Financial dysmorphia

[Flumoxed]

In the last couple of days I have seen a post on here from someone asking how can anyone live on £20+/hr, another from someone with £80k equity in a house with £240k mortgage worrying because inheritance from their parents £900k house would be wiped out after paying inheritance tax and splitting it with a sibling, and another from a SAHM who owned 4 properties with their partner, lived with her parents and was "struggling to get by".

I hadn't heard this term (financial dysmorphia) before about a week or so ago, but now seeing examples of it all the time. Is financial dysmorphia sweeping the nation or are people who literally have thousands of pounds in assets genuinely living in poverty? I appreciate the cost of living has meant that people are having to tighten their belts, but has the definition of poverty spread to engulf everyone or are some peoples views on money completely out of synch with reality?

Link to a post about money dysphoria:
https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/money-dysmorphia/ and definition: "Money dysmorphia is the distance between a person’s perceived financial status and their actual financial reality. It can manifest both ways: It can be the person who has lots of money saved but doesn’t believe it’s enough and can’t use it meaningfully, or it can be the person who overspends but doesn’t believe the reality of their financial distress.”

Do you have it? Do you see it?

YABU - people with thousands in assets are very poor

YANBU - the nation is suffering from mass financial dysmorphia

We are also pushed to expect a certain lifestyle through media not just advertising but in many broadcast programmes.

Think of any drama and a professional couple will be portrayed as having a perfect kitchen with high end appliances. The matching sofas will be perfect with no throws hiding stains.

This is done because any sort of normal mismatched furniture or even modest clutter looks ten times worse on film. Houses are always bigger than reality for the income level to accommodate filming.

But it's very easy to see this and think 'I'm like them, therefore I should have perfect furniture, stylish lamps, perfect bed linen, modern large car on the drive, dammit I need a drive!'. These arent all conscious thoughts but they do create a sense of expectation or entitlement and a disconnect from reality.

That’s fascinating. My ex had counselling but it wasn’t in relation to his autism, it was much more to do with anxiety at the time and his therapist framed his “rules” as being a protective mechanism against financial chaos, which is what he lived with as a child. I think that’s valid too, but it meant that he understood it as “and my therapist says that this is normal for me after what we went through when I was a kid.” But that didn’t address the impact of his position on everyone else.

Im immensely impressed that counselling has allowed this insight. Was it CBT based?

I prefer the phrase financially incontinent.

If you’re incredibly tight/careful then that’s not financial incontinence is it? It’s just having an inaccurate dysmorphic view of the situation.

I think the financial dysmorphia is the misguided belief 'I am rich/poor/at risk' and financial incontinence or constipation are associated behaviours.

I have two DBs. One is tight, the other is spendthrift.

The tight DB worries about money constantly. He worries that if he shows that he can afford something that someone will try to take it from him. He has accumulated money through not spending but has not accumulated as much as he could have done because he has never taken a risk.

The spendthrift DB worries about money only when he is flat broke. He believes he is wealthier, posher than he actually is. He leaps from one financial crisis to the next.

I do worry about both my DBs as neither is truly happy. We are all in late middle age. Both DBs are retired, one single, the other going from one relationship to the next (own home a priority as DB doesn't have a permanent one).

As DH says, I am the (relatively) normal one. At some point I may find myself having to sort out my DBs' lives (later life care) as there will be no one else to do it.

This is so interesting, I had a financially chaotic upbringing too and also thought my issues stemmed from this until I went through this recent therapy. I mean it does have an impact and is where some of my rules about security and saving came from then I took them as absolutes, but it's not the whole picture

It was definitely not CBT based - this isn't great for neurodivergence unless it is modified. I found a strengths based neuroaffirmative counsellor who was also neurodivergent and it was from there that my life changed because suddenly someone understood my frame of reference and could explore it all with me. Don't get me wrong, I still check my bank balance at least twice a day and have spreadsheets, but I can let go more now. It's been amazing for my partner, who is very laidback, but now I'm not trying to control things like you experienced, where I would calculate how to pay the mortgage off in a certain number of years.

Actually describing it all to you helps me see the changes I gave made, so thank you.

I think that worrying about money is not just for the poor, especially if you've been in financial difficulty in the past it can be very difficult not to worry even if you are doing OK.

I acknowledge that we are currently better off than we have ever been however after past redundancy and a new job with big pay cut when our nursery costs were at a high which almost bankrupted us, no amount of savings will make me feel safe as I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Also, being asset rich is pretty useless day to day when you have outgoings that need to be paid. House equity and pensions are long term investments that some of us never even utilise, it goes on care or to our next of kin.

Mortgage insurance for unemployment is impossible to get now post covid. It did give us some breathing space after the redundancy but not the same as a full time wage.

Realistically in that situation the tenants are going to have the unexpected cost of moving house, a new security deposit and the cost of moving.
A homeowner or landlord will either have insurance covering the roof cost if it's an unexpected damage, or if its wear and tear should have been aware of the condition deteriorating over time or when purchasing the property and been able to prepare for it.