Former Chesterfield woman who racked up £50,000 debt through shopping addiction draws on personal experience to help others

Twelve years ago Sharon was living in Chesterfield and had hit rock bottom. She’d built up £50,000 in debts caused by an addiction to shopping, been made redundant from her job as a successful sales executive and had lost her home becase she couldn’t pay the mortgage.

“I was drinking and on anti-depressants,” said Sharon. "I tried to take my own life with alcohol and pills. Fortunately for me, it didn’t work. I just blacked out, woke up in the early hours of the morning and this voice in my head said ‘you can’t carry on like this, you’ve got to do something’.”

Sharon had racked up the massive debt by maxing out her credit cards on designer clothes including dresses costing hundreds of pounds. She said: “A lot of the stuff I’d wear once and put it to one side. I'd got this thing in my head that I’d got to look nice; the irony is that I've always felt more comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt.”

Her spend, spend, spend addiction was triggered by the depression, anxiety and low self-esteem that had blighted her life for 30 years.

Too ashamed to go to Citizens Advice for help, Sharon turned to the woman who knew her best….her mum. Sharon said: “I shared my story with her, we cried together and hugged each other. She said: ‘This might seem bad, but me and you will get through this’.” With mum Jean by her side, Sharon was given the confidence to seek support from Citizens Advice and work out how she was going to repay the whopping debt which included chopping up her credit cards. She said: “I didn’t suddenly win the lottery. I still have some debt but a lot of the money has been repaid and I’m in a far better situation. I feel like I have had a second chance at life.”

Sharon’s harrowing experience changed her outlook in so many ways. She became an inspirational speaker and set up the charity, Compassionate Voices CIC, three years ago to empower and promote wellbeing among women.

She said: “Over this year alone, we must have helped about 450 ladies. There are so many issues and things that have happened to ladies in our group – domestic abuse, isolation, illness, bullying at work. It saddens me how much domestic violence abuse there is. I’ve heard quite a few of those stories and it’s a tough one to swallow. The other thing that is a huge worry is loneliness (and not just with older people). This has got worse, like so may other things, since the Covid pandemic.”

Sharon, 62, said the charity offers a stepping stone between counselling and facing the world at large. She said: “There’s a massive gap in the market. After women have done counselling, they wonder what to do next. They might not be ready for the big wide world, they might need that extra push, that extra confidence booster and that’s where we fit in. Ladies can come and mix with other ladies either at the workshops or in the private online community which offers a safe space. It’s all about sharing stories and can be cathartic – you’re releasing it from you and helping others which makes you stronger.

“Our workshop, The Power of YOU, is about trying to get people to speak up, to share how they feel without feeling that they are going to be judged. Ladies speaking out is at the core of everything we do.”

Participants in The Power Of YOU workshops are guided by an interactive journal that Sharon has written. She said: “It’s a journey of self-discovery, about finding out what their passions are, who they really are and opens up what may be causing their problems. We do get tears but the feedback is amazing.

"As well as the wellbeing and empowerment workshop, we have follow-on monthly peer support sessions. We also do Step Out sessions which were introduced after Covid. There are a lot of women who are extremely scared since Covid, they’ve lost confidence because they’ve been isolated for so long.”

Venues in Chesterfield, Loundsley Green, Grassmoor, Clay Cross and Killamarsh have welcomed The Power of YOU workshops. Sharon said: “We’ve only skimmed the surface of Derbyshire. We really want to grow this but we need additional funding. We’ve had funding from the National Lottery a couple of times, Coronavirus Community Fund, Derbyshire County Council and Derbyshire Voluntary Action are the latest ones to fund us.

"During Covid we helped hundreds of women online, we’ve got ladies in this community online from Hastings to Scotland."

An event raising awareness of the support that Compassionate Voices CIC offers will be held at Loundsley Green Community Centre on March 11 from 11.30am until 4pm. The women-only day will offer taster sessions and talks and signpost visitors to places where they can get expert help. Sharon, who now lives with her mum in Sutton-in-Ashfield, said: “On that day four or five members of Compassionate Voices on stage will get on stage with me and share an overview of their journey. Some of these ladies wouldn’t have even dreamed of doing this 12 months ago, they wouldn’t have had the confidence.”

Inspirational Sharon, whose experiences feature in her book Stripped Bare, will be talking about her life and work as part of Chesterfield’s contribution to International Women’s Day on March 8. The event at the Town Hall will run from 10am to 3pm.

To find out more about how Compassionate Voices CIC can help you, visit the website www.acompassionatevoice.co.uk