You are not alone
Hi Penny Less
You are not alone in this, neither am I or the thousands of good honest people who put their faith in the people we voted for. People whom are paid vasts amounts of money to run the country and guide and advise the people of Ireland in the best course of action they should take in various situations ie: buying their homes etc. We made decisions at the time to the best of our abilities which were largly based on the message our experts were giving out.
If we knew then what we know now about the reckless decisions etc made by both government and banks, a lot of us would not have thrown away our good hard earned money on extremely over priced houses, even the very modest small homes like my own, we certainly wouldn't have paid good money to buy into businesses that unknowns to us were about to lose it's market because of the recession that was about to hit like a hurricane, even though my research at the time told me the business had been very successful for many years.
I, like yourself have overdraft debts, small business loans and credit card debt which I am not ignoring but have not managed to neg repayments due to our bank waiting for us to get our walfare payments sorted etc. We have finally managed to get €86/week in mortgage supplement so we now need to go back to our creditors and arrange some sort of repayment plan. The repayment will be extremely small even though the two credit card companies I wrote to won't accept my minimum payment.
Penny Less, I have absolutely no idea how we are going to pay even a small sum each month and the interest they are all refusing to freeze is climbing every day. When this happened first, I suffered the most severe anxiety ever, I drank very awful cheap vodca from tescos to get away from the crippling fear i had each day but which only esclated my fears etc. I have since stopped this distructive behaviour, eat healthly, work each day on my gratatude, continually turn negitive thoughts into positive ones, do small amounts of exercise, put aside each week small sums to cover esb, tele etc, put small sums in credit union to cover up coming car tax/ins tv licence etc.
I joined library, keep two inspirational books by my bed and dip into them both morning and night. I have gotton rid of 80% of the stress but my circumstance remain similar. I also live hours away from family whom i cannot see very often as can't afford the petrol but thats life for now. I will cope with what ever the future holds I know that now as long as I keep a healthy mind. Yes of course the banks/credit card companies are going to shout for their money and take me to court if I am not paying enough. But Its only court - I am an intellegent woman and I can deal with it. If the judge asks me to pay over a sum (which needs to be affordable to the person being judged) I will make sure I pay up. If the judge happens to be a big bad unfair wolf and decides to send me to jail - I am a happy person and I will deal with that too.
Penny wise, if you understand and believe that no matter what happens, you will deal with it - well then you have no fear, no stress. yes thats easier said than done but if you work towards that state of mind each hour/day/week and focus on what you can do to improve your state of mind you will eventually develope the good habits as easily as we have developed the bad habits of negativity in the past. Smile and be happy. Keep talking.