Confession

It is Wednesday.

Last Wednesday I did very bad things. Yesterday I did very bad things. And almost every day between. I'm done now.

We're not even talking my normal-bad. I went above and beyond this time. All week. I am miserable. heavy, low, sick...

Yet I feel compelled to return to God. Compelled. Why? Why would He want me? I've made a mockery of this body and mind and agency He has given me. Why would He want me?

Yet.... it appears He does.

There was this guy, see. I felt powerless to resist his advances because I liked them so much. It could have been worse. It wasn't ALL the way bad. The funniest thing is, I thought he liked me for me. He was lying. Satan was lying. I was lying.

The guy is out of my life now but he left some things behind and he took some things with him. I can't believe I fell for the lies of a man again. Why do I keep doing that? why do I keep trusting till I can't trust anymore, giving the benefit of the doubt till all doubt is gone.... How many times will I have this lesson before I learn it?

But that's not the real issue. The real issue is the choices I made. He came over Wednesday night and I was sure we wouldn't do anything. I told him I just wanted to be friends and he agreed, so when he said he wanted to kiss me, I was surprised. I should have said no but what can a kiss hurt, right? And I love kissing, and it's been SO LONG. So I said yes. He was speedy. He kissed me a few times and then he went for my neck and I said he shouldn't kiss my neck and he did again and it didn't take long at all for us to behave like lust-struck teenagers.

It is rare that my addiction translates onto other in-the-flesh humans. I was ill-prepared for that night. I worried that night would ruin my June 2 goal. I hoped it wouldn't but I didn't know. I was going to talk to the bishop. But then on Friday, I ruined it for myself. Porn on the iPhone. It's the only way I access the stuff. I erased June 2nd with that horrible experience. So now when that day comes I'll want to cry. I will cry, probably.

God didn't punish me and I wanted to be punished I think so I went looking for punishment. Saturday after work I walked into a sex store and made a purchase. I will post a video poem below and from it is this line: "yes, I would like to pay to become the opposite of what I want to be." I think this marks the first time I have ever made an addiction-related purchase.

Then more porn on the iPhone along with the use of my newly-purchased sin.

I couldn't look myself in the mirror, couldn't think about me or my future or my kids or my Jesus. Just my flesh.

Then God still didn't punish me. My house didn't blow up. I didn't get into a wreck. My kids were fine. At their dad's for the weekend, but fine.

Later Saturday, the guy wanted me to meet him for a good time and I wanted to meet him too but instead I went with my friend to her friends' house and we played a game and they were all drinking, all but me. For a little while. Until, for the first time in my 30+ years, I did not decline when I was offered alcohol. I drank it.

Nothing about that makes sense. Well, actually, it does. I wanted to make God punish me.

Know what happened? Nothin. I felt tired but I was up till 3:30. I could walk a straight line, I could do anything, I didn't feel any different and I was SO MAD. I wasn't punished. Nothing happened.

Before I went to sleep, I watched some more porn on my iPhone.

I didn't go to church the next day. The last time I remember skipping church without being ill was in 2004, the day I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd child. That was almost eight years ago.

I skipped my recurring bishop's appt.

I talked to the guy on Sunday. We talked about things we shouldn't have talked about. I told him things I now regret with all my heart. I didn't care. I wanted to die, I wanted to make a reason for God to punish me.

I had about an hour of relative clarity on Sunday afternoon. I took my iPhone outside to the patio, dropped it to the concrete, and pounded it with a meat tenderizer. And a barbell. And a screwdriver. And I stomped on it. And I took it apart, layer by layer, and put it in the trash. Probably some shards of it still lay outside. I hate that stupid phone and now I never have to look at it again.

Monday I went to work and wanted to die and thought of some clever ways to die. But.... nothing bad happened.

Why isn't God punishing me?

Came home and talked online some more with the guy. We talked about sex. I kept telling him that I don't want to talk about sex. He kept telling me sorry. but it kept coming up. I told him if we had another conversation like that, that I wouldn't be his friend anymore. He said he will be a gentleman. He said he was in love with me. He's been saying that for a month or so now. I wish I never met him.

I kept making excuses for him. And for me of course.

So yesterday he called me and he said he just wanted closure. He was going to date this other girl he said. Okay. But we talked about sex, and on the phone it was somehow hotter than online and I just listened to him and he became my porn and I became his.

That was yesterday.

