[fountainAtlas]

Originally Posted by Apollia

Really? Oops, I didn't mean to give that impression. I don't think anyone should be required to give money away at all. I'm even against all income taxes for anyone, rich or poor.

Good we agree. I suspect you and I can have a great discussion on taxes and how they relate to charity, but for now I am going to limit myself to the topic at hand.

Originally Posted by Apollia

Is there really anyone who would really prefer to be a leech who is totally, helplessly dependent on others for their survival, rather than self-sufficient? Especially if you're dependent on cold-hearted, nasty people who don't care at all about you, and are willing to pressure you to do things you don't want to do simply because they have power over you.

Yes. I believe there are a lot of people like that. They believe that their suffering is in itself a virtue and thus they deserve charity form those who have more than them.

Originally Posted by Apollia

Wanting to escape being dependent on family (or anyone else) was part of what drove me into debt in the first place.

While, understandable, but are you sure you aren’t just making excuses for your actions?

Next quote is in regards how your life is better or worse because of debt.

Originally Posted by Apollia

Hard to say. The entire world would probably be very different.

But maybe you just mean, no debt in my own life. Well, a lesser evil amongst an unknown number of other evils, most of which I didn't even consider.

What I was trying to get at was what would happen if debt wasn’t available to you when it was the "lesser of two evils"?

Originally Posted by Apollia

I also felt under pressure at that age to do what I felt was the normal thing for people my age to do - move out, go to college, get a job - regardless of whether it was practical or not.

I do not know how to get my point across so I apologies in advance if I offend. It seems to me that you make excuses for your situation. The pressures of life and the weight of circumstances forced you into debt and now the pressure of debt continues to force you into your present situation. If you, like I said before, try to take responsibility (both mentally and physically) the outcome may be better. I had a similar problem of saying that event X caused me to miss opportunity Y. That was until I realized that there were A, B, and C that I could have done to mitigate X. Thus, me missing out on opportunity Y was really my fault.

Originally Posted by Apollia

I'm taking responsibility - but, in addition, I'm pointing out that there are a lot of factors besides my own actions which led to the excessively bad consequences which befell me. For instance, credit card companies greedily imposing their unfairly high late and overlimit fees and penalty interest rates to vampirically capitalize on people's misfortune, amd kick people like me when they're already down.

Taking responsibility is like being pregnant, you can't be half pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. Maybe that is a little bit harsh, but without that type of attitude you are able to blame someone else besides yourself. This allows self pity and it deprives you of the power of yourself.

The reason I am not responding to the comment about child support is because my previous comments apply.

Originally Posted by Apollia

I really don't think any teenager (or even any adult) who makes a few dumb mistakes should, as a result, be forced to give 25% of their wages to some credit card companies for the rest of their life. (Which is probably what would happen to me if I were still willing to pay, since I think it is rather unlikely that I will become financially prosperous enough to ever entirely pay off my so-called "debt" - if it can even be called debt, when it mostly consists of usurious fees and interest and relatives' debts placed in my name, rather than charges I made for my own expenses).

Is this not a defeatist attitude?

Oh, and it is your debt, you signed the document take responsibility for your actions.

Would Steve Pavlina give up to life long servitude to the credit card companies or would he find a way to get out of it? Not to make light of your financial situations, but I would wager that there have been people who had more debt with less ability then you and were still able to escape out from it.

I am curious to see how dire your situation is. Would you be willing to share the exact specifics either publicly or via pm? Or you might want to try reading getrichslowly.org, that site has a lot of helpful tips for getting out of debt.