Just beneath the surface

Do you ever have those days when you know you're feeling angry just because of the thoughts that come to mind?

Today, actually for a couple of days, I've thought the words "I hate your f*cking guts!" Now, I don't typically hate people, but just those words seem to be filled with rage about something and someone.

Then tonight I was going through Facebook, looking at old classmates and ran across someone who used to be my neighbor. I immediately thought "I bet you'd love knowing I f*cked your father." I saw another classmates' photo and thought he'd be devastated to know that one of his other classmates, who I met during my acting out spree when I moved back to my home state in 2005, had ratted him out about being a swinger.

Maybe it's me I'm angry with. Maybe I'm mad that everywhere I look, I'm reminded of my addiction. I'm cleaning house for guests who are coming next week and I have to make sure all my recovery literature is hidden away. Maybe I'm mad at my husband because he's looking at changing jobs again. Maybe I'm mad at him because his work is causing a lot of tension. I'm not sure.

I certainly am not walking around actually feeling overtly angry. There's no one at home today other than the dog and I seem to be treating her OK. But somewhere beneath the surface, I clearly am angry about something. Guess I better work some of that anger off by doing the next right thing ... feeding and walking the dog and finishing with the housework.

Nurturing, care and support

The sixth characteristic of Sex and Love Addiction says, "We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing, care, and support."

I've been to three 12-step meetings today looking for nurturing, care and support. I'm not sure if it's emotional dependence or not ... but I was really feeling the need for some comfort.

Thoughts of the friend who I had to bid adieu this week kept creeping in, and I kept praying, "God help me find in you, what I was seeking in him."

I don't know ... even after going to all those meetings and feeling good about hearing others share about improving their concious contact with God, and relating to the shares in tonight's SLAA meeting, I still don't feel replenished. I'm grateful to be sitting with the feeling. I'm thankful that I know the feelings are exaggerated and exacerbated because I'm going through withdrawal and that they will pass.

I know that everything happens in God's time, in God's way. It doesn't stop the little spoiled addict brat inside me from fidgeting and whining and refusing to give me any peace.

I have been praying for "thy will, not mine be done" all day and am praying tonight for the courage and strength to accept my Higher Power's will in my life and to learn the lessons.

Man, this sober thing sucks sometimes.

But the truth is, acting out is not any better. Sure, there was a time that there was good sexual returns, or when the "pursuit" brought on a feeling of euphoria. There is nothing strong enough now to raise the "kick" high enough to truly get the addictive hit anymore. I've worn out this drug of choice, and all that is left is the craving for the high. The emptiness has become too vast to even attempt to fill.

Only God can fill the God-shaped hole inside me. And I must be patient and diligent as this spiritual transformation takes place. In God's time.

The loss of the soul

The reading below from today's entry in the Answers in the Heart meditation book, reminds me of this line from Step 1 of the SLAA Text:
"This loss of one's soul could only be all the more poignant if the body in which it lived continued to exist, unanimated spiritually from within, and monstrously driven by imperious instinctual drives which would now have become its masters."

July 15 - Answers in the Heart

"The spiritual life springs forth in the pastures of the heart, in its free spaces, as soon as these two mysterious beings -- God and man -- meet there" - Paul Evdokimov

Sex addiction is a spiritual disease. Living as a practicing addict strips us of our spirituality. We lose our connection with reality, giving more and more of ourselves to try to fill the emptiness within. Unfortunately, we often don't discover that the addiction cannot deliver what it promised until we've paid the high price of spiritual atrophy.

We once made compulsive sexual behavior our Higher Power, but it is only our real Higher Power who can remove our obsessesive attitudes and behaviors and make us sane. Seeking this Higher Power means changing directions completely. Step Two helps us find hope, without which none of us can live. We come to this step as people emerging from a long, life-threatening journey through a wasteland. It is then, as beings of spirit as well as of flesh, that we start another journey to a Higher Power of light, joy and unconditional love.

--

Step Two is a process, and I get all the time I need.

And so it is

I feel sad today. The addiction has cost me another important friendship, one that has been valuable. I must accept that the friendship was God's gift to begin with, and the ending, God's will.

I became friends with a person in a 12-step fellowship, and in sharing with one another in the way that only 12-step friends do, we had become close ... and over the past few weeks, I have had to accept that the friendship had all the measures of an addictive charge. I looked for his e-mails endlessly. I got a charge when one arrived. I could not wait to see him and wanted to talk to him about everything.

In order to continue this journey toward wholeness, I had to be first honest with myself, then honest with others, including the person whose life I did not want to harm.

I was also honest with my therapist, who reminded me how important it is to make self-affirming statements. Playing the "poor me" game of deprivation, will only cause me to act out in one of my addictions, she said. "It's OK to be sad," she said. But it's not OK to eat it."

