Yeah, my mom flew to Alaska from Florida to help me out when I got discharged back into the community…she flew here, is renting a car, purchasing tickets to tourist attractions…just hemorrhaging money. She says she doesn’t mind, but it makes me feel like a burden and a problem. She’s staying with me in my apartment another 2 weeks and I just can’t get her to stop spending money on me, and it’s making me feel guilty for accepting her aid.
I already know im a burden
My parents didn’t have a lot of money and every hospital or group home or independent living home I was in was paid by Medicare or Medicaid or my earnings from my job and SSDI. They couldn’t have afforded any of those places for me. I got benefits early on in my disease to this day so they weren’t giving me money.
I say all this as good things. I wasn’t responsible for putting them in any financial hole due to my needs. That said, my family has always been supportive of me and early on they included me in every family activity they could and usually paid my way. When we went out to the numerous restaurants or movies they always paid. When me and my dad flew across the country a few times he paid for my plane tickets. My sisters used to bering me along when they went out with their friends and didn’t let the fact that I’ve always been poor stop me from going many places and doing many things which makes me eternally grateful.
And I would say I’ve always been high functioning and worked during most of my disease (since I was 22)’ and lived semi independently or independently during most of my disease so I wasn’t a financial or emotional burden to them. I usually had friends throughout my disease but my family wanted me around so I did a lot with them.
The only period of my life that I caused them undo stress was when I was on drugs but I ended up getting clean and sober. I mean they worried a lot about me for sure and went to the trouble of finding me hospitals to go into and group homes to live in. Yeah, they worried about me a lot but they went about their lives.
From about 1980-82, when I first got sick, I wasn’t functioning and they worried about me a lot more but in 1983 they found a nice, supportive group home for me that was really a recovery program and I think a load was lifted off their shoulders when I got into that home. And from the home, in 1984, when I was 23 I got a job and moved into semi independent, supported housing and was mostly on my own so they didn’t have to take care of me from 1984-88.
Then in 1988 I screwed up and my dad was divorcing my mom and living in a friends house and he took me in and I lived with him for 9 months but even then I went out and got jobs. In 1989 I moved into a group home and got a job and more importantly I got clean while I was there and from there I moved into a board & care home where I lived for five years, working and going to school the entire time.
Anyways, a couple times I pushed my family to the brink of flipping out emotionally but for the most part I took care of myself and took care of my business. After my dad died in 2006 and my mom in 2015, I’ve been taking car of myself ever since with very little help from my sisters although they made sure we had dinner together once a week for several years. But since 2019 I’ve been on my own with no support from my sisters, only my therapist and psychiatrist.
I pay a low rent. My mom gives me a fantastic break on it. Everything else I pay with my disability and supplemental part time income. Groceries, medicine, internet bill. I wouldn’t be able to pay her in full without my disability payment though. Anything she ever covers extra is a debt I work to pay back within a month.