Have I Given Up?

While playing a game the other day, another player dealt me a pretty nasty blow, that left me in a rather crippled position.  Rather than stick it out to see if I could still somehow manage to scrape through the game, I opted to leave at that moment, mostly because I wasn't enjoying the game all that much (being behind in a game can make me irritable at times).  At the time, I thought of how manly I was at speaking my mind and cutting my losses.  Afterward, I felt very guilty for leaving the game the way I did (in a huff).  Somehow, it made me feel like how I approach life: if things get difficult, there's a good chance I'm going to simply give up on the thing, even if it's something good for me.  Friend gets married, I give up.  Too hard to continue interacting with them.  Friend moves away.  Give up.  Too hard.

I'm saying this, because I feel like I've 'given up' in a sense on my healing journey.  I'm exhausted.  I'm worn out.  I regularly engage in numbing and isolating behavior   I build emotional walls between me and the people I spend time with.  Two years ago and two months, I went to Journey Into Manhood.  I was regularly talking with people.  I had a good friendship with another man forming.  I was participating in a community, reaching out to other men.  Giving, growing, and learning.  I was connecting and getting my male to male needs met.  I was even starting to feel sparks of attraction toward a girl I've known since elementary school.

Fast forward a year.  I was barely even talking to this friend.  I had deeply distanced myself from him.  I was slipping into depression.  I had given up on our friendship because it had become very difficult and painful for me (I was overdependent on him).  Fast forward another year.  I came close to acting out with a good friend of mine.  I acted out with four other times with men.  I nearly gave up going to church multiple times.  My depression worsened and I started taking medication.  I grew very isolated.  I've become bitter.  My same gender attraction has become very strong.  I feel a sense of shame as I compulsively check out people to see if they are attractive.  I struggle daily with inappropriate thoughts that are highly distracting.  In short, I almost feel like I've given up.

On a surface level, I try to look confident, as un-needy as possible.  I try to appear aloof.  I often get snappy.  I'm nearly always tired.  Inside, I just want to cry, or act out, or have the nearest object of my lust hold me and help me feel loved.  Guilt and shame seem to be with me nearly every waking moment.  I struggle with feeling connected.

I feel like I'm stuck between two choices: continue to resist (and struggle with acting out), or simply give in.  Honestly, the latter is highly undesirable.  I know there is at least one more choice: open up.  Start to connect again and let the wounds heal.  Forgive, and let the poison seep out.  It...it feels very difficult to open up.  Two years ago, it was very natural, if scary for me.  Now, it is so terrifying I clam up at the thought of doing it.

On the bright side, I've also felt a stirring in my breast.  I've felt the Spirit working on me.  I've had moments where my selfishness abates and I feel genuine pain, empathy, and caring toward other people.

It means I haven't quite given up yet, despite how hard the journey is.  Still, I'm afraid of opening up and being vulnerable.  Almost mortally afraid.  I know it can hurt again.

New LDS Church website

Just this last week, the LDS church released a new website called "Mormons and Gays".  Needless to say, I was quite ecstatic about it (and promptly started sharing it on various forms of social media).  I think it is a wonderful step forward by the church to reach out to everyone who may be influenced by the issue of same gender attraction.  It's a website for those who experience it, their friends, their families, and their ward members.  Overall, I think it teaches the lesson that all people need to be treated with love and kindness.

That aside, I haven't posted anything on here in about 2 months.  They've been kind of rough.  Last week, things have started to calm down somewhat.  I was able to move into new place, and I started attending a local singles ward.  I can tell that I'm trying to isolate and not get too involved there.  I got a new massage therapist, who has been excellent with helping me work through some personal issues.  I'm continuing to attend church.  Helps that one of my new roommates also goes to the same ward.

I encourage all of you to check out the new site!

Music That Speaks To Me - Stand in the Rain

The song from today is one that I relate to very well.  I've often found that when I'm with other people, especially friends, I feel alright.  When I leave, I find that I feel like I'm slowly falling apart.  And if I've learned anything in life, standing up to my trials often gets me through them faster than simply running from them.

