unpaid student loans as well.
The majority of the debt I accrued several years ago in a short period.
What had happened was I'd quit my job for various reasons. I hit the
self-medication good and proper. I then got asked to consult on a new
magazine and got involved in the startup.
I took the loans out to fund the magazine and my lifestyle. I wasn't
worried about paying them back. I'd experienced severe depression for a
long time as part of my bipolarness - the sort of thing antidepressants
for treatment resistant depression can't treat.
I consciously decided that if the magazine didn't take off then I'd kill
myself. I think this is illegal - to take out a debt without being ready
to pay it. If the magazine had been a success I'd have paid it off of
course.
When the money ran out and the credit letters started coming in I tried
to kill myself. Twice in a week, both times taking high doses of an
antipsychotic I'd been prescribed. I'd found out that 10,000mg had
killed one person. I only managed 5000mg in my first attempt and I don't
know why I didn't take the 10,000mg. I can't remember how many I took on
the second attempt that got me into hospital and thrown out by my family.
A long standing debt - a £10,000 graduate loan - I took out many, many
years ago when I was manic and it was just before I was first
hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar with paranoid features (the
paranoid features bit I only recently found out when I came across my
section form recently). I didn't need the money but I was hypo- and
hypermanic. It was the first time I'd experienced full blown mania and
psychosis.
Some people might consider there's an argument for those to be written
off however when I started to pay my debts a few years ago I made a
decision to pay them all back. This was based on two things. The first
is the belief that the mentally ill are equal to automotons. We are all
the human race. If I want to be equal then I have to live on the same
terms, and for me that meant taking all the responsibility for my
actions in the past. Every penny had to be paid back. The other reason
is it would repair my credit score and, with enforced manual
decisioning, I could prove myself creditworthy. If ever I chose to sort
my life out and get on with construct measures of success I'd still be
able to get a mortgage at a good rate and access to whatever parts of
society are accessible only with a good credit history in the future.
There is a part of me that says that any debt taking out when a person
is unwell or suicidal should be written off. That's probably what I'd
say when I'm drunk. But I don't think that could happen, not least of
all because everyone would say they were suicidal or had been going
through a period of mental instability. I say to myself I took those
debts on and I spent the money. It's a sacrifice but I can pay them off
with time.
The problem is the sacrifice though. My debts have severely impeded my
life. I had to reduce everything in my life from a much higher level of
choice and consumption to a bare minimum. I had to make the choice to
cut a lot out of my life but kept the things that were important to me.
Drink, drugs, photography, food, socialisation and a few basic
essentials like clothing.
The issue is how to change the system. The mentally ill have to repay
their debts like anyone else otherwise the lenders will ask for a mental
health history and make credit judgements based on that. They work on
statistical modelling and if they see they're getting less profit from
the mentally ill they'll offer higher rates of credit and smaller
amounts, and ultimately seek to exclude them from credit and
credit-based services. The banks will seek a way to divide the mentally
ill from automotons as a way to protect their profits but in doingso
will create another divide in society, one that disadvantages the
mentally ill.
Basic mental health training may help. I wonder if had that Barclays
manager would haver refused me the loan had he know what hypermania
looked like. It's awareness of individual's temporary states rather than
a pre-existing condition that may make the banking system a bit safer
for everyone. Stopping a person who's ever been suicidal from taking out
a loan would be the sort of conclusion that I'd hope wouldn't be thought
of or ever implemented. There's no point in creating a new area for the
stigma of diagnosis to contribute to poorer access to what anyone else
has fair access to.
Debt is like any drug though and many people get hooked. It's easy to
take out loans and the stigma of personal debt has changed radically
since the 1970s. Banks hook students in with loans and interest free
overdrafts like crack dealers offering the top quality stuff to get the
users hooked. Debt gives that freedom to be in our consumer society and
it's a feeling that's better than crack for many people. The addiction
to a lifestyle funded by debt can end up with the same or worse outcomes
than a drug addiction when it goes wrong.
At least it's a drug for people who are like how I used to be before my
debt-related suicide attempt, lost in social status and the trappings of
the construct of human value and wealth.
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