On April 7, 1982, the worst of the crisis was over. I was free to return to my studio apartment, my life as a mother, and my relationship with Jimmy. Of course it was much too late for that.

I knew that Jimmy was too crazy to function in a crisis, but I still felt he'd betrayed me. I knew I'd betrayed him too. By the time I left the Welfare Office, I was prepared to discard him.

When we went for our regular Couples Counseling session, I had nothing to say. I was no longer concerned with helping Jimmy get better, or with building a family together. I had no plans for the future. I just wanted to survive today.

Jimmy read my heart and mind, and found a solution. One night in mid-April, he crawled into bed beside me at 2 a.m. and started stroking my breasts.

"I'm too tired, honey," I moaned from the depths of sleep.

"Come on," he said, "just for a minute."

"Wear a rubber," I mumbled. "It's the wrong time of month."

"I am," he whispered, sliding into me.

Suddenly I pushed him off and sat up, wide awake. "Jimmy, what did you do?" I said.

""What do you mean?" he said. "I came. You wanted me to hurry."

"But you're not wearing a rubber!" I accused. "I told you, I'll get pregnant!"

He smiled sweetly and shrugged at me in the half light. "Well," he said, "it wouldn't be the first time."

One week went by, then two. I knew I was pregnant and said no more about it. Count on Jimmy for the intuitive solution, the oddball move that changed the course of the game.

We had to stay together now, and he'd get a second chance - to stand beside me through a pregnancy, to share the "happy news" with family and friends, to make up for the bad times. I had to lean on him, depend on him. I could never discard his help, or leave him if he didn't do his share. Pregnant and broke, with a toddler in the house, I'd absolutely need him. As much as I needed this new life growing inside me, to give me the courage to go on.

How much I missed my grandmother. How I yearned for a family to be a part of, as I presented myself to the "real" world as an unattached woman who slept around so casually she didn't know who the father of her child was. Now even if the system made me say my son was a mistake, my growing stomach told another story.

I'd wanted Jimmy's help, and this was his response. What I did next was up to me. But of course, I'd never get an abortion. Not for a system which was willing to inform me my multiple sclerosis had been treated and my condition had improved.

A new life was growing inside me and I carried it, not even troubling to get a pregnancy test. I knew I was pregnant from the moment Jimmy tricked me, and I was right.

On May 9, 1982, questions about Reagan's disability cuts made the front page of the New York Times. The 1,500-word-article - "Fairness of Reagan's Cutoffs Of Disability Aid Questioned" by Robert Pear - took up one-and-a-half short columns on page one and continued to one full-length and one-and-a-half short columns on page 22.

Under the headings "Questions on Periodic Reviews," "States Forced to Deny Claims," "75% Increase in Beneficiaries," "Benefits Restored in 2 Cases," and "Psychiatric Patients Denied Aid," the story reported was grim. Over the last seven months the Reagan Administration had "ended disability insurance benefits for more than 106,000 families, including some who are almost certainly entitled to them."

"Fairness of Reagan's Cutoffs..." balanced comments from critics with statements made by administration spokesmen, but the article left no doubt that the impact of the reviews was severe, as Pear reported that "federal officials acknowledge that several people have committed suicide after being told that they were losing disability benefits."

Had the Reagan Administration, then, agreed to suspend the disability reviews immediately until more reasonable review criteria could be devised? Clearly not. What actions had the Reagan Administration taken? Well, they'd called out their spokespeople.

To the charge that "thousands of people have been removed...arbitrarily and illegally," men and women highly placed in the system now came forward to answer questions. On news programs and interviews they stated "the accelerated review...was required by a 1980 law and was essential to control the growth and cost of the disability insurance program."

Dressed in business attire, fortified with sheets of statistics, these people made an impressive showing. Each and every one of them had titles three or four words long. But surprisingly, the opposition had spokespeople with equally impressive titles, positions, and credentials - people not usually considered to be politically radical - and these "experts" disagreed.

Some politely characterized the review process as "overzealous." Others, like Dr. Melvin Sabshin - medical director of The American Psychiatric Association - spoke more plainly. He was quoted as saying the Reagan administration was motivated by "an excess of fervor to reduce Federal expenditures," taking actions which were "contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the careful review that was mandated by Congress."

Undoubtedly Dr. Sabshin was used to having his views taken seriously, but the Reagan Administration was playing hardball. John A. Svahn (the Commissioner of Social Security), dismissed Dr. Sabshin's remarks with a wave of his hand, characterizing them as a "political diatribe." When asked if the Reagan administration was taking advantage of the review process to cut costs from the Social Security program, Commissioner Svahn replied "We are not...This is a statutory requirement enacted before we took office."

Given this "your word vs. mine" atmosphere, which group of experts was the public to believe? Both sides had their facts and statistics, and Pear and the Times now used some of these to try and make the disability situation understandable. In reviewing how and why disability payments had grown so greatly, Pear explained that 1956 legislation only applied to permanently disabled people over the age of 50, but in 1960 and again in 1965, Congress "liberalized the eligibility standards by degrees" until we reached the present system where disabled workers of any age could apply.

