God granted me some serenity

I have been struggling lately with feeling irritable, controlling, and just not very serene. That has shown up in my life in a desire to want to "save other people," including a couple of sponsees who are going through some rough times. Now, intellectually I know very well that I can't save anyone's ass but my own, and I have to depend upon Higher Power to do that. So, I've known all along that Higher Power was trying to teach me something and I was just waiting for the lesson to be revealed -- driving a few people bonkers in the meantime, not the least of which was myself.

As I was walking this morning, I prayed the Prayer of St. Francis -- asking to be used as an instrument of my Higher Power -- and the Serenity Prayer -- as I was going over the Serenity Prayer in my head ... I had an epiphany -- I cannot change my sponsees, their behavior, the outcome of their behaviors, their thoughts, committment to recovery -- NOTHING. The worrying I do is fruitless. Higher Power has a plan and I can accept it and embrace it. If Higher Power chooses and finds it fitting I will be used as an instrument of peace and understanding in these women's lives. I just have to show up and work with them through the steps, and get out of Higher Power's way. That's all.

So, as I began to give thanks for that revelation and other blessings in my life, I began to recognize the presence of gratitude in my life is a form of a power greater than myself. Living in gratitude, expressing fervent and sincere gratitude -- these things lift me up, elevate my mood, give me a new outlook on life, empower me, cause me to walk tall (or as tall as I can at 5'1) and with a smile on my face. That is a great power with which I have to face the day!

Prayers for all on the coast

My fervent prayers go up today for all the men, women and families whose lives are being turned upside down today in light of the threats posed by the fast-moving Hurricane Gustav.

A special prayer for my friend, EC and his family, as they make their way northward and out of harm's way.

God, please bless them all.

It's 4 p.m. ...

... and I haven't been out of the house all day.

But guess what? I am happy about that. It's the first time since I went into the treatment center that I've allowed myself to really just take a quiet day at home. Catch up on e-mails, read a few blogs (still a long way to go on that one), and take a long nap.

There's a huge difference in choosing to waste an entire day doing close to nothing HUGELY productive and feeling as if there is no choice at all.

Do I wish I had accomplished a bit more today? Sure. It's great to get things done and my hair needs cut in the worst way. I also have some work to do for a class tomorrow. But it can all wait for me to have this day ... where I'm still in the same t-shirt I slept in and about to watch something good on television.

Playing catch up

It seems as if it has been ages since I posted here. In actuality it's only been 15 days, but hey ... that's half a month.

I guess you could say I have just been trying to settle into my new life, filled with new coping skills, starting back to school in hopes of pursuing a new career, and learning what it is like to live life without a constant sense of frustration.

I still struggle at times with unscheduled time ... not knowing exactly what to do with myself, or not being able to keep my focus on the priorities. At the same time, it feels like I am staying very busy.

I have been blessed to go to two SLAA meetings in two days this week and I'm feeling good about that. I even exchanged phone numbers with a fellow female sex addict tonight and even put her phone number in my cell phone. That's progress.

My husband's out of town til tomorrow and I'm thankful that I was far more interested in going to meetings than even letting ideas form in my mind that I might "take advantage" of that opportunity to act out.

Also, one other new thing that's going on is that I've started seeing a therapist who specializes in sex addiction. I can tell she's going to push a few buttons and maybe help me to see just how far my comfort zone will stretch. But I'm keeping an open mind. I'm accustomed to teaching my therapists about sex addiction. Now I get the impression that I may learn a few things.

I'm sure there is a lot I haven't covered ... but I wanted to at least post a brief update regarding what is going on in my world. I'm hoping to get caught up on blog reading soon as well.

Grieving the loss of a past self

I wrote to one of my SLAA friends today:

One HUGE thing I am realizing is that I have to grieve the loss of my former self, and accept who I am today. The old Rae was a successful (professional), respected in her community and by her peers, constantly engaged with others, always full of energy and ideas, at the top of her game. The new me is not all that, in fact she bears little resemblance to that -- but I am alive, I have plenty to offer to others in clear, quiet tones, I am fully focused on awareness of myself, equipped with tools that I never dreamed of having, and have people in my life who I love and care for deeply. I must grieve the loss of that past person and embrace the person I am today ... otherwise I will never be happy, never be free from living in the past. Acceptance of who I am now is the answer. There is a lot of me I've never discovered because I was going at lightning speed, never slowing down, and never realizing that I was living life barely on the surface of my potential.

It's interesting as I read that again, that I realize that there is still a lot of that former Rae in me, I simply have a different set of peers.

I "graduate" tomorrow from the outpatient treatment program for depression. I have been a patient for four weeks and have learned a great deal about myself and about managing my mental health. It all supported my need to continue to work a program of recovery and develop a deepening relationship with a power greater than myself. It was interesting today as I spoke with my therapist about our "decades of life." She is in her 50s and I just turned 40 this year. (I finally feel like my chronological and emotional ages are synchronized.) I shared with her that if you had asked me in my 20s if I would have ever, ever experienced what I did in my 30's I would have likely laughed in your face. Yet, I did experience the loss of my career, full-blown sex and love addiction, the near loss of my marriage and my sanity. I am a different person today because of it all. And one day at a time, I am learning, and I'm always amazed at how much more there is to learn.

The tides

I just finished watching "Prince of Tides" for at least the 20th time. I've read the book and watched the movie and can never get enough. And whenever I need to feel, a deep, real feeling, I know I can count on this movie to connect me.

The problem is, when it is done, I feel hollowed out, empty and left on with tears and all the thoughts it brings to me.

It's a love addict's movie to some degree. I remember I was involved with someone very seriously the first time I saw it. I related so much to the line, "Before I met you, I was in a deep. deep sleep." It was true, I had been. I had never opened myself to love before that relationship and when it ended I was devastated and torn.

I remember too that I watched the movie -- or at least part of it -- with R. I couldn't bear to watch it to the end and made an excuse to get up and leave before it ended. Because even then, I knew that like Nick Nolte's character Tom, I would return to my home, to my husband, and I couldn't bear to let R. see my face and the tears that came as the movie ended and Tom drove across the bridge whispering "Lowenstein, Lowenstein."

This time as I watched the movie, I paid particular attention to the way Nolte fabulously acted the part of an abused child living as a grown adult carrying the immense burden of deep and horrifying secrets never told. "The southern way" was the way in my family too, so ingrained that the warnings never had to be whispered. I grew up, like my neighbors, my cousins, my siblings, my friends ... knowing that there are some things you simply never tell. Those things may kill you, make you want to kill yourself ... but never tell.

I was thinking this week that I am thankful to be an adult now who has the choice to tell.

A gratitude twist

We learn the magical lesson that making the most of what we have turns it into more.
--Codependent No More

Say thank you, until we mean it.

Thank God, life, and the universe for everyone and everything sent your way.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, and confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Gratitude makes things right.

Gratitude turns negative energy into positive energy. There is no situation or circumstance so small or large that it is not susceptible to gratitude's power. We can start with whom we are and what we have today, apply gratitude, then let it work its magic.

Say thank you, until you mean it. if you say it long enough, you will believe it.

Today, I will shine the transforming light of gratitude on all the circumstances of my life.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.


My therapist asked me yesterday to begin expressing gratitude for myself. What? You mean I can't thank God for the sound of the birds, the warmth of the sun, fun times with my husband? I have to be grateful for me? Oh boy? I am a firm believer in the power of gratitude. I think it is a fantastic tool of recovery and life. But this is a real twist.

Gratitude for myself is supposed to be an exercise in building self-esteem. It makes sense, but I have to admit to being a bit lost. I think if I were sharing this exercise with someone else, it might be easy for me to make suggestions about what they can be grateful for in themselves. But I'm not always so good at practicing what I preach.

