You might think that just because I cut up my credit cards and cancelled my credit lines, thereby making it very difficult to incur new unsecured debt, that I would be considered "recovered" in Debtors Anonymous. After all, isn't that why I came to my first meeting, to stop debting?
Well, and to figure out how to get out of debt, that $20,000 of credit card debt I have referred to as a "mountain." Actually, by the time I attended my first D.A. meeting, I had already cut up my credit cards and cancelled my credit lines. I thought I was something pretty special when I waltzed in the door of my first meeting. I was merely seeking a new perspective on money, I told myself. I would learn the secret to paying off my mountain of debt and be out of those D.A. rooms so fast you wouldn't see my dust trail.
People told me, "Slow down, recovery begins when we stop incurring new debt. You aren't recovered yet, and, because compulsive debting is a progressive illness, you may want to consider the possibility that you may never qualify as 'recovered.'"
I did not want to consider that possibility. However, it gradually began to be clear to me that I might have a bigger problem than just racking up charges on credit cards. However, I thought I was a special case.
Compulsive people tend to be pretty self-focused in their attempts to get what they want. This self-focus is not the good kind, you probably figured that out. The good kind of self-focus is where we set healthy boundaries with others and brush our teeth twice a day. No, the self-focus I'm talking about is the bad kind, the kind where every single thing that happens in the world is somehow all about us. If it is something good, we take credit for it somehow, or turn the conversation toward how we would have done that good thing, if only we'd had the [money/time/interest]. If it is something bad, we either take the blame for it somehow, or we once again declare how we would have handled it if only someone had bothered to ask for our opinion.
In a conversation, it can go like this:
The other person says, "My car needs an oil change."
A normal person would say something like, "Oh really? When are you taking it in?" or maybe, "Where do you plan to take it?"
Not me. My debtor brain immediately turns the topic to me and my car, if I have one. "I just found out my car is terminal," I would say if I was looking for sympathy. Or if I was looking to impress the other person, I would say something like, "I'm trading my Focus in on a Maserati." That will shut them up.
If I don't have a car, I would whine, "It must be nice to have a car. Wish I had a car. I have to take the bus. No wonder I can't [get a decent job/go on a vacation/write my novel]." Woe, woe is me.
There's nothing that happens on earth, big or small, but that I can't turn it into something about me. It's sick, it's sad, but it's the reality of my debtor brain. I think I'm special and unique, and that's how every day my brain is trying to kill me. Terminal uniqueness is the phrase we use in D.A. I hear people say morosely, "I deserve so much better," and I have to chuckle: I know I'm not alone.
Terminal uniqueness is a spiritual malady with a spiritual solution. That is not what I wanted to hear twenty years ago when I strolled into my first D.A. meeting, but that is the experience, strength, and hope that I was given. Sort of like, I thought I deserved a Maserati, but I've learned that a Focus can be a useful vehicle in its own way. Not what I wanted or expected (given my unique status), but now I can (usually) be grateful and accept the gifts I'm given.
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