Few years ago, I was diagnosed of anxiety and depression. I was having a real tough time sort of coping with life in general.
So I started seeking releases. One of those releases I found was gambling, online gambling.
It was sort of a vicious cycle. If I didn't gamble, I felt anxious. But then if I gambled I felt anxious about losing money.
Reached the point where there was no more money left. It was just horrendous.
When my marriage broke down, I knew we were in debt. When we were going through the divorce process, that's when I realized we were actually in over 70000 thousand pounds worth of debt and twenty three thousand within my sole name.
There I was a single mom working part-time. And It was really, really frightening. I went through my teenage years having quite a hard time at school. I was quite badly bullied,
and this led to years of kind of eating disorders and low body confidence.
When I started to earn money, all I wanted to do was to use it. And I ended up in this cycle of emotional spending. I just continued to spend in the hope that it would make me feel better.
After I lost my dad in 2008, I lost my way a little bit with money and lots of other things as well. I found myself out of a job, I think, dealing with grief as well. At the same time, I just wasn't really focusing on what I should have been focussing on.
If my friends wanted to go out or if family wanted to go on holiday, I do it even though I probably couldn't have afforded it.
And it just kind of spiralled from there, really. So for a long time, I didn't really recognise that it was a problem.
I think I just completely buried my head in the sand.
I had one evening where I just I felt totally suicidal and I didn't know how I was going to pay my bills or my mortgage that month. And so I realised then that I had to do something.
Moneyhelper.org.uk.
