Single

Today, I don't want to be single. 

I know, I know, I feel that way a lot, as most single women probably do.  But today it's a different.  For the last year or so, I've been diligently trying to seek and accept God's will in my life.  Right now, that includes being single and childless.  I recognize that any relationship that could have formed earlier in my life would have been addictive and dysfunctional.  If I had children earlier in my life, there would have been some other dysfunction there as well.  I get that.  And so for the last two years, since I've been in recovery, I've been trying to live in reality and accept that I'm single and not try and fantasize my way out of my life and into another one.

Two nights ago, I spent the evening with 3 couples playing games.  It was fun.  Really, I had a good time.  But as the night progressed, I found myself feeling more and more lonely.  They each had inside jokes, used intimate knowledge to play as a team and special victory hand slaps and sayings.  The longer the game went, the more alone I felt.  It didn't have anything to do with them.  They were fun, nice, considerate and including of me, the only single at the event. 

It had everything to do with me and where I'm at in my own reality.  I'm done being alone.  I'm not scared or sharing myself or my life with someone else.  I'm ready to share my life and share in someone else's life.  I'm ready to build a life together with someone else.  I'm ready to be known and know someone else.  I'm ready to embrace who I am, trust myself and my instincts and be different.  I wish I could adequately describe how I feel. 

The first time my therapist suggested dating, I lost it.  Seriously, I was so anxious and so scared about it that even just talking about it got me all worked up.  The last time I acted out was after such a discussion where he suggested I start practicing dating by getting dressed up and attending events with some of my friends.  I got so worked up and felt so stupid about it, I acted out rather than constructively take care of my feelings. 

As I watched these couples on Saturday night and again at church yesterday, I could feel a change taking root in my heart.  I am someone who makes myself happy.  I am someone who can take care of her own needs and is starting to really embrace herself and her life.  Now I will find someone with whom we can be happy together as well. 

Celestial Experience

A conversation I was part of last night really sparked my need to document some thoughts I’ve been having. 

The question was posed last night:  Do you really think this pain and suffering of addiction is part of God’s plan for your life? 

The man I was talking with is new to recovery, a few months in I think.  He’s been ex-communicated from the church and is facing the reality of losing his wife to divorce.  We were talking after attending an SA meeting last night.  My heart goes out to him. He’s facing a difficult situation and has a long way to go before it’s over. 

I stumbled a bit last night in answering that question.  Am I better because of my addiction? Yes. Have I learned more about life because of my addiction? Yes. Am I closer to God, closer to Christ, have more patience and empathy for other people? Yes, yes and Yes.  So do I feel that this was God’s plan for me to have this horrible addiction, to hurt others and be hurt, to violate covenants and allow myself to be used and abused?  I wanted to say yes last night.  I wanted to say that this is God’s plan.  That is how I felt instinctively.

But today, I think and feel differently. 

I believe I lived with my Heavenly Father before I came to earth.  It was there that I started to learn and grow.  I’m sure I learned some things faster than others and had gaps in my knowledge and experience that only my Father could see.  Being an all-knowing God himself, He understood more than I did.  His vision and experience were greater than mine.  I believe all of us that have ever lived on the earth were there and that we talked and learned from each other as well.  We learned how to filter and evaluate information as it was presented to us.  We had agency and choice there, just as we do here.  And I believe there were differing opinions and thoughts there, just like here.  There were things, though, that I couldn’t learn.  For those things, it was essential that I have a body to learn “that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). 

Coming to this world to gain a body and live out of the presence of my Heavenly Father was a choice I made.  I don’t think I came naively believing that it would be easy.  I don’t think any of us did.  There were sure to be warnings and information about what life on earth would be like.  I’ve heard many theories about how and why we end up with the particular challenges and trials we do.  Some believe we chose every single one of them, from the circumstances of our birth to the person we marry, to our children and even our callings.  I’ve never been able to buy into that theory.  I can’t imagine we sat in a big room and Heavenly Father said, “Who would like to volunteer to lose a child at birth?” or “Who is going to choose to be born into poverty?” or this one “Who would like to volunteer to be sexually abused as a child, raped, and then brutally murdered?”  No one would do that.

