I'm not sure if this belongs in "unemployment", "health", "anxiety" or what... It really has to do with all of them. Have you ever had a really horrible knot that you had to untie but just couldn't figure out where to start?

I have seizures. I'm trying to control them with medication, but so far I haven't been 100% successful. By trade, I'm a table games dealer in Las Vegas, NV. I think I've got the "gran-mal" or "tonic-clonic" seizures under control with Dilantin, but I still have "partial-focused", or "petit-mal" seizures when the weather changes suddenly or I'm under a lot of stress. To me, those are the worst because they're harder to explain: There's nothing dramatic about them-I don't fall down and bite my tongue while I convulse all over the place; I just get horribly confused. For me, it's kind of like dreaming and the last one I had I just wandered away from my game and left it unprotected. That's why I'm unemployed-not because of some kind of discrimination against seizure patients, but because my seizures are keeping me from performing the essential functions of my job, such as protecting my game. So I've been out of work for a few weeks, now and I'm starting to panic.

Worse, I have a wife and an eight-month-old baby who depend on me. I need to be able to pay the rent or we're going to be evicted. The utilities are my responsibility, too. The food stamps that we had been getting were cut because the state got wind of the fact that I'd gotten a job in October, so they thought I should get less. Even worse yet, I have to pay child support-$343.00 every month. I had to go to court yesterday because the payments had gotten backed up over $1000 so my license was suspended(I can't drive, anyway, but that's beside the point) and I was ordered to come and explain why I hadn't paid anything since October. I had been receiving unemployment and the support had been coming out of that, but when I got hired, they weren't informed and I didn't know that it was my responsibility to call and tell them-they'd always just started taking money out of my check within a month of me starting a new job before.

I was supposed to get a $5k tax return this year. $3180 of that was intercepted for child support. I was figuring that the worst-case scenario would be that it would all get cleared up in court, maybe the $900 I owed woluld be deducted from the $3180 and the rest would be passed along to me. On the contrary, I found out that, for some reason, it appears as though I still owe $4500!!! I'm looking for work, but so far I haven't gotten any interviews to speak of since I was fired. I need to see my neurologist to help get the seizures under control, but I need a job to pay him or to buy medical insurance, but, of course, I need to see him to get the seizures under control so I can keep my job beyond a few weeks. I've filed for Medicaid, but that's taking forever to process. I've filed for unemployment, but they want a paper signed by my doctor, divulging the current circumstances of my medical situation and I don't have any money or insurance with which to see him!

When my ex-fiance left me, five years ago, and took my kids to live with another man in Pennsylvania, it destroyed me. I sank into a pretty bad depression and just kept sinking. I wound up on a 13-day suicide watch. It started as a 72-hour hold, but when the doctor heard I had been looking up suicide plans and that I planned to keep looking for those plans when I got out, well, he thought it might be best if I stuck around a little longer. The only reason I was let out was because the insurance I had at the time had a limit to how many days they would pay for, and I had reached that limit.

I got out and did a lot of soul-searching, as well as growing up. When my room mate wouldn't even let me come back to where I lived when I was released from the hospital, it finally occurred to me that moping around, crying about how I was going to kill myself wasn't making anyone feel bad for me;it was wigging them out! For the first time, I understood that I really needed to take a-hold of my own problems and start solving them, myself. That's when I met my current wife. Alisha is beautiful and she's a nymphomaniac. The irony is that, if I'd met her a bit earlier, we would be a perfect match for her. As it turns out, the Dilantin started destroying the testosterone in my system and I started losing interest in sex. This has been an on-going source of tension for us. The child support issue is causing her to build resentful feelings toward my son, which is causing me to feel and act defensively. I don't feel like I can tell her anything-if I let her know that I'm upset, she gets upset with me and starts citing all the mistakes I made in my life that brought me to where I am now, including my son, and how they're all affecting her and our daughter. Last week, I hurt myself. Today, my wife started talking about how she's been wondering, lately, if the best for her and our daughter really is to be with me. I started wondering if maybe things wouldn't be better for them without me, and started thinking about self-harming again...

I'm not "suicidal" in the sense that I'm miserable and want the pain to end and am considering killing myself-I know the difference. I'm just getting overwhelmed. I don't know where to turn or who to talk to or where to get help. I'm frustrated beyond belief and I'm starting to really panic. Does anyone have any advice?

hi, vegasgeek,
it sounds like u are really struggling. the husband of a friend of mine has seizures where he gets confused & it's very challenging, i must imagine.
do u have a therapist, social worker, lawyer?
when i first sought depression help, my medical doctor referred me to a therapy service that charged according to income, so it was affordable. when i needed legal questions answered, their social worker saw me for free. she didn't have legal answers for me, but referred me to a free legal clinic. she also asked me if i needed any other help or had any other problems. so i don't know what u have, but maybe u can look into things like that if u don't have enough help.
i really hope things work out for u, please let us know how things are going.

There must be some services that you can apply for that will help you get some help.I looked online and there are Salvation Army mental services like Pathways,Safe Haven and STEPS. You need people to talk to first so you can clear your head and make important choices. These people maybe able to help you over the hurdles that are preventing you from getting a job. Good luck, you are in my thoughts.

Thank you, Nanobelle and Bluegirl, for your help and well-wishes. Those are some good ideas and will follow through with them first thing, Monday morning. I think you're right-I need help. I need help with clearing my head so that I can begin to figure out my issues. It's not going to be easy, but that's OK-I'm used to that by now. I just need to let go of my stubbornness, stop trying to do it all myself and ask someone to help me. I'll start making phone calls as soon as I can. Thanks.

keep us posted.. .

Well, I have an update :)

I got a job today. I'm going to be dealing for the Fiesta Hotel and Casino in North Las Vegas next week. I'll be on-call, but the pit manager says that that's not an issue- on-call dealers are doing 4,5,6 and even 7 days a week, right now! He says he's really short-handed. It's not the most prestigious "Station" casino, but I'm in the door and working for a huge corporation that's known far and wide for treating its' dealers well.

So, here goes. I'm not trying to sound defeatist, but I've had enough experience with this issue to know to not get too overly-excited just yet. Now, I'm setting my cell phone to remind me to take my meds twice a day and hoping that I can muscle through with what I have until I get insurance so I can start seeing my neurologist regularly and begin working on really getting a hold on this. I'm a little worried that, financially, it may be too little, too late, as I just received my 10-day disconnect notice from the power company today. It's O.K. I have to remember that I can only do what I can do when I can do it. *breathing deeply now* I also got a call from an agency that may have an audition for me to do voice-over work for them AND a call from a research company that wants to invite me to do a clinical trial for the seizures! It's a lot at once, but when it rains, it pours, right? I'm really excited, but trying to temper my excitement with realism and not get too far ahead of myself. I want to thank the administrators of this site for putting it up so that I had a place to come and vent and even brag about my tentative good fortune, now that it seems to have found me. I especially want to thank Bluegirl and nanobelle for your support and advice. You're really great people. When I get started in my psychology practice in a few years, I'm going to want to find you :)

i'm glad to hear the good news! :)