Relation Of Single Parent Debt With Their Mental And Physical Health

Single parents are often found to have reduced mental and physical health due to debt that they usually incur to meet with their daily and monthly expenses. Financial constraints and limitations along with constant looking out for ways to earn more lead to their deteriorated physical and mental health. More often than not, they cannot cope up with the pressing demands of daily and monthly expenses even after they work double shift sometimes.

In such a situation they tend to find the required respite from their dire financial conditions by taking on more debt. What they do not understand is their inability to repay these debts given their financially tight situation. Hence they continue paying their debt off that seems to be never ending.

Their ignorance about the debt process is also a factor that leads them to such vulnerable and dangerous situation. All loans, no matter in whichever form incurred must be repaid essentially along with the interest which is the income of the lender. This interest is charged at a compound rate not only on the principal amount but also on the interests and fees included. This makes the outstanding balance grow every month making the debts seemingly unending.

The results of all these are reduced mental, physical and financial health, which most of the times become unmanageable.

Affects physical health  

When you have reduced physical health it will have a direct impact on your working ability and capacity thereby reducing your earnings. Apart from that there are a lot of side effects of debts on your physical health and your overall wellbeing.

• You will lose the ability to cope up with things and will feel ill and restless. You will be unable to eat well, sleep well and therefore work well.
• You will feel a lot of stress in your workplace as well as with your work and your constant need to bring in more money will lead to more and faster exhaustion.
• You will experience a lot of physical symptoms and in most of the cases these symptoms will be related to stress and strain.
• With your vulnerable physical condition you will feel run down and different others that will have a direct relation to your physical symptoms and psychological wellbeing.

All these effects of stress will accumulate and your sole responsibility towards your family will cause more money worries to interrupt your sleep and lead to sleeplessness.

Apart from that, nigh-time excessive rumination will result in more serious psychological impact which most single parents experience and describe as inescapable. No matter how desperately you force yourself to get some physical rest, the fact that it will have high impact on your physical health will not be enough with the amount of physical rest you can manage. You will still feel run down.

Things would go round and round in your head all the time putting extra strain on you. you will have to seek medical attention more than any average debtor which will further reduce your already limited finance making things all the more difficult to manage.

You will look for help from all possible sources such as your friends, family and collogues for money to pay off your debts and therefore fall deeper into the debt trap. You will spend hours on the internet looking for debt reviews and others looking for special grants and benefits for single parents to ease your financial position a bit.

Susceptible to different types of illness

It is the overwhelming feeling of lone responsibility to do everything alone and at the same time that will make you more susceptible to different types of illness and not particularly colds and flu. You can experience:

• Chest infections
• Back pain and
• Other long-term illnesses as well.

All these will pose an extra physical challenge for you and the only way to recover from this is to take physical rest. In most of the times it is seen that usual sick role activities such as seeking help and taking rest can do wonders for the single parents.

Effects on mental health

Your mental health will also be affected due to the sleepless nights, distress and frustration. You will feel anxious about everything which is why it is found that most single parents are on high alert.

• You will have a feeling that you are constantly judge by the others and even experience feelings of paranoia.
• Much similar to physical health, causes of a deteriorated mental health is also underlined by contemplation, stress, and the turmoil caused due to your financial circumstances. You will feel overwhelmed which will fabricate the enormity of the situation.
• Apart from experiencing distress you will feel mentally exhausted to take on anymore and want to give up hope for your as well as your child’s future. You will collapse on your bed at night once your children go to bed without having even time to plan your actions for the next day. As a result you will follow the same erroneous routine that you never had time enough to create strategically or make amendments as and when required.

All your energy will be spent on caring and rearing your child and the little bit that may be left will be spent in crying or feeling overwhelmed.

Source of distress

The distress and anxiety experienced by single parents have a common and most significant source, their lone parenting responsibilities and their financial hardship.

The factors that add to their financial hardships included sorting out monthly bills, looking for tax-credits, taking care of the daily expense and chores of the house and caring for the children. This will lead to the feeling of entrapment and desperation which is sometimes unfortunately leads to suicidal thoughts to get permanent relief from the current stressful condition.

You may feel that there is no help out there for single parents like you facing mental problems but ideally there are a lot of benefits and grants available to empower single parents steer out of it but first start with a therapeutic paradigm with more direction.