Sunday, October 30, 2011

Conversations with Ryan #6

Ryan stubs his toe and yelps in pain, "OUCH!" then he looks at me, pouts and says, "ouch that really hurt, we need to have sex."

Me "Well I haven't heard that one before" and then I laughed.

(Nice Try Babe.)

Friday, October 28, 2011

Conversations with Ryan #5

Ryan and I are lying in bed, he kisses me goodnight and I say, "Do you feel like we are married?"
Ryan laughs a little and says, "Oh yeah, we are WORKING through some STUFF..."
Then he quotes 1 Corinthians 7:28
"But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this." (emphasis added)

Typical Thursday Morning Baggage Pt. 2 on Friday afternoon

People now often refer to me as either a) the shy girl or b) the snobby bitch depends on how well you know me! lol , and I was never that girl before. Well Snobby maybe, shy definitely not. Where did my voice go? Where did I go? I had someone ask me this past spring what I did for fun...they totally stumped me..."uhhh...fun?... hmmm...ummm" I was racking my brain. I couldn't think of anything that I did just for the fun of it. I remember after we broke up, about a year later, I was pulling away from God more and more, our break up was long and drawn out and painful, and I remember thinking "God, I just want to be happy, I just want to be happy...and I'm not happy, this whole christian thing isn't making me happy..." So I started exploring other options of happiness, drinking here and there, and then pretty much every weekend, smoking first casual, then all the time, sleeping around, dating LOTS of boys,shopping like a mad woman, dozens of shoes, purses, new outfits every weekend, hundreds of dollars on jewelry, there was about 4 months where I was totally off the grid. The more I pursued happiness, the less happy I got. I was pursuing a symptom not a cause. I thought my unhappiness was the issue, but my unhappiness was just a symptom of my brokenness. I was not whole anymore, I had no identity. How can you be happy if you don't know who you are? How can you love yourself if you don't know who you are? How can you love anyone else if you don't love yourself? How can you be vulnerable with someone and let someone be vulnerable with you if you don't even know what you think?How can you be intimate with someone if you are a stranger to yourself?

I gave so many pieces of me to this guy, I wasn't me anymore. Regardless of whether there was abuse or not, I had willing given some pieces of me to him, and replaced them with his. Regardless of the traumatic situations that have definitely imprinted on me, and made it hard to trust, one can't truly trust and one can't truly love if one is not whole. Why am I afraid of sex? Because I don't feel safe. Why don't I feel safe? Because I don't know the truth about who I am. You can lose the truth about who you are in many different ways, sometimes you don't give it away like I did, sometimes it's taken from you, sometimes it's slowly eroded away by painful life circumstances.Sometimes you've never known who you are. Nobody ever told you; you are valuable, you are lovable, I love you because I choose to;because I want to- not because of what you do or what you don't do, you are a powerful person, you are good, you are worth it. We need someone to tell us these things, in every situation we get ourselves in; tell us how awesome we are, when we feel the farthest thing from it. It's hard to find people that can speak life into us all the time, because a lot of people are also working through their brokenness. I think you really need to find your identity in someone bigger, because no one is ever going to always instinctively accept you for who you are. A lot of us have been told that such a person does not exist, that there is no one we can go to without being judged, that there is no one that will love us unconditional, that there isn't someone that will treat you the way you should be treated not how you deserve to be treated. But there is, and there is incredible freedom when you meet this person.

For girls, and even men, who find themselves in relationships similar to mine, or even when you have people in your life who don't aim to bring out the best in you. Don't let those people define who you are, shit can happen to you, and it can be painful and stuff can continue to happen but you can't let it become your identity or even part of it. When you accept lies about yourself as part of your identity, you warp your perspective of yourself, of life, of others, and of God. Then you start building more lies and acting out of those lies, instead of who you are. Sometimes your identity can get so distorted, like mine did, it's crippling.

