Delicate Melody

Well, I know I said I would post lots of pictures when I came back to Houston, but I ended up leaving my camera on the kitchen table as I walked out the door for the airport. So I wanted to write something and let everyone know how my experience was.

It’s been about a month since I graduated and left for the trip. In the last month I’ve gained more awareness for the events in my life than I’ve ever had. It’s been incredible. My graduation was a HUGE milestone in my life. Not so much the ceremony, but the fact that I did it! I graduated! And I busted my ass. At one point I was a little less than two years behind, but I caught up and graduated after 12 years of school. After reflecting on that a little more, I began to realize just how much I am able to accomplish. I realized that I sell myself short a LOT and I don’t give myself enough credit for the things I’ve experienced and accomplished in my life.

The Wilderness Trip was the most physically, emotionally, and spiritually challenging thing I have ever experienced in my 18 years of existence. And it was amazing. I would have to say the two hugest things I gained on the trip were a sense of self-esteem and a newly built faith. My self-esteem has sky rocketed from the trip. It started with realizing my accomplishments and seeing how I’ve changed over the years and eventually, even the physical aspect of my self-esteem followed suit. I feel beautiful emotionally AND physically, confident, and capable.

The couple days at base camp were nerve-racking. I wasn’t sure why I had signed up anymore and I was extremely fearful of what was to take place over the next few weeks. After Brian died last year, I spent a night with my sponsor at the time, Rachel. We were in the back yard that night and a doe came up to the fence and it was far from skittish. Rachel looked at me and said, “That’s Brian.”

When I got to Oregon, we opened with a huge meeting the first night and talked about why we wanted to go on the trip in the first place. Honestly, I don’t know why I signed up. I don’t think I realized it then, but I know the only thing holding me back was fear. I didn’t know if my schedule would work out for the workouts or if I would even be done with school by the time we had to get on the plane, but everything worked out perfectly. That was a sign from God that I needed to be there.

After listening to several people share, a bunch of deer were walking around our meeting spot. Some people got distracted and some people didn’t really notice. I thought it was really symbolic and I felt God’s presence. From that day on, deer showed up almost every day and it was incredible to witness. I shared it with one of the guides who was on Brian’s trip team last year, Kodak, and she told me in Native American cultures, deer symbolized gentleness.

The next night was our last night as a one group. We had a meeting and picked dog tag prayer buddies out of a bag. Our goal was to pray for this person on our dog tag when we were hurting and wanted to give up. For me, the dog tags caused a ripple effect. The next 16 days were spent backpacking in the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area. We hiked at insane incline and declines in and out of snow, we hiked several 10mi days, we got stuck in a snow storm for 2 days and stayed in a make-shift shelter on a porch of some historical cabin replica, we walked through HUGE river crossings on logs up in the air, and we walked through fear.

There were a lot of times when every fiber of my being wanted to stop moving and give up and go back to Houston. A lot of those times, I had melt downs and I’d yell how much it sucked and how I hated Oregon. Every time I did that, though, my team was able to knock some sense into me. But some of those times, I stayed silent and prayed. I prayed for my dog tag buddy, and that got me praying about the people on my team, and the people on the other patrols, and every one back in Houston. Like I said – a ripple effect. Those were the times I was able to encourage others and lead by example.

There were moments when I wanted to quit and I was very verbal about it, but there were times when I had complete faith that God was going to get me through the day and He wasn’t going to give me any more than I could handle as long as I relied on him and relied on the unconditional love of my team.

I grew closer to a lot of people. I built some awesome friendships with people I had been in meetings with for over a year, but had never spoken to. I was given a lot of feedback and one of the main things that eventually I started to realize was that I don’t give myself a lot of credit for the good that happens and the good that I accomplish. A lot of the trip I spent thinking about how I was extremely dramatic and I was embarrassed about a lot of what I said. After a while though, I was also able to realize the good things I did, even if I struggled to do it.

I peaked an 8000ft mountain, I got through 16 days of backpacking in the wilderness with nothing but a 40lb pack and 11 other people that understood me and weren’t afraid to love me just as I was, even when I was too afraid to love myself.

