Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Ignoring the Silver Lining

The choice is this...do I continue to hide, or do I let the Lord reach out and pour His strength and grace upon me? How can I let Him do that? I am filled to the brim with shame and guilt. Because I know better. Really, I know better than to let myself stick in this muck and grime, this snare that has caught and trapped me. And the only thing I know how to do now is write. Write about the pain, the shame, and the guilt. That's what this particular blog is for. It's my journey of recovery. It seems that recovery is not all pansies and tulips. There are roses too, and those roses have thorns. Thorns that prick and stick and tear. These thorns also hurt. They hurt horribly. Recovery seems to be a garden of mixed things, good and bad. But the bad hurts; it's hard to face the pain that comes.

This is a very raw and vulnerable post that I know I need to write. I need to acknowledge the shame and guilt that is eating at me even now as I sit here typing, even though I am trying to move forward and be better. Yet I don't know how. The words I am trying to find are the words that just won't come. Words about why, words about how, and words about what to do now and how to feel better and be better. They won't come. I'm not used to this. Usually my words flow freely, for that is how I express the way I feel the best. My words are like my outlet, my freedom. And I hate that they aren't coming.

It's because the adversary thrives on shame and guilt, and if I am not acknowledging my shame and guilt, then I am sitting on it and living with it. Perfect ground for the adversary to build his nest. And when the adversary builds his nest, I begin to dig the holes. Like I said, I know better than this. But in the moment of struggle, when faced with the temptation of numbing against the choice of feeling, none of that mattered. None of my recovery tools were even on my mind when the hurt and humiliation went so deep. In the moment, the thought of numbing was more appealing than the thought of turning to the Lord and getting stronger.

I've been struggling this week, with nearly everything in the book, because I didn't want to feel. I see that there is a way out, but I still want to run from it. There is part of me that still wants to hide, shut out the light that I know is waiting on the other side of this tunnel. I want to cry. At least crying would make me feel alive. Heaven knows the cold metal didn't make me feel alive. The cold metal just left it's mark and left me feeling even more crappy. An imitation of love, or warmth, they didn't do a thing either. Still I don't feel alive. I'm a numb, cold person that is empty and void, and all the things I have done so far just make me colder and harder. Only one person can feel that void, that dark spot inside of me. That one person is my Savior. He's done it before, but this time I don't feel like giving it back to Him. This time I am holding on to my addictions with all my might. As if they could ever make me feel the way He makes me feel. My addictions are empty, crappy bandaid fixes that in reality only make the situation worse. Why am I holding on?

I'm holding on because I know if I hold on, I don't have to feel the hurt, the sadness and betrayal of losing the best friend I have ever had because I consistently shoot myself in the foot. I know if I hold on, that for a few brief moments of bliss, I can forget the rest of my poorly planned out life. By holding on, I don't have to face the problems of day to day life. My problems momentarily disappear in the false security that is placed before me by the father of lies. The problem with that, is that they are maximized and compounded 5 minutes later by the utter shame, guilt, and dirtiness that I feel after acting out. And then I feel broken. Then I feel like everything has been for naught, and thus, Satan has won the battle again.

So herein lies the choice, as I pointed out at the beginning of this post. Do I continue to let Satan win the battle, or do I strive to be a better person, give it to the Lord, and allow Him to fight the battle for me?

Everything is so screwed up right now. And by that I seriously mean everything. Time to turn it over. Just need to remember how, I guess.


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The Sting of the Sword

The pain is real. And it's so hard to deal with. It's a knife to the heart, and a stab in the back. I let my guard down, and I was smacked in a vulnerable spot. I"m down here at rock bottom again; numbing, stuffing, concealing, not feeling. What's worse is I can't even seem to make myself want to care. At the beginning of my relapse, I didn't care in any way, shape or form. Now I care, but I don't want to care. Part of me still does not want to feel, wants to hide in the shadows and numb the pain.

I know that doing so won't get me anywhere, but I want to plunge. Plunge down the hole and hide forever. There is a part of me that no longer sees a point in trying to recover. Some part of me is broken, and I don't know how to fix it. For awhile, I thought things were getting better. And they were, I guess, but at the moment it feels so wrong. Recovery feels wrong. Why can't I just sit in my corner and hide in the darkness that has arisen? Perhaps acknowledging it is the first place to begin. Maybe the acknowledging is a step that will put me back on the wagon. Do I want to be back on the wagon? No, not really. Can't seem to find a point in it, because I know that the moment I allow myself to wake up and to feel, I will have to feel everything. All the hurt, the sadness, the agony, the betrayal, the resentment, the despair, the confusion, the mistrust, the not understanding, and most of all the depression that is eating me up inside. Everything.

This week I have spiraled down and down into the deepest recess of my mind, calling up all the hurt and bad feelings of everything that has ever happened to me. The result is that I no longer know what I am worth. And I feel crappier than ever. Back at rock bottom, back at the beginning.

Oh, I know this is all to build character and to let the Lord raise me up to be stronger than I was. But I don't want the character. I don't want to accept the trial of my faith I am having right now. The sting of the sword is sharp, and when it strikes, one needs to make sure that all their nooks and crannies and crevices are filled and blocked so that sword has less chance of getting in. My armor was tattered and torn, falling to bits and pieces though everything looked so sleek and shiny on the outside. When the first chink went missing, I chose not to fix it, thus allowing Satan to get in at my weak moment.

I'm on the brink of losing the best relationship I have ever been in, a healthy relationship with the most wonderful guy I have ever met, and a lot of it is because of my silly mistakes. He has stood by me even with all the things I have told him about until just recently. I didn't believe there was a limit. Maybe I don't understand love, or how someone can love me, or how to show someone I love them. Perhaps I have never understood love. Oft times I find myself rejecting the love others have for me, and finding ways to prove them that I am indeed not worthy of their love. Thus I withdraw when they reach out to love me, and put up walls between myself and them. Most of the time I don't even realize I am doing it until it has already been done. And then I turn it on myself, and resent myself even more due to my own shooting in the foot.

I guess that the only place to go from here is up. Up towards God, get back on the wagon, even if I don't want to. As I get back on and pick myself up, I only can hope and pray that God will be there to show me the way, as he has been in the past. I'll be praying fervently that He will help me to bear the pain that I have been numbing all week, and pull me through it. For even though the sting of the sword is sharp, the touch of the Master's hand is gentle and loving, and wraps around us tenderly as we pull off the bandaid, air out the infection, and allow the wound to heal. It may leave a scar, but that is just another battle wound in the fight for the right.