Step 3

So apparently I've been dreaming about blogging or something. I really thought I'd posted more since my last post. I guess the problem is that I have A LOT in my head right now but it's hard to sort it all into anything organized enough to put out here. Instead it just stays as chaos in my head, which is frustrating. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of good news to report. Well that's not true...I'm still sober and going to meetings and haven't hurt myself or anything like that, so that's all good news. It's just that lately my subconscious seems to be saying, "You will deal with all of this NOW!" The nightmares are bad right now. The scary stuff is on my mind a lot no matter how hard I try to separate from it. I'm feeling exhausted all the time.

Oh I guess that is the other piece of good news though. I feel exhausted, but not hopeless. I still feel an underlying current of good. I went to an AA meeting last night (one that's quickly becoming a favorite, though I still miss the tues. one that I can't go to anymore cus of class). Anyway, I went to the meeting and told multiple ppl about how crappy I've been feeling. That in itself is huge for me because I'm not a talker. They all assured me that this is part of early sobriety, and our brains figuring out how to handle the stuff we've been blocking out for so long. It was reassuring to hear from others that they've experienced this kind of thing, and just to have people to know that i'm struggling. That always amazes me. For so long I've stayed quiet and kept everything to myself. Now it's so different to have people know that I hurt. It doesn't take the pain away but it does remove a lot of the isolation, which multiplies all the pain.

Speaking of AA....what I really wanted to talk about on this post:

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of god as we understood him.

This is the step I'm currently working on with my sponsor. I'd thought it was going to be an easy one but it's proving to be anything but. I have no issue believing in some kind of higher power out there...the world is too incredible and there's too many coincidences for there not to be something...but going from there to a god that actually loves and cares about little ole me is a whole different story! Then from there the idea of turning my will and my life over to anyone or anything else is just mystifying. In the big book there's a prayer that goes along with step 3. It says:

"God, I offer myself to Thee--to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always!"

This prayer is meant to be an example, or a base to go from, not mandatory that you say it exactly like this or anything. But still the thing freaks me out. If nothing else it's that first sentence, "do with me as thou wilt." I don't care how loving this god is, to me that sounds like "have your way with me" and I'm not ready to say that to ANYONE! Thankfully my sponsor, who I've learned is also a SA survivor, understands this. She's given me the assignment of rewriting this prayer in a way that makes sense to me. After all when you dig through the thou's and thy's there is some decent stuff in there. I don't know where to begin as far as rewriting it though.

The more I think about it, I'm realizing I'm pretty much afraid of this step. I mean if this god character loves me and is always with me, that means he/she was there watching when I did a lot of really terrible stuff. Believing in him/her involves facing a lot of shame i'm not ready to deal with. By the way, I don't think god is male or female...I think god's way bigger than human gender ideas...I just stick with he/she to keep my higher power separated from the christian god.

And that brings up another issue. Nearly every use of religion in my life growing up was somehow a means of control. My apologies to the religious folks out there, but the christian god and the religion behind it was one of the many ways to keep me afraid. I don't want to go into detail now, but as soon as a person says god (big-G god as my friend says) I get tense, upset, and angry. For me to be able to trust a higher power, which is necessary for AA, I can't let my higher power be the christian god. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but it's something that's really causing issue for me.

The other issue i'm having with all this is just the basic trust that it requires. Like I said above, I don't want to turn my will and my life over to anyone. I feel like I'm just starting to get my will and my life back! I know god is different from a human, but still the idea scares she shit outta me. People say, "well just think of him as the ultimate loving father." Ok fine except that I didn't do too well in the father department. While I can imagine what a real, loving father might be like (and even saw it in my foster dad), trusting my life to a father figure just isn't something i can do. (Another part of why I want to keep god genderless, but parent figures in general just aren't my favorite).

What it comes down to, is that I've tried and tried to picture this loving god that wants to care about me and love me no matter what, and all it brings up is fear and anger. I try to picture a loving spirit and all I can think of is wanting to push it away. For most of my life, any love that's been offered has had some major strings attached. So when someone does something nice for me I tend to question what their real motives are and what's in it for them. Maybe I'm just afraid that god has some sort of hidden motive and any willingness to trust is going to come back to bite me.

All of this stuff I'm saying seemed a lot clearer in my head, but I can't seem to make it come out right on "paper." So I'm going to stop there for now and maybe come back to this later. I really should be doing homework anyway. Thanks for reading!