Social Security -- personal narratives. Here's my story. What's your's?

[nashville_brook]

Bush's numbers stink on his Social Security privatization tax-cut bailout scheme. It doesn't add up to bailing out Social Security -- it only bails his ass by letting him make the tax-cut permanent. He even has to borrow money to get it started. On it's face, it's a ridiculous proposal.

On the other end of the rhetorical spectrum is the subjective angle on privatizing Social Security. This is the side of the debate where babies get sick and war veterans die from exposure waiting for housing. The world is our oyster here, in terms of steering the debate.

Everyone has something to say about Social Security and I think we need to start speaking up. It's not called "Personal Security." "Social" implies it's directed at us as a group, not as individuals. Coincidentally, that's a basic principle of Civilization; to organize life in a such a way as to provide for the many as well as the great. When you begin to share your stories you can feel extra good about participating in this exercise -- it's about no less than preserving Civilization, and it's easy. I'll start.

My experience on Social Security:

I was abandoned by my mother when I was born. My Grandmother took me home from the hospital and eventually adopted me. My grandfather/adopted-father was a pharmacist, and managed a drug store in Leesburg, Florida. It was 1966.

My a-father was a world-class alcoholic. As a young man in the 20s, he had served on the Board of Mayor and Alderman of Boca Raton, if that gives you any idea to his manner. Well-educated. Status-seeking. Grandmother was abandoned herself as a child, which is why I think she took me in even though she was recovering from a laminectomy when I came along.

After my grandfather went completely belly-up on a bad business deal, my grandmother was keen enough to get her real estate license and soon acquired seven rental properties -- almost all of which were intended as "a place for my mother to stay." She has the alcoholic gene too, but something else has rattled her cage. Abuse. Birth defect. Madness. It's been impossible to say exactly what her problem is. She's brilliant, though -- consumed with greek mythology, romantic poetry and pure grain alcohol. This is why she abandoned me in the first place. She was incapable of taking care of herself, let alone a baby.

About the time I turned six, my grandfather had a heart attack and open-heart surgery. He couldn't return to work, and was a couple of years away from retirement. Social Security paid a small amount of disability and luckily, we had those rental properties generating a little income (not much tho, as they were still greatly leveraged). Grandmother sold what she could to cover hospital bills and kept a couple that produced cash. With the Social Security checks and the rental income we were able to get by.

Then something happened and they cut off the checks -- my grandfather mysteriously fell through some bureaucratic hole and we were left HANGING for months. That's when my biological mother came back -- with a new kid. I had a half-brother.

It's never good when someone shows up at your door step with a child and no visible means of support, but it's especially bad when your Social Security has been cut off. Two senior citizens: one with a cracked-open chest, the other with a broken back, and a six-year old child. How are we going to support two more?

It wasn't easy. We drove to Ocala to get "Commodity Foods" every other week. Theyy gave us nasty orange drink powder, powdered milk, olio, peanut butter (it was gross), some frozen mystery meats and lots of vegetables. My mother collected Aid To Families With Dependent Children. So, with Social Security, Commodity Foods, and AFDC, we were able to stay afloat. We had gone from being a professional family (albeit with some typical Irish drinking problems) to a Welfare Family in a matter of months.

I only made it "out" because of Pell Grants and Stafford Loans. I've since been able to go back and help my biological mother. I do what I can from a distance. I can't think about life without Social Security. I know I wouldn't be sitting here at my laptop agitating. I wouldn't have made it to college.

I'm sharing this story because I know the greatness of Social Security isn't in the generosity it extends to individuals. Social Security is for US, as a society and culture. We don't want to live in a world where most seniors can't afford to live. If you lived in Florida, that would be most everyone you see. They already can't afford their healthcare as it is. We don't want to live in a world where the sick, old and disabled have no support. That is not the America I grew up in. We don't want to live in a world where the insane have no access to healthcare or housing. That isn't a world worth living in. These things affect everyone of us.

I don't care how much you've managed to sock away for your golden years -- if you're going to be surrounded by sick, homeless people, your life is going to suck too.

