Practicing self care

The first question my therapist asked me yesterday morning was "Give me an example of how you have practiced self care since I've last seen you." It often takes me some time to pull up examples from the long ago past so I shared with her how I had returned a phone call that morning that I really wanted to ignore in favor of isolation. It was a small victory -- but a victory nonetheless.

Her question -- as it was intended to -- has prompted me to look at self-care and think about how I practiced it since our session. One way I did so was by going immediately to the library and journaling about what we had discussed during the sesson, writing out the thoughts while they were fresh in my mind. A second way was that during the session I asked her to help me process my anxiety surrounding taking a couple of classes this semester to explore the possibility of a second career. I also got honest with her, and then later at a telemeeting and then an evening face to face meeting about how these anxieties had caused me last week to become "emotionally needy" with a male friend to a point of distraction for me and irritation for the both of us.

Another form of self-care that I have practiced over the past couple of days has been to allow myself to feel the feelings from a terse but honest e-mail from that same male friend and to ask myself what the lessons are to be learned -- there are multitues. During that same period I have responded only briefly to say thank you and that I would let things settle in and then write back later. I found myself practicing this same sort of self-care last night when just at bedtime my husband decided to get in a huff over something that hadn't been done and get all irritable and snappy. I don't feel good going to bed like that. So rather than engage him in a fight, or try to change his behavior, I prayed and asked God to release me from my need to control the situation and to have his will not mine. As a result I began to rub and scratch my husband's back, as I do most nights before we sleep, and just show him love. It released the tension for both of us and I woke up in the middle of the night to feel him closely snuggled against me, something that always feels like a sign of sweet intimacy and love.

I woke up with another thought of self care on my mind. I have a pattern, even a disease, of wanting to constantly care for others. The truth, however, is I'm operating without a net. I provide a network of support through service in the SLAA fellowship, sponsorship, starting meetings, leading meetings -- all the while operating without a truly active sponsor myself. Yes, I have a sponsor in another fellowship, but honestly she does not provide me the wisdom of the steps or even regular fellowship. I have come to depend on my Higher Power, my therapist, and the fellowship itself as my sponsor. Those are places I can go to seek feedback and guidance. Still, I am there on a daily basis for my sponsees, for others who seek my counsel, without thought that no one is really there for me on a daily or weekly basis. This makes me susceptible to feeling alone, which can in turn lead to a desire to act out. I think another area of self care I can exercise is reaching out for the supportive fellowship of a sponsor.

On a similar note, I woke up thinking, I have started a telemeeting, a step meeting, a face to face meeting in this fellowship, but I need to practice simply being a member in recovery. As the leader I get great satisfaction out of helping others, but I don't get the humility of simply "being." Being a leader puts me in a position of feeling "better than", which keeps me from feeling "less than," all the while opening the door for me to be less than willing to share honestly in meetings about my own vulnerabilities -- which is a great detriment to my recovery. I see this lack of humility as a character defect that is standing in my way of progress. I see recognition of this character defect and the willingness to get honest and examine it as a form of self care.

How do you feel?

I have been practicing what I've been learning in my outpatient treatment program for depression, by trying to be mindful of my present feelings and circumstances. The program is teaching me how to live in the present in a way I've never learned before. I am asked on a consistent basis, "What is your mood today?" "What are you feeling?"

Being a person who has spent her life trying to avoid feelings and my mood depended on what was happening around me, these things are new. But I'm realizing that living one day at a time, really means taking stock of my life right this very moment, being grateful for what I have right now, avoiding things like fortune telling, all or nothing thinking, and being mindful of the fact that my thoughts are often distored and can cause disturbing feelings and initiate inappropriate behavior.

One thing I am very grateful for is that I am coming into this program with four years of SLAA recovery under my belt, as well as several years of therapy. SLAA has taught me that "acceptance is the answer to all my problems today" ... and that if I keep an open mind there is no problem too great to be lessened. As uncomfortable feelings surface during my treatment, I am able to embrace them as learning opportunities -- to separate what is still useful to me and what is no longer useful, and to reframe my thoughts using the tools provided to me by my therapists and doctors.

To be honest, I was very saddened by the idea that my depression had gotten the best of me and I needed serious treatment. I'm kind of a stubborn goat when it comes to things like surrender. I don't like to admit my weaknesses. I don't like for things to be beyond my control. But I'm thankful that to have learned there are things I can change and things I can't, and I'm thankful to a wonderful and loving Higher Power, ever present, who has stuck with me through my stubborness and has given me the wisdom to know the difference.

Depression is an illness that runs rampant in my family. Years of silence about my abuse (PTSD), and years of living in the throes of my addiction, not to mention the effects of medication I take for another illness, and relocating three times in six years, have only served to escalate the severity of my depression. I'm thankful today that I have had the opportunity to address this with medication, professional treatment and today -- a positive attitude.

I feel very blessed.

If ain't one thing, it's another ...

... as the hillbillies used to say back home.

