Trappings of unhappiness

For many years I've felt trapped.  Trapped by my weight, trapped by my finances, trapped by my dilapidated house, trapped by the clutter in my house, trapped by my stressful job......

Feeling trapped is a horrible feeling because I lost hope.  I couldn't see an out and I feared I'd be trapped for the rest of my life.  Of course, it contributed to make my weight issues even worse.
 
I realize now that all of these "trappings," many of my own doing, were related to each other, one causing the other or at the very least they aggravated each other.  Of course, I didn't see it at the time I was immersed in my various traps.  I recognize now that these trappings served to overwhelm me in the end which led to making bad choices.  My weight issues, of course, were in the center of everything.
 
I was miserable because my weight had gotten out of control and there was no end in sight.  I slowly retreated socially and whenever I thought of venturing out to do something I wanted to do, like learning to sail or travel, I talked myself out of it because, of course, "I can't do that because I'm too fat."  So I stopped wanting to do anything.  It was easier.  The only thing that gave me pleasure and happiness was to shop for things I wanted but didn't need.  It took no effort to go to a store, pull out my credit card, and take something home that made me happy.  The "something" could be anything from books, knick knacks, or things for the home like dishes or pots for the back yard.  Compounding the problem, I've always been creative and have been involved in all sorts of things:  stained glass, sewing projects, painting, beading, etc.  Each craft requires an inventory of supplies and materials, and these are not normally cheap either. 

Shopping became my only outlet for pleasure as my weight got out of control, and years of this behavior resulted in a house cluttered with stuff I didn't need or could ever use.  Soon enough I was drowning in debt because I was shopping too often while still having to pay a mortgage, a car loan, as well as pay for costly repairs that a very old house always needs.  These, in addition to dealing with unexpected expenses that happen in every day life, such as car repairs, medical bills, vet bills, etc.  Buying something new gave me pleasure while at the same time it made me sick to my stomach that I had spent money I didn't have and now I had an inventory of stuff I had to deal with, too.  It didn't help that my small, old house has very little storage space so little by little my house became a cluttered mess.  Suddenly I had no room to work on crafts or projects so the stuff just sat there unused, many times in their original boxes.  

If I got a deal on something I wanted, all the better although it didn't dawn on me at the time (another DUH moment) that what's the point of getting a discount if you use a credit card to buy the item, a credit card you can't pay off?  The interest you incur over several months washes out any savings you got from the discount.  In fact, you end up paying for the item many times over if you can't buy the item with cash or can't pay off the credit card immediately. 

I see now that I made terrible choices in how to deal with my unhappiness by creating more problems for myself until I was finally trapped by my own devices.  The more trapped I felt, the more I gave up on myself and the more weight I gained.  Another vicious cycle I was stuck in. 

I was thinking the other day that the new me has been a work in progress for the last several years, albeit slowly.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I started to get my life together some years ago.  My first task was to get a handle on my debt.  In late 2007, I sat down and created spreadsheet after spreadsheet (I love spreadsheets!  My middle name should be "excel," the Microsoft program) of my expenses and earnings.  When I saw how much I owed in black and white, I nearly passed out.  Between loans - as in plural, a mortgage, and credit cards, I was literally drowning in debt.  

My credit rating has always been excellent, but it was no wonder I never had any money left after paying my monthly expenses!  I'm not joking when I say that there were many, many nights I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep because I felt complete desperation at the level of debt I found myself under.  When people talk about having panic attacks, I understand perfectly.  Adding insult to injury, what did I do on those nights I was panicking, frustrated, and couldn't sleep?  I was binging.  The amount seemed insurmountable particularly when every time I turned around, large unexpected expenses due to no fault of mine (car repairs, house repairs, dental issues, vet bills, etc.) were also being thrown at me on a regular basis.  I remember the desperation I felt when 2008 rolled around.  I decided that January that I needed to get my act together before it started affecting my excellent credit rating which I had spent a lifetime establishing. 