So, I affirm today that by setting healthy boundaries within this friendship, I am choosing to seek the best life available to me. I affirm my desire to live in accordance with the will of my Higher Power and I thank my Higher Power for the gift of a beautiful friendship that lasted only for a season and for the guidance that the season had ended and that new opportunities await.

One day at a time, I make progress. Just for today, I choose recovery.

Land of the Lost

I feel lost. That's the best way to describe it. I feel caught somewhere between here and there and simply don't know what to do with myself.

Yes, life is good. I feel at peace after writing the letters to my stepfather. I had a great weekend with my husband and am looking forward to another one this weekend.

I have some good people in my life, but I am not certain I feel comfortable reaching out to more than one person at a time. I know that sounds odd, but it's the way I seem to act. It feels like more than one person to think about at one time is just too much for me.

This is odd behavior for a woman who as a professional, juggled numerous ongoing relationships and as an addict kept relationships with multiple men all the time.

But that's not even what I set out to write about. It just seems that I'm going through life these last couple of days with absolutely no direction. I know that I have not used the tool of making a list, and I guess that's what I am going to have to do, although whatever I put on the list will just be "stuff," and that still feels useless.

Someone suggested that I may be going through a hangover -- after the intensity of what I went through with my trip to visit my family and friends, I may just not be settled down again. That seems plausible, but I just want to say for the record -- I don't like it.

July is a hot month

I had the idea that I would post something here every day in July. Well, like most of my ideas, this one clearly has not come to fruition. I admire those people who write on their blogs daily and really keep things up to date. It just doesn't happen for me.

I do have a desire to write every day however. The tag line for this blog is "My own brand of therapy." Writing is cathartic for me. I think in the beginning, when I started this blog, I felt I was writing to a bunch of people who didn't know anything about me. Somehow that felt easier to do than to share things about myself with people who know my story and some parts of it that no one else knows. I guess in a way it all goes back to that fundamental fear of intimacy.

I can remember crying about two years into recovery, asking God, myself, and anyone who would listen, "What is so wrong with me that I don't want to know myself?" Now I guess I'm asking myself, "What is so wrong with me, that I'm so afraid of letting others "into me see?"

People seem to like me, and even if they don't, I've become much less concerned with what others think and more focused on getting to know myself better and be at peace with who I am. So, what's the big deal?

I guess I still have some work to do in setting boundaries and accepting honesty as the solution for breaking down the barriers that keep me tied into my character defects.

I suppose one reason I'm having trouble writing here is because the focus of my convictions toward recovery seem to be shifting from my sex addiction -- no, I'm not cured -- to my compulsive overeating. I've shared before here that while it seems almost easy to talk about my sexual past, talking about my weight and my food seems nearly impossible.

Just as opening up about my sexual addiction helped me to overcome it, I know that opening up about my food addiction will also help me to cut the ties that bind. I continue to pray for the willingness to work a program of recovery around my food, but I find the minute I get close to making a committment I really, really pig out.

In "How it Works" in the 12-step programs, we read, "Remember, we deal with (compulsive overeating), cunning, baffling and powerful." I can surely say that my food addiction is all three -- cunning, baffling and incredibly powerful. I can also say that I am truly powerless over it.

I welcome comments and prayers in this hot month of July when eating ice cream, birthday cake, and watermelon by the patch full is my favorite thing to do.

I feel good

At the end of a four-hour visit with my stepfather on Father's Day, as I was leaving, I hugged the man who raised me, told him Happy Father's Day, that I loved him, and handed him a Father's Day card with the two letters I had written addressing the abuse I endured, the results that abuse had on my adult life and the things I am doing to take my life back. It was a relief to hand over the Father's Day card with the letters inside, but I have to admit that it was writing the letters that was the most meaningful part of the healing process for me.

I also, for the first time in my life, sent a Father's Day card to my biological father on Father's Day. He was never a part of my life, and for the first time ever, I didn't resent that in the least. I also found during the visit with my stepfather that I didn't have to be hateful or rude to him either. As I expected, he did and said some things that caused my blood pressure to begin to rise. But I was able to stay present and protect myself when the conversation started to go in directions that made me feel uncomfortable. I said the Serenity Prayer when faced with observing things that were none of my business, but nonetheless uncomfortable, and changed the subject without yelling or screaming or even getting angry.

The program worked for me -- I was able to ask for prayers before that big day came and I felt the thoughts and prayers of the people who were supporting me. I was able to get away some time in the morning before I met my stepfather and spend time in quietness and prayer. I used the phone to connect to program friends and support, both before and after.

I am most pleased that for the week before Father's Day, the focus of my vacation was not on delivering those letters -- but on having a good time and enjoying the friends I was with. By staying present with them, I understood that I have no secrets from the people who I care for most. They know me and I don't have to hide anything. I can be me, without shame. And because of that, I had a lot of good laughs. Likewise, I have learned who I can trust with the most private details of my life and who I cannot. Not trusting someone with private details doesn't mean I can't care for them or love them. I am just setting boundaries that help me to feel safe. It feels good. I feel good.

