Submitted by NearlyNakedNick t3_zsvkpa in personalfinance
I'm trying to figure out how to best use the money to help me get some kind of stability. Also I could really use a thorough ELI5 for the benefits mail I got.
Some background to help inform advice: I've mostly been living in my car for the last 14 months after a traumatic experience earlier that same year left me with PTSD resulting in a sharp decline in my ability to work and subsequent firing.
I won't go into detail about my symptoms, but on a less than great day in pretty much the scary guy on the corner obliviously ranting to himself in public, and on a bad day I black out and lose all memory of what transpired. It still takes a lot of effort day-to-day day to remain lucid even on a decent day.
I lived on credit for a while just trying to keep me fed day to day. My mental health has now improved enough that I see my decision making abilities vanished for awhile and I was in pure survival mode. So I went from a perfect credit score and a great job to being delinquent on nearly 20k and using dog sitting jobs to have a place indoors to sleep.
My car is not in great shape, since I've completely neglected the maintenence, again just didn't have the mental capacity to make it the priority it should be.
I've tried twice to get disability (Texas) for my PTSD. I am diagnosed, but each time I've applied they've "lost" my application and told me to reapply, even after sending me confirmation emails that my application was received and I even had appointment dates confirmed... I talked to a friend of a friend here in Texas who said it took him 2 years of legal battles to get disability for his PTSD and he seems to think that's the status quo for Texas.
So my first thought for the money was to try to get a tiny cheap apartment so that I have some stability and could improve my mental health because just trying to figure out where I'm going to sleep every day takes up a ton of my mental energy. But that would only give me several months at best, if I could even qualify for a lease.
My next thought was to hire a disability lawyer with the money, but then I'm worried if it really takes so long to get approved I might run out of money before I'm able to.
*edit: I will be taking no more armchair diagnoses from the peanut gallery, thank you. I do currently have a therapist and it's safe to say they're in a better position to know than any random redditor. And that's not what this post is about.