Right now I'm working through slowly stripping away the lies and finding who I am. It's SO painful, but I think that's why God does it slowly. The closest thing I can describe to how I have been feeling is like I am being dethawed. It stings, but I know if it was to happen instantly, it would probably kill me. Working through this garbage from my previous relationship has been so painful. Removing the lies from my identity is like taking a knife out of a partially healed wound, (I'm not healed, I've just learned to live with the knife in my leg) it's messy, it hurts, and you don't know how you'll survive, but you do, and you heal up, and eventually you start to feel good again. I went through a period of numbness, for years, I think that is how I made all my stupid decisions, I couldn't feel them. Then EVERYTHING hurt, but now parts of me are healed and feel good, and I can recognize when I've got an open wound. A lot of repentance and a lot of forgiveness has been bringing me closer and closer to being alive again but I know I've got a long way to go, it's hard to let go of some of those character defects that have been comfort for us, but safety in freedom is always better then safety in bondage.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Typical Thursday Morning Baggage Pt. 1

So A good friend of mine had read my last blog post about oxytocin, and being the brilliant woman she is, went on and did some of her own research and found the original documents from the experiment done by the scientist, Rebekah Turner in 1999 http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1999-03223-001 . Where Mark is getting his information from is from a paper written in 2001 by Dr. Keroack, who misinterpreted Turner's findings. This article she sent me from 2006 explains what seems to have happened, http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20061204-9999-1m4letter.html . Apparently there is no proven connection between levels of oxytocin and how many partners you've had. I don't know if this is comforting or not! Haha! Ok so I don't have brain damage, I'm just heartless? Ok I feel better! lol , but in a sense, it does make me feel better because there is something I can do about that.I control my love, I control how I treat you. No matter what you do to me, I always have a choice on how I can respond. But I have so many defenses up, in so many areas of my life, from previously being hurt.

A lot of issues resulting from a relationship with an ex have been coming up the past two weeks. For those that have known me for quite some time, you probably know who I am talking about. It kind of came to a spearhead when I was thinking about sex the other night, ( as you can probably tell by my blog posts, I think about it a lot lol) My husband and I had just had an amazing time and I was reflecting. Even though things between me and him are getting better and better daily, I'm still scared to get close to him, I'm still scared to be intimate with him, I'm still scared to tell him what I want, I still get paralyzed with fear every time he gets "that look" in his eye and I know he wants some! I have a really hard time talking about my relationship with my ex, it makes me feel physically ill. A lot of our relationship I don't remember. A lot of it I haven't shared with anyone, no one have I shared it with completely. Ryan probably knows the most out of anyone, and when I shared with him what I was going through, the way he responded was one of the reasons I was originally interested in him. When I started opening up to him in math class about the abuse that was going on, he really seemed concerned and like he cared. He asked if I would come over to his house after school. I did, because any man giving me attention I'd fling myself at, but Ryan responded differently then every other guy ever had, and ever did afterwards, he didn't touch me, he sat at the other end of the room and listened, gave some good advice, and offered his support. Ryan and I went our separate ways after we graduated high school, until a little over a year later we reconnected and started dating, but I still, to this day, do not forget how he made me feel that afternoon, this non-christian, partying, drug addict treated me better then any of my christian guy friends ever had, he did not make a single advance. ( Talking about Ryan on the other hand makes me so happy!)

