Pain Shame and Rug Sweeping

A few days ago, I came across a post on facebook that was being shared like wildfire among mothers -particularly young mothers.  A sweet sister had lost her baby just before delivery.  She wrote out her pain on social media which I'm not against, but I began to feel my own pain when she asked the readers who were complaining about being up with their own baby at night to remember: she had no baby.
I watched in sadness as my fellow sisters shared, shared, shared the article and shamed themselves.

"Such a good reminder to me to quit complaining."
"I needed this.  I'm such a whiner, and I need to shut up and be grateful."

My heart began to burn and I closed out of facebook -my serenity vanished and my heart swelled and ached in that uncomfortable, unmanageable way.
I'm all for gratitude in trials, I am.  I AM.
I am NOT for using gratitude to sweep pain under the rug.  Pain does not belong under the rug, especially when the hands holding the broom are coated in shame.

"I need to shut up and be grateful," sweep, sweep, sweep.

Using gratitude to shove pain in places where I can't see it for awhile or feel it for awhile is simply my way of trying to deal with my own pain... the VERY pain that Christ died for.  Sometimes I feel like He shouldn't HAVE to take it because it is so very "small" compared to other pain, but Christ doesn't care about the size of pain.  He suffered for IT ALL.
And for what it's worth, in this particular case, the pain of being up with a child at night while I'm sleep deprived, post-partum, nervous, confused, and trying to see straight through a blur of hormones that haven't balanced and sit on a bottom that does NOT want to be sat upon... IS INCREDIBLY HARD.  Not small pain by any means!

So many of my sweet friends who are battling post-partum depression, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, depletion, and anxiety were in tears over their own lack of gratitude when they read her post, and I wanted to hold them tight and say, "Give me the broom."
Because I know.  I KNOW that their own individual pain will come out from under the rug very soon and it will be bigger, more angry and probably out for revenge.

And the beautiful part about pain is what a wonderful, necessary gift it is.
Pain is the opportunity to turn fully to Christ, to have a conversation with Him about how it feels because HE HAS FELT IT.  He is the ONLY Man to know the pain of birth, hormones, sensitive emotions... He knows!
I've had so many frustrating conversations with caring folks who just don't GET IT -they WANT TO, but they don't understand what it's like to live in a marriage like mine.  But you know what?  GOD DOES, and when I take to Him honestly and say, "THIS HURTS!"  I don't feel God telling me to sweep anything.
I reverence gratitude in it's pure form, but I do not reverence gratitude in it's piggy-backing shame form.  I can't.
God doesn't want us to shut up and be grateful when we're up at night with a baby who won't sleep because someone else CAN'T be up with a baby they lost.  He suffered BOTH pains, and He desires BOTH PAINS.
Not just the "bigger" pain.

My trial isn't the kind I can take to social media and say, "Please remember when you're celebrating an anniversary that my anniversaries have been painful."
Does that make seeing posts with couples appearing happy hard for me?  YES.  But that is MY PAIN, and I WANT IT.  It's part of my journey and process.  I don't want others to stop posting their happiness.  Even when it hurts, even when I THINK I want them to be miserable with me, I don't.  Not really.
What I really want is to turn to God and say, "OUCH."
I have asked Him why.  I have asked Him if I'm not worthy of an easier marriage.  I've hashed out all there is to hash for now -and I'm sure I'll find more to hash today and tomorrow!
I've tried to sweep my pain under the rug.  I've tried to numb it out with food and business.

But the only truly healing thing I've done is taken it to God when I've been ready.  Sometimes I feel a release from the pain, sometimes I feel God nudge me toward work that still needs done.
Pain is a gift -a bridge in my relationship to God, and a teacher!  It isn't the nice, sunny, posh sort of teacher who speaks softly and has twinkly eyes... but I'll be danged it if isn't one of the most effective teachers I've ever had.

So many sweet women I've met have held back from living genuinely for fear of hurting others, and I must say: you are robbing the world.
Satan's trademark is taking truth and warping it -here a little, there a little.  I see him taking on the compassion that so effortlessly becomes women and using it for his gain.  He takes our desire to not hurt those around us who are struggling and morphs it into self-censorship of the vulgarest kind.  We are censoring our authenticity -we are hiding our lights under a bushel.
I don't believe for ONE SECOND that we are naturally out to hurt or cause harm.  Does it happen?  Yes.  But that is part of the plan, the path, and the test.   

But to try and manage another's pain? Can this REALLY be done while being true to ourselves?  No, it cannot.  Because their pain is not ours to manage.  Our OWN pain is barely ours to manage.

The world needs your authenticity.  They need to hear about how hard your children can be sometimes, even if it pains those who can't have children or who have lost children.  They need to know that your house is dirty -even though there are those who can't afford a house or who have been turned out.  I can't go around censoring myself under the guise of compassion because all I'm really doing is trying to manage the pain swirling around me.  But I can't, and I don't.  Because it negates Christ's sacrifice.

I have personally sat with a family member who has suffered a loss of a 9-month old baby, the loss of a late-term miscarriage at 20 weeks, several early miscarriages and 7 years of infertility... who told me how HARD it was to have kids who didn't sleep and who poured syrup on the floor and then PEED ALL OVER IT.

Her pain needed validation, all of her pain needed validation.

I don't want to invalidate the pain of the sweet sister who lost her baby -that is unimaginable.  I simply want to extend an invitation to the sweet sisters who immediately and so easily set themselves to shame and self-blame because of it.

I messaged a good friend about this, wondering why it was touching me so deeply, and she talked about the problem of "Pain Shame" we have, especially among women.
Yes!
PAIN SHAME.
We feel shame because our pain is "less than" the seen pain of someone online -someone with cancer or loss.

God doesn't see our pain as "less than" and I don't believe He sees our pain on individual little strips of paper.  I don't believe He suffered for "sleep deprivation" and checked it off the list.
I believe He suffered for the deep pain I would feel attending church alone with two small children, little sleep, overcome with anxiety over my husband's addiction and lack of recovery -God suffered for my BIG PICTURE.

There is room under the rug for pain.  It's true.  And it's as good a place as any to put pain until we're ready to hand it over.
I just want to share my love, ladies, and say: your pain is worthy of God's suffering, no matter if you feel it isn't.

The pain I feel watching my dear friends so easily set to hating themselves for pain that needs validation instead is ALSO something God suffered for, and I've talked with Him about it!

Live genuinely today, feel your individual pain without holding it up against the pain of the girl next door.  Practice gratitude for what is in front of you right now and leave shame out of the picture.

Christ died for you.
We all have a measure of divinity within us -it is our equalizer.  I am JUST as much a daughter of God as every other girl on earth, and God suffered equally for us all.
I see now -I SEE -that His precious, sacred suffering for me was going, frankly, in vain.  I was semi-pro with my shame hands and my rug-sweeping.  Learning to put my own superficial management tools aside and take up God's atonement is hard work, but it is the best work.

Pain has gotten me there.

And for this, I reverence my own individual pain.  Today I will honor it, lean into it and learn what I need to learn from it.  I will take it to God, and we will discuss it together.

Pain is the pathway to progress.

What My Recovery Looks Like

Years ago, I functioned under the assumption that recovery was what my husband did for his problem.

And my recovery?  Well.
It would naturally sort of take form when Danny's STUFF was all taken care of and his hands were brushed clean, hat doffed, all that.
It was like waiting for the three good fairies to come and spell me into a slumber of ignorance... only to awake when all the crap was over and done with.

Thorns cut?
Fight done?
Dragon slayed?  
Sweet, NOW wake the princess.  But not a minute before...

It makes sense.  It does.  It makes logical sense. 
But it doesn't make actual REAL LIFE, HANDS ON sense.  I found myself in the bulk of life -in the day to dayness of it all -just completely and utterly toeing the line of insanity.  One soft nudge, one gentle breeze and I plummeted. 

I can't tell you how many times that happened.  I really can't.  It wasn't once.  It was a lot more than once.
While it does tug at my heart strings that I seem to need to fall REPEATEDLY before a light bulb flickers dimly over my head... I DO take heart in the fact that -no matter how long it takes me to figure it out -I eventually will start moving away from The Cliffs of Insanity.
Inconceivable!

And while I feel the hungry itch to put what my own recovery looks like into words tonight, I will start by saying, "It's not at all like sleeping."
There's no fairies.

My recovery is simple.
And it's not easy.
THAT'S how I know it's right for me.  If there's ever anything in my life that is simple and pushes me... it's usually TRUTH.

My recovery means surrender.
It means finding myself in day to dayness and feeling insane.  Is it because I enforced a boundary?  Because I opened up to someone about my life and story and can't manage what happens next?  Is it because someone snapped at me in the line at Wal-Mart?  Is it because my house is messy and I suddenly find myself the butt end of my own shame jokes?
YES.
And the beat goes on, by the way.  Plenty more insanity where that came from.

