Telling My Mom I am Broke and In Credit Card Debt
My compulsive spending and credit card debt was this shameful secret I had held onto for literal years. It was actually crushing me emotionally. Every morning I woke up with guilt. Nobody knew, not even my therapist (lol). But I could not stop it. It was always a "ill deal with it later" or "money comes back" or "what's a few dollars here and there (even though it was hundreds of dollars)". I was so confident I could break this addiction on my own and get out of debt all by myself.
WELP.... the cat came out of the bag about a week ago. I was down to my last 100$ before my summer job started (I don't work during the school year because I have autoimmune and chronic illnesses) or so I thought. My gas light was on so I reluctantly pulled over to get gas at the next gas station, tried to put 20$ in but my card kept declining. Turns out I had pending transactions and I was actually down to my last 3$. Next came the call I and the conversation I had been terrified of for so long. A call to my mom to ask for money and tell her everything.
AND THANK GOD I DID. I know not everyone will find themselves with such supportive parents as mine, but my mom didn't even flinch. She was like okay I'll send you some money and then we are going to make a plan to fix this. She assured me it was okay, that it is apart of "learning" life lessons ad told me she actually filed bankruptcy when she was 30 because she was drowning in debt and student loans. Making sure this does not happen to me she has committed to helping me make a plan stick to it, rebuild my credit, and get help from a specialist. Beyond that, she has offered to pay off 10,000$ of my credit card debt (which currently sits around 16k. I know not everyone is as fortunate as I am. I am so incredibly grateful that she is able to do this. It was never my intention to ask her to help me settle these debts, if anything I just needed a few dollars to get some gas put in my car haha.
Moral of the story is if you are in a similar situation to me and you are beyond terrified to tell anyone / your parents about your spending and debt, don't be. Because I feel soooo much better now that I don't have to carry this burden alone and I have someone to support me. So let this be your sign if you are terrified to open about this, tell someone, literally tell anyone you feel comfortable talking to. You will feel so much better to not have to battle it alone anymore.
ALSO understand that compulsive spending is an addiction and like any other form of addiction we need a support system, we experience relapses, and its an incredibly hard journey!