Praying

 

It has been hitting the fan around here people.  I have found some evidence that the hubs has been lying to me and doing things behind my back.  The thing is, they weren't even about porn!  But it was LYING! So i was re-traumatized. But I don't want to even get into it. It was hard. I cried a lot and not the hubs is into his second week on the couch.

 

Last night when I was praying before bed, it occurred to me that MAYBE I should pray for my hubs.  Since we are in quite a rough spot.  So I start praying for him.  "Please help him to...." STOP. No, that is a prayer for what I want HIM to do. "Please have him...." STOP. No, Camilla, that is not something in your power.  "Please help him to love himself and help him to know that I don't completely hate him". Okay, success, I prayed about something that isn't me trying to control anything. It's HARD though. UGH! This is one of my new goals though.  Yes, i realize it should be obvious to pray for my husband, and something that is automatic.  BUT it's not for me yet.  It's time for me to make new, good habits! Wish me luck!

As Promised: Affirmations

I just could NOT get the video to upload on here, so I had to upload it to youtube.  It is like 3 1/2 minutes.  Someone please watch, cause I worked on it for a few hours this morning! lol

Camilla's Positive Affirmations

That Pesky Inner Dialogue

I just read this: "I sat down on the edge of her bed and began saying things I’d never said to another human being—not even myself. “I feel mad inside a lot. I often speak badly about myself in my head. I bully myself. And when I bully myself, it makes me unhappy and then I treat others badly—especially you. It is not right, and I am going to stop. I am not sure how, but I will stop. I am so very sorry,” I vowed trying not to cry."

Gotten from here: http://www.handsfreemama.com/2013/12/10/the-bully-too-close-to-home/ I reccomend reading the whole post.

When I read that I alllllmost lost it. Meaning, massive ugly crying. Because I hate myself. I really do. Last night I had a conversation with my husband about how I didn't know if I could go see the Hobbit with him, because Evangeline Lilly is in it. How can I sit next to him when there is this beautiful woman on screen and I'm sitting next to him. When his fat, frumpy wife is sitting next to him. Yes, I actually SAID that. (Disclaimer: I was much more secure before this damned addiction)

Since this addiction has come out. I feel like the ugliest woman in the room. Always. My husband tells me how I'm so pretty, and that I'm always the prettiest woman in the room.  I just roll my eyes. IF IM THE PRETTIEST WOMAN IN THE ROOM then WHY are you looking at all the OTHER women!!??!?!??  Exactly.

Back to the above quote. My inner dialogue is terrible.it has gotten so bad. I will tell you this, even though I know it's wrong. If I get zits, I will tell myself "porn stars don't get zits". If I fart in from of my husband, I tell myself, "porn stars don't fart". You get the picture, I do this and it's wrong.  I just know I will never be enough for him. I tell myself that all the time. And it's ruining me. And I can't stop the negative self talk. I constantly complain about how I never feel loved by him. But the thing is, I honestly don't think I can ACCEPT love from him. Because I have convinced myself SO many times that I will just never be enough. Not for my mother, not for my children and especially not for my husband. The things I tell myself, fill me with hate and I get to the point where I can't hold it in anymore, and I explode. On my husband.  And on my kids. I am constantly apologizing to my kids. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, you are a good girl" "I'm sorry I said that" "I'm sorry I lost my patience" I'm treating my kids like crap often, because that's how I feel. I feel like crap.

Stop the negative self talk? I don't even know how. I do not. Tomorrow, meet me back here, I will have some positive affirmations typed up to share. It's going to be really hard for me to do that.

Pulling My Own Wagon

Last night, I feel like so many things bothering me about my marriage came to an emotional wreckage in my soul. After I found out about the porn, the bishop firmly counseled us to pray and read scriptures as a couple.  I immediately told my husband that HE is the Priesthood leader in our home and he SHOULD be the leader of our home. So we did it, for a while.  We haven't done it for months.  I also put family prayer/scriptures on his shoulders.  We haven't done it for months.  He can't be the leader of this home, or it will be lost.