Let's see:

1. I am grateful for the gift of compassion I have.
2. I am thankful for the talents God has blessed me with.
3. I am thankful for my body for carrying around my soul and for giving me a life form so that I might interact with others.
4. I am thankful for my intellect.
5. I am grateful for my perserverance.
6. I am grateful for the way I love and embrace nature and the peace that gives me.
7. I am grateful for all the changes that I have worked hard to bring to my life over the past few years.
8. I am thankful that today I realize that I am an adult who has the right of choosing what I want to do with my body and my time.
9. I am grateful for the ability to make decisions.
10. I am thankful for my open heart to others.

What do you appreciate most about yourself? Does anyone else find this difficult?

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.

A night off

It's a rare night off around home. Hubby is out of town for work and I came home just to enjoy the silence. I thought of watching television -- you know actually having control of the remote -- but it's no fun without someone to argue about the volume control. So, I thought I'd do a quick check in here.

My partial-patient treatment for depression is going well, though I have to admit that I have trouble staying there all day. I just want to get up and run out and start living at times. But I'm so tired by the time I get out, that I don't have much energy to do anything at the end of the day.

It has been good to learn more about mental disease, the psychological world's perspective of it, and the medications that are used to treat it. I've met a lot of interesting and inspiring people. I'm feeling less irritated by the idea that I am in treatment for a mental disease as I see others struggling with issues far greater or equally frustrating as mine. There are people of all ages and diagnoses, and I know that I've gained greater empathy for those people who suffer from bi-polar disorder.

It's funny the words that trigger some of us ... one woman said she became offended these days when people would jokingly say, "You're crazy," and another woman became irate when someone suggested she was a "victim." I remember years ago walking into NP's office -- she was my first therapist -- and saying "I am not a victim." I have gone through the roller coaster of living as a victim and then a survivor, and know that being a victim is a self-defeating attitude. Nonetheless, I think taking the victim's stance, rather than the survivor's stance, in my recovery has been one of my biggest issues. Using statements such as "I can't ..." rather than "I am determined," has been detrimental. But it took those I can't statements to help me to surrender to my powerlessness over my addiction.

Another thing I'm hearing a lot about is anger. We've all heard the adage that "Depression is anger turned inward." I know I have a lot of anger issues to deal with, but am not really able to identify what they are right now. Slowly it's all being revealed and I'm doing my best to understand it.

My one prayer after all of this treatment is over is that I have the willingness to move forward, to move past this point of being stuck in depression. If I don't though, I'm going to keep chugging along, working hard until my life does move from dead center. I'm not happy and I intend to do something about it.

It's OK to be OK

It's OK to be OK ... that's what my therapist at the hospital told me yesterday. That seems pretty simple, huh? But it's not a concept I've grasped very easily.

I talked to my younger sister this morning. I sometimes think I call her as punishment. She is a constant state of "not OK," and in my opinion that's the only way she knows how to live. I was thinking of how I have tried to protect her from the reality that her father was a child molester so that she could have a better life. The truth is ... she wants her life to be just as it is -- a little too dramatic to be enjoyed. What I regret more than anything is that she is raising three children to think just like she does. All that said ... I realize that she's doing the best she can with what she's got. A single mom of three, working the night shift so she can be with her kids in the daytime ... that's no easy life. She is primarily responsible for her father (my stepfather) now, as all the rest of us have pretty much abandoned him.

Sometimes I feel guilty that she is in the position she is in, but then we all make choices. I've made mine and I respect hers.

I recognized while walking the dog yesterday that when I think about some members of my family, I consider their cases hopeless. I don't think they will ever change. Like I have no real hope that my sister will ever live life differently -- even though she is living much differently than she was when she was an active drug addict. I have a nephew whose abilities were severely minimized by his parents while he was growing up -- and I have the idea that he won't likely live much better than he does now. I think of my sister's kids -- each with different fathers and a whole screwed up idea of what makes up a family -- and I just have no hope that they won't grow up with little hope for a brighter future. It caused me to ponder if I think I am hopeless too, that I'm just reaching the point of life where I was always intended to be -- wrapped up in drama, hopeless and just getting by. Many people would call it white trash.

I made a determination many years ago I was not going to live like that ... and I don't intend to. I just need to take one day at a time and look upward rather than downward and realize that we all have our own journey. The journey of my family doesn't determine my journey.

Instead, the genetic mental disorders of my mother's side of the family have me off for another day of a treatment. I'm thankful to be willing to get the help I need.

Reprieve

I am currently undergoing treatment for chronic depression in an outpatient program. IDespite what it may look like on the outside, I have struggled immensely with depression and isolation (and some major withdrawal from my relapses) over the past 18 months and these have kept me unemployed, and in a regular state of misery. When my therapist called me a couple of days ago to ask me to give the hospital a call and set up an appointment, I felt enormous sadness. I could not stop crying. For so long, I have felt desparate for someone else to acknowledge the extent of my struggles. Finally somone had, and now it was my turn to acknowledge the truth I had wanted others to validate. I was sad.

But today, I am willing and ready -- whatever treatment options are available, I am willing to explore. I prayed yesterday asking my Higher Power to guide me to a message in Answers in the Heart, and opened to a page in Sept. where the reading was about asking for help when we need it. I've not been so good at that, but yesterday I reached out to my Higher Power, and I felt an unfamiliar willingness to reach out to my husband, and to talk to others in recovery about how I was feeling. I also felt the willingness to seek the help I need from professionals who have tools, to supplement the tools of this program, to help me move forward.

Likewise, I am opening my heart to the idea that no gain comes without some level of self sacrifice and change. My depression might never have escalated thus far if I had been taking the measures necessary over the years to maintain proper health. But those things are in the past and all I can do is work on today.

Today I am grateful to be alive. Since I was born, I've had all kinds of chances to simply die. I've thought a few times I was going to die when I was no where close, and contemplated doing the deed myself in the midst of despair -- but here I am fully alive and seeking help and surrender, one day at at time.

Honest

I'm closer, more engulfed in sobriety than I ever have been. I am more aware of myself, my behaviors, what is driving my feelings. I see my life through a clearer lens, and I have a more truly intimate relationship with my husband and myself than I could have ever dreamed possible. I am more respectful of myself and more willing to try to make responsible decisions for myself, to try to practice the traditions and principles of the program in my life.

Yet, I still have a strong desire to act out lately, to slip away from indescribable feelings of discomfort and unease into the oblivion of sexual acting out.

I am accepting this today as a reminder that the disease does not go away, recovery simply helps me to manage it. I am also accepting it as a reminder that addiction is a disease -- a disease of the mind and body. It affects the way I feel inside and out. It feels differently from day to day and slight changes of mood, emotions, attitude or circumstances can cause it to flare up. But it is a disease -- not just a phase, not just a bi-product of some past life experiences.

Just for today I will live with my disease, trust my Higher Power to guide my life, work my program, and remember that without sobriety the disease is not just a part of my life, it is my life.

One day at a time, thanks to the grace of God, I am recovering.

Past and present

E. decided he would continue his efforts to weasle his way back into my life today by forwarding the e-mail he sent two weeks ago along with a note saying he had been checking his e-mail daily to see if I had responded to him. What an asshole.

I was traveling over the past week in the region where E. lives and where I spent my most active acting out days. While the trip was overall a very positive visit with friends, I have to admit that I felt more deeply than I have in a long time a sense of loss for all the time and energy that was lost to my disease.

I am thankful today to be sober, to have made a meeting tonight, and that it's bedtime and I can push the delete button and forget E. for one more day.

