The Saga Continues
The Saga of the Useless Relatives, that is...
So for the past year or so, my sister has been living off of unemployment and waiting to get onto disability for a back injury .... I know, right?
I have helped her out a few times with rent, and one of our friends has also given her money a time or two. Her church helps her to pay some bills as well. She never seems to be able to hold onto anything for long, though, and is almost always out of gas and needing enough money to fill the tank. She also has a male friend -- I don't know their exact relationship, but he's paying some of her medical expenses even though they don't live together or seem to be dating that I can tell.
But now, since she's never been able to hold down any one job for more than a few years at a time, her unemployment has run out (says she) and her second appeal for the disability has been rejected, necessitating a court date.
Here's her solution to the problem: our (admittedly wealthy) friend and I should just pay all of her bills until she can get disability! Notice that there is no "and then I'll pay you back" clause added onto that statement, either.
Oh, and she considers "cable/phone/internet bundle" to be a necessary bill.
First of all, I can't believe a word the woman says, so I have no idea if her unemployment has actually been cut off or not, whether she really qualifies for disability or not (she says her lawyer thinks she's got a great case and her doctor is backing him up), or even whether her doctor actually told her she can't do any sort of work at all now. My sister has never been a truthful person, and there's really no way of telling what's actually going on.
From what she's said to me, all I can find wrong with her is that the surgery to fuse two of her vertebrae left her with permanent nerve damage to one leg, resulting in that leg going numb and weak if she tries to stand up for long.
Excuse me for being dense, but since when is that grounds for not being able to work? Paraplegics work, right? People with missing limbs work. If she honestly can't stand or sit up at all, why doesn't she just get a wheelchair?
Second, my sister has done this all of her life. Before our mom died, she was living rent-free in Mom's old house and still claiming she couldn't pay for the electricity or water or insurance or whatever, even though she was working at the time! Mom was practically bankrupt when she died because she'd paid my sister's bills for so long.
And third, I don't have anybody who'll take care of me! If I spend my hard-earned money supporting my dead-beat sister, who's going to pay my bills when I get too old to work? I added it up: one year of supporting her (she said a court date can be as far off as that!) would be nearly $10,000!
My friend and I, along with one of our cousins who's getting hit up for money by my sister, are going to go over to her house Sunday and do an "intervention." I know that's usually for addiction, but it's the same principle. We are going to take turns telling her how her manipulation and mooching affect us negatively -- including the fact that she's ruining our relationships with her because now we hate to see her coming or see a phone call from her! We're going to offer her some possibilities (like vocational rehab and some contact numbers of places that are designed to help people without funds) and some moral support...
but no money.
OK, actually, we did decide not to cut her off cold-turkey for a birthday present, since April is her birthday. We have agreed to pay rent and electricity. No cable, no internet, no telephone, nothing extra. She's already getting food stamps, so we don't have to buy her groceries. So she gets one more month, during which she can decide to sit around and cry or to actually make an effort to help herself.
This is a hard thing to do, I have to admit. Even though I am 95% certain that she's got plenty of resources, I feel guilty for refusing to give her any more money. I'd love to know what the actual situation is -- what her doctor really said, what the lawyer really thinks, where the hell all that money goes! -- but I figure it's not my job to try to manage her funds for her. She's smart enough to manipulate all of us, so she's smart enough to figure out a way to take care of her own bills. It's still tough knowing that she might allow herself to become homeless instead of stepping up and taking care of herself. If she moves in with her son (he's already on disability for mental issues, as I believe I have mentioned in previous rants), the two of them ought to be able to pay the necessities until her court date. He gets enough to pay rent and electricity, maybe enough to keep up the car insurance so they can drive back and forth to the doctor's and lawyer's.
I have no idea if my sister has even considered the possibility that she might not get disability.
Bottom line: I cannot allow myself to follow in Mom's footsteps and throw money at my relatives. It's a black hole -- the more money you throw into them, the more they suck in and the more they want. This has gone from "I need help with the rent" to "I need all my bills paid" and gods know where it'd go if I agreed to pay! I'm sure some emergency would come along that would require "just a little extra!"
Right now, I'm alternating between fuming mad (with smoke coming out of my ears) and nail-biting worry (about how horrible Sunday is going to be and how my sister is going to survive). I'm not sleeping well or eating properly. Well, maybe I'll lose some weight out of all of this...
/rant
On the plus side, I'm on the final story in the anthology proofs, so I'll get the edits done by the Sunday deadline. I'm going to go have some nachos for lunch and do my best to forget my troubles for the day.
