Debt and Mental Health - How have your debts affected you?

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  • It caused and still causes me panic attacks, diarrhea, feelings of despair and suicide
  • Rosylee
    Rosylee Posts: 201 Forumite
    It caused and still causes me panic attacks, diarrhea, feelings of despair and suicide

    I haven't read the thread, just saw your comment and wanted to say please seek out one of the debt charities as they have been able to help so many people. Don't suffer alone, get some support
  • Thanks rosylee I should stress the suicide is not now sorry but the anxiety is. Fortunately my debts are manageable and getting paid off soon well within the year but it still stresses me out x but it could be worse
  • had a really damn good credit rating, paid everything on time and money in the bank. Then a nutcase neighbour decided to start moving fences, taking land whilst away on holiday and came back to carnage! The result was four years spent in the solicitors offices and Courts. The toll has been beyond words. My physical health has suffered, I lost my job and at times my sanity, but you know I will be okay.

    I had to turn to credit cards to pay the legal bills. Having invoices come in from the solicitors for £7,000.00 at a time - I kid you not - it get damn frightening especially when you are working flat out, having next to nothing just to pay legal fees. I won the case, got my land back, but I did not get my legal fees returned - rought justice eh!

    At some of my lowest points I stand in the kitchen and squeeze my fists tight into a ball look upwards and say "I am going to be alright" and I believe I will. I just have one crappy debt hanging over me now but it has cause me worry and anxiety. Yes I am sacred whats going to happen to me - but I do have some fab friends. I am staying with one at the moment who is a fellow MSE contributor and she is helping me. Sometimes its just having someone to look after your inner child is all thats needed - someone to talk it through with.

    Through the worst I have had little sleep, gone to bed at 10pm slept hard until 1am then been awake worrying and pacing until 4am. Just constant fear and worry that drove me to some pretty dark places.
    I have at times felt very, very alone.

    I also have my faith and despite what others think it has kept me on an even keel through some pretty dire times. I still have faith that somehow it will all work out in the end.
    Thanks
  • I am severely depressed and in around £6000 debt including rent arrears. Constant chasing by collections teams and agencies is pushing me to breaking point, I am on the verge of suicide. Nobody cares if it kills me or not as long as they get their money, they would take every last penny if they could.
    **Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind**
    Terry Pratchett
  • In short, my mental health has been eroded almost to the point of no return. I think daily about how much I am worth once dead. The things my family could do with the death in service benefits that come with my job.

    I used to worry about not having the latest phone or not being able to go out with friends. Worry about my children not having the right trainers or the latest game. On reflection, those frivolous worries were not stress inducers at all. Now I have real fear, real worry and very real dark thoughts. The days are dark, long and arduous. I am not the man I was three years ago, let alone the happy go lucky, sociable man that my wife married twenty years ago. The last three years have brought me to a position of hopelessness that I have never experienced and I have had a hard life, growing up in and out of care, brief flirtation with teenage crime and ill health to name but a few things. In the past there has always been light at the end of the tunnel, this time however, I fear there is not.

    When the cuts come into effect in April 2016, I will be £2472 worse off per year (according to the government’s own prediction calculator), I am currently struggling with basic living costs, I have had Bailiffs at the door on numerous occasions and recently lost my little rust bucket of a car (150,000 miles and eleven years old) to said Bailiff. It didn’t even cover a third of the debt but he took it anyway. Last year I owed the DVLA the princely sum of £25.78 (trying to limp through to payday to pay the road fund licence), they crushed the car. (If you are wondering how I kept getting cars, my friend owns a garage and has been very sympathetic in finding me cars that are safe and roadworthy for a pittance, no more than two hundred pounds in cost to buy and allowing me months to pay him back.)

    When these cuts come in, I have no idea what I will do. I am already on the verge of bankruptcy, struggling to buy even basic items, food, clothing, and school costs etc. Facing committal to prison for not paying council tax is having an impact on my mental health as is the constant knowledge that I can no longer provide my wonderful children with a decent level of childhood living. I have sold everything of value that I own, a lifetimes worth in fact, I have nothing left. All for a fraction of the true value.