One thing Kirk said after we got back to base camp from our hiking was along the lines of this:

Nothing in life that we have today is something we haven’t busted our asses for and worked hard for. Nothing in life that we have today is something that could have been accomplished without the love of the people around us and God.

(Sorry if I didn’t do it much justice, it was one of those had-to-be-there motivational speeches)

After 16 days of backpacking, our team made it back to base camp and we were with the other patrols again. It was such a great feeling to see everyone again.

We camped with the other patrols for a night and then spent 5 hours on a bus to go white water rafting in Snake River/Hells Canyon. I was really scared because I had never really been on a boat or raft or anything in a large open body of water, let alone a large body of open water with rapids. It was an intense experience. The food was AWESOME. I think I ate more than I’ve ever eaten in my life in a 3 day span. And then there was the whole ordeal where we hit a HUGE rapid, and I fell out of the raft and had to get pulled back to the raft after freaking out and hyperventilating like a crazy person. But we don’t speak of that.

There were a couple times I got really insecure and a couple of times where I just broke down in Hells Canyon. I felt like I hadn’t gained anything from the trip, but I think I wasn’t allowing myself to feel that I had gained anything. The last days of the trip went by pretty quick and the plane ride home, all I wanted to do was sleep.

But the most incredible feeling was getting off of the plane, not knowing if people would be there to greet us and when we walked towards baggage claim there were at least a hundred people with signs and flowers and smiling faces. Not to mention the ones who were screaming.

I went home that night with my dad, after successfully making people gag at the smell we had acquired from not showering for 21 days. (Yeah, that’s a pretty awesome accomplishment, if you ask me) I came home and my dad gave me the mail that had accumulated while I was gone, all of it congratulating me on graduating. It was better than any Christmas mail I’ve received, that’s for sure.

I spent the next hour in the mirror, trying to brush the rat’s nest in my hair and I think that’s when a lot of the trip hit me. I reflected about how all I could do at times on the trail was keep praying to get through the day. I reflected about how far I’ve come in the last 2 years, and how I’m so incredibly grateful and blessed to live the life I have today, and be the person I’ve become and am still growing to be.

I went to sleep in a bed for the first time in three weeks and I was peaceful.

Overall, the experience was something I wouldn’t trade for anything and I wouldn’t change anything about it, even the semi-permanent nerve damage in my feet from being stuck in the snow storm and getting my boots soaked and cold.

A lot of the noise is back in my life, such as finding a job and coming up with tuition for Junior College in the fall and just responsibilities in general. But I feel recharged. I feel like I can face these events coming up in my life with a sense of peace and I know that God’s going to get me through everything. I know that I don’t have to understand why shit happens in my life, but acceptance will get me far. I’ve learned that comparison is the thief of happiness (Thanks, Stevie) and I know that I can face the world without living in fear, as long as I keep God in my life and stick close to the people that love me unconditionally.

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My 2 year sobriety birthday is coming up in a week, and lately I’ve been thinking about how much everything has changed. These last two years have been INSANE and I feel like a completely different person. From JDC to rehab to the real world, my sobriety has been a journey. A lot of it wasn’t pretty, but so much is different now.

I’m graduating high school, finally in less than a month. Two years ago, I was a little over a year and a half behind in school due to my using. I’m now graduating class of 2010, my original graduation year when I started elementary school. I have plans for college which seem more realistic than I ever would have thought. I’ve decided to work part time while getting my basics done at community college, then pursue a Masters in Music Education at University of Houston. I’m really excited.

This next month has a lot more in store for me than just graduating. The day after my graduation ceremony, I’m leaving for Oregon with my teen sobriety group. I’ll be backpacking in the mountains for 20 days. It will be the most challenging thing I’ve ever done physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve been doing intense workouts with my group downtown twice a week in order to condition myself for 13 mile a day hiking.

I’m really excited to go on the trip. I’ve talked to a lot of people that went in the previous years and they always talk about what a spiritual experience it is.

However, trips like this cost money. I’ve gotten a lot of help fundraising the money so I can go on the trip, but I’m not quite there yet. I need you’re help. I put together a chip in site so I can raise the rest of the money I need. The money will go towards gear, flight costs, etc. Anything helps, so if you’re willing to donate to the Cornerstone 2010 Wilderness Trip, click the following link and then click the orange ChipIn button to the right!

