Going to keep this thread now!

Thanks Sabine, it does help, yes.

I would describe the process I am going through, as "the tide is turning". I'm getting there, closer and closer to where I need to be. Can't put it straight down, but getting less and less attached to it.

I wanted to gamble tonight, walked past an arcade (they are everywhere in my city) and contemplated going in....argument in my head....will I, won't I?....I walked away and ended up buying a little treat for my home, instead. I am getting a lot of pleasure sitting looking at it, and am feeling good that I resisted and have something to show for it.

Hiya Freda,

Just thought I'd pop in and say hello .Haven't posted for a while as been busy with new job - not great but pays enough to tide me over for now - had a few blips over the last month or so - nothing drastic but still too much!

Read about your hubby's health scare - hope all's well now for both of you.Keep resisting that temptation - I manage it most of the time but sometimes the devil shouts louder than the angel and wins!

Take care

Kay x

well done for not reacting to that gambling urge Freda give yourself that high five 🙂

Thanks sweetie for your post . If you look at some of my other recent posts I can still put my dragons head on . MIND told me the same and kindly filled my initial form in . Took the bloke just short of 2 and a half hours .

Just looking for a bit of financial support to get me through to retirement , just under 3 years .

What makes me wild is we live in a place called Benefit City , not sure but I think the local uni might do a degree in it . What some of them get away with is unbelievable . Guy I know is on incapacity , rent and CT paid for, drives without a licence and often works 5 days a week . I think after 40 years , less 7 weeks without a job , maybe a little payback time .

My wife has just done an 11 and a half hour day . First rate carer . She says often that those who pay for their care are always grateful . Yet she has a client , very nice young lass , she gets showered and dressed in the morning yet the Mother is a lazy cow, of course doesn`t work and moans if she hears the carers sorting her kid out as she is still in bed . Smokes like a trouper and is now demanding more from social services .

Been self employed for years . Just got the new amendments through from the tax office . 5 minutes late in paying we will charge you an extra £100 , one week late and a couple of blokes will come round and give you a nasty slap . One month late and we will take everything you own , stick your family in a labour camp and force you to watch Kirsty Alsop programs for 4 hours in the evening .

Sorry I lied , but the new rules are harsh .

Anyway my good friend . thanks for posting and remember my saying . Each day I don`t bet , I win . xx

Thanks sweetie for your post . If you look at some of my other recent posts I can still put my dragons head on . MIND told me the same and kindly filled my initial form in . Took the bloke just short of 2 and a half hours .

Just looking for a bit of financial support to get me through to retirement , just under 3 years .

What makes me wild is we live in a place called Benefit City , not sure but I think the local uni might do a degree in it . What some of them get away with is unbelievable . Guy I know is on incapacity , rent and CT paid for, drives without a licence and often works 5 days a week . I think after 40 years , less 7 weeks without a job , maybe a little payback time .

My wife has just done an 11 and a half hour day . First rate carer . She says often that those who pay for their care are always grateful . Yet she has a client , very nice young lass , she gets showered and dressed in the morning yet the Mother is a lazy cow, of course doesn`t work and moans if she hears the carers sorting her kid out as she is still in bed . Smokes like a trouper and is now demanding more from social services .

Been self employed for years . Just got the new amendments through from the tax office . 5 minutes late in paying we will charge you an extra £100 , one week late and a couple of blokes will come round and give you a nasty slap . One month late and we will take everything you own , stick your family in a labour camp and force you to watch Kirsty Alsop programs for 4 hours in the evening .

Sorry I lied , but the new rules are harsh .

Anyway my good friend . thanks for posting and remember my saying . Each day I don`t bet , I win . xx

Hi Freda.. thanks for your support you always seem to know exactly what to say and how to phrase it.

