jQuery Textarea focus

Based on your comment in reply to Jacob, perhaps you want:

$('.user-status-buttons').click(function(){

    var id = $(this).attr('id');
    $("#commentbox-"+id).slideToggle("fast", function(){
        $("#commentbox-"+id+" #StatusMessageReplyMessage").focus();
    });

    return false;
});

This should give the #StatusMessageReplyMessage element focus after the slide effect has finished.

I use timer to focus text areas :

setTimeout(function() {
 $el.find('textarea').focus();
}, 0);