Question Has Bk13 Changed You as A Person?

[Barbisi]

I wonder if others who haven't exactly enjoyed the whole BK13 process and lifestyle feel that the not so wonderful experience has forever changed their personality and/ or perspective?
And I don't mean financially speaking -I would hope others have learned how to shop wisely and to not rely on CCs.
In my case, I find myself less trusting of others, more resentful of wealthy /successful peers who have never had financial/ medical obstacles, less optimistic about the future, less patient with little daily difficulties, and just more petulant and fed up in general. I am also less accepting of the status quo, like spending thousands of dollars to maintain old rickety cars and an ageing home which is creating and acerbating some of my current health problems in a location which has brought much grief and little positivity into my life.
How are you managing the unintentional personality changes a stressful BK13 might cause?

[justbroke]

I'm the same person. No personality change. No job change. No spending change.

Any change, which I don't see in myself, is likely attributable of wisdom.

[shipo]

Similar to justbroke, I don't believe the experience has made a meaningful change in who I am and what I'm about. I was a "glass is half-full" guy before financial ruin, and I am still one. I know there are lots of folks out there who ascribe to the power of positive thinking/belief; I am not one of them, however, the last time I remember being pessimistic about my future was back in 1970 and 1971 when I had a very abusive and alcoholic stepfather, and I was his favorite target..., then I realized I was faster than the SOB and my life changed forever.

[Barbisi]

Thank you both!
I would expect level headed, pragmatic folks who ,like ducks, just let the water flow off their backs without impacting them at all!
For me, and others I'm sure, there was nothing nonchalant about these five years - it was devastating and brought my artistic life to a sudden and irrevocable standstill. I'm just not sure where to go from here.
I think for debtors who manage the BK13 years successfully, it definitely helps to be living somewhere you wouldn't mind dying. LOL!
Hating my surroundings certainly has made my years of home confinement and financial stress far less bearable.
I think it is difficult to empathize with me unless you know what it's like to be stuck in a rut or what it feels like to be like a hamster trapped on a wheel to nowhere.
Hopefully the end is around the corner and unless something else disastrous happens, this BK13 will cease to be a part of my daily life.
Que sera? To paraphrase the old Italian song which inspired the 50's American hit - What will happen, the future is definitely not ours to see.
Happy Thanksgiving all!

[womanonfire]

There is a saying, "Change your attitude and change your life." It's true. The way that you look at your life and circumstances dictates your personal happiness. And I completely understand as well. I had dreams of traveling the world and my only son has just been hospitalized for the 15th time for bipolar mania. He is 28 and will likely need my care for life. So I'm going to have to create new dreams for myself. Anyway, I high suggest that you watch this video by Dr. Andrew Huberman, neurobiologist, it has been life changing for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVjfFN89qvQ

[IHaveRegrets]

The bankruptcy hasn't changed me; however, the circumstances that got me here definitely did. In short, I was scammed out of my life savings plus scammed into a mountain of credit card debt.

All bankruptcy has given me was a bitter dose of reality on how laws, courts, and parts of our financial system work. I get to pay for my mistakes for five years. Because of the circumstances, the scammer won't see any direct repercussions. I can't afford to hire a lawyer for a civil suit that I would likely never be able to collect on anyway, even if I won.

In any case, we'll see how I feel in 4.5 years when I'm done. So far during my bankruptcy: Unexpected medical expenses, employer was bought up, the apartment building I live in is being sold (so this time next year around this time, most likely, I'll be figuring out how I'm going to afford a new place to live and hire movers, etc., and that's just the first six months.

I can see the distant dot of the light at the end of the tunnel, and I have hope that the light I'm seeing is the end of the tunnel and not another train coming for me, but time will tell, at least I'm (I hope) on the right track.

[womanonfire]

I have some residual anger towards my mortgage servicers, their lawyers and the industry. I have some anger at my state of Georgia for being a creditor friendly state instead of a consumer friendly state. My attorney literally told me that Georgia hates debtors. But the side of me that fights, that advocates thinks that I can change it, flip the script somehow. We shall see. But I do want to share something I recently read that really made me think and it helped me. Anthony Ray Hinton spent 30 years on death row for a crime that he didn't commit. His time in jail was spent in solitary confinement in a five-by-seven cell, allowed out only one hour a day. A unanimous Supreme Court decision ordered his release and he was able to walk free. Later, when he was interviewed on 60 Minutes, the interviewer asked whether he was angry at those who had put him in jail. He responded that he had forgiven all the people who had sent him to jail. The interviewer incredulously asked, “But they took thirty years of your life—how can you not be angry?” Hinton responded, “If I’m angry and unforgiving, they will have taken the rest of my life."

