The Auschwitz Season

*** I can't thank you all enough for your outpouring of support on my last post.  It really made a HUGE difference, and if it weren't for your kind words, I know I'd have locked everything down again.  Thank you for your love. ***

 

I was recently called to teach Sunday School to 7th graders.  This is great news because it means I get to spend time NOT with peers.  Sometimes beings with peers is hard, right?  Especially in church when they talk about things that used to be normal for me and are now painful for me.

"When we said yes in marriage, we MEANT it and stayed married."
"Kids these days..."
"Doom."
"Gloom."
"If you want to stop doing something, just make a decision and DO IT."
(#whiteknuckling)

I love my 7th graders.  This last week, they spent 15 minutes teaching how to tie a tie.  They spent the rest of the time giggling over a face one of the kids were making.
And yeah -I taught 4 boys that day.

One of those boys has expressed interest in Viktor Frankl, so while I was ordering Christmas stuff on Amazon I plopped, "Man's Search for Meaning" in my cart.  When it arrived, I decided I'd better read it through before giving it to him, just in case there was graphic stuff -I didn't want his parents knocking down my lil' trailer door.

It's a fascinating read -it makes my trailer feel like palace and my oatmeal seem extravagant.

There's a passage where Frankl talks about suffering.  As he lived each day in a concentration camp (Auschwitz), he decided that the POINT of each day was suffering.  He expected suffering and faced it -not so much with valor and class everyday, but with a sense of... I don't know... duty?  He leaned into the suffering and searched for a purpose.  As a doctor fascinated with research, he imagined himself on a stage teaching others about what he'd learned in the camp.  He thought of the research paper he'd been working on, how he needed to rewrite and finish it (it had been confiscated).

This passage did something for me.  It really did.

While my life is nowhere near suffering, it is hard right now.  Trials dovetail as they never have before, and I keep sort of waiting for some reprieve.  I keep waiting for a rest stop, a breather.  But much like my body in labor, I'm not getting one.  No break between contractions and pressure, Alicia, not for you.

I've moved into a sort of acceptance.
This is my time to be uncomfortable.  Each day is uncomfortable.  Instead of flailing against it, fighting against the powers that be and WAITING for it to end so I can get back to living... I can lean into the hurt, the discomfort.
There is much to learn, much to uncover.

As I wade through health issues, I will learn more about my body.  I will grow and grow in knowledge about anatomy and science, health and nutrition, truth!

As I wade through the mess that is my marriage, I will learn about brain workings, about healthy thinking, the underestimated power of stress vs. peace.

Where are the books written for AFTER sobriety, by the way?  What comes after sobriety?  How is trust rebuilt?  How do you learn to count on each other?  Lean on each other?  Handle the burns and the hurts?
Marriage AFTER sobriety is scary too.
Funny, isn't it?  I remember thinking if I could just get rid of porn (hypothetically) everything would be SO much better.  Realizing that porn was just a sort of symptom of bigger issues was unnerving and empowering.  Awareness is ironic like that.

Tonight, I'm very uncomfortable. The point of my discomfort is knowledge.  It's a sort of search for truth and wisdom -God loves me enough to give it to me through the most effective means possible: hands on, the hard way.

It's my Auschwitz Season.

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.

On The Road

Living in a small town means traveling to other towns if you want something like pizza on a Tuesday (the tiny pizza shop in town is only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays) and bigger parks with slides.  On Monday, I met up with a friend at a bigger park with slides for lunch.  As we drove on the Interstate to get there, my son asked, "Mom, what are we in?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked, a little confused.
"Are we in Joe City?" he asked.
"No, we aren't IN anything.  We're just on the road."
"But what are we IN?" he pressed.
"Nothing, bud," I said, "Just on the road."

On our drive home, the conversation continued.
"What are we in now?" he'd ask.  My patience was wearing thin.  As we neared town, we could see the truck stop on our exit.
"Ah!  Now we are in Joe City!"  He called out.
"No, we are still on the road," I said.
"But I can SEE the truck stop," he insisted, "If I can see it with my eyes, how can it not be true?"

And I had to smile.
He is definitely my son.

I hate being on the road, literally and figuratively.  I'm impatient.

I really, really, REALLY struggle with being WHERE I AM.  I struggle to feel the anger that naturally comes with this.  I struggle to let myself hold my resentments... I want to FORCE myself to give them up even though I am definitely not ready. 
Most of all?  I am not okay hurting.  I am not okay with feeling trauma STILL.

This last weekend I had what any outsider would deem, "The Mother of all Overreactions."

I basically sat down on my way up the mountain and felt the sting in my calves, the thirst in my throat and the exhaustion in my entire being. 
I CAN NOT DO THIS ANYMORE.
I AM NOT CAPABLE OF DOING THIS ANYMORE.
THERE IS TOO MUCH DAMAGE IN OUR MARRIAGE.

I believe our marriage can be healed just as much as I believe Danny can be healed.  I do doubt a little that I can be fully healed from this broken state.
I just don't know that I have it in me to FIGHT the good fight, to keep going!

I feel safe with Danny away, and each time he rubs my trauma I push him away, away, away.  And anyone who needs THIS much space is really stupid to stay married, right?
The voices inside of me were at war with each other.

