Contemporary Palsy

In Step 2 of the Healing Through Christ Manual, we read:

His hallowed hands allowed the
blind man to see, blessed the lame to walk, and gave
life once again to those who had died. These same
powerful hands will restore our sight, and allow us to
walk free from the paralyzing effect of despair and
hopelessness. His loving grace will resurrect our
hope, restore our spiritual and emotional health and
heal our wounds.

I felt prompted to read the scripture passage in Mark 2: 1-12 in which Christ heals a paralyzed man. 

I have felt so paralyzed in the past.  My spiritual progression was paralyzed when I was working to save my husband (which is impossible) instead of focusing on my own progression. 
Despair and hopelessness were a part of my daily life, and they were paralyzing -they ARE paralyzing.

Four men carried the paralytic to the Savior.  Despite the man's inability to move himself, I'm sure he had to consent to be moved... to WANT to be carried to the Savior... he just didn't know how to get himself there.
I feel much the same way.  In the midst of my paralytic state, I knew I wanted to be moved -to make the journey to the Savior, but I didn't know how... not really. 
A group of strong women carried me.  I know some of these women personally -others brought me to the Savior through their written words.  I've never met some of them personally though I feel as if I know them.
The journey to the Savior required perseverance.  The four men that carried the paralytic weren't deterred by a crowd -they raised the roof!
The paralytic had faith that he would be healed.
What was that like?  He entered a crowd in his paralyzed state which must have been difficult.  He put himself out in a gigantic crowd at his worst -all in the name of faith. 
What must the crowd thought when they saw him?  They must have stared. 

How many times have I let my fear of the crowd dictate my willingness to come to the Savior? 
How many times have I feared the crowd -what they might think of me -more than the Savior?

There's a paralytic in me, and the 12-step program has taught me how to overcome the fears that are keeping me from the Savior.
I've feared what others might think as I'm healing... my house, my kids, my diet... everything seemed to fall apart while I was paralyzed and hurting.  I didn't want anyone to see me at my worst, and that included my Savior.  I wanted Him to be proud of me.  I wanted Him to be able to trust me.  How could He trust me if I couldn't take care of myself?

I couldn't exist like that -I couldn't exist like that and remain sane.  I hit rock bottom and turned to any healing source I might have: recovery books, recovery blogs, recovery groups, recovery manuals.
And I became willing to be taken to the Savior to receive his healing.

It's a circling journey, one that I ought to take daily (if not more).

"The ultimate and only true and living change agent is the Savior.  He is the source of all change.  He changed water into wine -bringing the very best liquid refreshment to the celebration.  As you turn to him, he will bring the very best out of you.  He will indeed rescue all that is finest down deep inside of you.  And what a celebration that will be!
Ask for his help.  Asking for the Savior's help is another way to come closer unto him...
He changed limbs that were weak.  And he can change your mobility and direction to help you move to the next level of your life and help you in your efforts to shore up the feeble knees that are around you.  Ask for his help."
~Wendy L. Watson

It's Real Love

 

My husband has never made a habit of lying to me.

In fact, when I uncovered a lie about porn for the first time, we had already been working to fight porn for a few years.  But then awhile later, I discovered another lie.
And then another.

And that's when I pretty much lost my sanity.  I can handle the fact that he looks at porn more than I can handle being lied to.  The lies scared me more.  The lies hurt more.

So when my husband tells me that he keeps our intimate life and his addiction completely separate, I believe him.  He hasn't lied to me in over 2 years.  About anything.

The problem I'm facing now is that I DON'T keep our intimate life and his addiction separate.  I don't know how to.  I'm running into all kinds of problems where this is concerned, and I'm working through them as best I know how.

*It weirds me out to pray about my sex life.  It truly does.  But practice makes it easier.*

In Step 2 of the Healing Through Christ workbook, we are asked to list our fears.  If we write them out and face them, we can begin to heal from them.
I had to face my fears, and I needed to confess them to my confused husband.

"I'm believe if I put on weight, you won't love me." I said, and he quietly listened.
"I'm believe that you love me for WHAT I am (someone you can get your "fix" from) and not WHO I am." I said, and he quietly listened.
After I had finished, he told me how my "beliefs" (they are really fears) are off the mark.  And I know he's not lying. 

But how do I retrain my brain?

I want to know that he loves ME me, the person inside my body.
He told me he'd try harder to show it.
I told him I'd appreciate that, but ultimately this was something I needed to handle.  My husband can't fix my brain, only Heavenly Father can do that.

But my husband would like to help.  I can tell.  I can see that he wants me to know he loves me.

