"My Human Rights Are Being Violated": Fighting A Family Conservatorship

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/family-guardianship-conservatorship-disabilities

Marie Bergum furtively scanned the gym locker room to make sure no one was watching, then took out her phone. She had gotten in trouble for making calls there, but felt she had no privacy at home, so she had to take her chances. Marie worried that if her dad realized she wasn’t lifting weights, he would call her a liar or trail her the next time she left the house. And if he knew what she was really up to, he might take her phone away again.

Marie was in her 30s, not a rebellious teenager. Her friends knew her as a gregarious woman who expertly applied thick winged eyeliner behind her glasses, unafraid to stand out. But due to Marie’s intellectual disability, her father, Jim, had ruled her life for 11 years as her legal conservator. Marie knew she needed assistance with things like budgeting and making medical decisions, but she wanted to call the shots. “I need help with life!” she’d later say. “But I want them to show me, not do it for me.” In recent years, she had assembled a network of lawyers, family members, and others who shared her belief that she was capable of so much more. That’s why Marie was in the locker room, whispering to them on the phone. She was plotting her steps toward freedom.

In court filings, Marie and her supporters would accuse Jim of controlling her hard-earned money, forbidding intimate relations with boyfriends, isolating her from people he disliked, and verbally abusing her, calling her “stupid” and “fat.” He had relocated her from city to city as he chose and wanted to move her out of California altogether. Marie said the older she got, the more she craved independence, but every attempt to claim it was held up as proof that she didn’t deserve it.

(snip)

Dozens of interviews and a review of hundreds of pages of court documents cast a light on the challenges that many families face in deciding the best way to support someone with disabilities. For Marie and Jim, it came down to a fundamental conflict about what Marie was capable of and who was best suited to help her achieve it, but also, more broadly, whether everyone has the right to self-determination.

[jimfields33]

1. If I was the father, I'd hand everything over and let her sink or swim

It’s scary as a parent to let go. But does he really need the headache? I’d say no.

[hunter]

3. There's a happy medium somewhere.

My parents hardly asked any questions when I was "asked" to take time out of college twice; the implied threat being permanent expulsion.

I always had food and shelter with family, which I sometimes accepted, but beyond that I was pretty much on my own. From the time I quit high school to the time I managed to graduate from college nine years later I suffered a few serious misadventures which piled some PTSD onto the autistic spectrum and OCD stuff.

In my parent's defense they were dealing at the time with my crazy grandma who was at least four times crazier than I was, and a lot more dangerous. My grandma was eventually removed from the home she owned as a danger to herself and others. She fought off the police and paramedics in a standoff that lasted many hours and was still cussing up a storm and trying to bite the paramedics after they strapped her to a gurney and loaded her into an ambulance. If she wasn't a little old white lady they might have shot her.

Most of these problems would evaporate if U.S.A. society wasn't so fucking mean.

The sociopaths, social Darwinists, tough love charlatans, and religious fundamentalists can all go to hell.

[Shrike47]

2. Very interesting article. Her father clearly loves her but doesn't trust her judgment about anything

[LisaL]

4. Seems like he views her as a child.

NT

[Maru Kitteh]

5. I don't think that's love. I think that's possession. nt