My food is so completely out of control. I am powerless over my compulsive eating right now. I know, know, know I am not powerless over my choices, but I am really in a bad place when it comes to food.

I had begun attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings more than a year ago. I even had a sponsor for a short while. However, when my sex addiction issues started going haywire, I had to focus on the disease that was killing me the fastest.

There is no doubt in my mind that I am very slowly killing myself with food. For the past 48 hours, I have eaten nothing but sugar, fat, carbs, milk products. It's just gross to even think of all that has gone into my poor body. And this is simply a continuation of behavior that I've been engaged in for months with sugar and carbs. Right now I am powerless over $1 item menus in fast food drive thrus.

I went to an Al-Anon meeting today at which a woman shared whatever our "substance" we turn to for comfort becomes our Higher Power. That must surely mean that God is nowhere to be found in my life, because he's being gobbled up in junk.

I know the message is that I have to get back into OA, start working the steps with a sponsor and really commit to getting truly sober in SLAA and abstinent in OA. I'll be perfectly honest, I'm scared shitless if I start to work my OA program, my sex addiction issues will rise again and I'll feel out of control in that area of my life.

I know that there is a power greater than me who can restore me to sanity, and I stand at the turning point, am I willing to turn my will and my WHOLE life over to God as I understand God. All I can say today, is God please help me find the courage and willingness to do what it takes to regain my sanity.

Accepting my own beauty

Yesterday I spent five hours with a hairstylist, getting my hair cut, colored, and for the first time ever, highlighted. It looks really cute and because I did it at the local beauty school, it took a little longer, but the price was SO good.

I really like the cut and the new look. I feel younger, lighter and more attractive.

It is not surprising that one of my struggles in feeling this way is that I want validation from someone else of my beauty. I also want to "give it away." I mean after all, what's the point in being beautiful if it can't be used to lure a man into bed?

Today, thanks to the strength and love of my Higher Power, I chose to come here and to write rather than to take the opportunity to meet someone for coffee and use my beauty to try to seduce them. I accept my beauty for myself, as a gift to me. I release my need for anyone other than me to acknowledge my beauty. I'd be a liar if I said that was easy. But in shifting my focus on to what I can learn from this experience -- I learn the gift of self-awareness, I build self-esteem and I remind myself that because I have the disease of addictions it is only natural to have temptations, but it is what I do with this temptations that truly matters.

I chose today to be a productive day -- to get the most out of every minute. I have EMDR therapy today, and if I chose to meet someone before or after, I release a big part of my ability to be present and productive in that session. This therapy as painful as it is, is tremendously effective in helping me work through my past, and focus on the truth of what exists today. I want to make the most out of every session and I cannot do that if I give my beauty away. I am choosing to keep it.

And this afternoon when I'm all sweaty after planting the beautiful flowers and vegetables that my husband and I bought together for our yard ... I'll relish in the beauty of the garden and all it will produce, and in the beauty that still exists in me because I can make a choice not to act out, not to give in to those very natural temptations, that are so cunning, baffling and powerful they make me think they are good for me.

Just for today I embrace my inner beauty and the pleasure of my new hairdo. I smile because I feel good inside and because I made a conscious decision today not to give that inner smile away for the cost of an empty,fleeting acknowledgement that I'd never believe anyway.

Do I have the willingness to be happy?

My life has been going so good that it hurts. A newfound intimacy and committment to honesty with my husband, uncovering painful but useful parts of myself, building new and close relationships with women for the first time in my life, even having the willingness to get honest in ways I've never been honest before.

Today I want to act out, to fall deep into a relationship that I can get lost in. Find an extramarital partner who I can make my Higher Power, so that I don't have to build and intimate relationship with a true power greater than myself, or get close to the REAL people in my life. I want to do this because yesterday I acted out.
After months of physical sobriety, but still playing too close to the fire for too long ... testing myself and God ... I let it sneak up on me. Today I feel disgusted and ashamed with myself. And I have to realize that something about this horrible feeling works for me. Perhaps it is that it propels me further into my disease ... that giving a quick hand job in a parking lot leads me to be obsessed with the need for more, more, more.

I'm so sick of writing about relapses. But apparently not sick enough. I'm so angry that I was so stupid to let this happen, to skip meetings and isolate ... to cut myself off from what I needed to stay sober just long enough to be drawn back in.

I can't change yesterday, and I'm having a hard time changing today, even though I did ignore two messages from people I could have engaged with. Those two messages tell me that I'm putting the energy out there. I'm ready to scream. The quick hits don't get it anymore, but they can set off a shit storm of hurt.

I knew there was a chance for this. I came so close to acting out just a couple of weeks ago. I just didn't take it seriously enough. I got too cocky (pardon the pun). I literally despise myself right now and that makes it all the more enticing to go out and find someone to "love" me.

Thankfully my niece is coming tomorrow and will be here through Monday. I hate it that my withdrawal will interfere with my chance to be close and open with her.

Am I really even willing to accept the real love that is around me? Am I willing to be happy? I thought that's what I was working for? Why do I keep fucking it up so royally?