Anyways so I was lying in bed mulling over how terrified I get with sex and a couple of incidents from my previous serious relationship flashed in my mind. I had given this guy my virginity, it was nothing special, and I hadn't expected it to be, I was simply curious about what sex was, "what is everyone talking about?!" I remember thinking, "is that it?" lol ...as I am sure many girls have their first time. I don't remember if I was 15 or 16, most of it is all a blur, but I remember losing my virginity, and I remember one time we were having sex (I feel like I am going to vomit) and I was talking to him, not about cheeseburgers, but trying to engage him, I don't think I need to be more descriptive then that, and he got really angry at me, and started yelling at me and telling me to shut up, that I was getting him out of the zone, WHILE HE WAS STILL INSIDE OF ME. I don't remember how I felt at that moment, but I can't imagine it being very good. Thinking about this is very painful, sharing about it even more cause I need to process it all. He'd slap me or punch walls if we got into a disagreement. I remember him driving out into the middle of no where in a field and pinning me to the back window of the car screaming in my ear as loud as he could taunts and threats. I tried leaving him a couple of times, If I was ending it over the phone, he would show up at my house, or at my work and threaten me or my family. If I tried to leave him when I was with him, he'd get physical with me, either pushing me to the ground making sure I couldn't get up or locking me in a room. After we broke up, he told me if he could kill me, how he would do it. And continued to threaten me that he would hurt my family, particularly my dad. I really don't remember a lot of other things from our relationship, except for him lying to me all the time, and one weekend we went to Fundy and had a blast, that Canada day weekend is probably the only good memory I have with him, and I don't even remember what we did, I just remember being happy.

This mess, this guy was my life, I threw my everything into it. My parents did not approve of the relationship, so me being my independent self, demonstrating I can do what I want, and no one can make me do anything, pulled away from my family, my mom and dad, brothers and sister, and invested deeper into this relationship. I Think one of my biggest regrets, is missing out on those 4 years of my brother and sister really transitioning into adults, I just wasn't around at all. Once I was no longer a virgin, I knew I had screwed up bad and God was probably mad at me, so I pulled away from him, the church, and all my christian friends , and invested all that energy into the relationship. My ex was really jealous and controlling, so anyone else that tried to get close to me or be my friend, he shut down pretty quick, especially if they were guys. So he became my family, my friends, my church and my god, my life perspective, my everything, my identity and I was nothing. I had no needs, no wants, it was all about him. I think that might be one of the reasons why woman go back again and again to abusive relationships, they really feel like they are nothing without him. The physical abuse, yah that sucked, but I was a tough kid, I'd hit him back, but the emotional abuse and the mind games, absolutely destroyed me. He was malicious in crushing my spirit. And it worked, cause I let him, like I said earlier, I always have a choice in how I respond to how you treat me, and I accepted it from him.

Seeing now how he was my everything and I lived for him, and he used intimidation, manipulation and fear to control and belittle me I am starting to understand why I have a hard time making my needs and my wants expressed, in any area of my life. I am waiting for the backlash when I assert myself, and state that I am important too.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Conversations with Ryan #4

So this isn't really a conversation ...because only two sentences were exchanged.

I was lying in bed about the middle of the night ...asleep... My husband wakes up, climbs on top of me and LICKS MY FACE! WHO DOES THAT?! Then he continues to TRY and SEDUCE me! I groggily wipe my face and say "Ryan get off me!" he rolls off and starts to fall back asleep... but first he mumbles, "You make me feel really special..." I giggle and start to fall back asleep but say first "Because you are special.." and we go back to sleep.

THE NEXT MORNING ... Ryan has no recollection whatsoever.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

the weight of bad decisions

My husband and I were watching "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage" seminars by Mark Gungor, and the episode we were watching tonight was "The #1 Key to Incredible Sex." ..we didn't finish it, we usually only watch about half of the seminars at a time because we are so worn out by the time we get to them and go to bed 30 minutes into them. But what we had seen tonight was intense, for me. Ryan stopped the dvd about half way through and started to initiate discussion about what we had just watched. I was cold and distant not giving him much, which he noticed right away. He asked why I was mad at him, twice actually, both times I replied, I'm not mad at YOU.I was mad, but at myself, not him. He could recognize I was going into coping mode, putting up my walls, pushing him away and festering. He told me to come here so I went and lied on the couch in his arms and felt his heart beating away in his chest, I don't know if it's a women thing, or just a me thing, but I've always loved listening to Ryan's heartbeat. Tears welled up in my eyes and I told Ryan "I fucked up, really badly." Ryan asked if I could be more specific, "Are you talking about your past?" I nodded my head yes. "Oh baby he said we've all made bad decisions..." he replied. " I know, but I've made 10 or so REALLY bad decisions." Ryan laughed a little "I've made way more then 10 bad decisions ." "But do they haunt you every day?" I asked, "no...not everyday" he said quietly and kissed me on head.