Donate to the Cornerstone Wilderness Trip!

Thank you for any contributions. I’ll be sure to post pictures of Oregon when I get back!

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Day 4 of ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Better Blogging program is to analyze a blog. While trying to manage my blog again and get it back up, I’ve been working on gearing it towards more musical aspects rather than recovery. Maybe a mix… I honestly think, I’m still trying to get a feel for what I want DelicateMelody.com to be.

So while trying to research music blogs that I could analyze, I came across this one: Blog.

It’s a blog post about Trans Siberian’s Christmas Canon Rock, an amazing take on Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. Having heard this before (usually when my dad plays it around Christmas time), I listened to it again, in the middle of July, and I thought to myself: What a beautiful piece of music.

I have a recording of me and another person I know playing a duet of this song for a Talent Show. That might come soon, once I figure out how to insert videos. If all else fails, YouTube here I come.

Pachelbel’s Canon was originally written somewhere around 1680 – falling right in the Baroque period. Although this piece was written around 1680, it wasn’t discovered until around 1920 and even then, not recorded until around 1940.

Although this piece was written to be performed by a string quartet or quintet, it’s more than often performed on the piano.

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These are all my opinions on my favorite musicians and styles.

Top 5 Classical String Musicians:
1. Gary Karr (Double Bass)
2. Edgar Meyer (Double Bass)
3. Yo-Yo Ma (Cello)
4. Vanessa Mae (Violin)
5. Elspeth Hanson (Viola)

Top 5 String Alternative Trios, Quartets, Bands etc.:
1. Apocalyptica
2. Rasputina
3. Break of Reality
4. Kronos Quartet
5. Tran-Siberian Orchestra

Top 5 Classic Rock Bands/Artists:
1. Pink Floyd
2. Jeff Buckley
3. Led Zeppelin
4. Queen
5. Eagles

Top 5 Christian Rock/Metal Groups:
1. Underoath
2. As I Lay Dying
3. Red
4. Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK)
5. Skillet

Top 5 Instruments:
1. Double Bass
2. Piano
3. Guitar
4. Banjo
5. Cello

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What is DelicateMelody.com?

Delicate Melody is designed to improve the lives of others through sharing the experience, strength, and hope of someone in recovery. Delicate Melody started out as a photoblog, but when I was released from a rehabilitation center, I decided to make blogging my new form of “cheap therapy,” as MereWisdom (dad) puts it. Ultimately, Delicate Melody contains my memories and whatever I’m going through in search for inspiration and help others through helping myself, because working with others (in whatever way we can) is what keeps us sober!

Delicate Melody is also designed to be about my music in recovery. My music has changed a lot as I change and like my tagline says: Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Every day, we do things we don’t want to and trudge on through life. Work, school, etc. etc. Music, I believe, is the ultimate reliever. No matter what kind of day you’ve had, one can always sit back and relax to his or her favorite music. It’s the ultimate American past time. Creating music, however, is something all together different. When I play with a group whether it’s just a garage band or a full symphony, I feel a part of. Everything that happened that day melts away as I make music.

I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.
- Virgil Thompson

Feeling like we belong somewhere is the most important feeling we as humans can feel. God created us to love and to thrive. A lot of the books in the Bible were written as songs, as means of worship. I was writing an editorial for Journalism at school the other day and I wrote about music’s capability to brainwash. What we feed our subconscious thoughts can determine the outlook of a person. I’ll post that later, once it’s graded and I feel it’s good enough. The point is that for me music is how I keep myself sane in the insanity of the world.

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A week ago today, I celebrated a year of sobriety for the second time around. Friday, I had a slip-up of old behaviours. Today, I thought about how this year has been different my last year of sobriety. On Saturday, after I really thought hard about what I had done and how many people it affected when I was being selfish, I had a lot of emotions come up. I’m working on a fourth step with my AA sponsor, and I recently joined a youth AA group. My sponsor there is having me work on something called a trauma report. I have to write two of them, and one is on my rape. I have to go into detail about everything that led up to it and afterwords. So after my slip-up on Friday, I was pretty emotional. Then again, I think I needed it. I have been working on my fourth step and trauma reports for the last two weeks, and managed to squeeze a measly couple of tears out. I felt like something was so wrong with me, because I was feeling all these emotions and I couldn’t let it out.

