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 Blessed with Biploar
CHAPTER 22
SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY INCOME
Allow me to ask the above-mentioned skeptics whether they would hire me after learning during their search process that I was hospitalized seven times for bipolar disorder, lost numerous jobs because of agitated manic-depressive episodes, and was expelled from law school on the very day that the Dean learned that I have bipolar disorder. To those who say that I should get off my dead behind, get a job, and go to work, I say, “Hire me. I dare ya!”
I had bipolar disorder prior to the day in 1976 when I started a summer job at the paint manufacturing company where my father worked in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. I was 14.
I struggled with major depression and mania during the semesters when I worked two jobs (part-time lifeguard and full-time child care worker in a residential treatment facility for court-adjudicated kids) while taking three undergraduate courses at Duquesne University.
I lived with bipolar disorder, untreated, while I worked in a school and partial-hospital classroom with violent, inner-city teenagers.
I had bipolar disorder when I was spit on, cursed, kicked, and punched – all in the course of doing my job.
I lost social service jobs due to bipolar disorder when I got too depressed to continue or finally blew my stack – after willingly going into chaotic, disturbed, and abusive home situations that one would do anything to avoid in one’s own family. And I kept on applying for new jobs and going back to work, never giving the slightest consideration to applying for Social Security Disability Income (SSDI).
I was first hospitalized for my bipolar disorder in 1988 – for two months. Upon my discharge, I gave no consideration to applying for SSDI.
Over the next 18 years I held at least 14 different jobs with 14 different organizations. I was hospitalized six more times.
In July 1999 I was fired from a job as Director of a family counseling program. I had testified on behalf of a family who was attempting to have their children returned from the custody of the county’s Department of Children and Youth Services (CYS). CYS vehemently opposed the family. The judge agreed with my recommendation – against the wishes of CYS. The same CYS, that is, which funded our program. I was fired 11 days later.
After being fired as Program Director, rather than considering SSDI, I attempted to change fields. I went to law school at the age of 38. That‘s a drastic change of life for a man approaching middle-age. But I did it in the hope of being productive, supporting myself, and making a contribution rather than applying for disability. I wanted to work and be financially responsible.
After I was expelled from law school within one day of the Dean learning of my disorder, I went back to work as a counselor.1 I was fired from that job after confronting an ex-con father regarding his mistreatment of his autistic son. I admit that I also had trouble keeping up with the paper work. The job and the stress of trying my lawsuit was causing bipolar to mess with me. But I still did not consider SSDI.
My point in all of this is that I did not leap at the chance to leave the workforce and collect a government check. From the time I was first hospitalized in 1988, it took 18 years, 14 jobs, 6 more hospitalizations, a plethora of psychotropic medications, an expulsion from law school, and the loss of my lawsuit before I finally applied for SSDI.
If you think I should go back to work, hire me. I dare ya!
SSDI is not welfare. I paid into it nearly every hour that I worked (part-time, full-time, or summers) from 1976 until 2003. I could have applied the first time I cracked-up in 1988. But I held onto the hope of being able to work and succeed until I finally lost my lawsuit in December 2006. I could no longer beat my head against that wall. When the federal court system failed me, I decided to take the safety net that I had paid into. And I thank God that I live in a country that has the compassion to provide such a program to people who are too handicapped to remain in the workforce.
Some people will say that there surely must be some work that I can do. “He’s written a book,” they will argue, “Doesn’t that prove that he shouldn’t be on disability?”
I do not deny that there is work that I can do – when I am not too manic or depressed and if I can do it when I want to do it, the way I want to do it, and without a boss dragging over my shoulder. I never know when I will or will not be able to function. (I write because I can do it only when and if I feel like doing it. There is nobody making demands about how and when it gets done. Therefore, if I do not feel like writing, then it does not need to get done.)
Being forced to be at a specific job, for a specific 40 hours per week, doing things according to somebody else’s directions would, in short order, cause me to blow a fuse. Or, as the vocational expert at my disability hearing said, “He is incapable of interacting in a socially appropriate manner.” Bipolar can do that. There is documentation. But that does not mean that I am out of control 24 hours a day. Just that bipolar prevents me from continuously interacting in a way necessary to maintaining regular employment.
Do you know of any companies that would allow me to have as many sick days as necessary, that I could take whenever necessary, on the spur of the moment, and possibly for a month at a time?
If being on SSDI helps to keep me sane enough to stay out of the psych ward, then my benefits may actually be saving the government some money. A thirty day hospital stay could amount to as much money as I will receive on SSDI in three years – maybe more.
I am a political conservative. I believe in small government, low taxes, cutting Washington’s wasteful spending, financial responsibility, free market capitalism, the right to life, a strong national defense, and the sovereignty of the fifty individual states. But Social Security Disability is a legitimate and necessary government program. There are citizens of this country who truly cannot work due to a handicap. And once they have gone through the thorough and rigorous governmental process of determining that they are no longer medically capable of working, the government must provide a safety net.
We who receive SSDI have either paid into the program or have been severely handicapped all of our lives. We did not choose to be medically incapable of being a part of the workforce.
If bipolar disorder has caused you to be unable to work for significant periods of time or repeatedly interrupted your ability to work, I urge you to look into social security disability income. Knowing that you have a financial safety net may relieve some of the work-related stress that can sometimes exacerbate your symptoms. There is no shame in receiving SSDI and receiving it does not mean that you can never work again. In fact, once a person is awarded SSDI, he is permitted to earn a specific, though small, monthly sum of money and still receive benefits. Also, if your condition improves and you attempt to return to full-time employment, social security will continue to pay your full monthly benefits for your first nine months of work. (Scial Security Administration, January 2009, Publication No. 05-10095)
Rather than reporting to a full-time job every morning, I now spend my time writing at Ross Park Mall (Yeah, that sounds strange. Consider it bipolar); researching and reading everything that catches my interest; singing in the choir, the car; and the shower; studying the Pittsburgh Pirates; swimming; lifting weights; cross-training and climbing. I can do these things in spite of bipolar disorder because I can do them when I want to, how I want to, and without a boss scrounging over my shoulder. And I can choose not to do them whenever bipolar rears up – without the risk of getting fired or expelled. Of course, these activities and all of my life are a bit easier without the pressure of being obligated to a job while roiling with bipolar.
It was not my choice to have a handicap and applying for SSDI was a last resort after 18 years of drastically mood disordered employment. I know that I have made long, sincere, and repeated effort to gain and hold employment. For those reasons, I will receive SSDI as long as necessary, without shame. However, I hope that I will someday be able to, at least partially, support myself through writing, preaching, and private practice counseling – whenever I may be medically capable.
I won’t be able to write, preach, or counsel as a full-time, or even part-time, employee, but if I can do it on my own, whenever capable, with the freedom to not do it whenever not capable, then I have the hope of being productive. Knowing that there is a safety net if bipolar causes me to fall, I believe that it is possible for me to be productive.
Again, I thank God that I live in a country where the taxpayers are willing to compassionately support SSDI. It is a blessing.
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Find out more about Richard and his book at: http://www.bipolarman.org
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