Category / confessions

by Janet

The Confession Series

The Confession Series

Confession: When I titled this series I was not really aware of what a Chameleon was. And I’m not talking about the lizard. I know the lizard, which in reality is all that came to mind when I was deciding on the name.

After publishing the first segment, I was surprised to find out that the Chameleon also refers to a borderline personality disorder. And in reading about the disorder, I have to be honest and say that I had a few of those Uh-Oh moments. Kind of like an Aha moment, but not quite as exhilarating. Ha!

Anyway, it took finding and looking to God for me to finally realize the errors of my ways, and to start becoming the ME that He created me to be.

Is my story over? Never.

Part One: I didn’t believe in God, so I never really feared going to hell… but then again, I didn’t need to. Hell had made its way to earth and was coming for ME.

Part Two: I was a shy and quiet girl, from a perfectly normal family, who JUST wanted to fit in and be liked.

Part Three: I want to say that the job taught me to be shrewd, but that sounds harsh. Simply put, it was the first thing in my life that gave me a sense of my own identity.

Part Four: Left to my own devices- I will overdue things to the point of self-destruction, sickness, or far worse- Death.

Part Five: Hands sweating, heart racing, vision slightly blurred and my mind in a fog (but sober!), I put my foot on the gas, and held on tight to the wheel.

Part Six: If the hole was round, this square peg would become ROUND, dammit, because I was going to fit!

Part Seven: I needed to replace my unhealthy addiction of chasing love (the wrong kind), for the sake of my sanity and my recovery, and now I’ve finally found perfect and healthy substitutes!

Part Eight: …it was like the weight of the world, that had somehow taken up residency on my shoulders, was magically dissolving… and drifting away… like little musical notes… floating up to the heavens.

by Janet

Forgiving ME

It’s been two weeks since I wrote part seven of the Confessions series, yet it feels like months! Time is really different these days. I used to blink an eye and somehow years had passed. Now, what seems like eons to me is merely a few days or weeks. I love that!

If you’d like to read this series in it’s entirety, the beginning is here.

When I left off,  I had discovered that my wrongful, negative opinion of myself during adolescence had lingered on (subconsciously) and was perhaps a major cause of my self-destructive behavior throughout life.

Looking back on my story truly IS like watching a movie. I see confusion and struggles, hope and triumphs—all spiraling around chaotically—until finally, everything merges together, and the glorious climax is produced. That feel good moment, when it all comes together and makes sense.

That’s how I see it anyway.

Confessions: Part Eight

Shortly after writing A Child of God, I proceeded to do steps four and five of the program, which requires you to write down your resentments, find your own fault in these matters, and then share these thoughts with another human being (my sponsor).

It was extremely difficult to list resentments. I rarely hold a grudge. I’m an optimist, so I always look for the good in every situation, and I’m really good at moving on. Honestly, there is only ONE person that I ever felt real hatred towards. And I had already forgiven him.

I wish I could write about all that went on during my marriage; how one person could torment another human being both while living together, AND in the five to ten years following. Even if I COULD document it all, I wouldn’t share it here. I’m pretty sure that’s not what God would want.

I spent time on my inventory and came up with a pretty good list. Obviously, it takes TWO to tango. So, I listed my part; how I had been so hateful and how I had reacted in anger and behaved badly myself. Like I said , I’ve always been Re-active, not Pro-active. That whole era was nothing but a recipe for disaster.

Sitting down with my sponsor was nerve racking—mainly because I had to do a sex inventory. That was NOT pretty. I mean it wasn’t UGLY… it was just LONG. Sorry, I have to be honest here. Sex & love were intertwined, and I was a LOVE addict– so it’s pretty self-explanatory.

It was a gorgeous day when I met with my sponsor. We sat outside, on the covered patio of her home, and I proceeded to tell her my story. Finally… we got around to my marriage, and it was time to share MY role in the disaster. I had mentally prepared myself to hear her thoughts; about how the role I had played was much bigger or much worse than what I was willing to admit, and how I had behaved so selfishly.

That being said, when I started giving her the rundown—and she interrupted me—I was ready for the one-two punch. Shaking her head gently, and speaking with her usual soft tone, she said… “No Janet. That’s not it.”

Then, with three little words… she changed my whole perspective.

“You picked him.”

What?!? I don’t know. I feel embarrassed even writing that because I’ve always considered myself to be a smart woman. Why had I never thought of that? Blinded by my own thoughts and perceptions perhaps?

I wish I could give you a visual of my feelings that day. It was very similar to stumbling on the word angst that day when I was writing about my inner child. Only this time, it was like the weight of the world, that had somehow taken up residency on my shoulders, was magically dissolving… drifting away… like little musical notes floating up to the heavens.