Saturday intensified all the same feelings time a million. My youth AA sponsor was sharing in a meeting on Saturday and was talking about how something was a “blessing in disguise,” and I remember wishing I had that same outlook. Now that the initial waves of emotions are pretty much over, and I had one on ones with more than ten girls, I feel a little better. I still get in my head and I still get down, but that’s when I have to give it to God.

So back to my first question. I thought all weekend about how I was doing the same crap I was doing when I was getting high. Today, I asked myself how this year (08-09) was any different from my last one year birthday (06-07). At first I couldn’t answer myself. Then again, I wasn’t really holding much of a conversation, I was more concentrated on beating myself up. But now that I look a little closer, I can answer that question. Today I’m willing. Today I’m honest. I was NONE of those things in 06-07. I had to weigh the good and the bad of what happened Friday night with my slip-up. The bad: it happened, I let it happen, and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I let in to my instant gratification. The good: I told my youth AA sponsor the next day first thing, I made amends to everyone that was there, I took suggestions, I felt my feelings, and eventually didn’t let my feelings control me. In 06-07, I would have held on to all of those feelings and not shared them with one person. I probably would’ve self-injured as well.

I got through Friday and Saturday. It’s not Sunday, and I’m still alive. I went to bed happy last night. After I threw myself a pity party, I got out of my head and went to my sober party and danced like a crazy woman. And I had fun. That’s the most important part. So today, I went to church and I heard the preacher say some of the most inspiring words I’ve ever heard in a church that it might as well have been in the big book.

Look forward with hope, and not backward with regret.

Wow. It’s so funny how we use our selective listening, and when you really tune into everything that a person is saying, you can apply it to everyday life. If not, save it for later. Today I realized that I have to have hope and faith in order to grow and make progress. If I hang on to my regret, shame, guilt, resentment, anger, whatever then I have no room to grow. I’m literally blocking myself from the sunshine of the spirit. Today I choose progress not perfection and I live my life the way I should. Someone told me during one of my 1-on-1s that everyone makes mistakes and that doesn’t make people that love you love you any less. She also told me that I had to give myself some time to heal and time to feel, but after that time is up, I just need to move on.

So ultimately, God will always be there for me even when I do manage to completely screw things up. People will still love me for who I am, and those in recovery won’t judge me because they know where I’m coming from. In the end, it’s all good.

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I am recovering drug addict and alcoholic, cutter, bulimic, and more. I just celebrated a year sober from drugs and alcohol on the 17th, three days ago. I have not cut myself or have done any kind of self-injuring in 10 months. I haven’t forced myself to throw up in a couple of months. Life is slowly becoming more manageable, and I have a clear head. With that clear head, there come a lot of feelings. Shame and guilt are probably number one, because now that I’m sober I’m going through the wreckage of my past. Yet on the other side of that, there is a new freedom of which I have never experienced and it’s amazing. Today, I’m extremely grateful and content with life.

My story started when I was around seven. I started injuring myself. That went on unnoticed until I was about twelve, when my mom confronted me. After a big “fight” or whatever you want to call it, I told her straight up that, “I cut myself.” It was the first time I ever admitted out loud what I was doing. Also around twelve or eleven, I started doing drugs. It began pretty innocently, I guess. I was asking regularly for Adderoll from my boyfriend at the time to help me to study or to lose weight. Eventually, it ran my life. I wouldn’t eat for days, sometimes a week, at a time. I’d stay up all night either exercising or studying. That kept on until I was about thirteen, when I started smoking marijuana, drinking, and taking other kind of pills.

The drugs were doing for me what I couldn’t do myself. All I wanted was to feel better, and that was easily accomplished through getting plastered or stoned out of my mind. Oblivion was easy for me and extremely comfortable. My dad and mom then began taking me to regular ER visits for attempted suicide or stitches. I began to go to different psych wards around Houston and I started running away and getting locked up shortly after that.