Last night, I lay in bed, crying as quiet as humanly possible.  I slowly allowed the responsibility of family scriptures and prayer AND family home evening creep back onto my shoulders.  It didn't feel good.  I know it shouldn't FEEL like a burden, but alone it absolutely is.

This is how I feel:
I feel like for the past 12 years, our entire marriage, I am pulling this wagon, the family wagon all alone.  As I pull it, I struggle, I stumble. Sometimes, I completely stop because I can't even breath and have no strength left in my muscles.  While I am pulling this wagon, I see my husband over off in the meadow, playing with bunnies and toy guns having fun.  So many times is scream at him, beg with him, plead with him to PLEASE come help pull the wagon.  But he just yells back, "I am too busy playing, that wagon looks HARD.  Maybe if you pulled it like THIS instead, because it doesn't look like you are pulling it right." And then he skips off again, leaving my hands bleeding.  Sometimes, he doesn't even hear my pleas.  Then it happened, I found out he went deeper into the forest, and instead of playing with bunnies, he was playing with bears.  Playing with bears behind my back!  So i started putting the wagon down, and throwing rocks at the bunnies. "YOU CAN'T EVEN PLAY WITH BUNNIES ANYMORE!!!!!"  I screamed.  So he kinda sorta stopped.  He came over, and picked up the wagon, and we started moving easier.  It felt so good!  I had help!  I wasn't alone!  The wagon wasn't so heavy! I went to clean out the wagon, and I found a BEAR. He put a bear in my wagon. My wagon was already so terribly heavy, why would he put a bear in it?  Now not only are my hands bleeding, but my toes are blistered and cracking and bleeding now.  After a while I notice something, why is my wagon getting heavier again?  Then I notice, that he's just walking BESIDE the wagon.  He is walking by OUR wagon and looking at those good for nothing BUNNIES!  Then he is by the very edge of the trail looking at those bunnies, longing to play with them.  What the heck has happened? Not only has he left me to pull OUR wagon alone, but he has added a 500 lb bear to it, making it even harder. So here I am, AGAIN. After what should be a year, a WHOLE YEAR of pulling the wagon together, and he has set the wagon back down and walked back into the meadow of no responsibility. The side of his wagon is squeaking so loudly at me, now that I have had a small, bitter taste of what it's like to not pull alone, that I can't even pull any of it.

**Disclaimer** This is so silly, I know.  It sums up how I'm feeling so well that I just couldn't write it any other way. It sums it up so well, typing this kind of made me cry.

Vulnerability

 

(pornland)

(ya...I just couldn't figure out what picture to put on this post)

 

Welcome to Pornland, where Vulnerability is a yucky word.  But imma talk about it today. I do the 12 step Healing through Christ program through my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's pretty awesome.  It's a very healing process. Though sometimes it can be difficult.  We just went through step 7, which is Humility.  Going through this step made me thing a lot of Vulnerability.  I could be wrong here, BUT I kinnnnda thing humility and vulnerability are the same thing. Bare with me here, as this post might be a little funky and disorganized as I try to put my thoughts on paper, eh, blog. If you would like to go make yourself some brownies before you dive in, go ahead, i will wait.

The healing through Christ Manual says, "To be humble...is an indication that you know where your true strength lies.  You can be both humble and fearless. You can be both humble and courageous." I totally feel like the word vulnerable could replace humble in that sentence. You CAN be vulnerable AND courageous. Can you be prideful and vulnerable? I petition no. Being vulnerable comes from a place of love, as does humility. Obviously they are not the same thing, but for the past week, I can't really stop thinking about how closely they tie into each other. 

At the Togetherness Project I attended in October, I actually attended a seminar called "The Healthiest People Are Vulnerable, given by Brannon Patrick from Life Star.  It was really good! One of the things he said is that by being vulnerable, you experience love.  THIS I realized was so very true. When I have the walls up in my heart and am not being vulnerable I do not experience love. If I am being prideful, i do not experience love. The saddest part of this is that I do not experience love with my children, and I miss out. Worse, THEY miss out.

