Extremely ill with worry and the stress of it all

MGOP

Hi everyone, I need help and it's really bad. I had it all, a beautiful home, a thriving business, a lovely comfortable life and felt like nothing will ever change that. But one day a traumatic event changed all of it, just like that.
It took a long time to navigate that period, recovery was tough (still ongoing today), work as a self employed halted and it never really got going again then Covid hit and that more of less killed it off. The sad thing is that as a result of the trauma I have also developed a chronic autoimmune condition that rendered me physically useless as well and I just lost the will. After never ever being in debt I now find myself with 20k of it and totally unable to pay it back. I fell into the trap of getting a credit card then another then consolidating with a loan, then another loan..... terribly irresponsible looking back and I am furious with myself for burying my head in the sand and wallowing in my self pity when I should have been a bit more on it. At that time I really believed that I was going to get back to the person I was before and everything would get back on track just like that. 
My husband pays all the bills, mortgage and utilities. I was always responsible for paying for the home improvements (our current home was a repossessed property that needed significant work and we overhauled it over the years), holidays, food, pet insurance and house insurance. 
I am now unable to make any payments after I stopped earning in June. I kept up with repayments until October using the little savings I had but stopped paying since and I am sick with worry of what's next. Letters are coming, emails that tell me that someone will come to the door.
 I do not sleep and when I do I have these weird dreams... I'm fragile and worried sick. Please help if you have any advice on where to start tacking this ... thank you 

kimwp

I'm sorry to hear that you have been through so much. While I understand that you want to explain the background, you can replace the second and third sentences with "a traumatic event changed all that" to make it more anonymous and it will still explain the situation. 

Please don't worry, it is all fixable. What will help us help you is if you can create a statement of affairs (link in my signature) with your income and outgoings, format it for MSE and post it here.

Does your husband know about the debt and your financial struggles?

MGOP

kimwp said:

I'm sorry to hear that you have been through so much. While I understand that you want to explain the background, you can replace the second and third sentences with "a traumatic event changed all that" to make it more anonymous and it will still explain the situation. 

Please don't worry, it is all fixable. What will help us help you is if you can create a statement of affairs (link in my signature) with your income and outgoings, format it for MSE and post it here.

Does your husband know about the debt and your financial struggles?

Thank you, your kind words made me cry. I am unable to find how I can edit my post. And yes my husband is aware that I am struggling to pay but I have not had the conversation about the whole amount. I am too embarrassed and I feel like I need to work out how I am going to deal with it first before I fess up truly a nightmare situation and I feel so lost

MGOP

kimwp said:

I'm sorry to hear that you have been through so much. While I understand that you want to explain the background, you can replace the second and third sentences with "a traumatic event changed all that" to make it more anonymous and it will still explain the situation. 

Please don't worry, it is all fixable. What will help us help you is if you can create a statement of affairs (link in my signature) with your income and outgoings, format it for MSE and post it here.

Does your husband know about the debt and your financial struggles?

I managed it to find it in the rules and send a request via the exclamation mark thank you. Will have a look and complete a SOA next 

Martico

Hi, just took a look and want to say that I'm so sorry to read this. I can't add to kimwp's advice other than to endorse it and say that they know their stuff and have your best interests at heart. 

(Edit: you may see a cogwheel symbol at the top right of your post, that allows an edit. But you may only be able to activate that after a certain number of posts.)

MGOP

Martico said:

Hi, just took a look and want to say that I'm so sorry to read this. I can't add to kimwp's advice other than to endorse it and say that they know their stuff and have your best interests at heart. 

So very kind, THANK YOU. 

kimwp

Martico said:

Hi, just took a look and want to say that I'm so sorry to read this. I can't add to kimwp's advice other than to endorse it and say that they know their stuff and have your best interests at heart. 

(Edit: you may see a cogwheel symbol at the top right of your post, that allows an edit. But you may only be able to activate that after a certain number of posts.)

5th-ish post and/or a number of days before you can edit your own post apparently!

Martico is right - there are some actual experts (sourcrates and fatbelly being some of the most knowledgeable) and plenty of posters who have been in debt of different amounts and due to all sorts of situations who can share how they felt or what they've learned. Some will advise, some will simply cheer you on, but you've found a community that's here to help.

