notgivinup said:
I am still feeling guilt over my life for the past 20 years....basically since I have been married.
My kids are getting old enough that they are able to put together clues and just stuff of my life and our lives as a family...and that is pushing against me as well.
The other day they were like, "Hey, where is Dad's iphone?" My wife and I told them what I did....and I put it more like...that it was just taking too much of my time, etc.
I am going to have to make time to read....and focus on healing. I have been through so many years of counseling...I was there about the time I married my wife...and I have worked through tons of anger and tons of pain, and tons of junk. I already know the cycles, and the crap, and who did what and why...and forgiving, and recycling pain, and then forgiving, and setting boundaries, etc., etc., etc.
I am not trying to make light of any of it, but really, I was in a lot of productive counseling....and yet for the past 15 years I have put myself in periods of guild and isolation through my use of pmo.
Yes, I celebrate the beginning of my reboot....with 25 days, and renewed sexual relations and emotional connection to my wife and others in my life....but I feel like I am walking out onto a VAST open plain with no walls, no fences, and I am aware that I feel very vulnerable right now. My old standby is not here. While it was the cause of a lot of pain in my life, it was familiar, and was the buffer to my emotions.
Scott, the guilt and related shame have to be seriously dealt with. You're carrying a burden that's not yours to carry. Not only that, but someone else carried it for you, all of it, no matter how sordid, no matter how blameworthy. Grace and forgiveness are the answers to the problem of guilt and shame.
What I've had to do in my life, Scott, is- after knowing (or at least believing) that God forgave all my sins was to forgive myself. I'd say, "Leon, I forgive you for x and y...", and mean it. Give yourself a chance. No one has not blown it in some way. We've all sinned, we've all acted out of selfishness, we've all hurt those we love. Forgive yourself, man, let it go...
Do what you must, giving up the iphone, computer filters, the whole 9 yards- but at some point we have to live life with unfettered access, to know that we've grown passed this stuff. It kind of disempowers, in my opinion, our recovery. It says, "You can't be trusted with access to the internet because you're a sex-addict"- doesn't that sound disempowering? My reboot has been with access to it all, to everything. If I wanted, I could get online now, and act out. But, to be able to say, No- I don't have reason to bring my iphone into the bathroom with me, I have no purpose, so I'm not going to do it. Or, I don't want to sneak around the house in the middle of the night and get on the computer, and watch something behind my wife's back, that I have to sneak back into bed after the deed, and feel like a creep. The only filter there is me, and my decisions.
That being said, folk need to do what they do, hopefully until they build confidence on their own to say- No.
The family asking questions, the counseling sessions trying to untangle all the junk, on and on it goes, and no recourse to former crutches (the pmo), when I read that- I'm thinking- give yourself a break from constantly thinking about this stuff! Easier said than done? No. We can distract our minds from thinking about anything. Are you thinking about shooting up heroine right now? No- or maybe now you are, but you'll easily dismiss this, because it's not anything you want. What do we want, pmo, or freedom from pmo?
If we don't want heroine, we don't have to want pmo either (and the 2 have been compared often). You're not planning to use heroine, so you'll soon forget we talked about this, treat pmo the same way- just put it all out of your mind, by dwelling on things that are worthwhile to you. Now when I say, put it all out, I mean all the counseling, all the plans and strategies- here's a new one-
...when you think not, the Son of Man comes.
Let's go for broke, brother. Let's go all the way, let's go for the gold- and that gold is the divine nature within you- the perfect you envisioned by God when He created you, when He first thought of you untold aeons ago.
You are neither an addict, nor an addiction- you call the shots in your life.