I'm just writing because it's the only thing I know to do. And I'm crying ... because I don't know if I'll ever be better. If it will just be a few months of getting better only to have another painful slip. How can I forget all the things I've learned? How can I forget how many people hurt?

Thankfully my friend EC was there to listen and not yell and to remind me that I have made progress ... just refraining all these months. But now I may act out for a few months. Who knows?

Someone shared recently that they couldn't take another relapse because they weren't sure they could come back. Coming back to recovery is the only thing I keep doing right. Everything else I keep really, really screwing up.

Handling my feelings

RECOVERY MEDITATIONS
One Day at a Time
April 9, 2008

~ FEELINGS ~

:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:

Few are those who see with their own
eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Albert Einstein

:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:. .:~*~:
Before working the Twelve Step program,
one reason I used to overeat was that I
couldn't manage my feelings. My feelings
were overwhelming and incapacitating to
me. I would also overreact to feelings
and this would make them truly more than
I could handle. So I would then overeat
to make the feelings stop. I would stuff
myself, to stuff them down!

In working the Twelve Step program, I
got a chance to work through past hurts
and resentments that intensified my
feelings. I learned to feel my feelings,
just as they are, and how to stop
overreacting to them. I learned to sort
through messages my family gave me about
feelings, that it's not okay to have or
feel or express them. I learned to
decide what is true for me, today, about
feelings. I also worked through my
codependency issues and learned how to
communicate feelings in an appropriate,
effective and loving way.

Now feelings are a part of my life and
not something overwhelming and
incapacitating. In fact, they have
become something beautiful that enrich
my life and give it color and texture
and even pleasure.

ONE DAY AT A TIME . . .

I honor the blessing of having my
feelings returned to me. I enjoy them,
and I respect my feelings and those of
others. I thank my Higher Power for this
wonderful gift.


This daily meditation from an online recovery group spoke to me. The AA Big Book says "Alcohol was but a symptom." Whether it's food or sex and love, the truths of my addiction are parallel. And if I replace "eat" with "intrigue" in this meditation ... the same sentiments still apply. The most prevalent thought here to me is I don't know how to manage my feelings. They baffle me and confuse me.

I used to think it was ridiculous when people said this -- What do you mean you don't know how to manage your feelings ... just deal with it! But the longer I live, the more I realize how little I understand and know.

I've had so many feelings and emotions come up in my latest round of therapy and I have no idea what to do with them. It's not like they are things I can just sit on a shelf and look at and decorate with. They are things that feel foreign and all I can think to do is run away from them. Whether it is by eating or intriguing or simply letting them overwhelm me to the point that I feel completely isolated and beaten -- I am not handling them, not really even accepting them as part of me. All of this IS an overreaction. I don't need to have sex with some stranger or eat three candy bars in order to deal with the emotions that come up. What good would that do, for goodness sake!?! I have felt myself numb out this week, using peripheral acting out behaviors to fill the void where feelings would usually reside.

The 12 Steps are a simple program for complex people ... people like me who can overreact and exaggerate and act out over the smallest of things -- but can't see the simple truth that feelings cannot kill me, they are not the big bad wolf, they are just a part of the human experience. It is my actions and inaction that can get me.

As an aside, my sister called over the weekend to tell me that the doctors had found a spot on my stepdad's lung that could possibly be cancer. As usual, she gave the most dramatic version of the story, which had him likely living on a respirator for whatever life he has left. I chose not to engage and wait to respond until the doctors have made the follow up review of the spot some time next week. I am thankful that I have learned a few things along the way. I acknowledged my sister's anxiety and worry and told her I was sorry she was hurting. And I let it go at that. A short time ago in my recovery, I would have started to have panic attacks about needing to resolve the issues of my abuse before my stepfather kicks the bucket. Today -- I know that either dead or alive, his demons are his and mine are mine. Neither of us can take on the other's stuff.

I'm grateful to be alive today.

Thy will, not mine

God, I feel myself spiraling downward, sometimes at an incredibly fast pace, to a place where a silent, sane part of me sits in a corner and watches my mind and body become overtaken with the actions and obessions of my disease.

Something inside me is so afraid, it is craving what I now know it believes is that safe place of total acceptance in my sexuality. When my counselor talks about going to "a safe place inside my head" as I try to process the feelings that come up as a result of EMDR ... she means I should breathe into images of that quiet morning sitting on a bench watching the ocean and the tide and hearing the birds. But that is not the safe place my mind is taking me.

Every day it feels like a miracle that I didn't act out. If I make it through today without acting out it will be another miracle. I am in such a place of surrendering to my disease.

I prayed this morning saying "I'm trying to feel the feelings," and the response thought was, "Are you really trying?" OK, so let's try, "I want to feel the feelings," to which the response thought is, "You have to really try then, like a sportsman training for a race, you have to push yourself and not give in to the temptations to quit."

I pray for the willingness today to try. That feels like the best I can do.

