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My Personal Credit Crisis - NYTimes.com.

I had a hand in covering the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russia meltdown in 1998 and the dot-com collapse in 2000. I know a lot about the curveballs that the economy can throw at us.

But in 2004, I joined millions of otherwise-sane Americans in what we now know was a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. Nobody duped or hypnotized me. Like so many others — borrowers, lenders and the Wall Street dealmakers behind them — I just thought I could beat the odds.

Everyone and their brother has linked to this already but in case you missed it Times reporter Edmund Andrews tells how he wound up with his own tail caught in the crack of the financial collapse. His story helps humanize the entire mess. As I read how he quickly spiraled into overwhelming and out of control debt I could feel my stomach churning like it was happening to me. All it takes is a couple of dumb decisions by an otherwise smart guy and suddenly you’re 8 months behind on your mortgage and just waiting for the day they come to take your house away.

Millions of your neighbors are going through this right now. Scary.