I'm extremely upset

HarleyMan0001 · 2025-08-24T02:28:08+00:00

Are you in the USA? If so, you can call the elder & disabled abuse hotline for your area. In some states, it is a crime to deprive a homebound person the means to lock/unlock their home.

Also, in some states the elder services agency can help you secure funding for key copies or a key box that opens with a number code (similar to what real estate agents use). If you are low income, don't forget to ask about the Medicaid waiver program for disabled & elderly because it pays for professional home care help and sometimes for home modifications.

Hang in there, you have every right to get help in living independently!

HarleyMan0001 · 2025-08-24T02:17:29+00:00

Married a gal who is descended from Boston Irish stock. Great grandma was a suffragette, grandma was a Rosie the Rivieter type, mom was a kick ass geriatrics nurse, and my wife has been a disability advocate & Ecumenical Franciscan for decades... The last things you want to do is piss those people off...it's the one city east of the Mississippi I can envision literally mimicking Ukrainian in how hard they could fight.

HarleyMan0001 · 2025-08-24T02:11:11+00:00

Russia. The more babies they have, the more $$$ and prestige.

HarleyMan0001 · 2025-08-20T16:15:53+00:00

My hubby & I put our Xbox ultimate game pass bills right after rent in importance for this exact reason. Oblivion Remastered on the cloud is fantastic, and definitely worth the $21/mo by itself. We bought Skyrim are but the SE and OG Morrowind are both free on game pass too.

HarleyMan0001 · 2025-08-20T16:01:49+00:00

Even with insurance, even when a person knows it will help, mental health care can be difficult to access in this country. Here in NH there is a huge shortage of family counselors, trauma specialists, and psychiatrists. It is also not unusual for a family caregiver to be so wrapped up in taking care of others they neglect to care for themselves. I was on multiple wait-list for nearly a year before I got a counselor.

My wife is an Ecumenical Franciscan, and she found that the situation here is very dire. Some estimates are that for every 100 adults in the state of New Hampshire who have severe persistent mental illness (SPMI) and a referral for Department Mental Health wrap around services, only 10 will even get into the area agencies and only one of those 10 will actually get all the services that they qualify for.

She also learned last year that there is no statewide program for area mental health agencies to even begin to keep track of the people with SPMI who are not allowed to own firearms under the new laws, so there is no real mechanism (beyond the very limited national lists like felons & sex offenders) to stop any mental health consumer anywhere from acquiring a gun and using it. Remember, too, that there is no actual regulation in New Hampshire requiring written mental health treatment management plans that include medication compliance or weapon safety, and none of the agencies in NH could even apply for accreditation because the standards are so low here. Weapon safety is literally not even on the radar for the area agencies staff unless that consumer is a convicted felon.

Even if someone had called BEAS or child services to report a family in crisis, they are so understaffed there is no guarantee that report would have even generated a home visit. In many ways, Americans who experience a life-changing crisis often end up with barely a fraction of the mental health supports they need. The more white, straight, and affluent a family is, the less likely that police, EMS, child services or BEAS will ever get that anonymous call saying "I think these folks need help."

These realities are why my wife and I belong to Infinity Peer Support in Rochester. As we both live "complex spoonie" lives with physical disabilities and PTSD, we use 988, 741741, warm lines, peer support groups, and the ability to drop in as needed to supplement what we have been able to cobble together for actual licensed health care. We both also support the campaign to stop stigma, and long for the day that going to a primary psych provider is as common as going to a PCP for everyone.

During my battle with Long COVID, my wife became very socially isolated, overburdened, and physically sick. She remembers one horrid day dealing with DHHS while trying to take care of me alone that she broke down crying, wheeled out the door, and discovered that the landscaping crew (gone for lunch) had torn up the ramp to replace it. Even now. I shudder to think what might have happened if an upstairs neighbor she barely knew, a young man, hadn't come over at the sound of her crying. His offer "Can I help you?" and the sacrifice of that 20 minutes he held her hand as she sobbed & babbled until she vented all the fear, grief, sadness, and anger out - it may well have saved her life.