Anger right in the face

(Warning: This post contains information that could be triggering to sex addicts, pedophiles and incest victims.)

In EMDR yesterday I had ideations of kicking my stepfather in the face as he knelt between my legs, then kicking his shoulder until he fell backwards, then standing over him and kicking in his chest, his face and placing my heel squarely in the jaw -- all the while making it clear to him that I was NOT enjoying what he was doing to me.

For the purpose of repairing extreme emotional damage, the therapist and I were revisiting an incident in which my father was performing felatio on me in my parents' bedroom, a common location for my abuse scenarios. I don't remember how old I was, but it must have been somewhere between 10-12. I know this because I remember that my stepfather became more aggressive in what he would do to me as I got older. I'm not sure I've ever shared, but one of the reasons I got the courage to tell him to stop when I was 13 was because he had already experimented with putting his penis partially inside me. If he ever went all the way, I've blocked that out completely. However, I was scared to death that he was going to try to become completely sexual with me and I could not bear the thought.

But back to this particular incident. In the midst of his experimentation with my young, innocent body he asked me if what he was doing was feeling good. I told him without emotion the absolute truth. "No." The truth was I wasn't feeling anything. I was just laying there dissociated hoping it would all be over soon. But then he asked me a question that has terrorized me ever since. He asked, "Then why are you breathing so hard?" Oh my God, was I doing something to indicate that I liked what he was doing? Was it possible that I was enjoying it? I was beside myself with shame. Again, I blocked myself quickly from the pain of those emotions but they make me shudder even today.

Thus came yesterday's violent ideations of not only making it clear I was not enjoying myself, but putting him in a vulnerable, helpless situation and asking him, "Does that feel good?" What a miserable piece of sick shit this man was.

It is so difficult to be reliving all of this 30 years later, to be trying to reclaim innocence lost, after giving so much of my innocence away. I sobbed last night in pain. I cried earlier in the day thinking of the fifth characteristic of a sex and love addict: "We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone." I feel so empty, so incomplete, so irrevocably damaged.

My stepfather was a sex addict too. He also felt empty and incomplete when he was alone. And he used me to medicate that. I have used husbands that weren't mine. I wonder if he also thought, "As long as no one knows, no damage done." If he did, he was under the delusion of his disease, just as I have been under the delusion of mine.

I don't know what else to say. I am empty and I am praying for God's guidance and fulfillment today.

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.

I love you still

Answers in the Heart, June 15

“The last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Victor Frank

There are days in recovery when life in recovery seems like a bad play we are unable to walk out on. It would be wonderful, if after we’d bottomed out, we started recovery and made nothing but progress for the rest of our lives. Recovery, however, isn’t like that. It’s a day at a time, a step at a time, a problem at a time. We struggle sometimes with no idea of where we’re going. We discover that our brothers and sisters in recovery are fallible, just as we are. Sometimes we want to throw up our hands and say “Is this what recovery is like?”

The answer is yes and no. To modify our unrealistic expectations, change our attitudes, and work humbly on our character defects teaches us how to live life beyond powerlessness. Yes, we will sometimes run out of patience with the process of recovery. But we can never go back to how we lived before; we know too much. We can feel the feelings, yes, but despair and give up for good? Never.

If today is a difficult day, I will still be hopeful. I’ll act as if and have faith that things will get better.

---

Fifteen years ago today, I got a call from my stepfather saying my mother had had a heart attack and was not expected to live. I rushed with my sister and niece to make the two hour trip to reach her, praying for the chance to make it there, and for her to live. But during our trip, she died and there was no chance to say goodbye. My mother had been my safe haven, that source of love I never had to doubt. I thought I would die from the sadness I felt.

As today’s reading promises, every year my sadness has lessened, my acceptance and understanding has grown, and things have become better. Back then, I could never have said that my mother died so that I could have the chance to begin the healing process from my childhood sexual abuse. Back then I would never have admitted that my mother knew about that abuse and was emotionally incapable of doing anything to stop it. Back then, I simply could not have admitted that my mother was anything but perfect.

Today, because she often told me, “You have to work out your own salvation,” I am in recovery and I am able to say that in dying my mother was saved from the 25 years of abuse she herself endured from my stepfather and she allowed me to begin my own unraveling from a lifetime of lies.

I still miss you, Momma, but I am thankful that I know you in a whole new way, as you are, not as I imagined you to be. You can rest easy that I love you just the same, which gives me hope that I too can be loved, flaws and all. Thank you for the lessons you continue to share even in death.

Letting go of a lie

I've written here several times about E. He's one of the first people I did write about. He was the person I first acted out physically with in my marriage. I got an e-mail from him yesterday with the subject line "Long time." Thankfully, it had been a long time since I had reached out to him, seeking the validation of a man who only chose to hurt me, defile me, use and abuse me. I have reached the point that I am finally ready to let go of the lie that held me captive in his disease and mine.

I don't have any desire to have any attachment to E. for any reason. I am completely ready to let him go. I realized this morning that because of him I was propelled so much farther into my addiction than I might have ever gone. Shame and a desire to correct the past (please love me, don't hurt me, see the good in me, don't use me -- that's what I was hoping I could change) kept me going back to him again and again, finding the same abusive bastard, but hoping like a naive little girl that I could fix it. When I couldn't find it in him I kept searching and searching, looking for someone, anyone to fill that emptiness inside. I can be thankful that God put the obstacles of sex addiction in my life so that I could grow and overcome all the sickness that lies inside me, so that the little girl could grow up and learn that I don't need another's acceptance to be lovable.

When I met him, E. represented the acceptance and loving kindness I had always wanted from an intelligent, successful, passionate man. Over time, he also represented my stepfather's emotionally distant, conniving, abusive self. I wanted him to want to talk with me and to enjoy our conversations, to see my worth as a human being, to feel my genuine feelings for him, to enjoy my company, and return to me love and acceptance... but instead he performed vile acts on me, played dirty mind control games with me, bruised and defiled me, and then would make up lies and say he had to be somewhere when it was time to share conversation as two intelligent professionals, involved in successful pursuits of our careers. He really only wanted to use my body and feel the "high" of controlling my mind, something he was painfully good at.

In my disease, I became just like him in some ways ... I shut myself off emotionally, used men's bodies without caring anything about them or the damage that was being done. Even if they pretended or maybe genuinely did want love and acceptance and intellectual stimulation ... I never believed them. I just thought "ahh, cut the bullshit and let's get to it, I know what you are here for." I became disrespectful of boundaries and overt in my advances to the point that it made the other person feel uncomfortable. I guess in that way I was trying to please men by becoming what I thought they wanted, so they would want me, accept me, love me ... that never ending search for a loaf of bread at Home Depot. I had come to accept they didn't want a woman who had a mind or anything interesting to say. In my mind, and many times in theirs, that was all useless ... they just wanted someone who would give them what they wanted, and in my own way, that's all I wanted too. I wanted the impossible ... make me feel loved and important, take away my emptiness and loneliness, and do it all in a few stolen moments or a couple of hours in a cheap, dirty hotel room.

E. had his own demons, but I kept believing if I gave in, if I just kept going back, I could change him, his heart would soften and he would love me and care for me, and stop coming up with new ways to hurt and defile me in unimaginable ways. But each time I came back there was something worse, until there were things so disgusting and painful that I could not even bring myself to talk about them. But I got angry when I saw his e-mail yesterday. I got angry enough to get this man out of my life for good.

So, all the secrets, all the shame that only me and him shared, I spilled it all in a note to a trusted friend, breaking all bonds of secrecy and sickness. I was sick to write about it, sick to think of how disgusted the other person would feel, I didn't care ... I wrote it all, all the ugly disgusting vile truths of what I accepted as a substitute for love, honor and respect; all the anger, all the delusion drained out. I was so ready to be done with the hold this man had on me.

