Melissa Megason

I was stuck with the credit card bills and my mortgage and four dogs.

And then once I filed for divorce, it spiraled from there.

I never thought I'd be 55 or 50-something and getting divorced.

I was ready to start getting ready for retirement.

And my whole life just kind of fell out from under me.

So it was a lot all at once.

I needed to start using the credit cards to pay for gas.

And I'd be like, OK, I have 20 bucks on this one I can use.

I would say, you really can't afford this, but I really want it, so I buy it.

And I wasn't thinking clearly.

The emotion I had been through and everything kind of piling down, I just wouldn't think about it until the credit card bill came out.

They just started maxing out and I just stopped paying them because I couldn't afford them and the mortgage and my car payment, those kinds of things.

Her credit card debt ballooned.

And when it's that big, you know you can't pay it, so you just ignore it.

When you get into that survival mode, you're going to prioritize, okay, I need a roof over my head.

I need electricity for this roof.

I need a car to get to work.

I need to put gas in that car.

And then the economy was getting worse and worse, and prices were going up.

So the credit cards, unfortunately, were the last on my totem pole to get paid.