As a child, my dad would sit me down every month and have a Personal Priesthood Interview or PPI.  He would ask me questions about life, school, church, and our family.  As I grew older, I came to hate those interviews.  But now that he’s gone, I miss them more than I can express. 

What I can imagine is my Heavenly Father requesting a PPI with me prior to coming to earth.  Maybe it was close to my time, or maybe it was thousands of years before.  Maybe we had regular interviews where he asked me about my life, friends, learning, testimony, concerns and thoughts.  As it came closer to my time to come to earth, Father asked me if I was ready.  I probably hugged him and said no.  He asked if I was willing to do whatever it took to get back to Him.  I told Him I was.  I signed up the Celestial Experience.  Knowing me better than I knew myself, having a broader, wider vision, experience, and understanding than me, he designed a unique experience for me here on earth.  There were things I needed to learn, people I needed to meet, experiences I needed to have, and challenges I needed to overcome in order to return to Him and be like Him.

Do I believe addiction was part of that from the beginning?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  I think all challenges, temptations, struggles, losses, and even our joys are designed to drive us to our Heavenly Father.  Maybe there were times along the way that I could have gotten off the addiction highway earlier.  Who knows?  But what I do know, is that wherever I find that off-ramp from addiction, or hate, envy, strife, selfishness, resentment, or any of the many defects I have, He is there waiting for me.  Missing one or two opportunities ultimately doesn’t matter.  He will always provide another one waiting for me up ahead.  It is the actual act of getting off and then staying off that count.

In the process are we going to hurt other people?  Unfortunately, yes.  And I think it pains our Heavenly Father to see it happen.  I don’t believe it is His will that we hurt or injure one another.  But that is why the Atonement was provided.  It not only provides the off-ramps for those of us struggling with addiction, it provides repair shops for those that get hit and knocked around due to no fault of their own.  It provides healing to those who were victims of our addictions.  By tapping into the power and grace that our Savior provides through the Atonement, they can find the peace they need as well. 

Speaking of the Atonement, Elder Boyd K. Packer said:  “He by choice accepted the penalty in behalf of all mankind for the sum total of all wickedness and depravity; for brutality, immorality, perversion, and corruption; for addiction; for the killings and torture and terror – for all of it that ever had been or all that ever would be enacted upon this earth.  In so choosing He faced the awesome power of the evil one, who was not confined to flesh nor subject to mortal pain.  That was Gethsemane!”  (“Who is Jesus Christ?”, Ensign, March 2008, pg. 15)

There is no doubt in my mind now that “there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Ominpotent” (Mosiah 3:17).  It took an addiction, causing personal pain, anguish, grief and loss to get here.  I know there were others hurt in the process along the way and it saddens me that I was the cause of others pain.  But it also makes me more grateful than ever that the Atonement offers all of us what we need to heal and become better people. 

Transfer of Faith

Since my move to Utah, I've been attending ARP meetings.  These are addiction recovery meetings sponsored by the LDS church, my church.  I don't like them, I admit that.  I'm used to SA meetings, where people are incredibly rigorously honest, where sobriety is stated by each member and is the goal of the program, and where the leaders are also people who are struggling with real addiction.  I keep attending, because I want to give back to 12-step programs in all their variety. 

I've been working through the workbook for this program.  Though the 12-steps are essentially the same, there are some key differences.  Also -- there are great readings and questions to answer about the steps and your own testimony.  I read one of them today:

"Many of us tried to get out of our addictions through sheer willpower or through having faith in a friend or therapist.  Sooner or later we found that our faith in ourselves or others did not enable us to overcome our addictions fully.  Write about your feelings today of being humble and willing to turn to Christ and His gospel above all other sources of help in your recovery efforts."

Resentment filled me as I read that question.  I do have faith in my therapist, Dr. C.  I have faith in him because I know the Lord put him in my life.  He helped me find him and confirmed to me spiritually, that my therapist would help me out of addiction.  It's hard to believe that I've been seeing him for two years now.