The first thing I did was to put myself on a super strict budget and worked out a payment plan with myself so that I could pay everything off within 3 years.  For someone who is as impatient as I am and craves instant gratification, knowing it was going to take me a few years to pay everything off - assuming I could even do it in the first place, was disheartening.  But what choice did I have?  I was literally drowning in debt and losing sleep because of it.  I had to do something.

I told myself that from then on, I could only buy what I absolutely needed and I could no longer buy things just because I wanted them.  Now my only outlet for enjoyment (i.e., shopping) was gone, but I had to change my relationship with shopping and how I dealt with my existing debt.  For example, I remember I really, really wanted a particular necklace I saw in a catalogue.  I obsessed over that necklace for weeks and kept looking at the catalogue a million times trying to fight the urge to buy it.  Then finally I told myself, "I can spend $300 on this necklace that will end up in a drawer most of the time or I can use that $300 to pay down one of my credit cards."  So that's what I did, I threw the catalogue away and I used the money to pay down my debt.  After a few months, I couldn't even remember what the necklace looked like although I could still feel that urge to possess it.  I started using this new tactic with anything I wanted but didn't need.  It was hard, especially in the beginning, but somehow I succeeded.  I wasn't perfect at it, sometimes I slipped and bought things I shouldn't have, but the frequency of my shopping/spending was drastically curtailed starting in January 2008.

I was constantly tweaking my beloved spreadsheets because every time I paid off another credit card or loan, then that left me with more money to apply towards the rest of my debt.  Three years later, by the spring of 2011, I was debt free except for my mortgage.  I had even paid off my car loan more than 2 years early.  When I wrote that last check to pay off the last of my debt, I couldn't believe I had done it.  Finally after many years of drowning in debt, suddenly I only had my usual monthly bills to deal with (mortgage, utilities, food, etc.) and nothing else.  Plus I had also managed to put some money away in savings along the way.   

At one point I owned over 14 credit cards between major cards (Visa, American Express, etc.), gasoline cards, and department store cards.  Because my credit rating was so good, companies were continually sending me pre-approved applications.  Not all cards had a balance on them, but I cancelled almost all of them and only kept  two major cards and two gasoline cards.  Except for a short period during 2013 and 2014 where I kept getting hit with one large unexpected expense after another and I found myself in debt again (which I eventually paid off), I've kept my debt in check since.  Paying off the debt that was literally and figuratively drowning me, allowed me to retire when I did.  Had I not gotten a grip on my finances, I would never have been able to retire.

I kept wondering why I could be so successful in managing my debt which kept me up at nights in a desperate panic, but when it came to my weight, I didn't know how to succeed.  I floundered for about a year and a half after retiring until finally in late 2012 I started a weight-loss journey that would end up being  incredibly successful. 

Now that I'm close to my goal weight and my debt continues to stay in check, my next task is to finish dealing with the clutter I accumulated during years of unhappiness.  I have spurts where I get rid of tons of stuff, but then I don't finish because I get overwhelmed again.  

One thing I learned about myself recently is actually an interesting phenomenon.  At work I could juggle up to ten different things every day and get everything completed without any problems.  However, when it comes to my personal life, I can only work on one project at a time or I become overwhelmed and then I stifle myself into non-productivity.  So first it was dealing with the debt, now it's the weight, and in the near future it'll be all about cleaning the clutter.  Afterwards I can work on fixing whatever my house needs fixed so I can sell it and move on.  I'm at the point right now where I want to get rid of everything that reminds me of my unhappy years.  

My biggest regret in life is allowing my weight to rob me of a life for too long.  My second biggest regret is wasting all that money on stuff I didn't need, stuff that eventually ended up at Goodwill or in the trash.  I try not to think about it too much though because I figure at the time I was wasting my money, purchasing all that stuff helped me fill whatever emptiness I felt even if it was a temporary fix. 

I realize that doing things the way I'm doing them, one personal project at a time, is taking forever to finish, but that's okay.  It seems to be the only thing that works for me and as long as I succeed in the end, that's all that matters.  I would have said years ago that once a person reaches their 50s, that they should pretty much be on the ball about everything, but I'm proof that's not true.  Life is a continual learning experience.