It’s safe to say that I had been holding on to a TON of guilt. I had made many mistakes during my marriage and there was no way I could ever go back and undo what I had done, and that guilt must have been eating away at my soul for years.

What I realized that day with my sponsor is that I really HAD forgiven him…

…but I had never forgiven MYSELF.

So, God’s timing was perfect. Within a matter of weeks I was embracing and loving my inner child, and now—with the help of my sponsor—I saw that the biggest mistake I had made in regards to that horrible marriage was entering into it in the first place. And it was true! I KNEW something was wrong from the very beginning. My gut had given me so MANY warnings, and I had ignored ALL of the red flags. And no, her words didn’t change things, but it changed how I looked at those things.

My eyes were opening up… and I was beginning to see LIGHT!

by Janet

Confessions: Part Seven

We had an interesting topic come up during our meeting last night. The enemy. Cunning, baffling and powerful. I decided that this subject would be a great opener for the final chapter.

Why DO we believe negative things about ourselves, and where DO those thoughts come from in the first place? Why do we self-sabotage and attempt to destroy ourselves, either in an instant… or through painfully slow methods… like our addictions?

A revelation came to me after writing the following in Part Two:

“You know… perception is funny. As I’m writing this, it makes me wonder. Where on earth did I get the idea that being cool meant doing those things, anyway? Is that a preconceived notion I had, or did someone tell me that?”

Seriously! Where DID I get the idea that alcohol, drugs and failing school were cool?

Which brings me to the final chapter…

Life Goes Full Circle

Exactly one year ago today, on January 6th of 2016, my eyes were finally opened to God’s existence, and His divine intervention in my life. That’s a story in itself, and I think I’ll cover more of that sometime in another series! Maybe I’ll call it Beautiful God Shots.

After I came to believe, I spent a lot of time writing and learning about God. I made it through 6 months of sobriety before I broke both of my ankles, and the relapses were set in motion. All of that is in my other story: Unteach Me.

It wasn’t the broken ankles that did it, though. Loneliness and bad romance(s) were my triggers, and the two took turns knocking me down. Loneliness, romance (heartache) and the bottle… and repeat. Like a broken record!

Gil suggested that I step away from the men for a while, not to mention the fact that you’re supposed to abstain from any new relationships during the first year of sobriety. What I found difficult about THAT was that love was ALL that I knew, or cared about.

Whenever I talk about being grateful for my PASSION for writing and photography… THAT is one reason. I needed to replace my unhealthy addiction of chasing love for the sake of my sanity and my recovery, and now I’ve finally found perfect and healthy substitutes! See, alcohol wasn’t exactly the problem– it’s was a symptom.

After the BAD relapse (and hospitalization) in March 2016, I started writing again. It seems crazy that my story takes me all the way back to adolescence, but there’s good reason for that. That’s when I became aware of (and obsessed about) death, that’s when I started dabbling in the drinking, AND… that’s when I felt like such a misfit; a terribly awkward outsider among the majority of my peers. What I’ve now learned is that I didn’t just FEEL like that…

I believed it!

And even more eye-opening is the fact that not ONE living soul on earth ever told me I didn’t fit. It came from somewhere else. From someone unseen. That damn enemy!

When I wrote the FIRST draft of the last chapter of Unteach Me, I kicked my inner child to the curb. SHE was the reason that my life went south. SHE was the crazy weirdo. THAT is what I believed—with every fiber of my being. At the innocent age of thirteen, the evil and calculated deception had started and I believed the lies that were being whispered in my ear. I had the awful chapter completed… demanding that my inner child take a hike so that I could get on with my life.

A woman in my recovery group talked about her inner child. She said that she nurtured her. She had a childhood picture of herself—taken before she drank—and she talked to her as a mother would talk to her daughter. It was a healing process for her.

That’s when I sent the draft of my final chapter to the cutting room floor, decided to rewrite it; and titled it A Child of God.

I had been praying, and digging into my past, and I know for a fact that God was orchestrating things that day. I was searching for a term to describe my emotions during adolescence, and I was led to the word angst. That is also when I stumbled on numerous articles on teenage angst. And that was when I made my first discovery. I wasn’t WEIRD, I had simple experienced teenage angst. And it’s quite common. So… that’s how embracing my inner child came about. I realized that believing I was a weirdo was the root of my problems, and I’d never addressed the issue in all my years!

I finally figured out where things had gone wrong, and I was now ready to allow that inner child to heal, grow, and be free! In me!

That’s when everything started to go up, up, UP.

Read Part Eight

Angst, often confused with anxiety, is a transcendent emotion in that it combines the unbearable anguish of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation. Without the important element of hope, then the emotion is anxiety, not angst. Angst denotes the constant struggle one has with the burdens of life that weighs on the dispossessed and not knowing when the salvation will appear. —Urban Dictionary

 

Peace and Love!!