It's no secret that I have anxiety issues, and even less of a secret that sometimes I just don't handle them well at all. I avoided traditional therapy for years because of how I was raised. In the cult, outside medicine or counseling of any sort of highly discouraged. Clinical depression and other mental illnesses were constantly being written off as a result of some "sin" in your life. Going to a therapist, especially a secular therapist, was a cop-out and would only compound the punishment you'd receive if you did not repent of your sin. I can't tell you how many times I lied awake at night, in the middle of having a panic attack, begging god for forgiveness for whatever I had done to bring that kind of misery on myself. I can't count how many times I was told that all I needed to do was change my attitude and everything would be better.
I was depressed because of sin. I was depressed because of a prideful heart. I was depressed because of a bad attitude.

In short, I was depressed as a result of something I did and in the end it was something that I could fully control, if I would just pray harder and beg more for forgiveness.
Never once was I ever told that sometimes depression is just depression and it's not because of something I did but because of a chemical imbalance that no amount of begging for forgiveness would control.
This past summer I finally accepted that it was more than okay for me to go and receive counseling for my anxiety and depression. I found a great therapist, but unfortunately my insurance doesn't make going to counseling cheap. Eventually, my savings ran out and now I can no longer afford to go to therapy. This bums me out to a degree because I actually want help, I just can't afford it.

Because I can't afford therapy, and my problems haven't magically gone away yet, I'm trying to make a concentrated effort and come up with ways for some "self-therapy" while I wait for more funds. I have a CD of guided meditation that I've been meaning to check out, I just can't find the right time and place to decrease the distractions and focus on the CD. I'm also going to go and pick up a new journal today that I will attempt to write in every day in order to figure out what my major triggers are for panic attacks and ways to manage them. I've also been making more of an effort to put to words how I feel and to let R know when I'm in a bad headspace. He's definitely appreciated my effort to communicate more (which is difficult when one of the effects of having a panic attack for me is having an extremely hard time getting words to come out. Mostly I just stutter and stammer and get rrreeeaaallly frustrated until he picks up on the fact that I cannot make words). All that being said, both R and I have noticed positive results so far.

Besides trying meditation and the daily journal does anyone have any more suggestions or resources to look into for "self-therapy"? The one thing I DON'T want to screw myself up further (if that's even possible? haha).

This weekend... unf. That's about all I have to say about that.

It's nice to rediscover that I am in fact still in my early 20's as opposed to being 75 (which is how I've lived for the past 2 years). Friday night we went out to the club (a local, members only industrial/fetish club) we didn't get home til close to 3am. R and I didn't get to sleep til 7am, the party was just not stopping! We woke up around 3pm Saturday, ate hibachi chicken til we passed out and then woke up again at 7. Some friends of ours, who happen to be neighbors, have fallen on hard times recently, to the point where their gas was cut off so they can't cook or have warm showers. Sandy brought along with her a cold snap and we were worried about our friends and how cold it must be to have to take a wretched cold shower so we told them to please come over to our place and use our hot water, especially since they are literally just a few yards away from us (perfect for stumbling back home after going to one of their parties). We went back out to the club again last night. R and I switch up who DDs so Friday night was my turn to DD and last night was his turn. It was a lot of fun to be able to knock back a few drinks and just relax.
This week hasn't all be awesomeness, there were a few rough bits, but they weren't all bad. I'm a firm believer in dealing with issues while they are still small. I don't like to bottle things up. I believe the biggest killer of an awesome relationship is a lack of "hard" communication. Talking about the not-so-fun stuff is important. It's important to check in with your mate and make sure everything is okay and not just assume it is. There were things brought up this week that made us both have to step back and take a deeper look at ourselves. It was never a fight. It was more like, "Here's a few things that you have done/are doing that bother me, here's specifics on the situation where this came up, here's how it comes across to me, etc. Let's sit on this for a few days and see how we feel later."
Overall it was very effective. We both came back after a few days and agreed that we both had valid points and there are areas of character that both of us need to work on. We have a tendency to put each other on a pedestal, and it's not very fun when that perception is skewed in any way. It's hard work to be honest to yourself and to your mate, but it's definitely worth it. I don't want him to bottle things up to the point where when he finally says something, it's too little too late. It's not fair to either of us to be like that.
That's what we are struggling with more than anything right now. To find a fair balance in our relationship, there's a lot of areas where he can (and does) do whatever he pleases and it's fine, but if I do what he does, it's not fine. That's not really fair. I know that we won't be 100% fair to each other all the time, that's part of being human. At least we recognize our shortcomings. I know I can be a anxiety ridden mess who can overreact to a situation and that I sometimes don't take correction well (no matter how nicely it's given). At least I recognize the fact that I'm not the easiest girlfriend to have sometimes. I know I require a lot of patience and work, but I recognize that and I try really hard not to be the world's worst girlfriend. I fail a lot. But R seems to have an endless fountain of patience.