The hungry wolf

My sexual addiction became like an old comfortable friend over the past few years. It was the first place I would go to seek escape and comfort from any emotion -- good or bad. I didn't know how to feel my feelings. As I entered recovery, because seeking this escape was driving me to the point of complete insanity, I found that the more I tried to push away the addiction, white knuckle it and deny it access, the more difficult it made it to let go and co-exist. My addiction is a strong fighter. It was only when I accepted that I was powerless over my addiction's presence in my life, that I began to have any sense of peace.

I used to think that sobriety meant never having any desire to act out, or not automatically going back to the old standby (my addiction) when things got too rough to handle in my real life. Gratefully, today I accept that it's pretty natural that my still wounded spirit would go back to a place it found comfort and familiarity. Thanks to the gifts of the 12 Steps and SLAA, today I can make different, responsible, healthy choices that promote the healing rather than add to the pain. This realization was a hard one to internalize and I still get irritated sometimes and want to throw up my hands and say "Not again!" when I face a tempation or a trigger. But things are so much better now that I have accepted my "shadow friend," as a part of me.

I was reminded of this struggle recently as I finished up a two-week vacation back to my home state. On the last night of the trip, I opted to get a hotel closer to the airport where I could take a nice long shower and wake up refreshed and get off to the airport without all the hassle of being at someone else's house. Leave it to me to pick a hotel just next to an adult book store. I was just doing a "normal" thing -- renting a hotel, people do it all the time. But I forgot about my disease. I didnt keep it in mind. And in the midst of the emotional and physical exhaustion of my trip, I was very triggered to pay a visit to the adult bookstore and possibly bring someone back to the room to share the empty room with me. After driving around the store three times and finally locking myself in the room, praying, taking a shower and making a call, I fell into a restless sleep. I woke up sober and went to the airport, even though I'd thought of having breakfast at a nearby restaurant before I left town. Instead, I got beyond the security gates at the airport and was safe from the disease for another few hours.

The wolf is always at the door, as my old sponsor used to say. I have to be hypervigilant. I can't forget that it is there. I am powerless over its existence in my life. But I don't have to let it be my life or run my life. Just for today, I am grateful for a repreive.

Unscrupulous disease

The letters I have written to my stepfather are on my mind from time to time these days ... the words that are written there and the memories that are caught up in them. I wrote the letters to unleash the hooks of those memories, and have hopes that once he reads the words of the second letter, which ends with "These are my truths. Now we both know them." the betrayal bond will be broken. Of course, these are only my wishes -- my Higher Power may have other plans. We shall see.

This afternoon, however, I did have a bit of an epiphany as I thought of the words that I overheard my stepfather tell my mother one night when I was about 10 years old. He wanted her to have sex with him and she was resistant. He said, "You know if you don't give it to me, I'll go and get it from Rae. I already did once today." I heard those words in my mind many times until a couple of years ago I was forced to accept them as proof that my mother did know what was happening to me, but felt as powerless as I did to stop it.

As the words ran through my head this afternoon ... "If you don't give it to me ... I'll go and get it from Rae." I realized that this was just the mentality that kept me tied into the compulsive cycle of my addiction. I would seek a man's attention, acceptance and affection and take absolutely all that man had to give, and when he couldn't give any more, when he couldn't possibly fill the endless gaping hole inside me, I'd go after someone else. I kept multiple partners so that I never had to be without my "drug." When I would go from one man to another, driven by my own selfish cravings, I was essentially saying, "If you don't give me what I want ... I'll go and get it from some other source." Like my stepfather, I was saying ... "Do what you will, but I will not go without."

I've said it before ... the disease of sex and love addiction has no boundaries, has no scruples. It is willing to hurt and devastate anyone in its path -- whether my friend or a stranger -- in order to be fed and nurtured. It is selfish and without a conscience. Without my program, it runs my life and ruins the lives of the people around me.

For these reasons, I will keep coming back, seeking recovery and a daily reprieve from the unending need of my addict self.

Two letters

It's sometimes amazing how long it takes me to make it back here to write about what's going on in my world.

There has been a lot going on actually -- but I wanted to write today of some resolution to the "black cloud" that has been hanging over my head regarding whether to see my stepfather on Father's Day. We have not been communicating for some time and my life is pretty much more sane when it is that way. However, I also know that underneath I have a feeling of something unresolved between us and I have a fear that if I don't resolve it before he dies (which he's likely to do soon), I might be stuck in this limbo for the rest of my life. (As I write that I realize that there's an underlying need for surrender there.)

