Mental Health Matters
Todd Weatherly, Therapeutic Consultant and mental health professional hosts #MentalHealthMatters. Interviewing doctors and therapists, treatment professionals, organizational leaders, and other members of the mental health community about the importance of mental health awareness, treatment and the future of addressing mental health in the US. Discussing how to support mental health in our communities from hospitals to the dinner table and what to do when crisis arises.
Mental Health Matters
Safeguarding Futures with Dr. Debra Silberstein
Are you prepared to safeguard your loved ones with mental health challenges through meticulous estate planning? Join us as we unravel the complexities of creating special needs trusts with Dr. Deborah Silberstein, a leading authority in trusts and estate planning with Rubin & Rudman in Boston. Dr. Silberstein shares insightful real-life examples, including a poignant case study of a family with a schizophrenic son, to highlight the nuances and best practices in protecting vulnerable beneficiaries while preserving essential government benefits.
Transitioning to crisis preparedness, we stress the importance of a Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) for individuals living with mental illness. Discover how a WRAP can provide a proactive framework for health and crisis situations, potentially even influencing court outcomes. We also delve into alternatives to guardianship, such as healthcare proxies and powers of attorney, to manage health and financial matters more autonomously. Learn the critical distinctions between advanced directives and healthcare proxies, ensuring that appointed agents are well-guided by detailed wishes.
Lastly, we navigate the intricate world of psychiatric advanced directives, particularly for those with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Dr. Silberstein addresses common challenges, including resistance from psychiatrists and the need for flexibility in care plans. Join us for an episode that reveals the value of working with knowledgeable attorneys to avoid common pitfalls and ensure comprehensive future planning.
Hello folks, welcome back once again to another episode of Mental Health Horizons. I'm Todd Weatherly, your host, therapeutic consultant and mental health professional, with me today. I have the distinct honor and privilege to be joined by Dr Deborah Silberstein Burns. Levison focuses her practice on trusts and estates planning and administration, family philanthropic planning, tax-related matters, elder law. She is considered one of the leading experts in estate planning and elder law and has guided intergenerational families through philanthropic planning for over 30 years. Deborah has extensive experience working with multiple generations of families to navigate their estate plans, align family values, tax efficiencies to create effective estate plans and lasting legacies. He also advises of family business owners on succession planning. Her counsel includes generational wealth transfer, philanthropic and legacy planning, long-term care, special needs planning, administrative trust, estates and foundations as an integral part of Deborah's practice.
Speaker 1:Most specifically, I was able to be introduced to Dr Silberstein gratefully because she also works with families who have a family member in need of trust and other arrangements when that family member suffers from mental illness, and being very specific about the language that you put into these agreements that can help a person who suffers from mental illness, and being very specific about the language that you put into these agreements that can help a person who suffers from mental illness benefit the greatest they can from their trust and from the other pieces of arranging their care. Deborah, it is a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me. Like I say we could, I think that we probably have the rest of the year's worth of episodes to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1:I could just keep you on as a guest ongoing for, you know, the rest of the year at least, and we would probably still not cover everything that we needed to cover. But trusts are a huge deal in the work that I do, because families often either have one set up or they don't and they need help getting it done. And, just if you would, what drew you to this work in the first place? Like, how did you get started?
Speaker 3:So estate planning I just got started, obviously when I early on in my career, but as time evolved and I dealt with families, I did deal with a tremendous amount of exposure to family members with mental health issues and then also had some personal family members. So I had the on-hand personal experience of not only drafting the trust but also seeing in practice how they would be administered. So and I've also served as trustee of many of these trusts with you know, somebody, a beneficiary, who had a mental health issue, and so I've seen them in drafting in practice, which is one thing, and then operationally, as they go on in time, and particularly if the parents are setting up the trust for a child with a mental health issue, what happens after the parents have passed. So it's been very informative.
