[Closed] Charly's life

As ever you pop by and say lovely things - what a great support you are, with real honesty and kindness behind your words. Life is looking up but only since I turned my back on gambling - I hope that I can stay strong and I really want to make the best of things now that there is some distance between me and the evil that's gambling. I read other people's stories on here and it breaks my heart to see them go through what I did but at least I know that with the right support and self-belief they can pull through. Like you have. Bests JG

hi charley

thanks for your support.

I will get to your diary as soon as I get to the end of Alice's, nearly there lol taken a bit of reading lol, Alice should write a novel I think it would be a very funny book lol

take care, love life

jim

Hi Charly,

Thanks for your support, feeling great at the moment gamble free, okay have the odd ffp days , as Lucy would say, but dont we all thats normal life 🙂

Normal is good we are allowed the ups and downs lol

Thanks for your support.

Take care

Love

W xxx

think good thoughts

cashed

Hi Charly

Just wanted to pop in to say hello. Hope I will see you in chat one day. Still sorting out certain things, but I am keeping in mind to meeting you.

Andrea

Hi my diary.

A lot of things are going on at the moment.

Maybe, just maybe I'm trying to do too much again.

My mind is in the same overdrive again it was in when I was gambling, which isn't too good. I haven't been sleeping too well either and I'm sure that doesn't help.

I worry too much.

Not for myself, I'm in a safe place at the moment.

I have no desire to gamble even if I have the odd thought about it. Sometimes I even miss it. Not the gambling itself.

I miss the ability to switch off completely. When I was in my bubble, I didn't think about anyone or anything. I didn't worry about anything or anyone. I simply switched off.

I can't do that any longer and having found the ability to 'feel' I'm now in a place where I feel too much. When I feel too much it hurts; again not for myself, I'm ok, but I hurt for others. I want to make everything better for all the people I care about. I want to take a way their pains, their struggles and I then forget 'me'. I think that descibes best how I am at the moment. I've always been like that and although I would like to be able to channel some of it, I don't want to become a hard b**** who doesn't give a shxx about anyone else. I did enough of that while I was gambling. I went in to this afternoon's chatroom and poor Anna thought I'd lost the connection. I just couldn't take anymore on board. I shouldn't have gone in. Apologies to all in the room, I was too tired to communicate.

I am soo tired at the moment and I will go to bed in a minute but I need to write the things down that are on my mind. I can never find the right words when I'm in my meetings. If I write them down maybe I will get a better night's sleep.

Someone I care for triggered memories from my past and I need to get rid of them. It's a shame our brain doesn't work like a computer, if I don't want something on there I just delete it.

Wouldn't it be great if it was possible to do that.

Here goes:

My Ex controlled me for nearly 20 years. Like an addiction it became progressively worse until I stopped it from happening again because, again I reached a point where I really didn't care anymore what happened to me. All I knew was that I had to get out.

His expertise was in 'mental destruction'.

When I first voiced that I would leave because I couldn't take anymore( nearly a year before I actually did), he turned into, I don't know how to describe what he turned in to, a nightmare perhaps.

In the argument that followed he threatened me, and not for the first time with this - he told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever left him, he would first kill me, then he would kill our children and then he would kill himself.

Just thinking about his distorted face when he spoke those words make my skin crawl all over again. And the awful thing about it is, to this day I don't know if he would have done it, had I left him then or not. He even said he knows somebody he could pay to shoot me, I wouldn't know where or when but I could expect it anytime I'd leave the house.

So I stayed for another year, the children were another year older(teenagers by then) and when he made similar comments again, I finally snapped. I looked up to him and told him I didn't care what he threatened me with anymore. I told him to do his worse for I didn't give a d**n. He was nothing but a bully and I wasn't prepared to play his games any longer. Anything was better then to spend another moment under the same roof. I managed to walk out, although he wouldn't let me put my shoes on, I walked out on a November night, in my slippers in the pouring rain and walked about 10 minutes to my friends house who let me stay with them until I found a flat for me and my children. My daughter decided to stay with her boyfriend. But my son stayed with his Dad. That is something I sometimes still get nightmares over. I'm their mother and I'm meant to protect them at all costs.

And there I was, safe at my friends house, but I didn't know what was happening to my boy. It took 2 months to get a flat and another few weeks to sort out furniture( mostly from people who do care, I didn't take antyhing from my marital home because I didn't want to give my Ex more ammuntion to blackmail or threaten me with). When I had everything ready and my children still didn't move in with me I had the worse nightmares. I thought about the mental abuse my Ex was capable of and wondered what he had said to the children.