Many of these people won benefits, provided they met standards more stringent than those required by "other benefit programs," and as long as their disabilities were expected to last for one full year. But even under these "liberalized" standards, Social Security Disability was clearly a difficult system to deal with. As Pear pointed out, before the reviews began disability payments represented 8% of the Department of Health and Human Services' budget, yet they generated "95% of all the administrative appeals." Hardly a system one could refer to as "lax."

Still - under stringent standards stringently applied - claims and awards grew, a predictable result of the legislative changes described. In fact, they grew fivefold over a decade. But the statistics quoted by Pear put that growth rate in perspective. If 8% of the Health and Human Services Department's budget was spent on disability claims, just how excessive could they be? Part of that 8% went to funding the bureaucracy, paying for the people involved at all the review levels, clerks and Administrative Law Judges. How much was actually being overspent on disability claims?

Commissioner Svahn referred to the G.A.O. study which "estimated that the government was paying as much as $2 billion a year in benefits to people who are not disabled." By that, of course, he meant people who only appeared to have met the rigorous eligibility standards of the program, many of them - like me - after years spent negotiating one or more levels of appeals.

What was the meaning of the $2 billion figure Svahn claimed was being paid out improperly? It was impossible to tell. Svahn did not say what percentage of the total Health and Human Services budget this figure represented. Was Commissioner Svahn inexperienced or naive in his reporting of statistics? He didn't appear to be.

When Svahn was asked how many people might now be incorrectly losing their benefit checks, he said he could not "estimate the Government's error rate." He noted that in "a system of this size there are going to be mistakes." Of course Svahn was falling back on the traditionally accepted plus or minus "margin of error" when he admitted that "some people who are entitled to benefits are losing their benefits." But Svahn failed to address several important issues.

Had anyone checked to see how accurate the G.A.O. study was? And if Social Security was spending $2 billion more than reasonably expected, did this perceived $2 billion "overpayment" fall within the same plus or minus boundaries of acceptable error? Reagan spokesmen were failing to define their terms and, in the words of Saturday Night Live's future character the Church Lady, "How convenient!" For if Svahn and others defined their terms, it would be immediately apparent that they were redefining the entire Social Security disability system as they went along.

In statements reminiscent of an old Tom Lehrer routine from the 1960's - "Recently China, which we call 'Red China,' exploded a nuclear bomb, which we called a 'device'..." - Svahn and others now spoke of disabled people who had previously received benefits as "ineligibles." "Ineligible" in what sense? Hadn't the 106,000 families who'd already lost benefits fulfilled the eligibility requirements established by Congress at the time they made their claims? Or were new "standards" suddenly being applied?

Clearly they were. But not to worry, for Svahn explained that "in the main, the system is equitable." But calling the present system "equitable" seemed to be the ultimate in "Newspeak" when "Fairness of Reagan's cutoffs..." examined the review statistics. Mentally disabled people made up only 11% of all disability claims, yet one-third of the people who'd lost their benefits were mentally ill.

And in reviewing television coverage of two physically disabled men who'd lost their benefits, Pear was hard pressed to find any standards being applied at all. One man had cerebral palsy which is, of course, a permanent condition. The other man lost his benefits when President Reagan cited him as an example, claiming he'd held a full-time job for three years while receiving disability checks. The second man proved he was paralyzed on the left side of his body and could not work. After documentary coverage, both men had their benefits restored - one after five months without them.

Five months is a long time for someone who has cerebral palsy, or who is paralyzed or schizophrenic, to survive without an income. What speedy action, then, was being taken to alter the course of these "reviews"? Well, "Members of Congress, after receiving many complaints from constituents," had "begun to investigate." The House Select Committee on Aging planned to "hold a hearing" on May 21, and a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs had "scheduled a hearing for May 25."

So Congress was investigating, a Congress caught with its pants down. This same Congress, in 1980, gave away all checks and balances power to the President when it mandated the reviews. Whatever findings present committees might make, their position was weak and they knew it.

Still, there seemed to be an element of hope in Congressional investigation. Congress was likely to hear statements like the ones made by Robert C. Cohen, director of the Wisconsin agency that reviewed disability cases. Citing his seventeen years of experience in the disability program, Mr. Cohen called the new Federal review criteria "ludicrous and indefensible," saying that they improperly equated a "minimal ability to function" with the ability to work.

Perhaps Congress would take a strong position on the disability reviews. In the meantime Carol Bellamy, the president of the New York City Council, commented that many mentally disabled people who lost their checks turned to Welfare, "further increasing state and local welfare costs." Many physically disabled people, too, if my experience was any indication. As for the rest, the ones who were too ill to appeal, or who couldn't find a way to get accepted? They went to "join the tens of thousands of homeless men and women wandering the streets."

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