[lazarus]

1. Mine is disability

I had a good career going, was starting to invest in my retirement funds, etc. Putting money away like a good capitalist, buying stock in my company.

First, the stock in my company dropped by 75% in a year. So my stock options didn't look so good anymore.

Then I started getting sick. It got harder and harder to go to work. The chain of management above me inevitably started to notice. (I was managing a retail store.)

Finally, thinking I was just too tired and needed a break, I took a week's vacation. I came back more tired than before, and in more pain. I had to leave work. At first, it was a leave of absence. It got longer and longer. My sick leave ran out. I started cashing in my 401k. I started spending all those wonderful savings I had built up.

I continued to pay child support, even agreeing to an increase. I stayed in touch with my boss, expecting to go back at some time. I didn't want to admit I was becoming disabled.

Finally, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and psoriatic arthritis. Took 'em long enough. I waited, hoping to get better, and eventually gave up and applied for disability. Took about 18 months to get it (denied, denied, hired a lawyer, approved). Great scam they have set up. Just deny most everyone. A lot of them go away. Those of us who hire a lawyer end up having to shell out a quarter of our back pay. I don't begrudge the lawyer the money, but I do hold it against the faceless bureaucrat who first denied me.

I now have custody of my daughter, and pull in disability. Luckily, my wife works. If she didn't, or I wasn't married, I don't see how I could afford to live.

I'm just a welfare bum, I guess. Lazy. Which explains why I was working almost 100 hours a week for over a year before I started getting sick, right?

[woofless]

2. Please drop the "welfare bum" rap.

If you are collecting disability from Social Security you obviously have earned it. They do not just hand it out as you well know. I collect disability as well. My wait was not as long as yours. I was denied one time and filed for reconsideration. A couple updated tests and I was on. Took 7 months. It is my contention that after having worked 35 years and faithfully paying taxes, it is nothing less than we were promised and are entitled to. There is no shame in being physically unable to work. Thank FDR that the program is there and successful. We have a long fight ahead of us and should not succumb to the "guilt trip" some would lay on us just because we recieve a check from Sam each month.

Woof

[lazarus]

6. I was being sarcastic, sorry

The point of it was, very few people get disability or Social Security who don't deserve it.

:hi:

[nashville_brook]

7. i bet there's even people who qualify and don't take it b/c

first of all -- it ain't easy navigating the system. being turned down by a a handful of lawyers is enough for me.

[lazarus]

15. You're right

My sister works for a disability lawyer. She says that disability claims go up whenever the economy goes bad, as it is now. Apparently, a lot of people force themselves to work, and only resort to disability when there's no other choice.

[nashville_brook]

16. yeah, it's like "if all else fails"

i'm sure in risk assessment, people take into account that only (lets say) 1 in 4 four disabled workers seek assistance and of those only 1 in 10 is successful in following all the way thru.

[nashville_brook]

3. i think we would all be surprised at how many screen names we are

familiar with are people who are home b/c of a disability.

that's part of the reason i'm home, online all the time. :) don't collect social security, but i probably could. i have unemployment because i was laid off in a merger.

i have an chronic infection in my spine that i picked up in a hospital in florida when i herniated two discs moving a FUTON -- the whole time my husband saying "don't move that, you'll hurt your back. wait till i get there." :P

i drove myself to Weustoff Hospital in Melbourne at 6:30 in the morning, unable to stand up straight. i had never, ever felt anything like this. the hospital was empty and it was really clean and new with lots of plasma screens everywhere broadcasting health news and calming 3-d images of tropical fish.

they left me alone in the exam cubby for an hour and a half. finally the nurse came back and gave me a script for vicodin and ibuprophen and told me to go home and lie down. a $100 copay for that.

she said, come back if i ran a fever, hand tingling, etc. so, got the scripts filled and went back to the empty house and laid down on the futon that was the genesis of all this.

