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Still need assistance
8 years ago
Ok so....I don't know what to do or where to begin. I'm just gonna lay out all the problems and hope somebody knows how to help me.
I moved from Tennessee to Colorado on March 15th because of severe family issues that had driven me to having panic attacks, general anxiety disorder, and clinical depression. On top of that, I was in severe financial duress due to mounting medical problems mostly related to my upper respiratory system.
So far, the medical problems have stopped but the medical bills are still sitting there, waiting to be paid. Short version: Marginal income, 7,000 dollars of debt (not counting student loans).
The mental issues, on the other hand...I think they're getting worse. My sleep schedule is completely out of whack, and my attempts at making a schedule for myself have all fallen through. I don't know where to get the money I need to survive. I'm not stable enough to Uber regularly. I'm not stable enough to sit down and draw regularly. I'm on the verge of tears any time I try to analyze my problem and get out of it, and I've started having suicidal thoughts again.
Each of my problems feeds into each other. Complete lack of income and heavy debt feeds into depression and instability. Instability and depression feed into lack of income. This thing has become such a Gordian Knot that I don't even know where to begin trying to unravel it.
Here's what I was hoping for when I moved to Colorado.
*1. I was hoping for an emotionally stable environment where I could recover from the trauma at home.
*2. I was hoping for a chance to begin building a life for myself, where I could make money to buy the things I need.
*3. I was hoping for opportunities to advance my career as an artist, and maybe, if I got lucky, go entirely to working on art for income. After 2015 and 2016 got ate by the call center I worked for, I was desperate for a change. I wanted to do the things I love, not spend 40-50 hours a week doing things that stressed me out.
*4. The friend I had moved in with promised that I could focus on myself first, get myself stable again, before having to worry about anything else. Then she lost her job and now I spend a lot time worrying if we'll even have a house next month.
What went wrong?
I'm not sure where things went wrong. I got the last of my money together and got whatever I could fit in my car and I moved to Colorado. The first night with my new roommate was anxiety-wracked, but slowly I settled in. I was able to get some furniture after some help from my family, but it wasn't a lot of help so most of my furniture is already falling apart. My bed, for example, is only a temporary fold-up cot that sags far too heavily for me to get comfortable in it now. I don't have the money to replace my furniture, and it's pushing my stress levels higher, to the point I've started falling apart 3 or 4 times a week again. I can't work if I'm falling apart 3 or 4 times a week, so I don't even try, and that only makes things worse. If I don't get a new bed soon, I'm going to be completely done for, because I'm not getting any restful sleep at all.
My roommate was nicer than I expected, but after a while things have just gotten to the point where we're constantly upsetting each other. After she unexpectedly lost her job to premature contract termination, she hasn't been able to offer the help she initially said would be available, so I'm stranded.
Then we got a second roommate who...he's a nice guy, but he never cleans up after himself. I'm constantly looking for a plate or a pan to use for when I want to cook, but every time it turns out he's already used it and left it on the counter and never cleaned it. We started making him do the dishes because of how often he's the one who messes them up, but even then things are always just too dirty. I try my best to get along with him, but we had friction online beforehand and while he's nice, he's also completely absentminded and unaware of other people.
The house has a underpowered airconditioner. We can't replace it because we don't own the house, but it gets to 84 or 86 degrees inside way too often, and I can't handle high temperatures. I'm susceptible to heat stroke and heat-induced emotional instability. My roommate keeps saying I should try sleeping downstairs where it's cooler, but that isn't a solution. It's cool at night when I try to sleep. It's the during the day part where things get horrible, and they're at their worst when I need to be working on art. I'd move my room downstairs, but the only available room is the computer room, and we'd have to move that upstairs and there's just too much to move. It's extremely daunting.
I got started with Uber, but after all the hype I'd gotten about how good it was, it turns out it's actually RNG-based income. You CAN make the 19 to 27 dollars an hour of income they promise, if you get lucky and pick up people going very long distances. But you won't make that every hour, and you have to be up and driving from like 9 PM to 7 AM to make the most money. On top of that, you can only make good money 3 days every week. After the first day of driving for Uber, I got so disillusioned with it that I just stopped trying. It's just too big a task, rearranging my life around an RNG-based income when I'm already unstable and under heavy stress. I spent more time -waiting- for customers than I spent driving anybody around, and I just can't handle that.
So, here's my list of problems.
1. No money, so no way to pay for the things I need to make my home life easier.
2. Heavy debt burden- 2 maxed out credit cards loaded with medical debt, and total debt is a whisker above 20,000$. I can't even take out a third credit card to free up some spending ability, so I literally can't buy a cheeseburger most weeks of the month.
3. No way to take out a loan
4. Whenever I do get money, I have to put it towards my debts immediately. The interest rate on one of my credit cards is so high that the money I put on it -only- pays down the interest, and the credit card remains maxed out.
5. My family life in Tennessee has fallen apart, and my grandparents are trying to meddle with my life in Colorado. Grandmother's evicting my mom and has disowned both my mom and one of my uncles. I'm convinced she has vascular dementia, but there's nothing I can do about it.