[5yrplan]

Yes I've learned my lesson. I will not go back in debt for anything except a mortgage. I live below my means, budget for success, save for emergencies, and invest. 3 more BK payments until forever debt free, can't wait.

[Zombie13]

IHaveRegrets - I am sorry to hear this happened to you. Yes you will get through this. As for the person(s) that brought you to this: Karma.
5yrplan - yep, I hear that.

[Zombie13]

As for myself, I think the changes are temporary: I have not felt as optimistic as I once was. I have been negative, sarcastic, and grumpy more often. I have had long periods of time where I get feelings of anxiety at night, but not during the day, for some reason - this has mostly disappeared. This anxiety has presented itself over the last 8 months or so especially, but now with two payments remaining, and with us finally: selling/donating, and getting rid of heavy, bulky, and large light items, and boxing stuff up, I feel so much better because we can, and are, actually 'doing something' after nearly 5 years of sitting on our hands doing nothing, not being able nor 'permitted' to do what we want with our life. I have had to bite my tongue and toe the line. Some say, or perhaps, want to believe, "5 years isn't that long...". And that's fine, for them; it's their life, so that's cool. I say, at least for us, "I wholeheartedly disagree, this is completely incorrect for us. That's 5 years of our life we'll never get back". My point is, we are basically, 5 years behind where we need and want to be. Now, we are finally almost done with that BS. We have a lot of catching up to do, and we shall succeed. Time to pack up and head out!

[Barbisi]

The bankruptcy hasn't changed me; however, the circumstances that got me here definitely did. In short, I was scammed out of my life savings plus scammed into a mountain of credit card debt.

All bankruptcy has given me was a bitter dose of reality on how laws, courts, and parts of our financial system work. I get to pay for my mistakes for five years. Because of the circumstances, the scammer won't see any direct repercussions. I can't afford to hire a lawyer for a civil suit that I would likely never be able to collect on anyway, even if I won.

In any case, we'll see how I feel in 4.5 years when I'm done. So far during my bankruptcy: Unexpected medical expenses, employer was bought up, the apartment building I live in is being sold (so this time next year around this time, most likely, I'll be figuring out how I'm going to afford a new place to live and hire movers, etc., and that's just the first six months.

I can see the distant dot of the light at the end of the tunnel, and I have hope that the light I'm seeing is the end of the tunnel and not another train coming for me, but time will tell, at least I'm (I hope) on the right track.

@IHaveRegrets, I am so sorry this happened to you!
No matter what the lawyers, trustee, law enforcement, court, etc. have said to you - you did not deserve this and the criminal is the one who should be paying for this, not you! Scammers should not be able to force you into BK13 ever!
I feel something similar happened to us,only it resulted in two home purchases, the first caused us to use CCs to fix up a terrible investor home we should never have bought in the first place and couldn't otherwise repair, and second came with a solar panel lease and a much heftier monthly mortgage which forced to file three months after we moved in, due to "losing" 20k at closing (i.e., we spent 100k to fix the first house up, but only got 80K when we sold the house, put 60K towards older CC debt, and ended up with barely enough for a down payment on the second house) and not being able to pay $700 more for the mortgage and still pay the 100K+ left in fresh CCs. In order to have avoided BK13, we have had to make a 150k profit on the house. The buyers later sold the house for an 85k profit and sailed happily away. We are the only ones who were ripped off here - everyone else involved - the sellers, the buyers, the first real estate agent, the mortgage broker, the mortgage company, etc.- all made money.
In fact, a third party told us shortly after we had bought the fixer upper that we should sue everyone involved in the sale of that house because in her words, "You were sold down the river" and "You were left holding the bag"! Of course, we couldn't prove that, so all we could was continue fixing up the house to make it more livable and appealing to future buyers and hope (in vain!) we could clear at least a little profit.
Hang in there, Karma should deliver the decisive punch you could not!
Good luck on surviving what will probably be a difficult stretch!

