You’re a nervous wreck that’s scared of Bankruptcy
You’ve come into my office, nervous, panic stricken and sleepless. You have no idea where to go from here. You know you’re stuck in a hole and have essentially no way out but the sheer prospect of filing Bankruptcy makes any sort of logical reasoning disappear. You obviously can’t tell your friends because what would they think of the fact that you’re filing Bankruptcy (as an aside, they would likely be relieved as many of them have come to see myself or some colleagues in the field)? Sometimes you can’t tell your spouse because you’re either ashamed of what happened, or you need to keep them in the dark because you’re scared of what will happen if this comes to light. You’ve not opened up a credit card statement in months, because your balance would terrify you and you just can’t deal with that right now. Collection agencies may be calling you but it hasn’t gotten to the point where you can take the next step because…well, you don’t know, but you feel it. Something good will happen. You’ll receive money from somewhere if you can just hold them off for 30 days. You just need 30 more days and something good will come about. Just hold them off for 30 days. You know you said that last month, but this month is different. You’ve done your research online. You know Donald Trump filed for Bankruptcy and look at him (he never filed; his company did. And, trust me, you’re likely way better of a person than Donald Trump)! You’ve looked at websites for debt settlement. They’re saying you’re going to be able to make small monthly payments and pay off your debt (you’re not, they’re kind of stretching the truth and you kind of know it). But it doesn’t matter, you just can’t file for Bankruptcy because…you’ll never get credit for the rest of your life (completely untrue). So you just need to hold the fort a little while longer. Your cards are closing, one by one. You’ve fallen behind on the mortgage to pay the minimums on the card but that’s ok because you can always do a loan modification and afford the new payment (many times you can’t). You’ll call your lender and tell them you need more time to make the payments and they’ll understand. They don’t. You’re antsy all the time now. You don’t understand how you got yourself into this and you truly don’t understand how you’re going to get yourself out of this. So, you call me. What’s the difference at this point, right? It’s not likely you need to file right away. In fact, you may not want to file at all. You just want some info. You just want to know your “options.” You’ll just take some time during lunch and meet. So we meet… (Part 2 tomorrow).