In the past, I've viewed his expressions of love as investments... for later... for the bedroom, and they didn't feel genuine to me.  With his promise to try harder to show more love, I felt a sort of defeat -not in him, but in me.
Surely no matter WHAT he did, I would still feel he was investing in a romp.
So I took it to the Lord... I prayed about sex.  I prayed about love.  I prayed to be able to recognize truth in my husband's behavior -to distinguish investments from simple declarations of love.

Last week, I took my kids up to my parent's house to borrow a movie ("A More Perfect Union" -the BYU movie about the Constitution.  I love that movie).  I was going to bring it home to watch it with my husband and kids for Family Home Evening, but my Dad mentioned he would like to watch it.
I called my husband to see if he'd like to drive up to my folks' to watch it with us. He declined. He was in the middle of a paper-filing project and didn't want to quit.  He'd also had a particularly rough day at work and didn't feel like socializing, even on a small scale.
It was fine by me. 
Sometimes time alone is what we all need after a bad day.

Late that night, I came back home.  He was sitting on the living room floor surrounded by stacks of paper and a filing bin.  He showed me where he had filed various paper, and then pointed out a file in the front of the filing bin.
"That," he said, "Is your writing stuff.  I just couldn't throw some of them out."
"My writing stuff?" I asked.  Earlier that evening, I had told him if he found any of my old papers from college to just throw them out.  It turns out I'd saved almost every homework assignment from my courses.
"Some of the stuff you've written is too good to throw out," he said.

I've been writing since I was in sixth grade -it's how I express myself and what brings me happiness.  My husband loves it about me.  He believes in my ability to write, and he's constantly encouraging me.

It meant a lot to me.
The next day, he brought home a bouquet of daisies. 
Early in our marriage, I'd written a story about how I fought a wolf spider in our studio apartment.  I was terrified of the huge wolf spiders that lived in that place.  They were monsters.  In my story, I turned our tiny kitchen into an Old West shoot-out scene, and it ended by my husband coming home and killing the spider for me.  My husband has always loved the story.  He once printed it off and read it to his parents on a long drive to Disneyland.
And he found it again the other night while he was filing.
So he saved it, bought pretty parchment paper to print it on, added a banner to the top and a loving message to the bottom and gave it to me.
I was a little dazed... it was as if the part of my brain that was programmed to believe that my husband loves me for sex and sex alone was baffled.
I found myself asking myself, "He does love ME me?"  The geeky writer me?  The geeky writer me who doesn't do anything with her writing except blog and write goofy cowboy poetry?

Yes, he does.

Sunday night, after Andrew's AMAZING fireside, I was packing up my baby and putting my coat on.  It was snowing outside, my outfit was very plain, my make-up was faded... and as I pulled my coat over my head, my long hair caught on one of my buttons.
I couldn't get my coat on over my head, I couldn't untangle the button... and I looked at him for help.
He laughed at me and said, "You're still pretty."
I finally yanked my hair loose, and he laughed as he reached up and put my hair back in order (because it was a mess).
"You know..." he said, as we got in our car and pulled onto the road, "You were the most beautiful woman in the room tonight."
The WAY he said it -there was something different about it.  He wasn't investing.  He wasn't flattering.
He was just stating a fact.

I couldn't believe it.  But I DID believe that he meant it -he truly believed it himself.

He loves ME me because if he were basing his attraction on my physical appearance alone, he would never had said that.

I didn't think my husband would be able to help retrain my brain.  But it turns out... he can.  He can't do it on his own and it's not his sole responsibility to help me see that he loves ME me, but I'm seeing small miracles and tender mercies abounding.

I want to write them down so I won't forget, so I can return to them when I start to forget.
It IS possible that I am lovable, that I can love properly and be loved properly.

And if praying about sex and sexual things is what helps to being this realization around, I CAN do it.

The Baggage Company

I spent so many years looking down.

I looked down on addicts. 
I looked down on recovery books.
I looked down on groups, therapy, even the language of recovery.

How many times did I crack the cover of recovery books only to slam them shut because they didn't agree with my logic?
Oh, my broken logic.

Surely those methods were for OTHER people that actually had problems... that were ACTUALLY screwed up.
I was okay.  Prayer would do it for me.  Prayer, scriptures, and a trusty journal.

Because I was special and strong.
I was a strong case of special.

Yes, I was STRONG.  I didn't need anyone.  well.  except for my husband...
I needed him at night.  I needed him when he was gone for work trainings.  I needed him to tell me if my outfit was okay.  If the food I made was acceptable.  If I should go to the store or not.  If I should buy Girls Scout Cookies.  If I should start walking in the morning. 
Am I okay?
Are we okay?
Is our future okay?
Am I making you happy?
Are you happy? 
Are you comfortable?
Babe?  Babe?  Babe?

