Hope

Have you lipstick on your collar? No..unfortunately 🙂

Did you arrive home fully clothed? Yes

Is there any footage of you singing kareoke on the tinterbobs? No

Did you get a police escort to your front door and charged with dangerous traffic cone offenses ? No

Did you tell anyone even in jest .."I love you..why are we fighting....we're soulmates ...lets never be apart"

Yes in part... I always tell people i love them when drunk including random people... but not the soulmates never be apart bit

I had one of the most awful things happen to me this afternoon. I ran out of coffee!!! What a shocker eh. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy ;-)... well maybe my boss! lol

Now ive been shop and fought my way past various middle aged blokes dressed as santa (trying to get money out of small children) and got my coffee I now feel more human and am ready to think about stuff.

Freda yes ive spent a life time surpressing my own needs. Its like even today my dad rings and asks what i want for exmas and I couldn't think of anything when in reality there is prob loads of things that I need or things I would like. Do I subconciously think that i don't deserve anything. I am not worthy and all that. Hard habit to break for sure.

As you say surpressed stuff always finds a way out. My list is as follows... occasional gambling, occasional binge drinking (last night), isolation in extremeth, idle surfing of the web (read into that what you will lol), over eating, high blood pressure, overly stressed in general, over exercising to the point where I think am going to have a stroke and finally and finally trying to convince self and others that everything is rosey in the garden when it plainly isn't. As it is, today am just feeling hungover and NOT on a real downer. Honest! 😉

It was nice to spend a bit of time with collegues out of work yesterday. Its like the same people i was moaning about in a recent post ive now got to know a bit better... and you see a different side to them. Thats a good thing. I guess that normal service will resume come Monday but thats life eh.

It will be good when at some point whenever that maybe I find a job that is a bit less being so dependant on "team player" and more "myself doing job and not being so impacted by others when they dont do job"... ie just like you say Freda. The balance is not right and thats what fundamentlally needs to change.

I have appointment with stroke clinic Monday.. am sure we will talk stress and blood pressure and cholesterol and blood sugar and maybe other stuff waiting round the corner But what i do know for sure is this. Come 2013 i will complete a sub- 4 hour marathon!

Off to fold clothes which seem to be randomly lying around. I will have to do the smell test. What needs washing and what doesn't. I am a bloke.

Every day without gambling is a good day. Thnaks for listening... S.A 🙂

Hey SA...

Still on the right side of b**b..saying I love you to randoms does not count as a t*t...not even a nipple so well done that man...lol

Idly surfing on the web eh???...tsk..you'll go blind!

No overtraining this weekend..conserve those carbs for body heat..... ; )

R and D xx

R and D xx

Day 21... or to put it another. I am in to my 21st glorious gambling free day since my emotional brain hijacked my rational brain (under the influence of alcohol) and I stood like a zombie feeding £20 notes into a slot until I ran out of money.

Ive had a good run today. I woke up feeling like I had a cold, but thinking back I think i was just cold cos my heating is s**t. It was hard to get out but once I was out it felt good. Run off the last vestiges of Fridays alcohol.

Ive got lots of work related stuff to do today. The Nvq lady comes tomorrow and if i havent done the stuff I will prob get taken off the course. Feeling a bit panicky.. which is usually a good motivator. Its also time to tidy a bit cos the folding clothes and tidying i threatened to do yesterday I didn't do cos i got side tracked by an episode of Frost and then i had to sit and do nothing for a bit and then had a soak in tub and then.. well ya get the drift.. bed time..oops nothing done lol

Have a good day folks especially you random lurkers who are thinking of starting a diary but havent actually done so. Tis good therapy it is.... S.A 🙂

Fear..the final NVQ frontier...lol

still absorbed in me own crapola but will post when in bed and not as agitated xx

R and D xx

Hiya thanks for the post. I hope you've done all the work nvq stuff you needed to do but much much much more important than that get some Xmas decks up.... NOW! Lol.

hey SA

just reading some of your back posts and also seeig that even though im not a gambler in the same way..we do share some similarities..especially isolating.

I have tucked myself away on this forum and also am a big youtube addict especially documentries and radio...most stuff on tv i cant stand except the odd film rerun..'

Not yet a silver surfer but who knows ...my hair could change overnight if my stress levels dont come down..lol

In the past i did want to say that i wondered if you were overtraining...especially with your mouth ulcers

but didnt want to say too much as i know your running is the one thing that you love and keeps you focussed .

Life in the middle lane is where its at.......as the song goes ..you have to pick your friends like you pick your fruit..it is difficult to remian on the right path if you are too close to people who could potentially de rail you...

I seem to think I can cope and then get into trouble as I still am not accepting my limitations and think im invincible.

Playing safe from now on and for me no more risks and using my head more to make decisions rationally .

I am trying to strip all emotion out of decisions now

and look at what is..not what it maybe or could be..but what it is now and then aligning myself with that reality.

hope that makes sense

R and D xx.

Day 22

Thanks Rach... yes i rather think that overdoing it was the cause. Diagnosis is "optical migraines" brought on by stress. Ive had a whole bunch of ultra-sound scans today of the heart and the vessels leading up to the brain and they are normal. Am being sent for an MRI to rule out mutiple sclerosis. My blood pressure was high but thats because I was totally unpre-pared for what was to come.