Enjoy!




Lyrics:


She never slows down.
She doesn't know why but she knows that when she's all alone, feels like its all coming down
She won't turn around
The shadows are long and she fears if she cries that first tear, the tears will not stop raining down

[CHORUS]
So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, whats lost can be found
You stand in the rain

She won't make a sound
Alone in this fight with herself and the fears whispering if she stands she'll fall down
She wants to be found
The only way out is through everything she's running from wants to give up and lie down.

[CHORUS]
So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, whats lost can be found
You stand in the rain

So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
Stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, whats lost can be found

[CHORUS]
So stand in the rain
Stand your ground
Stand up when it's all crashing down
You stand through the pain
You won't drown
And one day, whats lost can be found
You stand in the rain

[Lyrics from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/superchick/standintherain.html]

Music That Speaks To Loss - Winner Takes It All by Abba

I remember a pattern happening to me in college many times.  At the start of a semester, I would meet about five new room mates.  Sometimes I would hit it off with them, many times I would find myself enjoying time with them.  However, it seemed like with the ones I enjoyed being with the most, something always inevitably would happen.  They would find a girlfriend.  When that would happen, it would almost be like my new friend had died.  I would hardly see them, hardly be able to interact with them.  A friend gaining a girlfriend was almost always accompanied by a huge feeling of loss for me.  It was even worse if they got married and there was a similar feeling of loss when the semester ended and we all moved out.

One song kind of helps capture that feeling of loss, especially since it was a loss that essentially felt out of my control.  Sometimes it feels like friendships are subject to cosmic 'tosses of the dice'.

Enjoy "The Winner Takes It All" by Abba.



Lyrics:


I don't wanna talk
About the things we've gone through
Though it's hurting me
Now it's history
I've played all my cards
And that's what you've done too
Nothing more to say
No more ace to play

The winner takes it all
The loser's standing small
Beside the victory
That's a destiny

I was in your arms
Thinking I belonged there
I figured it made sense
Building me a fence
Building me a home
Thinking I'd be strong there
But I was a fool
Playing by the rules

The gods may throw a dice
Their minds as cold as ice
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear
The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall
It's simple and it's plain
Why should I complain.

But tell me does she kiss
Like I used to kiss you?
Does it feel the same
When she calls your name?
Somewhere deep inside
You must know I miss you
But what can I say
Rules must be obeyed

The judges will decide
The likes of me abide
Spectators of the show
Always stay in love
The game is on again
A lover or a friend
A big thing or a small
The winner takes it all

I don't wanna talk
If it makes you feel sad
And I understand
You've come to shake my hand
I apologize
If it makes you feel bad
Seeing me so tense
No self-confidence
But you see
The winner takes it all
The winner takes it all...

[Taken from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/abba/thewinnertakesitall.html]

Official NorthStar announcement

I've been off the grid for a bit.  I don't have very much more new information to share.  I can say that I've discovered (or rediscovered) that a lot of my frustration toward life is the fact that many of my beliefs are in conflict with my feelings of attraction toward men.  I do think that many of these 'beliefs' I have are lies masquerading as religious teachings.

In a conversation with my therapist, I told him "I don't ever remember learning that having feelings of attraction toward men was bad."  That's when he responded with "Well, that's because it's church doctrine." It was at that point that I realized that the adversary had probably whispered that lie to me and I had believed it, and taken it for truth.  I'm very excited to see what could happen when I start to uproot that lie.

That aside, I would like to pass along an official announcement made by Northstar.  Northstar is a community dedicated to helping members of the LDS church to work through or managed feelings of same gender attraction without sacrificing gospel values. It's been a very valuable community for me to be a part of.

They've started a 'Voices of Hope' project to encourage those who are trying to live their faith and who also experience feelings of same gender attraction.  I think that it is a wonderful idea.  There are many other voices out there that call for people to leave their beliefs and their religion in order to 'embrace' their feelings and become 'happy'.  I hope that the Voices of Hope will help encourage people to find peace inside of the teachings of the gospel.