False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR)

Over the past month, at the advice and direction of my counselor, I have began undergoing EMDR therapy to help treat my PTSD. The most accurate way I've heard EMDR described thus far is "talk therapy on steroids." It is certainly stirring up the shit that has been eating me alive underneath for a long time. To say it is unsettling is an understatement. To know there are underlying feelings that I've been avoiding is one thing, to begin to feel them all at once is a whole other ballgame. But I'm not complaining -- I'm ready to begin to live with some level of freedom. I have struggled and fought against myself for so, so long. I'm willing to walk through whatever this therapy brings to the surface in order to feel it and recognize that past trauma is over with, so I can live fully present in today.

One of the most surprising realities that has surfaced as a result of the EMDR is the fact that I felt some sense of safety when I was being molested by my stepfather. In the "outside world," where we weren't hiding everything from the rest of the family, he was constantly yelling at me, telling me how I could do nothing right, hitting me, all causing me to feel afraid and so very small. But, during the acts of molestation, all I had to do was show up, endure, get it over with and I never had to face any of his chaotic berating or anger. From the time I was three until I was 13, that was the only time I felt safe around him, otherwise I felt worthless and like I was in the way. I carried that definition of safety with me into adulthood, and into the secrecy of my acting out in this addiction. While I might never feel I could do anything right in the eyes of the world, while I might not be good enough, pretty enough, or smart enough ... there was one thing I could do that was right ... do what Daddy taught me. I'm ready to put an end to this lie at all levels of my psyche. I have violated myself in ways my stepfather could never have thought of, and put myself in more dangerous situations than anyone ever would consider "safe." I am tired of being used by men who have a skewed view of acceptance and of using my sacred sexual self to gain a false sense of acceptance, safety and control. I am ready to accept myself as an imperfect human being, who doesn't have to control the world around her in order to live.

One day at a time, I am getting better. I could never have tackled it any other way. It was simply too much. It still is and always will be. I thank God for these 24 hours and the opportunities that lay within.

A letter to God

Dear God,

Thank you for today, whatever it may bring. As is the case every day, I need your help. Today I need your help because I don't know what to do. I have lived so long - even when I wasn't physically acting out - waking up, thinking about one person or another, checking e-mail and messages for what might be there, just hoping for a little something. But thanks to your grace, I no longer feel compelled to do those things. I feel freed from the obsessions and I am so thankful.

Today I feel the vast emptiness of that hole my addiction was seeking to fill. I see myself in the bottom of that pit, looking up and out, feeling the wind and the rain, and feeling alone, and uncertain of what to do. I know that there is something more, another step, but maybe that's not today. Maybe what you are asking is for me to just sit here, faithful, and breathe in my presence in the quietness of my mind. I have heard before that doing nothing is doing something.

I guess that it is just different than I expected (there's a red flag word -- expected). I thought once I was no longer acting out, that the obsessions had been lifted, that I would be living fully engaged in my life -- full of energy and presence. But that is not today. Help me to recognize, Lord, that this disease and my absorption in it, has been a terrorizing trauma. I need to be gentle and let your healing powers work in me. Help me to feel that it is OK to be still and to still have a little trouble moving quickly or making decisions. It's just for today. I can deal with tomorrow as it comes. Give me the knowledge of your will, Lord, and the strength and courage to carry that out.

In your name I pray,

Amen

Adjusting to the feelings

I find myself feeling something that reminds me of the way it felt to begin to walk again after my leg was crushed in a car accident in the early 90s. For weeks, I walked with a "boot" and then one day the doctor put a little brace around my ankle and told me to get up and walk. I was terrified and uncertain that I would be able to take those first steps. I took them, but with great trepidation.

I sometimes visualize the feelings I am having by seeing myself standing sideways on a road, looking back to where I had come from and a bit uncertain of what to do next. Clearly there is a road in front of me, but I am just standing, still shell shocked from the experiences of what has passed.

My sex and love addiction has been terrorizing. It has stolen my feelings, my values, my friends, my sense of self, I could go on and on. Living through it has been like living through a tornado, pieces of my life strewn about and hardly anything recognizeable left behind.

I "let go" last week of someone who has served as a "stash" for my disease as a relationship ended that kept my toe or maybe my whole foot in my addiction. When I did I felt the earth move, my soul shake and I knew for the first time in years I was honestly sober -- not just in word, but completely. It has been difficult to let go completely.

Yesterday I took my husband to work and as I drove away it felt odd not to have a "secret partner" to think about, no one to consider calling just to talk, to simply drive home, present as myself. I had the same feeling as I left this morning to pick up a prescription. Also yesterday, I had a new reader to the blog who wrote me an e-mail, and then responded to my response and so on ... until I told him "I have to be honest and say that there are a number of men who have found my blog and engaged me in conversation for the purpose of acting out. ... I hope that is not your purpose and I apologize in advance for even having to say that if it is, I am not willing to engage. I am working on my recovery." I didn't hear a word from him after that e-mail ... so either I offended him, or I caught him red-handed. To be completely honest, there was a part of me that simply wanted to continue the e-mails, to draw him in, to get a hit, to start something new with someone new. I was flattered that he had spent almost four hours reading my blog, and was intrigued by the fact that he was within driving distance away. But the bigger part of me knew I had to take care of myself. I feel better that I did. Each "pass" builds strength and helps me reach my goals.