My son, again was the first one that really brought this issue out in me. I feel like I am having a hard time bonding with him. My husband thinks I'm being silly, he says he can tell by the way I look at Nehemiah the love I have for him and feel for him. And I do love my son...I just feel like he's not mine. And maybe that's normal, but I'm uncomfortable with it. Mark Gungor was sharing in the seminar we were watching tonight about how women release the chemical oxytocin when they have sex, it is also released shortly after labor, and during breast feeding, it is commonly referred to as the love hormone, as it bonds the woman to whoever is causing the chemical imprint. However, the more sexual partners a woman has the less and less oxytocin she releases with each one. As he explained this I felt sick to my stomach, paralyzed with fear, and silently begged God for mercy.

I lied in Ryan's arms, confessing my new revelation of the weight of the decisions I had made. This struggle I feel attaching to my son and my husband...this may never go away. Tears streamed down my face as I apologized again to my husband for being so stupid, "What if I've ruined our lives, what if I never get better, what if I never attach to you or bond with any of our children the way I am suppose to? How is that going to affect them? What If I've done something I can't fix? What is the extent of the permanent damage I've done?" My husband calmly replies " My God is bigger." As my mind races with fear.

I'm lying in panic mode as I realize, no new age "positive thinking", no christian "inner healing" or "prayer ministry" can fix this ...I need a supernatural touch from Jesus. I need healing, physical healing in my body's chemical makeup,possibly not even healing, possibly brand new chemicals. But would Jesus do that? Will he rescue me from this or am I going to have to live out the consequences of my sin? Is this what I get, and it's too bad, he'll forgive me and forget it ever happened, but I'm gonna have to deal with this mess by myself? My husband is speaking quietly into my ear, soothing, loving words. Some I understand and get, others I don't, as I try to figure out what's going on inside of me. It's like this ball of my emotions, and my heart, and my pain, and my confusion, and my hope, and my soul, and my spirit all tangled inside of me like a ball of yarn, bouncing off my ribcage trying to get out. Then I hear Ryan say "You are my pure bride, and I will defend your honor until the day I die..." and he continues on but BAM it was like an arrow went right into my chest and went into that messy ball of me and said "there, there is your heart," and pinned it inside my chest for me. No more bouncing , just peace and a heart covered in mess. But I knew where my heart was. I felt all I had to offer my husband was shame and the broken pieces, I lied in his arm and thought, "OMG, I am SO broken ...I'm so scared...I don't know if this can be fixed" but even though all I had was shame, Ryan told my spirit, I am defending the best in you not the worst.

I'm still scared, fear feels like my constant companionship. It's one of the only emotions I can really pin point that I am feeling.

But "Love casts out all fear..."

So God..please love me.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Unlovable ...

So I was lying in bed a few nights ago with insomnia, which has been haunting me for the past few weeks, and I started thinking about marriage and family. My husband slept soundly next to me as I processed what our relationship had turned into. I lied there and tried to wrap my mind around the fact that this 23 year old man wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Then I thought about it again...this man WANTS to spend the rest of his life with me. I didn't force him, I didn't manipulate him, nobody else told him to do it, he did it cause well... he liked me. "Hmm...wow I thought...he must really like me a lot, maybe he even loves me?!" This is probably the first time I acknowledged to myself that he might love me. It dawned on me, I never really believed deep down inside that he loved me, and I never realized I didn't. "Could he possibly love ME? What is there to love that much? Why? What is his motivation? What does he really want?" Doubt of his true love for me flooded my mind.

My son Nehemiah really was the one that brought this to the surface first. People see him smiling at me, and he'll cry if someone else holds him, but he'll stop when I do. Because of this many people have said to me "Awww he loves his mommy so much!" I would smile politely and not usually say anything. But one night I was brushing my teeth and trying to justify why Nehemiah would behave the way he does with me besides that he loves me. I was looking for other reasons why he would cuddle into my chest and calm down when he would be screaming with everyone else. I just couldn't accept that he loved me and WANTED to be with me."Hmmm...this could be a little bit of an issue," I thought to myself.