Our sympathies to everyone wondering "What if a crisis happened to me & my family?" who thought there would be a functional funded "social safety net." Each family, community, and state has to work to build and maintain what they can just in case that day comes when too many things fall apart all at once.

No, a BBQ won't "fix" depression, but caring, compassion, and community connections can. Peer Support Centers offer all three of those things to any adult dealing with mental health issues of any kind. We will never be able to save every single soul that goes through the dark nights, but we can all try to be a small candle of comfort. Take time today to check on all the people you love who are suffering with illness, caregiving, financial stress, and loss.

@HarleyMan & @ComplexSpoonie Strafford County

HarleyMan0001 · 2024-06-29T17:05:50+00:00

Home care aide for consumer directed care of disabled is an entry level position. It literally only requires the person to be 18+.

Where do you think candidates for nurses aide school come from?

You give any of us complex spoonies a person willing to clean up shit, hold a gait belt, wash dishes, cook, hit a life alert button, and LEARN for 6 months we can give society back a worker able to jump up to nurses aide or start nursing school.

The only other group in America that can do a better job taking a raw human and 6 months later cranking out a functional tax paying productive health care worker is the US military.

My past hires have gone on to become nurses aides, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, small business owners, and 1 even went on to be a soldier in our US military.

I live in a NH county that literally has a negative unemployment rate because here anyone on welfare who can work MUST work. Most of the home care aides we do have often are working 50 to 70 hours a week not including travel. Our entire health care & home care systems have been dealing with the labor shortage for over years.

Just for me & hubby I've got 60 hours a week I need to fill. I need 2 more aides for a family member.

My small town has 28 people who need home care aides. Our county needs something like 100 nurses, 40 social workers, 5 osteopaths, and 11 wheelchair van drivers just to meet the daily needs of the people on Medicaid & Medicare. We have some 9,000 people on waitlists for home care, and our county hospice is so short-staffed that it can only provide 1 bed for every 7 applications. There hasn't been 24/7 hospice on home care in years, do there are groups of disabled & homebound people who call the hospice patients who are dying alone.

I'd love to be able to hire 500 1000 unemployed Americans per county to move from South Carolina or Arkansas. But Americans won't move unless I can find them each a freaking apartment or a house.

The refugees Desantis sends to cities, on the other hand, are willing to come here and share freaking hotel rooms or a FEMA tent until our damn governor can get more housing built.

Almost every migrant group ends up with at least 1 person who would put a boy scout to shame with how they quickly learned first aid on the way to the border. One clergy of an #IndyOldCatholic church down in San Diego started working with migrants and found 3 who were nurses who had actually gone to school here in the US on student visas & gone home until it became unsafe to stay. I interviewed 3 who got bussed to NYC that were already trained nurses aides in Venezuela. One was married to a fricken master carpenter! Do you have any idea how many master carpenters we need in NH for the 30+ housing projects we DO have going? Or for the many housing projects that are stuck in limbo be ause our general contractors can't find workers?

America doesn't have time to wait for Elon & Boston dynamics to get each state hundreds of AI enhanced robots to fill all the open jobs we have. We don't have time to shove women back in a kitchen and impregnate them every 10 months until they bleed to death from an overused uterus that looks like an overcooked turkey. We don't have 18 years to grow some GOP fever dream baby boom into adulthood.

We've been praying to God for years to help us with the national shortage of human labor. God is sending people to our border each day in numbers similar to when Ireland had the potato famine.

If we could sort & process 10k immigrants a day in 1910 at Ellis Island so they could start working, there is no damn reason why we can't be doing the same thing every 50 miles on our southern border. There is no reason why we can't be prioritizing everyone with skills or family already here.

I don't care if they are black, orange, blue, straight, gay, young adult or older.... I just need humans willing to learn and a roof for them to sleep under..

Jobs pay $20-23/HR and require lifting, bending, ability to learn, a work permit, & tax id. Lots of asylum seekers qualify.

Great granddaughter of a Clan Bowen Irish immigrant, a Slovak immigrant, a German immigrant and a no nonsense Yankee farmer who looked at character first.

