I don’t know whether you realise it, but today is what has officially been dubbed the ‘most depressing day of the year’. It’s called Blue Monday, typically the third Monday in every January.
By this point, if you’re like me, you’ve already had all the credit card bills that you knocked up leading up to Christmas and in the sales, you’ve run out of cash in your bank account with all of your December pay packet being spent ages ago and all that Christmas glow has evaporated in the harsh reality of January. No wonder they call it Blue Monday!
But for some, Blue Monday is every Monday – all 52 of them in a year. It’s also every other day of the week, because debt has engulfed all life and taken away every single joy that comes from living it. It’s one long nightmare of sleepless nights, hours spent awake worrying about how to pay bills and get creditors off the phone, guilt at the fact that personal debts built up in the first place and a helpless feeling of being out of control.
Accompanying this is an embarrassment and an inability to talk to anyone about worries and a sinking gloomy mood that constantly places a voice in the head that says “things will never get any better”.
If this sounds too familiar and your life is one long string of Blue Mondays, you need to do something about it. I was browsing the web and found that the Royal College of Psychiatrists advises people not to ignore their personal debts, as they will only get worse. They say that one in two adults with debts has a mental health problem – this most likely being depression, I guess. Their leaflet Debt and Mental Health advises people suffering thanks to personal debt to speak to a debt adviser and get expert advice, deciding whether you just need to unburden yourself, by speaking to a debt adviser who is non-judgmental and who can offer you solutions, or whether you also need one who will take over the responsibility of dealing with your creditors, removing all that stress and strain from your shoulders.
They advise that, if you have suffered a mental health problem, you try to explain this to your creditors, ideally through a debt adviser who can explain the impact that this might have had on your personal debt situation. If this doesn’t happen, the spending sprees and mania that often accompanies depression and poor mental health can be viewed as simply fraudulent behaviour.
Interestingly enough, they also say that you need to consider whether you can afford to wait to see a debt adviser, given your state of mental health, or whether you need to remove yourself of the stress of waiting for an appointment, queuing at an advice centre and then waiting for action to be taken on your behalf. Many people do decide that hanging around and delaying decisive debt repayment action even longer just isn’t worth the additional strain.
All of the commentators on the link between debt and depression urge swift action, explaining that as soon as you unburden yourself of the guilt, the secrets that accompany personal debt, the truth about your financial situation and the implications for your family, the sooner you will start to feel better.
Getting debt management advice can immediately remove the debt yoke from the neck, even if the process of unburdening results in a few tears. Debt advisers who deal with personal debts every day of the week are used to this, so you are not alone in your emotions.
The important thing to recognise is that depression can wreck a life more than personal debt and there is a way forward with the latter. Find that and you will have the key that will unlock a happy life once more. Pick up the phone and get some debt advice today and you might just start to see some of that light at the end of the debt tunnel.