Last night Ryan and I got into a huge fight. Ryan has been through a lot of pain because of me working through my issues from the first day of our relationship, and last night was another painful night for him,as I blamed him not only for the ways he's wronged me but for the ways others have wronged me as well. We sat there on the bed, me trying to pack my bags, Ryan exasperated, practically screaming he loved me more than anything in the world. He kept repeating; "I love you, I'll do anything for you, I'll change, I'll grow , we'll change, we'll grow." I finally flat out told him, " I don't believe you." Heartbroken he asked me why, "I don't know, but it's not your fault" I said.We sat for a few moments in silence, realizing we discovered the real problem but not knowing how to fix it. My hubby did what he thought was best, and pinned me down with kisses and started listing off the different things he loved about me. I started to relax in his arms and he told me a story.:

A man had been given an incredible gift; however, after he received the gift, he started avoiding the giver, it got so bad that he went into the bathroom at their church, saw the giver there and turned around and left. He realized this was unhealthy so he asked God what was going on. God told him, you don't love yourself. This man gave you a great gift, but you are scared if he gets to know you, he's going to see the real you and regret that he gave it.Regardless of whether or not I could accept my husbands love he continued to give it to me.

So right now I'm scared. Since I was at least 16-17 I've had a hard time loving people, and until recently it's only gotten harder not easier. I hated being around people with issues, church was unbearable, when I saw people all I could see was their problems. I kept my mouth shut and didn't trash talk anyone, but I also kept my heart shut. No way was I letting people like THAT into my life. I had to protect myself from their weakness. I only realized until today, I don't want to see people's issues, because I don't want them to see mine. I don't want to forgive people, because that means they'll have to forgive me. I don't want to love people and you be open with me because you'll love me back and I'll be open with you, and you'll see the real me, and you won't like it. It's hard, it's painful this revelation of my loneliness and isolation. I don't believe I'm wanted, so I don't try and make small talk or friends, I don't want the confirmation of my crippling belief. If I portray to you I don't want you and I don't need you, then you can't tell me I'm not wanted. That's my own secret. No one but me knows me, no one but me knows I'm not wanted. Tears stream down my face as I type this. My heart is heavy. ...my mind goes to my husband again ...why did he marry me? lol ... I'm more screwed up then I thought.

But for the first time in a long time, I have hope. And I am fighting to keep it. I want to be whole. I don't want to be afraid of rejection and I don't want to hate myself. I want to know love, and to love. My prayer is that God will show me he wants me, a small piece of me hopes he will, an even smaller piece, scared to admit it's even there, knows he will. But all my broken pieces pray that this revelation will become truth to me and consume every piece of me that believes I'm unlovable.

Conversations with Ryan #3

Ryan and I are driving home and he is eating an ice cream cone. He gets down to the crunchy cone and I sigh very annoyed and angrily.
"What?!?" He says innocently.
"You're chewing like a cow!!" I bark back.
Ryan closes his mouth and starts chewing quietly. A few seconds later let's out a little "Mooooo!" and then continues chewing with his mouth closed.
...He makes it so hard for me to stay mad at him.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Conversations with Ryan #2

So I'm sitting in bed last night reading The 5 love languages by Gary Chapman (I'll share on it later) I'm focusing really intently on the first love language "Words of Affirmation" trying to figure out if it's Ryan's love language. Ryan comes in, starts rearranging the bed, bumping my pillow, making noise trying to get his laptop set up and then turns on a DVD and starts asking me questions while it's playing ...
I instantly get enraged (I'm still working on the temper thing) and snap at him "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU'RE DRIVING ME NUTS!! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO LOVE YOU!?!?"
Ryan, "ok...so you want to keep reading?"

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Brainwashed on how to love.

