Dealing with The Stress of Debt!
As the Christmas period comes to an end and the New Year begins
many people suddenly find themselves faced with the Credit card
bill from hell! It seemed so easy to "spend, spend, spend" when
out buying all the wonderful presents for your loved ones.
Nowadays we are bombarded on every side by advertising for yet
another Credit Card and it can be so easy to sign the pre-filled
application forms that come through our letter boxes!
It seems at times as if the whole world is getting ever deeper
into debt and the statistics make frightening reading don't
they. However, In all the technical discussion you hear about
credit card debt, the best ways to manage it; how to pay it off
and all the rest there seems to be one thing which goes largely
ignored. Namely, how to cope with the stress that Credit Card
Debt can cause!
Credit card debt can be extremely stressful, and it can have an
extremely negative effect on your life, if you allow it to. We
have all read in the press how people can become addicted to
shopping. Alongside that Credit Card usage and the consequent
debt can become as bad as an addiction, always hanging over you,
bringing you down, making it hard to life your life the way you
want to. In this article, we'll take a look at how you can
recognise debt stress, and what you can do about it. Did you
notice the key phrase I used about how it can have a negative
effect "if you allow it to" and that is something that we need
to recognise straight away. If it has a negative effect it is
because we allow it to.
There are many symptoms which are caused by stress. These can
include: headaches, not being able to sleep, feeling depressed
and irritable, being forgetful and being unable to concentrate
on what you are doing. If are uncertain whether your symptoms
are related to stress or to something else, then you should go
and see a doctor.
Almost without exception everyone who has mounting debts becomes
stressed about them. Debt said to be responsible for millions of
days of lost work every year and is one of the leading causes of
suicide. Often when we read about someone who has felt driven to
commit suicide, their name is followed by "who owed [a very
large amount] in debts".
In today's world there is no escaping the fact that the average
adult in the western world owes many thousands in debts. When
you think that the average person owes thousands then it follows
that there are many people who must owe much more. It's an old
saying and one that my Grandmother was very fond of! There's
always someone worse off than you. It is certainly true and in
effect means that you are not alone in how you are feeling if
you find yourself with what you perceive as a mountain of debt.
So how should you deal with the stress caused by debts?
Stress caused by debts is often considered to be embarrassing,
or shameful to some extent almost more so than the debts
themselves. People with lots of debts don't want to talk about
it, even with their family, for fear of upsetting people or
being perceived to be a failure.
However, the truth is that it is very important that you do talk
about your problems Keeping it all inside you will make you feel
much, much more stressed. It is especially important that you
talk to your partner. As much as you may want to protect them
from your problems they are the number one person who can
support you. Experience has shown that partners are more
devastated by having the truth withheld from them than by being
told the extent of the problem.
The best thing to do then is to find two people: one of them who
can advise you, and one who can be a counsellor. That means a
professional who knows what they're doing in financial matters,
as well as a psychologist or psychiatrist, or some other kind of
counsellor. Don't let stigmas put you off because this is about
your health and your sanity.
The next thing to do is to think about how you got that debt to
begin with. See if you can find old credit card statements. What
did you spend the money on? What do you not need? You need to
sit down, work out a budget, cut unnecessary expenses and try to
free up as much money as you can to pay back debts. Even if
it'll be a long time before you get everything paid off, knowing
that your debt is gradually going downwards can be an excellent
cure for debt stress.