Well done on resisting that urge to gamble. For me once I am actually standing out side a gambling hell hole having that internal debate, 19 times out of 20 I walk in. You did well. Thanks again.. S.A 🙂

Just updating to say that my world is very scary at the moment. I have just started a new job, and am struggling with anxiety. I hope it settles down once I'm adjusted to things, but I'm fighting to conceal the near panic I feel inside.

Its very very hard. I don't regret the choice I made to leave my last job, because it was making me miserable, but the nerves are awful to cope with. I feel like I can't breathe, and my heart flutters away. This has happened before, and it did pass, but so unpleasant and emotionally draining.

Hey Freda.. well done on finding a new job. Its not easy in todays job market so its a huge acheivment in itself... nice one. Can i ask what sort of work it is? I take it your not working with people who may punch, bite or scratch you at any moment.. be thankful for small mercies

I can imagine the difficult feelings... getting use to new collegues/new people in general and the job itself can be a fraught process as i know myself. Stick with it as best you can. Although my job hasn't worked out and its likely that i will leave it formally sometime soon.. I will miss some of the staff and bits of the job.. though defo not the challenging needs.

Thanks for your support. Life is not easy at times. Take care.. and meditate when you can.. S.A 🙂

Thanks Sa,

Its shop work. I had till training on Weds, and was sharing a till with the know it all of the group. Every time I hovered my hand over the wrong key (which is totally normal while you are remembering what to do) she would go "ah ah ah!" normally when I'm settled in a job, this would just be quite amusing to me and I would smirk to myself about what a wally she was, but on my second day with a history of severe anxiety attacks, in a small room with 8 people it got my nerves pumping.

I had a really bad panic attack, but pretended everything was fine. The panic was in my eyes, but I kept smiling ( and shaking )

well she is on a different department, so hopefully I won't have to work with her again, but it massively dented my confidence to say the least.

I cried al night when I got home, and was supposed to be in the following day for 9 hours. This was too much for me, and although it was very embarrassing phoning in sick on my first proper day, I did the right thing. I still hadn't recovered from the previous day, and would have set myself up for failure.

I'm off again today, and then in for 4 hours on Saturday, which will now be my first 'proper' day in the shop. I talked it over yesterday with a couple of people I trust, and decided that the second I start feeling more than mild nerves tomorrow, I will ask the supervisor if I can have a quiet word, and will just explain that I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks when I am in a new job, but that this will settle within a couple of weeks if they can bear with me. I will ask if its ok to go off for a short while if I'm feeling panicky, and I will stay later than scheduled to make it up.

Of course I may be absolutely fine, but I feel more peaceful if I have a contingency plan. It may also work in my favour if I am open about it, because they will have to be careful before they let me go, as they will know they can't discriminate against my condition. Particularly when I have a absence history of only 2 days in 15 months for my previous job, and neither of those was for anxiety.

Anyway, thats my little rant, I always struggle with confidence in my anxiety not escalating in new situations, but I will continue to do my best and what will be will be. I'm also listening to self confidence hypnosis tapes from a well known celebrity hypnotist twice a day. That is helping.

So if you read this, please just send some calm vibes my way! good news is I feel far too stressed to even think about gambling.

Hey Freda... your in luck, cos ive just been to the calm vibes shop... and am sending calm vibes your way by recorded delivery.. so you should get them... your doing just fine... S.A 🙂

I managed a 4 hour shift without a panic attack thank fudge!

Got my first day out of the way yesterday, which was a Saturday too, so probably won't get busier than that until Xmas and I will deal with that when I'm settled in. I needed to take my trusty Valium, and will do so today as well, but although I'm still not totally confident that I can cope, I am starting to believe its possible.

I have 3 four hour shifts in a row, two more including today. I feel like once I have these under my belt I will relax a lot more. I barely slept Friday night, so did my first shift on about 3 - 4 hours sleep! Last night I got about 2 and a half at first, woke up briefly, then got another 5 or 6 so am feeling much better on that score.