My recovery comes in at that point.  Those situations are inevitable.  When they come up, I have a choice.

I can REACH IN.
or I can REACH OUT.

Reaching in involves everything that is indulgent and peace-but-for-a-small-moment.
It also kind of carries a demotivational poster that reads, "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips."
But I digress...

Reaching out is how I surrender.  I send up a prayer and connect with God.
Heavenly Father, I can not manage or control what it going on.  I can't.  I can't.  I can't. 
I pour my heart out and remind God that I AM BROKEN.
And then God reminds ME that I'm broken. 

At that point, I pick up my phone.
I dial.
I talk.  I talk to someone who isn't at the end of a facebook account.  I have to do more than that.  I have to put myself out there more.  I need to be willing to dial and say, "I am broken."
Whether into an answering machine or not... it yields the fruits of peace.

THEN I write.  Then I take to facebook or Amish pen t' paper.  THEN I send it out into the wild blue cyber.

THAT'S WHAT I DO EVERYDAY.
Because every day.  EVERY day, I come up against situations that make me feel crazy, that remind me that I CAN'T and that put a beautifully clean mirror up in front of me to show me that though I walk upright on two perfectly capable size 9 feet and stand tall... I am very broken, and beautifully so.
The kind of broken that turns clay into pottery and paint into majesty...

I hate that mirror.  I love that mirror.  I sit in front of it and write copious notes.  I observe what I see and I write it down.  I pray to God and ask Him to show me what HE sees in the mirror -what He would like ME to see, and I write.
I share my findings with someone I trust.
Hear that? 
I REACH OUT.

Using what I find, I begin the Clay To Vase Refining Process.
I prayerfully go about how to do it...
Who needs to be part of this process?
What needs to go?
What needs to stay?
What needs to be brought out?
What needs to be mended?

And then I put my feet to the pavement.
Sometimes it's an army crawl.
Sometimes it's a power walk.
Sometimes it's rolling forward because my legs have HAD it.

But any way you look at it, it's CONNECTION with the world around me.
REACHING OUT.

 I have a swear.
Something I just can't allow.
It goes something like, "boot straps" or "big girl panties."
When it comes to recovery, these just do not apply.  Okay, Alicia?  There's no room LEFT in your BODY for emotions to be stuffed down. 
Picking up and carrying on and being big and not feeling.  NUMBING.  GOING IN and getting in my own head about my own shortcomings is just.
Just!
futile.
So damn futile.

Recovery is the art of connection, vulnerability, and intimacy.

It looks a lot like someone else's job.
But it just isn't.
It's wholly and completely mine. 

In truth: I try diligently to work my recovery every day.
Some days, I don't end up working it.  I get to the end of the day and find myself in a straight jacket plastered in splatters of Nutella, and then I remember.
Oh yeah.  Recovery.  Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.
Which is 100% more awareness than I had in June of 2012, so I still count that as progress.
not perfection.

I have dailies to keep me on the path of serenity, to remind me that there's a better way.

Work step 12 at least once daily.
Read my scriptures first thing in the morning.
Give one thing daily (a hug, a smile, gratitude, babysitting, a hot pad...)
Email a list of what I eat each day to my sponsor (Nutella happens)

I have bottom lines I strive not to cross.

Don't make jokes about my weight.
Don't report my work outs to my husband.
Don't daydream or plan our 10 year anniversary (fantasizing and daydreaming are amazing at shooting me up with pleasant numbness)
No ring shopping (I have serious fantasy issues.  It comes with being a creative writer.  I should really be channeling my creative imagination into more profitable places.  Stupid Groupon.)

I fail a lot.
And when I fail, it is not fun to REACH OUT. 
But reaching out is the key to all of this: to breaking chains and forging bonds, to clearly understanding God's love and seeing it in the eyes of those I address as Sister and Brother.

The fruits are sweet, so sweet that "sweet" seems like toddlerspeak as I try to put words to how incredible the miracle of recovery is -how incredible The Atonement is.

I have the right to choose, thanks to my Savior and My God.
I choose to reach out TO THEM and to their children.

I choose healing.
Every day, I am given the opportunity to make that choice.

Thanks be to Crissy for putting to paper (Amish Style) something I flippantly joked about earlier... her willingness to sketch me with a cape is pretty much the best Amish stunt that's ever come my way.

Thank you, Crissy girl.
You make me feel like I have He-Man's power.
 By the power of Greyskull...

 

PS: do I spy a hatchet necklace?!  PRETTY sure I need this framed to go next to my Undefeated Woman trophy.  Awesome.  Just balls to the wall AWESOME.

Red Pain

I haven't thought about my razors in at least a year.
It's been well over ten years since I threw the last one away, one I had pried carefully from my disposable pack of razors I used to shave my long teenage legs.

I never cut for attention.
I never cut to toe the line between mortality and escape (death).

I just wanted to free the pain.  I felt Red Pain, and when I could see my pain in red, everything made sense again.
I could face school again, as long as no one bumped up against me too close in the hall.
It didn't take long for scars to form, for cuts to open on scars.  Those ones hurt the most, and I knew they did... so I saved those cuts for the pain that hurt the most. 

It was how I freaked out.

It was how I let my two year old baby inside of me out -the one who didn't know a life without freaking out when she felt the urge: kicking, screaming, bawling...

Freaking out, I felt, was NOT okay.  I had been taught it wasn't okay.  Pick up, carry on, it will pass, and in the meantime, dry your eyes, won't you?  No one wants to see you like that.

So my pain went down, down, down, until one day when I needed to see it.  No amount of expression was enough: no amount of writing or music could free the pain.  There was too much, it was too heavy.
Trying to free it with my pen and paper was like poking an insignificant hole in the Hoover Dam.
Slooooooooowwww leak.  Too slow.
The pain from my pen and paper was grey and black and white.
I had Red Pain.  I needed to see it so I could deal with it.

No one ever saw my shoulders anyway.  I never wore anything to show them because good girls don't, and I was good.  Always good, too scared to be anything but good.  So my shoulders took it.

You can't even see the scars anymore.  They've finally -only recently -faded out.

Last night, I found myself longing for my old razors.  The Red Pain is back, and even still -I do not know how to freak out.
I have some sort of barrier in my soul, harnessing pain and harassing me from the inside out.
Don't do it.  Don't scream, don't kick.
Terrified to make a mistake, terrified of consequences, terrified of his reaction.

I need to see my pain now.
I prayed, I took myself to the piano and HAMMERED out songs lyrics that said what I was feeling.

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless.
I can't help feeling,
We could have had it all...
Rolling in the deep.
You had my heart inside of your hand,
And you played it to the beat.

Over and over, harder and harder until it wasn't enough and I needed more.  So I played "Good Life" mockingly, as if the song was some sort of shallow misrepresentation of reality.  Over and over and over.

In sweet progression, I continued trying to release my pain... but it was only black and white pain.  It wasn't enough.  It was a slow leak.  But I kept going.

But the tigers come at night.
With their voices soft as thunder...
As they tear your hope apart.
And they turn your dreams to shame...

He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came.

Over and over and over, but the pain was still just black as night on a sheet of snow.  I wanted to see my red pain.
I went to the tub, and the water just couldn't get hot enough.

Stupid cold pipes.
My skin was barely pink.  My pain isn't pink.  In frustration I scrubbed my skin, and the pink turned into a deeper shade of rose -still pink, only deeper.
I scrubbed more and harder, trying to let the red pain out.  I used a coarse brush, scrubbing...
It burned, but it never gave me more than pink pain.

It came to me there in my real and vulnerable moment before God and a few angels -which at this point I'm SURE are surrounding my family around the clock, even if we aren't behaving ourselves like we ought to when angels are around -that the Red Pain has already been suffered and seen.

I remembered that He knows my pain.
How in the HELL did He bear it and not die instantly?  The collective pain of just MY life -my cutting, my sins, my miscarriage, my labors, my losses, my grief -it would break me, kill me! 

And there in my red pain, I thanked Him for knowing it.  Because I was suddenly not alone in it.
I still wanted to feel it.
But I also wanted to hand it over.

I have no idea how to hand it over because there's SO much of it.
I have no idea how to freak out and turn that slow leak into a full-on dam break.
I don't know how to freak out.
I don't know how to stop abusing my piano.
I don't know if I can hand the red pain over.  I always handled it myself.  I saw it and dealt with it and closed the case on it.

Last night, I wrapped myself in warm fleece jammies and went to bed, my body still burning but not enough for me to feel any better.

I dreamed I was on stage, sitting on a ledge over the performers.  I was completely exposed, completely naked, and too high up to get down easily.  Everyone could see me, and everyone DID see me, but no one looked me in the eye.  They were looking at my body.
I tried hiding it, turning it... I tried texting my husband for help of any kind -help getting down, a coat?  anything?
But I couldn't reach him.  I had no phone, no way to reach out -no way to get a word out.

