#if you were nice I’m always glad to waive fees if I’m able

[threeawfulfruits]

Fun fact, people: if you immediately start cussing out a customer service worker when they mention that you are going to be charged an appointment fee, I PROMISE you they’re not going to be inclined to tell you about the loophole in the contract that lets them waive the fee for people who really can’t afford it.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 202

September 29

Writing my journal very late tonight, because I have been doing stuff! The kiddo has been having a hard brain time lately, and though we have discussed it with professionals in ways I will not detail in this journal, I am still trying to find ways to cope in the everyday. The pandemic has been just ridiculously awful for mental health in general. Today after school we built a giant fort in the kitten room, with the cat tree as the central post and chairs, table and desk as auxiliary anchor points for the sheets. I tell you what, binder clips are where it's at when it comes to securing sheets to various anchor points. We declared the fort a no electronics, yes snacks and kittens zone, and hung out in there for awhile after school and awhile before bed, then left it standing for tomorrow. Anything novel is good, I feel, and forts always gave me a cozy and secure feeling that I hope to pass along. 

Tonight I have also been trying to assemble a YouTube playlist I'm calling "Good Thinking Skills." I found a channel called How to ADHD with lots of really good videos that I'm going to watch for my own sake later, but also videos on how to stimulate your brain properly, and how to deal with it when easy tasks seem impossible, stuff like that. I added some videos on mindfulness, some on what anxiety is, how to reframe negative thoughts and feelings, etc. I tried to find ones that were actually interesting, testing them by forcing myself to sit through them entirely with no outside stimulation. If I couldn't do it, boom, off the list. I'm planning on incentivizing watching the videos on the list by giving him points for watching. The kiddo tends to do very well with any computer based activity that earns him points, so here's hoping! I know the points system is supposed to generally limit screen time so this is sort of counterproductive, but the point of limiting screen time is to give him a better life, so anything that might make his life better, I figure, can also be the point of the points system. 

Wow, that was convoluted. I'm pretty tired. Anyway, the first presidential debate was tonight and my husband had to stream it and watch it while chatting with the members of the political science club he is the faculty advisor for. This meant that the debate was on in the bedroom, which made the bedroom poison all evening and I would not go near it unless necessary. Yikes. Politics are also not good for anybody's mental health right now. What a truly rotten year this has been, in so many ways. 

Today I went out and did a curbside pickup at Aldi because Instacart gave me a 20 dollar discount coupon plus waived the service fee to make me try them out. It worked well, I got all the groceries I ordered except the onion soup mix, which was not available. I need my onion soup mix for many onion soup purchases, so I am very much hoping it comes through in my Walmart order later in the week. Once I got all the groceries home, I broke down the big square of ground beef into pound baggies for the freezer and froze all the chicken breasts in the family packs 2 or 4 together. It is much easier than freezing the entire thing and then having to deal with an enormous block of frozen meat later. I have a family pack of chicken thighs in the big freezer that I am super not looking forward to dealing with someday. I also cleaned and organized a lot of the pantry (again) because that thing will not stay organized for love or money. I decided to try and get all my month's groceries (except ultra-perishables) at once, so I need a lot of pantry space and freezer space available! 

Okay, I was just thinking and remembered that my parents are considering coming to see us later on in October, God willing and the COVID don't rise, and they wanted me to look for hotel rooms for them, so I had to take a break and do a little bit of that. They haven't been here to visit us since we moved in (they helped Kiddo and I get here with the moving truck and all our stuff since Husband had to leave a month before us in order to start his new job on time. and it was all a big thing). It kind of sucks that we won't be able to show them most of the cool museums and historical places and Colonial Williamsburg that we've been scoping out for a year and a half, but see above re: the suckiness of the year. Just being able to see them is going to be really nice. And we will all be careful. I don't even know what the holidays this year are going to look like, but I feel very, very glad that last Christmas we went all out on the family togetherness and me and my sisters and our families and my parents were all together for the holiday for the first time in probably at least a decade. If we can't do nearly so much this year, at least we had that. 