I am really looking forward to my day off on Tuesday, and am hoping to arrange a treatment with a healer that I trust (I know a lot of people think its tosh, but in light of my scepticism it seems to work for me)

I feel like my brain has been so focused on the new job that thoughts of gambling hardly come in. However my last bet was only Tuesday, so I need to keep watch.

Hi Freda.. I hope you enjoy your day off today.. you deserve to pamper yourself. My first few days in my job that am now leaving were really quite traumatic, like jumping into shark infested waters. It was so hard to keep on showing up. I had to hit the ground running and i had to drive a great mini-bus when i hadn;t driven for years. It terrified for a while and yet one day i realised that i could do it and i shall carry that memory with me even though the job ultimately didn;t work out.

I react very strongly to any sort of change, anything new. I think I have an overly sensiitve nervous system. It the same with physical pain. When my back pain first started, I went to pieces.. pacing around accident and emergency in the middle of the night and yet now I am learning to manage that pain.. until a physio can sort me out properly.

My guess from what you say, is that once you have got use to working the till and being around your collegues.. youl probably be just fine. I think of some of the shop workers at my local supermarket. Some of them have been there since i first came to my part of the world some 8 years ago. They seem just as happy and cheery as they were back then. Thats my aim as well I think, just to find a steady job thats not to stressy, it doesn't have to pay much. maybe i would stay for years or maybe it would act as a stepping stone to something else.

Anyway anjoy the day. Cheers.. S.A 🙂

I cocked up today and wasted £70.

I hate to admit it, but I really am going to have to put some serious effort into getting this thing under control.

I walk the line constantly between gambling so much it seriously affects my life, and gambling more than I can afford but doesn't do any lasting damage.

I think over the last 12 months, my losses probably amount to about £500. Not exactly devastating, but a real waste of money.

I feel sick. The stupid thing is, I got some healing and felt brilliant. Really relaxed and happy. I even went to get a sunbed from another place than usual so I wouldn't walk past the arcade. I even went to the bank once I'd started, to get money over the counter, as my husband has my debit card. I went to the bank twice! after blowing the first lot.

Its done now. I constantly toy with the idea of starting a new diary, then think - why deny the last couple of years? I don't know, I do feel it would feel better to start afresh.

I have been all over the place these last couple of weeks. I'm going to build some routine and stability, and just not go into town for a week! sounds a bit extreme, but I find it works. I wouldn't act on an urge I had at home, by walking into town to gamble. It is literally just when I walk past them, they are everywhere in my city.

Hey Freda... sorry to hear about what happened. I think we are so alike when it comes to this gambling lark. You don't need me to highlight what triggers you to gamble BUT on a positive I get the feeling that you (like me recently) were actually quite close to NOT gambling.

Like you say you were getting some healing and felt relaxed and happy you were doing the right things and maybe just maybe if you hadn't of walked past that aracde with ammunition in your pocket.. you wouldn't of gambled.

What genuinely does help me each time that ive gambled is to get myself excluded from that particular place and over time it means that if I really want to gamble i have to travel a bit further. In fact my last gambling episode was 200 miles away from where i live.

Looking back I started a new diary because i didn't like having the longest diary. I felt out on a limb and somehow different. Its daft i know. In an ideal world its good to keep ones thoughts in one place but at end of day it doesn't matter. Do what feels right for you.

Routine and stability is good for recovery. I don't have routine and stability at the moment so i know am still vulnerable.. but thats life.. I keep working at it.

Whatever you decide to do.. stay connected with the forum. Remember its your job to sort me out.. :-).. onwards and upwards... S.A

Thanks SA,

what a thoughtful post. I think you are right about the self exclusion. I do have the type of personality where I would be too mortified to be caught out where I'd self excluded from, so it would work. It is just walking in and doing it. No excuse not to, but I am building up the courage still. Luckily its just the arcades I'm drawn to, it could be worse, I could have a battle of wills going past every bookies too. I've never got hooked in them before.

I think I will self exclude, need to gear up to it though.