At that moment of panic, a warm coat fell over my shoulders.  A woman sat next to me with a smile on her face and talked to me about her kids, her own coat at home, and the program going on below.

You know the difference between knowing and understanding?  Like knowing you're a child of God and then finally UNDERSTANDING it?  It's a totally different kind of education.
For three years before Danny's disclosure, I knew about addiction.  I studied it and became well-versed.
Broken brain
Frontal lobe
Can't choose
No agency
Can't connect
Minimize

And then Danny's disclosure came, and everything I KNEW... I finally UNDERSTOOD.  I finally UNDERSTAND.  And the pain I felt before is rearing it's ugly head at a new awfully painful level.  I could tell people what I was going through before... I could even kind of feel it.  But now.  Now I can't even tell people what I'm going through because there's hardly an English word out there that sums it up.  Except maybe "bloody." 

My past has been taken, my youth taken advantage of and tossed aside, my trust has been priced worthless, and my love never fought for, though still I gave, gave, gave, hoping to be enough someday -hoping to earn it.

Yesterday I sat with Danny in an online group session, and we were given a big presentation on the basics of sexual addiction.  It was nothing new... in fact, I'd seen an almost identical presentation given by Brannon only months before at The Togetherness Conference.  But hearing it all post-disclosure brought emotion raging back with power and force.

My soul is aching for me to freak out.
It's the Red Pain.  It's back.

When I take things on my own shoulders, I feel exposed and helpless... left to my own designs to figure things out, forgetting that IF I DO FREAK OUT I will feel better, and I will feel warm -as warm as a coat given by a friend when I'm in my most vulnerable and exposed state  -and less alone.
Because then I can HEAR the pain, free the pain, and send it off in a great big balloon to heaven where my Savior will take it.

Only He understands The Red Pain.

Fire

A few months ago, I was sitting in the Temple when I blessed to see in my mind's eye a block of fire.  The flames weren't wild and untamed, rather they were uniform, every angle of the square block plainly visible.  I could see myself walking toward the fire.  I entered it, and I did not thrash -I walked boldly, slowly forward.  As I did, my outer layers were burned away.  I emerged from the block of fire a shining, gleaming core of refined, precious metal.

I've often thought of that experience as I've traversed these past few months.  It was a direct message from God -sent before it was vitally necessary. 

These past few weeks have been so hard on me.  Satan is working overtime.  The Lord is making His awareness of me plainly seen -He HAS to, otherwise I'd fall.  I'd be crushed under the blackness of demons.  But God is in my life -in the details, in the decisions, in the dark of night when I'm alone, and in the brightness of day when three children look to me for validation and love.

His message is loud and clear, "I AM HERE AND I KNOW YOU INTIMATELY."
It matches Satan's exactly.

For the past few weeks, the message coming over the Sunday pulpit has been "Hasten the Work."  The Stake President is saying it, the Bishop is saying it, the Sunday School Teachers, the Relief Society teachers, and I hunker behind the piano or organ and think about what I don't have to offer.
I haven't been visiting teaching in months.
I haven't been as present for my Mom as I should be (she just had surgery on her knee).
The babysitter bathed my daughter and clipped her nails because I hadn't.
I've missed the birthdays of people I dearly care about.
I haven't sent a single package to my sister since she moved away.

The list of my failings goes on.

During these past three weeks, I have forgotten that I'm walking boldly through a block of fire.  I'm not stooping or bending or looking behind me to see if someone needs a casserole... my eyes are pressed firmly forward.  My spine straight, my shoulders back, my head up.

I can't help but feel that when the Lord sends his message of "Hasten" He is speaking directly to and about His people.  Baptisms are important, yes!  But coming fully unto Christ OURSELVES -that is hastening in it's finest form.

As I look around me, I can see many, many of the people I love dearly (but apparently forget to send cards to when they age a year) being refined with FIRE.  This isn't a slow process.  It is HASTENING.  The Lord is hastening His work and calling on His people to draw near unto Him with full hearts and purpose written upon their souls.
Many of His precious children are afflicted, and He issues an invitation to healing -His infinite incomprehensible Atonement.  The 12-step program and education on addiction have led me personally to it, line upon line.  I can choose to take it or to leave it. 
Taking it means fire.  Taking it means tears.  Taking it means burned off layers.

Taking it means LIVING.

A few months ago, a sweet brother stood at the pulpit and tied his pornography addiction into the message of his talk.
And there before me stood a MAN, a man on fire, a man shedding layers, a living breathing Adam -his progress hastening before my very eyes.

The Lord has a job for each of us to do, and He will prepare us in His precious fire, in His own precious time.

I can rest in the Lord, knowing that I am being hastened.
I have chosen to live.

Wives Against Porn Driving

--Before we begin, the winner of the hatchet charm is NATE('s wife).  Please contact me via email at brabadges@hotmail.com and I'll mail it out next week! --

A few months ago, I was struck with how awesome it would be to organize P.U.R.E.
Porn Use Resistance Education.
Get it?  PURE?  It's genius.  Aaaaaaaand total rip off from D.A.R.E.

But anyway.  This post isn't about education.  It's about how yesterday I woke up and began getting ready for work while my husband did a counseling session via webcam with Brannon Patrick.  I wish I could say the BEST thing that ever happened to our marriage was our three wonderful kiddos.  But it's Brannon.  Right now, it's Brannon.

I went around the house in my PJs, getting our daughter ready for school and planning my day in my head.  I worked REALLY hard NOT to hear what was being said in my bedroom... because I didn't want to know.  When I started hearing snippets of the conversation, I'd start singing the first song that came to my head.
"Walkin' the floor
Feelin' so blue.
Smoke cigarettes.
Drink coffee too..."

Since I started working, my classic country music streaming has increased by about 3005% and it's amazing how many old country songs resonate with a jaded lady.

But then my husband popped out and ASKED me to please join him.  So I did, in all of my just-rolled-out-of-bed glory.  Online meetings are the best.
I only talked with Brannon for about 15 minutes, and I really like the guy.
But he totally ruined my day.  No offense, man!

My husband is leaving on Monday morning for a two-month long training.  He will be home on weekends.
"Are you feeling fear?" Brannon asked.
"No," I said.
"Why not?  Is it because you trust him to stay sober or because you don't care?"
"I don't care," I shrugged.
He then told me that was okay... I was in an okay place.
And then he said it... the worst word to hear in a counseling session.

BUT.

"But... eventually you'll need to come to place where you do care, where you can begin to reinvest and fall back in love.  It's a hard thing, Alicia, and it's just not fair."

I like that he uses my first name.  I think he's the only person who calls me by my first name even when he's not mad.

I walked away from that session and just blew up a little.  A LITTLE, not much.
"It's like you're a drunk driver," I said to my husband, "And you HIT me.  I went to the hospital and they were nice to me and loved me and then the nurses patted me on the head and said, 'okay, pretty soon you've got to get back in that car and drive that same road and the same drunk driver will be there with you.  Hope he's sober!"
It's NOT fair.
It's not fair that I've worked SO hard to detach, to be safe, to be empowered.
And where do I find myself?  I'm LONELY, guys.  Straight up, no mincing words... I'm lonely.  This sucks.

It seems like everywhere I turn people are telling me this isn't about me, that I'm not the victim.  But I always end up controlled by this situation -I seem to spin on an axis that revolves around HIS choices, and I always end up hurt OR I end up lonely.  The fact of the matter is: I AM the victim. I HAVE been hit by a drunk.
Of course I can't live in that mentality, but it's okay to own it and be mad about it when I feel the gravity of it.

I appreciate empowerment, but I don't appreciate being lonely.
I appreciate not being hurt and playing the victim, but I don't appreciate how hard and cold I feel.
Brannon had said some of the richest blessings in life come from human relationships, and here I was all walled off and thinking how some of my most awful hurts had come from human relationships.

As I made a bottle in the late afternoon, I thought about this... I hadn't wanted to talk to my husband all day because in 15 short minutes that morning he'd gone from being my husband to being my offender.
I filled baby's bottle and added formula and shook, shook, shook.  As I did, it came to me.  As clear as day, I SAW it.

Yes, I was hit.  Years ago, driving wildly down a dirt road I'd never been on before I was sideswiped by my very own, very unsober husband.
I couldn't believe it, so I didn't.  I haphazardly bandaged my wounds myself and then got back in the car.  I drove a *little* more carefully, but still without much caution.  And again: I was hit.  And again, and again, and again.
For YEARS.  YEARS!  I tried to handle the situation on my own.  I thought it was MY fault, so I tried driving better, I tried making myself more noticeable so my husband would SEEEEEEEEE me and avoid hitting me.  I tried installing GPS for him.
But it was never enough.  The accidents began getting worse, more blood, more tears...
Almost three years ago, it was the worst it had ever been.  I couldn't get up and walk away from that accident.  I just rested in the mess.
Until...
A beautiful man came. He is my Savior.  He had the answers, the tools, the ambulance, and he had the power to heal me and my car.  I turned to him and gave up trying.