By the time I was 16, I had tried AA more than once and accumulated thirteen months of being a dry drunk. I was most definitely not sober. I was still going to inpatient places even after I got sober off the drugs and alcohol for my self-injury. I had found out about AA through a rehabilitation center, where I stayed 2-3 months. I began to go to meetings, and Youth AA Groups, such as APGs (Alternative Peer Groups).

Two APGs and about two years later, at ten months sober (the most I had ever had since I started using), I went to inpatient in Denton for my self-injury. The epitome of a dry drunk: Once having removed the alcohol and drugs, I was left with feelings, emotions, thoughts, and actions, which would normally be taken out under the influence. Without any type of a spiritual experience, I couldn’t change my life. I was “white-knuckling” it, as the AAs said. I was miserable, discontent, angry, and so on. I was still acting out on my worst addiction: self-injury. When you’re in jail, it’s pretty damn hard to get some drugs or alcohol. But no matter where I went, self-injury was an easy accessible tool. So I went to Denton to seek help.

I was raped in Denton, and therefore had a lot of resentments towards the place I went to, God, the rapist, the hotel, etc. etc. Most of all, I was angry at God because in my eyes, I had gone to get help and stop self-injuring, and then that happened. For a very long time, I felt as if it was God trying to tell me I wasn’t ready to stop cutting. What a delusion that was! But they were my feelings, and therefore legit. I was very angry for a long time because I wanted God in my life and I wanted to stop hurting and to stop harming myself, and then someone else harms me. I didn’t think it was fair. Now I realize that God does throw curve balls, but I don’t need to justify it. I needed to take it as it came, accept it, realize that bad things happen to good people, learn, heal, talk about it, and move on.

After the rape, I stayed sober for about 4-5 more months until I put myself in a position to get high again. I wasn’t thinking about getting high, it just happened. Once again: I was without defense against the first drink/drug. I ran away that day for about three days and when I tried hitch hiking home, the woman that had picked me up flagged a policeman down. I was taken into custody, and my dad picked me up later that day from the juvenile detention center. After that, I went to another placement and decided to run away from there. I ran away with someone else and lived on the streets for about a month and a half.

Within that month and a half, I learned how to sell my body, and I began a life of drugs all over again. I had never done “hard drugs” before I ran away, and by the time I came back, I was hooked on crack and had done meth, ecstasy, cocaine, and several others as well. For a long time I only saw myself as a crackwhore. It was really hard for me to look myself in the mirror and accept who I was and what I had become. I had lost all knowledge that I didn’t have to be that way. So when I got back home, I chose to continue doing drugs, just not to that extreme. This was around March 2008. I continued to go to school high and I had no self-respect.

Eventually, my actions caught up to me and I was locked up for assault and domestic violence. I had hit my dad. The abuse I caused him went on for years before I finally “got caught,” but today I’m glad. My dad and I have an amazing relationship and when I talk to other people about him, I often refer to him as my “knight in shining armor.” He’s always been there for me through everything and has never left nor rejected me. He’s always loved me for exactly who I am. “I don’t love the things you do, but I love the person you are,” he often says. So when I sobered up in jail after the assault, I had a lot of guilt and shame riding on my back, to the point of where I couldn’t speak to him civilly in a window visitation while in JDC.

I got out on house arrest fifteen days later, and still thought I could play the system. I thought probation and house arrest were merely jokes. Two days later, I was back in jail, under the influence. After not coming home for two days straight, my dad caught me and turned me in. I was so mad at him at first. I remember telling him I hated him and I hoped he would die. I live with that every day, now. Yet, I know things don’t ever have to be that way anymore. From JDC, they sent me to a rehabilitation center in North Texas since I had been admitted under the influence for the second time.

I spent nine months in that rehab, and everyday I live today; I thank God for the events that caused me to go there. I don’t think I would have ever sobered up again on my own, no matter how much God I had. I think it really took a lot of time away from that kind of atmosphere to gain a clear head and decide not to use again. I cut for the first month I was in there, and then realized that cutting wasn’t getting me anywhere either.