Here is the link.  Enjoy!  http://northstarlds.org/community/voicesofhope/

Excited - Guild Wars 2!!

I realize I haven't posted in a long while.  Part of that is do the fact that I can't think of anything all that new or interesting to write about.  Another part is that I've been writing posts on two other blogs.  I participate in the Northern Lights blog and write once a week for the Mormon Geeks blog.  I highly recommend checking both of them out.

Something new with me is that I tried out hypnotherapy for the first time.  It's actually helped a great deal with my anxieties with life.

On the Mormon Geeks blog, I'm going to start writing up about my trip to GenCon 2012 about once a week.  I was really excited to go to GenCon, mostly because we would be finishing a play-by-email Dungeons and Dragons game that I've been playing in for over 3  years.  I felt a bit anxious about the trip, but everything went smoothly (despite my water bottle being taken away by the TSA people :'(  ).  Arguable the only unpleasant thing about the trip was all the people I found myself attracted to on the trip.

Today, I'm feeling really excited.  Guild Wars 2 is coming out next week!  I never really played the first Guild Wars until I participated in the Guild Wars 2 beta weekend and fell in love with the game.  Guild Wars took a little longer for me to fall in love with, but I've been playing it quite a bit in preparation for Guild Wars 2.  There are a number of unlockable items in Guild Wars 2 based on things done in Guild Wars.  So far, I've unlocked 10 of 30 of those items. (You can track my 'progress' here).

That aside, keep a lookout on Mormon Geeks on Tuesdays for my posts about my adventures at GenCon!

Also, if you are a Guild Wars 2 player, I'm going to be playing on the Henge of Denravi server.  See you all later!

Edited: Actually going to be playing on the Gate of Madness server.  Someone else I know might be on that one.

Edited again: I'm actually on the Yak's Bend server.  Turns out a community of LDS gamers is on there (http://www.mormonbattalion.cc)

Hey Could You...

As a brief personal update, things have been going alright for me.  I participated in a very enjoyable beta test for the game Guild Wars 2, and I've been enjoying playing Diablo III.  I've also had some fun playing the XBox 360 version of Minecraft (you can see some of my musings on the game here).  I've been finding that I'm still experience some anger over some things that happened a few months ago.  I feel frustrated when people ask me about dating or when family ask me about girls I know.  I still have feelings of being misunderstood.  I have been experiencing some loneliness, but it's not nearly as intense as it has been in the past.  I had an excellent birthday party with parents and friends.  We played a lot of Magic.  It was a blast.  And oddly, the song from this post keeps running through my head.

Also, I've been become more keenly aware of how often I find myself "checking out" the men around me.  I feel an odd mixture of disgust and fear about it.  Sometimes I'm able to tell myself "Hey, this is a co-worker, you shouldn't be looking at them like that!".  Other times I feel ashamed about it, and I'm afraid that the person will know what I'm doing.  Part of the reason is that I somehow want to connect with the other man.  I want to feel his equal, or I want his affection/attention/love.  I try to tell myself that "I am a man too".  I've found that the idea that I am "less than" a man has crept back into my thoughts and it definitely is influencing my behavior.

So, I don't think I've touched on this topic before, but I have a deep fear of being asked to do things.  I recently received a new calling to teach in my Elder's Quorum on the second Sunday's.  I was terrified to accept.  When I did it, the experience was very enjoyable.  Many times I've been asked to speak in church, and I've always been terrified.  Although I shake like crazy when I do it, most of the talks come out alright.  I've been asked to participate in a number of other blogs, and I always feel that fear of 'Will I do a good enough job?' or 'Will people like me?'.   Yesterday, a member of the bishopric called me up and asked me to speak this Sunday in church.  Immediately, my mind raced about how unworthy I was and my body broke out into a cold sweat.  After a few moments of brain lock, my mind finally started working and I said yes.  I've been dreading the speaking assignment ever since (it hasn't even been 24 hours!).  I guess I suffer from performance anxiety.  I feel like I have to do an excellent job at what I do.  Or I just don't like that many people watching me at once.

Oh well, I'll survive.