Anyway, in reaction to all this I have talked with my therapist and shared with program support people, and have been blessed with something beautiful. I was to have a letter to my stepfather drafted by last Wednesday outlining what happened to me as a child, the results of what happened, and what I was doing about it. I did everything under the sun to put it off, not necessarily conciously, but at least subconciously. Then when Tuesday came and I knew I had to write the letter, I started writing everything I remembered about my abuse in detail, but as I moved on to 'the results' portion of the letter, I kept zoning out and almost dozing off. (Traits of trying to slip away from reality for me.) I was so frustrated and I felt like I was babbling in my writing. Later that day, after sharing my frustrations over the letter with a friend in another fellowship, I got an e-mail from him with the outline of a letter that was the perfect precipice for writing all the words I needed to say. It was very simple, yet exactly what I wanted to say and couldn't find the words for. I was so grateful.

The next day when I met with the therapist, I read her both letters. When I read back the words of the letter I was so frustrated with, I saw that it made perfect sense and was filled with all the truths of what I had been through. Then when I read the more general letter that came as a result of my friend's assistance, it just seemed to bring everything together. My therapist suggested that if I do choose to see my stepfather on Father's Day -- which was a perfect reminder that the choice is mine and that it's OK to see him if I want to -- to give him both the letters as I leave and ask him to read them after I'm gone. Alternately, she said mailing the letters on Saturday, to arrive on Monday would be another option. She thought both letters were appropriate, because one was filled with the truths of what happened to me, and she thought that was important for him to read.

What I felt after finishing the letters was that what my stepfather needed and felt was irrelevant. These letters were for me. As I wrote to him, " It is not that I don’t care for you, but now I must care for myself. When I was small, I was powerless, but now I am taking back my power. I am working to heal my wounds through the help of a therapist and a network of support friends. I no longer keep what happened to me as a child a secret. The secret was the harm. And the truth has set me free. It has allowed me to recognize that forgiveness is not a gift I can give away. However, it is a gift I can give to myself, so that we both can be free. I pray for peace and love in both our hearts."

I do have some sense that he will get some closure as well from reading these letters. I know I certainly have felt a weight lifted in writing them. Once they are delivered, I hope that all fears of obligation to "act as if" nothing happened and everything is OK will be gone. If those fears do not disappear ... then I know I have more work to do.

For today, I'm grateful for the work that has been done.

Thanks for listening and being with me on this journey.

FOG = Fear, Obligation and Guilt

The 12-Step Programs have a lot of great acronyms that help to keep us all sober and focused on recovery. Today I was grateful to read this one: "FOG stands for FEAR, OBLIGATION and GUILT. When we work on these three issues the FOG begins to clear."

These three emotions are exactly what I am feeling as I consider the fact that I'll be back in my home state where my stepfather lives during the Father's Day weekend. I just told my therapist yesterday that my FOO (family of origin) has a real committment to obligation. With the obligation comes guilt.

The truth for me today is that no one can MAKE me feel any emotions I don't choose to feel. However, I can make a decision to turn my sense of fear, obligation and guilt over to my Higher Power and ask for guidance in my thoughts and actions. I can ask for healing and acceptance in my heart and in the heart of my abusive stepfather who I truly want to forgive, not for him, but for me. I have realized I cannot give away forgiveness. It is a gift I give myself. But I cannot do it alone. I need others to help me learn to love myself enough to let go absolutely.

People have told me for years ... "You don't owe him anything." I KNOW I don't, but knowledge carried in the head, doesn't always make it to the wounded spirit that still wishes for those beautiful father/daughter relationships you read about on Hallmark cards. There's still that feeling of being unsettled, knowing that my stepfather could die at any time, and I might feel as if I never took the chance to release my pain face to face. I chose to stop talking with him about three years ago, because I was tired of "putting on a happy face" and pretending that I was not hurting, but unwilling to scream and rage at him either. At times my silence has been punishment, and at times it has been necessity. But because of it, I've been able to heal without continuing to live the lie.

I'm grateful today to be able to speak these truths, to have this wisdom and to desire healing that will come in God's time, not in mine. I'm grateful for the willingness to pray for God's guidance and to be quiet and listen for it. My therapist and a recovery friend have both recommended writing a letter to my stepfather (not necessarily to be mailed) which outlines what happened, what the results were and what I am doing about it. Both have said that unless I can own my own power, that going to see my stepfather during this trip was not a healthy move, but one based in classic codependence. Just for today, I can accept their guidance as gifts from my Higher Power.

Somewhere between the jagged edges

I've been in a weird, bifurcated place lately. On one hand I feel as if I'm growing and on the other as if I am in the pits of hell.

I was able to release some tears last night during an SLAA meeting as I expressed how lonely it feels to be in a committed relationship with someone who often feels very absent from my life. My husband's workaholism is raging and my addict continues to knock at the door and remind me that it's there "to help."

