The words escaped before I reined them in

Before I could stop myself tonight, I let a phrase slip while I was talking on the phone, "I'm finally starting to treat myself like I treat others."

It was one of those weird moments where you say something that you know is true before you can stop yourself and doubt all over it. So now I'm stuck with the truth.





Also, initiatories at the temple are by FAAAARRRRRR my favorite part. It's especially great when you get to go with a friend that's going back to do them for the first time as proxy. It was pretty much the best.

Ever learning-ish

2 Tim 3:7
This post will be a bit stream of consciousness-y because I don't have fixed ideas totally yet.

My Philosophy of Language class always sends me off on some kind of reverie of thought for at least 15 minutes every Monday. This is where I went today:

Therapist mentioned last week that I'm so analytical that I have to understand something before I can trust anything at all about it, including emotions or whatever else it means for me. This can be useful and not so great all at once.

There's a verse in 2 Timothy 3:7 that has eaten at me for years. I've been concerned for a long time that it's describing my brain and my faith. "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." And in verse 8, do I resist truth? I think part of this goes back to my post on healing about how I was inactive b/c I was lazy or something.

So here's what I maybe learned today, or at least had reinforced today.

Maybe my faith "problems" are really just a fear of my own ability to do right--all based around the idea that if I'd simply done right, I wouldn't have been hurt. Only I was doing my very best and others were bent on hurting me to get their perverse jones. The idea does still haunt me that "if only I hadn't been so weak..." I still feel this. But I was trained to be weak or at least to feel weak.

But on the other hand, I have fought thru this--I've shown my inner strength. I've fought to be myself even in the face of a couple of other people trying to control my soul and destiny. These people tried to rework my insides for their own purposes. Yet I am who I am and not what they wanted me to be.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that this shows my faith in myself and the idea of me--no matter the horrid manipulations and frankly wicked attempts of others. I believe that this is my faith in God, but it also necessarily is a conviction about (a previously unrecognized) faith in myself. A faith that I know that I can be ok someday.

If I didn't think that I could do this--survive successfully--I wouldn't be pushing forward and I'd leave myself in a swirl of pain, which, let's not kid ourselves, I still often feel myself stuck in. I'd continue to believe that I deserved what I got.

So I'm guessing that I don't really understand 2 Tim 3:7 at all. I think part of the trick is found in D&C 8 where you have to understand in your head and heart. I'm afraid to feel b/c I've been big-time hurt repeatedly to the point where even being around people that love and care for me, it's pain. Being loved hurts. It hurts a lot. I also know that it's healing me.

To quote the Fresh Prince, my life is being flipped-turned upside down.

Thumbs

Today I was talking with my therapist and I asked why after, all these hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, nature couldn't have done me a solid and evolved out of emotions. I mean, if it can do opposable thumbs, it seems like this would've been a good use of its time, as well.

Hmmmmph.

GenConf can be like magic

A few weeks back a friend wrote to me and included something that she heard a professor at the BYU say. It's OK to be mad at God just as long as you tell him about it. Since I'm still pretty much a confuzzled jumble of emotional hodge podge, nailing down what I feel is very hard. But yesterday I knew one thing for sure: I felt very abandoned. I think it's a lingering feeling that ebbs and flows in intensity. I'm pretty sure that feeling this is not only normal, but in a way a good thing, b/c it shows that I'm worth not being abandoned, if that makes any sense.
Because of the place(s) where I was molested and in the church setting and stuff, I have wondered why I was so abandoned and not protected. How could I not feel this way? It's normal and has nothing to do with faith or anything like that. The principal reason, I think, is that abused people are made to feel that way. One of the greatest weapons of an abuser is isolation.

All of these emotions rushed to the surface yesterday at around noon. During the first half an hour or so of the first session of Conference, I started to write down some of my feelings, some of which I'll share here:

I'd never thought about this before, but since I was baptized and confirmed with the Gift of the Holy Ghost, I was blessed to have him with me at all times. I was a good kid. I've never thought about it until just now, because it was so terrible and dark when {dirtbag} was hurting me, but my guess is that I was being protected somehow. I mean, I want to believe this. I think I'd almost like to see it somehow, so that I can feel almost retroactive protection or something. I guess it's that I felt so left to the dogs, that I want to know that I was important enough to be protected, even in some way that I couldn't feel at the time.

