I Can Just Be Me- an apology to a friend.

on december 9, 2012, my husband of 21 years told me he wanted a divorce. at this point we had been reconciled for 2 years after a nearly 4 year separation (our third). at this point all of the sordid details do not matter. after nearly 11 months of attorneys and back and forth, i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. the end is very near. finally some peace for my sons and i.

i thought i would feel better, the closer it got to being over. the truth is, i feel like i am on a never ending roller coaster with no way of stopping it. my emotions are all over the place. i am struggling with my past addictions and finding value in who i am by switching addictions from day to day. stuffing emotions with food, looking for comfort and self worth in my relationship with a man in my life. God in His wisdom keeps us apart. and then i get angry and project it onto my friend. the one person who usually doesn’t judge me. the one who has been where i am. the one i know i can never be with because i am not healthy enough to be with anyone right now, nor do i want to be in a committed relationship at this point. one of the very few people on this earth that i can trust with everything.

so much of this year has been about submission. to God, mostly. also to other’s boundaries and learning how to be in healthy relationships/friendships. there has been so much pain in the growing. yet i am so thankful to my friend for the hard lessons he has taught me. he does not let me get away with anything. and that is a good thing. God is using him to teach me how i can just be me.

i have to be accountable for my actions. I am so very sorry. I was wrong and i was selfish. yesterday i put my wants and needs ahead of his feelings. i spoke out of anger, instead of asking questions. i assumed. instead of making his life easier, i added more stress to it. the very last thing i intended to do. please forgive me,  as i am learning to just be me.

Overcomer

nothing touches me, deep down in my heart of hearts, where the spiders live, like music.

i absolutely adore Mandisa and this song. and i hope you will be as inspired by the video as i am.

choosing joy,
pamela

Hello, My name is…

in april of 2007 i left my husband.

2006 had been an extremely hard year for me. for all of us really. i had been seriously misdiagnosed by a physician and was on all of this crazy medication. i couldn’t function. at all.

my dad passed away.

i couldn’t take care of my kids needs…physical or emotional. i couldn’t work full-time. we had to move from our beautiful 4 bedroom home into an apartment because i had to go from my 50K plus a year job to less than half the pay. we had to move into an apartment.

my husband resented how i failed him. (i felt like i failed my family) then the physical abuse started. the emotional abuse had been going on most of our marriage.

so i left. i went home to indiana to live with my mom and sister. due to the physical, emotional and over-medicated state i was in, the boys stayed here in missouri with their dad. at the time, i knew in my heart that was the best situation for them.

while i was in indiana, my mom invited me to attend Celebrate Recovery with her. at one point i had been using my prescribed pain medications to escape from everything that was going on in my life, but that was no longer an issue, so i really didn’t think i needed a 12 step program. when mom explained to me that CR was for dealing with all of life’s hurts, habits, and hangups, i decided to give it a try. i had no idea how it would change my life forever.

i found that there were other people just like me. people who were hurting. people who needed a safe place to go and just be heard. not judged. not fixed. not preached at. a place to be loved.

there were people struggling with:

• anger
• loss of a child
• food addiction
• physical, sexual, and psychological abuse
• divorce
• anxiety
• loneliness
• chemical dependency
• codependency
• sexual addiction
• pornography addiction

and so much more. i also found that these people were not defined by their struggles. you cannot imagine the burden that was lifted from me that day.

when the first person introduced herself, she did not say, “hi, my name is Jane, and i AM an ADDICT.”

She said; ” hi, my name is Jane and i STRUGGLE with ADDICTION.

i don’t know what you might be struggling with in your life right now, but i do know this: whatever it is, it does not define you. it is not WHO you ARE. it is simply what you STRUGGLE with.

As for me, my name is Pamela, i am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ, and i struggle with:

• divorce
• anxiety
• food addiction
• sexual addiction
• chemical dependency (past)

for a Celebrate Recovery group in your area: CR group locator

 

Why?

why do i do the things i do?

it started out as an accident, really. i decided to give up all things caffeine for Lent. why? i don’t know. i had never participated in the Lenten tradition before, so why now?

in the previous couple of months my life had taken a dramatic change of course. my husband of nearly 22 years decided he wanted a divorce. (and came clean about having an affair) i had decided to become a facilitator for the Celebrate Recovery program that was starting at my church. i had participated in CR previously and it had been life changing and i knew i needed CR now more than ever.

for the first time in my life i was alone and responsible for our three sons, Allen-Michael, Joshua, and Joseph. responsible for the budgeting and the bill paying. for everything. normally this kind of stress would make me turn to food for comfort.

so why did i decide to give up two of my very favorite things in the world at that time? coke zero and iced hazelnut coffee. i couldn’t tell you, but i did.

and for that forty days i drank ice water.

and i started losing weight.

so i kept drinking water, even after the Easter holiday. about that same time, my friend Scott started a blog about his weight loss journey. he was extremely honest about where he started, what his goals were and what he was doing to achieve them. he had already lost a significant amount of weight at this point and inspired me to make some further changes, like adding exercise to my routine.

i decided i needed to revamp my diet as well. i had already made changes for health reasons, but needed to be more aware of my calories, so my friend Sara suggested i use my fitness pal, an online and mobile app, to help me keep track of my caloric intake and calories burned. Sara also gave me some great ideas for snacks that are low calorie, high fiber, high protein and easy on the pocket book to add more variety to my diet.

i started out at 268 pounds.

today i weigh 217 pounds. my goal is to be able to comfortably fit into my wedding dress. (not get married, mind you) i am thinking that will look like another 50 or so pounds of weight loss.

the question now is why am i still pursuing the weight loss that started out as an accident? because i am not who i once was. i am not switching one addiction for another. i am on a quest to fill the hole in my heart with God’s perfect love. not food, not drugs, not men or sex.

i am becoming the Pamela, God wants me to be.

Celebrate Recovery

https://vimeo.com/65065588