As far as what it’s like now, I have to maintain a spiritual connection with my higher power, because I know that if I don’t then I’ll end up right back where I started from. Today I’m so grateful that I don’t EVER have to be that person that I used to be, and I believe that is the greatest miracle God or recovery could have ever given me. I’ve been through a lot, and today I consider myself a survivor. I don’t act anything like I used to and ultimately I’m just not the same girl that I used to be. I can’t really express my gratitude anymore than that. I’m happy, joyous and free today and for that, I thank God. I value my freedom more than anything today, and right now I don’t wish to put anything in it’s way. I’ve spent about an accumulated two years behind gates and fences and maximum security places. Today, I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to live my life the way I’ve always dreamed of and be successful. I know I can accomplish all things through Christ, and that’s my plan.

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Last night I went to see the Houston Symphony with my dad. They had a guest cellist known only by the name of Yo-Yo Ma. It was my second time to see him live in concert. I’m always amazed by the passion he conveys when playing. The program from May 5th at Jones Hall consisted of four pieces in this order:

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, opus 129
Intermission
Bloch: Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra
Wagner: Overture to Tannhäuser

Siegfried Idyll was gorgeous. It was very delicate and peaceful. The Schumann Concerto was absolutely amazing. I listened to it before going online and hearing it live was so much better! The concerto consisted of three movements, including a cadenza at the end – a chance for the performer to shine. A cadenza is where the player of the concerto writes their own bit of the music, using the composer’s scales or whatever else the player wishes to use. Not necessarily improvisation, but the performer does compose that part of the concerto, unless there’s one already written that they choose to use.

My favorite thing about Yo-Yo Ma would have to be his expressions and behavior while performing. I noticed that during the concerto (and when I saw him in 2007 perform a Dvorák Cello Concerto), Ma will be performing, swaying back and forth, and when he finally ends a section or comes to a rest, he will watch the rest of the orchestra play, such as the first chair violinist or perhaps the other cellists. I think that’s what true musicianship is – being aware of not just what the you are playing, but what’s going on around you too.

Schelomo by Bloch also included Yo-Yo Ma. I read up on it a little bit, and it turns out it was composed near WWI or WWII. For a piece that is “modern,” or written in the 20th century, it was a very pretty piece. I’ve always enjoyed that type of music – it had a Russian sort of flavor, like Bartók would write.

The ending Wagner piece I enjoyed as well, although MereWisdom could probably rant and rave more about it than I. He calls it his “Funeral Music.”

Overall, the concert was absolutely fantastic, not to mention the dinner at Birra Poretti’s. The night was phenomenal, and I was really happy to spend time with my dad and go see Yo-Yo Ma perform. I would definitely recommend ANY Houston Symphony series to the music lover, for their music is truly professional and all-around great!

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Yesterday, I talked about how hard it was to forgive my rapist. I talked about it with a very supportive group of women last night after a women’s meeting, and one of the women told me that the person I need to forgive the most is myself. To this day, I still hold resentments against myself for where I’ve been in life. I feel a lot of shame, guilt, remorse, and generally all of the above.

I was once living on the streets and I had no other way to support my habit than to go sell my body. It’s a degrading thing to do, and today I still can’t seem to forgive myself. Yesterday I cried throughout the meeting because all I could think about was how I’ll never belong because of what I was and what I’ve been through. How wrong was I? I’m sitting in a group full of women who in one way or another, been through what I’ve been through and I was completely isolated by my own mechanisms. One thing that a woman shared with me is this: Isolation leads to fear, fear leads to anger, and anger leads back to our old ways like drinking, drugging, cutting, overeating, starving ourselves, and so on and so forth.

I really liked this because ultimately, I think that’s why I relapsed after being dry for thirteen months. I isolated like no other and even had people tell me it was to the point to where it was a character defect. Of course, I shut down and wouldn’t speak to them EVER again after that, because they hurt my feelings. It’s so true, though… My isolation in the past led to my fear of never being wanted. This made me angry because I was mad at myself for isolating and putting myself in the position to not be wanted. I eventually used again and repeating the alcoholic/addict cycle.