[Clay3007]

I would say it has not changed me as a person but i look at every purchase now before i make it. Being a young guy i felt i had to ply keeping up with the jones all the time, now i don't give a shit. Your new $80,000 Tahoe is sweet but im able to do what i want when i want if needed. My wife says it has changed me tho because now i want to save every dime i can even tho we have a good nest egg. I keep telling her you never know whats gonna happen.

[Carmella]

Barbisi I think your situation is different in the respect you had lost your roles in life. You were not able to pursue the career you enjoy or keep up with education/training for it. You found out the part of the country you are in is not what you expected. You have had losses and I dare to say you have been grieving. Now I am not a psychologist and can't analyze, etc, but I have enough education, training and job experience to know when people have losses in their life and are externally controlled by some events outside their control it is very hard to deal with and does wear on a person.

I say keep your eye on the prize you are coming down the home stretch and I bet once you can move to a better location and can engage more in the things you enjoy doing you will be happier and can get back to being like the "old you."

My husband gets more down about it mostly since he doesn't have a car. He gets more judgemental of people who have more wealth or have more belongings (which I do not because one can have more belongings and be in financial ruin). Or he feels like "we should be able to do "fill in the blank." and we cannot right now.

I focus more on the fact we can be basically debt free when payment 60 rolls around and we can move forward.

One thing I think is a real problem is that BK doesn't allow for a lot. If there is an emergency it is hard to take care of it. If they let us keep the house we should have a way to keep the house up even if there was controlled savings only for certain things. It still bugs me when we had the leaking toilet into the basement. Luckily it was not dirty water, but still water would leak through the floor which isn't good for the floor. We lived with it way too long. Our garage needs repairs that isn't happening and I keep hoping the city will not give us a citation. The roof needs replaced who has extra $ for that? Our driveway is also bad, cracked, uneven, but there's no way to pay for that.

I make payments on the income tax because we don't have disposable income to cover the amount they take AFTER we have paid taxes including extra from our paycheck. IRS can't give us a payment plan, but we can voluntarily pay and get charged more since we are late. This is income tax after the BK, not income taxes that were delinquent prior to BK. The trustee wanted a higher payment when she realized my daughter graduated college, but she didn't care that our income tax would go up with less deductions and we have to pay more...

I know BK is not there to help us. It's there to help pay the creditors and we do what we have to do because in the end it benefits us. In the end those of us who make it through will be better off.

I do not feel BK is a great experience and I agree with Zombie13 5 yrs is a long time to be stagnant and not able to do things you want to do. And for people like Barbisi who can't follow their dream or people who cannot get a job or a better job since the $ will go towards BK payment it is a huge loss. The good part of the BK is that if you survive you are better off regarding the debt being relieved if it's less than 100% payback you didn't have to pay it all. If it's 100% payback then at least the interest, fees and creditor calls stopped. I guess that is how I deal with it because we will be close to debt free only a car payment and small amount on the HEL that I can probably pay off in a few months by adding my BK payment to that loan.

And I tried to totally ignore the fact that it is "easy" to go down in a Chapter 13 and it's like walking on ice sometimes hoping that there is not any emergency like one losing a job or becoming ill. There's no lifeboat if you have a real problem, maybe convert to Chapter 7, but what about the house/car? Our biggest problem is dealing with 1 car and now having that one car totaled, but it's working out in the end. I think we have about 15 months left keeping fingers and toes crossed we make it through.

I have a love/hate relationship with BK 13. I love it can get us out from under the debt. I hate all the restrictions and unrealistic amount we have to pay while expecting us to be able to maintain the home, cars, etc.

[newlife13]

I am more open about my circumstances. I will, without shame, tell someone that I can't do something (e.g., get a ParentPlus loan or buy a new car) because I'm in the last year of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. At first, I was embarrassed and ashamed.

Similarly, I will say, "I'd love to take that 4-day girls spa trip but I can't afford that. Have fun!" Without feeling bad or tempted to go into debt for one experience that will be awesome but not life changing.

And the kids are getting personal finance books for Xmas, lol.

[Barbisi]

Barbisi I think your situation is different in the respect you had lost your roles in life. You were not able to pursue the career you enjoy or keep up with education/training for it. You found out the part of the country you are in is not what you expected. You have had losses and I dare to say you have been grieving. Now I am not a psychologist and can't analyze, etc, but I have enough education, training and job experience to know when people have losses in their life and are externally controlled by some events outside their control it is very hard to deal with and does wear on a person.

