u/killtaker

My wife quit working in 2002. I was making enough back then that we could comfortably live where she could stay at home and be an artist and, frankly, I'm the one that's built for working and she's the one who was very much not. Night owl, autistic, socially awkward, questions everything and doesn't accept anyone's authority until they've proven they know what they're talking about, etc.

She started having issues with her hands and other physical things that we tried to get diagnosed for two or three years. Finally in 2012, an orthopedic doctor (ironically enough) saw some sclerosis on her spine and referred her to a neurologist.

Sure enough, she had multiple sclerosis.

We did ok, despite increasing medical bills, but eventually between the rising costs of keeping her healthy (go take a look at how much the MS drug Kesimpta costs per month) and my having the bad luck of losing a few jobs due to the economy and things got out of hand financially and being the single income earner in an economy that is wildly more expensive than it was when we were "fine" has become untenable. My single income barely pays the bills and we were curious about if she would perhaps get SSDI benefits.

She's now at a place where she just flat out couldn't work if she wanted to. She can't even do things she enjoyed doing at home like crocheting or painting. She basically reads reddit and watches YouTube videos because anything to do with her hands or that requires her to pay attention is incredibly hard because of physical limitations and "cog-fog" aka cognitive fog where she says her brain "feels like it's in molasses."

I filled out an application for her about a year ago and she was turned down almost immediately because she hadn't worked since 2002 and apparently, her work credits from social security "expired" (which neither of us knew was a thing that happened) -- and our thoughts regarding her not being able to actually work in the year or two before I filed, didn't really matter.

I'm curious what you guys think our options are here. Are there ways around the social security credits being expired and still being able to receive benefits? I mean, she *did* pay into the system for years before being able to bow out, and the idea that she gets nothing in return for the time she *did* work seems unfair, at least to us.

Plus, it sure would be nice to have a few extra bucks coming in a month.

Anyone have experience with this sort of dilemma in their SSDI adventures? If so, please let us know what you did to finally get an approval...but i'm open to any constructive comments.

Thanks for your time.

I already know that some of you will respond and tell me I'm irresponsible and that there's no way back or that I should "just pay your bills" and while that's valid in some sense, it's not what I'm looking for here.

My wife (who is disabled) and I finally bought our first house last year. We got a great deal on a home and got an FHA loan and since we always thought we'd never be able to afford a home, it's a huge deal.

In the years leading up to us buying our place, I'd built my credit up into the mid 700s. I was one of those people who never had a credit card. If I wanted something, I would pay for it in cash...and if I couldn't afford it, I wouldn't buy it until I could pay for it in cash.

But as I grew up, I'd hit walls like trying to get a car...and while I had almost zero debt, they wanted to charge me insane interest at bad terms, etc.

So I finally got a credit card, and never missed a payment. I'd get something, then pay it off immediately.

A few years go by, and I get a few more credit cards. Same thing. Buy something and pay it back.

I took the credit score that had been awful and built it up into the 700s. (And i'm not talking Credit Karma, I'm talking FICO scores, btw.)

We bought our house, finally, and everything was going really great.

Then we had two disasters in a row that our home warranty wouldn't cover and I had to pay several thousand dollars for...and having just bought a house, I didn't have several thousand to pay for these disasters at the very moment I needed it, but I did have credit cards, and I figured I could just do what I've always done...I spent money, and I could pay it back with my normal monthly payments, and try to put a little more than usual in there and eventually work it down back to owing nothing.

Then I had to go to the hospital for weeks when I got very sick. The bill for that was astronomical.

My wife's disability is very expensive and we had to run several extremely expensive tests and my FSA was drained completely from when I was in the hospital.

THEN, I lost my job due to things changing with the President signing a bill that basically took away any incentive for someone to buy what the company I worked for sold.

All this happened in the space of about six months.

I'm finally working again, but those amounts I owe are still staring me in the face, affecting my life.

I now have two unsecured lines of credit and five credit cards that have all been written off and some have been sent to collections to the tune of around 20K.

It is incredibly overwhelming and frustrating know that I'd worked so hard and diligently to get my score up and it sucks seeing all that work dwindle to nothing. My score now is in the mid 400s.

The amounts I owe are, to me, bonkers...and as the sole breadwinner in my family, after paying mortgage, car payment and all the regular bills (water, sewer, trash, internet, car insurance) the money I make is pretty much gone.

So, I guess my question is -- what would you do in this situation? Would you try to work with the companies? Would you leave it be for seven years until it vanishes from your credit report? Would you file bankruptcy?

I'm at a genuine loss on what to do and seeing the number almost 300 pts lower than I had it just at the beginning of last year is a bummer beyond bummers.

Thanks in advance for any constructive conversation and tips!

I've been playing video games for forty years. I'm downright good at 'em! I even hosted a video game segment on tv for a while.

But, for whatever reason, the hardest game for me to play, y'know, other than Battletoads, is Fire Pro. I cannot, for the life of me, get the timing down. I have tried repeatedly. For YEARS.

I don't know what I'm missing. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong other than having bad timing. I just...can't get it right!

Do any of you Fire Pro diehards have any sort of helpful and constructive tip so that I can finally enjoy Fire Pro? I've owned the current version on PS5 for years and have deleted it in fits of frustration multiple times over the years.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated. Thanks!