This is the almost chronological sequence of events that have led me to where I am today. "Almost" because I have no idea when I chose start doing some things and whole thing began long before I can remember. My path was a hard one, full of tears and regrets, but looking back, I know all those things had to happen in this order for me to come to the state that I am at today.
First and foremost, I realized that I was not my addiction. My particular issues did not make up the sum of who I was
Knowing that I made an effort to do good and be good in all other areas of my life. I'm not perfect, but since a child I always strove to be honest with my fellow man. I don't cheat, I don't steal, I prayed at least twice a day even if it wasn't sincere. I loved my family, friends, neighbors, and even some enemies. More importantly I chose to avoid, like the plague, anything else that could be considered possibly addictive. Because my mother once told me that once you're addicted to something it's so easy to become addicted to something else.
Once you become an addict of one vice, you really don't want to add more. Which meant that I chose at at young age to not gamble, drink alcohol, smoke or consume any strange pills and especially avoid pornography. I never had an energy drink and shun the very thought of a 5 hour energy shot. (It helped that my Dad was a salesman. I shun anything that sounds too good to be true or says it'll make me do something like lose weight or have energy. Because I know it only lasts as long as I consume the product and once I stop I'll be worse of than I was before. So I'd rather do it on my own power thank you.) I wasn't perfect, but I thought that if I had to bear this particular addictive cross of sin then I would do my absolute best in all other areas of my life. It helped that I had an understanding and loving mother to whom I feel comfortable telling absolutely everything.
Because of this, my addiction became a very very small part of who I really was. I began to believe that I was a good person and that I was someone worth saving. I was so much more than my troubles.
Next I learned how to confess. Mom knew, but someone with God's authority needed to know. It took me a long time, I think I was thirteen before I went. I still believed that I could handle it myself. It wasn't like I'd had sex or viewed porn or anything. It wasn't that big of a deal. But it was still a sexual sin. So I had to go.
Thus began my long process of Bishop meetings and questions about whether or not I was worthy to go to the Temple. That's probably the real reason it came out. I didn't want to go into the temple unless I knew I was clean and it was expected for youth to start going at twelve. It's still hard for me because as a single college student I go to a singles ward and due to moving and boundary changes I have a new bishop practically every three months. It's hard to go over the confession process over and over again. But I still do it because sometimes I need blessings and I do want to get to the temple someday.
And so we enter my teenage years. I remember many nights crying my eyes out because I had relapsed and felt like the worst piece of dirt in the world. It took me a long time to realize that regarding myself as worthless was a Satan based thought. That even if I had committed every sin in the book, the worth of souls is still great unto God, and He would want me. All I had to do was want Him back.
I was also struggling with wanting to give up my sin. Addictions aren't addictions because they make us miserable. They do, but that's long term misery. Addictions are addictions because the addict does get some sort of immediate comfort or pleasure from it. Giving something up that I knew gave instant gratification for a blessing and a process that I couldn't see and barely understood was a decision I had to keep making over and over again.
At fifteen I lost my Dad to cancer. I was stupid and tried to bargain letting go of my addiction for the life of my Dad. I know it doesn't work that way, but when you're desperate you'll try anything. Of course I failed, and my Dad died. And because of my bargain part of me blamed myself. Why hadn't I tried to get to know him better while I still had the chance? Why did I want to wait until I was an adult before trying to get to know my own father? I remember demanding my mom's help over my dad's for a stupid sheet of math homework. Why didn't I just let him help me? Why did he have to go? Why didn't I try to get to know Dad before he got sick? Granted, I was in middle school when the whole thing started and he was gone to a special hospital for half of it and the last half he wasn't really there anymore. I was young. I didn't know better. Kids that age don't know how to think of others before themselves usually. Still, I grieved at all the wasted time.
It was an emotionally and spiritually high time for me and my family. We bonded over God's Plan of Happiness that promised that we would see him again. When I do, I'm going to apologize and hopefully get to know my Dad so much better.
