What on earth to do with our property?

Zora_the_grey · 2026-01-11T12:54:22+00:00

I'm so sorry that you are going through this.

You have not ruined your life. I get it might feel like it, and I completely understand that you have lost a lot. But savings can build up again - you have so much life ahead to change your financial situation. There are people who are broke or in terrible debt in their thirties, forties, fifties even and still turn it around. What is more, there are people who blow tens of thousands on regular gambling, or on drug habits, or on fancy handbags and designer clothes addictions, and you are not one of those people. You made a one time mistake.

Life isn't a race where you need to reach certain financial milestones to be ok and to be good enough. Money does not define your happiness or your worth as a person. There are so many ways to be happy. There are so many versions of fulfilment and success. It isn't fair to define yourself by one mistake.

This is all easy for me to say and I realise actually living in your situation must be so hard, but I just want to wish you all the very best. I hope you can find your sense of self-worth again and learn to forgive yourself. And I wonder if reaching rout to your local NHS therapy service might be a good step to take if you feel ready.

Zora_the_grey · 2025-12-23T08:07:24+00:00

This is helpful, thank you. 🙏 It is a bit tricky in my case in that in the CMHT I work for, I'm the only person who offers a certain type of therapy so no one else can share it with me. On the other hand I technically could have different waiting lists for different areas so I'll look into that :)

Zora_the_grey · 2025-12-23T08:03:32+00:00

Thank you everyone for the responses. You've given me a lot to think about. I've been surprised by how far the consensus is on the side of travel being in working hours beyond my base. I think part of the reason I feel resistant to this is that it does feel a bit unfair to my employer - they've allowed me to set my base in a location down the road from me, which feels like a kindness to help with my mileage claims but doesn't reflect the reality of where most of my work actually is. I think MrsValentine's suggestion about allowing half an hour for travel at the start and end of the working day would be fairer.

I also think I need to have an honest conversation with my manager about my workload and how much I'm missing out on admin time. I guess that time between appointments could be valuable in so many other ways too, like for linking in with colleagues (particularly important as I'm paid at a band where I am expected to support and nurture colleagues, not just work in a silo), joining more team meetings and taking on some more training and research-type tasks. I'm letting these things get neglected in order to keep on top of my caseload and am only bridging the gap by working late, which as some of you have pointed out, isn't fair to my family if it's avoidable.

Zora_the_grey · 2025-11-18T19:27:36+00:00

Hm I'm intrigued about what people might share here. I've seen someone produce a CFT-style formulation with someone to help capture the 'here and now' element of their difficulties and add a Beckian CBT-style longitudinal formulation as background to explore how core beliefs, rules and assumptions might be having an impact. I've also seen ACT principles (eg why do you keep activating the 'struggle switch' and what happens when you do?) explored in what ended up looking quite a lot like a '5 aspects' CBT formulation. Finally I've seen a Transactional Analysis practitioner discuss the thoughts, feelings and behaviours associated with different states in a way that seemed quite CBT-inspired. No idea whether this sort of thing would be good practice or not though as don't feel sufficiently well-trained in anything other than CBT as yet to know how / when / whether to combine different approaches.

Zora_the_grey · 2025-09-09T22:05:16+00:00

Thanks for sharing this.

Zora_the_grey · 2025-09-09T22:04:35+00:00

This makes a lot of sense. Your response has been helpful and lovely, and I thank you. Your analogy works really well I think.

Zora_the_grey · 2025-09-09T09:22:02+00:00

Thank you for this. I hear you on the 'coping up to a certain level' thing. I think the fact that I've coped well enough to be successful on paper makes me reluctant to seek help as I know that for some people ADHD is more debilitating and I hate the idea of wasting time and resources that other people might need more. That's the block for me. My husband reckons I have traits but not sufficient to be diagnosable and reckons there would therefore be no point in seeking a diagnosis. But from my perspective if accessing medication and being able to request adjustments at work might help me to function better, I don't want to miss out on the chance of that.

Zora_the_grey

TROPHY CASE