Speaker 1:Now, without divulging too many details, maybe you can share a case or some combination of cases in your mind when you say you know, you've watched the iterations, you've watched families and serve them generationally, um, and then you've watched families who have a beneficiary who suffers from a mental illness and seeing these, you know, seeing how the language I assume that language changed, or you learn things just like, well, we really gotta, we were an alert here. We need to change that language so that we are protected. Like what give us, if you would, a little bit of a your experience, maybe a timeline or a case review. What is it? What is it that's really important to include with a beneficiary?
Speaker 3:And and maybe that's a time you talk about your five wishes that you came up with- so I'm going to take one step back and say when I'm going to talk about trust now. In general, there's multiple types of trust, but a special needs trust is a little bit different than the type of trust I'm going to talk about now. A special needs trust is typically prepared in order for somebody to be able to maintain their government benefits. Okay, and so the type of trust I'm talking about now using for somebody who would be the beneficiary, who has mental health challenges, it could be a special needs trust in order to try to protect and preserve the government benefits needs trust in order to try to protect and preserve the government benefits. But it doesn't have to be. And so I'm going to give you an example of like proper planning, but that's like only done halfway.
Speaker 3:So I have a recent situation of a son that had schizophrenia lived with his father, the mother had passed, had a few siblings, the father I had not prepared the estate planning documents but appropriately set up a special needs trust so the son could. It was not going to be enough finances to sustain the son throughout his life, so there would be possibility of eligibility for government benefits, but so the father you know not uncommonly just immediately named. You know one of the sons and then you know the father dies. So, yes, like on paper, did he have the right kind of estate plan? Yes, he had a trust, he had a special needs trust. He named his son, but he named it the healthy son.
Speaker 3:But the, so you know, first, the father's death, clearly destabilized, was a destabilization factor for the son, with the mental health issue, as many parents know who have adult children that live with them, that live with them, and so the son that was named as the trustee wasn't really equipped to do, didn't really like, have the skill set to know. He was a smart guy, right, but he could do the investments and manage the money. But how do you communicate with the trust beneficiary? How do you know what the trust beneficiary needs? How do you know where the trust beneficiary should live? Can the trust beneficiary stay in the house? If he stays in the house, who has to go there to either check on the person or medication or make sure if he's seeing his doctor, social worker?
Speaker 1:Is he going to get treatment if he's gotten a crisis, et cetera.
Speaker 3:So that planning. So what I would have done or would like typically recommend, if you know, again, forgetting about the special needs component of it, being a net neutral, I would look towards who should serve as the trustee. Should it be a sibling and you oftentimes don't want to put the sibling in the line of fire and if not, who should it be? Should it be another family member? Should it be? I have had situations where I have like a small committee, meaning three people. I've got a peer of the beneficiary I have in a couple of instances. I have social workers and or psychiatrists serving as a co-trustee. So I've got a peer. I've got a social worker, psychiatrist, therapist type person, and then I sometimes have the lawyer on there too. So you've got like this team of three and then you have the beneficiary and so they all supplement each other in their skill set of you know here's how the money should be invested, because this is what the person needs. Then you've got the social worker, psychiatrist weighing in on. You know is what the person needs. Then you've got the social worker, psychiatrist weighing in on. You know where the person should live. What type of an environment should it be? Does it need to be a supporting living environment. Does it need to be something else? And then you have the peer, who that's the person that's probably knows the beneficiary fairly well and can be sort of an independent communicator.
Speaker 3:If there are siblings, todd a sibling can surely serve as one co-trustee, or possibly even not even serve as a co-trustee but also have the authority just to get accounts, possibly to remove one of the people that are serving if they're not doing a good job, but they stay out of the line of fire with the trust beneficiary. So that's sort of just one example of it's not just yes here, prepare a trust, prepare two wills, prepare two trusts, prepare a special needs trust. It's a matter of operationally how that trust is going to work. Should now?
