Hello Friends! Disability/SSI
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A lot of backstory and venting:
All this just ask if you have any advice on getting diagnosed, SSI, disability, lawyers, more assistance like rental, food stamps, etc. I'm primarily doing this all this work for another person that's mentally incapable.
I have a cousin I help take care of and support who may be a little mentally handicapped, but he doesn't know it. He's been a dishwasher his whole life and that's honestly the maximum mental capacity he has, but bc of this he is very low income and often paid under the table which I think will affect his SSI or disability. He was recently diagnosed with cirrhosis about 2 years ago and last year had a major surgery, some sort of abdominal aortic repair surgery which was complicated bc they had to be very careful to not touch his bad liver. He's been mostly in and out of work for a couple years now due to sickness from cirrhosis. He doesn't have insurance or a doctor, he just goes to the emergency room.
My husband and I usually end up majorly financially supporting him. We sometimes have to pay his rent and buy his medicine, groceries, toiletries, underwear and clothes, necessities, it's a little stressful, but he abuses it or never "asks for too much". To be honest he comes from a poor and sick family. His mom gave him up to his grandparents early on. His anxiety is also through the roof. He's out of work again and his anxiety is sky high. In the last couple years his mom died from cirrhosis, his grandfather that raised him died, his grandmother got dementia and is in a nursing home, and his half brother just died a few weeks ago, his aunt and first cousins are all homeless and on drugs. I usually am authorized as his representative bc he can't comprehend what professionals are saying.
All this and he's my THIRD cousin, we're really not even close, and he comes from the messed up side of my family and has no support system. But I can't stand by and let him keep suffering and be homeless when there's something I can do as much as I'd like to say this isn't my problem.
This morning we're calling to get an appt at a low-income sliding scale doctor's facility that we hope can give him at least a few diagnoses such as cirrhosis and anxiety or can contact the hospital for his paperwork. I want someone else to tell him he's got a mental delay and maybe present it like it's good for his SSI/disability case. I'm making an appt with a lawyer this morning that I am going to talk to privately before they talk.