I have always been open to my Higher Power's will in my marriage and continue to be so. I'm also acknowledging that I'll be open to my Higher Power's will in my relationship with my therapist as I meet with her tomorrow and tell her for right now I think it's most important that I focus on my own personal growth rather than on the growth of my marriage. My husband and I are at a place where I'm not sure we're ready to grow and after much prayer and discussion with others, I have to believe that I have to focus on the things I can change, which are within me. I have felt at odds with my therapist over this and skipped a week's session with her to get more clear in my own mind about how I wanted to deal with it.

It is true that my marital relationship could be more fulfilling and that is sometimes triggering to my addict. It is certainly not that I don't think our marriage needs work. It's simply that I know my husband well enough to know that he's living so deeply in his own disease (workaholism) that he will most certainly not be present for any joint work we might attempt right now.

In the meantime, I am reminding myself to live life one day at a time, living in the solution, feeling my feelings, whatever they are. I am reminding myself that medicating painful feelings with the disease means rather than practicing healthy behaviors such as setting boundaries and self care within my marriage, I am using those efforts on a dead-end situation, which can be incredibly painful. I am reminding myself that if I give in to the subtle call of the disease, I'll be caught up in a mental prison that keeps me obsessed with seeking reassurance, checking e-mails and feeling empty when nothing appears, feeling obsessed with a need to hear from and be with the unfortunate bloke who falls into the addictive trap. I am reminded, that while living in the disease, there are never enough emails, phone calls, text messages, dramatic expressions and blow ups. There is never enough face to face time, never enough committment, never enough balance. It's just an empty vat of never enough anything, and suddenly my life is completely unmanageable as I try to make it enough by reading the same e-mails over and over, thinking until it feels as if my head will bleed, and feeling as if my life is completely not worth living.

One day at a time, I am attempting to show myself before a power greater than myself who can restore me to sanity, rather than send me down a very rocky road where the lessons are earned on the edges of jagged rocks.

My body hurts

Over the past few years, I have been releasing, little by little the emotional pain of being molested for the most precious years of my childhood. Yesterday my body began to experience the pain, the aches of being so tied up in tension, fear, dread. I could feel the presence of the wounded child spirit cowering. Today I'm not sure if the pain I feel is a continuation of those feelings or just soreness from the experience. Whatever it is ... my body hurts, from head to toe.

On an unrelated subject, I wanted to write here that I have "awakened" to realize that I fear the vulnerability of intimacy with my husband. He's too close. He knows too much about me. It's easier for me to experience some excuse for love and intimacy with someone who is all but a stranger to me than it is to even think of laying beside my husband and having him caress my body. Sometimes I can hardly stand for him to touch me. It makes me afraid of what will come next, almost as if he is the abuser.

I had already had this realization when I heard someone share at a meeting recently that he could more easily have sex with a complete stranger, than he could with his wife of 30-plus years. It felt good to know that I was not alone. The man followed his comment with, "How's that for insanity?" Sign me up, friend, I'm in the crazy line with you.

I've been reading and hearing so much lately about the importance of full-disclosure to spouses in order to have hope for recovery and healing. How's that for vulnerability ... being really, completely honest with someone else and still expecting them to love you.

I should also acknowledge that I have been focusing my attention in program on the people who just can't seem to make a relationship work in their lives. It's like they are either addictive or they are alone or they are so ill at ease in their own skin trying to pretend to be something they aren't that they can't make it work. But I also have to be honest with myself and say that I have seen recovery change some relationships and some people. There's no reason it can't work for me, if I'm willing to do the work.

The least I can do

I have not written here, or most anywhere, for a month. I received a note from a blogger buddy who asked if I was a stuck as my blogging seems to be.

I'm neither stuck nor growing, neither clear nor confused, neither drunk nor sober, neither perfect nor imperfect, neither happy nor sad.

I'm in this bizarre place that I can't seem to find the words to describe, other than to use a tired phrase, "I'm in a state of transition and change." This particular state is not easy to describe and I have been unwilling/unable to write about it.

There's been a lot written, even by me, about living life in balance, in the middle, in the gray areas. Addicts are known as extremists.

I do find that I am not writing ... not e-mails, not blog posts, not journal entries, not snail mail.

I am also finding that I don't feel passionate or committed to anything. Everything, literally, feels fluid, as if there is nothing I can count on, and nothing that will last. I am reluctant to start new things because it feels like they won't last, and it feels impossible to accept that there is nothing on earth that lasts forever.

My therapist suggested some flow of consciousness writing to express myself, and I guess this is what this is. I'm emptying some of my confusion, some of my struggles out onto the table in hopes of making better sense of it.

While I'm writing I'm going to acknowledge a fear that I have to lose my husband in order to really get a chance to start over. Not only is he being forced, in very small ways, to look at his own contributions to the losses in our family. I am also seeing my part. I heard a man say at a meeting the other day that in order for his marriage to survive, the old relationship, filled with guilt, shame, fear, anger, resentments, dishonesty had to die. He killed it with complete disclosure to his wife about his past, and now, together they are working to rebuild from a point of honesty and commitment to recovery. She has her program and he has his.