I say keep your eye on the prize you are coming down the home stretch and I bet once you can move to a better location and can engage more in the things you enjoy doing you will be happier and can get back to being like the "old you."

My husband gets more down about it mostly since he doesn't have a car. He gets more judgemental of people who have more wealth or have more belongings (which I do not because one can have more belongings and be in financial ruin). Or he feels like "we should be able to do "fill in the blank." and we cannot right now.

I focus more on the fact we can be basically debt free when payment 60 rolls around and we can move forward.

One thing I think is a real problem is that BK doesn't allow for a lot. If there is an emergency it is hard to take care of it. If they let us keep the house we should have a way to keep the house up even if there was controlled savings only for certain things. It still bugs me when we had the leaking toilet into the basement. Luckily it was not dirty water, but still water would leak through the floor which isn't good for the floor. We lived with it way too long. Our garage needs repairs that isn't happening and I keep hoping the city will not give us a citation. The roof needs replaced who has extra $ for that? Our driveway is also bad, cracked, uneven, but there's no way to pay for that.

I make payments on the income tax because we don't have disposable income to cover the amount they take AFTER we have paid taxes including extra from our paycheck. IRS can't give us a payment plan, but we can voluntarily pay and get charged more since we are late. This is income tax after the BK, not income taxes that were delinquent prior to BK. The trustee wanted a higher payment when she realized my daughter graduated college, but she didn't care that our income tax would go up with less deductions and we have to pay more...

I know BK is not there to help us. It's there to help pay the creditors and we do what we have to do because in the end it benefits us. In the end those of us who make it through will be better off.

I do not feel BK is a great experience and I agree with Zombie13 5 yrs is a long time to be stagnant and not able to do things you want to do. And for people like Barbisi who can't follow their dream or people who cannot get a job or a better job since the $ will go towards BK payment it is a huge loss. The good part of the BK is that if you survive you are better off regarding the debt being relieved if it's less than 100% payback you didn't have to pay it all. If it's 100% payback then at least the interest, fees and creditor calls stopped. I guess that is how I deal with it because we will be close to debt free only a car payment and small amount on the HEL that I can probably pay off in a few months by adding my BK payment to that loan.

And I tried to totally ignore the fact that it is "easy" to go down in a Chapter 13 and it's like walking on ice sometimes hoping that there is not any emergency like one losing a job or becoming ill. There's no lifeboat if you have a real problem, maybe convert to Chapter 7, but what about the house/car? Our biggest problem is dealing with 1 car and now having that one car totaled, but it's working out in the end. I think we have about 15 months left keeping fingers and toes crossed we make it through.

I have a love/hate relationship with BK 13. I love it can get us out from under the debt. I hate all the restrictions and unrealistic amount we have to pay while expecting us to be able to maintain the home, cars, etc.

Thank you Carmella for thoughtfully and empathetically summarizing my situation from an emotional standpoint - I think you would be an awesome counselor because you are a kind, caring person who understands there is an artistic life outside of and beyond hi-tech office work!
I hope you get a break from this never - ending monsoon of really bad luck! You have been hit many more times than us these last five years and you deserve some good news!

[Carmella]

I am more open about my circumstances. I will, without shame, tell someone that I can't do something (e.g., get a ParentPlus loan or buy a new car) because I'm in the last year of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. At first, I was embarrassed and ashamed.

Similarly, I will say, "I'd love to take that 4-day girls spa trip but I can't afford that. Have fun!" Without feeling bad or tempted to go into debt for one experience that will be awesome but not life changing.

And the kids are getting personal finance books for Xmas, lol.

That's great you are comfortable enough to be open about it. I think we have our reasons and I will say we can't afford things, but don't bring up the word Chapter 13 because I am around too many people who are gossipy and at the time we filed I did not think my daughter would handle it or would blame herself and she was going through some emotional issues. I did not want to add it to her things to worry about. I will probably talk more openly about it when it's over. There is embarrassment with the situation plus I don't want to have to explain myself to people to help them learn what Chapter 13 is all about at this point in my life.

[Zombie13]

Carmella - your longer post up above: yes! ^^This^^.

If I were to get into a ... conversation about our finances with someone, then I would have no reservations about saying, "ok. Let's talk about *your* finances, eh? You hittin that debt good? No? Why not? No, let's talk about it. How much is your house payment? How much do take home each week? How much is in your bank account?" That kinda thing. I reason, if they choose to judge me, I will judge them. I have lost my tolerance for that.