This isn't fair. I did play with my dad. He taught me softball and how to drive a sick. He came to my games. He took me and my sister riding in his truck the day he bought it. He loved each of us individually. He called us to family home evening and did his priesthood duties every day. He took us exploring in canyons and mountains. He took us on trips to see family members. He taught me to love family and history. He also taught me to buck up and finish what I started. Even though it's hard for me to remember exact details, (that's just how my brain works) I do remember that he loved me. I wasn't his favorite, that was my eldest sister. But he still loved me. I remember his laugh, deep chested with a sigh at the end. He always smelt like pine trees and hugged like a teddy bear. He led his family with honor. I hope I can still remember him like this when I'm eighty.
Next I grew up. I thank my roommate from Hell for speeding me on this particular path. In high school I had mainly kept out of everybody's way and we got along fine. My school was small and the kids were good. I never had any problems and never had to stand up for myself. I'm not saying the usual drama didn't happen there, but I never got involved. The only time I think people actually cared to talk about me behind my back was when I went all out on a Beowulf project and make a realistic Grendel arm over six feet long to hang off our classroom ceiling. Complete with blood and guts hanging out the arm socket and webbed, bloody, clawed hands that threatened to grab the student underneath them. Yeah, yeah, over achiever, I know, but it was still pretty cool. I honestly made it on impulse and the desire that I didn't want to make a stupid alphabet book like everybody else. That wold have been a brain dead project. But I digress.
I failed the lesson of defending myself to my OCD and really passive aggressive roommate. On the plus side I swore never to allow myself to be bullied ever again. And I haven't. I started to take an interest in the people around me and wanted to figure out why people did the things they did. The people who aren't obvious, or who seem obvious but have completely opposite motives are by far the most interesting to learn about. To think that I've been a creative writer for years, but it wasn't until college that I started to want to get to know people.
I began to branch outside of myself. I still had trouble with my addiction, but I was less lonely. Loneliness is one of those things that can be a trigger for addictions. I remember as a teenager going home from church crying because none of the girls ever wanted to make plans with me. I had chalked it up to our being in different schools, but in reality I hadn't made myself the most socially available person in the world. So in college I learned.
I went to parties, I took social dance classes. I got a job. All these things taught me self-respect and raised my self-esteem as I accomplished more and more tasks and made more and more friends. I learned to think outside of myself.
Then I met...we'll call him John. Nice guy, super sweet, and a gentleman, but also super super quiet. I never could hear him when he spoke and he always had a frightened look on his face. We dated for a while. Until the day that I couldn't stand feeling like a bully anymore. Imagine if someone kept looking terrified around you but still kept asking you out on dates and you couldn't even have conversations with the guy because you couldn't hear his side at all. So yea, every time he was around I felt like a bully. I had to get brave and tell him that I didn't want to see him anymore. In the past I would have shun this choice. He was the first guy to EVER show interest in me. Ok, lie, there was a guy in high school, but that's a whole other can of worms. The point was, I had to believe that I could find a good guy who could talk with me on my level and that this wasn't my only chance.
It was hard. But I did it. Many times after the break up I wondered if I'd blown my shot at Temple marriage forever. Now I know I didn't. Plenty of fish in the sea and all. But to a girl with wishy-washy self-esteem it was a pretty bold move.
Now I know this all doesn't sound like an actual "thing" that helped me with my addiction. But it is. There is no magic pill, wand, juice or whatever that can cure an addict. The power to combat addiction comes from within by first believing that you are someone whose worth it, and second, by being humble enough to ask God for help.
And the reason I'm explaining these stories and the time they took is because it's not so simple as getting up one day and deciding that you have great self-esteem and God is wonderful. It's a very long process full of lessons hidden in life's experiences that gradually, and slowly build up something strong and enduring. It's kind of like the difference between building a house of cards or building a pyramid. When built on a foundation of experience, time, testing (yours and Gods) and trial, it will last so much longer.