Speaker 3:Then we would also ask does the parent want the trust to provide incentives for the child to work, not take drugs, take their medication, see their social worker? And how do you provide those incentives in there? And I usually, you know, will also add language that provides to, if you know, if there's finances are available for you know, vacations with the family, with other family members, to provide, you know transportation for family members to visit with the person. So it's a bigger conversation than quickly doing an estate plan. And I'd actually say that if somebody like you is involved with the family and I were working together with you, you would be in that conversation with me and the family in the terms of setting up this trust for this particular beneficiary.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know I have a couple of. There's some trust organizations you know that manage not only the trust but will also assume guardianship and they put me in the spot that you're talking about. You know I'm in between them and the beneficiary Beneficiary for everything that they want or need. They communicate through me because they have a tendency to blow up or whatever, and you know, either I can assess it or I can just deal with it.
Speaker 1:Usually it's not a problem for me but for them, because they're attached to the money, there's a lot of triggers and everything else. I'm able to smooth it out, Whereas if they're going direct and I even know trust companies, I think Cumberland Trust is one of them they have case managers that are kind of designed to serve those roles. So I mean, it's a term of identifying the kinds of resources that you need. I love the idea of a committee.
Speaker 3:That's just, it's fabulous well, because you need the interdisciplinary team. Um, and I just uh want to add you know you mentioned the five wishes and I I want to take a little bit of time to talk about the power of attorney and the health care proxy, but the five wishes is sort of um, there is a, an official document called the five wishes, but this is sort of my adaptation for families and so the trust in and of itself and even the committee. It's supposed to be a living document that can evolve and change over time. So you keep provisions in there about being able to amend it for specific reasons or circumstances change or there's new treatments available and you want to give incentives for doing them.
Speaker 3:But I also ask parents or other family members to sort of articulate in a separate set of documents what their wishes are for their loved one. What is the best? So it would first lay out you know all their medications and all their treaters and also their history, right, so that if they drop dead, all that information is in one place. And then I'd go beyond that to say and it was informed by this family that really wasn't that meant well but really wasn't fully prepared what would be the best for my child if I dropped dead, you know, and my child wasn't in living independently at that time. What is the type of environment that would be preferable? Who are the people that should be contacted? And I, I do this for people with disabilities, mental health issues, elderly, and it's just you're laying out your wishes for your loved one when you're gone, and it would be providing guidance to the team of trustees or even the treaters.
Speaker 1:Do you ever present that, or at least a portion of that five wishes document to the beneficiary?
Speaker 3:Yes. So it's interesting that you asked the question, because what I've done with this document it's sort of not. The document itself is evolving and I'm constantly getting input from people on how to do it the living document right.
Speaker 3:So oftentimes Todd the person in the position that does what you do, that has said yes, the beneficiary should also be able to review that and weigh in. And there's multiple reasons for that right because they should have input if they disagree with the parent, but also if they're so reliant on the parent which often they are but maybe they don't admit it does give them and I've dealt with people it gave great comfort knowing that their parent had sort of planned at this level for them, because the child, adult or otherwise who has a mental health issue is usually as scared at some level as the parent of what would happen if the parent weren't there.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, and I was saying to you that in looking through it, it reminded me of a document that you do give to a person who suffers from mental illness and has very serious symptomology associated with it, called a RAP plan, a wellness recovery action plan. And it's essentially hey, you know what does it look like when you're healthy, and what do you want, what do you like doing, and what do you want your life to look like? What does it look like when you're not well? What do you want us to do about it? And so you know their involvement. Like you said, we did this document. You remember that. So if they start to get symptomatic, you've got this document you bring to them. It's like you participated in this and you told us this is what you wanted to do, this is your trusted person, this is where you'd be willing to go if it got serious. We think that it is, and we're bringing this to you now and it really is. It's a good setup. I mean, it really just helps pave the way, as you were saying.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I would add to what you're saying that if you ever needed to go to court, having something like that would be extremely helpful. So I call that is sort of the crisis plan. You call it a wrap plan, but that's also really good to have as a part of this whole package for your.