hours later i wake up in WORSE pain. vomiting. drove back to the hospital. different ER doc. this guy looked just like JON LOVITZ. i laid it on the line - you have to do something for me. I'M NOT LEAVING. in a weird offhand manner, Dr. Lovitz said, "well, we could give you an *epidural,* (and he drew out the word, eeep-EH-DURH-raaaal) but we'd have to admit you." to which i said, "i don't care if you hobble a foot -- blah blah blah."

he puts me in a massage chair -- where you put your face in a donut. he prepped the needle behind me and comes around to the front with this MONSTER needle and WAVED it in front of me and said, "now this is IT. are you SURE you want this?" this seemed weird to me because he had this manner about him like when your dad would be ribbing you --- "you know what happens when TICKLE MAN comes. You don't want EPIDURAL MAN TO BE ANGRY DO YOU?" looking back i think he thought i was a junkie, but whatever thought i had about him and his needle was quickly washed away when i told him to stick the fucking thing in me already and shut the hell up. it was like i was floating in a big fluffy cloud. no pain. so happy. gnite.

next day i wake up wet with sweat. the pain is even worse than before. but i've been promised an MRI and i'm anxious to talk to my doc about what the hell could be wrong with me. he sees me around 1 pm. and without so much as a hello-how-are-ya, he says i have to pack my stuff and leave because he is discharging me. it was like that too. as if i was using the hospital for a crash pad.

i'm running a temp of 103 at this point and i'm in so much pain i'm clearly delerious, b/c i don't even try to fight with him. i get out of bed, realizing is hard to walk and start to get dressed. i'm howling in pain and my nurse comes in freaking -- "what are you doing?!!"

"i've been discharged." she tells me to lay back down and she comes back with a big needle of morphine and tells me that i can't go anywhere for six more hours, by law. meanwhile, my husband is on a plane from nashville to melbourne, and my temperature keeps going up. my pain gets worse. a "patient advocate" comes into my room and implores me to leave. she says i can't stay any longer. i tell her she will have to take that up with my husband that he will be there real soon. she gives me a list of hotels in Rockledge which is about a 40 minute drive away and tells me to go ahead and start calling and find a room. why she didn't have a sheet with Melbourne hotels is beyond me. i was needing to sleep at this point and said whatever she wanted to hear so she would leave.

when i woke up i was vomiting and called for the nurse. no answer. an hour goes by. then, a nurse i had never seen before comes flying in the room "OMG you aren't going to believe what just happened!" the guy in the room next to me fell in his bathroom and no one answered the nurse call and he had to (i shit you not) CALL 911 from within the hospital to get someone to help him up. he had his cell phone in his gown pocket -- do not go to the hospital without one! picture phones are best.

on the third day i finally got the MRI and the films are so bad they can hardly be read. the doc said maybe i have herniated discs, maybe i don't. i had to fight like hell to get them release the films to my neuro-surg here in nashville. he says it looks like the tech hadn't been well trained on the machine.

after the MRI, we head back to tennessee.

we have no idea at this point what is wrong with me, just that we needed to get the heck out of florida. we get home and i get worse and worse. by now i can't walk because my legs hurt so bad. i stay in bed for a week. i turn yellow. i'm vomiting almost constantly. and i go to my GP. my GP tells me i have the flu and orders some labs.

my husband is wheeling me out with the flu diagnosis and my doc catches up and asks us to come back for just a sec. my liver labs are off. i don't remember how they got from liver labs to blood clot, but that night i wound up in Baptist Hospital in nashville after an ultrasound showed i had deep vein blood clots up over my knees and down below my ankles in the shallow kinds of clots all thru calf. they lost me in the hospital that night, but i didn't care so much, given what i had been thru in florida. i was tired anyway and they had extra fluffy pillows.

the pain got better with blood thinners. i gave myself shots in the belly for 6 months. it got so much better in fact that i got out of bed and painted the kitchen cabinet doors and packed the car to go back down to florida and call the HVAC people. i was bending over to put a stack of 4 cabinet doors in the trunk, and my back broke. i flopped over like a ragdoll. weird thing was, i wasn't in pain (yet) and the sensation felt like spray instead of a snap. at any rate, i had my cell phone in my pocket, so i called my friend barbara from the driveway, figuring i'd probably need some help to finish packing. after the initial shock, i was nearly fine. just thought it was a weird tweak-for-no-reason.

