Steve_the_elf

I really hesitated to get into this subject, but since someone else started it...

I had a, not great, but well-paying job managing a department store until two years ago when I could not handle it anymore and I had to quit. My best friend who was living with me at the time said he would handle the expenses until I found something I could do. I was having terrible problems with anxiety and panic attacks and, I think, the several tantrums I threw before I decided to resign were due to my condition as well, but didn't know what what my problem really was yet. I was fighting with everyone and I am normally a very timid person.

Anyway, all I could handle was 20 hours a week at a video store. This made enough for me to pay my half of the expenses and I also had a few thousand saved from when I worked management. I could really, most days, barely handle THAT. Anytime I have to talk to other people (strangers anyway), I get stressed and depressed.

Soon after working at the video store, a good friend suggested I go back to school. I had taken one semester after I graduated from high school, but quit, because, yes, I couldn't that either. Well, I had the money saved and my parents gave me some more to help pay expenses and I moved from Florida to West Virginia to go to school.

Soon after I got arrived, a friend I knew here and moved in with was stricken with kidney failure, so he was eligible for disability but could not work full time while on dialysis, especially since he had complications and was sick most of the time. This meant that at some point (and soon) I would have to have more money to pay for my half of the expenses, as he would barely be able to pay his. I foolishly made the move in some kind of hypomanic haze as it was, assuming some fairy godmother was going to give me money while I went to school should I run out. Anyway, partly due to my friends illness, which I felt guilt for and partly because of my stupidity, I became very depressed. My first summer off of school (this past one) I was up and down emotionally, irrational, and prone to terrible rages. My roommate even had to call the police to talk to me once. I had already been in treatment beginning in the spring, but my doctor hadn't found the right meds yet.

The counselor at school decided I should apply for SSI, which I did and in the meantime I had applied for food stamps and Medicaid. Naturally, I was denied the SSI and my case worker at my psych center recommended a lawyer and I am apealling it. In the meantime, HHR took away my food stamps yesterday, I have heard nothing about Medicaid (which getting a card would help me pay for testing to help support my diability claim) and I just received the denial of my request for reconsideration today (which was expected anyway. It'll just go to hearing).

I am very depressed. I am broke, in debt and if I have to quit school I would probably be suicidal. I have been in school for a little over a year and am doing extremely well. I had to change my major at first, because my original choice was too much for me, but as an English major, I have a 4.0 and was admitted to Honors and I mostly only have to read and write a lot on my own time. This is one of the few things at which I have ever succeeded. I did receive a grant and a scholarship and got some money out of that, but while pursuing the SSI, I can't work, even if I thought I could. I KNOW I can't go to school and work at the same time. I can't even drive a car.

I don't know what I am going to do, what will happen to me, or what to expect. At least now that I am on good meds, I don't have to worry about the "up" problems, but having the depression alone for the first time is pretty bad. I don't want to take any more medication or end up in the hospital; I've never had a hospitalization.