He didn't ask for me to need him.  I simply reasoned with my broken logic that if he was okay with everything I did, WE would be okay.  He wouldn't need to look at porn because I would make him happy.
My food, my outfits, my activities, my sexual offerings: they would all be his favorites.
And then.  The porn would be squelched.

I was STRONG enough to squelch porn with one simple solution: self-sacrifice.

I placed myself on the Altar of Porn, and my Father in Heaven waited patiently for me to rise up, remove myself, and start my journey to another altar.
He patiently stood by while I took two steps away from the Porn Altar, ran back, took two steps away, ran back...
"They will be done," I said in my prayers... silently attaching "later" to my prayer.  But He heard.  He always does.
He held me anyway.  He never gave up on his sheep.
The more distance I put between myself and the altar, the more sense the recovery books made.
About ten months later, I took my shaking self to a PASG meeting.
I literally SHOOK.
I knew by then... I wasn't strong enough to squelch anything.
Strength has nothing to do with it.

Strength is THERE, but it is only found in submission, giving up.
I read a few days ago in the forum someone laying the first three steps out in this manner:
1) I can't.
2) God can.
3) I will let Him.

And I quit asking my husband if my food was okay.  I quit asking him if my outfits were okay (though occasionally I have to check because I have an inability to match, and my husband is great at it -his Mother raised him right.  I mean: his shoes always match his belt.  I didn't even know that was a thing...)

I started directing my questions inward.
"AM I okay?"
"Is this food good?"
"Are you comfortable?"
"Are you learning?"
"Alicia? Alicia?  Alicia?"

For years, my husband was more my father than my husband.
It's slow going, but our marriage is balancing out.
It's a huge adjustment.  HUGE.

But no longer is he the ox at the helm of My Baggage Wagon.
And no longer am I the ox of HIS Baggage Wagon.

We're both riding' the trail, Wagons side-by-side.  We're sitting pretty on the hard wooden seats of our OWN wagons, and the Lord is at the helm of each of them.
I don't always feel good about it.  I mean: it IS my baggage.  I should be the one to manage it -not dump my STUFF on someone else, right?
I can't.  I can't do it.  I can't handle my own stuff.
And why should I, when someone else has already handled it?  I just have to hand Him the reins, hop off my seat and chase my kids around the wagon.

Someday we hope to hitch our wagons together, push the baggage out onto the dusty trail and leave it behind.

And we're not special.  There's eleven or a million other wagons with us.

We call ourselves The Baggage Company.

  

via user.xmission.com

Our leader is FEARLESS.  Our members are pioneers.
We laugh, we cry, and we don't pretend to have it all together.

We move on with hope, and there IS strength.
We are strong enough because our leader is strong enough.

I have my Girl Scout Cookies, and I don't look down anymore.
Hope holds my head high.

Unseen Walls

When I became pregnant with my first-born, I heard so many mothers express their excitement.
"The minute they're placed into your arms, you'll feel so much love... it just overwhelms you," they said.

I'd heard my own Mom talk about the love that comes with the birth of a child, and I was anxiously awaiting my turn to feel the Mother Love.  And after laboring for 18 hours under insurmountable drugs and pushing for almost an hour to get my posterior-positioned baby out... I didn't feel much of anything except RELIEF and TIREDNESS.
I didn't want to hold my baby so much as I wanted sleep. The drugs made it impossible to fight off sleep, so I drifted off -no baby in my arms.

The minutes, days, weeks, and months that followed were full of gross amounts of anxiety, virtually no sleep, and a cute-but-colicky baby.
When our baby was three days old, my husband left for the police academy, and I spent the next four months at home with our very fussy baby.
My husband was in the thick of his addiction.  I was in the thick of my addiction TO his addiction.  The distance (and the fact that he was in a dorm room) only increased my addiction.
I was also in the thick of new mommy.
I spent my day getting screamed at.
My husband spent his getting screamed at by academy instructors with a background in military boot camp training.
At the end of each day, we'd connect on our cell phones, and our conversations were pretty pathetic.
Because I'd lost my bubbliness and can-do attitude, my husband began to worry about me and the way I was handling our new one.
"I'm just worried that you don't love her," he once said.
He shouldn't have said that.  I think he realized it a few minutes after I turned into a Lioness.
But anyway. 
I DID love my daughter, despite her talent for screaming for -I kid you not -7 hours straight.
About 22 months later, I found myself in labor again... this time there was no drugs.  Labor was 2 hours instead of 18, and I pushed twice... instead of for nearly an hour.
This time -I thought -THIS TIME I will feel the Mother Love -the washing over, the overwhelming, unable to put into words MOTHER LOVE.
Instead I felt shock (he was a month early).
But I DID love my son.