I thought i was just gonna get the result of the ECG and the blood test I had the other day and i'd be declared fine in and out in ten minutes... but no...tests and more tests and then I had medical students asking me questions for their assignments and then I had a consultant (without people skills) grilling me on my medical history which included, "so whats this ...deliberate self-harm in 2004..whats that about?" how did you harm yourself and why??" errrrr well, knife, gambling..err err.. medical students watching on. At which point he says did you win?? Well for f*** sake am hardly gonna try and kill myself if i'd just won would I !!!! (i didn't actually say that lol). It was all a bit much do ya know what i mean?? Frazzled is the word of the day. Its taken me quite a while to settle myself.

The NHS is brilliant though. Overall very impressed.

No gambling problems and thanks for listening... S.A 🙂

as a rare end user of the NHS also have found them brilliant....joined in cheering the "No more NHS cuts" march through manchester on saturday...

(historically have not had great experiences with surgery GPs though)

Its good your having a mini MOT and at least then you wont be stabbing in the dark (pardon the migraine pun) and with a proper diagnosis can make choices over your health.

LOL on "did you win"...can you believe it??..sheesh....

well hope you are settled back inside where itss warm and have not feeling like a specimin hun..

r and d xx

Thanks Rach... just feeling down and tired now. Ive been stressed with work as well as all the medical stuff this afternoon.

The team leader (nice lady) has fallen out with the boss at work. How she has ever been able to work with her over the months god only knows. I wasn't there, but apparently the boss came to work in a foul mood and just changed everything on a whim, overruling the decisions that the team leader had made and deliberately re-assigning who people were to work with that day, in order (arguably) to stress them out to the max.

For me this means I work with the most challenging client (she always puts me with him) because (in my opinion) she thinks that I won't be able to cope. I cope so she can go f*** off!! She doesn't care the fact that i was off to the stroke clinic that afternoon and maybe it wasn't a good idea to put added stress on me... but she tries to do just that.For other staff she does different things.. but its all designed (in my opinion) to put people in their place. to show them who's boss. Its A deliberate strategy of power and control knowing full well that there is f*** all anybody can do about it... other than leave. Personally I don't belief that many people in this world are deliberately antagonistic and vengeful.. but she is... she genuinely is.

Her new job in the company starts in the new year but she has informed us that she retains overall control of the centre. So basically she can appear and disappear when she wants and continue to do as she pleases.. The team leader has seemingly reached breaking point. She wants to manager the place properly but she recognises that she won't be able to. A power struggle has been under way which she won't win and she knows this and she says that she will leave at the end of the year.

What it means for me is continuing chaos and uncertainty and increasing stress where nobody will know what they are assigned to do on a day to day basis because the boss only plans the day in any meaningful way when she is angry and this then means that much of the time folk will do as they please thinking "f*** this.. lets see what i can get away with. Nobody gives a s**t so why should i." Thats not me by the way but others will think that am sure

Mean while the clients will get bored, frustrated and stressed (like the staff!) and become more challenging and i will have more optical migraines lol....but its not lol really... its s**t!

Anyway this is me just mouthing off. Need to get this s**t out of my head so it doesnt just swim around indefinataely. Feeling just as trapped as ever.. but glad ive got a strong heart. I keep on running. Thanks for listening... S.A 🙂

P.s why does my life just feel like an endless round of stress stress and more stress. perpetually stressed i am.. its relentless

This boss woman sounds like someone the 3rd Reich would have been scared of.

Its unreal really that one person can hold the whole place to ransom and affect the clients through the desire for a power trip.

It is true that companies usually put people in postions they find impossible in the hope they will give in and resign but im not sure this woman is doing that...as she will have no audience and no one to pick on if you all go..

what a shame that you get good people leaving work they are probably really good at over personalities and egos.

The top brass obviously think she is doing something right but im guessing she is brown nosing and being totally different with them.

Can you have a company revolt..get a written complaint against her and get her removed as im sure there are many who feel like you...

R and D xx.'

Bless you... you so often give a thoughtful reply and for that i am trully grateful.

Yes she brown noses the hierarchy but then her boss is her mother and the managing director is her auntie. Its a family thing!

...and yes i'd be surprsied if she wants rid of the likes of me... cos am a driver and am experinced with the clients. But then maybe she doesnt give a s**t about that. It could be that she wants the place to fall apart so she can pretend to ride to the rescue, the thinking being that the place cannot possibly cope without her! Or maybe she just wants the place closed now she's based at central office and her new position is secure. I don't know its hard to guage... maybe she also has stuff to hide, fiddling the petty cash, dodgy receipts and so on... S.A

Day 23

Well i did manage to work myself up into a bit of a stew yesterday didn't I ?! Deep breaths stay calm and just take each day as it comes. Today is a day off and i will just BE. Thanks for listening... S.A 🙂

KEEP CALM......AND CARRY ON.... being you x

Sa

thanks for posting upon my diary, i do believe our paths have not crossed before, one thing is for sure we share the same addiction,the same sneaking,deceitful,all consuming illness that has one destructive purpose.A fella at my Ga often asks the newbies what has gambling done for you??

By and large the resulting answer is the same.Misery.

I speak from the heart when i say you are honourable,your humility always shines through the forum,your advice and words invaluable and always written in a tone to inspire.

I have learnt a huge amount in my time upon this forum,and my answer to my Ga fella would be today

My gambling addiction gave me recovery.

I am enjoying life today with my glass half full,something i wish to bestow upon everyone.

Keep taking the medicine,i've found it comes in many forms today's in a very bitter form through bb's diary.

Enjoy your day off,something else i hope we can both do.

Duncs stepping forward never back