I've had incredible spiritual experiences since beginning therapy and recovery.  They have been an incredible strength to me.  It is only through the grace of God, and through the "bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ" that I have made it this far.  Yet -- if reading this filled me with resentment, I know it is because there is some truth to it.  

I hear of people who believe that reading the Book of Mormon more will help them work through their depression, or marital issues, or suicidal thoughts, or addictions.  I believe Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are all-knowing.  I have no doubt of that whatsoever.  Yet, with as much as I've read the Book of Mormon, prayed, attended the temple, served others, and sacrificed for the Lord, I couldn't pull myself out of addiction.  I could have never done that without my therapist and without the SA program. 

He had knowledge I didn't.  He was able to point me in the direction I needed to find the knowledge and strength to overcome the addictions and struggles in my life.  Without him, there would have been no recovery.

Yet - I also know, without the Savior, there would be no recovery.  Dr. C doesn't take the place of the Savior.  He can't forgive me, affirm me, or provide the spirit for comfort or strength. He doesn't provide people in my life to support me, or people in my life that I can support.  He doesn't see the master plan or the big picture for my life here on earth.  Only the Savior can do those things.  I get that. I understand the difference here.

But I wonder if it is time to transfer more of the faith I have in Dr. C over to the Savior.  I wonder if it is time to start using that relationship - the one I have been building with the Savior -- as my primary support instead of my secondary?  I wonder if it is time to use it as the steering wheel and not the spare tire?

I don't wonder..... I know it is time.

The Right Place at The Right Time

The most amazing thing happened tonight.  I was sitting, waiting for the SA meeting to start and in walks my friend, J.  We grew up together and were in the same ward in California for 6 or 7 years.  He gave me a huge hug, sat down next to me and we started catching up.  I saw him last at my dad's funeral about 18 months ago, but before that, it had probably been 10-15 years since I had seen or talked to him. 

When he walked in, he looked like he was walking in with purpose to talk to someone specific.  Since I am new to the meeting, only been a few times, it gave me the impression that he had been to this meeting before and that I was the one maybe "intruding" on his meeting.  Needless to say, I was surprised when he raised his hand when they asked if it was the first time for anyone.  Surprised and panicked.  What was I supposed to say or do or be?  I had come to the meeting with the intention of being really honest about some of the issues I had been struggling with the past week.  Could I still go through with that now?

When the sharing portion of the meeting started, there were long periods of silence between each share.  I was already over-anxious about sharing in front of him, and finally realized if I didn't say something now, I wouldn't.  I led with how shocked and scared I was that my childhood friend was in the room.  And then explained that I also knew that meetings were a waste of time if I wasn't brutally honest about what I was dealing with.  After my share, he put his hand on my knee and said we were good.  He then shared a bit about his experience with addiction.

We went to dinner with a friend of his after the meeting.  It was one of the best experiences I've had recently.  Conversation between the three of us flowed naturally and with ease.  We shared addiction moments, testimony moments, our struggles, our victories and ourselves.  At one point, the friend asked if it was weird for us to sit and talk so openly about these things.  J didn't hesitate with a resounding, "No.  It feels right."  And it did. 

I felt the spirit so many times tonight with so many things that the three of us shared.  I know this was Heavenly Father's hand in our lives.  I stopped believing in coincidence a long time ago.  The fact that J picked this meeting on this particular night isn't random.  The fact that I picked this meeting isn't random either.  He had been thinking about attending this meeting for a long time, but hadn't.  He happens to decide to come after I've moved here.  No coincidence there. 

As part of his share tonight he said that attending meeting with people that he knows, respects and admires is validating to him.  I agree.  Connecting with others and feeling part of something with people you admire and respect is an amazing thing.  Especially when the connection is real, authentic and honest about something as destructive as addiction. 

Not only that, but this is an answer to my prayers as well.  I know I have to start dating and attending single events, but have been petrified to begin.  How could I go somewhere alone and put myself out there with no one on my side?  J gave me a hard time tonight about being involved in activities and invited me to attend his single adult ward.  Now, I can go and have someone to go with.  No coincidence here at all.