6. I'm an emotional wreck, and I don't know how to manage it. Suicidal thoughts are getting more and more common, I'm out of the medication I need to control my depression, and I feel like I'm spiraling. Every minute I spend paralyzed is another minute I'm not fixing my problems, and that realization paralyzes me.
7. I don't have health insurance or any money to get some. I've run out of the medication I was using to control my anxiety, and since it's prescription only I can't get more without an income.
8. I should look for a proper job, but my college degree is several years old and I never got experience in that field. Additionally, while a proper job would go a long ways towards stabilizing my income, it would be a couple months before I started feeling any kind of relief and that's just a problem I can't cope with. In addition, I've been turned down from so many jobs that the whole idea of filing applications actually sets off my anxiety again.
9. I don't want to be disabled. I've had people telling me that giving up and declaring myself disabled with the government would help, but that actually upsets me too. I want to get on my feet and get stable, but I don't know how, and they're telling me to basically just give up.
10. I had friends and family members who promised to help me financially when I moved, since I didn't have all the money I needed to get established here, but they never did. Things came up for them, so I got caught in the lurch.
My only advantage right now is I have a nice, clean, modern car worth 10,000$, and nobody has a lien on it. I own the car outright, it's mine, and I'm in no danger of losing it. My family has suggested that to get my immediate problems sorted out, I could take out a loan with the car as collateral, but with my high debt burden and no income, I can't do that, and no one will co-sign with me.
I don't know what to do guys. I wanted to get to this point where some combination of commissions and Ubering would get me stable, but I've gotten so unstable I can't even work on commissions or get in my car without suddenly having visions of deliberately getting into a fatal car accident. Please, does anyone have anything or know something that could possibly help me?
I moved from Tennessee to Colorado on March 15th because of severe family issues that had driven me to having panic attacks, general anxiety disorder, and clinical depression. On top of that, I was in severe financial duress due to mounting medical problems mostly related to my upper respiratory system.
So far, the medical problems have stopped but the medical bills are still sitting there, waiting to be paid. Short version: Marginal income, 7,000 dollars of debt (not counting student loans).
The mental issues, on the other hand...I think they're getting worse. My sleep schedule is completely out of whack, and my attempts at making a schedule for myself have all fallen through. I don't know where to get the money I need to survive. I'm not stable enough to Uber regularly. I'm not stable enough to sit down and draw regularly. I'm on the verge of tears any time I try to analyze my problem and get out of it, and I've started having suicidal thoughts again.
Each of my problems feeds into each other. Complete lack of income and heavy debt feeds into depression and instability. Instability and depression feed into lack of income. This thing has become such a Gordian Knot that I don't even know where to begin trying to unravel it.
Here's what I was hoping for when I moved to Colorado.
*1. I was hoping for an emotionally stable environment where I could recover from the trauma at home.
*2. I was hoping for a chance to begin building a life for myself, where I could make money to buy the things I need.
*3. I was hoping for opportunities to advance my career as an artist, and maybe, if I got lucky, go entirely to working on art for income. After 2015 and 2016 got ate by the call center I worked for, I was desperate for a change. I wanted to do the things I love, not spend 40-50 hours a week doing things that stressed me out.
*4. The friend I had moved in with promised that I could focus on myself first, get myself stable again, before having to worry about anything else. Then she lost her job and now I spend a lot time worrying if we'll even have a house next month.
What went wrong?
I'm not sure where things went wrong. I got the last of my money together and got whatever I could fit in my car and I moved to Colorado. The first night with my new roommate was anxiety-wracked, but slowly I settled in. I was able to get some furniture after some help from my family, but it wasn't a lot of help so most of my furniture is already falling apart. My bed, for example, is only a temporary fold-up cot that sags far too heavily for me to get comfortable in it now. I don't have the money to replace my furniture, and it's pushing my stress levels higher, to the point I've started falling apart 3 or 4 times a week again. I can't work if I'm falling apart 3 or 4 times a week, so I don't even try, and that only makes things worse. If I don't get a new bed soon, I'm going to be completely done for, because I'm not getting any restful sleep at all.
My roommate was nicer than I expected, but after a while things have just gotten to the point where we're constantly upsetting each other. After she unexpectedly lost her job to premature contract termination, she hasn't been able to offer the help she initially said would be available, so I'm stranded.
Then we got a second roommate who...he's a nice guy, but he never cleans up after himself. I'm constantly looking for a plate or a pan to use for when I want to cook, but every time it turns out he's already used it and left it on the counter and never cleaned it. We started making him do the dishes because of how often he's the one who messes them up, but even then things are always just too dirty. I try my best to get along with him, but we had friction online beforehand and while he's nice, he's also completely absentminded and unaware of other people.
The house has a underpowered airconditioner. We can't replace it because we don't own the house, but it gets to 84 or 86 degrees inside way too often, and I can't handle high temperatures. I'm susceptible to heat stroke and heat-induced emotional instability. My roommate keeps saying I should try sleeping downstairs where it's cooler, but that isn't a solution. It's cool at night when I try to sleep. It's the during the day part where things get horrible, and they're at their worst when I need to be working on art. I'd move my room downstairs, but the only available room is the computer room, and we'd have to move that upstairs and there's just too much to move. It's extremely daunting.
