Columns

In modern day society in the U.S., with our level of technology, medicine, and economic opportunity, government and citizens are obliged by common ethics to take care of those who could not survive on our own in the absence of economic and other help. 

Yet, this should not include restrictions on upward mobility. It should not include the presumption or the requirement that we are incompetent. And it should not include lumping us into a category of good-for-nothings, people who supposedly do dumb things such as having a meth lab in one's apartment, faking being disabled so that we can get the big 900 dollars a month, or any of a dozen other forms of bad conduct attributed. 

As a disabled man with intellect, I'm encountering a lot of government harassment. It seems that disability money isn't free money. You must continually substantiate and resubstantiate that you really are disabled and can't work, that you need the money, and that you are not a liar. 

With the amount of scrutiny directed at any disabled person who does not behave disabled enough, the government manages to project on us that we are criminals. The government continually probes our data to find out whether we are lying to them. There is a merger between the helping professions and the criminal justice system so that we can be caught in our big crimes. 

It takes work for me to remind myself that I'm not a liar, that I actually am disabled despite being smart, and that it is not a crime to do something considered "professional" such as submit stories to periodicals for consideration for publication. 

It is not a crime to earn four hundred dollars in a year from the above efforts. I really need the help of the supposed safety net, and I really can't hold down a job that would earn me enough to live on. 

If I was deaf, blind, or needed to use a wheelchair, this conversation would not exist. Yet, this is not "apples and oranges." You can't simply assert that a person's mind either works or doesn't work. 

Psychiatric conditions are not understandable by those who think simplistically. I can't handle a work environment. It is easy and practicable for me to sit at home and write brilliant things that may or may not appeal to an editor. Yet, if you put me into a car wash and expect me to keep up with their assembly line, that just won't happen. If you expect me to work full time at a professional job, where is that supposed to come from, and even should I be hired, how could I possibly perform at such a job? 

There are probably millions of Americans who dream of being writers. Yet the reality of it is, almost on one can make a living at it. To say I'm not really disabled because I just self-published another book--it just doesn't fly. 

But please do consider buying a copy. The new book is "Revising Behaviors That Don't Work."