"He answers quietly, reaches my reaching, in my Gethsemane, Savior and friend."
These words from the hymn, Where Can I Turn for Peace?, have been running through my head the last two days.  Reaches our reaching.  That is the Savior I know. That is the God I know.  When we put ourselves in the right place, even an addiction meeting, He reaches our reaching with His own answers.  I have seen that in my own life and know that to be true. 

The deep truth

I love this picture.  I want that to be true for my life.

During my last year of college I had a neighbor with an eating problem.  She was so thin the wind would knock her over, literally.  I knew it was more serious than I could imagine when we discovered she was throwing up in containers and storing it in her room until she could throw it away.  I didn't know what to do for her.  A small group of us would take her out to eat with us and then find excuses not to get home for a few hours, hoping she would digest some of the food and give her some nourishment.  If I knew a friend was suffering from an eating disorder of that magnitude now, I would talk to her and find help for her.  But then, I didn't know what to do. 

I would hear her talk about how fat she was.  Then, I was a size 18.  Don't talk to me about fat.  She had no idea what fat was.  I remember thinking about how utterly distorted her view of herself was to think that she was fat.  Fat compared to what... a sheet of paper?  We'll all lose that battle.  I was afraid for her.  Afraid that she would fall and break a bone or die from mal-nourishment.  I didn't have the guts to say anything to her about it and now I don't even remember her name.  But I say a little prayer for her right now -- that she is safe and happy and eating, wherever she is.

For the last 5 days I've been thinking and thinking and thinking about my childhood, experiences, and beliefs about my body, weight, and appearance.  The brief discussion I had with my therapist on Wednesday, set me off for three days of intense triggers, wanting to be lusted after, refusing to look at myself in the mirror, intense self detest and consistent objectification of men and myself.  I even went far enough to reach out to Steve, trying to find someone who would quiet these narratives in my head by lusting after me. 

Trying to boil all my thoughts down and be succinct about the whole thing is difficult. There are so many variables and contributing factors to what I think and where I am.  I've always felt like two people. The first was spiritual and dedicated to the gospel and her Father in Heaven.  She was helpful, kind, brave and strong.  The second was an addict, lusting, needing, wanting, using men to fulfill her own fantasies.  She was selfish, desperate, and vengeful.  Recovery, for me, has always been about merging those two people into one.  It was about finding the authentic self.  And in so very many ways I have done that.  I can be spiritual, dedicated, kind, brave AND an addict who can be selfish and vengeful.  Recovery has been learning what is real and facing the truth about myself.  And, when I'm really honest with myself, I am pretty darn happy with who I am.  I am smart and sometimes a smartass.  I am funny, intelligent, strong, helpful, spiritual and an addict.  I can sometimes be selfish and rude, but I try to apologize and admit when I am wrong.  I struggle with my addiction, but I am staying sober and doing the things I need to do to keep myself in check.  I am artistic, musical and good at many things.  I have moved ahead on this front of merging these two people inside me together and though I still struggle with my perfectionist complex and the pressure to be a perfect addict, I am making progress and feel good about who I am.

Yet -- on some level there are still two people I'm dealing with.  The internal portion of who I am and the external, physical portion of who I am.  I thought my sex addiction was dealing with this, but I'm wondering now if the addiction as just a symptom of this much deeper, larger issue I have with my appearance.  In so many ways, I've faced so many demons the last two years, but somehow I think this next portion of my journey is going to be really tough.

That is because, deep down, when I am truly honest with myself, no matter what people tell me or their actions, I still hear my older sister whispering in my ear:  "People don't like you because you're fat. They may pretend to like you just to be nice, but really, they feel sorry for you because you don't have any friends."   And though I have no animosity towards her, really I don't, I can't stop the words and feelings they invoke. 

Diets

Dieting began early in my life.  My earliest memory is around 9 or 10 I think.  One summer, I had a weekly appointment with someone who would chart my weight and we would talk about eating habits.  I don't remember much more than that.  I remember her office, and I remember the chart.  I weighed 146 lbs., I remember that, too.  I also remember my mom waking me up really early to go on walks with her. 