Then came Elder Shayne Bowen's talk and the rush of answers and probably nothing short of 3,500 tears:

I don't think the Lord would want me to punish myself for the abuse done by another. Thru prayer the Lord can give me a new heart--not because an old one is tarnished with sin, but one that can begin to see me for who I am. I will be able to look forward with hope and not back with despair.
The Lord will not leave me comfortless, but will come to me--succor me. He will send his Holy Spirit to guide me, comfort me, love me and protect me.

I am learning what my core is, even though it can be hard to believe that I am not worthless or that I deserve to be protected and loved. It's very confusing at times that so many people love me. At the same time it's comforting--but it still blows my mind.
Through therapy and the love of others, I'm essentially retraining my head and heart so that they know that I don't have to be isolated, that people actually want to be around me, that I am not a danger for other people. {Dirtbag} made me think that it was all my fault. That I wanted to be hurt and that I knew that I deserved it. I isolated to protect others from me.

But no more, because:
I am a good woman.
I am a kind woman.
I care deeply for others.
I am a loving woman.
I am not dangerous for others to be around.
I am good.

The Temple

After doing initiatories, I was rather emotionally exhausted and asked if there a place where I could sit down and be alone for a while. The sisters all bustled around me in their loving way and took me to the Bride's Room. I sat down and sobbed for a long while.
Eventually I looked up, ready to go and it was then that I saw my reflection in one of the mirrors. I was sitting there, in the temple.

Hard Things

I realize that the last few posts, with the exception of the lightening bug post, have been about hard things, but successes mostly inasmuch as we can gauge this type of healing that way.
When I decided that it was time for me to start opening up about what I've been through, I had two main ideas in mind:
#1 Post so that other people know that they are not alone, so that they know that what they're feeling is normal and part of healing. AND that they're NOT bad people. That the crap we feel is normal.
#2 Post what I feel guided to post.

I've felt a lot of successes lately, during these last five weeks. I've felt a lot of sweet blessings from the Spirit and those around me. I've felt healing that I wasn't expecting to feel in ways that I didn't previously comprehend as possible. And through all of this I've had panic attacks. This is what this kind of healing is. This morning I knew that today I would be meeting with the stake president to get the final signature on my temple recommend--physical proof that I was worthy not only before God, but looking in the mirror I knew that I was worthy. And that was a really awesome realization.
Also, this morning when I was brushing my teeth I dry heaved. That's what this kind of healing is. I don't say this for sympathy or anything (although IT SUCKS), I say this because it is what it is. The good days and bad are intertwined. The fact that I'm having panic attacks is normal and is actually a good thing, I guess. Well, that's what my therapist says. It is what it is, and I hate them and hate having them. They suck and are terrible. They wake me up in the night with my body cramping. They happen outta nowhere in a French phonetics course. It is what it is. And this is my new normal. This is my healing.

The reason why I'm writing about this is because I want to share something that I remembered over the last couple of days:

That Sunday after I first met with my bishop, I asked what I needed to do to get a temple recommend and he said, "Just start coming to church." I realized that same Sunday that I was totally freaked out by the idea of getting a temple recommend by the end of the month, because I knew that would be the possibility if I started going every Sunday. So I was chatting with Heavenly Father about it. I flat-out asked him if it was even possible for me to do this after a few weeks, to be able to deal with so many things. I remember distinctly the words, "It is possible. It will be hard, but it is possible." Then I asked again, "Can I even do it?" I remember feeling that Heavenly Father knew that I could, but that it was OK if it didn't do it in a one-month turnaround, that He was happy that I was working toward it.
I just went about my month and didn't think tons on that conversation until a couple of days ago when I realized that I had done it.

I can do hard things.

Heavenly Father knows that we can do hard things.

Proof.

Today I signed my name to something that means that I know that I am worthy, that I am good, that I am pure not only before God, but when I look in the mirror.

Proof.