Living with Gareth was difficult enough - but finding out over the next weeks, months and years the havoc and destruction Anne had left - with my signatures all over it and me to solely accept the blame was honestly the worst and most evil time of my life.
Anne had used my bankcard to get more cards. Credit cards. She had maxed these out in my name. When she had asked me to sign 'papers' I thought they were just for the house. That, in my opinion - was bad enough. What I didn't know was that Anne had gotten me to sign for:
A CAR
A house full of furniture
All the rent (well, as much of it as she paid with my money before deciding not to and trashing the house, doing a runner and leaving me in it all alone without a cent)
All the bills
Anne had turned my friends, Church and family against me and had become my brother's best friend. HIS BEST FRIEND. Jay trusted Anne with his heart and to this day, I believe the two of them are as thick as thieves. I have never felt the same about my brother, feeling as if he abandoned me in a way by chosing Anne over me and he has never felt the same about me - parroting Anne's accusations back to me and calling me 'crazy/unsettled/disturbed' more than once.
I was in such debt that it buckled me at the knee.
There is a part in the Bible where David was cheated and hounded by someone he had trusted as a clsoe friend and advisor. He writes about his suffering and uses a sentence/phrase that sounds like "I was forced to repay what I had not stolen"
Well that was my next 3-5 years of personal hell. Scavenging a dollar or two here and there from Gareth until God brought breakthrough in my life and I was finally free of him. Once I was free of Gareth, I then faced DOUBLE the debt as Gareth had spent quite a lot "on my behalf", too.
He and Anne had racked up about $40,000.00 in debt.
AND I PAID IT ALL BACK.
It took me what felt like a lifetime to repay.
It took all the strength I had in me to do it.
But I did it.
$10 - $20 here and there, $50 here...$100 there...I paid it all back.
I had to. There was no other way.
Bills for items I never ONCE saw, I repaid in full.
I never returned to that Church or to that Youth group. I felt everyone there had abandoned me.
I spent years...alone.
I became an empty shell of my former self.
And through sadness, loneliness and grief...that shell turned into ashes.
AND LIKE A PHOENIX, I ROSE FROM THOSE ASHES.
And I did it mostly on my own.
And I'm extremely proud of that.
I don't know what became of Anne. I know a few years ago, she had an active Facebook. I know her happy, jokey posts on my brother's Facebook wall angered me in ways I never thought possible. It made me honestly feel sick to the stomach. I know what I'd like to do to her with my bare hands.
There is an old story about forgiveness and how to deal with it - I think it's African - where if someone has wronged you and it is proven to be true, the whole village gathers. They get hold of the person who's wronged you and they take them far out to sea. They tie weights onto them and they throw them off a boat.
A boat that you are also on.
And the choice is left with you.
You can watch them drown and no one in the village will say another word about it.
Or you can save them.
One half of me would let Anne drown. This is the half that slept on the streets and on different worn couches for months. This is the half that had no friends, no family and no Church to belong to. This is the lonely, battered and bruised half that was so traumatised by what Anne had done that I didn't know how to survive it. This is the half that shook every time my phone rang and Nicko's voice would bear down on me - so much so that I would throw up afterwards, he'd scared me that much. This half would watch the bubbles rise from Anne's mouth and would silently count each one - each bubble representing a dollar that I had to pay back for what she squandered with my bank account.
I would enjoy it.
Soak it up, bitch. Let it fill your lungs.
But the other half of me? The half that planted a flower garden when Gareth finally left that tiny unit, the half that even back then still clung to hope. The half that was thankful for food scraps. The half thankful for Centrelink payments that I used bit by bit to repay the huge debts left in Anne's wake...the half that knew what I had to go through to make it that far...that half would dive in and save her sorry ass.
And I'm proud of that, too.
Anne had used my bankcard to get more cards. Credit cards. She had maxed these out in my name. When she had asked me to sign 'papers' I thought they were just for the house. That, in my opinion - was bad enough. What I didn't know was that Anne had gotten me to sign for:
A CAR
A house full of furniture
All the rent (well, as much of it as she paid with my money before deciding not to and trashing the house, doing a runner and leaving me in it all alone without a cent)
All the bills
Anne had turned my friends, Church and family against me and had become my brother's best friend. HIS BEST FRIEND. Jay trusted Anne with his heart and to this day, I believe the two of them are as thick as thieves. I have never felt the same about my brother, feeling as if he abandoned me in a way by chosing Anne over me and he has never felt the same about me - parroting Anne's accusations back to me and calling me 'crazy/unsettled/disturbed' more than once.
I was in such debt that it buckled me at the knee.
There is a part in the Bible where David was cheated and hounded by someone he had trusted as a clsoe friend and advisor. He writes about his suffering and uses a sentence/phrase that sounds like "I was forced to repay what I had not stolen"
Well that was my next 3-5 years of personal hell. Scavenging a dollar or two here and there from Gareth until God brought breakthrough in my life and I was finally free of him. Once I was free of Gareth, I then faced DOUBLE the debt as Gareth had spent quite a lot "on my behalf", too.
He and Anne had racked up about $40,000.00 in debt.
AND I PAID IT ALL BACK.
It took me what felt like a lifetime to repay.
It took all the strength I had in me to do it.
But I did it.
$10 - $20 here and there, $50 here...$100 there...I paid it all back.
I had to. There was no other way.
Bills for items I never ONCE saw, I repaid in full.
I never returned to that Church or to that Youth group. I felt everyone there had abandoned me.
I spent years...alone.
I became an empty shell of my former self.
And through sadness, loneliness and grief...that shell turned into ashes.
AND LIKE A PHOENIX, I ROSE FROM THOSE ASHES.
And I did it mostly on my own.
And I'm extremely proud of that.
I don't know what became of Anne. I know a few years ago, she had an active Facebook. I know her happy, jokey posts on my brother's Facebook wall angered me in ways I never thought possible. It made me honestly feel sick to the stomach. I know what I'd like to do to her with my bare hands.
There is an old story about forgiveness and how to deal with it - I think it's African - where if someone has wronged you and it is proven to be true, the whole village gathers. They get hold of the person who's wronged you and they take them far out to sea. They tie weights onto them and they throw them off a boat.
A boat that you are also on.
And the choice is left with you.
You can watch them drown and no one in the village will say another word about it.
Or you can save them.
One half of me would let Anne drown. This is the half that slept on the streets and on different worn couches for months. This is the half that had no friends, no family and no Church to belong to. This is the lonely, battered and bruised half that was so traumatised by what Anne had done that I didn't know how to survive it. This is the half that shook every time my phone rang and Nicko's voice would bear down on me - so much so that I would throw up afterwards, he'd scared me that much. This half would watch the bubbles rise from Anne's mouth and would silently count each one - each bubble representing a dollar that I had to pay back for what she squandered with my bank account.
I would enjoy it.
Soak it up, bitch. Let it fill your lungs.
But the other half of me? The half that planted a flower garden when Gareth finally left that tiny unit, the half that even back then still clung to hope. The half that was thankful for food scraps. The half thankful for Centrelink payments that I used bit by bit to repay the huge debts left in Anne's wake...the half that knew what I had to go through to make it that far...that half would dive in and save her sorry ass.
And I'm proud of that, too.
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