the wait is killing me

A bit of a sob story today...

You see, I won a favorable decision in a Social Security Disability claim. This was in June of last year. My lawyer told me that the benefits would begin to arrive within the next 60-90 days.

As it has turned out, it's now been about 2 weeks past the 270 day mark. And I'm still waiting.

I've called the OKC office several times, but all I get is a run-around about how the documents are in the editing phase. I'll say this...they must be some obsessively meticulous bastards there, which I suppose is probably a good thing, but for God's sake, you'd think they could get it done up properly in less time. Even they told me that my lawyer was right, that it usually DOES take 2-3 months to be processed. But, oh no, they've just got SO MANY cases working at the present. I have to wonder how many people who received their decision almost a year ago have been receiving their checks for a couple of months now?

The wait has been ridiculous, and it's fucked up a lot of things in my life. Probably the biggest disappointment was when we lost our house earlier this month. 4 years my family has lived here. This was the first house we'd planned to buy, as opposed to renting. We looked forward to settling down in this home, and there was no reason we could not have done it...that is, we could have kept it if my benefits had come on time. Hell, we had it worked out to where we could even go three or four months longer than the 60-90 day waiting period. But there's no way we could have lasted 9 months without a second income. And so our house has been foreclosed upon, and I feel like my hands are tied. I mean, what am I going to do? It's a futile gesture to expect the federal government to give a shit about something as relatively trivial as a man with bipolar disorder who can't help his family make ends meet without the assistance of Social Security Disability. It's not like I WANTED to have a mental illness. It's not like I wouldn't rather be out there in the workplace earning a decent living for my wife and kid (like most everyone else is able to do).

We are, at present, moving into a rent house a few blocks down the road. I'm not going to talk shit about the new dwellings...wouldn't do any good, and besides, I may actually like it once we've got all our stuff set up. But even if that is the case, the fact is that the house is not as nice as the one we've lost. I also get the very strong suspicion that the landlord is not the most efficient one we could have hoped for (ie. I think he may well be a lazy man). But it's all said and done now. We've given the guy a $400 deposit and 3 1/2 months rent (which is a crock of shit, since he wanted that half-month for the remainder of THIS month, and he still hasn't done all the things he should have had done before we move in).

3 months. That's what we've got. 90 days and if the benefits haven't arrived within that time period, WE'RE FUCKED, pardon my French. It's as simple as that. There is no "Plan B" if that happens. Hell, we're already on "Plan D", I should say. We're out of options.

That's all bad enough, but it's only the worst of it. I won't go into the other trials and tribulations this hold-up has plagued us with. Suffice to say that our standard of living is not quite as I would like for it to be.

So, anyone out there who believes in the power of prayer, sneak one in for me. Anyone out there who believes in the power of money and has lots of it to spare, e-mail me and we'll talk (ha).