I don't know what will happen in my relationship with my husband. I left that up to my Higher Power a long time ago. My heart is open to continuing the relationship with a man who I admire, love and have built a friendship with. My heart gets scared at the thought of losing what we have built, and my gut tells me to continue to work toward a place of acceptance with the things that are flawed and to live my life in a way that will do as little harm as possible. Only time will tell the outcome and the answer. When it does ... I'll write it down.

"You're too fat to fuck"

No, that's not just an eye-catching title for this post, it is the first words of Judith Moore's brilliant memoir "Fat Girl." While plenty of the men I have pursued for sexual purposes in my disease found me perfectly acceptable for naughty chat, phone sex or even a roadside or office "servicing," they too have found me "too fat to fuck." Even more men, upon seeing my photograph, simply stopped talking, disappeared and pretended as if the online conversation never started. And while I might catch the attention of a few dozen men with my online antics, I've never been someone who would be picked up at a bar ... unless it was closing time and even the ugly fat girls get pretty then. A dear friend chose this week to disclose that while he had been sporting a hard on for me about a year ago, once he saw what I looked like he was "physically turned off by (my) weight." He told me this as if I weren't already keenly aware of why his attitude had shifted. We remained friends and value one another on a host of levels ... but the pain is no less.

My friend's disclosure prompted me to begin to write about something that has been calling to my writing fingers for a while now. For some time, maybe months, I have felt the need to write about and talk about the fact that for as long as I can remember I've been not just overweight, but obese -- to explore at some level how much I hate my body and at many levels myself.

Interestingly, it's far, far easier to share the shame of my sexual escapades than it is to talk about being fat. I suppose one reason is because in my addict mind, sex gives me significance. Obesity, while it is there for the world to see, strips away any significance I hope to have. Whether it is in a job, a friendship, or simply walking down the street, the first thing people notice about me is that I am fat. I carry my fat with me everywhere. Yet I hide its pain deep inside.

I'm the person for whom people have to think twice about which table to choose at a restaurant or even a dinner party to accomodate my fatness. I'm the person who has to ask for a "lap belt" when I ride on an airplane. I'm the enormous person in the room who is invisible.

And, psychology tells me that I am invisible because I want to be, that all my fat is "protecting me" from the things I fear most -- sexual attraction, intimacy, and transparency. I don't have to be anything else because I am fat. My therapist often tells me that my behaviors and choices are always serving me in some way. I suppose she is right, and at some level I can accept it, but I'm not sure I can dwell on it long enough to even absorb its truth, much less accept it.

So, at least I broke the ice in writing on this topic. I want to explore it more and hope to come back to it.

Drinking from a fire hose

Some days I feel as if I'm "stuck" and other days it's like drinking from a fire hose. The "awakenings" and realizations come so fast that I can't seem to process them fully.

Today, I am realizing that my prayers that my character defect of dishonesty be removed and replaced with transparency are being answered one day at a time. I have been avoiding contacting my sponsor and even though I didn't know why -- I was honest with her and told her what I knew -- that it wasn't personal, that I wasn't trying to hide anything, but it just seemed to be something I was avoiding.

I talked with my therapist about this avoidance today, along with some goals I have for working toward healthy sexuality and intimacy in my marriage. In our discussions, a pattern was uncovered. I feel comfortable with giving to others -- whether it is physically or emotionally -- but I feel very uncomfortable, and ill at ease in receiving nurturing, care and support. I don't feel comfortable with my body, and this aversion to contact with my sponsor tells me that I also don't feel comfortable with exposing my spirit either. I love talking with the women I sponsor and other recovery friends. I love rubbing my husband's back at night. But turn things around and I'm so ill at ease. I don't have the answer for how to resolve this yet, but I have faith that more will be revealed. I am feeling certain that this continues to center around my need to be "in control."

These realizations come on the heels of reading this profound statement in Maureen Canning's book, "Love, Anger, Lust": "In the childhood abuse, we sexually addicted people suffered, we were forced to disconnect from ourselves. It was the result of sacrificing our authentic emotions in order to serve our immature and needy caretakers. The characteristic perversion resulting from this disconnection is that sex addicts lose the ability to get pleasure from sexual activity, even as they declare their need for sexual pleasure. In fact, they don't know what sexual pleasure is. The abuse they suffered in childhood caused them to fuse fear, shame, lack of power and intensity with sexuality. Until addicts recover from this abuse, sexual motives will carry the rest of the painful bundle."