Today I asked him not to contact me again. 20 minutes later, he called. I answered and then hung up so he couldn't leave a voicemail. He never tried to call back.

That's the facts. I can't explain the feelings yet. I haven't quite faced myself, or God. But I can feel Him calling for me which kinda makes me mad because I just want Him to punish me. Why do I want that??

here's that video link. love this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B28zpGQNm5k

"I don't do this because I enjoy it, I do this because I'm addicted to it." -- A Letter To Marsha

Here's what I know for sure doesn't work:
sex
making out
pornography
masturbation
drinking
cutting
hiding
lying
running away
eating
spending obscene amounts of money
Facebook

I know all this from experience. I experienced almost all of these over the past six days. None of this stuff works but man do I want it to. I keep believing the lie that tells me "masturbation will make this all go away today."

Have you seen the movie Mr. Brooks? It's a crazy movie about a man who is addicted to killing. He has this "imaginary friend" called Marshall. Marshall convinces him to kill. Marshall is the addict in him. In the movie, Mr Brooks says, "I don't do this because I enjoy it; I do this because I'm addicted to it." So.... I named my addict Marsha. We all know Marsha is me but it's interesting and sometimes enlightening when I separate me from my addict-self.

And today, I dumped Marsha in a letter. Here it is:

Hello Marsha,

I would like you to leave me now. You do me no good. When I oblige you, I want to die. You're not allowed in my house anymore; you're not allowed in my life. I never want to see you again. I never want to think about you again. I would beg you to leave but I think you would mock my desperation. And you'd use it against me.

The reason I've kept you around this long is because without you, I am lonely and anxious, and you always convince me that you will cure my loneliness, you will cure my anxiety! You lie to me! How do you always convince me that this time you're telling the truth, that this time you will take away all my troubles?

Instead of curing my loneliness, you intensify it. Instead of alleviating my anxiety, you exponentially multiply it. My life has nothing bad in it that you don't make worse; nothing beautiful that you don't taint.

But I don't know how to live without you. Maybe I can't handle freedom. Maybe I can't handle peace. Maybe I can't handle life without you. You came into my life without my notice, but I do remember a time without you, a very long time ago. And maybe I can't function anymore if you're not with me.

But I'd sure like to try. I'm tired of you; you make me sick. We are so close that it seems like the only way to eliminate you is to eliminate me. But there must be another way.

You will leave me now.I can't figure this out if you're here with me, lying to me about everything, tricking me, enticing me, harassing me, seducing me, destroying me. Leave me now. Go.

Sincerely,
~Erin

I don't think this will do any good but I enjoyed writing it.

This weekend (well, last Wednesday onward), I made more bad choices than I did in my entire adolescence. I'm trying to get God to punish me. I'm trying to find my rock bottom. I'm trying to pay the consequences for my behavior. I'm trying to be my own God. I'm in a very bad place.

Never

Feels like I'll never go to the temple.
Feels like I'll never take the Sacrament again.
Feels like I'll never be free,
Never happy
Never good
Never smart
Never right.

This blog is a joke. I have subtitled it "an LDS woman's recovery from sexual addictions," and that's a joke. I'm changing that subtitle today. And maybe the title, too.

I can't tell what's real, what's authentic. I want, so badly, for God to punish me in some obvious way, like injury or illness or great personal loss. But... all I get is blessed. And I'm sick of it.

How Quickly I Forget

I am so frustrated.

I was reading through some of these old posts and found one that said I had been clean for 38 days. My record is longer than I thought it was. I don't think I feel good about that, but perhaps I should. Why do I forget these things?

I have been doing this for a very long time. I have been failing for a very long time. I'm so discouraged!

But I should be hopeful. If I have made it 38 days before, then I can do it now. If I can make it 30, I can make it 60. June 2nd is still a goal and I believe it's still a realistic goal.

I have been making a lot of mistakes, however, and I'm not sure if they disqualify me from my June 2 goal. I think they don't. I hope they don't. It's interesting because they're different mistakes than the ones I'm accustomed to making. For example, instead of looking up inappropriate images, I have instead participated in inappropriate online conversations. I used to do this kind of thing but I haven't in years, and it's been coming back the past few weeks. It's absurd. It's absolutely wrong. I'm done with it though. Not going to do it again. It kinda just sneaked up on me, as temptations sometimes do, and I was ill prepared to resist. I thought the first one was a fluke, so when the 2nd opportunity presented itself, I was also ill-prepared. Never again will that temptation catch me off guard.

