Hey guys,

I just need to explain what's going on here, because I haven't explained it properly in the past, I guess, and people are confused. Also, because whenever I try to explain it in person, I get maybe 10% through before people just interrupt me and start offering advice  (or worse, who start telling ME what my problem is) before I've finished even explaining myself despite my protests. So I guess here it is.

Long story short, I'm pretty fucked financially, and it's beyond the point where I can really hope to do anything about it. I know that sounds melodramatic, but trust me, if this were something that could be fixed by just buckling down and focusing really hard, I would've gotten through it a long time ago. (Also, I'm going to apologize in advance if I get prejudgmental about people's reactions here, because every single time I've tried to talk about this I've run into the same bunch of infuriating things that nobody will let me properly finish explaining.)

So yeah, the story starts with me already with a bunch of debt, which was sucky but manageable. I imagine it's the sort of debt that most people reading this are familiar with if you graduated from college in the 21st Century: a couple decades of student loan payments and some credit card debt that gets accumulated while you're trying to find a job in said 21st Century economy. You know, that.

Then I get hit with some more debt because of an unexpected layoff, and my search for a new job took longer than unemployment lasted, so yeah--basically any progress I'd made on earlier debt had been undone, but again, it still wasn't too bad. Except for the fact that, year after year, in my new job, I was making less and less money because a number of my clients just kind of dried up and I wasn't able to find new ones fast enough. Also I got hit with a bunch of court fees and payments that were also way more than I could afford, too, but that's it's own story and some of you probably already know it.

Fast forward to me getting a pretty cool contract on something that I think I did a really awesome job on. I don't know if 'dream contract' is quite what to call it, but it was basically the pinnacle of my career, something that I never thought I'd be given the opportunity to do--and more importantly, something I never imagined I'd be GOOD ENOUGH to do. Plus, it was a big, long contract, something that I hadn't found in far too long and that was certain to make my financial issues a thing of the past.

Well, I was wrong. Thanks to some flukey factors of economics that I won't get into here (long story short, it's all above-board), I didn't make that money. Well, I made part of it. About a month's worth of pay for about seven months of work, much of which I didn't even see for a year after the fact. Conservatively, I can estimate that I lost about $50,000 on the deal, which to some of you out there, I know isn't an earth-shattering amount of money, but it was more money than I'd made the previous three years inclusive, and it was more money than I'd made in any single YEAR in my life to that point, so it was a big deal to me. And to find out only after the fact that I was never going to see it was pretty damn devastating, especially since a) I'd worked really, really hard for over a decade to get to that point and b) it was something I should have been proud of, but which had just screwed me over. (And again, before anyone says anything: nobody owes me money, I'm not in a position to sue anyone, it's over and done, please let it drop.)

So yeah, when you're working for seven months on something that you think is going to pay you a mid-five-digit sum of money and you don't find out until after the fact that you're seeing only a tiny fraction of it, you go into more debt. More importantly, you go into debt with the certainty that it won't be an issue, because you're working your ass off on something monumental. And then you're fucked.

Oh, but sit tight. It gets better. Somehow, against all odds, I manage to land some other good contracts with new clients who suddenly need work done. The money starts coming in at a good clip for the first time since I started my business. I have the most financially successful year of my life. I wind up making around 150% of what I was making back when I was full time.

Except I never saw most of that money. It just went right into my giant debt-hole, and while it made a decent-sized dent in it, it still left me with enough debt that I was still bleeding money the way you do when you're in debt. And then tax season came around. Since I'd EARNED that money, I got taxed on it, but I never really HAD that money. And I made enough money, apparently, that it not only knocked me up into a high tax bracket, but I also had to repay a bunch of medical insurance subsidies (because medical insurance in this country is a fucking scam). All told, I owe the IRS more in taxes for 2015 than I MADE in any of the four years preceding.

And so that's where I am. I'm still working constantly, still making money, and it'd be fine except for the fact that I'm being hounded by debt that will both a) follow me wherever I go and b) can't be absolved due to bankruptcy. My job pays me well, but it pays me at irregular, hard-to-predict intervals, and the people collecting me debt drain the funds from my bank account at much more regular ones. Which means I leak a little more money every time because I don't actually HAVE the money I'm in the process of earning.

Sometimes I don't see my paychecks for months. They money comes as a nice chunk when it finally does, but it's not like I can just elect to stop having expenses in the interim, and the money I set aside always gets wiped out ahead of time by needing to repay debts that are growing more and more with each passing year despite my very best efforts. (And sure, maybe you can claim that my problem is that I'm bad with money management, but I'd like to see anyone else with $0 in savings and preexisting debt just brush off a $50,000 loss after having already done the work that should have earned it.)

So yeah, if you're still curious about why I have no self-esteem and no sense of self-worth, it's because my legitimate bet efforts for my entire adult life have left me in a situation that's worse than starting from nothing, and meanwhile, everyone's confused as to why I'm so scared and apprehensive about being all gung-ho about tackling an even harder version of something I already failed at miserably.

Anyway, that's mostly it. Again, some of you already know this. Some of you probably think you know better than me even after reading this. Either way, I'm not in a situation to do anything meaningful about it, and no one else is in a situation to really help me, since the definition of 'help' at this point would essentially be 'be financially responsible for another adult human being.'

Sorry that I come across as such a jerk in all this. I'm scared and upset and frustrated and I honestly don't see a good way out of this.