Next, I learned how to be a leader. I'm used to being a follower and depending on others. It takes a lot of courage and belief in ones abilities to lead a group. I was sort of used to leading in the sense that my job involved teaching one person at a time. Then I joined the Biggest Winner club on campus. It's a semester long competition, like the tv show Biggest Loser, but different, it was completely volunteer and you weighed in behind a curtain. I was a contestant the first time. The second time I was brave enough to train. I learned about people. I learned, again, how strongly a persons agency belongs to themselves. I'd learned before when praying for the Lord to make my sister nicer to me that, that was the one thing He couldn't touch because He had given us agency as a gift to do with as we would and she would have to be the one who chose to be nice. Same with my contestants. They were the ones who would have to chose if they really wanted the program to work or not. No matter how much it drove me crazy when they acted wishy-washy about it and I wanted them to do their best. All I could do was encourage with love and support and patience.
By this time I had stopped crying about my addiction so much. I learned that each relapse wasn't the end of the race but pit-hole on the track that I had to climb out of and I could choose just how deep it was going to be. So, to me, I had been doing pretty good.
Then I had my darkest hour.
Various tiny, small, seemingly inconsequential things had begun to pile up. The stress was making it harder and harder for me to say no. I can't even remember all of the things that were going on. I was taking more credits than I ever had before, I was worried about guilty finances (I'm an adult, I should be able to pay for myself), my grades, consistently not being able wake up on time for my first class, my team, I had quit temporal things that I had promised to people I wouldn't and probably many other things I can't remember. All these various tiny things caused me to crash big time. I believed that I was failing everyone. I was supposed to be this other person who wasn't me, and because of that everyone, including my own mother, was disappointed in me and wanted me to try harder. But I simply had nothing left to give.
I wanted to end it all.
That's a very dramatic statement for what actually happened. Understand first that I have a very active imagination. For weeks before my final break I had been pushing aside thoughts like, "You could just quit you know," "No I can't, I'd feel awful for quitting school, I have to finish what I started." "You can't handle the load. Life is too much for you." "It's just hard right now, it'll get better, it always does." "Nobody could ever love a hypocrite like you. Wouldn't it be easier just to end it? No more school, you could find a husband in the after life. No more worries. No future diapers. No stress. Why not just end it?"
Then I started imagining ways that I could end it. I knew exactly what I would have to do to actually go through with it and that terrified me. I called my mom and she immediately sent me up to the school counseling office to get some help.
I'd been to counselors off and on before for my addiction. But never for this. We concluded that I suffered from seasonal depression. I hated to admit it. I hate to believe that my emotions are controlled by star chart, ancestral spirits, or anything other than myself. Having my will seemingly stolen from me because of my addiction I abhorred the very thought that something outside my body was causing an emotional change in me. But I had to admit, November through February was always a dark time for me. Every Fall was always harder for me than the Spring. This particular Fall with all its extra worries was simply too much for me. By advice I cut one of my classes, lost a scholarship, and got some help.
One great thing about counseling. They're really great at teaching you how to think about why you do the things you do and to self-reflect on things you probably wouldn't ordinarily think about. The kind of stuff that brings eventual healing and understanding. If there's anything I know, understanding can bring peace to even the fiercest armies.
I started group therapy and I learned that I wasn't alone in my troubles. I learned how to comfort and bring hope to others. Most importantly I was told that it was possible to change your desires. It would be hard, but it was possible.
Hard? Hard! Really? Don't tell me about hard. Hard is feeling guilty for almost every single day of your life because you can't stop doing something that should be easy to let go. Give me that peace. Give me those righteous desires over this guilt any day. I'm ready, sign me up, let's get this done.
And that's how I got this far. I went from wishy-washy "but it makes me feel good" to "I don't want it, get rid of it, can you show me happiness and peace. I want that. Give it to me."
Then I finally learned how.
It's so simple it would make you cry.
Just be humble enough when the tough times come to invite the Lord to share your burden. That's it. It becomes so much easier when you can do that. I'm not saying I never relapse. But it's easier. And I feel so much stronger. More importantly, I have a hope that this will all eventually be in the past. I'm able to look to the future with my head up high knowing that I am a daughter of God and he is on my side.
It couldn't have happened in any other order for me. This was the only way I would have learned these lesson in a permanent kind of way. Like water wearing down a river stone. It takes time. I'm sure I'll have plenty of more lessons to learn in the future. I'm not perfect. But I am trying to be my best. Most importantly I have a hope for my future. I will be ok.
And for now, that is enough.
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