I am writing this because I feel the need to be more authentic.
I have some things that I need to share with those that know me because I want you to know me better.
When I was nearly five years old something happened to me that was traumatic. It shattered my innocent five-year-old world. I was sexually assaulted by a stranger in a public bathroom. After a very ugly and life-threatening experience, when my abuser exited the bathroom, I was left alone. I was scared for my life and the life of my family, and I was utterly confused about what just happened to me. Unable to process those feelings fully, I left the bathroom believing that something must be wrong with me. I came to the conclusion that I must be disgusting. I felt gross; worth being denigrated and used. I felt like a monster.
I am telling this story because this experience--and my reaction to it--is at the core of many of the struggles that I have had throughout my life with my self-worth. I am finally now at a point where I can share this experience and how it has affected me throughout my life.
My experience with abuse has impacted me in many ways.
--I experience feelings of deep self-loathing
--I sometimes have trouble forming healthy attachments to people I love
--I have had trouble trusting that anyone could possibly love me if they really knew everything about me
This experience led to something very challenging in my life. It is something that is challenging to many in my religious community. It is something that has brought me shame throughout most of my life.
I was exposed to pornography as a teenager, and quickly formed an addiction. The circumstances created by the abuse were a perfect set up. The moment I saw an erotic image and felt a very normal physiological response to it, my brain freaked out. Truly, it was as if a secret switch inside me had suddenly been flipped on. I immediately launched into shame and felt the same exact feelings of self-loathing, disgust, and worthlessness that I had felt on that horrific day when I was five years old. I felt dirty. I felt like a monster again. The shame was so overpowering that I couldn't respond in a normal, healthy way. A normal response upon encountering an image like that would be to perhaps tell an adult or to simply move on with my day having experienced a new and unexpected event. What happened instead was that my mind told me that I was evil.
I am part of a community that does not celebrate vulnerability about sexual things. It seems to me that we hide our authentic selves out of shame or fear. Maybe we just hope that as we become more perfect, those ugly things we are ashamed of will just go away and we won't have to share them with anyone at all. Instead of sharing our burdens with one another, lifting each other up in time of need, we keep our ugliest and heaviest burdens hidden. I believe that this is exactly what author of evil, the devil, wants.
Unfortunately, this cultural norm only increased my own shame and isolation. How could I tell anyone about such a "disgusting" thing when I felt so isolated? It took all the courage I could muster to talk to my Dad about only the tip of my addiction iceberg. When I spoke to him about it, he was very loving and encouraging. He told me that sexual feelings are a part of growing up and explained to me the reason why it is so important to keep ourselves chaste and pure. His concluding remarks, though, were what really stuck with me. He said that there are many, many people who overcome inappropriate sexual desires. He told me that as I avoid putting myself in situations where I could view pornography, and have faith, and repent, I would be able to control these urges. This advice, while very common in our culture, ended in disaster for me and does so for many others.
I went to ecclesiastical leaders as well to engage in the repentance process. They lovingly told me variations of the same message I had been given: pray, repent, have faith, choose to change, and change can and will happen. Because I'm not a quitter, I applied this "formula for success" over and over and over. I gave my very best effort to stop and to change. Instead of success, though, what I kept experiencing was failure. These well-intentioned promises made to me by people I trusted did not hold true. The proposed formula was not enough.
Because of my repeated failure to make a permanent change, every word that I heard or read about having enough faith to change my pornography-related behaviors only fed the part of me that told me I was an evil monster. When people in my community talked about overcoming the desire for viewing pornography with faith and spirituality they even sometimes mentioned, as an aside, that if it was bad enough I could go get help from a therapist. Correspondingly, I felt even more isolated from my peers. I felt like if I was the "one" kid who truly needed help, then my belief about being less-than-human must be true. This contradicted all that I had been taught by my family and ecclesiastical leaders about having a divine potential and about how special I am as a person. So I sank further and further into denial and addiction. Part of me was desperately hoping I wasn't that "one" extreme case and part of me was craving things that might tell me I am worthless. I was very confused.
This was all an endless feast for my shame and my addiction.
I feel like I need to make something clear: I am in no way trying to defame or defile my family or religious community.
My family has consistently offered me an overwhelming amount of support and love. They are, and always will be, a precious gift and a balm for my wounds. My family has always been there for me and treated me like I were the most celebrated human on the planet. They teach me how to love and give me hope and happiness in ways I can't enumerate. I love them dearly and I'm deeply honored to be a part of my family.
My ecclesiastical leaders taught me so many wonderful things throughout my youth and they were all such great examples so me. They taught me the value of diligence and hard work. They helped me learn to be self-reliant and to learn the importance of spirituality. I'm so thankful to be a part of my community.
I'm sharing my feelings and reactions to the cultural dialogue and instructions given to me because those things all profoundly affected my experience with denial, shame, and addiction.
My life, of course, was not all darkness and gloom. There were time periods when I was able to clench my fists, grit my teeth, and fight the addictive impulses. With what I believe was divine help, I did hold off my addiction long enough to complete two amazing years of volunteer missionary work for my church and to be worthy to be married in a holy temple thereafter. What I was never able to control, even at the best of times, was the part of my mind that kept telling me I was worthless. The shame game that my mind was so used to playing never really ended. My addict brain had nearly four years to slowly and carefully set me up for another prolonged relapse into addiction after I was married.
