To Survive on $2000

When Daryl and I decided to get married, the first concern on our mind wasn't where to have it or when. It was if we should actually get married. You see at the time I couldn't remember if my type of disability was SSI (Supplemental Security Income) or SSDI (Social Security Disability Income). You'd think everyone with a disability would be in the latter, but that's not the case.

In order to be in SSDI you have to have worked for a certain amount of time before you became or (as it was in my case) discovered you were too disabled for work. We were happy I was on this one, because other than a few time restrictions at the beginning that usually don't matter because you blew over them arguing your case to the state anyway (my disability case took around three years), the only requirement is that you stay disabled, or you're off.

SSI has an opposite feel to it. This is the disability you find yourself on if you have never been able to work full time employment. There are a lot of disabled people who work, just generally not full-time because of the stress to their minds and/or bodies. SSI begins with the month and is based on your resources and needs. It releases less money and has an added clause: you can only save up to $2,000, or $3,000 if you're married.

This means if you ever have enough money to make a small down payment on a washing machine, you are deemed no longer “in need.” It doesn’t matter that you are still disabled and can’t work, or if that $2,000 was a gift, or your life savings from when you were two. You are now an able person, go forth and do good, good being!

This is the clause that had worried Daryl and I so much when we were getting married. If I had SSI instead of SSDI, we would obviously stay separate, allowing Daryl to have savings accounts and the like and me to just handle disability things on my own. We'd have a pretend marriage with no official power. We're lucky we didn't have to do that. We’ve listened to the stories of those who are in the limbo trying to decide how to live.

Several years ago, I took my cat, the one pictured above to be put down. He had stones throughout his entire system, and there was one veterinarian that said he could save him for far over $7,000 in an operation all other vets hadn't heard of. It rocked me for years, wondering if it was money that forced me to let him go, or if it was that I did want him to go through the pain of having rocks and sand power washed out of him and knowing that it was incredibly likely we’d have to do it again.

There are people out there who cannot save money and support themselves. They're adults who have functioning minds, just bodies that are a little different. Some of them want to get married to people who have jobs and have kids, but money is the thing that stops them. They either have to be sneaky, or they have to let go of dreams and people. I still cry when I see black cats or hear the song "Happier." I'm not sure how a person gets over the loss of a soulmate for $2,000. It kind of sucks that we live in a country that put them in the place where they have to.