The Christmas I lost all my money and how it changed me

I'll start by saying I live in the UK.<br>Back in 2019, I was conned out of a significant amount of money like around £800 by someone claiming to be my bank. I was in a difficult time of my life and my mental health was suffering. I have a bit of OCD and needed to spend, spend, spend, and make sure I looked after myself. I bought myself a lot of nice things and put a lot of that money into a savings account to one day buy my own car, which has been a dream of mine since I was 6 years old. Back to losing the money, this was a week before Christmas, and that money had been taken out of my current account into my savings account just a day or so before. I was very lucky in some way as though my money was gone and there was no chance of me getting it back, my current account was left alone. I went to my bank and was very very very lucky to have my life savings scrapped together and they just brought it back, however, my current account was left alone and I had around £20 in that so I had to live off that for a month until my next wages because I had already spent the majority of it. That was the Christmas I spent eating tomatoes for a whole day, I had no money and though I could go ask for money and I have no problems with food it was so hard to swallow how I had let this happen, and I lost my job a month after.<br>I was so depressed during my time of having no money, I travelled up to my hometown, spent all my money and then came back to my uni town with no money and no job. It was a really bad time for my mental health, and I lied to the doctors and said I was going to end my life if I didn't get help and I wasn't. I just wanted to get sent to the mental health hospital incase I did and though I didn't get sent there I did get the help I needed. When I had no money and no job I used to have to live off two Kinder Buenos a day and borrow food off my housemates, I had three different diagnosis one after the next, and my mental health was tanking. I was living off £15 a week and crying every day because I was going to die or be homeless. It was really bad, but I got through that and got myself a job and a better mindset and things changed a lot for me. <br>To this day I don't save money in my savings account and I don't spend a lot on myself. I value my time and I enjoy making money and a lot of my money is put into a separate current account and that is just my emergency fund incase anything like that happens again. I may never let myself get to a point where I have no money again but it was the most eye-opening thing that happened to me. I have a bit of a change of mindset now and I will always say, "I'd die if I was rich and I'd die if I was poor" because it's so true. You need to have the right mindset to make a change and when you figure it out, it will be so fulfilling. <br>To this day, I have never been so happy. I'm not the same person I was back then and it's all because of that, I found out I was actually a strong person. <br>I'm sorry if you didn't like this or if it was long and boring.<br><br>If you're struggling with your mental health and want to talk please feel free to DM me or upvote so others can see this.