Everyone makes a poor financial decision now and again. This is normal and, to the extent we learn from our missteps, even necessary. Single, isolated, or rare financial mistakes, never to be repeated, do not qualify as money disorders. Money disorders are persistent, predictable, often rigid patterns of self-destructive financial behaviors that cause significant stress, anxiety, emotional distress, and impairment in significant areas of one’s life. People in the grip of money disorders can’t seem to shake these faulty beliefs or change these unhealthy behaviors, no matter how much chaos and misery they cause. Typically, they know they should change their behaviors, but just can’t seem to do it. Or, even if they’re able to shift their behavior for a time, they’re unable to make the changes stick. Often they feel intense shame about the behaviors and may hide them from others and even from themselves. This only postpones any resolution of the issue and further impedes change.
mollie: My husband and I struggled and fought over money matters often. Neither of us had any sort of financial map to guide us. Neither of us had savings or risk management strategies and we lived paycheck to paycheck for the most part. I struggled to figure out a way to get some kind of relief from the anxiety I felt, to learn how to manage money in my life. I would try to control, threaten, cajole, manipulate, withdraw, argue, cry, plead, bargain, etc, with my husband, driven by my fear regarding finances. So it was these financial issues that led us to couples’ therapy over and over, but the focus was seldom about the financial issues that had become a wedge between my husband and me.
Hurricane Katrina blew the lid off of things, so to speak. Our home was flooded and our investment property was destroyed. My business was temporarily lost—I hoped it was temporary—so my income was at a standstill. My community was devastated and so many things I counted on for security—my income, my spiritual community, my neighborhood structure, my local friends and family, even my faith—all of those were challenged. Though I had a great marriage in so many ways, my money issues reared up like a dragon. It demanded healing or I knew I would lose more than a lot of material things—I would lose my marriage.
Mollie and her husband did slay the dragon and their marriage was saved. But, like most of us, they didn’t take that step until things were at a crisis point. They limped along, struggling with money issues without ever actually dealing with them. This created more stress, which put the animal brain ever more in charge. By now you’re well aware that when your animal brain is activated, you will automatically default to using your money scripts to guide you in your financial decision-making. To the degree that those scripts are faulty or incomplete, your decision-making will be too. That’s at the core of money disorders.
As we’ve discussed, money disorders stem from family dysfunction, emotional difficulties, coping strategies gone awry, profound painful childhood experiences (research has shown that those who have experienced childhood trauma are more likely to exhibit disordered money behaviors) or—most often—a combination of these factors. Similar to other compulsive or addictive behaviors, money disorders are symptoms of unfinished business related to a troubled past. The self-medicating aspects of these disorders may help us temporarily avoid difficult feelings and psychic pain. However, the relief this offers is only temporary, and it comes with its own set of emotional, relational, and financial side-effects. Symptoms of money disorders may include any or all of the following:
• Anxiety, worry or despair about one’s financial situation
• A lack of savings
• Excessive debt
• Bankruptcy, loan defaults, or both
• Conflict with family, friends or colleagues around money
• An inability to sustain changes in financial behaviors
What does financial wellness look like? We agree with researchers Dr. So-Hyun Joo and Dr. John Grable who list several factors contributing to a healthy financial life:
• Maintaining reasonable and low debt
• Having an active savings plan
• Having and following a conscious spending plan
• Lack of conflict with family/partner around money
• Experiencing high levels of financial satisfaction
• Experiencing low levels of financial stress.
As we’ve learned, even the most irrational money behaviors make perfect sense when we discover their underlying money scripts and the context from which they arose. Still, when these problematic behaviors become habitual they can lead to significant problems in relationships, work, psychological health, and general—not to mention financial—well-being.
While unresolved childhood issues, financial traumas, and other early flashpoint experiences make up the backdrop of all financial disorders, the disorders themselves take many forms. And it’s important to note this: Like money scripts, these disorders are not mutually exclusive. We can show signs of more than one, in varying degrees, in varying situations, and at varying times in our lives. These disorders may be persistent but they are not static. And while the scripts that underlie them rarely change (at least not without conscious effort and hard work) the ways in which the disorders manifest themselves are prone to morphing over time. And of course, because no two people are identical, because we all have wildly different backgrounds, experiences, family histories and ways of seeing the world, these disorders don’t look exactly the same from person to person.
So as you read these descriptions and real-life examples, look for overall similarities to your issues, behaviors, and thinking patterns, knowing that while you may not find a perfect description of yourself and your money difficulties in a single disorder, you may see many glimpses of yourself throughout. We also invite you to visit our website at www.yourmentalwealth.com to take a free money disorders diagnostic test. You will need to use the code at the back of the book to access your assessment and see your results.