Speaker 1:you know, my experience with guardianship is that people either really want it and think the offers are more controlled than they have, or they're really scared of it because they think it imposes limitations. That may or may not be, in fact, the case. There are other ways to go about it. It depends. You're the person. I'd love to hear from about that, because I'm always saying well, the first thing you need to do is need to find a good attorney, and so, and then and then take their advice on what it is you should do and how to go about it. So I would love to hear your take on that piece as well.
Speaker 3:So I, as you know, I work with one of my partners, lisa Kukie, who I know you'll be interviewing as well who does all of the guardianship process in terms of going to court. I try to avoid court and try to get the same plans in place, protective plans in place, without court intervention. How would I do that? I would do it by using a healthcare proxy or a power of attorney. So clearly, the person with the mental illness would have to have capacity at the time they executed these documents and they might need to have separate you know, if I'm the counsel for the parent, they might have to have their own counsel for executive. But and I would put like provisions in these documents that prevent revocation.
Speaker 3:So typically they can ease, they can be revoked fairly easily. They could be ripped up, they could be just orally revoked. It's not. You don't have to have the same formalities of execution as you do to create it, same formalities of execution as you do to create it. So usually I build in and this would be around like the RAP plan that you mentioned, what you mentioned earlier I build in provisions that I know that I could act, you know, sporadically and I don't want this to be revoked. If I'm, you know, having a manic episode, this, you know, can't be revoked for, at least you know, a few days, or until my psychiatrist or therapist says I can revoke it, because I did put this in at the time that I was able to create it and this is what I would want.
Speaker 1:I would tip it If I've been involuntarily committed. It can't be revoked while I'm in the hospital, or Right? Wow, okay.
Speaker 3:And I'll add language in the healthcare proxy so you don't have to get a Rogers guardianship to administer antipsychotic medication, allowing for the healthcare agent to administer the antipsychotic medication. So there's a consent to psychiatric treatment and I might, you know, put somebody's history in there. It doesn't need to be like a cookie cutter paste on your standard form of a healthcare proxy for someone with a mental health issue. And the same thing with the power of attorney. Um, that as as as maybe you know is that deals with financial matters and signing contracts. So it would allow whoever you've named to act on your behalf and, clearly, if somebody is going on a spending spree, it would allow you to close a bank account or stop a credit card. You know, or do really, or communicate with anybody on your behalf while you were in a crisis.
Speaker 3:So, and then I would just build in language. What I might do is name multiple successive people. So let's just say you name your mother your mother, because you have a manic episode. She drops off, you know. You name your brother, then she drops off, you know. You name your brother, then you name. You know you let todd do it in the worst case scenario that you can't have a family, so I usually have successive people to you know, in case yet somebody's in the firing line right and then I, you know, obviously make certain standards to be able to revoke.
Speaker 1:Would you speak to the that kind of leans into the advanced directives piece as well? I don't know if you like when you do an advanced directive, it sounds like a lot of these pieces are characters that you would add to it. Are there others? And what's the difference for the audience abroad? Like what's the difference between an advanced directive and a healthcare power of attorney? Like which one, so that you know which one to go for and how you should execute that?
Speaker 3:So a lot depends on your state law. So whether you can do an advanced directive or a proxy, so typically I would say an advanced directive is the person you name must execute your wishes because you've advanced your directive.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And a proxy, at least in Massachusetts. The person you name is not required to do what you direct but is required to act in your best interest. Clearly, the most that you inform them helps them to act in your best interest and you're probably not going to name somebody that isn't going to try to do what you wanted. But it's not a directive, it's not legally mandated. It's not a directive. It's not legally mandated. So you know, in the, you know there is some states have psychiatric advanced directives. I think that they are good, but I do know I've had like pushback from psychiatrists on those because they're sort of fixed they don't allow, at least in the ones that I've looked at a lot of modification Right?
Speaker 1:Do they also? Do they go as far as to say, you know, put me on this medication and then you know, do this about my care? Have you seen directives that are even that specific Right?