wanting to cover all my bases, i call my physical therapist to see if she has any wisdom for this weird "tweak" i just had. and she has me get on the floor in a modified cobra pose. i'm doing this on my cell phone as she is talking me thru it. i do the pose and i'm laughing at the absurdity of it all, laying there on the pretty wool rug with my dogs imitating my pose -- and i realize, i'm stuck. i can't get up. while i'm laying there on the floor, unable to move, my uncle lou calls. in his bright Maine accent he says, "Brook, you're the computer expert..." i say, "lou, bad timing -- or maybe good timing, what's your problem. I'm not going anywhere."

we talk and laugh about having back problems. i'm totally thinking barbara is going to come and help me finish packing and off i'll go. but, i started getting spasms. so when barbara came, the plan changed to getting me to the PT so they can hook me up to the TENS machine.

as barbara is walking me to the PT area, we saw my therapist and when i went to wave, my whole body buckled like a folding chain. the pain was shocking. very different from anything i had felt before. they hook me up to the TENS machine and my body goes into a constant spasm. it felt like every large muscle group was trying to fold up at the same time. my PT told me to leave the HCA hospital that i was at, and go to the catholic hospital across town b/c that's where my doc had priviliages.

off we go and it takes hours to get thru ER. i discovered that giving voice to the pain really helped. i know it sounded freakish to the other people in the waiting room, but it worked. just resonate a tone deep in your chest. i got real good at it.

it took St. Thomas 2 days, some scary phone calls and picture messaging, an angry husband, and a frightened massage therapist to finally manage my pain. i mentioned about the vocal modality; i also had my own, personal TENS unit. so, in the hospital, i was wearing out this TENS unit and screaming my head off the whole second morning i was there (they are pretty good about knocking you out the first night).

the second day, everything wore off and they didn't want to keep me on the robaxin for some reason. around 2 in the afternoon i started calling the nurse and she would give me ibuphrophen. i'd call my husband and photo message him with my status. think linda blair throughout all of this. back spasms look like demonic possession. your body flies off the bed and you have to hold on to the rails or the back of the headboard, screaming, crying and begging forgiveness. the spasms come in waves and convince you that you're causing them by moving your foot the wrong way, or thinking about money. you become obsessed with the status of your body. hands above head; check. toes on point; check. "NOOOOOOOO. nuh nuh uuuUUUUUooooooooo!" imagine the sound a dying dog makes. it's a brown sound.

while i'm discovering the mystical aspect of pain the massage therapist, Dede, comes in and tells me they've asked her there to see if she can do anything with me. picture this: i have TENS patches and wires running everywhere. I'm contorted, holding on to the side of the bed with my body curled toward the headboard to stretch my back out. my knees are in my chest, howling like i've been hit by a car. she's giving me a sales pitch on the wonders of massage therapy. Dede wanted me to lay on my tummy and stick my butt up so she could massage some little muscle group right at Plumber's Ridge. she said it was probably a tightness there that was giving me trouble. again, i am not making this up. a

the best thing was, in that moment, she gave me all i needed to raise the roof on the bullshit. I had been thru hell to this point and this poor girl (who wanted so bad to massage my ass) got every bit of pent up anger i had in me. i wish i had a recording of the things that flew out of my mouth. it was a state of grace as far as angry rants are concerned. any rant that ends with, "does this look like an ass-problem" has to rank right up there.

she was backing up, out of the room when my husband flies in with a hospital manager administrator man. Administrator Man looked just like Joe Trippi and had a morphine pump with him. Like he was lending me his, until mine got there. i'll never forget the first time i met Mr. Morphine Pump. He was my friend. every six minutes, you could count on Mr. Morphine Pump.

i was convinced i was dying. i was the nut every hospital tech fears... delusional, suffering, with morphine-fueled mortality hallucinations involving bunnies. i prayed with an ultrasound tech. cried to my doctor who took my liver biopsy. he showed me the vial with my fleshy little liver sausage in it. i felt better. fatty liver. that's not terminal.

later, i found out i had an infection in my spine. woo hoo! diagnosis! but they'd have to get a bone sample to be sure. you have to be awake for this. boo. the sample confirmed the infection diagnosis so they gave me a picc line and sent me home with Naffcillian which made me really sick.