Tl;dr Relationships take hard work, but sometimes it's the hardest parts that are the most rewarding.

Now I'm off to get pancakes and fantasize about my weekend

This is the beginning of a series I think, how long it will go on, how often I post about it, who knows. I don't know at this point. Right now, this is self-therapy. I haven't been able to afford traditional therapy in months now. My parents had said they would help me out by reimbursing half of what I pay for the co-pay. I've depleted my savings account going to therapy, and they have yet to send me a single cent. Today I'm wondering if going to a psych ward would be all that bad, at least I'd get therapy daily, but that isn't an actual viable option at all. And in the end I don't think it would do any good. I haven't ever heard any "good" stories about people being committed and then coming out feelings loads better (just loads medicated and pretending they're fine just to get out). So I don't know.

Anyways, I've never made it a secret that I was raised in a cult. Specifically Sovereign Grace Ministries (ring a bell to anyone?) Yes, they are kinda in the news right now for covering up multiple cases of sexual abuse of children. They didn't just cover up sexual abuse, but also spousal abuse, and encouraged physical abuse of children. They encouraged parents to carry strips of black plastic (they actually sold them, they were old conveyer belts from grocery stores and such that they cut up to be spanking tools) or glue sticks in their pockets to "correct" children immediately. I can't tell you how many kids I saw get beat, in front of everyone, with a glue stick or spatula or black piece of rubber just because they didn't look adults in the eyes when speaking to them, they didn't greet people the right way etc. The worst one was when I saw a toddler get beat for not greeting an adult right and then being forced to go "try again" when they were still out of breath and crying from being humiliated and beaten in front of strangers and the person they were supposed to greet "the right way". This happened to me too, afterall, I was a child there, I didn't leave the movement fully until I was 18.
Anyways, that's not what this whole post is for.

Right now, with the emergence of this class action lawsuit, it's triggered a bunch of stuff from my past. I literally feel like there are 2 different people trying to take control of my body. One is the me you all know, so I don't have to go so far into explaining that one side of me.

Then there's the other side of me. I call her "brainwashed girl" because that's what she is. I don't want to refer to that side as "me" because it simply isn't anymore. There are a lot of times when these two try to converge. There are even more times when the mindset I used to have still affects my daily life in huge ways. The way I dress, the way I talk, who I socialize with, my sex life, my home life, my work life. The cult girl inside of me still poisons my everyday life. Sometimes I can switch that part off. Just like a light switch. But right now there's a short circuit and both the new me and old brainwashed me are battling for control. The way I live now is COMPLETELY against how I was raised to live.
Girls did not go to college.
Girls never left home ever, they stayed with their parents under their father's authority until they were married.
Girls were made to submit to men, they were never to have authority over anything but babies and tea parties
Girls were expected to stay home and keep a perfect house at all times, the state of their house reflected the state of their submission and exposed sins
Girls were always to be modest. If you dressed in a way to make a man lust, it was the girl's fault for dressing inappropriately.
Girls were never victims of sexual assualts, abuse, or rapes. If a girl was raped, they policy was for the "victim" (I say that with quotation marks because it was taught that there were no "victims" ever in the kingdom of God, whatever befell us or happened to us we deserved and probably did something to beg for that kind of treatment. It wasn't unusual to have the perpetrator and the victim meet in the same room with an elder in the church to confess sins and force the "victim" to "forgive" their abuser.
One could never report abuse or wrong doing of one person against another because it was "gossip and slander". One time my mother tried to go to the pastor on behalf of a female friend of hers. This lady confided in my mom that she was being beaten by her husband and was afraid she might be killed. When my mom went to the pastor he threatened to have her admonished before the congregation for gossiping and if he found out she had told anyone else, she would be excommunicated.
Raped girls were made to confess any sins that she may or may not have done that resulted in her rape ("I wore a dress that was too low cut")
Teens were told it was wrong and sinful to have "crushes" or romantic feelings on anyone. "You're lusting after someone else's future husband! How dare you! Repent!"
You were not allowed to date. All "dates" had to have a chaperone. It wasn't dating it was courtship and in the end it was up to the father to decide who to dump their daughter on. It wasn't really ever up to the girl on who she wanted to marry.
Women were to submit to their husbands all the time. All the time. If you're husband was cheating on you, then it was your fault as a wife that you weren't having more sex with him. As a wife you could NEVER turn down your husband, if you didn't meet his needs then it was going to cause strife and despair in the home, it would ruin your marital relationship, it would lead to distrust and you would be admonished for being a rebellious wife and not submitting (CJ Mahaney, one of the co-founders of the cult would brag on his wife about how she would 'meet his needs" even when she was just days out of having hip replacement surgery. That's just sexual assault and abuse in my eyes but yet she was held up as an example of the model wife. Women have no needs that aren't met through submission to their husband.)