In junior high school, at age 11, I was traumatized when the PE teacher yelled me weight out for the whole class to hear.  We were all being weighed in as part of our health check.  I was teased mercilessly after that.  None of the girls wanted anything to do with me, nor would they talk to me.  I weighted 199 lbs.  I started binge eating soon afterwards.

My mom started me on WeightWatchers after that.  It must have been January, because my first weigh in was the week of my birthday.  I lost 9.4 lbs that week.  In one week!!  I don't remember why I quit going, probably because of the cost.  We were always poor.

In high school, I was on and off WW until my parents put me on NutraSystem.  I met weekly with a counselor and ate their pre-packaged food.  I don't remember having much, if any, success on the program.  And I detested that I was there.  That is probably where my distain for pre-packaged food comes from. 

Since then I have tried multiple diets.... SouthBeach, WeightWatchers, The Biggest Loser, The Belly Fat Diet, Medi-Fast, SlimFast, HCG, and multiple other ones here and there.  They don't seem to work for me.  And I can't really figure out why.  When I was seeing a nutritional therapist - she verified that on what I am eating, I should be losing weight.  But I'm not.  I can eat anything I want and not gain weight.  I can eat anything I want and not lose weight.  For whatever reason, my body has decided that I need to weigh this much. 

I hate dieting. I hate the word. I hate everything involved in dieting and eating.  Yet - I hate feeling this way.... kind of out of control and frantic about what I'm eating and when.  I hate feeling sluggish and with low energy.  And I don't want to weigh this much.  I don't want to be this big.  So I need to figure this out. 

Protection?

I just finished watching this incredibly cheesy, poorly written romantic comedy with incredibly bad acting.  Yet, at the end I found myself in tears.  Not just a few that dropped from my eyes, but a full on sob. 

During therapy this week we hit on a topic that I hate talking about: Dating.  The discussion left me feeling vulnerable and needy, but most of all scared.  Dating for me has been this experience of extremes.  On one hand I have these men, who are not members of my church, but who couldn't get enough of me... AS, SL, AT.  On the other side is this long line of LDS men who are willing to spend every waking moment with me but unwilling to take it one step further to commit to a relationship.... JG, DP, DE, GF. 

The first day I met DE, I went home, called my mom and told her I met the man I wanted to marry.  I loved him from the beginning.  We were both RA's in the dorms together.  The young 19 year old men flocked to him.  We ate together and worked out together nearly daily.  We made midnight trips to Wendy's for Frosty's.  When the snow got to be too much in the winter, we would drive until there was sunshine.  I loved him with everything that I had.  Yet, our relationship never progressed.  He talked about other girls he was attracted to. We share some of our darkest secrets with each other.  I knew I had found a kindred spirit when he started singing Harry Connick, Jr. songs to me one night.  One of the signatures of our relationship was the late night phone calls.  2-3 times a week, sometimes more, I'd get a 2 or 3 am phone call from him.  He would have some big doctrinal question he wanted to discuss.  We would talk for a few hours and then I would go back to bed.  He got me through that year of college.  I've seen him a handful of times since college.  He came down to California to see one of my band concerts one weekend.  He came down again the month before I left for Seattle.  He drove me around for days and helped me finish off my California bucket list.  That was the last time I saw him.  He desperately wanted me to come to his wedding just over a  year ago, but I couldn't make it happen.  I couldn't watch him get married.

I really felt GF was an answer to prayer.  I was so lonely in California and was desperately trying to pull myself out of depression and addiction, of course I didn't know it was addiction at that point.  He was fresh off a mission and our callings threw us together at church.  He was my kind of handsome, tall, a bit stocky, and slightly shy.  Yet, he had a quiet confidence about him.  We lived about a mile from each other and became inseparable nearly instantly.  For five years, I loved him.  We would cuddle occasionally and blur and cross lines, but nothing ever stuck.  He dropped money on me like crazy.  We had dinner with his parents quite often.  When we danced, which was quite often because of his calling, he would pull me really close, so our bodies were touching, wrap his arms about me and hold me tight.  I still remember the last time we danced..... at his wedding.  That was one of the worst days of my life. 