Post as you need or post when you can, if you don't have the energy for a bit, we'll be here when you do.

MalMonroe

Hello, I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. Please don't despair because there is help out here. 

And there are also free debt help agencies you can contact - StepChange, https://www.stepchange.org/
National Debtline, https://nationaldebtline.org/ 
and Citizens Advice https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/.

They all offer free, confidential, non-judgemental advice. Which you are at liberty to take, or not. 

I do recommend StepChange but that's because they helped me when I was in financial trouble. I was on my own but you have a husband, please do try to trust him enough to tell him how you are feeling. 

If you can manage to speak to someone at one of the debt help agencies, they can tell you how to deal with those threatening letters and emails and help you to see a way forward. I can't tell you the relief I felt after I'd spoken to the adviser at StepChange. I hadn't slept for months before I contacted them. I felt so much better afterwards because I was given hope - and a plan. And I'm now debt free. It wasn't all plain sailing, I won't say that but once I knew that there was a way forward, a big weight really was lifted from my shoulders. 

The first thing I was asked to do was prepare an SOA, as you've already 'discussed' with kimwp. 

You have taken a big step by coming on here to ask for help. Many of us have been in similar positions, it's true. And we have survived - you can, too. 

All the very best to you. 

jackieblack

Posting here is a great first step, lots of helpful people who can offer advice 🙂
I’m not surprised your sleep is affected if you’ve been bottling everything up.  If you can have a frank conversation with your husband (I know it seems daunting and will be hard) it will help - you are going to need his support managing this so he needs to know and, hopefully, will be supportive. 

All the best 

ladyholly

I am sorry to hear you are feeling so bad but dont despair there is alway an answer. Obviously I dont know what your health condition is but may I suggest you see if there is a charity./ help organisation for it. They can be incredibly helpful with advice, support etc. As others have said there are very knowledgeabl people on here who can help with sorting out your debts. If you can bring yourself to talk to your husband at least him finding out before you tell him  is one less thing for you to worry about. Try not to be embarrassed you are the first and certainly wont be the last.

sourcrates

OK, so the gist of it is you are unable to work due to a serious health condition, is that what it basically boils down to ?

Although you may feel this is all getting on top of you, and there is no escape, its actually remarkably easy and very simple to deal with.

I`m making the assumption you have not told your creditors about your circumstances, so they have automatically kicked the collections process into gear, because they are unaware of your situation, as far as they know, you are just another non payer, it`s an automated process that periodically auto dials your phone, and computer generates collection letters, texts, emails etc, standard procedure for non payment.

So you need to introduce the human element into the equation, and this calls for you to be somewhat pro-active.

Write a letter, not an email, as they tend to go unanswered a lot of the time, describe your circumstances in layman's terms, short, and to the point, tell them how your medical condition affects you, how long its expected to last, and emphasise the fact you are currently not working, and that you have no income, and cannot afford any payments


Now I don`t know if this condition you suffer from is likely to be permanent or not, but if it is, tell them so, ask them to initially put a 3 month hold on your account, with a view to making a commercial decision to write off the debts due to your ill health.

Send a copy to each of your creditors.

You may want to include with that a copy of your budget (basically what your husband pays) as they will ask for that.

Affordability is everything these days, affordability due to ill health is practically top of that list, its likely they will respond confirming what you have asked for, it will either be a 1,3 or 6 month hold, it depends on the company, all collection activity should cease once the information has filtered through the system, you can always back up your letter with a phone call, they have specialist teams that deal with vulnerable clients, if your up to chatting, you may be able to explain your circumstances in more detail.

If its something that won`t get better, then push for write offs, these are granted more often, and more easily than you may be aware of, if you are likely to recover and return to work, then that will be for a future conversation.

For now, your goal is to get them all to put your accounts "on hold" for a period of time, so you can assess where you are at, if you are unable to pay due to your circumstances, they will not pursue you for the balances, but it is imperative you make them aware of your situation, as soon as you can, ignoring it is not an option here.