Since I have gotten married I have chosen to really immerse myself in Christian literature and teachings on relationships, marriage, men and sex. I've chosen to focus on continually filling my mind with positive material on marriage and all the dynamics involved. Why? Because we are constantly and continually bombarded by negative information on marriage by the media, by society, by friends and family who have broken families or dysfunctional relationships. I mean the bar and the standard for relationships or marriage is set SO low in North America. We are brainwashed into thinking that when you get married it is to the person you fall madly in love with and will make you happy for the rest of your life. And if they stop making you happy or you stop feeling like you are madly in love with them, you walk away and try someone else. Both of these ideas are destroying lives all over and it is heartbreaking.

Chic flicks, comedies and TV dramas are setting couples up to have negative expectations from their mates. Hollywood often presents husbands as lazy, careless, heartless sex maniacs, that are constantly lusting over anything that has two legs and an ass,that they never listen or pay attention, sports, friends and beer trump family and wife, and they could be just as well off without their wives. In their roles as fathers, they are losers, distant from their children, control freaks, out of touch with what is going on, they don't show affection or love and they don't have respect or admiration from their children.
Woman as wives are nagging, not interested in sex, controlling, needy, desperate, they always seem to be shopping, second fiddle to what the husband is doing, resentful, bitter... I mean the list goes on, name a character flaw or a relationship issue and I'm sure you've seen glamorized on the sliver screen by a good looking couple with lot's of money. AND the affairs, and the cheating and the unfaithfulness, I mean, I don't know the last movie I saw that wasn't PG that someone wasn't sneaking around with someone else. I know that some of these issues are real, and they are damaging real couples but why do we meditate on it? Why do we pollute our brains with dysfunctional peoples relationships.
What does watching men cheat on their wives and watching woman try and mother their husbands do to your perspective of marriage,or your perspective of men and women?

The family unit today is so broken. A lot of us don't know how to love. A lot of us don't know how to be in a relationship. A lot of us don't know how to make a marriage work. A lot of us don't know how to raise a child in the way he should go. A lot of us have never seen it demonstrated properly, I would venture as far to say none of us has seen any of these things done right. Nobody we know is perfect, so how can they demonstrate to us what the perfect marriage is, or the best way to parent. So why do we look to broken, hurt imperfect people to dictate how to love. You may think to yourself, I don't do that, I just enjoy reading the tabloids or watching tv for fun. I want you to get a piece of paper and a pen, be really honest with yourself, and write at the top 'Men are..." or "women are..." Or "Marriage is...". Fill in the blanks, let it come for your heart, and you may recognize some ideas that aren't yours. You may also see some ideas that are very much yours, they are your hurts and are painful realities of your marriage and your life. However, they doesn't have to be.

I choose to reeducate myself on the ways of love and setting a higher standard. That I don't get married because I have fallen madly in love and have found someone that will always make me happy, no, I get married because I choose to love and I have found someone I always want to make happy. I want the people in my life that I love to know, I would take a bullet for you, and I know you would take a bullet for me. I will die to protect this relationship, I will die to my pride when I am wrong, I will die to my fear when you've wronged me. I will choose to continue to love you, regardless of who screws up. I will choose to forgive and not punish. I will choose to request and not demand. I choose freedom not control. I choose to confront and not resent. I choose to live my life to be a blessing to you. When you succeed, I succeed. I choose trust and not suspicion. I choose to encourage and not nag. I choose to love and not to hide.

Can you imagine the world if we chose to love our spouse this way and our children. What type of people would we become? I challenge you to review what is influencing your love. I am a strong believer in controlling your medias and also that people are a product of their environment, but not at the mercy of it. What is the atmosphere you are creating in your home. What lenses are you viewing your spouse through? What areas in your life do you need to forgive and ask God for forgiveness?

Baby steps are ok. I feel like I take one step forward, two steps back. Some ideas are rooted deep, and they are painful, but look for truth to give you perspective not to other people who have the same hurts. I ask God for grace for you and for me, as we learn how to love on a higher standard. The way He loves us.