I am so sorry to see you go through this terrible time. I think I can understand some of what you are feeling. You need someone to throw you a life preserver. Keep working at it like no other thing matters. Try to pay attention to what you are doing instead of how it is making you feel. You need to believe in yourself, and understand that no matter what happens, you and your husband will manage to make sure your family will be OK. There is always hope in a situation such as yours. It will no doubt work out for you one way or another. It is just scary not knowing what this will mean. I hope the following will give you some ideas.

You were not always as good at running as you are now. Haven’t you found yourself miles from home, very tired, wondering how you were going to make it back home? Perhaps you even needed to go up one or more steep hills to get there? Anyway, something like this has happened to me not too long ago. I decided to run not paying attention to the time and the distance that I had to cover. I stopped counting my steps and stopped frequently looking up to see how close I am getting to the next light. I wanted to stop running, being in the process of convincing myself that I cannot run any further, allowing myself to experience the increasing effort of every step that I took, wanting to stop at any time.

My solution was to look down and to continue running, and I took some satisfaction in watching the ground go by me. I worked on not thinking of every little step that I was taking, and instead visualize the goal I have to get to believing it was not only possible, but it will happen. I then stopped thinking about it and kept moving forward knowing where I will end up. It was just a matter of time. I realize that was playing with myself psychologically. I believe this is the kind of thing competitive runner do. Once I realized I had no other choice but to think this way, it became easier for me to do.

Can you relate to this at all? I am sure you do. I know this is not really the same, but you cannot afford to let yourself become less functional in your pursuit of a solution. I do not know how old your daughter is. Maybe the first goal is to get your daughter off to school. Take the time to truly enjoy being with her. Children can be small packages of joy if we let them be that way to us. Take each time to fix her hair in different ways. Have different colored ribbons to use in her hair each day. Make this a big deal to her. Focus strictly on her during this time, making sure she leaves home with a smile on her face, wondering what adventure she has in store for herself that day. Next focus on yourself. For instance, eat something.

When your family has gone, work on a list of things to do, options to pursue to financially get through the next month. You can discuss this with your husband the night before. You are not alone in this. This is what you need to understand. I am sure you are already doing this part. However, consider that there are more possibilities than you can be aware of. It is not understanding what you do not know, but acknowledging there are things that you do not know that you do not know. This can help you understand there are other possibilities out there for you to discover. This is where you need to be creative here.

One idea is to connect with others that are in a similar situation that you are in. The question is where would you find them? As a full time caregiver, I joined a list of caregivers that help each other survive their care of their loved one. I was given allot of ideas by them which they found to work for themselves, and we helped to emotionally support each other in our sometimes dire situations. Caregiver depression is not uncommon.

I have discovered that there are people called “advocates”, who are essentially social workers that are committed to helping familys in need such as yours. They understand that children are involved. They have already helped many other familys like yours in similar situations. They know what you need and what they can do about it. They know about all the services available, private and public. They know who to go to to get you more help. My ex girlfriend and my then new family went to one for a medical problem with her son that we could not afford. This was not a problem that the ER would help us with.

I think the first priority is to make sure there is food to eat and a roof over your heads. Find cheap food. Dollar stores may have something. Where do the neighborhoods of poorer people go for their food? There is a poor Mexican population here in Tucson. There are grocery stores for them that provide more affordable food. Besides, how expensive will it be to place chicken that was cooked by boiling into a flour tortilla with beans in the form of a burrito? Add potatoes to this. Hot or mild sauce anyone? Cooking rice using some tomatoe sauce can be tastey. My ex girlfriend used to do this. Mexican cooking can be very easy and inexpensive to make. It is not worth the cost of purchasing bread when rice and potatoes can do.

It will probably take time for the bank to evict you from your house. I do not think the bank will not want to go through this effort and expense when they do not need to, and they can be convinced otherwise. Find someone to negotiate with the bank in an attempt to temporarily reduce your monthly payments. I think this is possible. A credit counselor can help in this regard. I think next would be your electric bill. Maybe rent a room out for money to help you pay your utility bills? Yes, I do not like this option at all either. But you need to do whatever you need to do to survive. Rent it out with the intention of this being a temporary arrangement.

Do you have anything to sell like an additional bed or coffee table that you do not need or use, a doll collection, a box of tools, file cabinets, or anything that anyone would find worthwhile no matter how worthless it may appear to you? We both know that you can use CraigsList. Some here in Tucson go to the weekly swap meet to sell this kind of stuff. Also there are those bartering type of ads where people are looking for trades.