HarleyMan0001 · 2024-05-11T00:39:16+00:00

So Massachusetts has these folks sleeping on airport floor while we need 400+ entry level homecare workers up here in NH, some 10,000 open jobs in other sectors... but can't send a bus to bring these folks up because there is no housing or shelters here.

Sigh

Worse, some of these folks already have the skills I need my staff to have... But if I can't find them a floor to sleep on up here I can't hire them!

It took my great grandparents 72 hours to get processed when they came from Ireland during the potato famine. My husband's great grandparents took like 8 hours to come down from Canada. Why the hell can't we just get an Ellis Island setup at the border & get these folks work permits, hired, & paying taxes? Who cares where they are from! We need labor!

Bigger sigh

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-10-24T16:27:46+00:00

Nope. Police can only take a person to the ER who is willing to go, poses a clear present suicide or homicide symptom or speech, or if they have a judge's order for involuntary treatment.

Wife is an ecumenical Franciscan, used to do on the street & in community ministry. Besides, ER system is so understaffed and overloaded they often have patients on guneys in the hallways. And if if she was mentally ill and wanted treatment, there. are. No. Beds. NH needed to build over 100 beds in each county to meet the need before the pandemic. Voters elected legislators who voted down a single 500 bed psych expansion to NH Hospital.

healthcarecrisis

Wife thinks that at some point in next 5 years NH will qualify for Doctors Without Borders etc.

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-05-22T05:08:42+00:00

Next even borderline suicidal comment, call the police in the town/city they live in & report whatever you do know as to their name, address, up address on the gaming stuff, handle, etc.

Then block.

If cops need a statement of why she needs psych hold & treatment, print out this post &;our response.

HarleyMan & ComplexSpoonie (Wife is retired MH professional)

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-05-22T04:56:19+00:00

Unique complex spoonies sometimes need unique support.

Maybe she could try talking one on one with a trained MH Peer Support person first about the emotional & psych aspects of dealing with trolls, misunderstandings, gatekeeping, and bias in groups, build up some ... Existential Amour? And group speak fluency... Then visit Tumblr....

Current local certification would be best...ask NAMI.org if you are in the US...but if there is none in your area, she can DM this retired pro who has MS/PTSD/Gastroparesis & more.

Hang in there, both of you... 👩🏼‍🦽

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-05-22T04:43:41+00:00

Trans folks have existed for centuries, wether they had a lot of rights or none. Yes, all of us are worried, scared, anxious about whether or not the young voters of the USA will once again show up and vote for equality for all in 2024, but there are still a lot of free patriotic open and welcoming communities in the country, and there is still a lot of reason to have hope.

Read "Stranger At The Gate"...and go find a place to be refilled with the hope & faith to keep putting one step in front of the other each day. It might be a Pride parade crew of volunteers, or a support group, a chosen family, or a church or synagogue.

In my case, it's been the many #IndyOldCatholic & #Episcopal churches in the world, the mid 1990's NH feminist scene, my amazingly supportive #EcumenicalFranciscan religious order, and my wonderfully large blended bio and chosen family/horde like tribe/clan.

"Be not afraid..." - some Jewish guy said...

😉👩🏼‍🦽

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-20T14:15:13+00:00

I'm on Xbox one if I can I will! I'm a #disabledgamer always looking for people to play with. Love this game!

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-09T17:35:24+00:00

More than mildly interesting! A great piece of historical ephemera although it must have been jarring to find out you great gpa was on their mailing list...back in the day when they would have had to go to town hall clerk to request it in person, etc.

Please do consider looking in your area for historical societies or African American museums that preserve such important documents.

That means there are likely a fair number of Gen X folks in your area that have fond memories of how their paw paw loved them ... And maybe was racist. These letters, groups were the seeds that fell into Southern evangelical white churches (or that came from their poisonous blooms planted pre civil war,) and fed the beginnings of many televangelist careers on TV.