Speaker 3:I've written, I have seen them and I've written them and I have not seen in practice where it has been challenged in terms of use, so that I don't know what would happen. I, you know it doesn't mean you shouldn't do these things. But if you've directed it, let's say you know you know it doesn't mean you shouldn't do these things. But if you've directed it, let's say you know your medication is clozapine and the doctor says it can't be that. Is there a way? Is there a workaround in that? And there would be a workaround, either through an agreement, informally with the people involved or, obviously, by going to court, which you want to avoid.
Speaker 1:Right, right, or you can leave some wiggle room. Even if it's a directive, it's like if such a thing is not available, then it's at the you know the site. The attending psychiatrist is a person who gets to make the decision, or something like that. You can write little pieces of language, I guess, into those things it's. You know, it's really the first of all find a good attorney. But you know, I think that even with we've got some really good attorneys here, we've got a couple of them that I use for guardianship work and that sort of thing. But even when it comes to this, the psychiatric piece, people who suffer from a severe and persistent mental illness, they are not necessarily caught.
Speaker 1:You know, you named clozapine Now that I think I can count, I think I probably got. I will be left with fingers to count the number of attorneys I know that know what clozapine is, to count the number of attorneys I know that know what clozapine is. So you know, it's finding someone who's as knowledgeable as you are. And I've even sent folks your way to say, hey, I'd love for you to do a consult with these folks just to make sure that the language that you're using and these agreements you're forming, actually kind of address some of the specialty needs that are going to serve this beneficiary best or to serve this individual best, specialty needs that are going to serve this beneficiary best or to serve this individual best. So I mean, it's real tricky and you have to know your way around.
Speaker 1:What are the? If you were to name some pitfalls that you see people commonly fall into in this that they could avoid by either engaging an attorney or professionals and what have you? What are things that people need to look out for when they're in the situation there's no trust established, there's no agreements, there's no power of attorney. They're at the front of addressing an adult child, say, for example, with serious mental health issues. They've had hospitalizations and they know they need to do this now. What is it that you? What is it you advise? Where are the pitfalls? What should they look out for? Like, is there a snapshot you could give a family facing this?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I would say look, depending on where you are in the country, there's good estate planners, like throughout the country, and anybody can put, not anybody but, most good people can put together a good estate plan, even for somebody with a disability or a mental health issue, but you should.
Speaker 3:It doesn't take a long time to think through the needs of your child and to get into a little bit more depth about the child's needs in the future and what happens when you die, and to even talk about the history.
Speaker 3:If you don't capture that in the conversation with your estate planner, you should just pause for a minute. Doesn't mean your documents aren't going to be well drafted, but they're not going to accomplish really what you need in terms of having that document be like a living, breathing document that's going to be there to really protect your child, right? So you need to stop and think and so maybe you just you know consult with somebody with more exposure and experience in this area. You know, like myself or others, that do a lot of work in the mental health sphere and that could be a supplement to your own counsel. You know it doesn't have to replace that counsel, but it just could be to do some consulting, give some guidance, add some language, which we do a lot. So the the buzz would be if the if you have a seriously ill mental health, mentally ill family member and you're it seems like everything is bum, bum, bum like cookie cutter then probably you should take a step back, give Todd a call, say Todd, what should I do?
Speaker 1:I'm going to say call Deborah.
Speaker 3:It's just a pause, you know. It doesn't mean it's not going to be right. It means that it could be better and it should be better, because the whole family like has really, I'm sure in most cases like worked really hard to minimize crisis and minimize conflict and, you know, give the person with the mental illness like the best life that they could possibly have, and so you want to leave them with that when you're not here, and so that's what I try. I try to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's like I think of it. You know, if I was facing an end of life issue, I had cancer and I was going to put together documents, I'd go consult with people who did that as well, suffered from the same condition and did that as well. So if you're going to be doing this for a family member and establishing trust and agreements, you should seek out people who know, who've been through it or who know exactly what kind of language you should put into these things. Because, having you know, my sister-in-law works, my sister-in-law is an attorney in town, a partner attorney for one of the firms here, and so every time I put together an agreement, I'm not allowed to show it to anyone before I show it to her, of course. So you know, I end up with OK, I need my, I need my, I need my agreements, I need this document to reflect this. I know the language for the mental health side and all the other pieces and care management, so on. She knows what the law is. We come together and we create a document that feels like it can, you know, stand the test if it comes down to it. So I mean, I think it's like anything you go into a hospital. You also want to know about your condition, have good questions to ask your doctor, just like anything else. You you know being able to navigate your way is good to be educated and it's good to get help.