It reminded me, though, of how powerful this addiction is, and of how powerless I am to eliminate it. I wonder what else Satan has in his bag of tricks. I know he's going to pull them all out during these three months. And they might be old tricks that I haven't fallen for in a while, or new ones that I've never seen. How do I prepare against those? Especially considering how quickly I forget, some of the old tricks will feel like new ones. Maybe it's a good time to brainstorm how he's tricked me before, old sins I haven't repeated in a while but are related to my addiction...

I need to get better at looking upward. And remembering!

Something New

I don't know about other 12 step programs, but something has caught my attention recently about the Church's 12 step program. Its wording is unusual. Here is a quote from Step 11 of the LDS Family Services Addiction Recovery Program book:

"You study the scriptures because they testify of Him in every instance, especially the Book of Mormon. In testimony after testimony, the prophets of the Book of Mormon describe seeking and finding a better understanding of the Father and the Holy Ghost. You have experimented on the scriptures and found them to be true. Prayer and meditation have become the lifeblood of your new life. Where prayer and meditation used to be a neglected duty, your heart's desire is now to kneel before your Father at least morning and evening and pour out your heart to Him in gratitude for Jesus Christ and for the Holy Ghost."

Whenever we study this step in the meetings I attend, in the past I've felt like it's a weird way to word things. And I think to myself, No, no I don't. No, my heart's desire is NOT to kneel before my Father. It didn't USED to be a neglected duty, it's STILL a neglected duty. Don't get me wrong, I love and cherish the deep conversations I have with God, but most of the time, I don't get that deep in prayer. I pray in a rush. I have things to do. Prayer is an obligation in my mind. I wish that it wasn't. I wish that step 11 described me.

But I started to wonder, surely the writers knew that we wouldn't all be there when we were reading step 11. Surely they knew that many of us addicts (most of us?) would read these words and realize that we most certainly aren't to this point yet. Then why did they write it that way?

The answer I have for myself is to inspire hope. Someone got this far. Someone in addiction recovery made it to this point. And so can I.

ALSO, the law of attraction comes to mind. I'm not a big "The Secret" freak. I've never seen it, in fact. And I kind of don't want to because it seems like most of these "law of attraction" videos and books are all about how to get money and stuff. Money and stuff aren't important. What I'm talking about is important things. I have known the Law of Attraction works before I even knew what it was. I have used it in my life. I have attracted wonderful things to myself by simply believing that I would have them. It's how I bought a house, and not just any house, but THIS house. It's how found peace after divorce. It's how got my current job.

In one of my classes at school, we were talking about how to get a job. My instructor read to us something out of Tony Beshara's Job Search Solution and he suggests that you think of a date in the future and describe it as if you were employed somewhere, on that future date, as if it is that future date. I believe the example he used was something like "It's Dec 16, 2012. I'm excited to celebrate my first Christmas at my new job. I look around at my coworkers and I feel happy and grateful to work in this great company," etc.

As she was reading that, I thought I'd try it on fixing my addiction. I've seen this work in my own life, not on this specific level, but in a very similar way, and anyway, I'm going to try it.

Here's part of what I wrote in my recovery journal:
It is June 2, 2012. I am going to the temple for the first time in many months. As I drive to [Temple Location], I reflect on the last 90 days. . . . Now, in one hour, I will be at the temple. . . . Never in my life have I felt such freedom. Feeling God's love is more constant now than it ever has been. My life has never been sweeter."

There's more than that, but I'll spare you.

Today, the temptations have been suffocating. At one point I dropped what I was doing in the kitchen, clenched my fists and said aloud, "June 2, June 2, June 2!" and I closed my eyes and imagined the scene I created, driving to the temple. Then I imagined myself in the temple. I looked around at all the worthy men and women, and I realized that I belonged there just as much as they did. I was just as worthy as they. Maybe the woman nearest me has never committed a sexual sin in all her life, but I am just as pure as she! We are the same in the temple, we are worthy and righteous, and I am just as my brothers and sisters around me.

I opened my eyes and asked myself "What is more important to me?" And I chose June 2. Sadly, the temptation still lingers. But I won't give in tonight. It is so very, very important to me to remain worthy until June 2.

So. Maybe this whole envisioning thing won't work forever but it sure worked today. I have a good feeling about this though. I really think I'm going to be in the temple on June 2, 2012.

8 days down, 82 to go.