Capt SpaceBat

I recently received a letter with a return address of a local authority on the envelope.  Fascinated in what some distant council might wish to impart to or enquire of me, I opened the letter and read it.  No, to my dismay, it was not a misguided epistle from a far-off unitary authority advising me of the intended construction of an interstellar bypass through my living room but a letter from a debt recovery agency demanding that I make some form of settlement to a long-standing debt from a bank unwise enough to have loaned me money and afforded me an overdraft before the final breakdown that had driven me over the edge into unemployment and perhaps even unemployability.  What had started as a manageable debt had snowballed by the addition of interest at rates normally only encountered in hushed tales of usury most foul.  The agency had been sold my account - probably with thousands of others - by a company to whom I had previous appraised of my situation and who had, I believed, written off the debt and interest in an act of “goodwill” as there was little likelihood of them ever seeing their demands being met.

To a paranoid person - of whom I am one - such letters, if not actually threatening, do have an edge of menace to them.  Rather than stuffing the letter to the back of a drawer, I phoned up the agency (after some egging on by my wife) saying that I had received their letter, was signed off work and was already paying off a credit card bill for the next few centuries.  I was asked to provide a summary of income and outgoings, to which I agreed.

My wife, on hearing this, recalled that was exactly what had happened with the previous proud owner of the account and so phoned the agency to see if we really had to go through the same routine again.  On hearing that this was in fact he case, she let them know that I was filing for bankruptcy, a rather less stressful and intimidating prospect than being pursued in such manner, enabling me to start with a clean slate in just over a year’s time.

Checking further, insolvency - whilst appealing - did have some pitfalls of its own and so a summary of my very limited ins and outs is thus being prepared for posting.

What has this to do with BPD?  Quite a bit: in “episodes”, it is incredibly easy to come across as the answer to a lender’s dream, fritter away the funds without having any real use for them and then find oneself unable to repay the ever-increasing amount, leading to a spiral of worries, unopened letters, perceived threats, further rash behaviour and increased illness.  The only way to break out of the circle is to *STOP* *LOOK* at the letters/situation and *LISTEN* to professional advice, or at least that of someone who has managed such a situation before and then *LOOK BOTH WAYS* whilst crossing the abyss and contacting the creditor or facing other demons.

In the United Kingdom, the ultimate route to insolvency is through the Insolvency Service - http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/ - their site has a fount of useful information and links on how to become bankrupt, what it entails and how to avoid it if you can.

I tentatively predict that insolvency and debt management will be two of the few growth areas in the forthcoming years, but - as the ancient shepherds would have it - we must return to our sheep*.

Communication, as ever, is the key to all this.  There are many ways to avert such a fell outcome, even if sufficient people - lenders and borrowers alike -have allowed such a situation to arise: the Consumer Action Group has a pile of template letters available for free online at http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-debt-issues/20758-creditors-dcas-letter-templates.html as well as a simple budget planner which you can use work out how much - if anything - you can afford to offer your creditors, thereby taking further control of your situation.  They also advise, when joining, not to use your real name, for reasons of personal safety and privacy - advice with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Intelligent Solutions

Now for the daily update:

• Get published:
  Received reply from Borderline UK / Personality Plus; more to come, but seems very promising.

• Get exhibited:
  See above.

• Get rich(er) &/or better:
  Dealing with creditors - financially & interactively improving.  Remembering not to put all eggs into one basket.  See above passim.

• Get out of the United Kingdom before the Olympics:
  Further domicile improvements - someone must want it some day. Mustn’t they?  Anybody

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* I discovered - to my shock and delight - that my mangled French version of this proverb translated more along the lines of “Let us now turn over our sheep.”  Apologies to all those whom I have offended with this maxim.  Except one, perhaps.

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