I prayed to God to help E., to save him from his demons, and to lift any remaining delusion I might have that he held some secret power to my happiness. I prayed hard and I continue to pray if he comes to my mind. This is a lie I am determined to be rid of, to let go of and to feel the lightness that comes from being free of the hold of my shame and guilt.

Oh great ... I'm coming back as a water buffalo

A few of my blogger friends have posted this book quiz on their blogs. So, here I am, following in their footsteps. I have to say ... the synopsis is pretty head on, although the questions needed some room for "none of the above."

You're The Things They Carried!

by Tim O'Brien

Harsh and bitter, you tell it like it is. This usually comes in short,
dramatic spurts of spilling your guts in various ways. You carry a heavy load, and this
has weighed you down with all the horrors that humanity has to offer. Having seen and
done a great deal that you aren't proud of, you have no choice but to walk forward,
trudging slowly through ongoing mud. In the next life, you will come back as a water
buffalo.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

It's not time

I've been feeling some "pull" to send my stepfather a note for Father's Day. I sat down to pray about it this morning and the question I got back was "Are you doing this for him or you?" When I thought of sending a note that simply said "Thinking of you on Father's Day," I knew it was for him. But when I began to think of writing a card of gratitude, thanking him for being there on the day my mother died (June 15, 1994) and for showing up "in spite of the demons that lived inside." I thought the card would have been for me, from my heart.

I sat down and wrote the card a few minutes ago and I'm sick to my stomach. I wrote "It is the demons that have done the damage" and then sat there for a long time thinking of what to say next. Finally I wrote, "Thankfully we are all more than our demons."

As I reread the card, I am filled with resentment at every line. I know that I can't send it.

I am exhausted. My body tells me that today is not the day.

A few musings

OK, first of all, I think it's important to say that I am feeling lonely, tired, and overall like I don't matter to anyone in the world. I know this is not true ... but that's what I am feeling at this moment on a Wednesday afternoon.

I'm also thinking about an AA speaker I was listening to this afternoon on CD who was talking about the 7th Tradition in its context to daily life. The 12 &12 teach us to be self-sufficient through our own contributions. I've spent the past year or so balking at that tradition. I had always said I would not be dependent on a man's financial support, the way my mother was ... and look what I attracted to myself: an unwillingness and inability to find work. Sure, I've gotten a few little jobs here and there, but nothing that can truly show I'm self-sufficient. Also, I have not been very sufficient around the house either. I feel a lot of shame around my lack of energy and motivation to do anything.

The good news is I'm sober and I made it to two extra meetings this week, and have the willingness to go back. More good news is I finally finished the work that I've been putting off for months and I have a list of other things that I want to get caught up on. I am accepting of the fact that I might not get it all done today, but some of it is manageable and I know how to prioritize.

The bad news is my dog keeps releasing her silent but deadly gas into the air and is making it difficult for me to breathe and type at the same time.

So, with that I'll close ...

My haunting little girl

WARNING: This post includes material that may be severely disturbing, particularly for victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Last year I went to a workshop in San Diego where we did some guided imagery meditation surrounding our inner child. I remember the person leading the meditation asking us to imagine our inner child and then reaching out to that child and hugging her. I brought to mind my little-girl self dressed in a faded purple yard sale dress with yellow and white stripes and white rounded collar, curly black hair and a white face sprinkled with a few genetic freckles. She looked at me with fear and distrust and when I reached out my arms to her, she ran to my mother and began to hug and play with her, laughing and enjoying the innocence of childhood.

I came to use the image of that mistrusting child as a tool to aid in my recovery. I wanted to earn back her trust, to show her that she didn't deserve to be used and abused the way she had been. I knew the reason she ran from me was because I had continued to hurt her with my acting out in my disease. I covered her up in mounds of added body weight and pounds of emotional burden.

In my most recent struggles, I lost sight of that little girl, forgot about her pain and my need to nurture and care for her. I haven't thought of her as I have begun the difficult task of reliving and feeling the emotions she never got to feel. I forgot that it was really her that was connecting me to those feelings and helping me to experience them now. Instead, I met a man last month and another this week while my husband was out of town... all in my weakness and unwillingness to walk through the fires of temptation.

I didn't think of her until I received a note from EC this morning saying he considered acting out in his alcohol addiction a slap in God's face. Then I remembered my little inner girl, the one who I promised to protect and take care of and not let her be hurt again. By acting out again, I had slapped her in the face, broken her heart, and came up empty, sad and alone, with nothing to show for the trip I took to the dark side. There is no way to explain such weakness to a fragile hurting child.

After my husband returned home last night there was a big blow up in which his anger raged over an incident that had happened while he was gone. When I picked him up, I had just left the motel where I had met another man, feeling empty and unfulfilled, wishing I'd felt what I went there to feel, but instead ... as my husband roared, I felt all the feelings of being a child again, being screamed at, hit with the thundering blow of words, and feeling scorned and stupid. I took the dog for a walk -- as she was a major source of his anger -- and with her I walked and cried and cried. I know it was that little girl inside me who was crying too.

I think now again of the imagery of what my acting out does to that little girl inside. I am letting her be violated by men who want to use her as a worthless piece of trash, call her dirty names, use her body for their pleasure, spill their semen into her mouth and her vagina, or all over her, then zip up their pants and go on as if nothing ever happened, as if she never existed or had any worth. I invite these men into my body and into my world to do these things to her.

And even as sick as those thoughts make me, I am reminded of how powerless I am over the disease of addiction, when I still entertain thoughts to do it all again later this month when yet another opportunity arises. Although the desire is lessening, and I can see that there is hardly any high in the acting out anymore, my horribly sick and disgusting addict still wants whatever it was it didn't get the last time. I see opportunity, like my stepfather saw opportunity when my mom went to the store and left me alone ... when he would call that little girl into his bedroom and violate and abuse her innocence, stealing from her piece by piece her dignity, self-respect and her very sense of being alive.

His sickneess killed a part of me, and mine is doing its damndest to kill the rest. It lives in that lost little girl's soul, which lives inside this big girl's mind, whispering in self-defeat ... "Daddy did it and Momma let it happen ... why shouldn't you?"

I am the one

In the workshop I went to a few weekends ago, we did a meditation in which we stood facing east and meditated on the thought of all the women who had come before us in our families lined up behind our right shoulder, then all the men who had come before us on our left, and thought of parts of all of them coming into us, and then the leader asked us, "Will you be the one who breaks free from all the past hurt that was carried into your physical and spiritual being by these generations of people?"

For a long, long time we meditated on and breathed into the phrase "I am the one." It was so powerful.

And even though I don't have children, I feel my decision, and God's decision, for me not to have children, was about ending the cycle of incest and abuse and women laying down everything they are to give themselves away in every way to others. This is my way of being "the one." ... The cycle stops here. I am the one. No other child will have to carry all that I have carried into the world, nor the hurt that I have brought into and attracted into my own life in order to learn some incredibly dynamic lessons.

One of the greatest lessons I am learning now is that my Higher Power is real. There is something bigger than this disease of addiction, much bigger.

I have been struggling in a way I haven't struggled in a long, long time. The opposite of struggle is letting go and letting God ... but I have been resistant to that. I've wanted to fight and I've wanted my addict to win. I've been living the characteristic of sex and love addiction that says "Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time." Even after all God has given to me ... I was feeling the fear of being deprived for the rest of my life of certain things that don't exist within my marital relationship. And rather than having the patience for the willingess to break through my own fears of asking for what I need in my marital relationship and working to rebuild trust in that relationship, and having the patience to hear God's answer to my prayers, in fear, I decided I needed to take charge of my life again and get my needs met my way.

