So I decided to try something new with my blog and open it up for questions. This was one of the questions that I was asked.
"What do you say to someone who is addicted to drugs and alcohol? Someone who isn't even 21 yet... How do you help them get out of that hole of addiction? And someone whose parent figures are ok with it..."
Well, first of all my question would be do you want to get out of the hole? I personally have struggled with sexual addiction for the past 13 years and it has been very hard to overcome. In fact I have only now started changing.
About four months ago I completly gave into my addicton and persued relationship after relationship that would satisfy my needs and my desires. It became a daily/ hourly struggle against my addiction. After a month of abusing my body and letting other people abuse my body I reached a breaking point. I felt violated by myself and the people I chose to share myself with. I knew I had to change, but I didn't know how.
The beauty of growing up in a christian home is that I have a strong support system around me. I confessed my addiction to my parents and my closest friend. Through thier help I was able to seek help through councilling. At first I quit cold turkey, which was unbearably hard. I had sought comfort, escape and happiness from my addiction. I made it 24 days and then fell back into it. It was so hard, and although I knew what I was doing was wrong, I justified it by saying that "Well everyone else does it too, they just don't talk about it." I'm not really sure what caused me to quit for good, but I think it was that I was just so disgusted with myself that I knew I had to change. I didn't want to be a slave to my addiction anymore.
Its been several months, and I haven't let my addiction control me. It is very hard at times. For example, this week, its been hard. I've realized that when I watch movies that are very sexually graphic that it adds to the struggle.
I use my example because I think that all addictions, wheather they are to drugs, alcohol, sex, porn etc., that they are all means of escape, they are all enslaving and they are all very hard to overcome.
My advice would be to find people around you who will support you to make a change, if you want to change. Something that was hard for me was the uncertainty of whether I wanted to change. I sought so much security from my addiction, that when I decided to give it up, I felt lost. Do you want to live the way your living now? If not, then its time to change.
If there is no one close to you who can help you change, then I would encourage you going to seek help from a church or a councillor. I was really embarrased to admit my addiction, but now as I look back I realize that everyone struggles with something. You can find strenght through your struggles, and down the road you can use your struggles to encourage someone else who finds themselves in the same spot.
Addiction is slavery, but you can break through the bondage. It starts with a choice.
"in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us" - Romans 8:37
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
You Ask I'll Answer
I want to try something a little new with my blog. This blog is entitled from my heart to yours. The reason I named it that was inorder to share my struggles and my triumphs in my walk with Christ. So much has gone on in these last couple of months and alot of people have asked me questions about my struggles. So I want to open up my blog for questions. Part of living a transparent life is to be able to share things with people without them asking but also being willing to let them ask you the hard questions. I'm pretty wierd and I love being asked hard questions because it challenges me to find the hard truth.
Don't worry about asking anything to personal. I'm opening my heart and will answer any question you have. Just comment on this blog entry or send me a facebook message to ask :)
Don't worry about asking anything to personal. I'm opening my heart and will answer any question you have. Just comment on this blog entry or send me a facebook message to ask :)
The Pain of Wounds Re-Opened
A wound is mysterious thing, because the pain is the most severe upon initial impact, yet the throb and scar remind you day after day of what either you did to yourself or what others have done to you.
Wound's suck....thats just the truth. We all have them, we've all caused them. I wish it were different, but it isn't. Most of our deepest wounds come from those close to us, because they are the only ones who know us well enough to truely hurt us.
As someone whose been hurt the same way over and over throughout the years, it pains me when I realize I've hurt other people. I'm a human, and I'm flawed, and as much as I wish I was perfect and never did anything to hurt anyone...I do, I have and unless I realize it now I will continue to hurt people in the same way.
Someone once told me that you hurt people in a similar way to how you've been hurt. Thinking on this now, it completly makes sense. My wound, my scar that constantly seems to be re-opened is the pain of abandonment. Now my parents never left me, or got a divorce, but the abondonment stems from my school transition from private to homeschooling. I had attended the same private school since kindergarden, with the same group of friends who also went to my church. As the cost of the private school went up, my parents decided that it was time to leave the school and they choose homeschooling over public schooling. In this transiton, and for a number of reasons, I lost all of my friends. Going from having the same friends who support you and encourage you everyday to no friends at all was a shock. I began to feel unloved, alone, and struggled with suicidal depression.
Looking back on it, it seems silly that changing schools would've had that big of an impact on me. Maybe it was my false sense of security in my friends or an idea that the phrase "best friend forever" really meant forever. Regardless, I was still left alone. That was the first blow.
Over the years I learned to harden my heart against it, scar tissue had begun forming. I made friends with a group of girls in 7th and 8th grade, but never felt close to them because I held myself off at a distance, afraid I would get hurt again. We parted ways at the beginning of high school for a variety of reasons, and I began to meet new friends, some of which I had known for years, but just started hanging out with. They've been my rock through highschool. They stood by me when my mom was sick with breast cancer, they stood by me when my world would go crazy, they stood by me no matter what, and because of that I opened my heart.
Without realizing it, I placed myself in the position to be pierced deeper then the initial impact had gone. The second blow came in october of 2009. A long time girldfriend of mine left. I don't understand the reason, and I can't explain the cause, but out of no where, she decided we weren't friends anymore. Its hard to think of the words to use to explain how badly this hurt. It felt like a knife was thrust into my chest and then being twisted. Not only did I physically feel a sore pain in my chest, but I was natious and sick for several days. We had been friends for 5 years, I opened my heart, and she just walked away.