This is the type of stuff that still affects me daily. Especially this week when both brainwashed girl and the real me are battling it out to be in control. Brainwashed girl knows that what I grew up with was wrong. It wasn't what God (if he exists) intended. It was not "christian". It was not right. But there is a certain safety in the thought of returning to the fold and becoming a sheeple once again. It's a lot less work to go back to that old mindset than it is to constantly battle it, reason with it that it's wrong, and try to "re-wire" my brain and make myself think differently. All my formative years, all the years that I should have been forming my own opinions and questioning everything were beaten down with "You don't question anything. You do as we say because we are the elders and we are right and if you don't you're sinning because you are prideful and won't listen to rebukes or change your behaviours etc etc etc."

There's a war raging inside of me. I feel like I have two dueling dragons battling it out inside. I'm not doing well. I'm stressing out, stimming, the works. I'm starting this in an effort to rationalize what I've been through, what I'm going through, what parts I can still benefit from, and the parts I need to cut out entirely in order to function as a normal, happy human being. Apart from feeling like I have 2 different people inside my body right now tearing each other apart life is quite well. I'm actually happy when I'm able to shut out the war noise. Work is going great. Social life is getting better now that I'm not struggling so much with being terrified to go outside and be around people. Had a great night the other night with a group of friends R and I have become really, really close with over the past couple of months.

I want to de-code myself. I want to get at the root causes of my anxiety and the stuff I struggle with daily. I really wish I could afford therapy, but right now, this is my therapy. Getting it out there. I'm not looking for people to feel sorry for me, I don't want pity, I'm not looking for attention. I just really don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to feel the way I do right now anymore (or at least I want to feel this way as little as possible). I want to be a healthy, happy 23 year old. I want to live my life to the fullest. I've had so many years of my youth taken away from me because of this cult. Because of the abuse. Because of the torment. And I'm ready to put it at rest.