As an aside, it's interesting when I look at my stats to see how people find my blog. Though few people stay long enough to read, they find me by doing Google searches like "Husband, orgasm", "my beautiful body", "confession sex with stepfather", "confession secret sex with dog", "I have sexual feelings for my father" and "divine rae." Divine huh? Divine intervention maybe.

Breathing deeply inward

There has been a monumental shift inside me. I am sorting it all out, trying to sit with it, soak it in and not escape it. Prayers have been answered, things have clicked. I can feel it. I can't describe it, nor am I trying to "overreact" to it. No one is ever "cured," in my opinion of the disease of addiction. However, as it has manifested itself in me, Sex and Love Addiction seems to have surrendered to the will of my Higher Power. For the first time in years, I feel as if that ever present threat and ever present fear have been lifted. Yes, occassionally, I'll see remnants of it, but nothing a little "This too shall pass" or a "God, this one is yours," prayer doesn't help.

But that's not even the most monumental part. I feel. I feel pain, sadness, loneliness, nervousness, excitement, frustration, hope and more.

AND

I know that pride and ego cometh before the fall, so again I am very cautious to recognize this all as a gigantic, perfect gift from God, and to recognize that the solution still rests in living life ONE DAY AT A TIME. I am thankful for these days of reprieve, for this glimpse into the world of sanity and feeling, for the sobbing tears that have flowed, for the understanding that has settled in, for the desire to absorb my recovery literature and talk with other addicts and to do service ... all to hold on to these moments.

Not long ago, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I kept coming across readings that alluded to the fact that too often we are not thankful enough for our sobriety. They struck me and resonated with me. Had I focused on my slips, on my temptations, on the little thoughts that slipped inside my head a couple of times a day? Or had I focused on the miracle that today was a sober day, thank you, God? In a recent telemeeting someone shared about how his therapist had picked up a blank sheet of paper and put one little black dot in the middle. He asked the patient, "What do you see?" The guy said, "A little black dot." The therapist said ... "What about everything around that dot, all this white space?" Clearly the message was, there is more to life than the things we focus on and I do have a choose on where I choose to put my focus. And today I choose to focus my attention on gratitude for my Higher Power, and everyone who has been a part of my recovery -- both in and out of progam -- who serve as angels who have brought me to this place of sobriety.

Living one day at a time, in gratitude.

Out of sorts

I'm having a tough day today. I can't concentrate on work, despite the fact that I really have some serious deadlines I have to meet. It's snowing outside like crazy and my husband took the car so I can't really go somewhere very easily. This all is stemming from the pressures of working again when my mind won't let me concentrate, feeling like I will never "fit in" in a workplace again, and on top of all of this worrying about how to handle paying off a significant debt I generated during my affair with R.

I am thankful to have rediscovered my conscience, realizing that I don't feel right about "sneaking" money from my current earnings to pay on the debt, but I also don't want to hurt my husband by telling him the whole truth about the debt either. Anyway, it's another opportunity to grow and I'm doing my best to be thankful, but it's through some major gritted teeth. It's bringing up a lot of shame, guilt and pain ... and in fact, extreme anger at myself for being so fucking wrapped up in my disease with R. back then that not only could I not be there for my husband when his mother died, but also giving him oodles of money that he will NEVER pay back, all so he could marry someone else and ruin her financial future. Thank God I didn't ruin mine.

I can't imagine that I gave him the money to help him get into an apartment that he stayed in ONE FUCKING NIGHT. The rest of the time, he stayed with her until he married her two months after I left. After terrorizing me, threatening me that he was going to expose me to my husband, scaring the shit out of me over and over saying he was going to kill himself. God I was so stupid.

All this is in the past and I know I'm hysterical now because I don't know what to do and I am afraid. I have prayed and tried to turn this over ... but I keep getting in my own way. I need to be present and know that God will take care of me.

A weight lifted

About four years ago, maybe three, I wrote a letter to my stepfather asking him to tell me why he had sexually abused me for 10 years of my life. I told him that I was suffering through depression and absolute hell because of what I went through. He wrote back and said that he was very sick during that period of time, to please let him die in peace (not tell family -- i.e. please continue the lie), God had forgiven him he hoped that I could too. Not long after that, I made the decision to cut contact with him in order to "take care of myself." During these period of years, I have seen him at a few family occassions and talked to him now and then, but overall the contact has been minimal. Still, I have lived with this underlying guilt and frustration that cutting contact with him made me feel even further abnormal than I already was, and that I was a bad daughter and I was causing friction in the family. (All of these were feelings I had, by the way, about my abuse. That I had to lie about it in order not to cause discord and separation in my family, that I was always the "bad" daughter who held a secret that could hurt my family so badly.) I have always felt "less than" to the point that I think sometimes I should have worn (and sometimes still should put it on) a t-shirt with a big < on it. Now having a father (he raised me from 9 months) who was alive, but dying, who I didn't talk to and had not resolved past issues with just compounded my feelings about myself in the family and in the world around me.

