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.

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.

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. "

Breathing deeply inward

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

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

AND

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

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

Living one day at a time, in gratitude.

One cold Saturday

It's freezing cold here, but the sun is shining, so I'm happy! It feels like it's been a long time since I've been here to write and share my thoughts. The work week went well, though I have to admit that I did have to struggle a lot with focusing on my work and I had some addictive triggers that caused me a bit of anxiety. Still ... I made it OK. Well, at least with my sex and love addiction. The food issues are exacerbated by the fact that every fast food joint in America, and a few great pastry shops have a space on the second floor of the building where I am working. Luckily after the first day or two of temptations, I became desensitized to the "opportunity" to overeat and indulge in all sorts of unhealthy foods.

I also spent some "down" time this week really grieving the fact that I have continually punished myself by bringing people into my life who perpetuate my underlying belief that I am "less than." It made it difficult to make it through one of the days at work, and with so much emotion laying on my sleeves, I was incredibly sleepy and staying focused was even more difficult. I found myself incessantly checking e-mail and writing e-mails and procrastinating in one way or another. I guess this is some of the remnants of the depression, which I continue to take medication for.

I also wasted my time listening to someone I know say that he wasn't quite sure that incest was a bad thing -- that learning about sex from someone who you love and trust firsthand seemed to make sense. He went on to say that there would probably be far fewer hangups if families talked more openly about sex. I sat in silence, feeling both defensive and misunderstood. I didn't even want to scream out, because it felt like it would be a waste of breath. It brought back a feeling I often have that no one can hear my voice.

A friend of mine recently referred to my behavior as "punishing myself." He suggested perhaps I was punishing myself for not being a good daughter ... for not maintaining contact with my stepfather. I wrote to him:

As much as it doesn't make sense, I feel bad about myself for cutting off connection to my stepfather, not calling to check on him when I know he's been in the hospital, not rushing to "clear things up" and pretend again that I am not hurting. Sometimes the farther I go into my thoughts on these things the more depressed I become. In other words, I thought I was "doing the right thing" cutting off connection to him ... and that has resulted in a whole other set of feelings -- feelings like I am only punishing him, it's not really that I am trying to take care of myself, because if I were taking care of myself I wouldn't make myself feel bad by being a bad daughter. It's crazy thoughts like this that keep me spinning. And in the meantime, I'm trying to recover from not just one but two or three lures that are so overwhelmingly attractive that the pain they cause seems better than living without them.

All of this seems a little more sad than my week actually was. My husband was very supportive and encouraging this week and it did feel really good to be among the workforce. I liked learning to use the transit system downtown and had some great conversations with a few fellow riders. The work I am doing also allows me to talk with people all over the world and that has been very satisfying as well. I enjoy meeting new people and hearing parts of their stories -- even if it is just what they do for a living.

Well, it's time to walk the dog ... on this nice sunny but cold day.

Working woman

Wow ... it's amazing that I've been sitting around for so long, bitching about not being able to find a job, wasting time acting out at times, and now all of a sudden, once again, I am a professional. It's equally amazing how much of a sense of "worthiness" that gives me. I'm not exactly sure that's healthy, but for now I'm going to count it as a gift. It's true that this job I've landed is only temporary, but it's a job and it makes me feel like I am "out there" in the world again, amongst the "normal" people who go to work each day and come home and bitch about it and feel a sense of accomplishment when they do a good thing.

Today I had a couple of great moments -- one was when I stopped to ask a man for directions for the train station and he asked if I wanted to share the cab. That showed such kindness and we had a good conversation about the work he did. On the train on the way in I also talked to a woman whose work complements the work I'll be doing for the next few weeks. God was doing some work in my life today and I'm so very happy.

Oh, and did I mention ... I don't have to be to work until 9:30 each day? Could life really be better?

The good stuff

This morning as we began our slow process of awakening for the day, my husband lifted the covers he had wrapped around him and moved his body against mine. Our legs and feet touched, he wrapped his body around my bottom and back and it felt perfect. Yesterday, in the middle of the day, on a mere whim, we took a break from doing Christmas cards and paying bills and all on his own -- no prompts from me -- he gave me a wonderful oil massage with a very happy and intimate ending.

It seems that little white lie I told to those acting out partners worked. :)

As I lay there this morning, enjoying his body against mine, I thought of two things. First, I remembered the times that R. would wrap his long body against mine in the bed, and make sure that every inch of him was against me, including his feet against mine. I loved that, found it so loving and enduring, it made all the other drama in our lives disappear. And I remember thinking then that I could never have such tender moments with my husband. That was a lie, a lie of my addiction. I also thought of the lies I felt last week as I lay in bed in withdrawal, thinking my life would be sexless for its remaining days, or at least there would be no pleasure and fun in it. That, too, was a lie of my addiction. My addiction wants to own me. I'm glad I have a choice to turn my will and life over to the care of a Higher Power than that stinking, rotten disease.

The second thing I thought was how I wanted to bound out of the bed and write about this moment, about how good it felt, about my thoughts on how most of the lies of my life live within my addiction. But I stopped myself, and I said, "Lay right here and enjoy this moment. It is a gift." It caused me to think of how I always, always want to give everything away. I wanted to write about that moment to give it away. Sure, I kept the treasure of it, but I needed to get it out of me and share it with someone else. When I read a good book, I can't wait to tell someone else. When I read or see something inspiring, I immediately want to tell or show someone else. But when I hurt, at least to the world outside this little confessional, I'm not so eager to share. It's food for thought, without judgment, just something to think about for me. What do I keep for myself?