From before I can even remember, the role of husband and father has been my most valued and anticipated role. As a married man, I did my very best to live up to the ideal of a husband--and later on, as a father--that I had created from my youth. What I didn't expect was the complexity of my relationship with my wife. I expected her to be physically affectionate like my parents were, but that's just not who she is. My expectations for physical affection and sexual intimacy were unrealistic. I was confused and frequently felt a very real pain because I felt rejected by my most treasured companion. My wife was also confused and felt manipulated by my addictive drive. Understandably, her desire for physical affection and intimacy gradually decreased.
My wife has a firecracker personality. My perception was that the more I tried to be dependent on her to fulfill my perceived "need" for physical affection, the more she treated me like a child in other areas of our relationship. It seemed to me that the smallest of mistakes would elicit a response of frustration or anger. This, of course, only fueled my shame. I even found myself sometimes craving her punishing words because they pierced my soul like nothing else could ever do so.
My life's most valuable relationship became my greatest source of shame and worthlessness and about a year after we were married I was right back into my pornography addiction.
Now, I don't believe I was led to my wife by chance. In many ways, she is the kind of spouse that the mind of an addict truly needs. She is independent, not co-dependent. She is confident in herself and doesn't really struggle with her self-worth. My wife's determination is close to the top among a myriad of characteristics I adore. She has confidence in me, as her husband, and she loves me the very best way she knows how. The way she fills my heart means more to me than life itself. She maintains her dignity and her self-respect as well as her confidence in me and in my ability to control my addiction. She is my eternal companion. Simply, she is the best.
Because I value my marital relationship over all else, there was a limit to how far I would go to hide my compulsion from my wife. So even at a time when I was in denial about being a pornography addict, I couldn't stand the burden of keeping my wrongful sexual actions from her. The few times throughout our marriage that I had the courage to honestly tell her about my "habits" absolutely destroyed my self-image. I had to accept that I truly was a devil, destined for failure. Those events were so explosively shaming that they led to depression and suicidality.
After opening up to my wife, my compulsive behaviors soon took on a newer and darker dimension: cutting. I soon discovered that if I cut myself in the moment when I had a sexual impulse, that urge would dissipate. I didn't succumb. I was immensely relieved. I had already tried everything suggested to me previously, so I thought I had finally found the solution that I had been so desperate for. I never anticipated that my "solution" would not only fail, but drive me deeper and deeper into depression and shame.
A little over a year ago, I had arrived at a point when the cutting had escalated. I sat in a room, bloodied, and with a blade in my hand. I had a horrific thought. I thought I had to make a choice: either live as a struggling porn addict who cuts himself or end my life right then and there. The thought frightened me. I sort of realized what was happening and I thought of the hope that my family and faith tried so hard to instill in me. I tossed my blade across the room in fear.
I decided to share my burden. I told my wife what was happening. I told a close friend who gave me a spiritual blessing, during which I was told that I would meet someone whom I could trust and who would be able to help set me on the right path. Not two weeks later I met a man who would become one of my closest friends. During one of our introductory conversations I learned that he is a sex addiction therapist. I felt like I could trust him and I started to tell him about my struggles. I started to talk about my compulsive habits as what they truly were: addictions. My self-image began to improve as I started to recognize that I was just as valuable to my new friend as he was to me because he placed the same confidence in me regarding his own life burdens. He referred me to a psychologist that has helped me to process through not only the sexual abuse that started all of this, but other events related to my shame and worthlessness.
Deciding to trust others with my secret burden propelled me out of denial and gave me the space to start counteracting my shame. As I educated myself I started to see my addiction as a mental illness and not as a reason for shame and self-loathing. I started to accept that addiction is a part of my life. I realized that this is ok; that it doesn't mean I'm a monster or a devil. It is a part of who I am, even a gift. Coupling this more academic perspective on the illness of addiction with repentance and spirituality has given me more strength than I had ever considered possible.
I know what addiction is, where it comes from, and how to treat it. I know what shame is and how damaging, even dangerous, it can be. I know that my God is watchful over me and that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ I can repent and move on with a bright hope that I'm going to reach my goals. I have learned that I must treat my addiction-related illness separately from my sins and that the Atonement applies to both the illness and the sin in beautiful, unique ways.
I know that I am enough; that I'm worth everything I am and everything I am given.
I know that I'm not alone.
My friends, I love you.
And in case I haven't made it clear yet, I trust you to know who I am.
I am trusting you right now to know all of me.
Because right now I’m telling that terrified little boy inside me that it will be ok. I’m telling him that it’s not his fault and that he is beautiful and precious.
If you are struggling with anything like this--with abuse or addiction or anything that has brought you shame or makes you feel worthless or isolated or gross inside or like God and others could never love you--I hope that my openness in such a public place will allow you to feel like you are not alone and that you are loved. Please feel free to message me if you need to talk about anything. My door is open.
