Most adults can say they have some amount of debt. When debt gets out of hand, it can create horrible effects on emotional well-being. Even when a person has the ability to manage his/her finances well, things can happen to change that. Jobs can be lost or accidents can happen. There are many reasons for people getting into a higher amount of debt that suddenly becomes unmanageable.
When this happens, your debt can have the following effects on your emotional health:
Restlessness
As your debts slowly become overwhelming, one of the first affects is your sleeping habits. You will be unable to fall asleep because you are thinking about the debt that keeps piling up. You can find no way out of the situation and stay up at all hours of the night thinking of ways to make it just go away. This leads to other issues regarding your emotional well being.
Not being able to sleep keeps us from getting enough rest to function properly. The brain does not work as quickly or with accuracy when it has not gotten the rest it needs. This eventually leads to not being able to properly function in your job or other aspects of your life. Debt can be an all consuming threat to your physical and mental well being as time passes.
Fear
Being too far in debt can cause fear at every turn. The phone rings and you don’t want to answer in fear that it may be a credit collection company. You don’t want to get the mail because there may be a notice about having to pay a bill. You fear that you will never be able to get yourself out of the situation that you suddenly have found yourself in. This fear eventually turns into paranoia which in turns affects your daily life.
Anger
Too much debt can cause anger in the person who finds him/herself frustrated at the fact that the money is owed. This is when common sense goes out the window and you try to reason with yourself that it isn’t your fault and you don’t owe the money. You get angry and irate at the collection agencies when they call. Of course, that is the reaction they want from you. If it wasn’t the reaction they wanted, they would be reasonable when they called rather than treating you like so much dirt. That doesn’t mean that you don’t owe the money though. The anger can become as unmanageable as the debt itself. It spills over into your personal life. Debt can cause homes to split up.
Depression
When the feelings have built up for a long time over the debt issues, you will eventually be led to a very depressed state. Depression is a state of hopelessness that things cannot be rectified. That is why people tend to commit suicide in times of great economic depressions or recessions. A person who is feeling depression over their financial situation are in danger of going over the edge. He/she will curl up in a little ball and withdraw into themselves. This isn’t going to cure the problem but he/she feels there isn’t anything that he/she can do.
Debt has a tremendous hold on us. We allow it to destroy our emotional health as well as our physical health. The first thing to remember is that everything can be rectified. Every situation is unique, but the point of desperation is the same. People tend to do things out of character in order to repair the debt problems they may be having. They will steal, lie and cheat to get money in many cases. When you feel that you have had more than you can take, don’t take any desperate measures to get rid of it. For some of those measures, you can land in jail. For other measures, you won’t live to see what great things lie ahead.
The best plan of action is prevention. There are things that you can do to alleviate the situation. Start a savings and stick with it in case of emergency. Dedicate yourself to finding work, no matter how you view the job, money is money and $1.00 is better than 0 dollars. Keep only one credit card, you don’t need the rest. Pay your bills on time. When you get a call or a letter about the debt, respond to it. This is the first step in getting back to the right path. Following these simple guidelines can save you from a depression that could cost you your life.
