Those were the days

Coming across this article the other day entitled “Social Security Chief Vows to Fix ‘Cruel-Hearted’ Overpayment Clawbacks” by Fred Clasen-Kelly over at Disability Scoop took be back to those days where when my oldest son first started getting what they call SSI or Supplemental Security Income.

Our income varied and so when they would go through over our finances, they would see it varied from month to month sometimes and they would then then come back and reclaim some of our SSI money. Talk about stress.

Sincerely –

Autism Librarian

After all these years

After I don’t know how many years now, I finally got my son set up with social security. The strange thing is, it’s not SSI but SSDI, which is actually better because it doesn’t require you living below poverty just to get it.

With SSDI, it happens once you’ve paid enough into social security through working. In order to get SSI, you can’t have more than $2000 total in your bank account basically, otherwise you can just as easily lose it. For my son, we have to keep putting some of his money into his ABLE account but even there, he can only have so much.

Bottom line at the moment, he has SSDI and I couldn’t be happier. Now we need to finish up his SSI application. I probably should talk to my lawyer about what our options are for where else we can put that money but for now, I’m in a good place.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

Early weekend

So on a night I usually have my kids, I don’t have any of them since my youngest had a low grade fever last night and so we’re going to have him tested. I know he’s had what he’s calls a cold for quite a while, so I seriously doubt it’s anything more.

Regardless, I’m going to take off the rest of the week, just to be safe for my family, myself and my co-workers. With that, I’ll go ahead and make some phone calls that I’ve been meaning to do. For one, I need to call my divorce lawyer regarding my child support and my son’s SSI.

After that, I need to call my son’s former psychiatrist to get him a new one. The reason for that is he simply aged out. With all that’s going on these days, I think it’s a good idea. I think I’m also going to see if I can write a cover letter or two and that’s just on Thursday. It’s certainly going to be a long weekend.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

A better approach

So it already feels like a long week and it’s only Tuesday. That said however, I’m trying to take a different approach by not tackling too much at one time. Planning out a little ahead so I don’t stress out so much.

Yesterday, I looked at the positive before I got too work. Today, I’m planning out tonight so I don’t try and do too much since I go in an hour early on Wednesday’s. On the way into work today, I’ll just read an article or book, no looking at jobs.

Since I’ve already turned in two applications so far this week, I”ll just look at job listings tonight and tomorrow night. I won’t work on any cover letters again until Thursday. I’ll just enjoy the time with my kids.

It also probably helps that I turned in all of what I hope we need for Social Security on Saturday. Along with that, I mailed out a friends birthday gift. It’s always good to do something for me. Again, one day at a time.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

…and a long week

So even though it’s been a long week, it’s not quite over yet. Tomorrow morning I have a phone call with Social Security regarding my oldest son and his ability to take care of his finances. I have everything I need laid out but I still need to mail a few things tomorrow or Saturday to the Social Security representative that I’ll be talking with.

I basically have three of the things I need to mail out, his special needs trust, his pay stubs and his his ABLE account balance but I still need to get together information on my child support. Since I had to “retire” from my previous job and I was both furloughed and on unemployment for eight weeks for a while and with my new job paying half of what I made previously, I need to submit paperwork to see if I can either stop paying child support or possibly have his mom pay me, given the circumstances. I guess we’ll see.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

Tough weekend…

Started off last weekend with a car accident but then used that as motivation to try harder to focus on my two kids as much as I could and that helped me get through it. Add to the fact that it was a long dad weekend, which meant I got even more time with them and that helped even more.

Thankfully, I also know that writing helps, especially during tough times like this. I guess you could say, one weekend at a time. Now I just need to get back to focusing on my oldest son’s SSI, as well as my never ending job search. It’s always something, no matter what’s going on in the world.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

Taking more steps

So in the last week two weeks, my son had his disability determination meeting for SSI and his first appointment with his new doctor, so we can work on getting his medication started again, if we so desire. I must say, I like his new doctor.

More importantly, just so he has a doctor as he hasn’t had one since his pediatrician. As far as his medicine goes, I think I’ll talk to his old psychiatrist first. We also need to make an appointment with hopefully his new psychiatrist. Like I said, more steps taken. That’s a good thing.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

Moving right along

So as my life gets a little closer to normal, what with working again, my oldest son and I have a meeting with Disability Determinations regarding his SSI. If we can get past this, then we have taken another step in setting him up for his future.

The next steps are finding out if he can drive and getting him a job that ‘s closer to what he wants to do in the future. Those steps unfortunately, probably won’t happen until we get past this pandemic but as I’ve come to realize, we can only do what we can do.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

His future

To let you know, I finally got my son’s SSI paperwork in, so we’ve definitely made progress there. Now I’m just waiting for a phone call to take the next step there.

Meanwhile, I think my next is to go through the pile of papers I have in the next week or two, to look at what else I have to do regarding my son’s future and create a list.

That way, like what I’m doing now on my furlough, I can see see what I’ve accomplish and what I have left to do. I have to say overall I’ve gotten a lot done during this time, both for myself and my kids.

At this time, there’s not really much I can do. One good note though is that golf through our local St. Louis Arc group here is on from the middle of July to the middle of August. Also, my son got to Zoom with one of his best friends the other day, so we will probably be doing that again.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian

Facing the music

This is a phrase I haven’t thought about or used in a rather long time but I think maybe I needed to do tonight. Meaning I need to sit down with my son and work on his SSI paperwork tomorrow.

Today, I finally just sat down and worked on my modification of child support paperwork and I can’t tell you how much I didn’t want to do it. Thankfully I got it done and I think doing that helped me to realize if I can get through that, we can get through his paperwork.

As I’ve said many, many times, one day at a time. Thinking about my dad, I think he would be proud of me. Maybe next time, I’ll share a poem that I wrote about him the other day.

Sincerely-

Autism Librarian