Advice Needed about Emancipation dealing with SSI

Hello

I am from the state of NJ and I have been raised with a learning disability, recently I had began receieving the SSI insurance. I graduated from high school and I am 21, overage. My parents have been controlling the money that is rightfully mine, I live on my own....My first question is how can I find out if they do have the rights over me? Considering they control my ssi check? Second if they do how can I seperate legally from them to control my own fiances? Any advice would be deeply appreciated,thank you.

I understand you want to be independent and are very close to that and even one day your parents won't be around to help you with things.

You and your parents face a problems that many families with disabled children face, having to prepare their child to live safely and independently.

Having a representive payee, helps insure that you always have the money to take care of your needs and help with other issues, that if you took care of yourself might accidently not pay something and find yourslef without a place to live or food to eat. I have seen it happen and it can happen without you knowing it is too late.

You should sit down with your parents, case manager and other adults who help you and begin working on a plan to prepare you to live independently and manage your finances with supervision.

At some point it will need to be someone other than your parents, but it is a good idea to have someone you can trust to help you.

It is also a good idea for your parents to create what is knows as a special needs trust.

There are advocacy groups that may be of assistance to you and you may contact your independent resource living center for help and referals.

When you say you have a learning diability that qualifies you for Disability I am guessing that you have Asperger's HFA, NLVD, CP, Epilepsy or possibly brain injuries. Having a resource such as a community college can help with continuing education and assessment and your state department of rehabiliation can also help in addition to what ever other sources of case management you have as well as being sources of social interaction.

The thing is that my learning disability is minor its just ADD most of the time...where I process my thoughts slower. It is nothinh that has to do with brain damage or any of the disabilities that you mentioned. Does that make a difference?

You have to have a significant disability to be eligible for disability, sometimes ADD, usually is not enough to qualify although you may not know your diagnosis, or your disability may prevent you from processing the information enough to understand it which would not be the case with a learning disability. This makes something like Asperger's or NLVD more likely even if you don't know.

My advise is still the same. Meet with your parents, case worker etc and make plans to have someone help you with your finances and plan for the future, it is in your best interest to have someone to help you even though you want to do it all yourself, you need help, it doesn't have to be your parents but it needs to be someone who can be trusted.