How I Overcame A Difficult Payee

    No one likes being controlled by money- No one. Some of what happens when you receive a diagnosis of a mental illness is that it limits your ambitions, freedoms, and your ability to become employed. In fact, after adverse medicines and the loss of freedom to smoke, money is a big cause of anxiety to the mentally ill. Even beyond that, many times worse is when you finally learn to live inside a budget it gets even smaller. So, when you have a payee that refuses to be transparent, it is time to speak up, speak out, and hold them accountable.
 
    I had a difficult payee. I am still waiting for an audit to happen. First, I thought changing payees was a good thing. And, well, as luck had it, I changed payees and was happy with the solution. But changing payees is only one option. A few days ago, I got the go ahead to become my own payee again. There was a long process getting there and I will try to explain. I had to have a payee for over one year. During that time, I changed payees to see if the manipulations would stop. Some did, and some became new ways to use money to manipulate. I call this form of abuse- emotional blackmail.
 
    I learned from Social Security (the day I was there to change to being my own payee) that if your payee is keeping money from you that you are due, there is a process through the Social Security system where you have the right to file a formal complaint at your local Social Security office. At the office they will have you sign a third-party waiver. What this means is that Social Security will scrutinize and hold the difficult payee to an audit. If anything is found in error with the audit, Social Security will then hold legal proceedings (but you will receive only the money taken from you). Anything over what was lost goes to Social Security. In other words, Social Security is the plaintiff and your difficult payee is the defendant and you get nothing from the lawsuit.
 
    If Social Security finds moneys that are yours, they will begin a process of righting the wrong that the payee did with your money. In other words, you should finally receive the money that is due to you that the payee withheld. For this to happen though, you need to go to your local Social Security office and formally file a complaint through them so something can be done about it. If you don’t do this, then the difficult payee will continue to be a difficult payee.
 
    If you are not able to go to your local Social Security office, you might want to ask a counselor or call your advocate to help you. But remember, the first thing to do is get away from the bad payee and find a way to change to a new payee. You don’t have to wait to be your own payee to file a formal complaint. Your advocate might be able to help you. Listen to what they suggest and remember that the process takes a while. 


Here is Social Security.

     It helps to use a local office number instead of the national number. Click on it to find the number to your local office,
and you will be helped much sooner.

     If you need an advocate go to Jewish Family Services for any contact info. They work with all patients and you do not have to be Jewish to receive help.

How I Overcame Denial

    Part of my success with coping with schizo-affective bipolar disorder is due to the fact that I have accepted my diagnosis. I say this because it is true. I have a mental illness.
 
    My deceased uncle had schizophrenia and my deceased grandfather had bipolar disorder. This makes me at least 3rd generation mental health patient. I say this because this is also true. I have both. That is what schizo-affective disorder is, it is a combination of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. 

    For a very long time in the past, I was in denial. I can 
remember when I was growing up family would pull me to the side and say, “Don’t worry about what your grandfather and uncle are going through, it only hits the men in the family”. My grandfather was a civil engineer and my uncle could not hold down a job. The family would talk about how my grandfather lost his senses and went up to the White House and punched a secret service employee. As for my uncle, the family said my uncle was mentally ill because he did drugs and for the longest time I believed that that is what made my uncle ‘sick’. In other words, he “couldn’t have been born with it” because it came from outside the family gene pool. Their belief is, “We didn’t do drugs so we are sane.” I kept this mentality for a long time, this phobia that runs in my family. I blamed my illness on drug use and that is the wrong way to view it.
 
               Drugs are not the cause of mental illness. 
   
   We don’t know why yet, but we are close to finding the cause of it. Personally, I firmly believe that sleep deprivation and loss of REM (deep sleep) is the root, but not the cause. It is my belief that mental illness is an insomnia side-effect and that the cause would be chronic insomnia.
 
    Speaking of side-effects, understanding and recognizing side-effects can help you gain control of your treatment. When you have a firm understanding of your illness, such as what is your medicine made out of, what symptoms are you experiencing, even telling what medicine works best for you that maybe there can be a collaboration in your treatment with your treatment team. If you can do that, you will know that ultimately you control the process, not the process controls you.
 
    That is why I say in the beginning that there is no room for denial in a diagnosis. Once you have it, it is for life. But, if you do the steps, go to groups, listen to what your groups are trying to teach you, comply with treatment regimens, understand your flare-ups, catch your symptoms as they happen around others, work with your treatment coordinators and doctors, work on your behavior, and change your outlook, your perceptions- you will be happy to see your doctor, happy to see your nurse because you are finally able to see why they are helping you cope with mental illness. You will get it. The reason they do what they do and say what they say. The more you learn about your treatment team the more you will see that they are on your side.
 
    Remember, there is no cure and that you are the biggest player in your treatment. Getting off conservatorship is a process not a program. There are certain things that the experts look for. If you go to groups and become an active player when you visit your treatment team you will catch on to what they look for within your treatment. When you have this knowledge, suddenly it feels like you are respected. They listen.     (a glorious thing)

Vocabulary ABC's in Mental Health Circles
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a loved one's life.... please visit the ABC's