Financial Stockholm Syndrome

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 4:03 pm by Rebecca Frech

Financial Stockholm Syndrome 2014-08-22T16:03:02-05:00 Rebecca Frech

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From dictionary.reference.com

Stockholm syndrome–noun Psychiatry an emotional attachment to a captor formed by a hostage as a result of continuous stress, dependence, and a need to cooperate for survival.

The Computer Guy and I paid off our last bill this week. 3 years of hard work and sacrifice have gotten us to the point of being debt free except for our house. Someone asked me if I got the same thrill from bargain hunting that she did from shopping. The answer is ‘no.’ I love to shop. I love buying new and pretty things. I hate being in debt more that I love new shoes. (Yes, even more than new shoes.) I get that same shopping thrill from closing accounts.

I have anticipated this time with the same expectation that small children have for Christmas morning. I was almost giddy with anticipation as I mailed out that last check. I held my breath waiting for it to clear, and then again waiting for the on-line statement to show a zero balance. I was so ready for the weight to lift and freedom to settle on my shoulders, to be able to breathe free.

I’m still waiting. Instead of freedom,all I feel is nervous and a slight amount of fear. I keep worrying about the possibility that I may have missed something. What have I forgotten? I made out the budget for this Friday (Pay Day) and wrote down the mortgage and utilities and panicked for a moment that there was nothing else to write. What is wrong with me? I have been trained and conditioned to think like a person who owes money. It has been my reality for the whole of my adult life. I have grown comfortable with dreading the arrival of the mailman and cringing at the ring of the phone. It may be a cage, but it is my cage and leaving it is unsettling.

For the first time in our married lives, we are not working to pay the bills on which we live. We are working to pay us. We get to save and then spend what we save without interest charges or fees. Our money is ours. It is an idea whose power I can not yet fully understand and a way of life which no one I know lives.

A few generations back, debt was something people were ashamed to admit. A mortgage was not how you bought a house, but the last ditch effort not to lose it. It was something to be avoided. At some point between then and now, the public bought into the idea that debt was a tool instead of an evil. We stopped thinking in terms of earning, saving and planning our way to the things we wanted and decided that we’d rather have them with nothing down and 26 easy payments until it was ours at twice the price (once you add in the interest.) Getting a credit card is now a rite of passage to adulthood. Taking out a mortgage has become a sign that we have managed our money well rather than that we have not. I’m not talking about throwing the baby out with the proverbial bath water, there are times when debt is necessary. I just suspect that they are far fewer than our culture thinks they are.

The Bible states is flat out “…the borrower is the slave of the lender (Proverbs 22:7).” When all of our time, effort, energy and paycheck go to pay someone else and we are broke before the pay check clears the bank, it is easy to see how true this is. The problem lies in falling in love with our servitude and finding comfort in our bondage. There is something wrong with our society when an honest days wages no longer buy anything except more time on the credit card bills.

We, as a society, need to begin digging our way out from under this mountain of payments, interest and penalties and begin to actually manage the gifts we have been given. It is only when we can do this on a personal level that we can begin to demand the same thing from our government. (It makes sense that a people in debt would create for themselves a nation in debt.)

We need to allow ourselves to see the trap of credit for what it really is and learn to stand on our own feet and breathe free.

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