He took me in his arms, and I found rest in his hospital.  He was my primary physician and He had a team of specialists working under Him.
A sponsor.
A Therapist.
A Bishop.
My Dad.

Close friends would visit me in the hospital.  Some brought food, some brought music, some brought smiles, and some brought tissues and hugs.

One visitor they couldn't keep out was my husband.  He would visit me daily, if not more.  His visits weren't always nice... in fact, most often they hurt me MORE.  It seemed that even though I'd found my way OFF the rough dirt road, the drunk driver had found a way to manage his mission by simply STANDING by me and TALKING.
Ouch.
Ouch.
Ouch.

There were glimpses of remorse.  There were glimpses of honesty.
And then there wasn't remorse or patience or empathy or apology.

My team of specialists worked under the hand of the Master Physician, and as the years went by my efforts to heal were evident.  The bruises were fading.  I found ways to avoid my husband when he came to visit, and new bruises quit forming.
The breaks, the cuts, the hurt... they were all healing and fading.

One day, I found I didn't NEED to avoid my husband.  In fact, I confronted him.  I stood in the doorway of my own room and I told him
NO.
ENOUGH.

He turned and went away.  I turned and went to bed.
The next day -much to my surprise -my husband was there again.  This time he looked different, he talked differently.
I sensed real remorse, true sorrow.

The next day, it was the same.
This went on for a good while.  At times his visits turned ugly, and I'd ask him to leave.  But for the most part, they were good visits.
The bad visits would send me back to my specialists with anger and spit in my eyes... I would get on my knees and call my Physician and ask, "WHAT IN THE H-E-ECK-ECK I AM SUPPOSED TO DO HERE?!?!?!"

And here's my answer:
choose.

My husband is visiting me in the hospital.  And when I'm ready to leave, I can CHOOSE whether I want to get back in my car (the Master Physician is also a Master Mechanic, in case you were wondering) and get back on that old dirt road.  I know my husband will be there.
I get to make the choice.
My husband doesn't have that control.

Right now, I will observe his visits.  And I have NO idea how to start reinvesting and falling back in love, so I won't.
I'll leave that up to my husband.

And I will rest.
I won't get up or get ready to get back on any road in any car until I know of myself that it's okay.  I will know.

Because of everything going on in my life right now, I haven't been able to post this... but yesterday I remembered one of my specialists was a team led by Dr. Skinner.
I've been working on recovery for nearly THREE years.  And in three years of studying and education, I have never found a program I resonated with more than AddoRecovery.  The free education I gained with AddoRecovery has sustained me and helped me understand many of the WHYs.
I recommend it to so many women, and I will continue to do so.  Forever.



Sidreis' Story (Short) from Addo Recovery on Vimeo.

Betrayal Trauma is REAL.  Even if you can't physically see the blood and the breaks, you can FEEL them.

It's a few days too late to join the latest session (SORRY!) but there's a new one coming up on the 17th of this month.

Please go to addorecovery.com/join... there's a team of specialists for YOU.

An House of Merchandise

I've been thinking about John 2.

In this chapter, Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover.  He found people using the temple for personal financial gain.  They were buying and selling.

I love verse 15.  "And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple..."

I believe if this case were taken before a modern-day court, they would classify it as "premeditated."

Christ's "driving out" actions were not an automatic reaction from the scene He found before Him.  They were meditated.  He witnessed a scene and methodically began forming a solution.  He didn't just immediately kick and scream and yell.  Can you imagine the thoughts running through His mind as he made a scourge of small cords?  His eyes were busy, His hands were busy, His mind was working.  He knew what He had to do.

As a farm girl, I love the phrase, "He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen."  Ask me if I know anything about using cords to drive cattle.  Go ahead.  ASK.

To stand in the midst of a herd of any kind of living anything takes guts.  It does.  To stand in the midst of a herd and take charge?  It takes a whole new level of guts: grit, courage, spit, fire, fearlessness.
Picture dirty jeans and dust on your boots, sweat on your sunburned neck, a breeze on your long-sleeved Wrangler shirt, a WHIP in your hands.
You are commanding.  You are confident.  You are on a mission to move.

The Savior made his scourge, and He moved the herd.

As I thought about the Savior moving people, I thought about the place.  It wasn't in the corrals west of town where I usually move herds... it was IN the Temple.  I thought of my home temple.  And then I thought of my body.
My temple... the one created by my Father.  The one I can't seem to reign in when it comes to chocolate.  The one who created and birthed three glorious children.  The one who has given up four wisdom teeth, two tonsils, and -as of Saturday -one toenail.  It's scarred.  It's stretched.  It has healing power and limitless capacity to learn. 
It is HOLY.

But there are merchants selling temples.  There is a billion (probably trillion) dollar porn industry.  There is prostitution.  There are sex shops and strip clubs and Victoria Secret.  There are lingerie shops.  There are graphic, awful, illegal practices going on with bodies.

This horrifies me.  HORRIFIES me.
It's bad enough that it's happening, that it's spinning out of control, but worse still is that it has permeated the walls of MY home, MY body, MY marriage.  My intimate and personal places where I should be in control have been desecrated, defiled, demoralized.

I move beyond being horrified and start to feel something far worse: numb.
I start to feel numb and hopeless and dark.

And in those moments, I will picture My Brother making a scourge with small cords.  I will picture Him taking it and standing in the midst of the darkened, secretive, huddled herd... and with His word and cord will He drive them OUT of the Temples.
With His cord will He stand at the foot of holiness and command the greed and the glitter and the grotesque...
"Take these things hence."

The Savior is the Savior.
He will drive herds with grit.
And I will be his part of his scourge -I will be one of those small cords.  Shaking off the shackles of shame and fear as I become an instrument in his hands to cleanse!

Porn is Godless.
It's table turning time.

Know Not

Saturday night was pure Hell.

I'm serious.  The only other night that was worse than Saturday night was the night I miscarried seven years ago.
Between having my husband kick my toenail off (yes, that happened), my heavy cramps (TMI?  given that you already know all about the porn addiction we kick around, I highly doubt you'll flinch at the mention of female shhhtuff), my sore throat and congestion, the baby's up every hour-ness, my son's fever, the rain that had my husband out in the middle of the night to cover the dog we just brought home (moment of applause for my husband making K9!)...
To say I wanted the morning to come would be the grossest understatement.

I went to Sacrament alone while my husband kept the kids at home, we switched off after Sacrament Meeting.
I sat behind the organ and fought the feelings of a trigger from the hellish night before (brought on by a movie I watched by myself).

I listened to the speakers... one began reading the scriptures that detailed the Atonement.  He read so rapidly, so methodically.
It almost took my breath away -I wanted to stand up and tell him to stop.  STOP. 
The words he was uttering were not just SOME story -they were an account of my Brother's death, his suffering and pains... MY suffering and pains.  Tears bubbled up to the surface as I contemplated the awful pain of it all -the awful pain that included not only last night but my miscarriage.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The words struck me, and the bubbling tears turned to flowing tears.
Not only last night but my miscarriage and my broken heart... the heart broken by the one I held so closely, trusted so fully, loved so truly.

My husband didn't know what he was doing.  Not unlike the soldiers who crucified my Brother, my husband knew on some level what he was doing.  But he didn't really.  He didn't really KNOW he hit me with a car.
He didn't know he put me in a full body cast and still wanted dinner made.
He didn't know he slaughtered my love.
He didn't know he picked me up in my body cast and dropped me, dropped me, dropped me.

He knew not what he did.
But the Savior knew -the Savior KNOWS.  He is bigger than any missing toe nail, any congestion, any lack of sleep, any cramping, birthing, miscarrying, doubt, fear, trigger, uncertainty, mistrust, hurt, failing, and pain.

He is bigger, MUCH bigger than porn.
He KNOWS what He does.
And what He does so fully, so skillfully, so PERFECTLY... is simply LOVE.

Look what I got in the mail today!   Happy Birthday to me!

The "H" Word

Once upon a time, I entered the world of recovery because I was an unmanageable mess.  In a painful process of discovery and education, I began to understand how to live -truly live -again.

This morning, I woke up and and was amazed that despite the Mess that is My Marriage, I still functioned.  I still laughed.
The garden was weeded.
The grass was watered.
The children attended swimming lessons.
I received an hour of training at my new job.
There were phone conversations and sandwiches and make up and baths and a gigantic slip n' slide at the park.