The third blow; this one was different because it came from a guy. Like I said before, I'm not perfect and it still breaks my heart how my actions hurt him. After recently being hurt so deeply again by my friend I began to do the only thing I knew how which was protect and push people away. I began pushing him away and in so doing so, I began to hurt him in the same way I was hurting. So many things happened in that relationship that were wrong, we both hurt eachother in order to protect ourselfs and save ourselfs from the pain of what we knew was our biggest wound. In the end, we abandoned eachother. This was the first time in my life where I had ever pushed anyone so far as for them to walk away from me. And I was surprised. I honestly don't know why I was, I had pushed, and he had finally left. But there I was, alone again.
Because of the drama that surrounded that previous relationship, I also pushed my friends away. They didn't know what was going on, but how could they have if I didn't explain it to them. There were points during those months when I feared my best friend would leave me too because he didn't understand or accept what I was dealing with. But he didn't, others did.
The last blow, or most reacent I should say, came Tuesday afternoon...this is when I truely realized that my friends, all the people who I had surrounded myself over the last few years, had left. Not only had they left, but it was of my own doing. I pushed to protect myself, and what did I do instead? I hurt myself. (Odd how that works)
Now there have been some people who have stuck it out with me, who asked probably scary questions during a hard part of my life, and who never allowed the opinions of others to sway thier view of me. In all honestly, I'm not sure why they have't left me. They've seen the crap thats been in my life these last few months, some of them have even seen whats been going on these last few years. I will never really be able to express how grateful I am for them.
But wounds still hurt, consequences for lifes decisions still suck. Its like a burden that only you alone can carry. I go to God for comfort and wisdom and have begged him to take away the pain, but I know that I have to live with the consequences of the choices I've made. It makes it harder to bear when the consequences pierce you through your deepest wound.
~Catie
Wound's suck....thats just the truth. We all have them, we've all caused them. I wish it were different, but it isn't. Most of our deepest wounds come from those close to us, because they are the only ones who know us well enough to truely hurt us.
As someone whose been hurt the same way over and over throughout the years, it pains me when I realize I've hurt other people. I'm a human, and I'm flawed, and as much as I wish I was perfect and never did anything to hurt anyone...I do, I have and unless I realize it now I will continue to hurt people in the same way.
Someone once told me that you hurt people in a similar way to how you've been hurt. Thinking on this now, it completly makes sense. My wound, my scar that constantly seems to be re-opened is the pain of abandonment. Now my parents never left me, or got a divorce, but the abondonment stems from my school transition from private to homeschooling. I had attended the same private school since kindergarden, with the same group of friends who also went to my church. As the cost of the private school went up, my parents decided that it was time to leave the school and they choose homeschooling over public schooling. In this transiton, and for a number of reasons, I lost all of my friends. Going from having the same friends who support you and encourage you everyday to no friends at all was a shock. I began to feel unloved, alone, and struggled with suicidal depression.
Looking back on it, it seems silly that changing schools would've had that big of an impact on me. Maybe it was my false sense of security in my friends or an idea that the phrase "best friend forever" really meant forever. Regardless, I was still left alone. That was the first blow.
Over the years I learned to harden my heart against it, scar tissue had begun forming. I made friends with a group of girls in 7th and 8th grade, but never felt close to them because I held myself off at a distance, afraid I would get hurt again. We parted ways at the beginning of high school for a variety of reasons, and I began to meet new friends, some of which I had known for years, but just started hanging out with. They've been my rock through highschool. They stood by me when my mom was sick with breast cancer, they stood by me when my world would go crazy, they stood by me no matter what, and because of that I opened my heart.
Without realizing it, I placed myself in the position to be pierced deeper then the initial impact had gone. The second blow came in october of 2009. A long time girldfriend of mine left. I don't understand the reason, and I can't explain the cause, but out of no where, she decided we weren't friends anymore. Its hard to think of the words to use to explain how badly this hurt. It felt like a knife was thrust into my chest and then being twisted. Not only did I physically feel a sore pain in my chest, but I was natious and sick for several days. We had been friends for 5 years, I opened my heart, and she just walked away.
The third blow; this one was different because it came from a guy. Like I said before, I'm not perfect and it still breaks my heart how my actions hurt him. After recently being hurt so deeply again by my friend I began to do the only thing I knew how which was protect and push people away. I began pushing him away and in so doing so, I began to hurt him in the same way I was hurting. So many things happened in that relationship that were wrong, we both hurt eachother in order to protect ourselfs and save ourselfs from the pain of what we knew was our biggest wound. In the end, we abandoned eachother. This was the first time in my life where I had ever pushed anyone so far as for them to walk away from me. And I was surprised. I honestly don't know why I was, I had pushed, and he had finally left. But there I was, alone again.
Because of the drama that surrounded that previous relationship, I also pushed my friends away. They didn't know what was going on, but how could they have if I didn't explain it to them. There were points during those months when I feared my best friend would leave me too because he didn't understand or accept what I was dealing with. But he didn't, others did.
The last blow, or most reacent I should say, came Tuesday afternoon...this is when I truely realized that my friends, all the people who I had surrounded myself over the last few years, had left. Not only had they left, but it was of my own doing. I pushed to protect myself, and what did I do instead? I hurt myself. (Odd how that works)
Now there have been some people who have stuck it out with me, who asked probably scary questions during a hard part of my life, and who never allowed the opinions of others to sway thier view of me. In all honestly, I'm not sure why they have't left me. They've seen the crap thats been in my life these last few months, some of them have even seen whats been going on these last few years. I will never really be able to express how grateful I am for them.
But wounds still hurt, consequences for lifes decisions still suck. Its like a burden that only you alone can carry. I go to God for comfort and wisdom and have begged him to take away the pain, but I know that I have to live with the consequences of the choices I've made. It makes it harder to bear when the consequences pierce you through your deepest wound.
~Catie
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