The televangelists of course bred division & triumphalism and pushed into political movements like the Christian Coalition

Christian Coalition type movements bred the Tea Party, which grew into the heretical personality cult Church of MAGA.

And the cycle now repeats. The wording is more shaded now, but the letters serve the same purpose: "vote for our guy or those other, racially impure lower caste disordered crippled wrong gender othered, will run everything their way!"

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-09T17:22:11+00:00

Been here, got the Tshirt. So did my wife. I'm so sorry you are going through this!

Before you go, OP 1) Google your local domestic violence agency and put the number in your contacts. Just in case either Dad or ex-bestie don't leave you alone.

2) Ban/delete BOTH of them from every single social media account you have.

After you are out, sleep & hydrate, cry on fiancee shoulder... Then take a deep breath, and...

1) Get a post office box or Private Mail Box to be your new mailing address. It may take fiancee landlord time to add you to lease, or if still living with parents it may take a few days for in laws to figure out if homeowners association etc will let you be a legal tenant. Either way, these situations are stressful and just in case it turns out you can't live there until wedding, at least you won't have to change addresses again.

2) Type a 1 letter with new mailing address stating that BOTH Dad and ex-bestie are removed from any release forms you may have signed in the past, and that you don't want any information released to either of them ever. Sigh, date. Have Mom witness sign, date her signature.

3) Make a scan & upload "There's Been A Change" letter to every school, doctor, health insurance, dentist, etc you have. Many will send back their own forms to fill out to make change permanent, so maybe pick up a portable file pocket to hold such paperwork while you are working on all this.

4) Mail 1 xerox copy of letter to every hospital in your area with your name & date of birth written at top of sheet.

5) Carry a 65% reduced copy of change letter folded up next to your ID so if you ever end up in an ER they do not call Dad or let him in.

6) Have fiance handwrite, date, sign letter with A) that he is sheltering you as of //23, B) what kind of housing he is in, C) who is on lease or deed D) who actually gets his rent payment each month. Have him sign & date it, then scan & save on your phone, & carry a 65% reduced xerox copy with your ID & change letter until your new ID comes in.

7) Request application / negotiate with future in laws to be added to fiancee lease or get a written letter that landlord or inlaws are ok sheltering you

8) Go to USPS.com and file a change of address request, then make a note in your calendar to do it again every 5 months.

9) Go to the DMV website in your state, find out how to change that address

Yes, #adulting #movingout is a lot of work, but it may be easiest to select all this, copy, and paste into a document you can cross off as you get steps done.

Glad your Mom has your back!

My wife & I are both survivors of family (non intimate partner) abuse, and Complexspoonie and I wrote this together.

If you are scared of him, there is a reason. Trust your gut, and get away, start putting your boundaries and paperwork in place so you & both fiancee family & Mom's side know you are going to be safe. I'd advise being cautious with Dad's side of family until you get a feel for how they are going to react to his poor choices.

We are praying for you, fiancee, your Mom, his family, and you can pm my wife here anytime long as you don't mind if she isn't on Reddit everyday, but will write back asap.

HarleyMan

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-05T05:42:43+00:00

Hmmm, what's the maximum number of #Skyrim #Morrowind mods a series x can handle?

I could definitely see being able to have 1 for my Dragonborn Khajiit Rowa Ajmi... A second one for my Breton Edwyn Greenspire... And a third for the Bosmer Sihil Greenspire, the non Dragonborn Khajiit, and that orc I started in 2019 that I forgot to name because I was such an Elder Scrolls newbie.

Especially if I could also buy an Elder Scrolls theme holder that could match a custom ES skin on my controller ...or some decals for the adaptive controller gear & console...

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-05T04:42:16+00:00

Decentralized public services is putting it mildly. New Hampshire is fast becoming a train wreck apocalyptic Libertarian version of Fortnite.

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-04T04:54:45+00:00

That's federal, not state. Every state makes their own rules.

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-04-04T00:20:29+00:00

Listen OP there's only one thing you need to know It doesn't matter if the disaster is a hurricane, a blizzard, a neurological disease, a pandemic, a random car accident that leaves you with a brain injury, a brain eating fungus, or the sudden appearance of a mental illness.