Speaker 1:I always tell people that when people get to the end of their you know the strategies they've implemented to serve the individual. So I've got this is a great case review right here. I'm getting free consulting right now. So I've got an individual. He's doing okay. So I'm limited conservator. I've got mom and dad and an uncle who are all involved in his care.
Speaker 1:We did a Zoom call recently and you know, there's none of what is established in the agreements, even though it was done by an attorney who's very versed at this sort of thing. So the language was there. But you get to the weeds and so I've got an individual. Maybe he needs this form of care, maybe he needs this form of care. There's a little bit between the family I'll name something. It's like well, we don't know, they hem and they all. When people start to run into these, these tricky to navigate areas, are there ways to kind of like structure a decision making process versus naming what happens? You know, laptop documents say well, you're going to do this. Is there a way to structure it? And you said this committee. What are some ways that you've done this before? Like that helps a decision making process occur.
Speaker 3:You would just say in the document you know if there's a decision needs to be made about where you know so and so is going to live, these are the people that should be involved. You know whether it should be a majority vote. You allow the use of funds to explore the varying places. You allow you add language. You allow for a consult with somebody like you. You specifically authorize that Same thing in terms of medication. You would say you want a specific hospital or you want to engage in specific research. You can say you know which team you want to have involved or to weigh in and vote, and it doesn't necessarily even have to be your committee of trustees. You could, you could, there could be advisors. You know, depending on how, what, the what the issues are. These are the. This is the advisory group that you need to talk to about medication.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:This is the care manager.
Speaker 1:And I guess to a certain extent that's what a bit of the role a trust protector would play. Is that true? Would you say that they kind of sit in that seat or no, or do you have to structure it properly?
Speaker 3:No, a trust protector is yes, I mean a trust protector can serve in any way. You sort of draft it, but they're usually used to sort of weigh in as a final arbiter on certain things, Typically financial.
Speaker 1:Or to veto something that's like no, that way it costs way too much, or whatever. You know that's going to compromise the trust.
Speaker 3:Right, so you can add a trust protector in there. I feel like it all depends on you know the other structure in the trust, like if you have a committee for a certain thing or advisor for certain things. Maybe you don't need that or want that, but maybe that's always good to have right. Maybe you have good counsel, your lawyer's, well-versed in all these issues and maybe that's the final arbiter in case there's a conflict.
Speaker 1:Does a trust have to have a trust protector. Is that something that is a requirement? Do you see them more often with those than not? What is your experience?
Speaker 3:I see them less only because. I'm in Massachusetts, okay.
Speaker 1:But they're used a lot in other states. Yeah, I had to work with one who had a long-term relationship with the family. This individual had gone through a lot of money receiving care and they were in crisis again and needed stabilization and they were like, look, we just don't know about going through treatment again, we're just not. They got me involved and I said, okay, let me put my hands on it and see what what it looks like, it's like well, I mean, you could, you could stay here and try to kind of wrap around this unstable situation, which can be just as expensive. It's also something that will that will blow you up. I mean it's, she's going to be trouble. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So you know, if we did this, if we did this one approach, and we did it for a very short period of time and then we dropped right into kind of a long term care kind of model, I finally got him to agree to it and and, but it took a while and she spent all that time in crisis, you know, in and out of the hospital and the whole nine yards. So I think it's you know, but there were no defining parameters around the role of the trust protector either. You know, obviously he was. He protected the money, you know, and there wasn't a ton of it. But and and and certainly private pay, residential treatment can go through not very much money in a very short period of time and she needed to last for her lifetime.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't like his concerns were invalid, they were. We got along good and were able to get through it. But I think that some language that could be in there that defines the role what if something happens and a decision needs to be made? You'll find a third party or what have you needs to be made? You'll find a third party or what have you. I'm so glad to be having this conversation with you because it kind of opened up like, oh wow, there's all kinds of things you can do with this stuff if you have somebody who knows how.
