This is long. Sorry.

I have a psychiatric diagnosis, and for years, I received SSI, food stamps, Medicaid, and subsidized housing benefits.

A sidebar, explaining US disability options to non-Americans, and others who might not know: Supplemental Security Income [SSI] is a program run by the Social Security Administration, by which people with a disability receive a small check every month. It differs from Social Security Disability Insurance [SSDI] in that, if a person has put in enough work hours already, and then becomes disabled, he/she may draw SSDI regardless of other sources of income. On the other hand, recipients of SSI can draw it even if they have never worked, but must qualify financially as well as medically. If a person is disabled but has enough income from other sources, he/she will not draw SSI. Some people receive both, but with a reduced SSI, only enough to bring their monthly income up to a certain level. I did not have enough work history to qualify for SSDI, but I did draw SSI.

That is, until I married my husband. His income exceeds the limits, and now I don't qualify financially. OK with me. I am blessed to have found a husband who is able to support me. When I received government assistance, one thing that used to burn my bacon was that any time I started looking to improve my station in life, i.e. find a job, inevitably some social worker would warn me, "You'd better be careful not to make too much money. You'll lose your check." You know what? If I'm doing well enough to make that much money, what do I need the doggone check for? And if I don't need it, why would I want it? I was trying to better myself, and marriage or not, I had no intention of spending the rest of my life idly drawing a government check. Not at my relatively young age.

I have previously been a part of a "therapeutic rehabilitation program" for people with mental illness, but in reality it was just a nanny program. There was no "therapy" or "rehabilitation" to it. The only thing it taught people was how to play Bunco or Spades. And as for the director, well, she was really big on discouraging people from working. She would imply that earning even the slightest amount of income would instantly and permanently disqualify you from any government benefits, and you would never get them back no matter what. Of course that's hogwash, but for some reason she wanted members of her program to think that. Probably due to the fact that her program got a certain amount of $$ for each butt sitting in the seats; therefore she didn't want anyone actually being "rehabilitated," and leaving.

Speed up to the present. I am now enrolled in a *truly* rehabilitative program designed to help people like me gain the stamina and coping skills to be able to hold down a job. It is not the program in this link, but it is modeled after it. The heart of these "clubhouses" as they are known is the "work-ordered day," meant to simulate the structure of a day on the job as closely as possible. For those members who can never recover enough to get a paying job, just having a place to go and be productive is a help. And who knows, even if they recover more slowly, one day they might be able to work. Whereas at the other program, there were people who had been going there for eight or ten years with no progress toward independence. (I told a member of staff about my previous experience, and he answered, "Clubhouses were formed in reaction to programs like that." Best news I'd heard in a while.)