Don’t get me wrong. I hate almost everything about this state. But I hate this the most.

I hate the fact that I’ve had to make progressively more difficult decisions over the years to ensure that my disabled family gets and retains access to benefits and services that we need. I hate the fact that we’ve had to fight for approval on some of those as hard as we’ve had to, even though the majority of that seems to be focused on me and my own struggles (though I would rather being the one to have to fight for these things and not either of my children, even though I am as deserving as they are of these benefits and services)…

There are a lot of things I hate about the federal disability system, but even more that I hate about Texas.

So I found out the other day that I may actually be eligible for survivor’s benefits off of my oldest son’s father’s record, because our mutually shared son is disabled which negates the age and length of marriage requirement normally imposed on these benefits. It also means that as long as I exercise parental control over my son, to include managing his affairs once he becomes an adult, I am and should remain eligible for these benefits without interruption as long as I do not remarry. This wasn’t something that was originally brought up when I applied for survivor’s benefits on my oldest son’s behalf, seeing as how it was his father who had died. But since there remains this as a possibility, I’ve tried to get in touch with the state to ask about it to see if these benefits can be instated to me. Dealing with the government is always fun, though… and by that, what I really mean to say is not fun. This is something that should have been explored months ago when the application was first filed and information on our household was collected, but it was not.

I expect the state to slow-walk this as they have almost everything I’ve needed their assistance for, though.