We Have to Declare Bankruptcy

If you’ve read through a lot of my blog, you can probably guess my age within a few years. For those that haven’t, let me assure you, no one but a child would consider me old.

I don’t own a home, a car, or have any valuable property. I have no assets. Neither does my husband, and yet we’re looking at bankruptcy because of a bad decision and a really, really shitty economy. Oh, and mental illness.

My husband left his job to move to Chicago. We expected him to be able to transfer. That didn’t happen. We at least expected him to find a job before our finances ran out. He has years of real work experience in related fields. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Now we’re looking at options we never considered. I don’t know why we didn’t think of me filing for disability earlier, especially since I couldn’t work because of the grip of my bipolar depression and OCD. Perhaps it was because I never thought of myself as disabled and didn’t know mental illness fell under the category of disability. I’m still not sure if it does in most cases since it’s not taken as seriously as physical illnesses.

Last week I started calling mental health nonprofits to ask for assistance with finding jobs. I hadn’t considered this before, and looked for jobs on my own, though I did contact these same groups asking for a job with their organization.

My husband has started looking into bankruptcy lawyers and research the issue online. We simply don’t have enough to cover the minimum payments on our credit cards and are going to see our interest rates explode when our payments become late. I don’t know where our rent money is going to come from. I was able to get a loan from my mom that will cover one month, but she says that’s all she’s willing to give me. Other relatives are tapped out as my husband’s mom recently gave him a sizable sum and her work hours were cut. From the loan, we have enough for November’s rent, since rent comes before all other debts.

I want to try negotiating a lower rent with our landlord rather than have him be surprised by a sudden missed or incomplete payment. My husband wants to consult with a lawyer first. If evicted, we don’t have anywhere to go. I refuse to give up our pets; we promised them permanent homes. I want to be a good pet parent and I don’t want to imagine the guilt if I fail to live up to my responsibilities as a mommy.

We’re hoping that my husband can declare bankruptcy and that we can keep a handle on my credit. Without a job though, we’ll eventually run out of money for my minimum credit card payments, regardless of how low they may be.

To top it all off, my husband is in more pain from the surgery than he thought he would be and his doctor refuses to prescribe stronger pain medications. While I can justify trying to push him to do work when he’s feeling depressed, I can’t do that when he’s in pain and needs to sleep as part of recovery.