For the twenty years I’ve known my best friend, he grew up in a three-bedroom house a mile down the road from my childhood home. I knew their family wasn’t as well-off as mine (him and his sister had no health insurance as children :eek: ) but in the two decades I’ve known them they’ve at least seemed…stable in that they’ve continued to live in the house. His sister and her now-husband boomeranged back and forth between living with her parents and leaving/getting kicked out. Here and there they’d have a financial crisis that their son (my friend) would bail them out of, and up until now it seemed like an occasional hiccup in their life.
Yesterday I was in for a shock. My friend cancled meeting me for dinner, saying he had a family emergency. Apparently his parents had lost the house :eek: His understanding/explanation of the situation was vague. It seems they had defaulted on their house. They had been trying to sell it, and I assumed it was the lesser of two evils- at least they wouldn’t have to struggle to keep the house anymore; they could live somewhere within their means. Apparently the bank took the house and told them they had to move out in X days because the house had to be sold ASAP.
For reasons summed up to the word “Pride” in spite of this dire situation, they literally did nothing about it. His parents called him last night and said the bank was taking the house, and they had to move out…NOW. They spent all last night moving the immense quantity of possessions (oh yeah, they’re hoarders ) into a U-haul. So even though they had a month to figure out the logistics, recruit help from friends and family to help in their crisis, they went into denial about it and waited until the last second before calling on their one and only son to help them magically fix anything.
I was flabbergasted. Even my friend didn’t know the situation was so dire until yesterday. This afternoon I asked many questions, including if he needed any help. He declined my help (perhaps knowing how irritated I was about the LAST moving fiasco I assisted with), said that his parents were still there, continuing to move. They talked with the bank and explained the situation, and I guess the bank gave them some kind of extension or something to get out. Apparently, they don’t even have a place to * move to* they haven’t thought that far ahead :smack: .
I’ve heard of people buring their heads in the sand in the face of financial crisis, but how real is it? The situation is so surreal its almost as though its just a nightmare I/my friend are experiencing.
Have you been watching Hoarders? I haven’t met anyone in a similar situation (getting booted from an apartment with no plan, yes), but some of the people on that show seem to fit the bill of denial, denial, call in a favor, denial.
My friend’s parents recently did a similar thing, in a “we can’t afford to live her anymore” situation. They had to be out by July 1, and while they did tell their two boys about it, the boys came to move on June 29 and found nothing had been packed at all. The dad even went a bit freaky on them and was picked up by the cops squatting in the empty house a few times in the weeks after the sale :eek:
I’m not sure if it was just “pride” or flat out psychotherapy-time-denial.
Because their simple brains can’t process the situation. It’s like if you came home and found your house had been turned into a giant pumpkin (and not the hollowed out kind that you could live in). What would you do? You would wander around for hours staring at it trying to figure out what the fuck was going on hoping it just turns back into your house.
That’s a brilliant explanation, thank you. No snark here; it really is difficult to convey the level of pure shock these folks are experiencing, and you nailed it.
Everything about their upbringing, their expectations, their every thought about their lives all these years tells them that this can’t possibly be happening to them. It is a huge shock, a gross failure, an unmentionable shame. Admitting it is the last, great, hit that they feel may do them in forever. And sometimes it does. Just because a person’s body survives the process, it doesn’t mean that they will ever again be the same person.
Expanding on the other comments, I suspect they’re also hoping (out of shame and panic) that something will happen to avert the crisis. The bank will call and say “It was a big mistake”, the government will announce a new plan that grants mortgage amnesty to them, they’ll win the lottery, the Publisher’s Clearing House van will pull up and give them a big check, a rich relative will die and will them a boatload of cash, God will fix it. Something, anything, so they don’t have to try to face the problem.
And yeah, the Hoarders show is a good comparison. Those people typically have some sort of mental issue going on (hoarding disorder, OCD, depression), but you can see these people with houses and yards full of junk, days before eviction/before CPS takes their kids/after CPS takes their kids and says “clean, or lose them” and they dither over whether they can let a magazine from years ago get thrown out.
You’re not alone–my in-laws did pretty much this exact thing a couple of years ago. They took a lot of capital out of the house, couldn’t pay the mortgage, lost it, and when their sons showed up to help them move, they hadn’t done anything to prepare for being out of the house in 2 days. And their house was full of junk. It was a sad and shocking situation for all of us.
Yes, sometimes people are so stunned by problems (especially debt and bereavement) that they simply don’t want to face up to them.
They see no way out and are ashamed to ask for help.
A reclusive friend of mine passed away recently. Only then did it come out that he was effectively bankrupt and yet he never asked for help.
I too am a procratinator when it comes to my life. I’m totally opposite at my work, where I’d just rather get things done and not worry about it.
Another analogy is people need their music, data, pictures and the like but fail to back up the computer. You can buy an external 1tb hard drive for $80 bucks, but most people fail to make a back up.
Then they are like “Oh my system crashed, who do I have to pay to fix it and get my pictures back”
) into a U-haul. So even though they had a month to figure out the logistics, recruit help from friends and family to help in their crisis, they went into denial about it and waited until the last second before calling on their one and only son to help them magically fix anything.