I do have a family member, bi polar, who has had her psychotic experiences, so we seem to have more experience in this area than I realized.
she has had the courts declare her as ‘mentally incompetent’, and has a guardian and a payee who pays all of her bills for her. she does live on her own in a mobile home, drives her own car.
but, she has no idea how to pay her own bills, and she’ll tell you she’s ‘mentally incompetent’
this requires a court order, I looked up how to do it. if you want to go that route with your family member, then get a lawyer. and no, the person doesn’t have to live with you or in a shelter, she has her own place. it’s not beautiful by any stretch, but its hers, she likes it, and she can have pets. that’s why she choses the trailer option.
people try to give her money, but she’s very careful about that because she doesn’t want to lose her social security benefits.
recently, we looked into setting up a ‘disabled trust’ this is where there’s a trust account where she can have access to the funds, through an attorney that gets paid $10 a month to manage the trust. here’s an article on what a disabled trust is and why you’d have one
I’ve looked into this as well, like if I were to become sick again, I can hire an agency to pay my bills for me until I get back on my feet again. I would prefer to do that than appoint a guardian, like I said, how the hell do I get rid of the guardian? that would be tough, plus, I have money and I don’t want somebody spending it, (like my kids, I would not trust them to be my guardian…)
the way it worked for my father, was he had a power of attorney form, and on that form it says that if a physician declared my father to be ‘mentally incompetent’ then I could make decisions regarding his care. this became important near his death, when he had dementia and wouldn’t leave the assisted living facility. otherwise, my father called the shots all the way up to about 30 days prior to his death.
how guardianship and conservatorship works in my state
https://www.iowaaging.gov/guardianship-and-conservatorship
as for this cousin of mine, she was Baker Act’d in Florida, hospitalized for psychosis, returned to Iowa and now lives in Iowa on disability and medicaid, receives medicare, you receive medicare after 2 years of disability. she chose her guardian to be a lifelong childhood friend, and the 2 get along wonderfully, the family stays out of it. she lives on her own. I think we’re all happier with this arrangement (the family) and we help out with what we’re able to help with. if we aren’t able to help, we openly say “i’m sorry, I cannot help you with that, but I can help you with this…” and that one sentence takes care of alot of arguing and hurt, etc
this cousin with bi polar disorder has been hospitalized 9 times, and was arrested and Baker Act’d in Florida, but that was 17 years ago.
dang, this is a brain dump of everything I know regarding this topic
I would like to return to work, I recently was given disability from social security. If I return to work, I’ve read I can work 9 months out of 60 without losing my disability insurance. there’s also a cap on my earnings of about $1000 a month (if I remain on disability and get a part time job) or I believe it’s $700 a month if I go back to work (the 9 months out of 60). I am going to check on this before returning to work, I’d like to go back to work.
I have an MBA and 20 years of experience in executive management, software engineering, management projects. I feel like Elyn Saks, I udnerstand nobody trusts you or once your nuts youre always nuts with this Sz label, pisses me off how this diagnosis works. I have to go to meet my doctor once per month so she can look at me and see if I’m psychotic or not. I guess that’s good, but I find it annoying.
what is a representative payee? it’s different than a guardian or a conservator. A payee is a title given to someone at the social security office:
A representative payee is an individual or organization appointed by SSA
to receive Social Security and/or SSI benefits for someone who cannot
manage or direct someone else to manage his or her money. The main
responsibilities of a payee are to use the benefits to pay for the
current and foreseeable needs of the beneficiary and properly save any
benefits not needed to meet current needs. A payee must also keep
records of expenses. When SSA requests a report, a payee must provide
an accounting to SSA of how benefits were used or saved.
here’s the link to that
http://www.ssa.gov/payee/faqrep.htm#a0=0