But God is allowing me to witness the miracle of my willingness changing, of my Higher Power at work, still with me, even when I jump ship and head off in my own direction. It's not that I haven't been in situations where my willingness changed, but I have never really stood outside myself and been witness to the internal shifts happening. Yesterday, after going through the motions of doing some recovery work, and literally ignoring a message from my Higher Power earlier in the day to simply ask him to take charge of my life just for that day, I was in the shower at the gym and I physically began to feel the shift of the willingness, and watched it blossom, until I was able to come home with full intention to cancel plans to act out today, only to find that the heart of the person I was set to act out with had also been changed. We both were relieved, and I was humbled.

I won't lie here and say that I'm clean and sober, but I know in a way I never knew before that God is with me. I want to be honest here, because I'm not honest with the recovery people in my life about my most recent transgressions, and that is because in taking on sponsees and doing service, I have developed an ego ... that I am important. But I am not. God is and it is only by his grace and love that I am alive today, that I didn't act out on a whole new low today (with someone nearly the age of my stepfather, which was sure to send me into flashbacks and a state of insanity that I might never return from), and that I have enough awareness left to see all this stuff in pure light.

My friend EC, who is the one person I feel like I can be honest with lately, reminded me again this morning, "God cares for you very much." It's amazing and incredibly humbling how much really.

The next life

I sent this in a note to my dear friend EC earlier today ...

"You don't have to die the miserable wretch your father is or my stepfather is. It can be different. That's why I am working so hard. Before this life passes, I want my soul to be cleared ... not for heaven, but for the next life, where I can live a carefree childhood, filled with light and laughter, date beautiful young men, break a few hearts, fall in love, and have babies and watch them grow and love them with the sweetest most gentle love I know."

I am coming to believe that my soul is eternal and that the things I have experienced in this life were necessary to fill certain needs of the soul. However, I am also feeling a sense of loss of the things I never did experience in this life. I do want to experience those things. That's why I am here.

Just as an update: I had a little scare this morning when my husband told me he was going out of town next week and my mind started it's usual reeling. It has passed and I'm thankful for the reminder that I don't have to let those "run aways" last forever. I can do something different and move on. I wrote to a couple of girlfriends to see if they could get together before my SLAA meeting that night he is away and I'll make a fun night of it.

Also, I should say ... we survived the family visitors and I'm a better woman because of it.

Being

I sit here, unable to sleep, a ball of tension in the back of my neck, still stinging from the biting words of anger shared by my husband earlier tonight after he simply could stand no more of my anxiety-ridden behavior. Faced with holiday weekend visitors from his side of the family, I simply cannot grasp what it means to simply "be." I must do, and perform, and manage and it is driving me and everyone else nuts. Or at least me and my husband, and the resulting tension is neither of us are enjoying our guests, and somehow I doubt they are enjoying us. Hopefully with all the things both hubby and I are "doing" for them ... they are at least well fed and entertained.

Yes, it's true, my husband has his own anxieties and is deficient in the human "being" capacity. We both do nothing to improve each other's chances of success during times like these because we are always trying to control the other's behavior in order to make sure the guests are satisfied. I admit to being the worst at this of the two of us. But that's not the point.

The point is, I'm struggling with simply letting go, being myself, realizing that I really am more enjoyable when I just let things flow. I know a big part of this is letting go of my attachment to my husband's approval. If I can look at things realistically and realize that his expectation that all our guests, regardless of who they are, are well taken care of (in the ways he sees fit) is about his own sense of social anxiety and cultural upbringing, I can release a bit of anxiety. He grew up in an environment where extreme emphasis was placed on feeding people more than they could possibly eat and showing them a good time until it hurts. I grew up in an environment where people came and went as they pleased, we fed them what we had, they were least interested about the mound of clutter under the window, and what we enjoyed most was one another's company. Likewise, people who came to our house and were quiet and stayed to themselves, were considered "kinda odd" and talked about a lot. In other words, people were judged by their personality. As long as you showed up and talked and laughed, you were alright. Otherwise people thought you were stuck up or something worse. It simply was not acceptable.

So, when I try to cross my past experiences with his, entertaining (though we both sadistically enjoy it) becomses an extreme source of anxiety. I get those old feelings of "I'm not enough." It all begins before they arrive. I cook, I clean, I put out photos that will please my guests, I take down things that might cause them to ask questions. And, I'm not the only one. My husband scans the rooms to make sure there is nothing "too personal" laying around in view -- like letters from my cousin in prison or some random Al-Anon literature, or God-forbid SLAA info. To be fair, he also looks for credit card reciepts and things that have nothing to do with me, and a lot to do with his deep value of privacy. And once every carpet thread has been separated, I have obsessed over everything from dressing myself to whether they'll be scared of the dog, and the house is filled with more food than we could (or even plan to) possibly eat, a new dance begins once the guests arrive. I begin constantly thinking of what I can "do" to make the guests not only comfortable but entertained and happy. They can't get in the door without being offered food and drink (which was common in both our upbringings. I begin doing everything I can to get this quiet, reserved husband of mine to engage in conversation (by running my trap 90 miles a minute to fill air time) and try to control the way he behaves and responds to me. I get so irritated at him for even the smallest thing, as I think he does me as well.

God, it's a nightmare. I was thinking today that we must make our guests feel like they are intruders, because the two of us do so much to control one another and exert our power that we can't get along.

So, what can I do? I suppose this awareness is a good start. Just sitting down and writing all this out so that I can actually sleep. Doing some quiet breathing exercises, focusing on "I am enough," is another possibility. But right now I think I just need to admit my powerlessness over needing to control and do, and ask my Higher Power to restore me to sanity. I think it may be too much to ask to change overnight and simply be allowed the opportunity to "be," rather than do. But I'm praying for the willingness to simply try it on for size as the dawn breaks.

Reappearance and disappearance

I got another e-mail yesterday from R. I was grateful to have little to no desire to communicate with him and saw him for the pathetic damaged soul that he is. I know that it was his damage that attracted me to him to begin with and ensnared me in my disease for one long, miserable year. The fact that I have recommitted myself to recovery, have been working my program and continue to grow one day at a time makes it possible for me to look at that pain through new eyes and say ... I'm worth more than that.

I feel unfamiliar with these feelings of strength and truthful awareness. And while I don't fool myself that they could disappear at anytime, (The disease of addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful.) I am doing my best to connect to them. I am recognizing that one little slip last week has me in a stage of withdrawal where these seemingly "psychic" connections can happen. That doesn't mean I have to succumb to them, and not being in a relationship ridden by fear, anxiety, confusion and absolute loss of myself, like the one I was in with R. reminds me of the value of staying sober. And, R's communication, in which he shared he's drinking and smoking and having affairs all over the place on his new wife, reminds me that nothing about the fantasy I created that relationship to be was true, and causes me to give great thanks to the power that guides my intuition to get the hell out while I could.

I am forever grateful to my Higher Power for keeping me in a safe place, putting people in my life who can support me and opening my heart to be supported by others.

Thanks for being here and being witness to each stage of this truly incredible journey.

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.

Finding the willingness

It feels like I could write 10 posts about the seminar I attended this weekend with my niece. However, if I were to sum it up, I would say what I gained most from this experience was a deeper understanding of the acceptance of all things as perfect gifts from a higher power, and a willingness to examine every aspect of my life for the potential lesson. To quote the seminar leader, "Everything is of service." I simply have to be willing to accept that even when I don't like what it going on in my life ... it has some purpose. This same truth shines through on page 449 of the AA Big Book. "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today."