Why?  WHY?
Because there's no hope.  I have no hope.  Without hope, there is no hurt.  Without hope, I'm safe.

At least, that's what I thought.
And then, I met with the Stake President tonight.  He called me for I Didn't Know What, and as he questioned me about a variety of things, he asked me some very pointed questions about my roll as a wife.

I was honest with him.  I told him about my weekend, about my job, about my circumstances -all of which he was completely unaware of.
And then I admitted OUT LOUD -with a quick disclaimer that I wasn't happy about it -that I did have hope.
I did hope that we would be okay.

I drove away from the Stake President's Office.  I went to Wal-Mart.  I bought a bag of dark chocolate covered blueberries.
I ate them on the road home in a nervous, stressful fitful state.
HOPE!  HOPE! 
If I have hope, I'm not safe anymore...

In my shin-length polyester skirt that looks like something out of the 60s (which I actually think it is), I felt stark naked, vulnerable, exposed.  I was a sitting stupid susceptible duck.
After ALL the hurt.
After ALL the years.
After it ALL.

I still felt hope.  I called my sponsor and tried to talk it out, work it out in my head.  I called my husband and started saying things like, "I'm married, but not.  But not single.  But I'm your wife.  But I don't feel like it."
All the while stuffing my mouth with self-loathing and chocolate.
"I promise to forget you ever said the word HOPE," my husband said, "As far as I'm concerned, you don't have any."

I came home, hit my knees in prayer and asked my Father in Heaven OUTRIGHT.
"Does feeling hope mean that I am weak?  stupid? susceptible?"
And the answer came... clearly, distinctly, "Alicia, hope is part of the Atonement.  Your hope is in the Atonement."
Peace flooded through my being.
Except for my stomach, which had to be excused on account of the nausea induced by the bag of chocolate.

I DO feel hope.
I do HAVE hope.

For a few awful hours tonight, I thought my hope was anchored in my husband, and that thought was enough to send me into insanity.  But the truth is, my hope is anchored firmly in the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

The Atonement has the power to change men.
The Atonement has the power to heal broken hearts.

No matter what the future holds, the Atonement applies to it -a blanket, miraculous balm.

I trust in it and I hope in it.
And THAT is something that makes me rather the opposite of weak, naked, susceptible, vulnerable, and stupid.
I don't WANT my husband to forget I ever said it.

Before he left for his training this week, I told him I couldn't say the H word.
But one enlightening conversation and empty bag of chocolate later... I CAN say it, and I WILL say it.

I hope on.

Don't Fence Me In

"Good fences make good neighbors." ~Robert Frost

I have boundaries to keep me safe.  They fence addiction in and leave me running free.

I shouldn't have to suffer the consequences of my husband's STUFF.  It's his.

But once upon a time, he lost his temper.  I have boundaries to protect me from his temper.  I have to maintain them otherwise I'll try and pacify his temper... medicate it with whatever means I have to offer: cookies, back rubs, steak, sex.
Every man's dream, right?

I'm retraining my brain to STOP DOING THAT.  In the meantime, my stopping my attempts at medicating doesn't equate him stopping losing his temper.  That's just not how life works.
So he lost it.  I didn't medicate, and I was clear and calm about what I was not okay with.  The aftermath of the temper losing needed some clean up, and he mopped up what he could.
But he couldn't mop up one thing: he broke the latch on the driver's side of the car door when he slammed it.

Where's the boundary for THAT?  Where's the boundary that says he can drive the car with a broken door but I don't have to?  It's HIS stuff, and yet: I find myself on the catching end of it in a small way.

It may seem small, but it's taught me a very great lesson.

Boundaries are vital because I've been prone to accepting abusive behavior.  But boundaries aren't fool proof.
And THANK. GOD.

I DO thank God.
The hurt, the pain, the offense, the injustice of my husband's addiction isn't fair.  I can do everything in my power to protect myself, but pain WILL jump the boundary fence.  Pain, hurt, fear, suffering... they all have fence hopping skills.  And when I suffer at the hands of this addiction, I am given the opportunity to turn to my Savior.  I am given the opportunity to apply the healing balm of the Atonement.
I suffer at the hands of injustice, just like everyone else -including my husband.
My children will hurt me.
My neighbors will hurt me.

And, like the mother of a dear friend said, "Everyone in this life will let you down.  Even your best friends, even your siblings, and even your parents.  But there is ONE PERSON who will never let you down."

The same God I thank for the fact that boundaries are leaky fences.
Were they not, I would find myself fenced IN by boundaries: caged, cold, and distant.

This earth is a Family University, masterfully designed by a loving Father.  We are here for the ultimate education, and this involves practice which involves mistakes which involves learning which means EDUCATION.

I hurt others.
Others hurt me.
And thanks to our loving Father and Brother, and a perfect plan of Salvation and Redemption... we can be a happy family.
You and I... we can be happy, fellow scholars.
My husband and I... we can be happy, fellow scholars because of hurts and pains, because of sacrifices and service, because of the one truth that almost everything can be circumscribed to:

LOVE.

Pain n' Change

I'll never forget the feeling of having a truly broken heart.

It didn't feel anything like having a cheating boyfriend like I thought it did...

It was inexplicable, physical pain.  It rushed through my veins, my soul, my very being.  I sat on the floor of the bathroom and gasped for air, wondering how on earth a person went on living after enduring something so awful.
I felt hopelessness.  I felt anger and fear.  I clutched my chest because it felt like my stomach was trying to change places with it. 

You don't forget pain like that. 

And when I was in the thick of it, I was almost certain there was no life ahead of it.  But there was.  I had to take my shaking self OUT of that bathroom.  I had to pick myself up off the floor and KEEP GOING because time had the rude audacity to not stop.
There was nowhere to go but up.

I desperately searched for a shred of hope, and when I found a shred, I inhaled it.  I began reading about porn addiction and recovery, and I started finding answers.
Months beforehand, I thought I HAD the answers, but my dalliance with the bathroom floor had schooled me otherwise.  Apparently the scripture that admonishes us to "comfort those who stand in need of comfort" does NOT admonish us to "fix those who stand in need of fixing" like I thought it did (I assumed it was a "between the lines" kind of thing).  My life felt suddenly wasteful (I'm being dramatic).
But THERE.  THERE in the books and the websites and the articles and the research that I paid money for ... I felt I finally had answers.
I shared them with a passion.  I was so eager to share the answers.  Surely others NEEDED them as much as I did! We live, after all, in a world parched for answers!

But answers are not the same as truth.
And in my quest for answers, I found truth.  I found a lot of truth, and the more truth I found the less I felt like sharing answers.  The worth of answers was sorely diminished in the Light of Truth.
I have no desire to raise my hand, to give answers.

I don't know what anyone needs.  I have no answers for them.
I don't know what my husband needs.
I can't fix myself, save myself, or rely wholly on myself.

I don't know the answers to anything, come to think of it.

But I know the truth.  The truth is: I know who knows the answers.  I trust Him because He IS the way, the light, the life, and the Truth.

This change in me is a process.  It's unfolding and frustrating and hard and so far from instant.  Sometimes I want to pull my hair out, sometimes I bump into my unchanged self, sometimes I find that The Old Me is a shell covering Who I See Myself As... and that shell is a mixture of steel and concrete and iron and a little bit of Aqua Net.

It's standing fast.
But underneath that shell, I have a determined heart and a Big Brother with a chisel. 

We'll carve Me out yet...

And that broken heart -the one I will never forget and the one I revisit every time I look into the eyes of a woman who has felt it as I have -will be new, shining, and have the ability to stand *just* as fast, yea, FASTER than my hardened shell.

I know this.
The Atonement is alive.
The Sacrifice is real.
Love is why.

Equality in the Kingdom

The night before I rushed my husband and confessed my Evil Doings of '09, he confessed some things to me.  Our confessions were pretty similar.

But after his confession, he was very romantic, taking me in his arms and telling me how pure I was -how he respected me, couldn't believe I'd stuck around...
And I sort of, well, squirmed.  He could sense that I wasn't feeling the feelings he was feeling, and he kept saying, "I wish I could just transfer my feelings to you right now so you would understand."

The trouble was: I DID understand.
I understood After the Confession Comes the Honeymoon.

In 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, I loved the honeymoon.  I reveled in it.  It was the place I was SURE we ought to be all of the time and constantly and forever and ever amen.
In the honeymoon phase, I was up on a pedestal.  He was down on his knees. 
I was beautiful.
I was his everything.
He did my dishes, rubbed my feet, bought me gifts.

Of course he did, and he OUGHT to have because I deserved it.  I mean, after all.  AFTER ALL.  Remember what was going on? 
Porn, lies, rinse repeat.  I deserved to be...

WORSHIPED.