But no one ever told me how i got osteomylietis, which is pretty rare in healthy young people. it's pretty serious and you either get it when you are otherwise compromised (dying) or from something being introduced to your spine artifically.

no doc has ever -- EVER said yes or no to the needle theory. i've requested it. in writing. received little. nothing. then, asked to find other doctors. and this is still only the first third of the odyssy, that involves months in the hospital and mountains of bills. i've tried to get a lawyer to get to the bottom of this, but no one i've called in florida will take my case. I called big firms and little firms. i called lawyers here in nashville just to try and network to find a lawyer. no luck. and every lawyer i talked to was generous in dishing on Wuestoff, tho -- they have made a nickname for themselves, WorstOff.

because of the infection my discs are degenerating. because of the degeneration i've got facet artritis. because of a test they did on my in hospital i have a chronic angry pancreas. and because i was allergic to the antibiotic, i have a weakend liver. i take time-release morphine to push the pain back. i have to do a breakthough dose if i need to move around and get things done.

i'm a writer and designer, so i can work (in theory) sitting down. i've done it plenty since the infection. i'll probably have to do it again real soon. but, life is short and i'm tired as hell of marketing. i'm worth more as a human being a full-time artist, writer, home-maker.

i've been posting here mostly to "get back in shape" with my writing. it's apparently working. jeez -- writer's block, be gone! :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. My parents

My father was a Lutheran pastor, and as such received a small pension from the church (they're more generous now), but he was terrible at managing money and put nothing aside, as far as I know. His financial illiteracy drove my mother crazy, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it.

My mother worked for a few years on and off as a school teacher, but never long enough in any one place to become vested in their pension plan.

When they both retired, they both received Social Security, as did my grandmother, who lived with them. After my father died, thanks to changes in the law instituted by feminists, my mother was able to receive his larger SS benefit instead of her own close-to-minimum benefit.

My grandmother had earlier been rooked out of my grandfather's teacher's pension. He was a good grandfather, but a terrible husband, and he had this crazy idea that my grandmother would remarry and that some other man would get "his" pension, so he set it up that all benefits would stop five years after his death. (This was in the pre-feminist era. These days he would not be able to do this without his wife's permission.)

From 1967, when the pension stopped, until 2000, when she died, my grandmother lived entirely on SS. She moved in with my parents, but having her own small income (from the days before widows were able to receive their husband's benefits) let her contribute to household expenses and feel that she wasn't being a burden. With my father being such a poor money manager, my grandmother's contributions made a difference.

[nashville_brook]

5. the femiinist angle is so important -- think about life partners who have

no protection.

i bet people don't know that it was recently so different in terms of draw between a woman's check and a man's. we take so much for granted.

it makes my skin crawl to think of people, communities and cities would be affected with a generation of old people with no Social Security. we won't be able to go out and work. heck it's hard enough when you're young.

what will they expect us to do? sell our organs?

[nashville_brook]

8. we are being sentenced to dying alone and in poverty.

and another thing about life partners...many times widows go back to live with siblings -- they don't wan't to pay for nursing homes, but they can't make it affordable for families to stay together. we are being sentenced to dying alone and in poverty.

[Martin Eden]

9. No story, but I just dashed off this LTTE:

President Bush has identified three problems with Social Security:

1) In 2018 the system will begin paying more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes.
2) In 2042 the trust fund will be depleted, requiring new taxes, borrowing, or benefit cuts.
3) Social Security does not provide a rate of return as high as private investments.