I picked up a lot of tools at this seminar ... some affirmations, some ideas for deeper and more meaningful meditation and connection to my Higher Power, and a reminder that any story can be told from a variety of different angles -- and it is up to me what I choose to focus on. The seminar leader had us tell the story of the most disturbing experience of our lives first in our own words, with our own focus. Then she asked us to get up, shift to the next seat and tell the person in front of us the same story as if it were the funniest joke we'd ever heard. (This was VERY hard for both me and the listener, who had to laugh. However, it oddly lifted a big burden from me.) When we got up again, we sang our stories to our listening partner. It was the fourth time that we told our story that I had a major shift. We were asked to tell our story from a new vantage point -- as if we had intentionally attracted everything in our most disturbing story to ourselves for the purpose of fulfilling a need to have a certain set of experiences that filled a critical void in our spiritual beings. Talk about taking on responsibility. Wow. This was at a whole new plane. The thought that I could or would attract something horrible to myself was very tough to swallow. But as I was able to retell this often told tale of my childhood sexual abuse, I shifted my focus from the pain and horror, to the lessons I had learned, the soul-deep experiences I have had, and the realization that forgiveness is a gift I give myself, not something I give away to others. This whole experience goes a lot deeper, and I am thankful to still be processing all that I learned, applying it to my life and to my recovery.

For me, recovery has been a process of self-discovery, filling the voids in my life that were never filled at the appropriate age. This weekend focused on "getting to the core" of myself and setting intentions for my life was very helpful in propelling me past a "stuck place" I was in.

Another helpful part of me moving past that "stuck place" was my willingness to speak, after all these years, with my dear niece, who is the closest member of my family to me, about my past acting out and my road to recovery. For years I have believed that as much as I didn't want my husband to know about my extramarital affairs, I wanted her to know even less. She went through her teenage years watching her mother (my sister) have one affair after another and it scarred her deeply. I feared if she ever knew I had been unfaithful she would know longer hold me close in her heart and that she might reject me outright. Those feelings were based in fear, and by the grace of my Higher Power about a week before she arrived, my heart began to open to the idea of sharing with her the basics of my behavior. I feel this opened a huge door in my heart and it also brought her and I closer together than ever before.

One day at a time, the Promises are being fulfilled in my life and I cannot possibly express the depth of my gratitude.

Observations of a non-parent

Being childless myself, I take pleasure in observing the interactions between parents and their children. I am often awed by the sheer responsibility these mere humans take on whenever they give birth to a child. How do they decide what to do in even the smallest of situations like answering the question, "Can I spent the night with Susie?" much less the huge ones that often never come in the form of a verbalized question.

This morning as I was walking my substitute for a child -- my dog -- children all over the neighborhood were waiting for the school bus. Some of the high school students were all dressed up for what seemed to be an awards ceremony. They all looked bright and shiny.

It occurred to me as I approached one bus stop after another that in addition to the children, there was a group of parents also waiting there, watching over their children, sending them off with hugs and kisses. It made me think of my own school days. My sister and cousins and I, we walked to the bus stop all by our lonesome. We fought our own battles with the neighbor kids. Whatever happened, we were on our own.

Now the people of my generation have grown up and had kids of their own, and they apparently have determined that rather that throwing their kids to the wolves to fend for themselves, they are going to be there to protect them, to show them they are loved, and to make sure nothing happened to them.

Knowing that life goes in cycles, I wonder how this generation of kids will grow up to raise their own children? It's an interesting thought to ponder.

Gratitude

A huge scoop of gratitude to all of you who responded with such acceptance and loving kindness to my last post. I felt so uplifted and encouraged by your words.

I have been away the past few days attending a seminar and filling my heart and mind with goodness. Of course, the goodness is sometimes triggering ... but I'm really finding a new sense of willingness surrounding examining my feelings.

I hope to write more write more soon about some of the growth I experienced at this seminar.

For now, I just want you all to know what an incredible part of my support system you are ... and I wouldn't know you if you hit me on the street.

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.

A stone of love

About a month ago, Bizy Lizy over at Alma and Demos, found my blog and was willing to wade through it and hear my story. Thanks to her comments, I was able to return the favor and found myself lost in her search for the perfect love story. Today, I was incredibly humbled and moved by the insightful words she wrote as she included me in her collection of stones. She wrote:

There is Rae, who I fondly refer to as "Sweet Rae." Her love story begins as a sweet and intuitive spirit, filled with the wonder of childhood hopes and dreams. Sadly, her sacred spirit was subjected to abuse at the hands of her stepfather. She would reenact this abuse over and over again in her own life for years. Her stone has many cracks, and her sharp edges turn inward, so that we don't see them as we run our fingers across the smooth surface. But Rae, like so many others, has a color, a sparkle that longs to be exposed, longs to be expressed and acknowledged. Her childhood hopes and dreams claim validation that only she can give. I am touched by her determination to live the love story she is entitled to. What I suspect Rae struggles with, is that she sees her cracks as shameful reminders of her past, when, in reality, they are slivers of light that give us glimpses into the beauty that she holds within.

As I have blogged here over the past four years (my first post was May 29, 2004), I have enjoyed immensely the opportunity to connect with others in the blogosphere. Some I have cried out to for help, and still others I have simply cried for. Some have made me laugh until I cried, and some have struck me to a point of breathtaking inspiration. Though there have been a couple of less than desirable run-ins, for the most part I have developed some truly treasured connections with women and men who also find solace and satisfaction in sharing their stories in this vast cyber universe. I have learned as much about myself from these people and their stories as I have from any self-help book or therapy session I have sat through. Likewise, I have found more classic literature in the writing of some of the people whose blogs I read than I could find at the local Barnes & Noble. Sure, there's a lot of horseshit on the Internet, but I have found that as someone searching for my own path, I have been inspired and awed by the journeys of the people I have met here and I am thankful for the many of you who have cheered me on and shared my passage with me. Today, I am especially thankful to you, Lizy, for including me in your collection of stones. May the gentle water of love glide over us all, smoothing our surfaces and revealing our inner strength.

I'm angry

I want validation. I want attention. I want to feel loved. I don't want to want any of these things. I want to be able to get up in the morning and say, "These are the things that I need to be doing" and get busy doing them and not care about validation or attention or my concept of love. I just want to be happy with what I have.

Too much

I went in for more exorcism today ... revisiting the past in EMDR therapy with hopes of reprogramming my sick brain. The therapy is working pretty well at culling out emotions and shifting them in the right direction. Rather than being angry at myself, I'm beginning to show some real anger at my abusive stepfather. Today I succeed at calling him a fucker and saying I hope he rots in hell. I sort of stopped myself with the rots in hell part because I didn't think it was a nice thing for someone to say about anyone, even if they don't even really believe in hell. I believe that hell exists on earth and I think he and I both have lived through it. I also said that because of what he did I have felt like a failure, and while I've spent the past few years reeling in disease, recovery and therapy he has been rotting in his own misery, but doing nothing to acknowledge my pain or his part in hit. I thought of him with pure disgust and a feeling like I wanted to spit in his face. Even writing this I have those feelings.

The more I felt my anger, the more I connected with the idea that what had happened to me made me feel like a failure, the more angry I became,realizing that I had been cut off from all that was good in me. I acknowledged that I am an intelligent, productive, talented part of the world and screamed internally with anger that I have been cut off from that part of myself. My therapist asked me to think of what it would feel like to connect to that part of me, to eliminate the obstacles that cut me off from my core goodness. As I did, I imagined myself wrapped around the world, taking it all in and offering it all up, dancing in unison, whole and complete. I am not a failure. I am enough. That's what it feels like to connect to that goodness. I know that goodness is there and I want to reclaim it as my own. I want to give and accept love, to be carefree and compassionate, to let go of selfish ego and embrace my part in the world. I can do it. I have what it takes. I saw it today.