I lived for the honeymoon phase, even made extra certain to train my husband by way of positive reinforcement that Honeymooning was THE WAY.  He would do whatever I asked because he felt he owed it to me BECAUSE I TRAINED HIM UP IN THAT MANNER.  And for what it's worth, I'm a helluva trainer.

But the other night when I felt that old familiar feeling... when I felt his words work as a mechanical jack to lift me up higher, higher, higher... I became very uncomfortable.
"You have no idea how much I love you."  *jack, jack, jack*
"You're pure, you're amazing, you're such an amazing woman." *jack, jack, jack*

I finally had to explain to him, "You have to understand that for years, we've always entered a honeymoon phase like this after confessions, so I'm just very leery.  Plus, I know if these are your true feelings you'll naturally act on them as time goes by and I'll FEEL the truth of them, and that's more important than hearing them anyway."

The next night, I came tumbling down, down, down.

As we drove to the Temple last night, I was finally able to put to words what I was feeling.
"I'm grateful, in a weird way, that I had something to confess to you.  I didn't realize I needed to confess it until I realized that you were being transparent about similar things with me, and honestly: I hadn't even thought about it in years.  But when I remembered and recognized it for what it was, I went straight to you and confessed.  And I'm so grateful, because it ripped us right out of... I don't know... After you confess to me, you put me up higher than you.  You feel unworthy.  And I AM royal, but..."
At this point, I started crying because I'm female.
"... YOU are royal and I am not courting a pauper.  We are equal.  My confession put me equal with you.  At least, it helped you to see me as an equal and it tore the pedestal down, and I am so glad.  I am not higher than you.  I'm not better or higher because I don't have a porn addiction.  And I can't tell you enough how SORRY I am that I trained you to believe that I deserved to be higher than you.  I didn't understand how wrong it was.  But I do now, and I regret it."

And then I said it.

"I don't want to be worshiped.  I want to be loved."

He was quiet for a minute, and then he said, "It did feel good to know that you're not as perfect at this stuff as I thought."

In the Temple, I was struck with the idea of equality: this is a big deal for me because I've spent my entire life viewing people in a caste system.
Better than.
Less than.
It's fueled depreciating and judgmental thoughts in me my entire life.

But there in a quiet place where everyone was dressed in white and whispering, I could see them all as my brothers and sisters... royal blood coursing through their veins.
A beautiful aged woman sat next to me, unable to control the tremblings in her body.  I was given the opportunity to help her on occasion, and one time she reached out to touch my hand, but retreated.
She didn't know me.
But oh, I wanted her to hold my hand.  How I wanted to look in her eyes.
My sister, my friend.

I LOVE that woman.  I loved the pregnant woman behind me, and the beautiful familiar face that came in at the last to help with the rest of the workers: the widow of my old metal shop and automotive teacher.  He passed away IN the temple, and what a way to go!

It makes me ache that others have understood this from the time they were small, but I haven't.  I was raised without a present mother.  When I was as small as my baby daughter is now, my mother was suddenly gone, and she never fully mentally returned during my formative years.
My father did the best be could, but I always always always believed in the caste system. 

I loved myself only for WHAT I was -not WHO I am. 
I love myself for my gift to write, to make others laugh, to cook, to serve, to quote movies.
But in my baby state, the state of lying down with nothing to offer but poop and pleas for assistance... I don't love myself.

My prayer now is to understand what I know: that I am a child, a royal, priceless child.
My prayer is to love WHO I am, which love I believe with naturally accompany the knowledge of who I am.
My prayer is to see others in the exact same light.
My prayer is that my marriage to My Son of God will flourish, that our reign will be sanctified and made holy.

The Atonement is an absolute miracle.

And That's Okay

  via the graphics fairy

My marriage isn't in tip-top shape. 


There are no love notes on the mirror, no voluntary foot rubs, no giggling or gushing.
There also isn't any hatred, contempt, or name calling.

Right now, our marriage just IS.

When our marriage plateaued like this in the past, I would go into all-out FIX mode.  I couldn't STAND for our marriage to not be functioning at it's all-time BEST. 
But I don't want to fix anything anymore because I CAN'T fix anything.  No matter how much I hug, or compliment, or curl my hair or cook or put on a happy face, I can't fix.

I can smother him in kisses and love notes and spread sunshine and gush all over the atmosphere of our home, but there would be an undercurrent of frustration.  Forced sunshine just isn't as pleasurable.  Just... don't tell that to Dr. Laura.  She makes her bank on the idea...

Neither one of us feels good, health-wise.
He's got bad, bad allergies, and I've got who KNOWS what going on (test results impending).  Suffice to say: I'm really tired.  I can normally function on 5 hours of sleep, and the night before last I got in bed at 9 pm (after falling asleep on the couch at 8:30 while trying to watch "Wreck it Ralph" with the kids) and woke up at 8 am.
That's not normal for me, even WITH a brand new baby.  And what did I want all day?  A nap.

My husband is reading a lot of recovery material these days, and I don't really know what's going on.
Sometimes he's so aware.  The other night, he forced me to sit down while he cooked dinner (grilled cheese tastes SO good when someone else makes it).  Sometimes he's so unaware.
It's a tricky place to be in when you see one man and another within hours of each other.  Which one do I trust?
Neither.
I'm learning how to appreciate one without planting my hope in him.
I'm learning how to see the other for what he is rather than identifying him AS my husband.

So basically: on top of being physically spent, I'm brain dead trying to analyze it all out.
And the ending result is a plateau.

I'm strangely okay with my marriage being a mess on a plateau.

It doesn't bother me.  There's still an undercurrent of frustration, but it's faint.  I don't give it reign to rule... I only give it reign to express itself in prayer and the occasional bout of tears in the bathtub.  I can't force it down.  If it's here, it's here.  And I need to let it out, and so I do. 

BUT I'm finding an undercurrent under the undercurrent.
It's hope... hope that's been planted in the Savior and his Atoning Sacrifice.
Gentle hope rather than frantic hope.
Peaceful hope rather than panicked hope.
Hope in myself.
Hope in a stable, taken-care-of future.
Solid, safe, springtime Hope.

How timely.

Tunnel Blast

 

via kk61.blogspot.com

Last night, I shared my inventories with my sponsor.  I had my inventory categorized under 7 neat little titles: 

Times I Felt God's Presence in My Life

Positive Traits

Times I Saw Myself as a Victim

Thought I Could Save Myself -Didn't Use My Savior

Times I Let Fear Debilitate Me

Times I Didn't Keep My Word

Times I Feared Others More Than God 

As I went through my list, I realized that a GREAT DEAL of my inventory -no matter what category it was found under -all seemed to navigate back to one thing: low self-worth.

I was fine identifying it.  I had low self-worth all growing up and that's why I tended to see myself as a victim, that's why I never took my hurts and pains to the Savior and tried to handle things myself...

But why?  Where the heck did the low self-worth come from?

My sponsor asked me one question that sent my mind spinning.  I went to bed with it on my mind, and when I woke up this morning, the question had found an answer.  And I cried for the little girl I used to be.

I see her as a person apart from myself: she's so beautiful and important and sweet and her heart is so good.

And it ISN'T HER FAULT her mother fell off of a horse and hit her head on a rock.

It ISN'T HER FAULT she was raised by a woman who had a damaged brain.  

It isn't her fault.  She isn't a bad girl.

But she doesn't know that.  And because she doesn't know that, she doesn't feel important.  She doesn't feel loved.  She doesn't understand that her mother isn't like other mothers.  

She remembers being hungry and asking for food, standing by the fridge asking, asking, asking... she remembers her mother slapping her across the face and sending her to her room.

BECAUSE she was A BAD GIRL.

The foundation for my low self-worth was laid when I was a toddler. 

I internalized and self-blamed/shamed myself my entire life.  

I feel like this realization is the final blast in the tunnel.  I'm starting to see light peaking through the other side. 

I'm coming to know myself.

I don't blame my parents.  I admire them for sticking it out, for trying, for working together as Mom's brain healed... and it did heal.  

In high school, my mother and I used to drive to my flute lessons in a nearby city every other week.  I treasured those lessons.  Although my mother was a stay-at-home mom, she was in many ways, absentee.  I clung to those trips like NO other.  They were my opportunity to HAVE a Mom.

During one trip she said, "If I could give my kids anything -anything at all -it would be confidence.  I would instill confidence in them."

I remember her saying that.  I know my mother would never intentionally rob me of my self-worth or do anything to cause or foster low self-worth.  

I'm no stranger -it turns out -to living with someone with a broken brain.

Emotions wash over me today as I can see a little kindergartener in my mind's eye... she's scared of offending, of others, of disapproval, of offending, of not being absolutely agreeable to everyone.

If they love her, she will believe she's loved.

And she doesn't know it, but she's about to spend a life time setting patterns along those lines.  Fear will dominate her life.

UNTIL.

March 27, 2013.

