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It’s been coming down to this. I love the people of the church and it’s teachings, but I’m feeling way too much pressure to be so good with being a fallen creature. Having OCD, other disabilities, and having relapsed to sexual addictions hasn’t helped. I’m supposed to be getting interviewed with the stake president about getting my temple recommend renewed but I’m going to have to reconsider. I think I’m going to be released from my church callings. I love feeling the Spirit in the church buildings and in the church temples, but conforming to it all is too much for me. Although I have relapsed with my sex addictions lately, I still live by the law of chastity with others. Although most members and church leaders are extremely patient with me, I still feel to much pressure to conform. I know my parents will be a bit crushed. They’re converts and the other half of family inactive. I don’t want to have my records removed, but I want to be released from my callings and take a break from church. I’ll have to get some more counseling from where I’m already getting counseling to feel better. Your advice? Get a handle the best you can on your disabilities – and I emphasize “the best you can”. That might or might end being “fully” – but it seems to be the major issue for you. Honestly, it sounds like that is the driving force behind your struggles. Everything else sounds like symptoms of those issues.
God bless you in that attempt.
Thanks. I appreciate that, Ray. On my mission, most of the symptoms I have from my mental disorders seemed to be kept at bay. Most of the time. Since I’ve been at home, that can vary so often. I will definitely do what I can to help myself along. Some people (my parents too) won’t agree with the decisions, but I have to do it. There is a lot going on in your life right now. Take a break if needed but don’t give up on yourself. You said your sex addiction is effecting you but not with others. If that means viewing some porn and taking care of your needs I wouldn’t sweat that too much but if it means something else that might be a different story. Anyways, don’t give up hope. It sounds like the counseling is the right course of action. Whether the inactivity is or not I cannot say. Sometimes when we go away for a while, we are drawn back, like a rubber band stretching away and pulling us back. Well, I think I was a little too worked up when I wrote my post, but I just talked with my bishop about getting released from my calling as a ward missionary and a as second counselor in the elders quorum and he said it was OK. I still will go to church, but I won’t be passing the sacrament (we don’t have that many Aaronic Priesthood holders in our small ward) for a while or taking part in callings right now. For a while, I was finding a recovery level for my addictions that really was working for me, but my Autism acted up and I lost control. And too often, I get too much guilt for not being perfect in general and not perfect in my addiction recovery that just makes my panic attacks more able to occur. Autism has made it hard for to what to go out meet more women to date more often because too much loud voice in loud places and too much excitement can cause me sensory overload. I can’t comprehend multiple instructions very well. One thing at a time works well for me. I will bring up these issues when I go to counseling soon. I guess I expect too much out of life. Ilovechrist77 wrote:I guess I expect too much out of life.
Or maybe you expect too much from yourself. Before my faith crisis I had an internal locus of control (I felt that I could control things in my life). After my daughter died the anxiety attacks started. My body had always done what I wanted it to – eat regularly when hungry, sleep when tired, etc. like clockwork. With the anxiety, sometimes it would feel like i was moving through jello, I couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to eat. It was like my body was betraying me. It was part of my realization that I can’t control everything – sometimes not even my own body.
I know that we sometimes talk about mastering ourselves but I think a better approach might be to learn to accept and love ourselves.
Quote:I know that we sometimes talk about mastering ourselves but I think a better approach might be to learn to accept and love ourselves.
Amen.
I wrote the following posts for my personal blog. I hope they help in some way:
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Embracing Grace” ( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2007/11/embracing-grace.html “
Salvation in This Life” ( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/01/danger-of-doing-it-on-our-own.html Ilovechrist77 wrote:…I love the people of the church and it’s teachings, but
I’m feeling way too much pressure to be so good with being a fallen creature. Having OCD, other disabilities, and having relapsed to sexual addictions hasn’t helped.I’m supposed to be getting interviewed with the stake president about getting my temple recommend renewed but I’m going to have to reconsider. I think I’m going to be released from my church callings. I love feeling the Spirit in the church buildings and in the church temples, but conforming to it all is too much for me.Although I have relapsed with my sex addictions lately, I still live by the law of chastity with others…I’ll have to get some more counseling from where I’m already getting counseling to feel better. Your advice? Ilovechrist77 wrote:Well, I think I was a little too worked up when I wrote my post, but I just talked with my bishop about getting released from my calling as a ward missionary and a as second counselor in the elders quorum and he said it was OK. I still will go to church, but I won’t be passing the sacrament…for a while or taking part in callings right now. For a while, I was finding a recovery level for my addictions that really was working for me, but my Autism acted up and I lost control. And too often,
I get too much guilt for not being perfect in general and not perfect in my addiction recovery…One thing to remember is that the Church really only has as much power over people as they let it by believing whatever they are told and/or worrying about what other members think. Once you are aware of this it is possible to resist this influence in cases where they are asking for things that you don’t feel are really in your own best interest. Personally I don’t believe that masturbation and even the dreaded porno are legitimate addictions unless people are spending so much time doing this that it negatively affects their lives. If that was the case then you would have to call most men “addicts” nowadays.
It is only natural for the majority of men to like to do this and generally not experience direct negative side-effects to the point that it would be unhealthy if they don’t want to stop the way we see with real addictions. So expecting complete abstinence the way the Church currently does is always going to be problematic and result in repeated disappointment in many cases. Even worse is the expectation of strict sexual abstinence for people that are single. That’s easy for Church leaders to say if they were married at a fairly young age and this kind of thing is all they have ever known and heard about their entire lives but if people are looking forward to a future where they aren’t planning on marriage anytime soon (if ever) then it’s not so simple to accept and deal with for very long.
DA, my thoughts exactly. Thank you so much for the advice, everyone. I’m going to just accept myself as is and just work with that. Complete abstinence isn’t an option for me. Moderation is. Thanks, Ray, for pointing our your posts. Those helped me get the boost I needed to not let myself become overwhelmed.
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