The last time I suffered from depression was when I was unemployed for about nine months. Not being able to feed and clothe your family really hurts. But what I held onto for all that time was hope. Hope that, when - not if - I found a job, I would get back on my feet and things would be okay again. Throughout that time, my dear wife Mary supported me, and cajoled me where necessary, but she didn't complain. And I held on to hope.
Until today.
Today the court said we have 56 days to exchange contracts on the house or it will be repossessed. D-Day is May 1st.
Today, Mary and I spent most of the day together, and achieved very little.
Today we had an introductory meeting with the mediator and found that I cannot afford mediation, but my out-of-work wife can get it free from the bloody government!
Today, I received yet another letter threatening legal action.
Today I learned that the Child Support Agency will be charging 15% of my nett income so that they can pay for their bureaucratic bungling, while Mary may or may not actually receive any money at all.
The debts are mounting at a rate that, pretty soon, will consume all the equity in the house, and we will both be left penniless.
If that happens, I will have no deposit-and-first-month's-rent, no money for new furniture, no savings, no pension and little hope of digging myself out. With no family, no money at all, and an ongoing commitment to support my absent family with money I can ill afford myself, what is there left of life. People have become alcoholics for less. Committed suicide, even.
No, I'm not that bad. Yet. I cling on to the hope that the house will sell quickly enough that there is still a little equity left over. That the benefits agency will assess my situation and realise that I need to live as well, and provide a home for my son as well as me.
The problem is that the system does not realise that one salary cannot suddenly support two households. Mary has condemned herself to living in a council flat and me to little better.
May sleep take me quickly tonight.
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