What would surprise your friends?

You should talk about it Annie you experiences could help someone else, either by warning them, helping to see they are not alone or getting them to also open up. You are very brave to have dealt with it and survived the experience.

Annie, how brave you were to escape. Perhaps now IS the time - especially with the "Helen Archer" effect!
I sincerely hope that your poor children weren't too scarred by the experience, and you have all come through this happy and well-balanced.

I believe you AnnieGran, I have a similar story of my own, even today 20 years down the line, my sisters still don't believe me and mix socially with him and wonder why I stay away. After all he's such a nice chap.

When the Olympics were in London in 2012 my mum disclosed that she had been to the 1948 ones and had seen Fanny Blankers-koen running. Obviously there was no problem getting tickets then!

I stood as a Green candidate back in my 20's. Came second! Don't think that this what my friends now would think I would do, as I dislike public speaking.

My friends would be amazed that I once won the school prize for cookery. My family still don't believe it.

Joining the local naturist club (and hating it). Laying naked on the beach at Walberswick, skinny dipping in Brighton - maybe not too remarkable but I had turned 50 before I was confident enough to do these things! I am not confident enough to tell my friends though!!

One of my relatives was an officer on the Bounty. I got my navigation certificate some years ago. I once gave Glenda Jackson a coffee on my boat and didn't know it was her until someone told me.

That I met Ozzie Osbourne!!

My fiends would be surprised.........
... if they arrived at my home and it was tidy!

My friends would be surprised if I said No or " just get over yourself", words to that affect. Doormat is my middle name .

Thank you annsixty, grandMattie and NonnieAnnie.
Yes, I'm going to talk about it now because I have begun to think about it a lot. Even writing about here earlier helped.
Thanks again. x

AnnieGran, you are one very brave lady

In my teens I was a bit of a hippy, kaftans, flowers in my hair, flowers drawn on my face with eye shadow sticks.
Nothing that anyone who knows the adult me would recognise.
My best friend, however, has known me since the day we started primary school together, so I don't think there's anything she doesn't know about me!

Been sacked twice when I was young & foolish. If I'd employed my younger self after I turned respectable I should have sacked her too!

Anniegran. My friends would be surprised if they knew just how anxious I am most of the time and that my apparent confidence is so superficial. I feel sad just thinking about it now.

Lots of you should be really proud and AnnieGran well done you.

Well done AnnieGran I believe you after getting out of a similar situation. There are lots of people who still think my ex is a nice man because he is so plausible in public. Just yesterday I was in a conversation with a close friend who knows the truth and she said someone she knew had just moved next door to him and told her the man next door is really lovely! She of course said nothing.

My friends would probably be surprised to know that I was a leading light in an amateur dramatics society when I was a teenager

Luckygirl watch out for those fiends!
My friends would be surprised if I turned down the offer of cake.

That I used to be a rocker headbanger into heavy metal music. I well looked the part with my long,shaggy hair,tight jeans and fringed leather jacket. Anyone who sees a photo of me from those days can barely believe that it's me. In fact,my DP totally refused at first to accept it WAS me! maybe something to do with being several stone slimmer back then

That I was asked to be a go-go dancer on a national TV pop show in 1965. I was too shy to go - aargh

AnnieGran I think we need to talk about psychopaths more.. much more. so that people understand what can (and does) go on behind closed doors. Well done for speaking out now.

AnnieGran- how brave to talk about it at last. It can only do you good.

Juggernaut- we may have met on Weymouth beach handing flowers out to the families there. I had spent ages painting flowers weaving up my legs & was most put out when the sea washed them off- it was supposed to be waterproof eye makeup! Funnily enough my friends might be surprised but I doubt my GC would! They think I am whacky anyway.

When I was 19 I hitched hiked from With a friend around Europe for 3 months, just going where the lifts took us. No internet, or mobile phones just travellers cheques, a map of Europe, membership to the Yha and a postcard home to mum and dad every now and again. It was total freedom

I have no friends to surprise