The anxiety of owing money to others

Owing money is like a spider web that grows and threatens to trap us., if we are not already trapped in it. This is a situation that can generate very high doses of anguish and more than one emotional conflict. Nobody goes into debt by choice, or with the intention of not paying. If we borrow money it is because we have a plan in which it is possible to replace the borrowed money.

It is possible that the calculations were incorrect, or that things did not turn out as we expected. That’s when the torment of owing money begins: lenders are responsible for turning our lives into a nightmarewith the increase in interest and harassment to make us pay.

At that point we have no choice but to pay, or pay. Maybe we can renegotiate the credit, or maybe we have to sell the sofa, but in the end we always have to pay. Which can lead to continuous situations of stress and anxiety.

Compulsive debtors

Surely most of us, even the great magnates, have decided to borrow money at some point in our lives. We need it to invest in something and we assume that we will be able to return it under the agreed conditions. We generally do.

However, There are some people who make owing money their way of life.. They live filled with anguish due to the rush to comply and then take on a new debt to pay the previous ones. They can never get out of that vicious circle. These types of people can be considered “compulsive debtors” and are identified because they meet some characteristics:

They are not clear about their financial situation. They don’t know what a monthly budget is. They ask for a multitude of small loans (a small amount of money, a pencil, etc.) and never pay them back.They don’t have the slightest idea of ​​the concept of savings.They tend to buy on impulse.They buy on credit, even when they can do it in cash.They are frequently in “financial crisis.”They like to go to the limit: They exhaust their income in no time, they go overdrawn or they take the card limit to its extremes. They maintain an indefinite hope that “someone” or “something” will come to rescue them from their serious financial problems.

The compulsive debtor is not someone who needs financial education as such, but rather a person with traits similar to those of a drug addict.. In the end the situation becomes a web of continuous dependency where the person is unable to see a way out.

Money and the human mind

Money doesn’t just buy things, it also gives power.. The providers of money and the percentage of their contribution determine status in the family and in society. That power is sometimes handled reasonably and other times not so much. Eternal debtors generally carry within themselves an essential conflict with money, due to the meaning they learned to give it.

Situations of excessive lack, when the limitations of not having money become more visible, can give rise to the fantasy that “money solves everything.” Hence When a debt is acquired, some think that “it will resolve itself.” The logic operates that money has a certain magical power to avoid any future problems.

There are also those who, Due to unconscious motivations, they want to remain in a situation of lack in the face of the world.. They want to remain in poverty and dependency, which is why they do not save to pay for themselves, but instead go into debt and increase their deprivation. They don’t realize that they have gotten into a problem: owing money.

Money management has much more to do with emotions and unconscious desires, than most are willing to admit. Many of the problems with money arise not from how it is obtained, but from the kinds of things on which it is spent.

If money management does not work, if it is a source of anguish, if it leads to endless debts, it is because We are not simply talking about finances, but about psychological conditions that need to be reviewed and assessed. Have you ever been involved in owing money?

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Images courtesy of John Holcroft, Aralyn McGregor.