When my therapist asked why I hate dating, I shared some of these experiences.  I told him that this is what taught me that Mormon men don't want me.  They aren't will to commit to a relationship with me.  When I said some of these things to my therapist, he disagreed.  Thinking about what he said and my experiences, he's probably right.  Maybe these experiences are the consequences of my faulty thinking to begin with?  Maybe they are the results of how I felt about myself.  He thinks my weight problem might just be a protective layer I've built around myself.  That feels true.  But I'm not quite sure what it is I'm trying to protect myself from. 

Support

I wrote this on July 10th: 

It is past one in the morning and I need to go to bed.  Good self-care would dictate I was in bed three hours ago.  But sleeping seems to not be in the cards for me lately.  At least unless I medicate myself. 

I've been in Utah for 10 days now.  Wow, I thought it had been longer.  It's good, really good in some ways.  But really bad in others.

I miss my friends.  I miss having 10 or more people I could call to go to dinner with.  I don't like eating alone.  I have a whole new line-up of restaurants here and no one to go with. 

I miss my support network.  Though I know I could call any of the women from my recovery groups anytime I want or need to, it doesn't feel the same.  I miss seeing them every week.  I miss feeling of their recovery.  I miss hearing about their lives and learning from them. 

I miss my piano students.  I need children in my life.  I've learned that about myself.  I miss them desperately. I miss seeing the progress they make each week.  I miss hugs and kisses from them. I miss the excitement they have when they come visit me.  I miss all of it.

I miss primary.  Sitting still through three hours of church is ridiculously hard!  I haven't attended Relief Society or Sunday School for over four years.  How do people do it each week?  I want to be back in primary or at least back doing something, back serving or back feeling useful. 

I miss the sense of belonging that comes from living in the same area for 5 years.  That is the longest I have ever lived in the same ward my entire life.  I knew the area and felt at home. I can't expect to feel that way in 10 days.  I get that but it doesn't mean that I don't want it.

Today:
It's funny how much different I feel.  I just got back from 6 days in WA. And though, I still very much miss these aspects of my life -- I feel very motivated to move on.  Moving back isn't what I want either.  I realize how stagnant I was there.  I went back and nothing had changed.  I don't want that kind of life where nothing progresses and nothing changes.  I need change.  I need progress, it motivates me.  So let me rephrase:  I went back and nothing had progressed.  I think of all the things I've done in the past month to move my goals and life forward and talk to a lot of friends who have not made any progress at all.  I thrive on progress.  I need it. 

I'm glad to be home.  Home.  I'm glad to be making changes and moving towards things.

Faulty Thinking

He climbed on the train in front of me.  I knew he hadn't ridden the train before because he fumbled buying his ticket.  He wasn't sure which fare to buy and which line to get on.  He asked me where to get off for a certain hotel.  We had a quick conversation as I helped him figure out where he was going and looked up a map on my phone. 

He told me about his plans to find somewhere to go drinking that night, but I am pretty sure he had already started on the plane.  We are both from SoCal and had a fun conversation about drivers and beaches and surfing.  Then he said -- "SoCal misses you!"  Very sweet, I responded.  He started looking at me differently then.  It was the "how far will you go" look.  I'm familiar with it from when I used to meet men from personal ads. I would flirt until I got that look and knew they were hooked.  The look was unsolicited last night and made me very uncomfortable.  Yet - at the same time, it feeds a little bit of lust and ego inside me, the part of me that craves attention from men. 

I didn't allow it to go any further. There was no flirting of any kind. When he said he wanted to do more drinking, I just laughed at him and told him to have fun.  He put his hand on my shoulder on the way out and said thank you and nodded his head like he wanted me to get off.  I just sat there and let it go. 

Incidents like this feed faulty thinking patterns.  Patterns that say - Mormon men don't want you, but men outside the church to -- You're only worthy of broken men, etc.  I need to stop thinking that way and let it go.  I need to realize those patterns are old and only I feed them. Which means, if I stop feeding them, they will stop growing and shrivel up and die.  That is what I want to have happen!