Yesterday I spent most of the morning being scared of going to the bank.
My “money issues” are pretty legendary for those close to me. My mother raised me to help her with hiding her shopaholic ways, which meant that we had double books; the ones Mother showed Poppa and claimed were accurate, and the ones that she squirreled away in secrecy that held the true amount of debt we were in. It was my job to grab the mail as soon as it was delivered so Poppa would never see all the credit card bills. About every five years or so, the debt would become catastrophic and the truth would come out and their marriage, and our financial health in general, would take another blow. Poppa, sunk deep into alcoholism, was never able to stand up to her and take over the finances like he should have, and I was too young to stand up to her, much less take over the finances (I did dream about it though, when I hit my teens). I mean, I was a kid, ffs.
Annual taxes were always a crisis of lies and slight of hand. I’m pretty sure Mother never lied on our taxes (she was pathologically terrified of the IRS), but she went to great lengths to keep our income totals from Poppa’s awareness, in order for him to not ask why we were making such good money yet living a hairs-breadth away from poverty.
So yeah. LOTS of baggage, thanks.
I needed to go to the bank to fix my business account, which I let get over-drafted due to pretty comprehensive emotional collapse during the first half of 2020 (wonder why…hmmm…). The irony is that I had the money to cover it then, I just could not psych myself up to do so. Depression, folks! *waves hands around*
Ironically, I’m not bad with money, if I have enough coming in to cover bills. I save, I invest wisely, I budget. But once things start getting tight or uncertain, I completely loose confidence in myself and panic.
So, yeah. Fixing the business account. I have needed to do it for six months since I revitalized my business plans, but ehhhhh… enter my dear friend Gina, who offered to be my Emotional Support Human and go with me. She claimed it would not be a big deal, I would not be seized and tortured by gremlins, I would not be cast out from society to die alone in the swamps. She said it would be a simple thing to fix and no one would be mad at me. I was skeptical.
But lo! She was right. So, officially, this is me saying: Yes, Gina, you were right, and I thank you so much!!!!!!
After that I was wiped out, my brain went bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and so it was a fabulously productive morning followed by lunch delivery and and a lot of amusing, educational YT videos about 80s bands for the rest of the day. This was a timely tweet, though, and advice I am trying to learn to take to heart:
