“The tests cover attachment, personality traits, cognitive abilities and psychopathology, and take about 15-20 hours. It is almost impossible to pass them, says Nellemann; even he and his colleagues have failed to do so. Questions can include “What is glass made of?” and “What is the name of the big staircase in Rome?” 

[Kiera] was nervous going to the doctor, because she says she had previously been given the ultimatum either to have an abortion or face the baby being taken away after the birth. She agreed to undergo another parenting competency test in an attempt to cooperate. But in the session, the psychologist brought up her previous abortions and asked her to show her parenting skills by playing, singing and talking with a doll, checking whether she made eye contact. “The problem is, I didn’t grow up with a doll,” she says, adding that her real baby, Zammi, was busy kicking in her stomach. “They made me draw and they were criticising it, that I didn’t draw a face. I drew a mum and baby.”

On Friday morning, I walk through Keira’s open front door as rain falls in torrents outside, to find her sitting in her living room under soft fairy lights and the silently flickering television, arranging flowers. Every week she takes a different arrangement to Zammi so that she will associate them with her mother’s visits. This ceremonial act of devotion is part of how Keira survives.

While she is there, she thinks only of Zammi. Her own feelings can wait till she gets home. It is always hard. Before she gets out of the car, she puts into words the pressure she is under. “It feels like somebody holding your throat. And they decide how much you can breathe.”

(link)

#raises hand #i dont understand #please explain? 

In order for disabled people to receive any sort of financial assistant for their housing, food, bills, medical supplies, etc., they cannot ever have more than $2,000 of resources to their name. Ever.

It doesn’t matter what it’s for.

You’re saving up for a new wheelchair?

For college?

To put a downpayment on a house?

Hell man, you just happen to budget for once in your life so that you can have some extra money in case something bad happens?

Your benefits immediately get cut off if you’re a cent over $2,000.

And, even worse, you usually end up having to pay back every dollar the government gave you that month.

So say you get $400. If they find out you’re twenty dollars over the resource limit, you have to give them all $400 back and you undergo an investigation of your funds to see if you will continue getting money.

“What if I spend the money that day?”

Doesn’t matter. In fact, from what I can tell, people who do this are actually put under investigation for fraud.

And yes, this system literally kills people.

Remember when “Guardians of the Galaxy” came out? one of Rocket Racoon’s creators, Bill Mantlo, suffered an accident in 1992 and has irreparable brain damage.

before the movie came out, Marvel gave him an exclusive preview screening. SOme people were upset because they felt if Marvel was really wanted to thank mantlo, they should have donated money to Mantlo’s family.

Bill Mantlo’s brother had to come out and explain: If Marvel gave them monetary aid, Bill Mantlo would lose his financial assistance.

That’s so utterly depressing.

disgusting

I have friends on welfare who won’t pick up a penny in the street because they’d risk the welfare they struggled to get for 10 years.

oh look another fucked up thing in this world. let’s just add it to the list. number 63858b

My brother has been on California State SSI for autism for the last 10 years, and he absolutely has to (no joke, HAS TO) spend all 720 bucks of his SSI every month, because if he puts it in the bank he risks losing his SSI altogether.

Sometimes, at the end of the month, he has no idea what to do with his money because the whole month went by and he still has 400-ish bucks in his account, and he fucking panics because he doesn’t want to get anywhere near 2,000.

And here’s the funnest part of the story!

One day he did a huge commission on Second Life and wound up earning 1500 bucks off of it, and he told the guy to donate it 500 bucks at a time over 3 months. The guy didn’t want to, and just donated all 1500, which put my brother at 2,036 bucks.

The state IMMEDIATELY (I’m talking less than an hour) called him up to tell him over the phone that they were canceling his SSI, because they noticed he had gone over the 2,000 buck threshold. He had to tell them that someone had made a charitable donation to him and that this was not a common occurrence in any way shape or form, and upon not believing him, my mother had to call to talk to them as his legal caretaker and say basically the same thing until they called off the cancellation of his SSI money.

He also had to cancel his renter’s assistance because it put him to 1,062 a month, so if he went 30 days without spending any money they’d cancel his SSI altogether. Like, none of us in the family have any fucking clue why that regulation is in place and it’s the stupidest shit in human history.

Please, legal side of Tumblr, tell me what positive reasoning this law has?

Happy 4th of July everyone! This is what the “nation of opportunity” looks like.

There’s something called an ABLE account that can help. If you are on SSI and were diagnosed as disabled before the age of 26 you can apply for an ABLE account that will allow you to save up to $99,000. More people need to know about this!

thank you so much for this information. i’m applying for an abled account right now

THERES A WHAT

OH GOD BLESS THE SHIT OUTTA YOU YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW FREAKED OUT OVER THIS I WAS

I’ve been looking into SSI; I had no idea about this!

Read till the end for the important info

Reblog to literally save a disabled person’s life

https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/

This shit is why conservatives think disability is fun pampering, because they see disabled people have to come up with ways to get rid of the money and to them it looks like they must be rolling in excess.

From the website linked above: (https://www.ablenrc.org/what-is-able/what-are-able-acounts/)

I MADE A GOFUNDME!!! PLEASE BOOST THIS AND READ THE UPDATE OF MY SITUATION.

GoFundMe page

Please help me survive being homeless. I need a car, get my belongings, and not sleep outside. I have three dogs that need their food. We need to get our suitcases from the hotel that kicked us out.