
Personality and impulse control disorders like borderline personality disorder, paranoid, avoidant or dependent personality disorders.
Autism Spectrum Disorder, which includes conditions affecting social interaction and communication abilities.
Neurocognitive disorders, like Alzheimer's disease, dementia or other conditions that result from traumatic brain injuries.
Intellectual disorders, including significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, often evaluated if the condition began before age 22.
Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders such as Schizophrenia, delusional disorder or schizoaffective disorder.
Anxiety and OCD or Obsessive Compulsive disorders, including generalized anxiety, panic disorder, PTSD and OCD.
Depressive, Bipolar and related disorders like bipolar I and bipolar II and major depression.
You can also work while on SSI disability although, the SSA also places strict limits on your monthly income that you can earn while on SSI disability and they also offer specific work incentive programs.
The standard income limit you can when on SSI disability is $1,690.00 per month.
If you're blind the limit to the amount you can earn on SSI disability is $2,830.00 per month.
But if you're on SSI disability and earn more than these caps, the SSA often also generally considers it to be Substantial Gainful Activity, and your monthly disability check for SSI disability will stop.
When on SSI disability, the trial work period or TWP allows you to test your ability to work for up to 9 months while keeping your full SSI disability benefits.
But any month that you work and earn over $1,210.00 will count towards your 9 month work period trial.
Then after 9 months of the trial, you have a 36 month period of time where you can continue to work while on SSI disability and only get the SSI disability payments for the months your income falls below the SGA limit.
Also a free, voluntary program that also provides job training, career counseling and job placement services to help beneficiaries to transition into the workforce is also available.
When working on SSI disability, the first $85.00 of your monthly earnings are not counted toward your income.
But after the first $85.00 you earn, your SSI or SSDI benefit is reduced by $0.50 for every dollar you earn.
The more income you earn, the more your SSI or SSDI benefit is reduced, until you eventually become ineligible for the SSDI or SSI payments if your income becomes too high.
Although if you're able to work and earn more than the SSI or SSDI then that is better, even if you lose your SSDI or SSI benefits as it's hard to live on SSDI and SSI alone.