Fast forward to Tuesday night when the leader of the Al-Anon meeting I attend read from Courage to Change, March 15 -- a passage which says forgiveness is not something to be used for power or as a weapon, forgiveness is something that allows me to see that I am on equal footing with all children of God. "We all do good and noble things at times; on other occassions we may offend. I have no right to judge punish or absolve anyone. When I behave self-righteously, I'm the one who suffers -- I separate myself from my fellow human beings, focus on others, and keep busy with hateful and negative thoughts. By taking this attitude, I tell myself that I am a victim, and I remain a victim. The most forgiving thing I can do is to remember that my job is not to judge others, but to think and behave in a way that makes me feel good." In the thought for today it goes on to say, "I don't know the motives or circumstances that cause another's behavior, I do know that when I hold on to resentments and blame, I occupy my spirit with bitterness. I will find a more nurturing way to fill myself up."

This reading hit me so completely, lifting the burden of forgiveness off my shoulders. Forgiveness really only means acceptance of my stepfather as a human being, a child of God, who was also a sex addict (with the mental disease of pedophilia), whose behavior, motives I don't know. And it's not mine to know. He has a Higher Power who is ultimately the one who offers true forgiveness. I don't have to carry around that burden any longer. Leave it to God. Wow, what a relief. In working my fourth step, I have learned that as long as I hold on to the resentment -- blaming him for my disease and overall dysfunction -- I separate myself from my own Higher Power and for my own accountability. Certainly there are those who would say... "You have every right to blame him." Yes, I have every right, but blaming him for my life today, only keeps me stuck in the past, and I want so desparately to move forward.

Does that mean that I renew the relationship with my stepfather? I don't know. But I feel some release in my heart, hopefully enough to let go of him, give him to his Higher Power, and focus all that energy that has consumed me in my resentments and worry and hurt and anger, on the soul that still has a chance to live, free of ties to the disease of yet another addict.

The truth

I talk a lot about recovery and searching for wholeness and all that on this blog ... and that is honestly what I am reaching out for. But I need to say something honestly and get it out of me.

I think if I were not married I'd fuck every man I could and have one hell of a time doing it. I would hopefully be less inclined to married men than I have been in the past -- in my addiction I can believe that we are "just helping each other out." But without a husband and as many social "expectations" to live up to, I could see myself moving to a town where I knew no one, where I didn't care what others thought of me and just have one hell of a time. All of this because I constantly feel that I am fighting against my addict -- that part of me that just wants to go out and be wild and free. I feel conflicted in my acting out because I am married, because I could be found out, because I could hurt my husband who I love.

I know intellectually that I would feel just as empty using men and being used in that way as I do now, that the conflicts and the feeling used would be no less ... but every now and then this thought goes through my mind. The magical thinking lets me imagine that "At least there wouldn't be so much inner turmoil."

These thoughts make me worry, Do I stay married just to prevent myself from going hog-ass wild? In some ways, I think that's the reason I got married. I had started to do just what I had described above. I was becoming very promiscuous before I met the man who would become my husband. And then there he was he was so stable, so secure, so safe, so interested, so unaware.

Anyway ... I said it, my piece of truth. In some ways I want to take it back, erase it all and hide it. I fear judgment and anger over what I've said. But I'm only as sick as my secrets. Moving past this secret to a point where I love myself more than this, where I can find joy in some freedom other than this ... that is what I want. I do want the internal turmoil to stop. I hate fighting with myself 24/7. It's depressing, it's frustrating and it's tiresome. It's why I have to surrender one day at a time.

Today is not the day

Today I made it to an afternoon online meeting for SLAA and had the unique occassion to reach out to a woman who was going through a rough time. Our childhoods were similar as were some of the deep rooted beliefs about our damaged selves. I had never talked to this woman from half a world away before. She told me she struggled with the notion that she would never be able to have a love relationship because she was "damaged." She could at least accept that maybe she was wrong and that miracles do happen. I know myself that there are plenty of things I thought would never happen in my life that have and that I really can't predict the future. But I was able to share with her something that is ringing in my ears tonight. I reminded her that ours is a program of living one day at a time, being in the present. I encouraged her (this is a bit of a paraphrase) that instead of spending her day thinking "I'm never going to find a man," to say to herself, "Today is not the day for me to share my life with someone else. Today is my day to work on connecting to the part of me that was lost."

