I'm Finished!

Almost two years ago, with a lot of questions and fear, I made my first phone call to a Healing Through Christ meeting.  In these meetings I have found hope and healing as is promised each week as we review the 12-Steps.

I'm ashamed to say how long this has taken me.
I should have been writing this post a year ago.

Evidence of trauma is taking forever to get through your 12-steps.

Today, I am celebrating.  I finished my Healing Through Christ 12-steps.  I'm feeling the excitement of finishing, although I know that it will really be years before I don't need these steps.

This phone meeting has become a balm for me.  The women I meet with each week have become dear friends.  We've shared our hurts and pains and our joys and accomplishments.

Even though I have been through this book a dozen times over the many weeks I've attended group, I still have much to learn and many more opportunities to continue to work the steps.

As I was turning the page today, as I was wrapping up step 12, I came across a page I have never read before.  I wish I had.  These words would have helped me so many times.  To keep them present in my mind, and in my recovery work, I'm going to record them here.  Maybe they will help you too.


Healing Through Christ - page 146-47

Part of detaching is letting go.  The following explanation can increase our understanding of this most importanat healing tool.

To Let Go...
To let go does not mean to stop caring
it means I can't do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off,
it's the realization I can't control another.

To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it's to make the most of myself.

To let go is not to care for, but to care about.

To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the
outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

To let go is not to be protective,
its to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to deny, but to accept.

To let go is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead
to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes, and to cherish myself in it.

To let go is not to criticize and regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is to not regret the past,
but to grow and to live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and to love more
(Author Unknown)


Now that I have completed these steps, my goal is to continue to work them and live them and share them.

Running Out of Time

It has been difficult for me to come back here to organize my thoughts and feelings into words.  The past few weeks have been not been good weeks.

After the disclosure letter issue, H and I had a 'discussion' about the process of a disclosure.  As I was sharing my side of what happened and what I would have liked to experience, H determined he would not say another word or answer any of my questions (as he previously agreed) without a mediator.

As it ended up, if I couldn't find an agreed upon therapist, experienced in SA disclosure and LDS, by H's year mark, we would separate.

Time continues to pass without success.

For H, as usual, the issue is over (at least until the next one flares up).  Swept under the rug with all the other issues. 
  
       ---quite a mountain of painful issues piles up under that rug----

The more time that passes away since this discussion the less the issue matters.



Resources are limited here. I was hoping to find a local therapist that we can meet with regularly.  I know others use a Skype option successfully.  For me, it seems that buried pile of pain needs someone local to help sort it all out.  

I am in no way expecting, in this past year's time, we would have resolved all our issues and completed recovery.  I was hoping though, that H's efforts at recovery would bring less anger and more peace to our marriage and home.




Last week at church, I taught a lesson in our women's meeting on repentance.  The following quotes are the basis for the questions I have with what is happening with H:

1. ...repentance involves not just a change of actions, but a change of heart.

2.  Therefore, repentance means more than simply a reformation of behavior. Many men and women in the world demonstrate great willpower and self-discipline in overcoming bad habits and the weaknesses of the flesh. Yet at the same time they give no thought to the Master, sometimes even openly rejecting Him. Such changes of behavior, even if in a positive direction, do not constitute true repentance.

3.  It is not uncommon to find men and women in the world who feel remorse for the things they do wrong. Sometimes this is because their actions cause them or loved ones great sorrow and misery. Sometimes their sorrow is caused because they are caught and punished for their actions. Such worldly feelings do not constitute “godly sorrow.”


As I pondered upon these principles, not in a critically judgmental way, but in a righteous judging way, I feel that I should see change in H in a way that reflects these principles.  


In a General Conference in October 2009 by Elder Neil L. Andersen. He spoke of repentance with these words: "For most, repentance is more a journey than a one-time event. It is not easy. To change is difficult. It requires running into the wind, swimming upstream."

^{I understand how difficult this is for H, as well as for me.}

Still, I wonder,  should there be some peace in the journey?  
Why is there still so much anger?  
Why don't I feel hope?


I was reading a friend's blog the other day and came across this question in a post she wrote a year or so ago, that I wish I had seen then.  The question is this:  - If I stay, am I prepared for my husband to possibly treat me and my kids worse considering addiction is a progressive disease?

This is the question that continues to plague me as I round out this trial year.