Anyone else feel like they've screwed themselves over financially?

Depression has really ruined my life on multiple fronts. Money is not immune to this. I have no student loans because I lived at home/got some federal and state aid/was given a large amount of money by a generous friend of my father's after my father passed away. I had the opportunity to live rent-free with a relative for 3 years while working full time. Did I put away money then? No. Lost my grandfather and biological mother within 12 hours of each other in 2009. Did I save any of that inheritance or invest it long-term? Nope. Lost a another relative in 2013 and I came into some money. Made the same mistake. Now I am almost 35 and I am one calamity away from financial ruin because I have no savings and "fair" but risky credit. My peers own houses, businesses, and go on regular vacations. I am sitting here clinging to an apartment month-to-month.

So I'm not totally hard on myself, I will say I used some of the money from those sad circumstances on necessary things that I did not already own, like my car and furniture. But by and large I was stupid. I don't have an inclination towards getting into drinking or doing drugs, so I would buy things to make me feel better. And that's all they were. Just useless things.

Besides overspending, having depression also created some of the situations where I am paying the price literally and figuratively. My mental state began to get really bad 4 years ago and I routinely forgot to pay bills, which is a really bad thing to have on my credit history. Also, because when you're so depressed you don't give a s--- about anything, I partly neglected my dental care for almost 20 years and I am in debt for the cost of that treatment.

The realization of my irresponsibility with money just really hit me hard this past month. 2 weeks ago my car was vandalized and while I have auto insurance, I had to pay quite a bit out of pocket on my own for various reasons and it occurred to me that I did not even have a few thousand dollars set aside for a "life happens" emergency fund. And then, tonight, the usual noise from 2 different neighbors in my building just got to me so much that I decided to look for another apartment. I found a really good one with lower rent, but I felt absolutely defeated when I saw the application requirements: the amount of money they wanted up front just for applying to demonstrate financial stability & dependability and the intrusive levels of inquiry they would do. And at that moment, I threw up my hands and just thought to myself...this would be absolutely no problem if I just had a better credit history and that few thousand dollars saved.

And that's when I started crying. Sorry if this sounds like I'm blaming all of my bad decisions and irresponsibility on my depression, I don't want to but I can honestly trace most of my adult decisions back to it.

I did the right thing and cancelled my cable after deciding I would never qualify for that new apartment.

Thanks for reading my vent.

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Hello with or without you: Oh yes... as I look back on my life (I'm in my 60's now) I just cringe at all the money I threw away on useless junk in a futile effort to make myself feel better! Plus... as a result of a combination of mental health & physical problems... I stopped working around 15 years or so ago. I've now simply aged into retirement. But... oh... the thousands of dollars... I might as well have just flushed them down the toilet. And, in the end, I "went crazy" anyway... So now I have vowed not to spend any money on myself that isn't necessary. I wish I had thought of this years ago!

Thank you for sharing.

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