Behind the mothering scenes, I was busy.  I was actively policing my husband, checking his phone, knocking on the bathroom door, checking browser histories, asking, snooping, prying, accusing...
I had an addiction.

There were no children for a few years.  During those years, I hit rock bottom and detached from my husband's addiction.  I started the road to recovery.
I quit trying to "help."  I quit policing. 
I went through a period of half a year where I cried, erupted at any given moment.  Sometimes I couldn't get out of bed.  Sometimes I couldn't fold laundry.  Sometimes all I could do was eat cookie dough and bless the person who invented the idea of instant movie and television streaming because my kids were getting bored of watching their movies over and over and over...

One year later, my husband told me he felt it was time to have another one.  I disagreed.
After a lot of praying, talking, praying, talking... we decided to try.  I wasn't ready, Heavenly Father knew it, and it took us almost a year to get pregnant for which I will forever be grateful.
I wasn't strong enough to stand my ground and follow my gut that was telling me, "Not now -not yet."
Those eight months gave me time to prepare -mentally, physically (I'd gained 10 pounds during The Cookie Dough Year), spiritually...

And I found myself in labor again.
It was three hours long, no drugs, two pushes (? maybe one?  maybe three?) and so. much. pain!  Again, I was trying to give birth to a baby in the posterior position... when I was handed my new baby girl, I was in so much pain I couldn't FEEL anything through it.
But after the pain meds kicked in... after I'd had a chance to eat something and take a restful power nap: I was moved into another (quieter) room.  My husband left with his mother for a while, and it was just My Mom, My Baby, and Me.
And THERE it was.
It washed over me, and I looked at the perfect and precious spirit in my arms and I was completely overwhelmed.
I couldn't believe it.

The Mother Love has continued to wash over me -time and time again.  When I wake up in the morning and see her tired, squishy face... when we nap together, when she smiles, when I smell her...

My mom told me she could always feel our spirits -how they felt so much bigger than our little bodies.
"But you know what I mean," she said, referring to my own kids and mothering experience.
"No," I shook my head.  I'd never felt it.

But that day -12/12/12 in a sterilized hospital -I felt it.  My baby wasn't actually a baby.  I felt it -her spirit is bigger than any physical containment.
I felt a little guilty over the difference I'd felt with this one -was she my favorite?  Would I treat her like a princess and leave my other two kids in the dust?

But as the days and weeks have gone on, I've felt washed over not only with my new one... but with my other two as well.  I can feel their spirits like I never have before.

My addiction had put up walls of protection.  I'd felt like I was protecting myself when I was policing... if I stopped his addiction, I could stop the pain.  It made perfect sense... except.

I didn't realize that as I was trying to protect myself, I was building walls.  I build walls of protection so high -so thick... that I inadvertently kept out love.  I had lost the ability to properly love others, to properly love myself.

I'm knocking those walls down now.

And it's harrowing to see what I've missed out on.
But thank goodness -thank GOODNESS -the walls are coming down. 

Love is worth pounding down every wall in it's path... no matter how painful, no matter how much cookie dough and weight gain, no matter the cost:

Those little fingers are some of my biggest blessings.

Be Still My Heart

 

Credit: a site that posts real pin up pictures.  let's just leave it at that.

Dream Weaver

  

via askville.amazon.com

I'm finally "back."

My baby is almost 8 weeks old, and regular life is swirling around me.  I'm "back" to my calling.  I'm "back" to teaching piano lessons. 
And with everything going on, I've dropped the ball on a few things, most of them relating to my kiddos (she didn't NEED that cavity filled right away, right?).

I feel badly about it.

And the past three nights, I've dreamed about missing recovery meetings (that I facilitate), forgetting about ward counsel, being extremely late for church because I can't physically move as fast as I need to, missing doctor appointments... and last night I dreamed that I got the wrong date for the fireside Andrew is coming to put on and I missed it.

I wake up feeling defeated, like I haven't even put my toes on the ground and I've already messed up.  It's a super fun feeling.

Anyway, this morning I was so happy to wake up because if I'm going to drop the ball anywhere I DO NOT want it to be on Andrew's fireside.  It's going to be a little bit of a drive to get there, and I need to get a sitter for my older kids (my parents know about our situation, so I can ask them but it's never terribly comfy to bring up porn addiction with anyone that isn't, well, People Like You)... but it's definitely an event I refuse to drop the ball on.

Here's to one more day of adjusting "back" to real life... it's getting easier with each passing day.

Pre-Recovery:

Thank goodness for recovery.
Thank.
Goodness.