Five Minute Friday: "Free" [Extended Mix]

Our Mistress of Ceremonies for the Five Minute Friday is Kate over at Heading Home.  Hope you link up with us and join the fun.

GO! 

 

STOP! 

 

That song was the first thing that came to mind when I read what the prompt was.  Kind of sums up my mood.  Now comes the "extended mix" part.

 

Tonight I received my seven year chip from Celebrate Recovery (CR).  Sigh.  Seven years of recovery and I'm still fat, addicted to food, and angry.  Seven years and I am still the worst example the program has ever seen.

 

What went wrong?

 

At first, CR was everything I needed.  Working through my past issues was necessary to my growth.  The freedom I experienced translated into a slimmer waistline...for a while.  Whenever I felt myself slipping back into old habits, I would seek counsel.  The answer was the same every time, "It works if you work it.  You just need to go back and work through the 12 steps again."  So, if there was one available, I'd sign up for a 12 step study, if not, I would ponder and answer the questions on my own.  I completed all four participant's guides at least six times...or was it seven.  I searched and dug and prayed and cried trying to get to the center of the maze of self-destructive behavior; each time thinking I'd found it.  I hadn't.

 

Earlier this year, I embarked yet another journey through the 12 steps.  I started on the first book.  The more questions I answered, the sicker I felt.  Oh God, not again.  The thought of digging up more dirt on myself and others made me feel like hurling.  I've already been back there more times that I can count.  I've rehashed every bad life experience that I could possibly think of.  I've opened up all the old wounds, felt the pain and depression again and again, forgiven and tried to put all that behind me, only to be told I need to uproot all that crap again in the name of "recovery."  Somebody tell me how this is helping again?  I shut off my word processing program.  That's it, I refuse to do this again.  All this is doing is forcing me to continue to live in a broken past that Jesus died to deliver me from.  All this is doing is triggering me to binge to punish myself for the bad things I did or for the bad things I allowed others to do to me. 

 

After seven years of this, none of my meals are based on present hunger, but on past pain.  Every bite is punishment or a pacifier.  Each laced with the phrase, "How dare you."  I don't know how to eat in the present.  I eat out of the mentality of a terrified nine year old, an angry teen, or a rejected adult. With each day, the pain grows deeper. The life that God designed for me--the life I see in my mind's eye--is still way out there somewhere out of my grasp.  I get to gaze upon what freedom looks like, but I do not get to experience it myself.  I'm still fighting, still working out, but it's only a matter of time.  I feel like a terminally ill patient who doesn't have to good sense to go on and die.

 

So, am I knocking the program?  How can I, when there are so many other people who have been set free.  After seven years of recovery, six (or seven) 12 step studies, 4 failed sponsors, 2 Summits, several one-day trainings, and countless hours of meetings, you would think that I would get it.  I haven't.  The program has not failed me, I have failed it. 

 

My time at the Journey training gave me a ray of hope.  As the miles between Tulsa and Weaver grew, the hope went with it.  I went back changed to a life that I cannot change alone.  But alone is what I am.  I have failed that program too.  How do I measure that failure?  I suppose when I'm told that I have a support system and when I share my heart, part of that support system tells me "So what?" then I have seriously failed.  My life is marked by "so what"-- you do not matter; you're feelings do not matter;  you are just not doing something enough.  Kind of like, "Get yourself together because we don't care."

 

I said I was done with this kind of life.  Apparently not. 

 

Freedom isn't free, but I've got to get some. 

 

All I can do is tell all the people at CR and Journey that I'm sorry.  I'm sorry for wasting your time and resources.  I'm sorry for being such a horrible example of you and to you.  I'm sorry for impinging on you lives and adding no value.  I'm sorry for failing you.  Until I can be a better representation I will keep silent and stay away.  Again, I'm sorry.