Another woman told me something else that I really related to and latched on to. I have eating issues. I either starve myself, or I’ll overeat and either feel disgusting or make myself throw it up. Lately I’ve been eating a LOT, and just not bother to throw it up. I’ve tried a couple times in all honesty, but it wasn’t satifying. Then one of the women told me I was overeating as a defense mechanism. I’ve gained 60lbs. since I quit smoking crack and now? I hide behind my weight, hoping no one will look at me yet at the same time craving that old attention. It’s a lose-lose situation. I’ve gained weight and am now unhealthy, I don’t want to be looked at, yet I still am. Go figure… I guess that’s just the way the world works., People will look, people will judge, and people will come to their own conclusions. Whether I’m an ugly duckiling or a beautiful swan doesn’t matter to other people. What matters is what I think of myself.

In the meeting yesterday, we also talked about success. One of the reasons I was crying was because I have been successful, but I feel like it’s not recognized. I’m off the streets, I have food to eat, I’m getting an education on IMPORTANT things, not the street life and gang banging knowledge. I don’t sell myself short, and I make people deserve waht they get from me. That’s a blessing. Yet, yesterday I felt so sad because I wasn’t recognized. Granted, I was in a meeting where the women don’t really know me on a personal level, I still wanted that recognition.

“Selfishness, self-centeredness. That, we thought, was the root of all our troubles.” is what the big book says. Maybe if I let these wonderful people in and become a part of my life, I’d feel recognized. But I think the important thing I learned last night is this: I was being selfish. “What about me?” I thought, “Why do all these people have such great things to be said about them and I don’t? Aren’t I special too?” I am. I just didn’t think about that at the time. Someone told me I was taking the aphorism, “Think, think, think” too literal. Really, the aphorism is meant to say: Think about something once, think about it twice, maybe even think about it a third time and then just STOP. That hit the nail on the head for me. I love to sit on my pity pot. I used to say I sat on it SO much that it was embellished with all my personal keepsakes, jewels, fur, whatever. The point I was trynig to get across was that I sat on it SO much, it had become my natural state. Yesterday, I feel into my old ways.

What did I do? I talked to my sponsor, I talked to other SOBER women in the program, and I got over myself. I got into the solution instead of wallowing in the problem. I have an appointment next Wednesday for the doctor to see if I need surgery again, and I asked a woman to go with me that’s very dear to me. She’s been through the same things as I have and knows where I’m coming from. Although, I’d love to think that’s RARE, it’s really not… If I sat in a group of women in sobriety and point blank said, “I smoked crack, I sold my body for it, and now I’m living with the consequences,” they’d all probably relate. THAT right there, is the beauty of alcoholics anonymous as well as narcotics anonymous.

Today, I try to live in the solution. A lot of the time I need reminders to stay there and it’s hard. But I’ve come so far for being where I was at. Most people can’t get out. It’s too hard for them. Today, I consider myself a survivor. I’m a strong, beautiful woman and I need to recognize that MYSELf more often…

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For the past week, I’ve been going to AA meetings every day. Sometimes, different clubs have similar topics, or even the same topics. It’s rare, but it happens. Well in a span of three days, I went to two meetings where the general topic was “forgiveness.” At first, it sprung a lot of old memories, even resentments. Then at the second meeting, I was thinking, “Okay. Maybe God IS trying to talk to me.” So today, I thought I’d process and talk about forgiveness.

Forgiveness usually stems from resentments, which we all know are in lament’s terms: bad. Not only does the big book say, “Resentment is the number one offender,” but also this:

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenanc e and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

Big Book pg. 66

These are my favorite words from the big book aside from the Acceptance prayer.. Okay well maybe the big book is just my favorite book of all times. That’s easier to say. So basically, what this saying is resentments will make you feel like crap. We tried to justify them, but it didn’t work. If we want to grow spiritually, harboring resentments won’t help for if we hang on to our resentments, we will be apart from God. Insanity will continue, and for us, drinking is deadly.