So for the past year or so, my sister has been living off of unemployment and waiting to get onto disability for a back injury .... I know, right?
I have helped her out a few times with rent, and one of our friends has also given her money a time or two. Her church helps her to pay some bills as well. She never seems to be able to hold onto anything for long, though, and is almost always out of gas and needing enough money to fill the tank. She also has a male friend -- I don't know their exact relationship, but he's paying some of her medical expenses even though they don't live together or seem to be dating that I can tell.
But now, since she's never been able to hold down any one job for more than a few years at a time, her unemployment has run out (says she) and her second appeal for the disability has been rejected, necessitating a court date.
Here's her solution to the problem: our (admittedly wealthy) friend and I should just pay all of her bills until she can get disability! Notice that there is no "and then I'll pay you back" clause added onto that statement, either.
Oh, and she considers "cable/phone/internet bundle" to be a necessary bill.
First of all, I can't believe a word the woman says, so I have no idea if her unemployment has actually been cut off or not, whether she really qualifies for disability or not (she says her lawyer thinks she's got a great case and her doctor is backing him up), or even whether her doctor actually told her she can't do any sort of work at all now. My sister has never been a truthful person, and there's really no way of telling what's actually going on.
From what she's said to me, all I can find wrong with her is that the surgery to fuse two of her vertebrae left her with permanent nerve damage to one leg, resulting in that leg going numb and weak if she tries to stand up for long.
Excuse me for being dense, but since when is that grounds for not being able to work? Paraplegics work, right? People with missing limbs work. If she honestly can't stand or sit up at all, why doesn't she just get a wheelchair?
Second, my sister has done this all of her life. Before our mom died, she was living rent-free in Mom's old house and still claiming she couldn't pay for the electricity or water or insurance or whatever, even though she was working at the time! Mom was practically bankrupt when she died because she'd paid my sister's bills for so long.
And third, I don't have anybody who'll take care of me! If I spend my hard-earned money supporting my dead-beat sister, who's going to pay my bills when I get too old to work? I added it up: one year of supporting her (she said a court date can be as far off as that!) would be nearly $10,000!
My friend and I, along with one of our cousins who's getting hit up for money by my sister, are going to go over to her house Sunday and do an "intervention." I know that's usually for addiction, but it's the same principle. We are going to take turns telling her how her manipulation and mooching affect us negatively -- including the fact that she's ruining our relationships with her because now we hate to see her coming or see a phone call from her! We're going to offer her some possibilities (like vocational rehab and some contact numbers of places that are designed to help people without funds) and some moral support...
but no money.
OK, actually, we did decide not to cut her off cold-turkey for a birthday present, since April is her birthday. We have agreed to pay rent and electricity. No cable, no internet, no telephone, nothing extra. She's already getting food stamps, so we don't have to buy her groceries. So she gets one more month, during which she can decide to sit around and cry or to actually make an effort to help herself.
This is a hard thing to do, I have to admit. Even though I am 95% certain that she's got plenty of resources, I feel guilty for refusing to give her any more money. I'd love to know what the actual situation is -- what her doctor really said, what the lawyer really thinks, where the hell all that money goes! -- but I figure it's not my job to try to manage her funds for her. She's smart enough to manipulate all of us, so she's smart enough to figure out a way to take care of her own bills. It's still tough knowing that she might allow herself to become homeless instead of stepping up and taking care of herself. If she moves in with her son (he's already on disability for mental issues, as I believe I have mentioned in previous rants), the two of them ought to be able to pay the necessities until her court date. He gets enough to pay rent and electricity, maybe enough to keep up the car insurance so they can drive back and forth to the doctor's and lawyer's.
I have no idea if my sister has even considered the possibility that she might not get disability.
Bottom line: I cannot allow myself to follow in Mom's footsteps and throw money at my relatives. It's a black hole -- the more money you throw into them, the more they suck in and the more they want. This has gone from "I need help with the rent" to "I need all my bills paid" and gods know where it'd go if I agreed to pay! I'm sure some emergency would come along that would require "just a little extra!"
Right now, I'm alternating between fuming mad (with smoke coming out of my ears) and nail-biting worry (about how horrible Sunday is going to be and how my sister is going to survive). I'm not sleeping well or eating properly. Well, maybe I'll lose some weight out of all of this...
/rant
On the plus side, I'm on the final story in the anthology proofs, so I'll get the edits done by the Sunday deadline. I'm going to go have some nachos for lunch and do my best to forget my troubles for the day.