Something that came up for me after my session with my therapist is the realization that, while being molested as a child, sex felt like rejection to me. I was being violated because I was the "step" daughter. If I'd been "real" - I might have been good enough. I have spent my entire life feeling that sense of "not good enough." But this concept of sex feeling like rejection is new to me. It makes it more understandable that sexual intimacy with my husband has been so difficult through the years, while sex with strangers and men I've engaged in extramarital affairs with gave me a "high." Again, it goes back to control - I sought out those men, I pursued them and "caught" them. In a marriage, sex is not about control, but about sharing -- yet it has felt like something I was not allowed to say no to.

I recognize that some of these thoughts have still not gelled and may seem disconnected ... I am trying to get them out so I can look at them and process them. I do know that I could never get to this level of self-examination as long as I was acting out. Too much of my time and energy was spent focused on one person or the process of finding the next "high." I am grateful to have the clarity to seek these answers and to have these awarenesses. I am grateful to truly understand what it means to say ... "This program is about you."

Sharing some space in the blogosphere

I recently discovered Eli blogging over at Eli's Addict and really admire the level of honesty he uses in writing not only about his addictive self, but also about the complexities of being the spouse of a sexual abuse survivor. I encourage readers here to sneak a peek.

I also want to send out some blog love to Mary over at A Room of Mama's Own who is struggling to keep her head above water as she works her recovery program, keeps her readers informed about everything from autism to addiction, and actively participates in the blogging community at The Second Road, where life intersects with recovery. The story of Mary's relationship with her husband Mark, who among other things is a sex addict, has been a great inspiration to me and I'm so thankful to share a little space here on my blog to recognize her as a true hero.

I also want to thank Willow at Making My Peace, Margaux at Love in the Time of Addiction, and the speed demon herself at Vicarious Rising for all the wonderful support they have shown me over some very lonely months. Each of these women is one their own journey and again, I'm grateful to share some space here in the blogosphere with them.

I identify with my fellow codependent sex addict and bluegrass fan Being Made New, who is struggling with that question that comes to all of us who leave our addictions behind and then are faced with the question, "Is this all there is?"

Scribbling Mum asked me in a comment recently: Do you have issues/a pattern with "scanning" a room/restaurant for men when you are out in public? Like an automatic thing? Looking in cars, etc.? Does it bother your husband? Have you worked on this issue?

The answer Mum is I don't think that women struggle as much as men with this issue -- though I can really only speak for myself and say that overall scanning the room is not something I have a lot of trouble with. However, I do find myself looking at men and "reading" the likelihood of whether they are a fellow sex addict. I can usually spot my fellow addicts pretty quickly and now and then get triggered. What I do have trouble with is "eye sex" while sitting in the car at a stop light. I'll stop and look into the car beside me and just continue to stare at the male driver until I get his attention then give him a smile that has just a hint of "You are certainly sexy." Because I get such a "kick" out of it, I've had to go so far as putting it on my bottom line behaviors. I never do it with my husband in the car ... as for this addict at least, everything that is addictive is done in hiding.

Gentle Path has a great commentary on how to create a sex addict in her "About Me" section. I encourage you to take a look.

And, last but not least, I really liked Ken's approach to Step Six, which his has posted on his blog My Sex Drug. Ken is doing some great service and recovery work and I'm particularly thankful for his creation of the online recovery community Sex Addict Support.

The devil inside

As the brittle wisps of the willow turn golden again, I am reminded there is hope for a better day. RMB

NOTE: This is an exercise in expressing some very angry and frustrating thoughts. The language and content may be offensive and triggering, particularly to fellow sex addicts. It is not to be taken literally or as a serious threat to myself or others. It is an attempt to rid myself of an anxiety that is plaguing me with unbearable frustration. Some people run, some people box, some people drink. I write.

I am filled with an animal-like rage ... an anger that seems to have no definition, no specific target, just a breathtaking power that leaves me screaming inside. As it screams it leaves behind dark, dark whispers of what a horrible person I am.

I am furious that I am trapped inside a mind that no matter how hard I try I neither escape nor understand.

I am enraged that every single day takes more effort than moving a mountain and that even the slighest variation in "plan" can cause each step to go all the slower, if there's even a step at all.

All I can think right now is that I would like to chop off a rock hard cock and slice it to bits, stomp on it and stuff it down some man's throat, then kick him in a sewage pond like the piece of shit he is.

With enraged anger, I want to bite off the horny tool of some asshole and rip still another off at the core using my bare hands, watching the blood drain right out of him.

I would like to slap the shit out of you -- whoever you are and scream and scream until all this anger is released. To kick you in the balls, to spit on you, to claw at you and scream "I hate your fucking guts!"

Then I'd like to turn to that high-talking buxom blonde you want to fuck and rip her hair out by the handfulls. To slap her the way I've slapped you and tell her to get a fucking grip. To punch her and tell her to stop acting like a twit, to kick her and tell her to stop pretending she is stupid and naive, to hold her beautiful body in front your dickless self and scream, "What are you going to fuck her with now!" To force her head between your bleeding legs and ask her if she likes to suck cock now!

