So what is a person supposed to do?

I am currently off work, on short term disability and going back to work in June.

My company has been great to work with on the issues I have been facing (x-wife getting really ill, her husband being in the hospital for a week, and my personal mental issues and my new meds).

The insurance company I have been trying to work with has not paid me in several weeks - they want more info from my Dr., want me to go see her again. But I can't without a co-pay.

It is not me I am worried about - but my X, who is too ill to work as is her husband right now (he has another surgery coming up June 1) is going to have her electric shut off this week. They have a fridge/freezer with food in it, my daughter has a fish tank with her fish in it that will die without the pumps, she won't be able to stay with her mom without electric (and then the water/internet - and she uses the internet for her home schooling - of course without electric won't matter anyway). So she will have to come live with me - but then I am heading back to work....

No emergency aid for her that she has been able to get, and no pay checks for me until - at the very least if I get approved through the disability insurance I have - next week. I don't have enough in the 401k at this job (been there less than a year) to borrow against yet.

They have no gas or money for a bus (and none run close to here - and she is too sick to walk to the closest bus stop over 2 miles away, and I don't have money for gas either) to go out and look for help, and without electric the phone won't work (they have a magic jack which works via the internet).

They have sold everything worth money since he went in the hospital just to make it up to now, and I have helped them sell things and with other things as best I can - but now I am at the mercy of a Dr. I cannot afford to go see and an insurance company I pay into weekly that won't release any checks until I go back to the Dr.

We have money for wars, for tax breaks for the rich, we have money to throw away on breaks for big corporations. But when people need something just to make it through and they are sick there is just about nothing.

Me? I will be ok (living with dad/brother/family) until I get back to work. My X won't be able to cook (electric stove), keep food, fish are going to die, they are feeding the cats tuna fish they had because they cannot get cat food - and even if they had the cash to get some have no gas to get there (and my little girl loves her new cats, hers died a few years ago and it hurt her deeply - so while cats may not mean much to some people, to her it means the world).

What is she supposed to do? I have been on the phone for days with Dr's and such, just so that I have some money to give her. Been helping her sell what little she has left to keep the lights on - but when you are only paying past due amounts and even then only on some bills, how do you stay afloat?

Her meds make her so sick she can barely function at times. She does not want hand outs or sympathy, she just want to survive. She has given up on her dreams, she would be happy if she could get SSDI - but cannot because she has not worked in the last 10 years.

Fuck it - I see people I care about suffering and cannot fix it right now. I am doing the best I can and trying to get through my own hell.

And the sad thing is - there are so MANY out there going through the same thing right now.

I wish I could help them all. I wish we all could.

I wish our country diverted the money from wars and put it towards helping those like my X and my daughter - because the real fear and terror people are feeling comes not from the middle east but from the real problems they are facing each day.