But it was too much to take in at once. I can't hold on to all of it right now. I can't contain it all and have to let it soak in and process a little at a time. I feel sadness and emptiness right now, because I want to embrace all those good feelings right now. But I also acknowledge my hope and my patience. Today is just one day in my journey. These are all huge emotions and they are just too much for this one day.

Humble and grateful

Back in February I posted here about what was beginning to feel like a crisis situation in my life. I had developed a "secret" debt in the midst of my last relapse that included a large sum of money spent on R., as well as a few other "stashes." My financial situation was such at the time I posted that I was reaching a point I could no longer pay on the debt without further dishonesty with my husband. Thanks to the the wise counsel of my sponsor, my therapist, and several friends, I was able to establish the willingness to get honest with my husband about the existence of the debt, while continuing with my decision not to tell him the details of my acting out (also a conscious decision made with the help of my support network, my sponsor and my therapist).

I had the peace of mind to sit with that willingness and pray for my Higher Power to open the door when the time was right for me to share with
my husband. I have maintained the willingness over these months and have waited for the time to come when I felt it in my gut, not in desparation, that it was time to talk with him. (Thankfully I was supplied with a short term assignment that allowed me to have the money necessary to pay on the debt while I was waiting on "God's time.")

The moment of truth came this afternoon. And with no fanfare, I simply opened my mouth and began to tell my husband -- the man I have hid everything from, the man who has shown me over these months that I've been present in our lives that he is my partner and that I am loved unequivocally -- about the debt. I did my best to be honest without divulging the details, by saying, as my therapist advised, "I spent this money and I have absolutely nothing to show for it." If that ain't the truth, nothing is. Obviously, it was a blow, but he was kind and supportive, and even though he asked some tough questions, we made it through. He knew that I had been struggling immensely with my mental health over the past couple of years and he hugged me and told me that my life was worth far more than any amount of money. I know he is hurt and I will continue to pray for him and continue the prayer that has been flowing from me since the conversation was over "Thank you, God."

I am humbled beyond words that love is offered to me in the way my husband offered it today and that I have the opportunity to live a more authentic life. It is becoming more and more real that while I have a troubled past -- first of someone else's making and second of my own -- I have a future filled with hope and a present filled with inspiration and gratitude.

I am gratefully breathing deeply and soaking all of this in.

I Cried

On Tuesday, I sat through a meeting thinking, "If I say a word, I'm going to burst into tears." After the meeting, I sat in a prayer room, my eyes and heart filled with tears, asking, "God, please help me ..." My sponsor sat with me a short while later as I cried more tears ... the first tears I've cried in a long time.

I cried with relief that I had narrowly escaped yet another relapse. I cried because it is so frustratingly difficult to simply accept the goodness that has come into my life -- the love and affection of my husband, the blessings and support of my recovery family, and my Higher Power. I cried because I am glad to be feeling, but feel ill at ease doing it.

I used to cry all the time, literally like a baby -- it was the only way I knew to release the pain or express feelings of hurt. Somewhere along the way I stopped crying. I simply hurt and started sharing some of my pain through words of truth. I cried Tuesday because it was a natural way to release the feelings that were overwhelming me. I cried to God because I was scared. I cried with my sponsor because she opened her arms to me and made me feel supported.

I think the number one reason I cried on Tuesday is that one by one, I am giving up my reasons and excuses to act out.

I can no longer believe the lie that my husband does not love me and show me that love.
I am beginning to believe that I am worth much more to others than the sexual favors I can give them.
I no longer am convinced that my self worth is determined by what others think of me.
I can no longer legitimately say I feel alone.
I am feeling my feelings and surviving, realizing that I do not have to escape them in order to survive.
Although I am powerless over the disease of sex and love addiction, I am not powerless over my choices. I am empowered by the strength of my Higher Power and the fellowship of the 12-step programs.

Getting back up

I had a little Eureka! this morning. In addition to realizing that I don't have the courage to change some of the things I can ... and need to pay a bit more attention to ALL of the Serenity Prayer, I was listening to a CD of a new country group, Halfway to Hazard, and found empowerment in the lyrics of a song called "Got Back Up." The lyrics to the chorus are:

Life's gonna hurt you but you brush it off
Well, naw you can't quit, you gotta fight back son
When you find yourself on the ground, you gotta get back up

Sounds pretty country doesn't it? :)

Music has always spoken to me, and at this time when I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me, I am feeling like I'm finding myself face down on the ground, struggling to get up. I have always been against fighting, war and agressive conflict of any kind. To some degree I have a pacificist mentality at levels that extend beyond the political definition. My style has always been to kill them with kindness. But as I feel my anger, I realize it is a valuable resource that fuels the fire in me to fight back, to take back my life, to tell my disease to go to hell and to find peace, balance and comfort in the care of my Higher Power. In an effort to control everything, especially anger, I have been fighting so hard against myself, that I have been denying myself my own God-given resources, and misdirecting my anger all over the place -- most often to myself and the things that I am powerless over. Depression -- which is anger turned inward -- has paralyzed me.

I truly appreciated a question from a member of my SLAA group this morning -- how have my patterns changed? I am giving that a lot of thought, as it is true that my patterns have changed and it is valuable to see what progress has been made and what difficult changes I have survived. I certainly have been in a far worse place than I am today. There were times that I constantly "stayed ready" to act out, even after coming into recovery. Today, if I were to decide to cross my bottom lines and act out I would have to "get ready" to act out ... and considering the effort that takes ... the pay off is no longer worth it. I can recognize those as changes to be thankful for right off the bat.

I just want to say that yesterday I really was on the verge of wanting to cross those lines and act out, but instead I did the next right thing all day long, still thinking all day that today would be the day that I would act out. I was cut off from my Higher Power because of all the fear of my anger, but I connected myself to others in program, talking at length with sponsees, with program friends, participating in a telemeeting, showing up at an SLAA meeting I started that rarely has attendees, writing to my support group, writing here, praying for the willingness to let go of that part of me that I was desparately holding on to and afraid to release to my Higher Power, and following the advice of so many people I heard from, including one friend who said "I honestly don't know what to do, so I just keep doing whatever other people tell me to do until it's time to go to bed." I went to bed early last night because my body was aching so badly from the anger and feelings I was holding inside. My husband rubbed my aches and pains as long as I needed him too. (Again, he is becoming important to me, enough for me, good to me. I am so grateful.) This morning, I had a dentist appointment at 7 a.m. and at noon I have a meeting, then a meeting with my sponsor. In between seemed like a great time to meet a qualifier. But after all the work I did yesterday, proving to myself that I do NOT want to act out, no matter what my disease tells me, the obsession that has plagued me for days has been lifted.

I hope that my own struggles serve as a testament to anyone who struggles with the disease of addiction that recovery is not a perfect process, and that this is a lifetime disease, but it is absolutely true what they say ... this program works if you work it. And I'm glad to be working it ... because I am worth it.

I want to run away

Things are shifting for me, as they have been throughout my recovery. However, the shifts lately seem huge in proportion. I am feeling anger and frustration in ways I never have, my husband is becoming more important to me and he danced with me on Saturday night for the first time, I have some wonderful sponsees who depend on me, and service positions that require me to make decisions and be responsible. I want to run so fast I can hardly stand it, and even though I'm not running I sit paralyzed, afraid to move for fear of what might happen. Afraid that I will act out and afraid I won't. Afraid I don't have another relapse in me, and scared to death I do and it will be the nail in the coffin.