I HATE you and I don't even know who you are!

You are everyone and you are no one. I find you in pieces in every man and every beautiful woman I see. I hate your power to decide who is good enough to fuck and I hate your body is the one that is always a lure for the hard dick radar. I hate your very existence.

And through it all ... I can't wait for all this anger to end, so that I can either live or die. I hate living with this anger inside. It scares me and causes me to feel bad about myself. The more I stuff it, the more it kills me ... but I'm afraid of expressing it for fear it will turn out just like this, that it will be out of control, that I will be crazy and never able to stop.

How does one person carry so much anger? How did it even get inside me? I didn't invite it! I feel its tension in my back, in my body, between my ears -- screaming in pain. It only takes a second for it to build, but it seems to be taking a lifetime for it to dissipate.

I remember an angry poet who once fucked me with wild abandon before I was married. I spent months being incredibly aroused as he screamed out words he called poems on a stage shared by other "performance" or slam poets, before one drunken night the opportunity arose for the anger to be expressed between us in full sexual force. Sometimes I wish I could take the rage that he had in his words and use it to just push all this anger out of me. Of course, the relief would only last a little while. It would all come flooding back when he didn't call the next day.

I'm not done but I don't know what else to say. I'm furious and there seems to be no relief.

Practicing honesty

Wow, the miracles just keep coming. I just shared with my sponsor with complete honesty about some uncomfortable feelings I am facing. Dishonesty is an isidious tool of my addiction that has permeated every corner of my life. To have the opportunity and the willingness to practice transparency and honesty feels really amazing.

I've been feeling triggered lately and the triggers just keep coming. I know I am in an emotional/spiritual place where I have historically been prone to act out. The difference in today and the days and years of the past is I shared my feelings with someone. Previously, I would have fought the triggers with all my might, considering myself bad for having them, until eventually I would give in to acting out. Then I would have "failed to mention" my slip, felt shame around it, and yet secretly "empowered" that I could "get away with it." All of this would cut me off from my source of healing, my Higher Power and my true self. I am incredibly grateful today to have been given -- and trust me it was a gift, not something of my own making -- the willingness to share so openly with my sponsor.

Just a bit about where I am: Last week it seemed that one small trigger turned into another and then another and another. I shared those triggers with my sponsor, as well as my therapist, as they came up, and sought their source to the best of my ability. In usual form, my husband was the scapegoat, getting most of the blame for why I was feeling triggered. He wasn't paying enough attention to me, he was spending too much time at work, I was feeling lonely. This is that old tried and true strategy of putting the blame on him for my problems. As a result, I've been really needy with him and spent much of yesterday acting like a child who needed attention. Trying to manipulate him to be more romantic on Valentine's Day in all sorts of ways that would make me sick if I saw someone else doing them. This morning he got up and went to work and indicated he'd have to go back this afternoon. It just feels like we have no "us" time and I've put myself in a situation where he is too much of my source of entertainment, companionship, etc. By doing this, I know that I am in a state of depletion. Also, I'm doing a lot for him and feeling as if I'm not getting the same in return.

I think even deeper than all this with him is I am continuing to struggle with perfectionism. I am making these to do lists each day with full intention of getting through a lot of stuff. Some days I do, and some days I don't. I allowed myself the room when I said I would make the lists each day that I didn't have to accomplish everything, that they were just a guide for doing the next right thing. Still, I can feel that I am beating myself up for not being perfect.

For comic relief, I'll share one way perfectionism recently caused insanity in my life. In order to make my life more manageable and to have a focus for doing the next right thing, I make to do lists each day. On Friday and if I'm not mistaken maybe even on Thursday of this week ... I spent so much time and energy trying to figure out what was the "right" thing to do first, that I ended up feeling deflated at the end of the day because I had accomplished so little. What I needed to do was just do something, but I was too worried that I wasn't doing the perfect thing. Egads.

I'm grateful I have the slogans and a set of 6th Step Affirmations of SLAA to get me through one day at a time. And I'm grateful I have a sponsor and a fellowship that I can get honest with, so that my feelings and my triggers are "right-sized" and I'm far less apt to act out, and more apt to continue to grow in all my relationships.

Thank you to the women on the other side

I wrote this to a fellow blogger this morning and wanted to share it here. It's not something I haven't said before, but it bears repeating.

The wives of my fellow sex addicts who blog about their feelings, experiences and struggles have saved my life and helped me heal in so many ways. You all have helped me to see the pain that my husband has never been able to express, and more than that to recognize that when I act out with a married man, I'm doing far more damage than this senseless act could ever be worth. Margaux at Love in the Time of Addiction, Mary at A Room of Mama's Own, Woman Anonymous7 and so many others are doing healing work. I'm just sorry it takes so much pain to be the healer.

I hope in some small way that by saying things that perhaps their loved ones cannot say right now, that I have been a healer too.