If this is too much for people to handle, if this is clouding up your feed and bringing you down I'm willing to make a protected list, but for now, having this out in public, stripping bare in front of everyone (no, sorry guys not like that, at least not this week ) is sort of something that helps me deal with this. Feedback is welcome, trolling is not.
~~~~~~~
This keeps popping up in my head. This is what I feel like I'm doing right now, with this post, and with what I'm trying to do in "fixing myself".

*stolen from @grizzlybearr*

1) Ever been to a bar? Yuuup. I have a few favs. Kelly's Gingernut Pub in Cape Charles is my top, but just because the She-Crab soup is so good! There's also a goth/fetish club me and R are members of lol

2) Ever been kicked out of a bar or a club? Nope. I'm pretty well behaved in public.

3) Ever been so drunk you had to be carried out of somewhere? Hahahahaha yes, or so I was told.

4) Kissed someone of the same sex? *blush* yeeees

5) Thrown up from drinking too much? Just the once (the infamous July the Third party of 2010, I wonder if I ever wrote about that here. I've only just now begun to forget that horrible hangover enough to take a few shots now and then only took 2 years to get over that one)

6) Had sex in a car? Yup.

7) Had sex in a park? Nope.

8) Had sex in a movie theater? Nope. Wanted to, but ew, nope.

9) Had sex in a bathroom? Yup.

10) Had sex at work? Haha I can actually say, "Yes" to this now, but I wasn't employed at the time.

11) Had sex on the beach? Yes. "OUCH" is all I have to say about that.

12) Have you ever had a threesome? Does watching your bf make out with a girl that's sitting in your lap count? We were mostly clothed.

13) Have you ever bought something from an adult store? Yes.

14) Have you spent over $100.00 in one visit to the adult store? Just once. Still trying to figure out how to make the purchase work

15) Had sex in a tent? *sigh* yes

16) Have you ever bought someone a gift from an adult store? mmmm, not yet.

17) Do your bra and panties match today? I don't match ever lol.

18) Do you ever go "commando"? ALL THE TIME

19) Are your breasts real? 100% natural home grown goodness right here.

20) Have you ever taken naughty pics of yourself? eh, a couple of times. I don't like pics of myself.

21) Does anyone have naughty pics of you? R does

I found out today that a lawsuit has been filed against the church I used to go to. The church that abused me and my family. The cult that almost ruined my life. Forgive me for being pretty ecstatic about this whole thing. I've waited so Lon for justice and even though it ha nothing really to do with what I went through people will finally see what a cesspit that place is.

Fuck you sovereign grace ministries. May you never recover.

Sometimes, I wonder if my nightmares aren't just nightmares.

There's a part of me that wonders if there is another person, a past me, trying to wake up. Trying to be heard.

I just want her to go back to sleep.

I just want her to stop screaming.

I'm starting a trend... maybe! I decided to go with the top 10 because 25 just seemed too long

1. Thrift Shop (feat. Wanz)- Macklemore (I've only had this song for 3 days and I've played it 55 times. Yeeaaah)

2. Star Wars Main Title- John Williams (My "get pumped" go to song)

3. Into the Ocean- Blue October (One of the only songs I could remember the lyrics to while at BMT)

4. The Death of Me- City and Colour (This song gets me)

5. Love You Madly- Cake (R and I's song. Awwww *gag*)

6. Easy Muffin- Amon Tobin (Nothing beats going on long drives with this song on loop)

7. Somewhere a Clock is Ticking- Snow Patrol (Lots of memories associated with this one.)

8. Infected- Demon Hunter (I'm almost a little sad more DH hasn't made it on here but I do listen to them a lot, just on CD )

9. Heirloom- Sufjan Stevens (Love love love)

10. She's a Pass- Paul Leonard-Morgan (First song on the Dredd soundtrack. Another great driving song/album.)

What are the most played songs in your music library?

I can't stop laughing at this...

It's that time of year again. The trees are shedding their identity and sometimes I feel like doing the same.
I'm tired of the same old places, the same old faces. Not that I don't love them or care about them, but there's a part of me that longs for something new. It's the nomad in me. I don't have roots, I'm a roamer, but now I'm grounded. There's something binding me to this place, to this city, this street, this site.
It's not a comfortable feeling for me. It's disconcerting. I want to go to the store without someone coming up to me and talking to me. Most of the people who do this are people I have gone out of my way to avoid. Because they were my biological father's friends. Because they judged me. Because they refused to even freaking PRAY for my mother before her brain surgery to remove a tumor. Because they told me I was selfish for coming to church and leaving my father to actually care for my mother for a few hours. Like he vowed to, those very vows he broke, trampled, and pissed on.

I hate these roads. I hate the memories they bring. I hate remembering the journeys, I hate seeing the markers memorializing the pain.

I need to get out of here. I need a change. I want to shed what I was and embrace what I am now. There are things that happened this week that I can't "celebrate" the way I want to. It wouldn't be accepted. That's okay, I'll celebrate it on my own. It's my life. There are things that are going to make me happy that other people just won't understand (like giving up the control, the ability to choose). It's my life. Changes are coming. Changes have already been made.

I'm done with this city, this street, this site. I want to pull up stakes and wander on. These roots that have grown aren't the nurturing kind. I'm not thriving. I'm chained to my past. I'm held in place, my eyes forced open I can't stop the parade of memories that torment me. I still hear her screaming when I wake up.

I want to break free. I will break free. I want to live. I want to be alive. I want to feel something other than regret and pain. I want to run away with him and never look back. He's the only reason I stay. He's the only reason I'm still alive at all, him and that stupid promise I made right before my ex dumped me. Now I know why he made me promise, he was going to kick the chair out from beneath me but didn't want the rope to catch the fall.

And before anyone starts worrying, I'm really fine (this week has actually been pretty great, which is why I haven't been around a lot). I just want change. I need a change. Gonna start working on that I guess.

I'm just a little bit in love with this right now.