All of these shifts are a part of me "growing up" again, retraining my mind to accept love, refuse abuse, be honest and responsible, let go of the past and live in the present. Oh my goodness, do I want to act out in this present. And while the disease tells me, "Oh, won't it be sweet?" I'm smart enough to know that it will only delay my process even MORE than it has already been delayed, and for all I know ... might end it all.

No matter what I want to do ... I have to keep working my program, working on my step work. I have a meeting with my sponsor tomorrow. I still want to act out. But I don't have to. These feelings, like all feelings are not facts. They will pass. I just have to keep turning them over, walking through the fire that is coming up with my current therapy and the long-ass process of finishing this fourth step I've been working on for eight months, and know that the Promises do come true. Others have walked this path before me and are here to show me the way.

A place for God

I made it to a meeting yesterday at noon and walked away with a far greater understanding of myself than I walked in with. I walked in feeling down, depressed, and undervalued. I also walked in feeling the effects of wanting to act out for several days in a row, due to some triggers related to my therapy.

As I have blogged here, I recently had to come face to face with the invasion of my disease into a close friendship with a male friend. I had an expectation, otherwise known as a premeditated resentment, that even though we agreed that we could not continue to pursue a "love" relationship, we would continue to be close friends. And, of course, I had the outline of what such a close friendship would look like and in retrospect it looked very much like it had when it was running in a dangerous direction, except it would allegedly be void of the planning for sexual liasons. Well, surprise, that's not what happened. My healthy friend had his own expectations and they didn't involve spending every waking hour hanging on to my every word and reassuring me that all was going to be fine. He has a family and a job and a life ... and those things need his attention as well.

My resentments stirred in me a feeling of having no value as a friend or really as a person. That core belief that I really only have a sexual value to men is never far from my door. Thankfully I have enough recovery to know that's a bunch of horseshit, that my value is not determined by others. So I made up my mind yesterday to stop wallowing in resentment and self-pity and to get to a meeting.

What was revealed to me during the meeting was a pattern that might have been clear all along had I been ready to see it. Over my life I have consistently put the majority, if not all, my energy, into one person. I become intensely intimate with and dependent upon them and they become my everything. It's not that I don't have other friends, even ones I care deeply about, but they are at nowhere near the "level" of this one friend in whom I put all my trust and energy. Everything I think about, I think of routing through that one person. All my advice and feeback needs to come from that one person. Yes, I may talk to others, or hear others ... but I seem to focus on this one singular voice.

There is only one power that belongs in such a position in my life ... and that one is the God of my understanding. And that God of my understanding has blessed me with many, many people who love me and care for me and want to be a part of my life. However, I have diminished their importance, isolated from them and closed them off from me so that I would have the energy and attention to devote to one person, whoever that person might be in my life at the time. I can name them off, one by one, the people who have filled this void in my life. And, regardless who that one person was I just needed to be able to make them into a god and so intensely turn my attention to them (become so enmeshed with them) that they become at first flattered by the intensity, and then overwhelmed. We are only humans after all ... we are not meant to be God. No one is meant to be used or drained in this way.

Bringing this into my awareness is huge. Now that it is with me I feel like banging my head against the wall and saying, "Why couldn't you see this before?" It is so obvious. But when the student is ready, the teacher and the lesson appear.

After the meeting, which was held at one of these megachurches where you can hardly find your way around, I stumbled upon a prayer room that I had spotted upon entering the building. I walked in and began to pray to the God of my understanding, which I define as simply the living force that moves through all living things.

I often write my prayers in order to both give and receive thoughts. This is what I wrote:

"Spirit Divine, please help me to surrender myself -- all of me -- to you. I have for so long surrendered myself -- my goodness, my sexuality, my friendship, my self-worth -- I have given it all to other people. And as I surrender myself to you, help me to recognize and accept that it is not what I give away to others that determines my value and my worth. Help me not just to push outward in hopes of being enough, but to open myself and accept inward the love and energy that is your grace as it comes to me in full abundance. Please let me accept the power and strength and courage that you offer to me daily, and help me not to channel it through one person, but through the multitudes of people who are in my life. There are people who want my friendship and love who I have closed off because they were not "the one." In doing so, I have closed myself off to your power, strength, courage and love. Help me today to open my soul, so that I may accept others and myself as no less and no more, let me not set expectations, but rather give up my need for perfection and accept the perfection that is offered. Thank you, God, for opening my heart to all that I have discovered today. I feel immensely blessed. All that I am is within you and all that you are is within me. And so it is. "

Living in the dark

I had another one of those nights last night as I was walking the dog. I was flooded with feelings of extreme unrest, feelings that I simply am empty and there is nothing left. I feel that all that is left is severely damaged and that anything I touch, no matter how innocently, becomes damaged as well. It's like having leprosy. I have to admit to trying to numb these feelings throughout the week by not eating, or gorging on sweets or spending long periods of time on the computer looking for human connection. I make to do lists and plans and it seems like to get a list of 10 simple things done it will take 10 days. I got angry with myself as well because it still feels like I am waiting for something or someone to "save me" from this mess and I know it is all on me. It's a vicious cycle -- I know I need to do certain things each day to manage my life, then when I can't seem to force myself to do them, my life feels even more out of control.

After the walk with the dog, I was feeling very tired, numb and again, just completely empty. So I decided to go to bed early. My husband fell asleep on the couch and came to bed much later. I woke up before he came into the room, but just laid there silently. As he crawled into bed, he did what many husbands do, he spooned up next to me, his interests apparent in his body as he began to get mildly sexual. I grabbed his wrist firmly to stop him from touching me that way. He sensed there was a problem and that it was more serious than, "Not tonight, honey, I have a headache." He asked if I was OK ... and I simply said, "No." Of course, he pressed for what was wrong and I was at least able to tell him that I was scared to tell him, so I was struggling to find the words. He was very patient and said it was OK... just to take my time. I'm not sure I was able to relate to him fully, though he got the picture, that his coming into the room in the middle of the night and touching me with his erect penis and his hands had evoked a childhood terror that had not happened to me since I was a child. There was dread and disgust and my body ached from the way I was holding it so stiffly. I also felt such shame for bringing this past into the bedroom with my husband who had nothing at all to do with my abuse. I told him how sorry I was, and of course, he was understanding. But I have to think that no matter what he says, this has to be horribly frustrating for him. I am doing my best just to be thankful for his patience and support and relieve myself of one less burden. In the meantime, I just have to say it was horrible to feel those feelings of late-night violation again and I hope this EMDR shit is over soon.

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.

A prayer from Debbie Ford

Debbie Ford, one of the few self-help gurus whose work really resonates with me, sent this prayer in her weekly column this week. I thought it was beautiful. I can pray it today because I feel some of the heaviness that has been with me is lifting ... and for that I am thankful.


Dear God, Spirit, Divine Mother,
On this day I ask You to grant this request --
May I know who I am and what I am, every moment of every day
May I be a catalyst for light and love
and bring inspiration to those whose eyes I meet
May I have the strength to stand tall in the face of conflict,
and the courage to speak my voice, even when I'm scared
May I have the humility to follow my heart,
and the passion to live my Soul's desires
May I seek to know the highest truth
and dismiss the gravitational pull of my lower self
May I embrace and love the totality of myself --
my darkness as well as my light
May I be brave enough to hear my heart --
to let it soften so that I may gracefully choose faith over fear
Today is my day to surrender anything that stands between
the sacredness of my humanity and my divinity
May I be drenched in my Holiness
and engulfed by Your love
May all else melt away
And so it is

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.