I have a marriage that is falling apart. I have a life half-ruined by my bad choices. In a word, I'm running ragged, running out of hope. I've had some temptations in the past three days to look at pornography, which is causing a large portion of my distress. I had thought the pull of it had lessened for me by now. I did not realize that the urges would still be so strong and so vivid. Thankfully I did not give in, but it certainly gave me a fright. Now I'm worried, depressed and more burned out than I care to say. I did not feel well enough to attend church, I was feeling too depressed and unworthy. Due to some other issues I have created for myself (for the which I am loathsome to my own body and self, I wish I could run away from myself!) I cannot take the sacrament or use the priesthood, I am a shell of a man, a husk of a Latter Day Saint. I don't know if I'm even worthy to be called such. So sometimes the thought of 'your not really good enough, going to church wont help you' drums in my head and I feel attending church is a pointless endeavor No doubt I will be hated all the more for my 'feelings'.
Speaking of feelings. I have been thinking back to my youth and childhood. I was first introduced to porn at a young age, about 9 or 10. Some friends and I were walking home from school and one pulled out a picture of a naked woman. Never had I seen such a thing, I didn't know how to react. They thought it was cool, so I played along, even with the uneasy feeling I had about it. Thus began the nearly 15 year ordeal with pornography; that's longer than half my life time! I don't know much else but the struggle with it. At about age 15 or 16 things got really bad. I stopped trying as hard to avoid it. Girls were a frustratingly beautiful mystery. I never had many girl friends. I was too reclusive. I hate myself for that. I wish I had been more active, but a part of me had withered and I was unworthy the entirety of my youth. I was a waste of a person. I feel that my emotional and spiritual progress just about stopped dead in its tracks around that time. The only time it got better was during my mission. I still feel stunted, forever unable to feel 'normal' people feelings about life and relationships. I don't understand the intricacies of relationships, or even logical processes. I truly feel unable to cope with all these rushing emotions I have coming at me. They are too much and too many so I run away and hide in my fantasy worlds; games, isolation, anger, hate and more. That's the only way I know how to deal with them.
On the whole I feel like a very unrounded person. Rough and sharp. I don't know how to care for myself or even others quite right. It's like I'm stumbling through the steps, unsure of how to complete them. I have a lot or 'people I know', outsiders who don't really know me nor I them; I sometimes call them my friends But I have no real, close friends. That's too scary a step, too much a commitment.
It's like a roiling sea
Deep inside of me
No gulp or air
Fresh and clean
to calm my burning lungs
Perhaps someday, somewhere
Rescue will find
Me
Well, there is your unplanned poem for the day. Sums up alot of what I am feeling. I feel helpless and alone. I know in my head that such is not the case, that I am not alone or helpless. That is why Christ came. yet I stand in the midst of a battle between my wits and my heart. No matter how loudly my head argues, pleads and presents its logical case, my heart just bleeds. It doesn't understand logic; at least not right now.