The second meeting I went to on forgiveness is probably what really struck a chord in me. The chairperson talked about how she used to hold resentments about a rape that happened eight years ago. Go figure. Rape is something I’ve been struggling a lot with as far as my feelings. Doctors say we go through a grief process: Denail and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. I believe the grief process is something that all of us go to not only when we lose people, but when we lose something. For me, I lost my drug and alcohol abuse – my main escape into oblivion. I’m now at acceptance with this. I lost my self-injury – I’ve definitely come to terms with this. But with death, it’s a whole different story. It’s so much harder for me to go through the loss of someone I knew, let alone a loved one than it is to grieve for my lost addictions.

Sometimes I think I’m still in denial with my rape. I think about how it happened and I’ll try to justify that it “wasn’t really rape, even if my boundaries were crossed.” I see the insanity in that, but a part of me sees the truth in it as well. I think rape is one of the hardest things to deal with because although there’s a definite line between rape and consensual sex, it’s a whole different story in the realm of molestion, rape, being taken advantage of, etc. etc.

Though I think I’ve dealt with my anger concerning the rape, and I believe I forgive the person, I still feel denial. I guess that’s what I don’t understand about the grief process. Here’s what I found on denial while googling the Grief Process.

Denial, for instance, is a defense mechanism people use to block the conscious recognition of specific information.

http://www.usd.edu/med/som/genetics/curriculum/4DGRIEF4.htm

That kind of hit me hard. So denial is simply a defense mechanism for blocking what really did happen… or did it happen? I guess that’s where I’m confused. I’ve written forgiveness letters to my rapist about how I forgive then and I won’t let them control my life anymore, but I still seem stuck on it. Which brings me to my next point.

The second meeting I was at on forgiveness, I took it more seriously and asked God to speak through other people to me. I think He did. One man talked about how he carried everything that burdens us around in a ten thousand pack of shit. We carry it around and drop off some of it in some places (telling people about it) and then just stuff it back in the sack. Ultimately, they were not letting go. I heard another man speak on how he carried around his little story, or past, in a wagon tied to a string. He spoke of how eventually he had to let go of the string.

I heard a lot of really good things in the meeting and now I think I realize something: I’ve been carrying this CRAP around with me for so long, telling anyone my sob story who will listen. I wanted to feel sorry for myself because it was more comfortable than trying to progress and make something or someone of myself. Today, I see myself as a young woman, trying to rise from the ashes. It’s hard, but I think the biggest think I need to learn is how to let go of things. If I can let go of this one last burden (okay, maybe not “one last”), then I could move on. There are still a lot of things I feel that hold me back. There’s also a list of things that I need to learn to accept and forgive.

There’s a song I REALLY like that I shared with my sponsor yesterday. It’s by a Christian band called Superchick about how God can bring us up out of whatever we’ve been through. Here’s the lyrics:

“Beauty From Pain”

The lights go out all around me
One last candle to keep out the night
And then the darkness surrounds me
I know i’m alive but i feel like i’ve died
And all that’s left is to accept that it’s over
My dreams ran like sand through the fists that i made
I try to keep warm but i just grow colder
I feel like i’m slipping away

After all this has passed, i still will remain
After i’ve cried my last, there’ll be beauty from pain
Though it won’t be today,
Someday i’ll hope again
And there’ll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

My whole world is the pain inside me
The best i can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I’ll wonder why God lets me walk through this place
And though i can’t understand why this happened
I know that i will when i look back someday
And see how you’ve brought beauty from ashes
And made me as gold purified through these flames

After all this has passed, i still will remain
After i’ve cried my last, there’ll be beauty from pain
Though it won’t be today,
Someday i’ll hope again
And there’ll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Here i am, at the end of me
Tryin to hold to what i can’t see
I forgot how to hope
This night’s been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn

After all this has passed, i still will remain
After i’ve cried my last, there’ll be beauty from pain
Though it won’t be today,
Someday i’ll hope again
And there’ll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

That’s my processing for the day. On a lighter note, I had my first day of work yesterday. It was long and rather boring and I as only there for four hours. But it pays, and I don’t mind it that much. The guy I work for is a pretty neat guy, and there’s a lot of instruments to play around with while I’m there. Hell, I’m actually seriously thinking about taking up the banjo. They have a 5-string and several books. So I don’t know. Whatever happens, happens. And with that, I bid you adieu.

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