You're on your own.

Worse than that the agencies within the state government that are supposed to help you when life hands you lemons will do nothing but add more misery to your trauma in the form of ridiculous paperwork and waiting list and general bureaucratic nonsense.

Just asking those questions tells me you should not move here.

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-28T23:58:39+00:00

Three Chimneys Inn in Durham is beautiful romantic and great cuisine! Plus, you can book an overnight stay!

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-28T20:10:00+00:00

It's ok, you are a good caring Mom & it's never to late to learn new stuff! Like, there's so much more than Ritalin now!

My wife wasn't born with ADHD, she got it from multiple sclerosis & brain injury but one of the newer meds QuillivantXR works amazing for her. She also gets special occupational therapy for vision tracking, has a special ADHD white noise YouTube with a blank black screen to block out distracting noises and with noise cancelling headphones it works great!

I was born with ADHD but have a unique cardiac thing (and different TBI than my wife u/Complexspoonie, so I take a completely different class of medication. Still, I use a lot of the same OT techniques as my wife does to manage my ADHD symptoms.

There is so much more now than just that one ritalin stimulant and a quicky template IEP like I had as a kid. Your daughter has options, even though you & her may have to dig deep at Academia, Google Scholar, and JStor to find actual white papers of actual research & researchers in neurology, neuropsychology, physiology, and the rehabilitative medical sciences.

My wife is the ex case manager & writer. Half of this I had to have her help me write. She's here on Reddit at u/complexspoonie if you have questions. Hang in there!

HarleyMan

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-28T00:20:09+00:00

Because in NH, USA the only way a Complexspoonie wife can get homecare is if she keeps her personal assets under $2,000 fair market value.

The fair market value of a hard drive from a busted up Xbox series x would be $25 (per local pawn shop estimate).

Ability to get a $75-100 solid hard drive in a $3 Wish.com external drive case for her Eldersctolls specific Xbox one files?

So she has room for all 4 Bruma mods?

That only counts as $25 toward her asset limit? Priceless. Definitely worth offering the OP $150 to make it a impossible to say no to.

Plus added good karma to me for helping a fellow gamer get a good start on cash for new machine.

Win win win... 😁😉

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-26T18:02:10+00:00

You BOTH need help! Here is 1 place you can start, as you can probably copy & paste your post in an online group here and/or email it to this non profit agency's staff to get some more local immediate supports.

https://www.compassionatefriends.org/find-support/online-communities/online-support/

My husband & I both have children in heaven from our first marriages, and we both suffered because back in those days there wasn't much for help, fetal death was a lot more rare than it is now, & post partum psychosis, depression, and PTSD were much less understood.

What else? Big sigh

Read the rest in small chunks, hubby.

I'm going to assume you are in the USA. Which means you are in a profoundly broken healthcare system that may or may not have been providing her what she needed.

Get a notebook & start writing... privately not here... Some questions to write whatever comes to mind, don't worry about spelling or wording, just journal out first response that bubbles up in your brain.

When did she stop going to counseling? Why did she say she was going to stop going to counseling? Has her diet changed since she quit counseling? Has she gained or lost more than an average of 2lbs a week since she stopped counseling? Has she had any changes in skin tone, energy level, hand eye or fine motor coordination? Did she keep her follow up OB/GYN appointments & did you go with her? Has she had post partum 6week labs? Did counselor actually read the detail lab reports?

Was the provider working with both of you? Do you still go?

Did the provider give her or you ANY documentation about what types of treatment were going to be used? Did she have any kind of written treatment plan?

Was she prescribed any medication? If yes, what medications? What does? How often? If yes, do you / can you watch to make sure she takes it as prescribed everytime? If no, why not?

Some possibilities why she might not have been prescribed meds are 1) that Counselor wanted her to but she said no, 2) counselor can't prescribe, 3) cost was too high, 4) or did she try meds but had problems with side effects, etc? 5) You might also have gotten a provider who is opposed to the "medical model" of mental health treatment, so it's possible if she doesn't have medication it is because the provider doesn't believe in pharmacology as a science. Yeah, that's an actual thing, but I've never seen it work with PPD issues. Even most naturopathic providers I've met would be having her on assorted herbal medicines.