Because now she knows.  Now she realizes.  And now, she will never go back.  Now she can look at the 5 year old doing a puppy puzzle in the Kindergarten room and love her.  Oh, how she loves her.

Oh, how she wishes she could reach through time and stroke her hair and tell her how important she is.

How lucky -how divinely lucky she is to have a blonde-haired Kindergartener at her fingertips without any time travel... she has a daughter: an important, beautiful daughter with hazel eyes and her Daddy's nose, and she can squeeze her, and stroke her hair and tell her:

YOU ARE IMPORTANT.  YOU ARE WHY I'M HERE.  YOU ARE MINE AND I. LOVE. YOU.

More than you will ever know, daughter.

More than you will EVER know.

Until you have a daughter of your own.

The Atonement is real.  The Savior LIVES.  He is present, presently.

I'm so grateful for my husband's addiction.

 

 

 

 

 

What Might Have Been

  

via zazzle.com

How many times have I been triggered by "what might have been?"  Countless times.  How many times have a shed tears thinking about the marriage I thought we should have had... how many times?
I was triggered by this a few months ago and ended up in the Mother's Lounge with tears streaming down my face.
Triggers are so slealthy.  I wish I could plan my bad days so they wouldn't coincide with things like church and mascara.
I'm sure I'll still be triggered by it sometime in the future.
BUT.
The time that passes between each trigger is getting longer, and the lessons learned between each meltdown are getting more poignant, more sacred, more precious...

I appreciate all of you so much.  I wish we weren't separated by miles and anonymity.  And I even wish we could all meet up and just look into each other's eyes and feel the love and concern we all have for one another... I'm not talking just about the spouses of addicts -I'm talking about the addicts.  The addicts that blog have given me so much.  I've learned so much and felt so much.  Their honesty has made my heart swell with compassion.  Their anger has widened my sense of empathy.  I KNOW anger.  I appreciate honesty.
I feel like the ugly blue Avatar people, "I see you..."

In a recent post by someone battling addiction, he wondered if it were necessary for wives to go through this (being married to someone with a sexual addiction).  And I walked away from the computer wondering.  I can't tell you how much some of your posts make me THINK, people.  I start digging through my soul, picking at my brain, asking question after question after question and coming to all sorts of starting realizations.

Have I mentioned how badly I'd like to hug you all?
I would.

When I first hit my rock bottom, I felt prompted to talk to my oldest bother.  At this point, I hadn't told anyone in my family though I live within a few miles of a bunch of them (parents included).  The thought of opening up to someone seemed extremely daunting, but at the same time, it also felt extremely imperative.  Once my Father in Heaven whispered the name of my brother in my ear, I got out of that empty bathtub, wiped the tears off my eyes, and walked out the front door.
My husband stood behind me, hunched and scared.  "Are you coming back?" He asked, softly.
"I don't know," I answered.
My brother wasn't home, but it was Sunday afternoon so I knew where he was.
Grandma's house.  I pulled into her drive, walked in the house and prayed that the acting skills I'd honed in high school would kick into full gear.
"Hey, there's something going on with my car," I said to my brother, "Would you mind taking a look really quick?"
"Sure," he followed me outside -it wasn't an untoward request. He's a mechanic, just like Dad.
Once we stepped outside, my voice began to shake, "There's nothing wrong with the car, can we go somewhere and talk?"
I'd never talked to my brother like this before -ever.  I mean, I don't think we'd ever hugged or said, "I love you" more than MAYBE 5 times... it just isn't how our family functions.
We went to his empty house, and I melted down.  I told him everything.  I didn't ask my husband's permission to talk about it.  I just DID because I needed to.  After 6 years, I had to talk to someone for ME.

My brother is an amazing man.  Most men are amazing in their own way.
He testified to me about the Atonement, about the power of change, about the miracle of the Savior's sacrifice.
And he cried.  He broke down and cried.
My brother never cries.  The last time I saw him cry was the month after he lost his 9-month beautiful blue-eyed daughter (who looked SO much like him) to a heart condition.  Before that?  Well, he cried when he read Arizona law and found out it was illegal to own an armadillo in our state.  He was 12.
But that day, he was crying.  He wasn't crying about his sweet baby girl, but he was crying because he'd seen the power of real change -the power of change of heart -in a man he'd taught on his mission.  And then he said something I'll never, ever -in all my eternal life -forget.
The tears were gone from his eyes as he said, "I'm scared to think where my testimony would have been if I hadn't lost my daughter."
What?
That's exactly what I said, "What?"
"I thought was I doing good," he said, "We did scriptures every night, church every Sunday, Family Home Evening every week, I prayed, we prayed as a family, I served a mission... but I wasn't anywhere near where I needed to be spiritually.  I used to be afraid of death, of losing my wife of kids -but I'm not anymore.  It happened, and I'm fine.  It's given me more to live for.  If my wife dies, I'll be okay.  If another one of my kids dies, I'll be okay.  It won't be easy, but it will be okay.  I know that now.  I wish I could transfer what I know to people, but I can't.  They have to feel it for themselves to know it."
And then he gave me a blessing that carried me through the next few months of my life.
Obviously, I DID go back home...

And since reading Warrior's blog post, I've been wondering to myself, "WAS this necessary?  If so, why?"
My answer -I'm certain -is personal to me.  It's not a blanket answer that applies to everyone in this situation.
But my answer is -without a doubt -YES.

I could have gone through life without being married to an addict, but I would have never discovered the overpowering effect of fear in my life.
Do you know how disgusting it is to look back on 27 years of life and chalk SO much of my negative experiences off to FEAR?
Fear of others.
Fear of failure.
Fear.
Fear.
Fear.
It makes me want to tear my hair out!  But I'm AWARE now.  Fear will NOT rule the rest of my life.  It will not ROB me of living!
I would have never learned that without my husband's addiction.  I would have never learned myself, come to discover my core, my center, myself...

I would have lived a half-life, content to medicate with chick flicks and brownies.  I would have lived a Life of Coping.

I would have spent my days living as a victim -no matter the situation -because that's how I've always lived my life.

I would have spent my life unable to expand my ability to love: love myself, love others, love the Lord.  Mine would have been a life of sarcasm, criticisms, jealousy.

Could I have been brought to these realizations another way?  Sure, probably.  But I can't envision a trial so all-encompassing so as to bring each of these to my realization at once.  They would have come slowly, through several different trials, and thank GOODNESS they came right now.
I'm 27.  There's still time for me to have children without fear, to teach my children to live without fear... to show them how to experience life without shame, without victimization...

This is the trial I want.  This is the trial I am grateful for.

Because of this trial, I was able to take my lanky, white farm girl self to a zumbathon on Friday night and dance with about 40 other people and truly enjoy it.
I went in my track pants (which were covered in spots of flour from the sugar cookies the kids and I made).  No make-up.  My hair was thrown into the messiest mess of a pony tail... and I had a blast.
I took my kids with me -one bounced around will all the confidence in the world.  The other?  Looked up at me with his big, fearful eyes and said, "Mom, I just want to watch."
Oh, how it made my heart ache.  I KNOW that feeling.
And now I know that the only thing worse that putting yourself out there is the feeling of regret that comes when you sit on the sidelines.
"The rule is... you have to try," I said to him, "You always have to at least try."
Thirty minute later, he was down on the ground doing kick spins and making laps around the ladies trying to dance.
As we drove home he said, "Mom, I fink I have mad skills."

And I smiled.
I felt the exact same way... I had danced with almost no inhibitions, no thought of what others were thinking of me and old tennis shoes and stiff country limbs.  I'm usually plagued with overwhelming fear and worry and so I just... don't participate.  don't go.  don't LIVE.

Fear is losing power in my life.

My "What Might Have Been" Life is looking less like a glorified missed opportunity and much MORE like a bullet dodged.

Does it hurt?  suck?  make me cry?  Yes.
But I WANT it.
Maybe I'm a masochist at heart?  Maybe we all are to some extent... except we don't enjoy the pain.  We just enjoy the sweet, healing, miraculous powers of the Atonement.
It makes us want our trials.

It makes us scared to think where we might have been without them.

If I Didn't Have You

  

via blogs.babble.com

Working the steps daily has been a game-changer for me.  I'm seeing more progress in the past few weeks than I have in a long time.

I've been dealing with a porn addiction in my marriage for 8 years now. 

It wasn't until 2 years ago that I realized I was co-dependent, and I thought I was co-dependent BECAUSE of my husband's addiction, and I resented him for it for a long time.