I firmly believe that the one reason that the 12 step programs work is because in helping others we are able to help ourselves. I believe that God gives us the opportunity to help someone else so that we can say the words we needed to hear. I had no real reason to go to that online meeting this afternoon. I wasn't Jonesing for a fix, in fact I probably went because I had some step work to do for a meeting with my sponsor tomorrow and I haven't finished it. Procrastination in any form is better than no procrastination at all. But my point is ... there are no coincidences. I needed to hear those somewhat unspoken words that came with me saying to this woman "Today is not the day ..." What I heard back for me ... focus on today, today is not the day when everything is going to happen, but today is the day when something is going to happen, be here.

One of the best gifts God has given me recently is my new dog. She's a great companion. I've had to learn to pay attention to her, to read her body language, to figure out what her barks and howls mean. And she keeps me in better shape -- I walk with her two to four times a day and when I sit at the computer for too long she comes and starts nudging my elbow and whining and howling a bit to let me know she needs something.

Today is not the day for everything to be right in the world. It's not the day for me to get a new job. It's not the day for me to do get everything done that I need to do. But it is the day for me to cook a nice supper for my husband, for me to not get angry because he's already an hour later than I had hoped, for me to take care of my dog, and for me to help someone else, so that I could help myself.

Today is also a day for me to feel some changes stirring inside me. I'm not going to project what they are, because I can't predict the future. But I will say that where there was no hope just a few weeks back, I am beginning to feel that there is hope that I will get my life back, that I am getting my life back, that I am living my life in its present form ... one day at a time.

To all my blogger buddies out there ... I am still having computer issues and haven't had the chance to read like I would like to lately. Also, the new antidepressant I'm taking has me both focusing better and not focusing as well ... Don't ask me what that means, but it does mean that I'm not getting to the blogs I like to read and the lives and recovery partners I like to keep up with. But I'll be back to visit. I hope you are all well.

Connecting to my feelings about food

Yesterday in my appointment with my therapist she asked me what I envisioned when I thought of when I connected to the part of me that wanted to be healthy and fit. I told her that I get so frustrated because what I really want is to just be "normal." She sort of poo-pooed that away, saying ... "Forget that, no one is normal. All women have body image issues of some sort." I was angry at her for her flippancy. So I stopped for a minute and then said, "What I am telling you is that inside my head, I have the idea that there are people out there who don't have to constantly think about what they are going to eat, when they are going to eat it, they don't think about food all the time, they can shop in any store they want." For me, normal means I don't have to battle with food and exercise issues every day of my life. I can work out every day and love it -- I don't have to worry about what people think about me when I'm at the gym, or have a constant feeling of "I can't do this. I'm too out of shape." The truth is ... I am not "normal" ... I am a compulsive overeater, and I will always have struggles with using food as something other than nutrition. I doesn't mean that I have to let it run my life, but I have to give up that pipe dream that I'm going to be "normal." And honestly, she's probably right, there are few people out there who really can just say they have NO food issues.

One of the reasons I chose "kindness" as my secondary "focus" word for the year, was because I am trying to learn to be kind to myself, including to my body. While kindness to others (when I pay attention to them) comes pretty easy for me, kindness to myself is so much more difficult. I am really hard on myself and that is something I want to work on. But I am also continuing to realize -- peeling the proverbial onion -- how little I have seen my own responsibility for myself. For all of my life I have sort of seen things as "take what you get." Whether it was my health or my happiness, even though I worked hard, I always sort of just lived life without much discipline or thought, never recognizing that part of being "lucky" in life was doing some work to prevent disease and unhappiness.

A friend sent me this in one of our New Year's exchanges. It was something she read elsewhere: If you (1) want to change, (2) decide to change, (3) learn how to change, (4) take action to change, (5) persist in your attempt to change, and (6) start again when you backslide, there's a very good chance that you will change in the ways you want.

After Christmas check in

I've been welcoming a new dog into my family and my computer is on the blink ... so I haven't had much chance to write. But I wanted to check in and say ...I know why I keep coming back to recovery, why I keep working to learn about myself and learn how to deal with my feelings. It is because every now and then, I can see the light of day, I can feel hope and I know that it is only because I keep coming back.

The most recent example of hope I've found is in realizing that even though I've been at this for a long time, my journey toward recovery has only just began. One of the first things I learned in recovery was that I had to replace my old addictive behaviors with new behaviors that helped me fill the God-shaped hole that I had been filling with useless and demeaning extramarital relationships. Though I took this lesson into my head, it has been one of the hardest things to actually put to practice.

When I would give up one addiction, I always wanted to go to another -- no sex? OK love, no "love"? OK food, or codependency or any number of things. But .. it seems this lesson is getting closer to reality as my relationship grows closer with my husband, enjoying being present with him and in some ways getting to know him better. And now I am finding joy in getting to know our new dog and playing with her and opening my heart to her as well. I can tell already, she is going to be a great joy in my life and also fill my life with plenty of work as well! And if any "strange" man tries to cross her path ... they are going to face one ferocious bark!

Realizations

As I sat last night with my two recovery friends, talking and working together on an art project, it was telling them of how very horrible I have felt (emotionally) over the past few weeks that made me realize I have to seek professional help for mental disease. I've never tried to deny my addictions, my codependency, my PTSD. But at some level I have always taken the diseases of my mind lighter and more manageable than the idea that I have a very serious problem that without treatment could steal my life forever.