Speaker 3:And the trust protector. You're right, they mostly deal with the financial piece often, most often, and so they really. How well versed is that person in knowing you know I may need to spend $25,000 a month for three months because maybe that's gonna save me spending, you know, $100,000 a month over the course of time? You know so and so I feel you know it's really important to have an interdisciplinary team when you're working with mental health and other disabilities, to have an interdisciplinary team involved in the trust in some way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. And you know, we're getting ready to go to a conference and the thing that I find is people don't know that there are roles. Like mine, I think people are loosely aware of what a social worker is, but if they've never used one or interacted with kind of that side of behavioral health care, they really don't know what the roles are. They don't know the kinds of people. They don't know the kinds of people.
Speaker 1:The other circumstance that I run into and maybe you've got something to say about this is you've had a long-term therapist involved with the individual, right, and so the family kind of relies on this long-term therapist. Now, the therapist has done work with the individual and kind of knows the nitty-gritty there, but they're not like a treatment placement professional or they're not a social worker or a case manager, right, but the family's dumped all her eggs in these her basket, right? This woman knows everything and we will only listen to her. And so then you're stuck with a person who's got a limited she's got a expansive knowledge in one area, limited knowledge in another, but your decision making has got to be in this other area where she doesn't have the knowledge, and yet you're having to like do a lot of do a lot of ring kissing.
Speaker 3:So, you know, Todd, that's where, like this, five wishes would become come in. And if somebody were working with you to create that right Because you don't really need a lawyer to create that that's the plan of like what's best for my kid, and that's where you would say, well, you know, if housing has to be looked at, you know you put down the options for people to talk to in that document, you know. So it's right there for whoever's stepping into the shoes of the caregiver.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, that's once again more insightful resources. Deborah, this has been a fantastic time I've had. I've I in my head, I have a course outline that I've laid out. I'll need you for like 12 more interviews so that we can just hit all the topics that I want to hit and borrow from your, from your knowledge. It's been a pleasure to have you on the show. This has been Mental Health Horizons on WPBM 1037, the Voice of Asheville. I'm Todd Weatherly, your host. It's good to be with you, deb. Thank you so much and we'll be with you next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, ooh, take it out to Manhattan. Let's go to the west side of Times Square. Spend all of our money on Fifth Street. I like it over there, even though you think it is too crowded, like runway and all the lights. We'll take the wrong train till we end up on Wall Street. Forget the time, cause the hotel we get out of line.
Speaker 2:Take me back to Manhattan, back to the city where the magic happens. You wear your suit and tie and I will wear my satin, where all the lights are bright and we won't even make it back till 3am. I'm so laughing Cause we acted in a league of Lawson Madison Sky scrapers, all you see. Can you imagine? Let's dream about the day in the city that never sleeps. Take me back to Manhattan. Oh, yeah, hey, take me back to Manhattan. Take me back to Manhattan. Take me back to Manhattan. Take me back. Yeah, ooh, la, la, la, la, la la. All the lights, all the music is in the air. I can see it's on the rooftops, hand in hand.
Speaker 2:Now, baby, why don't you take me back now? Everything at your fingertips. All you need is a round trip ticket to go with me. Now, baby, why don't you take me? Take me back to Manhattan, back to the city where the magic happens. You'll wear your suit and tie and I will wear my satin While all the lights are bright, and we won't even make it back till 3am. I'm so laughing, cause we acted in a league of lots of Madison. Thank you, take me back to Manhattan, take me back to Manhattan. Take me back to Manhattan. Manhattan baby, take me back to Manhattan. Manhattan baby, take me back to Manhattan.