Actually I shouldn't call this starting because John had actually been running his own business since shortly after our daughter's loss. But this was a new direction.
We were using the money from our own home mortgage to buy property and get the land setup for building. Then we would be getting financing to build it.
John drew up the most amazing house plans but kept them within reason for a decent budget and to keep the house affordable for those living in Maine. We found a piece of property and purchased it outright.
The rest of the financing for the new home came in and then everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The land didn't pass the soil test and had to be built up costing us an additional 15K than originally expected. The work on the house took several months longer than it should have so labor costs went far over budget.
John's father had been good enough to come and work with him to try and get things on track. He worked for several weeks with the boys and got so much done.
By the end of the house we were out of money completely and suddenly the loan company would not help us anymore. We tried to refinance this house and got screwed by a new lender we were trying to work with and it put us in further debt and wrecked our credit. We tried refinancing the new place but the credit would not allow it. We both became severely depressed and lost a couple of weeks of solution working to it.
John felt severe guilt over the money he owed to his father for all the work he did, and still does. We paid off the other workers with the money we had left. And we began trying to do some of the remaining work on our own.
Then my husband, who has worked his whole life and never gets sick, began developing problems in his back and joints. Until now he had pretty much struggled through them. The doctors keep telling him it was nothing. Now, however, he could barely walk up the front steps without a little help. He was in pain all the time. This too began depressing him.
We started seeing doctors more often but they would say things like "It's all in your head" or "We can't find anything physically wrong". John couldn't do the work required to finish the house. The loan company was breathing down our back. We were getting very concerned.
John was becoming more and more depressed. The pain throughout his body was almost unbearable many days. We finally sought out the assistance of a psychiatrist. He was diagnosed with Severe Major Depression, OCD, Severe Social Anxiety and PTSD. I knew about the depression, the OCD and the Social Anxiety. We had been dealing with those on our own for years. What I didn't know was the PTSD. He was and is still suffering horrible flashbacks to the loss of our daughter. He was the only one of us to see her at the scene of the accident and her face haunts him. The psychiatrist started him on medication immediately and monitored his progress often.
Our financial situation was still a big factor in both of our mental states and something had to be done. Finally I contacted the loan company and the owner of this company did us a great favor. Of course it worked out well for him too. He gave us $5000 cash for the house John was building and paid the loan off. So basically he bought the house for the amount of the loan and $5000 to get us on our way.
This was the first step into our new life.