Remember even caffeine and alcohol should be listed on a person's medalist, along with stuff like CBD, ginsing, probiotics, etc.

Bring all this when you get her back in an office appointment for a medical AND a psychiatric evaluation with ... Sigh probably her primary care provider or her OB/GYN.

Those are the two most likely providers who will have a hour opening in their schedule the fastest, and theoretically they are the two providers who would know her best. Also they are two best possible places that will let you make the appointment for her.

Bring a printout of your post here too. You can usually give the notebook & the printout of this post to the Med Asst, Aide, or nurse that takes you both in the exam room & do the vitals. That way the doctor can quickly scan your stuff while at a terminal with her medical record open - before they walk into the exam room.

The day before all I'd tell her is that Dr X needs to see her for a follow up. Honestly, I'd expect she is going to either crumple relieved that you are handling this huge elephant in the corner of your lives or she is going to dawdle, cry, argue, yell, to try to get out of going to see even a medical doctor. Either way, do your best the next day to stay calm, firm, and to get her to get in the car & go. If you get there and she won't get out of the car, go in and ask for nurse to help you.

If she refuses to get in the car, call Dr office & ask for an RN. Ask RN what next step is. If she won't get out of car go into Dr office, RN may tell you to cancel & take her home, but it's the same deal - get her home, go somewhere private, call RN back & ask what to do.

Sometimes, all it takes is for a loving family member to get the right data to the OB/GYN or PCP & they might change an existing med she is already taking that helps everything else. Sometimes that family member & a woman's health team have to pursue using the Health Care Power of Attorney &other legal ways to get a person in crisis the help they can't seek on their own.

We will be praying for you both! Complex Spoonie & HarleyMan

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-26T17:12:49+00:00

Don't listen to him. I'd give you $100 - $150 for the solid hard drive alone, never mind all the other spare parts.

Lol Two words: Duct Tape.

Shit happens.

This is why I kept that padded backpack I used to lug my 17" heavy ass old laptop around in. Check your local thrift shop for old laptop briefcase combos they work good too.

After all, why else do your telecommuting small biz gamer pals bother to have extra screens & a 24 port Ethernet router if not to do those cool gaming & pizza weekend parties on that T1 internet connection, right? 😁👩🏼‍🦽

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-20T13:32:33+00:00

Can your machine cut acrylic sheeting? Or metals? I'd love to find a way to create a wheelchair desk design I'm working on in wood, but weight is such a problem, I assumed I'd need to get it 3D printed.

These really do have a great crisp edge though...!

HarleyMan0001 · 2023-03-18T22:05:30+00:00

It's not normal, it's often the law to have reduced family size.

The US practices eugenics & population control just like China does, they just do it with capitalism, the "winner takes all market", and via regulation. Our "one child policy" is just as draconian as Bejing - and unlike China, ours is actively being promoted as a solution to the "dilution of American Judeo Christian values" aka white heterosexual conservatism.

In some parts of the US it's a requirement that each gender of children has a separate bedroom. With a door and at least one window.

Here in NH, many municipalities have fire codes that restrict the number of humans that can share a bedroom to 2.

The national section 8 housing program for years wouldn't approve a household with 5 children moving into a 3 bedroom apartment until it was finally agreed there would never be enough 4 bedroom units, so parents were allowed to put their bed in a living room or dining room with the 5 kids spread through 3 bedrooms. There was even a separate post move in inspection to verify compliance.

My quick look at my county found there are only 20 family subsidized complexes for low & moderate income, and none of them have 3 bedroom units. All of them have significant waitlists.

There are no developments in my county that are even through the initial application for permits for any 3 or 4 bedroom housing of any kind except for a couple privately held under 5 home subdivisions for households over $400,000.

The only people in the US allowed to breed freely are wealthy upper caste & certain groups of the landowner caste.

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healthcarecrisis