pegasus85

Hello everyone, this is my first time posting. I'm almost 19 years old and I have an anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and severe depression and I want to try to get on disability but I doubt I'll be approved. I just graduated high school but I was on homebound for a large part of the year due to my mental problems which flared up practically out of nowhere after a lot of traumatic experiences in my life which I had been suppressing.
I had a very nice childhood and was very close with my parents who would do anything for me, but my dad died suddenly when I was ten. To cope I just blocked out painful memories after the initial grieving period. Then, when I was fifteen, I was diagnosed with Leukemia. I'm done with treatment now and in that reguard, healthwise I'm doing well. However, my teenage years were shattered as I endured very heavy chemotherapy treatments for 2 years and lighter ones last year before completing the therapy. But there's more...at the same time that I was diagnosed with Leukemia, my mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer. We both went into remission but when I was seventeen my mom died. I had been in denial so even though I should have been preparing myself for it, it was a total shock to me.
So I went to stay with relatives and through some misunderstandings I was eventually disowned and abandoned by the only people I thought I could count on. So then it was just my little sister who was fifteen at the time and myself on our own.
As if it couldn't get any worse, DSS found out that I was a minor (I was six months from turning 18), and tried to take my sister into foster care. We had to stay with neighbors who were trying to steal from us in order to stay together. Then I went through a lengthy and emotionally draining process of getting custody of her after I was of legal age. My boyfriend, sister and I got an apartment together and I by some miracle kept my grades up very high. For a while I was doing well and my sister and I were both financially supported by Social Security Survivors benefits. But then I got sick with mono and went on homebound. Without a million things to keep me preoccupied, I couldn't block out my past any more and everything came crashing down on me. I was depressed and anxious all the time. Finally, I started having panic attacks and they really scared me so I started seeing a psychiatrist who put me on light benzos to keep my anxiety levels down and an antidepressant.
But now my Survivor's Benefits are ending and we already struggle financially even though my boyfriend works and makes decent pay. I had Medicaid but now it's ending due to my age and any insurance I get will cost a fortune because of my pre-existing condition, if I can even get approved. I still have to see the oncologist and psychiatrist regularly and my prescriptions are SO expensive.
I was planning on getting a job when I graduated because I thought everything would be better, but my depression and anxiety is even worse. I worry all the time about relapsing, I'm terrified of our financial situation, and old experiences that I had been blocking out for so long won't stay buried anymore. On top of everything we have to move because our lease is up. All of the apartments in this town are so expensive but we're really trying to find something here because my sister has been through enough hell, I don't want her to have to start a school in a new district away from all of her friends.
If I got approved for disability it would really help because I would be eligible for Medicaid again and it would give me some time to get my anxiety and depression under control. I planned to go right into college but there is no way I can do it so I'm taking at least a semester off. I wish I could just get a job but I get so anxious so easily and so easily go into panic attacks. Plus I can't even deal with the stress in my life now and a job would add to it tenfold. I'm afraid to add any more stress at all to my life because I always feel that I'm on the edge of a breakdown.
Sorry to whine for so long, but I just had to vent. From all of the research that I've seen on SSI, it doesn't seem very promising that I'll be approved, but I still want to try. However, my only shot is the initial application. I'll have to get a job after a certain amount of time because of our financial situation and I don't have three years to wait for a hearing. If anyone has any advice on everything that I can do to have my best shot at getting approved initially, I'd really appreciate it.