How do I forgive myself?

Hi Archiemay

Your post resonated with me because this is something I really struggled with in the first couple of months after I came clean about my gambling problem to my wife and became one of the main issues I used counselling to try and resolve.

Couple of points I had to come to terms with was that my inability to forgive myself was a need to continue to punish myself for what I had done. You need to take full responsibility for the fallout from your gambling whether this is the impact on relationships or financial but continuing to beat yourself up about it is not healthy and serves no purpose. It might initially seem selfish to worry about yourself in any way as we have caused all the problems here, but you do need to focus on yourself if you are going to get better.

Second point, and this relates to your worry about ruining your remaining relationships is that your inability to forgive yourself is probably continuing to hurt them just as you did when you were gambling. After the initial shock of finding out about my gambling my wife told me that what was hurting her the most was that despite her forgiving me for the loss of money and the lies, she still did not believe she had me “back” because I was still off in a world of misery and depression because I could not forgive myself despite all her support. I was just laying more pain on her.

I doubt this will be a light switch moment when you suddenly forgive yourself and time will help but if I can give you just one thought to consider – who do you think you are benefiting by not forgiving yourself? Certainly not yourself and probably not your loved ones.

Look after yourself

Muststop123

You step out of your comfort zone, think if this was my favourite person going through this would I hate them or be empathic towards them? Most would feel sad for their friend.

So.. Step back in your zone and start being kinder towards you. It's a illness, chemical reactions go off in your brain, you were manipulated by the industry, get angry at the gambling industry taking advantage of you. And show love and kindness towards yourself. Then keep that anger for the gambling industry and keep being kind towards yourself.

It will get easier if you do that.

I use to be able to walk 22 miles a week with a illness I cannot control I now can barely walk 22 metres without being in pain. I had to learn to be kinder to myself.

Learn to like yourself then the love for yourself will happen.

Bella xx

A lot of us go through with this and the answer is more self compassion. We are too harsh on ourselves, and if you saw your siuation in a friend you would never ever be this harsh to them, so why do we do it to ourselves? I needed gamcare counselling to have this hammered into me. I have yet to take action tbh but I now know what I need to work on.

Its quite normal for people with low esteem to be too harsh on themselves. It doesn't help us in the end. I am trying to learn to be kinder to myself, it is very hard but it is one of the keys to freedom from this addiction.