But as I reached my Step 4 and began writing an inventory, past experiences began to resurface at random times: just as I was getting into bed one night, I suddenly remembered something I hadn't thought about for YEARS.
When I was in grade school (second grade?  third grade?) I ate lunch with a girl named Amber.  One day we sat next to another girl, Mandy.  Mandy had a Little Debbie Fudge Round.  It looked so good -much better than whatever dessert my mom had packed for me. 
Mandy got up to go to the bathroom.
"Take it," Amber had said.
I didn't want to.  I mean, I wanted the dessert, but I knew it wasn't mine to eat.
"Take it, just take it," Amber said.
So I did.
We split it and ate it really fast before Mandy could get back... and it was the by far the WORST tasting dessert I've ever had.  I munched on a combination of guilt and chocolate.
Mandy asked us what had happened to her dessert, and we shrugged.
"I dunno..."

I never told her the truth.
I never stole anything after that.

The thing is: I care more about what other people think of me than I do what GOD thinks of me.  I FEAR others more.

I let go of my Step 4 inventory for a long time.  As I did, things would come to me every once in a while, and now that it's time for me to start Step 4 again, I feel a little more prepared.  I feel like I have more direction.

And I realize something monumental: I NEED RECOVERY from my co-dependency... not because my husband has a porn/sex/lust addiction but because I have issues -I've had them for most of my life!

In high school, I only dated guys that needed saving in some kind of way.  And you know what they say... you marry you who date.
I once dated a guy who needed a research paper written for him.  I was at the top of my English class and had turned in a 10-page research paper with a fat 100% at the top of the page.  He was a transfer student who turned in a 1-page research paper... a bullet-pointed list of facts and a fat F at the top of the page.
Our English teacher paired us together, and she asked me to please tutor him.  We spent hours together, hours in the library, hours at my house, a few hours at his... and I got to control the situation.  I was able to SAVE him from certain failure.
And you know what?  One afternoon when we were working together, he checked his email and his inbox was stock FULL of porn... not just the spam kind.  He tried to cover the screen.
We ended up dating for one week (Thursday to Thursday), and after I broke up with him he actually came into the mom and pop pizza shop I worked at and asking me to please date him again.
"You can help me," he said, "I need help and you can help me."
Something in my gut SCREAMED to get the heck away -jump ship!  and I listened.
"I need to help myself right now," I said.
He scoffed.  "With what?  You've got it all together."
"I'm applying to colleges.  I'm earning money to pay my own way through school.  I've got a million extra-curricular activities, and I need to focus on ME."
My boss asked him to leave.

Thank goodness I listened to my gut on that one.

I realize now -for the first time ever -that I was bound to marry someone who needed saving, even if I wasn't aware of it.
I have asked the Lord so many times, "Why did you LET me marry an addict?"
I see it now as a tender mercy.

Without my husband's addiction, I would have probably never realized the extent of my co-dependency -I would have never gotten any kind of recovery.
(or maybe I would have in a different way -a more painful way)
I would have spent my entire life fearing others more than God, trying to FIX everyone and everything, trying to CONTROL others and their situations in life.
I would have forever tried to be the wrong kind of perfect.

And I know now... I SEE now that if I would have divorced my husband two years ago when I was tempted to, I would have walked right into another "saving" relationship because I hadn't worked to find any kind of recovery for myself.
In the frame of mind I was in two years ago, my HUSBAND was the one with the problems and he was also THE problem... the problem that needed fixed, controlled, saved.

Now I've dropped the idea.  I've let go of him.  I've got bigger fish to fry.
I'm a friggin' mess.
And so I say to my husband as I did to Ryan in the pizza shop all those years ago, "I need to focus on ME right now."
That way if my husband decides against recovery or he dies (which cops sometimes do, but heaven forbid...) then I will be okay on my own. 

Thank goodness for my husband.  I shudder to think of the many relationships I could have ended up in that could have been far worse.

Thank goodness for addiction.
Thank goodness for recovery.

Thank goodness for the Atonement.
Thank goodness for love.

What Can I Do?

Less than a week ago, I got a book in the mail... a book about Pornography and Sexual Addiction.

****side note: thank goodness things aren't mailed in clear packages... our small town post master would know WAY too much about all of us.****

I couldn't tear into the book right away, but when I could, I TORE.  I dove.  I sat down with my baby and a thick blanket.  In one day, I'd read about half of the book.  The next day was cold and rainy.  My daughter went to school, I put my son in front of cartoon and my baby down for a nap, and I read in bed while the rain fell.
It was pure bliss -seriously.

****side note: it's amazing to me what qualifies as "pure bliss" now.  A few years ago, reading a book about sexual addiction wouldn't exactly put me over the moon.****

The book is titled, "What Can I Do About Him Me?" and the author, Rhyll Anne Croshaw, warns her readers in the beginning that the book could trigger feelings.  And she was right.  I had to close the book a few times because I was overwhelmed with feelings. 
I cried a few times.
I smiled a few times.
I sighed a lot.

I've only ever read one book about pornography/sex addiction before.  It was From Heartache to Healing by Colleen Harrison.  I have recommended that book time and time again.  It was my ladder out of rock bottom.

 

What I wouldn't have given to have this book as well.

It is clear, organized, concise -it gives rightly-placed hope... hope in YOU rather than hope in someone else.
For years, I invested my happiness in my husband's choices.  I hoped he would choose to read his scriptures when I wanted him to.  I hoped he would choose to pray every morning and night as I had felt he should.  I hoped he would quit looking at porn, connect with me emotionally, show empathy, love me the way I wanted to be loved, make me happy...

Rhyll gently, lovingly, honestly, and knowingly takes us by the hand and leads us away from this kind of thinking. 
She doesn't lecture.
She validates.
She doesn't cater to victim-thinking.
She understands.

It's a beautiful ride of a read.

It's the kind of book you buy 5 copies of and give them to the Bishop.  Why?
Because Rhyll has DONE it!  She has successfully breached the grounds of silence -she has broken the bonds of shame.  She has brought us into her kitchen with her and, through one-sided conversation, taught us how to take care of our neglected selves... without us actually having to SEE anyone or LEAVE the house or TALK to anyone.
The fear of talking about the pain going on in my home, life, and soul is just too shameful to admit to anyone... but reading a book sent to me in a covered package?  THAT I can do.

Realizing I couldn't control my husband's painful behavior made me feel powerless.
But reading Rhyll's words reminded me that although I can not control HIM, I can control myself and in so doing will find a different, greater kind of power... the power that comes from Diety.

One of the greatest tools I have taken from the book is a practice Rhyll and her husband took from Brene Brown: Vowel Check-in.
The Vowel Check-in uses all the vowels in a great easy-to-remember and well-covered check-in... I'm finding that it works great as a check-in with my Heavenly Father each night.

A) Was I abstinent today?  (For me, this means did I refrain from indulging in my addiction to try and control -not just my husband but others and situations as well?  Did I remain free from the fear that has controlled me in the past?)
E) Did I exercise today?
I) What did I do for myself today?
O) What did I do for others today?
U) Do I have any unexpressed emotions that need to come out?
Y) What was the "yay" for today?  What good things came my way?

A few nights ago, I found myself walking on eggshells with my husband.  I could tell he was cycling, and it helped me to detach.  We were planning on watching a movie together, and it felt really good to have the strength to say, "I don't want to watch a movie with you like this.  I know we've planned this night for a while, but I'd rather put it off than go through it like this.  You've been emotionally disconnected for a few days, and I was hoping tonight we could reconnect.  I've missed you.  I want to SEE you, but I can't.  You're not here.  Why don't you go do what you need to do to take care of whatever is going on with you right now?  We can watch the movie another time when we can enjoy each other."
He gave a few reasons as to why he was feeling so touchy -which were all true, I'm sure -but none were the ROOT of what he was feeling.
So I pulled the vowels out, and after about an hour and half, we had connected emotionally.  He admitted he'd been having a hard time fighting lust -though he hadn't acted out -and that he hated telling me about it because it made him feel like dirt.

But it's strange.  When he opens up and is honest with me about the details of his day, the little fights he had with lusts (even if he felt like it was a battle lost) are welcome sounds to my ears.  He tells me he noticed another woman, and he waits to see the hurt and pain in my eyes... but all I hear is HONESTY and it's so refreshing and wonderful and revealing that there's no room for hurt.  Not anymore.
I feel like each time he opens up to me, I peel off a piece of his hard covering and get a glimpse into the real, raw, vulnerable HIM and it's breathtaking.
He's an amazing man.

I haven't checked in with him using the vowels since then, but they were a great tool for that moment.  I don't want to force the check in on him every night.  If he'd like to check in, he can.  But I've found myself being more aware of ME as I go throughout my day, knowing that tonight I'll have my Father in Heaven to answer to.

Bottom line: if YOU are hurting, no matter the cause, no matter if you feel it is someone else's problem, no matter what: if YOU hare hurting, YOU need healing.
Rhyll shines a flashlight down the intimidating tunnel of recovery. 

A richer life is waiting...

****side note: I recommend this book to people currently in recovery from sexual addiction as well.  It will give you some great, real insights without shaming.****