This post I rarely discuss finances, and without exploiting my finances too. This story is more about changes I didn’t expect and how I have a mother who can’t shut the fuck up once.

This involves the Supplemental Security Income of Social Security, what others around the world would call our Social Security a “pension”, but unlike SSI, you don’t earn as much as Social Security Disability Insurance (or SSDI) this really applies to normal people who worked for 40 straight quarters (or 10 straight years) and suddenly had a life changing disability. For many people on the PDD end of autism, we got screwed at birth, so then it would hang over well into adult years and to your dying grave.

Unlike in early 2022, where my mother word-vomited, I happen to be at the right place at the right time. She agreed to me to monitor the call, next to her in the dining room. She received the letter of the telephone meeting the day before. Luck was on our side.

The call got hobbled because a push notification came as the phone was ringing and she was trying to identify the caller. On the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the default font size of the push and the font size of 10 digit telephone number space interferes when both appear simultaneously. Regardless going off hook to speaker was another 10 seconds of “can you hear me?” (cue Adele.)

Regardless during the call, it was the usual checkup of finances to ensure if I can get more (and I can’t because SSI is the bare minimal for an invisible disability, and the Granite State’s Medicaid also kinda trumps the full benefits kicking me out. Not to mention all of this – now is tied to the Medicaid Waiver system, where if made more, then the services would be cut.

(Sidenote: For those who are not familiar with the “welfare state” or if you’re not in the country, the Medicaid system is the “insurance” part of US welfare system, Medicare is for the elderly, Medicaid is for people younger than 64, and the Medicaid Waiver system very disability specific as the supplemental supports.

The easiest way to tell the difference, is Medicaid assists people by Uncle Sam and Medicare takes care of the elderly by Uncle Sam  both vis-a-vis the state level with the Feds reimbursing them. Think of the state government’s welfare agency as the provider and the Feds acts as purchasing agent.)

The kicker here is a significant part of how I plan my life. I am not a big “five year plan” kind of guy, because it has so much narcissistic, control and command, arrogant attitudes, unlike my 21st birthday, where when I was 16, I couldn’t see far out, but now in my late 30s, I can see ahead. Much like in 2015, when I created this version of my blog 2020: Hopeless Autistic, I knew the system supporting me would ultimately fail, and in 2020, it started to fail badly, just COVID19 distracted it from everything.

My father who co-created this child, is 20 years older than me, so within 5 years, he’s of age where he can collect the standard Social Security, that is given to people indefinitely from 65 to death, dating from Rosevelt era during the Great Depression.

Say what you want about Social Security Numbers, his SSN was on my case, and he knows he’s going be aware his working life will be funding my attempts to be a functioning member of society – even if his “son” is in his 40s (moi.) In one bright spot, back before The State of New Hampshire got snooty against it’s citizens with faceless bureaucrats, my mother had a single point of contact from the early 1990s to when I turned 18, this person was a law enforcement officer for the family court system, and this individual was responsible for holding my father accountable. My father has a criminal record for being a deadbeat dad, excuse me “father”.

While my mother will never have to deal with this shit again, from a hyper independent woman who never collected anything other than child support until I became of age (but 3 more years of school), when I became the recipient, now my father will be aware. Back to the family court LEO, when the officer contacted my father to extend the benefits to my 21st birthday as college wasn’t going to be an option, my father never reacted. He was passive. (But that may have something to do with my paternal family knowing nothing about autism either. And you really wonder why I am now pissed about the lack of “Autism Awareness” when I’ve tried to counter the messaging for more than a decade.)

When the call ended, my mother was going on a play-by-play of what’s going on in her head; I had to then emphasize about what I had heard. Apparently when I ask a serious question with a critical (binary answer) she gives me an answer for a 1st grader, or a primer of the subject manner, instead of a yes or no, with a one sentence of nuance.

(On a sidenote, I compared this to “survivor’s benefit” (e.g. when Grandpa died in 2021 and Gram was collecting his benefits) my mother corrected me, but she didn’t key on analogizing; similar (aware of monies are going to) but different outcomes (where Gram got all of his bennies.) This takes seconds of my time to explain myself that I know about the differences.)

But because I am apparently so “high functioning” and so “intelligent”, that attempting to have an engaging conversation with an individual that does monologues, broadcasts narratives, and doesn’t allow a multicast back and forth, maybe one person with a detailed question, and answering directly) this just makes you want to walk to back to your office and check your banking account to ensure you’re within the limits without having.

What I am lacking in my familiar relationships, is that grown up conversations that do not have monologues of an instructive nature

I’m thankful this all happened. Just April is the month for special needs Pick-Me-Moms-Or-Dads to the Mandatory-Appreciation/Mother’s Day and June’s Mandatory-Respect-to-Father’s Day, that this sonofabitch, a word you should never utter to your father, really is going to get payback, and I am not someone whose ever vindictive, but as masculinity (the lack thereof) is now a-thing, but this manly-man who many of my witnesses have validated that he is an objective pussy. For those who think the absent step-mom had co-conspired this – well she is complicit herself, and is a pussy too. To be very blunt, she extended, embraced his narcissism to destroy me.

To believe that I am not against a family-unit in some ways is crazy, what I am the most pissed was this man came from a very dysfunctional family, but projected to the NH family court system, that he was such for me, but completely wrote me off. As a man, to see another man do this shit -really has bothered me more as an adult than when I was a boy. When my father collects Social Security he’d be more of a playboy than he is a of a man but the younger man in his live will still get screwed over in benefits because the pre-DSM-V threw me into a bind. I was cheated at birth in many ways. The only person that will be able to tell that side of the story has and will always be me.