Kitten news for the day: Kittens like forts. They especially like forts when you have used a cat tree as the main support pole. They especially especially like forts made out of dangly fabric pieces that they can play with and climb! Everyone had fun with the fort.  I didn’t get any pictures of the kittens in the fort because the fort is a no-electronics zone and even Mom leaves her phone outside. You’ll just have to use your imaginations.

[adventuresofarainbowcrip]

Finally, a victory with the Social Security office!

Written and posted on March 17th, 2022

This is just a brief post to let you know what has happened recently.

If you read my previous post about my SSI saga, then you already know what is going on. But, in case you did not, or forgot, here’s a refresher. Basically, my income fluctuates a lot, and SSI uses income from 3 months in the past to calculate the current month’s income. Overtime, they kept overpaying me more and more money, and expected me to pay back about $3000 dollars. So about a month and a half ago, I filled out a form explaining why I cannot pay this money back.

I had a phone meeting last week with someone from SSI. The night before the meeting, I got a letter saying that I would not have to pay back the roughly $2000 payment. Then, when I was on the phone, I explained my side of what happened, and calmly stated again that I could not afford to pay the rest of the money. The person I spoke to was actually very nice, and actually listened to me. She agreed to waive the other fees, and I assume that someone actually read my form and decided I didn’t have to pay the more recent money either! This felt pretty awesome.

 I asked her how I could avoid this happening again in the future. She said to make sure I report when I am starting and stopping my job (I do that every time already) but to actually go in person since the office will be opening up. She also said to ask them to make a “high estimate” of what I will be making, which will help to avoid as many issues. 

Of course, the day after the meeting, there was $332 in my account, when I previously was only supposed to be receiving $10 since I make too much (I know so ridiculous)...So I need to call them tomorrow and be like, hey guys, is this money supposed to go to me or not? I don’t want to end up in a mess again haha.

Both of my mentors were listening in on the call from a video chat and one of them reminded me of a couple of things, but I did it all by myself, and they mostly just listened in the background as I very politely and respectfully kicked SSI’s butt haha. I’m really glad the conversation went well, I was prepared to get a little more assertive but I’m glad I didn’t need to. My mentors were proud of me after the conversation was over, we all shared a happy moment of “yay.”

Someday, I’d love to not have to deal with SSI anymore, but the truth is, right now is not quite the right time. I’d need to be making more money than I currently am, and I would not want to lose my health insurance or my brokerage services (how I get support from my mentors) - more on that in another post soon. So for now, here I am, and I’m doing my best. They don’t make it easy to get off of SSI. Also, they decide wayyyy too fast that you don’t need that monetary support. Even if you make just a few dollars over the limit, they take away your benefits, which ends up sometimes putting people behind again, so they are on SSI longer. Maybe if they actually kept offering support, even as people were working, so they could get traction and then make more money, people would be in a different place. It’s like having a rug pulled out from under you as soon as you are steady. 

I think that no matter how much a person is able to work or wants to work, they should be able to do whatever is best for them without feeling bad for the amount they are working (not “enough” or “too much” for what they think a disabled person should be doing. One worry I have is, what if I’m never really able to work what would be considered “full time” for an able-bodied person? Will I always be in this between space where I make too much to receive SSI but barely enough to get what I need (or just a bit more since I know how to live on less)?

This experience proved to me that advocating for yourself can be really powerful, and it can actually get you what you are asking for in some cases. I never imagined when I was younger and wanted nothing to do with disability advocacy (more on that later too) that I would be advocating for my right to work as a disabled person, in a sense, and my right not to be held responsible for SSi’s calculation errors and catch-up. I’m really proud of myself for this accomplishment, and I’m sending all of you who have SSI in your life the courage to stand up for yourself!

See you in my next post!

Nirvana