    I work full time and in the past I have worked extra jobs (two full time jobs once) when money was tight. The last time I took a second job, there was an error in the PAYE tax system that resulted in a big tax bill for me which was collected in large amounts from my main wage. Crippling doesn’t cover it. Unable to pay a speeding fine (34 in a 30mph zone with a diarrhea ridden child in the back) it escalated to over four hundred pounds and was eventually taken in one go direct from my wages, another visit to the loan shark ensued which in itself affected my mental health, the loan shark has no customer service skills whatsoever.

    I am diabetic and should eat accordingly, I consider myself lucky to eat some days. I cannot get an appointment to see anyone to discuss mental health as the NHS is currently ready to burst within its own barrel of financial stress. There is no light at the end of this tunnel for me, more likely the tunnel has already collapsed on my time as a normal member of society. I fear I will not make it too long past April 2016, I gave it my best, worked hard and still do but ultimately I failed. This all makes the comments from Cameron and Osbourne about ‘aspirational’ Britain harder to swallow. I aspire to live. To exist at least but come April, that will become impossible.

    I am a working, law abiding, family man who has raised and delivered two law abiding, taxpayers already and the rest of my wonderful children will go on to be exactly the same, I have no doubt.

    I feel like I am a disease and this government is trying to eradicate me.

    Judge for yourself if debt has affected my mental health.
  • flower24
    flower24 Posts: 1,719 Forumite
    I really can't see a way out at the moment :(
  • Popstess
    Popstess Posts: 351 Forumite
    My mental health is deteriorating rapidly due to the huge debts hanging over me which are all my own fault. Trying to battle the debts but I really can't see a way out right now.
  • I had a terrible road accident 10 years ago which left me with PTSD, as a result I was taking more and more time off work (after a years recovery) and in the end was made redundant. My marriage broke down too at around the same time I lost my job. I owed money to the bank for windows on the house my now ex wife is living in with my son. I was in terrible trouble with debt, and the possibility of homelessness. I contacted a debt management agency (payplan) and they were of huge help, although my debt repayments reduced I still had the amount to clear and the debt still hangs over my head. My mental health is bad enough with depression and anxiety, I rarely go out and hardly socialise. I am with a new partner and live in a 2 bed flat above a shop (reasonable rent) we have a 7 Yr old Son. I'm still not working! because on every application forms I have been honest with them about my illness, I never hear back. My partner is a Nurse and we get help from the govt to top up our rent as I'm the main carer for our son. I am trying to establish an income from photography which I have had an interest in since an early age. I bought myself a middle of the range camera with my redundancy money and also find that photography is very therapeutic for me. I'm still not comfortable with myself though and that's the problem. With these debts to clear, I'm not sure my future has any hope unless I can make some changes. I am hopeful though because once you give up hope, you give up life. and I'm not ready for that.
  • hello
    march 2015 i had everything own business proud and happy, suddenly felt strange low upset, moving forward 3 trips to hospital, 2 stone lighter, 6 weeks in bed and wanting to couldn't walk, constantly checking my BP and blood oxygen levels.diagnosed with anxiety and depression,they said it was because my first wife passed away 5 years ago, but i said i was happy now how can this be, its hard to explain but to try and be happy i would spend money, in fact all our savings and my wife never questioned it because she wanted me happy, now everything as gone, and to make matters worse i have been purchasing cars on pcp plans which again gave me a burst of happiness, i would do anything to feel my usually self and i didn't realise what i was doing. infact one of our current cars purchased brand new in September, i was too ill to leave our car and had to sign the documents in there car park.and again i had done it once more this time a 30k car 1 month ago, my mental health as cost me everything in money but i have not lost my wife or family they have stuck behind me, but what have i done , lost 1000s sometimes 5k at a time on taking cars back and part exchanging them when there only a few weeks old, i dont know why my mental health is making me do this but i can now only see serious debt if i dont get my health sorted now, i have been on AD and other meds since april and see mental health teams and doctors regular, i just wish i was not in control of my own finances, now its too late, no income and 2 cars on pcp why why why. take care everyone.
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