Danny didn't know what to do but promise he'd work to understand, he'd work hard to do what I am too tired to...
I hate promises.

I asked for space, took my ring off.  And then I felt nothing.  I was (and am) utterly emotionless.
I prayed and felt good about staying.  I felt better about leaving.

The thing is: above any mortal person, Danny gets me.  More than our therapist, more than my sponsor, more than our truly inspired Bishop... DANNY gets me.  And though his progress was much less on the "pro" side lately and more on the "re" side... he still found the clarity to see what I've been going through.  He took full ownership.  He validated me.
"Good days with you are really good," he said, "and bad days are really bad.  You're a deep feeler and that's okay.  It's something I love about you."
He assured me that if I have this kind of breakdown every six months, once a year, once every two years, THAT WAS OKAY.  And then I went to a fireside -my cousin reported her mission.  I had told my aunt earlier in the week that I'd bring 3 dozen cookies. 
And then trauma.
So Danny stayed home from the fireside and made 3 dozen peanut butter cookies from scratch.

I wanted to stay with him.  I wanted to leave him.  I felt God wanted me to do both as well.
So I ate half a bag of jelly beans to help quell the confusion.

I continued to pray, and the answer remained the same.
Staying is good, leaving is better.

I decided to go to the temple alone and pray.  I wanted to ask specific questions.
Danny gave (is giving) me lots of space: no touching, no loving words, no phone calls, no texts.  He sleeps on the couch.

I reached out to a friend and voiced my frustration.
"How am I STILL HERE?  How am I STILL HURTING?  I have been working on recovery stuff for almost 5 years.  I don't think I can continue to live with someone who rubs my trauma so ON TARGET."
She doesn't know much about addiction, but her understanding of the principles recovery teaches?  Spot on.
"It's not like cancer, Alicia," she said, "It's not like something that comes and is treated and then gone.  This is how it's going to be.  And it will get better on the Lord's timetable, but not yours."

I don't feel triggered when I see fashion magazines anymore.  Progress!
I don't feel triggered when I see ladies in short shorts anymore.  Progress!

I guess I felt like I was DONE with trauma.

And Danny is doing really well.  I started recovery BEFORE him and I'm still struggling MORE than he is!  This is frustrating for me.
He came home from work yesterday and as he prepared to go to the temple himself, I felt like maybe I could go with him.
Crazy, right?  After all of these CRAZY thoughts and feelings?  But again -I'd been kind of on auto-pilot all day, emotionless and functional.
The last session started at 7, and an emergency sitter was procured.  Danny lost his recommend briefly, but we finally walked through the temple doors at 6:50.
"We're here for the session" we said.
"You're too late," the nice man in white said, "The last one started at 6:30."
Apparently the temple schedule online is outdated.
"But you can do sealings," he said.

Sealings.
Did you hear that?  The tension?  The VIABLE TENSION?
Danny's eyes looked like the eyes of a deer in the headlights.  Fear, fear, fear.
All it might take is one sealing, and BAM.  Divorce.

But I felt nothing.  So I said, "Let's try it."
And all through the sealings, I noticed the wall paper and the pretty crystal chandy.  The ladies in the room were so pretty and glowy and their silver hair made me happy.
The words of the sealing ceremony seemed unable to enter my heart.  It was as if God had walled off any and all depth of feeling from my soul.
I felt shallow and incredibly happy about that.

In the Celestial Room, I cracked open a white bible and inhaled the sweet scent of humidified air.
I read the story of Abraham trekking up a mountain with his only son.  Surely he felt conflicted about the whole thing.  Surely God was telling him something that went against his gut. 
The story brought me some peace and a little not (the Old Testament freaks me out sometimes)... but I closed the book and prayed. 
I'm willing to leave if God REALLY wants me to.

But it's so hard, when it comes right down to it, to walk away from a man who bakes from scratch.

I asked God some pointed questions and he communed with me.  He walked with me in the mazes of my broken mind.
"Leave him and cleave unto me," God said, ever the jealous God.

I thought I was.
I've used all of the books, all of the info, the programs, the scriptures, the prayers, the meditations!  I've used the songs and the practices and activities!

BUT I AM STUCK.
With Danny in the home, it is nearly impossible for me to cleave unto God.  I still find myself giving into fear, to making Danny my center... even though I do my daily prayer, my daily scripture study!

A few days before I sat down on my mountain trail, God spoke to me through mind-music (when he puts a song in my head and makes me go, "Aw, GOD!  You KNOW ME SO WELL!") and told me to take His yolk upon me, for it is easy and His burden light.  And I would find rest.
Okay!  I said.  And finished my walk with determination but scratching my head.
Kind of like, "I WILL DO THE THING! (I don't actually know how to do)."

Maybe it's a lack of faith?
Maybe it's an opportunity to grow.
Maybe it's because I don't really believe -STILL -or at least today -that God can truly fix this mess.

So today I'm heading in for a massage.  I took a nap today. 
I am allowing myself to be ON THE ROAD which means having days where the trauma comes up -because it isn't healed yet -and I AM TOO TIRED TO MAKE ONE MORE STEP.

It's part of the process.
It's on the road.

And though I can see what life might look like without having such a guarded heart, it doesn't mean I AM THERE or that I'm bad for NOT being there.

I'm simply on the road in the valley, and when I reach the mountain top, it will all make sense.