I got started with Uber, but after all the hype I'd gotten about how good it was, it turns out it's actually RNG-based income. You CAN make the 19 to 27 dollars an hour of income they promise, if you get lucky and pick up people going very long distances. But you won't make that every hour, and you have to be up and driving from like 9 PM to 7 AM to make the most money. On top of that, you can only make good money 3 days every week. After the first day of driving for Uber, I got so disillusioned with it that I just stopped trying. It's just too big a task, rearranging my life around an RNG-based income when I'm already unstable and under heavy stress. I spent more time -waiting- for customers than I spent driving anybody around, and I just can't handle that.
So, here's my list of problems.
1. No money, so no way to pay for the things I need to make my home life easier.
2. Heavy debt burden- 2 maxed out credit cards loaded with medical debt, and total debt is a whisker above 20,000$. I can't even take out a third credit card to free up some spending ability, so I literally can't buy a cheeseburger most weeks of the month.
3. No way to take out a loan
4. Whenever I do get money, I have to put it towards my debts immediately. The interest rate on one of my credit cards is so high that the money I put on it -only- pays down the interest, and the credit card remains maxed out.
5. My family life in Tennessee has fallen apart, and my grandparents are trying to meddle with my life in Colorado. Grandmother's evicting my mom and has disowned both my mom and one of my uncles. I'm convinced she has vascular dementia, but there's nothing I can do about it.
6. I'm an emotional wreck, and I don't know how to manage it. Suicidal thoughts are getting more and more common, I'm out of the medication I need to control my depression, and I feel like I'm spiraling. Every minute I spend paralyzed is another minute I'm not fixing my problems, and that realization paralyzes me.
7. I don't have health insurance or any money to get some. I've run out of the medication I was using to control my anxiety, and since it's prescription only I can't get more without an income.
8. I should look for a proper job, but my college degree is several years old and I never got experience in that field. Additionally, while a proper job would go a long ways towards stabilizing my income, it would be a couple months before I started feeling any kind of relief and that's just a problem I can't cope with. In addition, I've been turned down from so many jobs that the whole idea of filing applications actually sets off my anxiety again.
9. I don't want to be disabled. I've had people telling me that giving up and declaring myself disabled with the government would help, but that actually upsets me too. I want to get on my feet and get stable, but I don't know how, and they're telling me to basically just give up.
10. I had friends and family members who promised to help me financially when I moved, since I didn't have all the money I needed to get established here, but they never did. Things came up for them, so I got caught in the lurch.
My only advantage right now is I have a nice, clean, modern car worth 10,000$, and nobody has a lien on it. I own the car outright, it's mine, and I'm in no danger of losing it. My family has suggested that to get my immediate problems sorted out, I could take out a loan with the car as collateral, but with my high debt burden and no income, I can't do that, and no one will co-sign with me.
I don't know what to do guys. I wanted to get to this point where some combination of commissions and Ubering would get me stable, but I've gotten so unstable I can't even work on commissions or get in my car without suddenly having visions of deliberately getting into a fatal car accident. Please, does anyone have anything or know something that could possibly help me?
Or you can do off-stream art work, like normal sketches not done on a PC, and charge for them. They'd be easier to draw and you could wrack up some good business. Also, I don't think uber alone will cut it, you may need to find a different kind of job.
https://www.usa.gov/benefits#item-36602
There should be something here that may be able to offer some assistance to help you get back on your feet again, as Michael said, that's what these programs are for, when you get into a major problem, they're here to help you get back on your feet again.
I'll keep hunting around for any more ways to help out, we're here for you. You aren't alone in this.
That said, applying for full disability may not be the best idea. SSI for example can take over a year to get either a yes or a no. Smaller things, like medicare/caid or food stamps are far faster. Where I live, both go through in under a month. Those are probably your best bet.
As for your debt, how's the public transportation over there? You ought to consider selling the car that is now causing you too much anxiety to drive. There's also bankruptcy, which isn't the big deal people like to say it is. I had a family member do that several years ago, and they never took anything. He kept his house, both cars, and even the camper (having a family likely helped in the last two cases) The bank only takes away what you don't need, and they all say that people need at least one car. They never looked through my relative's move-able possessions either. And if you're worried about your credit, it sounds like that's already shot. His was fine a few years later though, even got to take out loans again.
And before you object to anything I said here, consider your alternative plan. Do you really WANT to die, if you have a way out? Maybe you'd have trouble living with yourself for a little while, due to adhering to society's expectations for so long, but at least you'd still be living.
Also credit cards are a really horrible way banks exploit people by masking debt and charging through the nose for it. That high interest sounds scary and wrong. Get financial advice from someone reputable (probably not me >.> ) to handle that debt.
You're a cool guy Petrock, I'd hate to see anything bad happen to you! :O