Now that I have written those two things on vulnerability, lets all take a big deep breath......
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because CRAP. Who wants to be vulnerable with a lying PORN addict around?  crickets.  Me neither. So what do we do?  I'm not here to give advice, but seriously, what? I think that all we CAN do it just be aware.  Be aware that if we are not allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to SOME extent, we are missing out on love. If we are not being humble, we aren't growing. All y'all might think I am crazy comparing the two. And if so, just roll your eyes and go find a blog that clicks better with you. BUT for my personal life, I feel like I am on to something.

I HAVE Done Hard Things!

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

Spiders. 

Who doesn't? gross.  Especially the hairy legged ones. (literally JUST got chills on the back of my neck. no lie. 
I have fears. Spiders, snakes, being lied to again, a child dying, you know, the usual. A few weeks ago, i did this:

This is ME, this is MY HAND. That is a wild Tarantula roaming the wilderness.  And I let it climb on my hand.  Twice.  Gross? Disturbing?  NO!  BRAVE! I friggin TOUCHED A TARANTULA! I am so brave!  I felt so good that i conquered one of my fears. For the next week I would tell my husband, "guess what?  I touched a tarantula".  And he was proud of me, and shocked by my behavior.  It does good things for my soul to be proud of myself and see that my husband is proud of me.

Speaking of brave, hard things, here is something else I have done:

I gave birth to this beautiful little love of my life. Naturally. For me, it was a big deal.  I have had other labors, fabulous, epidural labors.  But this time i decided, nope, I want it natural.  And it was HARD. SO hard.  I reached a new level of exhaustion that I didn't know existed.  I have long long labors.  But I stayed home until my water broke.  Heck, I went TRICK or treating and labored in driveways of strangers.  A few days ago, my husband and I were talking about my natural labor, and he confessed something to me.  "I didn't think you would be able to do it", he said.  It didn't hurt my feelings, cause he knows how hard labor is for me. But I DID do it.  And once again, I surprised him, AND myself with my strength.

Today's blog isn't really about anything profound or any light bulb moments. I just feel like I (we) need to stop holding myself back with fear. Fear of pain from labor, fear of fuzzy furry 8 legged things, fear of LIES, BETRAYAL and skinny women. I want to do more hard things And I want YOU to do hard things, and tell others about them. Tell me about them, and we will talk about it, over a pile of brownies.

   

The Two Step

Tonight was my Healing Through Christ support group. I was the only one who showed. This is fine, the facilitator is awesome. She didn't have brownies, but she had lemon squares. We were on step 7. Humility. Oy. Pass the lemon squares. Humility is hard. There was a paragraph that reminded me a lot of me, and of this blog. Here it is:

"As we become willing to release our weaknesses, we may find we are prepared to let go of them one day, but wanting to hang onto them the next.  this pattern is a natural part of the process of change.  Recognizing this instinctive interference can help us avoid discouragement.  Rather than expecting instant perfection, we should focus on progressing one day at a time.  This requires us to continue practicing patience"

I think patience is a vile word. But it is what it is. This paragraph made me think of how I came home  from the Togetherness Project thinking "I'm going to have this awesome blog! And I'm going to love myself! And I'm going to help people!" Cut to blog post Where I lost my sh*t. (I curse, I can't help it.)  but that's okay! I was just being human! I was just following my "instinctive interference". We went of topic a little talking tonight about how when we pretend everything is perfect, we aren't doing anyone favors. So you are very welcome, when I lose my mind and blog from my bathroom floor, that is me, not doing anyone any favors!

We are okay! We are all okay. It is two steps forward and one step back. But if any of you start taking two, or even three steps back, please contact me. Please let me know! If you are reading this, I am in it with you. We are all human, and that isn't something to be ashamed of.