The president's solution will make the first two problems significantly worse. Diverting payroll taxes to private accounts will withhold those funds from a system obligated to pay benefits to Americans currently 55 or older who will not have private accounts. If their benefits are to remain the same -- as the president insists -- an extra trillion dollars or two will be needed to fund the transition, adding significantly to the already enormous debt burden on the next generation. This would more than offset the slightly higher return they might receive on their private investments. About a third of their payroll taxes will still go into the general Social Security fund, which will be bankrupt at an early date if the Bush plan is implemented.

This plan is not good for older Americans, because the funds for their retirement will be diverted. Nor is it good for younger Americans, who will be saddled with debt and are unlikely to see any return from a third of their payroll taxes. However, it will be successful in achieving its main purpose: the dismantling of Social Security. Privatization isn't about finding a solution to the problems Bush identified; it's about a conservative agenda to a destroy a program that collectively redistributes a portion of the public wealth to the elderly and disabled. It has always been a social insurance program rather than an investment scheme, and the right has always wanted to kill it.

Social Security can be sustained into the foreseeable future with small adjustments now. Before you lend your support to the president's privatization scheme, just be sure you understand it's true intent and it's effect on Americans who depend on Social Security.

[nashville_brook]

10. love it. the numbers speak for themselves. if u want to invest, invest

no one is stopping anyone from opening a 401k. to hear these stupid 20-somethings talk about it, they have no idea what SS is really for. it's insurance.

[fortyfeetunder]

11. Grandpa got far more than what he put in

My grandfather, whose grandparents were slaves, was a WWI veteran. He married my grandma, who was a classmate in school and they exchanged letters while he went into the Army, and served in France.

He really didn't have a saleable trade, so to feed his growing family, he had a series of odd jobs, mostly self employed. He was definitely hustling during the Depression. However, from talking with my mom and her siblings, they never felt deprived and never gone hungry. This continued until he got a job with the US Post Office as a postal carrier. He served in that position for 18 years, which would have been the time Social Security started. He had retired in the late 1950's.

Grandpa and Grandma, never having owned a home of their own, took the opportunity and moved to the house willed to Grandma after her parents passing, and when their youngest was in college. They made some modest remodels (they needed an indoor bathroom to start) and lived there on SSI and whatever postal pension he had.

The home came with acreage, and Grandpa took that opportunity to nurture a vegetable and fruit garden: beets, corn, squash, beans, watermelon, canteloupe, okra, tomatoes, along with apple and pear trees. We as kids spent many summers with my grandparents and eating the food from the land.

One thing he taught me was being anti-McDonald's when I was a kid. He never bought ground beef, and he ground his own beef to make hamburger. And he always wanted me to learn how to speak French, and was so happy when I was studying it as a kid. He felt he could influence me more than my siblings.

Grandma passed away about seven years after their move, and Grandpa continued to live independently, he traveled, visited his kids, and courted, and loved to chase the women...but he didn't like to be chased.

Grandpa died 27 years after he retired from the Post Office, at age 91. I think he was very lucky to have housing without mortgage upon retirement, and his utility bills were modest. But the SSI income he had allowed him to live independently for the 27 years of retirement he had. I know he received more in benefits than he actually invested.

Most of my surviving relatives also benefited from SSI income, and even today, in their 70's-late 80's they are still living independent and productive lives.

[nashville_brook]

12. we've been taught to think of it as a savings account and it's not

after it got cut off i had a constant fear we'd find out it "ran out." i'm sure this was just absorbed from their fear.

[fortyfeetunder]

13. I never counted on SSI

When I realized how long my grandfather lived on SSI, I started a 401K as soon as it was available at work. Barring any financial catastrophe, SSI will be the icing on my retirement income. I never counted on receiving any of that income...

[nashville_brook]

14. you can lose a 401k too, depending on how your investments do.

the repubs have been working the propagana front for years on weakening our perception of Social Security so the we'd get these backwards ideas that you can only count on an investment and SS probably won't be there. it's a lie.

edit: spelling

[lazarus]

17. Here's a couple of charts on the process

of applying for disability.

First, the approval process:



This is the chart showing how many are approved at each stage. Notice how many pursue it after being denied.