How it started
In the space of three months, I had lost my job, my marriage had broken down, and I had lost someone very close to me to suicide. Three things at once — each one enough on its own. But alongside all of it, my marriage breakdown had left me with significant debts, and the calls from lenders came almost every day.
The calls were relentless. I knew I owed the money. I knew I should deal with it. But I was barely functioning, and every time the phone rang I felt the shame and anxiety rise all over again. The guilt about the debt had become tangled up with everything else I was trying to carry — and at my lowest point, I came very close to giving up entirely.
It was my divorce solicitor who suggested I speak to Lightside. I remember that first conversation clearly. I did not know what to expect, and I was exhausted by the effort of explaining my situation to yet another person. But something shifted almost immediately. For the first time, the debt was not presented to me as a failing. It was a problem, and there was a solution. I was told, calmly and without judgement, that Lightside could take over all contact with my creditors — every call, every letter, every negotiation. I would not need to deal with them myself anymore.
That was the moment things began to change. I had been applying for senior roles but stumbling after the first or second interview — I simply did not have the headspace to perform. Once the creditor pressure was lifted, that changed. The hours I had been spending on the phone, or lost to worry, were simply freed up. I could think again. I could plan again. And the life that had felt completely out of reach began to come back.
The outcome, in brief
Referred by her divorce solicitor
When the calls stopped, Ms. JJ got back the one thing debt had taken from her before anything else — the ability to think clearly about the future. The arrangement gave her a path through; what she did with that path was entirely her own.
If managing your creditors is taking more from you than just money, you don’t have to keep carrying it alone. One conversation can change what tomorrow looks like.
The work behind the outcome
When Ms. JJ came to us she was managing a significant debt burden at the same time as dealing with three major life events — job loss, marriage breakdown, and bereavement. The debt itself was not the only problem; the daily management of it had become unsustainable. Our first step was to remove that burden from her immediately. We contacted every creditor, placed our authority on file, and ensured that all future contact was routed through us. Ms. JJ did not need to take another call or respond to another letter from a lender.
Once we had a full picture of her obligations — debts accumulated during the marriage, and liabilities that had built up during the period of unemployment — we structured a creditor arrangement. This is a negotiated schedule of payments agreed directly with each creditor, outside of any formal insolvency process. We approached each lender separately, presented Ms. JJ’s circumstances, and negotiated payment terms that were workable given her current situation and realistic given her prospects. Where creditors later appointed collection agents or sought to vary the agreed terms, we handled those negotiations directly without reference back to Ms. JJ unless a decision required her input.
The arrangement has run continuously since then. Ms. JJ’s payments are managed on her behalf and the creditor relationship remains ours to hold. That separation — between the debt and the person — was what made it possible for her to focus on what came next. She went on to secure a Co-CEO role at an international charity, complete a Master’s degree, develop her own business, and move to the countryside. The debt is being cleared. The life that had been interrupted has continued.