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Dramatic Sleeper's avatar

I’m still reading, but this line: “ Money is the last taboo, and we feel ashamed if we “don’t have enough” and we feel ashamed if we have “too much,” all the while not having anything real to compare ourselves to.” STRONGLY reminds me of the thin/fat line that women are supposed to walk, or the prude/slut line with clothing that women wear, or any number of arbitrary lines that just exist in society. For some reason. Over and over again.

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Nicole's avatar

I would love it if someone with this attitude could talk about bankruptcy and recovering from it. I filed for chapter 7 in September and it’s been one of the shittiest experiences of my life, emotionally and financially obviously but also mentally. I was fortunate enough to have a lawyer, but even so I spent countless hours falling down research rabbit holes about the exact definition of “insiders” or whether a plane ticket my mom bought me last winter that I paid her back for would count as an insider payment (answer: no). I had the textbook definition of a boring “no-asset” case but spent the entire time convinced I would go to jail for failing to report the exact worth of my book collection.

Now that the creditors meeting has been successfully completed I’m starting to relax a bit, but the next question is what to do after. I have a steady, adequate income so that’s obviously a huge advantage. But a lot of the advice I have read includes getting a credit card to rebuild my credit, and I frankly don’t feel that I can be trusted with one. I’m in this situation partly because I have bipolar disorder, and at both ends of the pole I have spent a lot of money that I didn’t have. (Also, bipolar can be expensive to treat. Health care is expensive.) What can I do to improve my financial health that doesn’t include credit cards? And how do I psychologically thread the needle between “bankruptcy is sometimes necessary and good for people” and “mine was preventable and I am deeply ashamed”? How do I feel less shame? That last one might be for my therapist.

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