I've never been one to run to medication or doctors to fix my problems. For the most part I mistrust the medical field. But doctors certainly are more trained to assess and treat mental illness than I am.

God helped me to see the severity of my brokeness through my friends last night. Jumbled around in the isolated confines of my mind, I could only feel hopeless. Brought to the light of day, I can feel hope.

I went to get my blood work done this morning that will allow me to increase my dosage of Effexor. At the same time blood was drawn to test for HIV/AIDS and for sugar and cholesterol issues. I followed that up with an Al-Anon meeting, lunch with my husband and then a call about a prospective job in a new field.

Now I'm going to take a nap and rest.

A hurtful story

I dragged myself to my therapy appointment this morning, kicking and screaming. I tried to do everything I could to put it off. I don't think that it was just the therapy appointment ... it was just that feeling of isolation that made me not want to show up for life, much less the appointment today. But despite my best efforts, I went and I shared. I told her how horrible the past couple of days have been inside my head and how frustrating it is to want to curl up in a ball one minute and then excited about decorating my house for Christmas the next.

After I posted here yesterday, I went through the painful process of getting myself out of the house and to the store to buy the final part of my husband's anniversary gift. When I got to the store I found all the Christmas stuff on sale half off and started buying up stuff to decorate my house for our guests next week. These are the same guests that honestly I don't want to entertain at Christmas. But ... I will and I will do it graciously.

So, my therapist asked me a bunch of hard questions this morning, things I didn't want to answer and things I feel inept to answer about what it is that is holding me back, causing me to sabotage myself again and again. I don't know the answer. I don't connect to the emotions I am trying to avoid. It's hard to even find them. But then she started asking me about trauma and traumatic experiences. I repeated the story of how at age three my stepfather called me into the bathroom and asked me to touch his penis. That same year or maybe the next he locked me in the family's underground cellar and told me I was going to have to sleep there all night because I had been bad. He walked around outside making noises like a panther or an angry lion to terrorize me. My future sexual abuse all seemed pretty "routine" ... I don't really connect to the trauma, except for one incident. It is horrible to relive and when I told the story today I thought to myself, "I don't want to have to tell this story to another therapist ever again."

I told the therapist that I always knew when the molestation was coming. I never had to guess. I felt it coming. It was no different that day when I was 8 or 9 years old, my stepfather was doing some plumbing work underneath the house (there was no basement). He asked me to crawl under the house with him to help him. I knew immediately that was not what he had in mind. He told me that he was going to teach me something new. He then began to stroke himself and told me that when he told me to to put my mouth over him. He said some stuff was going to come out and that I was not to spit it out. He wanted me to learn how to swallow it. I remember being terrified of the whole thing, but followed what I was told. When he came in my mouth, the taste was bitter and I couldn't hold it. I spit it on the ground almost involuntarily. He told me, "I told you not to spit it out." He said it sort of angrily, but not with the same voice that I was usually spoken to "in the light of day." He didn't beat me or hurt me. I just felt his disappointment in me and I felt like such a failure.

I often wonder if the men I act out with knew what fuels my enthusiasm for giving oral sex ... would they still be willing to enjoy it as much?

No matter what was done to me, it does not give me the right to use other people, and other people's husbands to fix my stepfather's mistakes. I continue to build the shame and guilt.

How stubborn?

I've been thinking for some time of writing a letter to God. It would start something like, "Dear Lord, my life is an absolute mess. I have no idea who I am or how I got here, all I know is it sure doesn't feel like the me I want to be or even the me I know. I don't feel like I can go on like this ..." It's when I get to this point that I start that old familiar mantra, "I know, I know, I HAVE to turn my will and my life over to God. I have to give in to God's will for my life and be sober enough to listen for it." And the old Southern gospel hymn of my childhood begins playing in my head, "I surrender all ... I surrender all, all to you my precious Savior, I surrender all."

But then that little voice .. the scared one, the one that thinks it can fix anything ... the one that just will not give up, kicks in and says "Yes, but ... " and "What about?"

The "what about" today is a man I've had an ongoing relationship with since summer. He was the one holdout in that series of five letters I wrote a few weeks ago saying, "I'm done for good, I'm focused on my marriage." He is the one I left the door open to and the one who walked back through it last week. As Gomer Pyle says, "Sooprize, Sooprize, Sooprize."

If anyone wants to believe that addiction, sex and love addiction is not a disease of the mind, tell me this: what good is a limp-dicked (literally) man, who can only describe love as "the L word" and has far more attraction to transgendered men than to women themselves to a female sex & love addict 16 years his junior? Yet, somehow, for this person and my obessive thoughts about how I can make him love me enough, I can't give up my stubborn will. Insane much??

So, I prayed this morning for the willingness to be willing to turn my life over, shed a few tears and prepared for a job interview I have later today.