I am just about ready to give up, at this point

Sorry to disturb. Just screaming into the void.

Imgur is one of my few sanctuaries where I can vent, so if anyone is reading this, I just needed to get my feelings out of me in some kind of way.

I've been struggling mentally and financially for 10 years now and every time one improves, the other seems to suffer.
In 2014 I was hit with a depression due to stress, trying to manage a bad financial situation. For 3 years I couldn't work. I could barely get out of bed. This didn't really help the financial situation. My wife and I had to move in with my parents, we were living off my wife's limited income and I gained about 60 pounds. I can barely remember those 3 years.

In 2017 I started making small incremental steps to better myself and after 2 years I was well enough to start getting back on the job market. A family member helped me by starting a company (a local window cleaning company) and let me work at my own pace, building up a customer base. He footed the bill for my limited paycheck until the company was profitable. He helped me a lot.

A year ago I took over the company and have been working as self employed since then. But the thing is: It is barely profitable.
During the last 5 years, this was due to me not being able to work full time as I was still dealing with lingering effects from the depression.
I could only handle the work part time, and therefor I haven't been able to work enough to really get out of debt and build up savings.
Over the last year my mental health has improved so much that I am now able to work full time. But now there are no more customers coming in.

For some reason, what I did 5 years ago to bring in customers over 3 years doesn't work as well anymore. What used to bring in 5 customers now only brings in 1. I have tried several other ways of aquring customers but everything has too low of an ROI for me to be able to afford it. I used to put flyers in mailboxes which is a legitimate and normal way to advertise a local business in Denmark. I've probably deliver about 300k flyers myself over the years. After COVID that method just doesn't work as well anymore for some reason. I've also tried online ads on google and facebook, but it costs too much per lead.
Beside window cleaning I also started doing snow removal last winter which was great. I got a lot of customers and had a nice profit at the end of the season. It allowed me to get some extra income and even pay off a big chunk of my debt. So this year, I continued with it and got quite a lot of new customers, the response was fantastic. All year I was excited to see the customer base grow and the payments roll in. I was finally starting to have savings and could see my way out of debt.

But then then winter season started and things have just plummeted since then. Oct-Nov were basically autumn months with almost no freezing and no snowfall, which meant that there wasn't any work to do. I work on a flat season rate, so that's not really such a big problem, but it meant that customers stopped coming in once the winter season started. Why hire a snow remover when the season has no snow. Not such a big problem either as I already have quite a good customer base.

But then the new year came and the snow started to fall. On the first snow day I had 3 separate machine breakdowns on both my main machine and backup machines. A 6 hour route turned into a 17 hour route and a lot of angry customers. The bill from the mechanic was so large that it ate 90% of my savings.
I was told, by other snow cleaners I know to expect breakdowns to cost about $3500 per year, but so far this year I have spent almost $25000. The mechanic is trustworthy and does a good job. He has been fair and removed some of the costs, quite a few times. He confirms the $3500 estimate that I was told and says that my main machine simply looks to be a bad luck draw.

A couple of days ago I had yet another machine break down and now my backup machine is acting up in some other way and is currently at the mechanic.

I have not received the newest bills from the mechanic, but I no matter the size I do not have the money to pay it. Because of the "lean" winter we had in the first few months, no new customers are calling to sign up. Last year, almost half of my customers signed up all throughout the season, because it started to snow already in October and by January, people were getting fed up with shoveling snow themselves, so I had expected something similar this year. But I haven't had a new sign up since November.

So there is no money coming in and a lot of money expected to be paid. If the machines break down again during the last couple of winter months I can be thousands of dollars in red by the end of the season. That, on top of the declining window cleaning customer base, with no new customers coming in there either, the situation right now is so stressful that it feels like 2014 all over again.

On top of all that, I started a fun hobby project about 7 months ago, a YouTube channel about DnD and an Etsy store where I make and sell custom made props, and the Etsy store had started to generate some real income, I even had people sign up for my Patreon. (I give away the designs for the props for free on Patreon. The Etsy store is for those who just want to buy instead of DIY). All year the sales went up. In November alone I had about a sale every other day. I was figuring that the positive reviews and the sales meant that the store was exposed to more people, but then mid December, the sales just stopped. I've had about 1 sale since then. Maybe the uptick in sales was just in preparation for the holidays, or maybe something changed in the search algorithm, but the store still gets about 100 visits and 1-3 items are favorited by people every day.

I also have 3 court appearances in January. Some of my older creditors from 2014, (or rather debt-buying companies who have bought the debt from the original creditor) has filed for a court session where they can take any money I have in my bank account and/or any asset I have to repay the debt.
Last time I had such an appearance in December 2023 they took my car, and about $2500 of my savings.
I am also in a legal battle with my previous landlord who withheld my security deposit and sent a $1800 bill for "painting expenses" when we moved out a year ago. We've just won the first court filing, which was about the painting expenses. (We cleaned and painted that apartment so it looked like new when we moved out)
No we are waiting to see if we can get him to release our $3500 security deposit.

So far the lawyers have cost $700.

So now I've just been sitting here at my desk, dissassosiating for about 4 hours. There's no snow today but there is a storm, so I can't work with the window cleaning either. It's about the first day in 2 weeks were I've had nothing to do and it all just hit me at once. The first court appearance is in a week, I still need to pay the lawyers and the mechanic, I have no money coming in and no customers signing up, despite trying everything in my power to do it and I don't know what else to do.

If anyone actually read this, thanks for taking an interest. I feel lighter, if not actually better, so I guess it did do me some good to get it all out.

Also, if anyone is interested in DnD stuff you could maybe take a look at what I do and if you like any of it and want to help out, that would mean a lot to me:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/welcome-to-113019689