I understand your stress about the debt.....I have similar problems from way back in 1994....had so many hospital bills that couldn't be paid when I lost my career & ended up in & out of the psych hospital & medical hospital.....ended up owing more than $100,000 in co-pays for the hospital bills. I am still on disability from all that. I was in no state to deal with the financial issues & felt at that point it was my husband's responsibility to deal with it & he didn't. I kept having Dr's bills & on top of that, he spent money like I was still working as an engineer....think he couldn't deal with the reality either & was never financially a responsible person.......so.....everything went to collection. No money to pay & because I was home, I got all the calls....trying to explain there was NO MONEY just made my condition worse. Husband talked to a bankruptcy lawyer, but because there were still hospital expenses coming in, they said that what came after bankruptcy wouldn't be forgiven....so he kept waiting. Last time I was in the hospital was in 2005......from 1994.....over 10 years of hospital stays really added up. On top of that, my marriage had been horrible for over 30 years at that point & I was wanting out, but financially had no way to do it.

When my mom died in 2005, I sold her home & finally left my husband in 2007....bought a farm 2100 miles away. Only problem, now it was impossible to file bankruptcy because one can't own 2 homes & declare bankruptcy.....one home would have to be sold & the one in California isn't worth what the morgatge is....so no money in that one & I am not about to sell my farm & end up homeless.

Basically we just walked away from all the debt & the collectors ended up stopping their calls. For the hospitals, it's not like they didn't get the majority of the bill paid through insurance & medicare, so they got most of their money for my time in the hospital.......there was just no money left with bills to pay all that debt. Feel bad that we ended up just walking away from it all, but there was no other option at that point.

I am struggling now because all my money has been put into the farm & I am back to only having my disability income every month to live on. Vet bills have piled up & I am trying to get everything paid off within the time of NO INTEREST because I don't have extra money to throw away on interest or penalties.

It's a horrible place to be in.....when all is ok only when there are no emergencies. I need to have all my teeth pulled & get dentures & I have no money to pay, so I do NOTHING. It's working much better now that I am responsible for myself I financially KNOW where I stand......but even with that, it's always a struggle when anything out of the norm happens because there isn't money for it.

Some things one just has to walk away from without feeling guilty if they have gotten most of their pay from the insurance. They can't get blood out of a turnip....& when we are just getting by basically not being able to even handle our monthly bills we are just the turnips they can't get blood out of......& walking away is sometimes the only possible solution even if it leaves a guilty feeling.