My aim for this blog is to try and find some kind of support and advice, to share experiences with other people on DC. Yes, you can call it a support group for Debtors Anonymous!!
For me and my husband it has been a very long journey - we have been on debt counselling for over 3 years and eagerly await our apparent court hearing near the end of February 2012. He lost his job 41/2 years ago. We managed to live on our savings for another year before that ran out, and then at the end of 2008 I just knew that the following month, December, we would not be able to pay all our creditors. At this point and before we received any legal notices, "love letters" and section 28 notices, we applied for Debt Review. And here we are 3 years on still waiting for a magistrates court to decide whether or not the proposals made by our debt counsellor are acceptable.
However, it is the inbetween part that I would like to share with you. Do not believe for one moment that your creditors go away - they don't, and dont expect them to! We owe them money and they want their money plain and simple. Yes, we do want to pay them everything we owe them, and we do want to fulfill our commitment to keeping to our side of the bargain, but in between life has happened and circumstances have changed, and we have to quickly learn to make do with what little we have - including your dignity!
One thing I must share with you, especially if you are considering going under debt review is this; it affects your work performance, your relationships, your emotions, your outlook, your future, your being - being under review is embarassing and humiliating and you feel like a failure. Your self esteem goes for a nose dive, your confidence takes a landslide, and you start to feel pains in your body you never felt before and you're actually not even old enough to have pains like that. Every time you receive a "love letter" (summons) your heart jumps into your chest, you start huyperventelating and your back goes into spasm!! Never in our wildest dreams could we imagine that there would ever be a sheriff of the court throwing legal documents into the drive way, in the rain, withouth even the courtesy of a knock on the door, or a ring of the gate bell. You have to believe me, it is not a strol in the park.
Then you have your creditors, those wonderful institutions that "sold" you the prouducts of your current despair. They were once friendly and polite and would do anything to get you to participate in their credit specials. And of course we did participate, for whatever reason. At the time hubby had a great paying job, so did I and we could easily afford to pay back. We even managaed to have a savings account too! wo what kind of eventuality could blow this all out of proportion??
For most of us our cirumstances are all different. Some of us were simply wreckless, others of us were tryign to keep up with the Jones's, others lost their jobs...... whatever the reason, we are all here at this point now in our lives now and we need each others support and good advice.
your comments are warmly welcomed.
Cathrine