Whne my two came around and I asked them why they hadn't moved in with me, my boy said he thought I couldn't afford to have them live with me. I assured them that I could and they were ready to move in the next day.

I did eventually get a lot of my stuff back, but I never asked for anything, my Ex, once he realised that I wouldn't come back, volunteered to give it to me. I would have rather died then ask him for anything. These days, 6 years down the line, we are on talking terms because of the children. All three of us have mental scars we will carry around with us forever. But now we have each other and we talk a lot more about the past and try to live with it.

Wow, now I'm totally wacked.

Good Night Diary

God, give me the strength to carry on.

Look after all the people I care for all over the world.

God Bless

Charly

charly i am lost for words to say to you have just read your post i realy hope you get some well needed rest and just would like to thank you for always seeming to be there your support for folks on here is something to look up to i would just like you to know that i for one am very greatful for it please take care and get some rest steve xxx

hi charly, for two days i have read so many of your posts and they are fantastic. You did a very brave thing leaving him. i do not know what to say, i think you are very brave. I am so so sorry i cannot offer you anything as i am choked by your post, but i just want to let you know i will be thinking of you charly and i hope you have a good sleep and a better day tomorrow. mimi

Hi Charly, great post as always and from the heart.

Like you i struggle being able to feel things now, some emotions which i cant really handle but i guess thats what real lifes is all about, facing up to reality.

So proud of you being able to talk about your past on here, you are a brave lady for what you did.

Hope you had a good nights sleep. xx

Good Morning Charly, just getting ready for work, but had to post and just to tell you i am still thinking of you and hope you rested well. Take Care. mimi

hi charly

just read your last thred.wow what a strong lady you sound,it took a lot of gut's to walk out,your children sound really nice and thoughtful,would rather stay with there dad as they thought you could'nt afford to keep them,you should be so proud of them,hope you got the rest you needed.

take care

paul

Hi Charly - it's so sad that people change over time for the worse and we put up with it. I am so glad that you made the right decision and have now got a future for yourself - this site does seem a good place to open up - not that priovate really with thousands of people looking in but I suppose it's cathartic to get some feelings out, and it's possible to stay relatively anonymous. You are always an inspiration to many on here and it is precisely because you have gone thru so much that you can offer so much - all the best JG

Hi Diary

I have had a better night's sleep, thanks to this diary.

Thank you all for you replies and kind words.

Not sure if I'm brave. I was very naive and stupid. But when someone tells you day in day, week in week out and year in year out that you are worthless and only good enough to shxg and do all the cleaning, you end up believing that. Ha - the cleaning wasn't always up to scratch either. I've just remembered something else. My Ex would hide tooth picks or matches all over the house, on top of the doors, behind the settee, in the CD rack or he would run his fingers over the top of the door frames, well you get the idea and then, when he came in from work he would get them out and tell me how filthy I was for not finding them and then he'd say that I must have been sitting on my fat arxx all day watching TV or out seeing other men(that's another story I will share another time). After the first time I would get all frantic and made sure I'd clean everything. After a while I'd clean, write down where they were, but leave them there. I would then give him the list and tell him to pick them up himself as he'd put them there. That wasn't always wise, but after years of this, I'd got fed up with it.

o*g, you know guys and girls, writing this down is opening a floodgate. I din't realise I'd remember so much.

Not today though. I want to end this post positive, because I'm quite excited at the moment.

I have tomorrow off and my Angel and I are off to Coventry again for the weekend.

We are going to see Mark Knopfler at the NEC in Birmingham tomorrow night. The tickets were a birthday present from Steve's sister and her partner to both of us.

We're really looking forward to it. It's just a shame I won't be able to see my lad when he gets back from Turkey tomorrow. I won't see him until Sunday evening. He does know about it so he might stay at his Dad's until then. Then again he might not, he might have had enough from spending a whole week with him. We'll see. I haven't heard from him all week and as they say, no news is good news.

On Saturday we are going out for the day with some friends and their children. Their little girl is severely disabled and we try to make time to do things together to give them a break and their boy is a normal 5 year old full of beans.

If I get a chance I'll see if I can log on at my sister-in-law's and catch up over the weekend.

If not, I shall catch up with you on Monday.

You all have a good weekend.

Stay strong, focused and gamble free.

God Bless

Charly

(((Charly))) Your diary always amazes me. You are such an amazing woman. You have lived through your own private nightmare, survived it, tackled a gambling problem and conquered it, and are now living life to the fullest with your angel and taking life one day at a time. Thank you for sharing your story with us, my friend, and for all you do for me and for others.

Lots of love, Anna