Hello My Dear Friends,
This week I met for the first time in real life, face to face, with a chaver from GYE. Make no mistake, it was very nice to have met you (you know who you are) and face the cold reality of meeting with a real person who knows much of my sordid past, but I was still quite traumatized. I met this person on my turf, in my shul, where I maintain the life of the me that I like, the me that I want people to think I am, not the me who did the things that I am so embarrassed about. Yet, in my shul, I was forced to face the reality of who I am, of the secrets that I keep. I wonder if that is how Haman felt when Mordechai lifted his sole and showed all that Haman was no great Viceroy, but rather a petty slave.
As I felt this gentleman's glare (real or perceived), I felt like a video of my "mitzvos and maasim tovim" was being projected on the wall for all my friends and community to see. I felt exposed, defenseless and humiliated.
Of course no such thing happened but I was really hit hard by facing this reality with no place to escape from it. I might seem like a pretty decent guy but he knows that I am not the saint I try to portray myself as.

I was just beginning to thrive in my new lust free life, enjoying my family, my learning, my davening and now I feel shackled being forced to wear the past around my neck forever.
I want to forget the person I was and nurture and grow the new person I have become that I am proud of and overjoyed with. I feel like I have overcome the greatest challenge of my life yet I now know that I am shackled by it forever.

I will not let this feeling drag me down because I know that I can do nothing to change the past. My only power is to change the future and that is the only place I will focus my efforts. I have accepted this pain from HKB"H as my atonement for my misdeeds and am very grateful that he is inflicting me with my imaginary humiliation rather than real humiliation which would be truly devastating. Regardless, I accept with ahava and simcha whatever HKB"H wills for me as I know he is doing it only for my best interests.

R' pischoshelmachat wrote on 04 Apr 2016 15:57:

Pisco, so good to hear from you again, even if I wasn't the one privileged to meet you (I may be in that shul too, who knows). 
You write about the 'you that you like' and the 'you that you're embarrassed about'. But are there really two' you's' ? Later you seem to agree and write " I am not the saint I try to portray myself as" and" I was forced to face the reality of who I am,". Who Are you? (not your name) . Is your identity really created by all those years of acting out? Then why did you try so hard to stop? Or is your identity a pure and striving yid, who yes got caught in the mud and made real efforts to climb out and wash up. From all of your many posts here my not so humble option is that you are clearly of the latter type.  
 As a caveat, even though our identity is pure, our skin got kind of used to having that mud around. We need to always be careful, but think of it as a skin condition, we need to beware, but it doesn't change who we are. 

If this gye fellow has been following your thread, which I gather that he has, then you have nothing to be embarrassed of in front of him. Your sh'efus and efforts make you truly deserving of - as you so eloquently put it "the saint I try to portray myself as". 

Keep in touch
sg

Why am I crying now?
Thank you for your kind words.

Hello My Dear Friends,
This is just a boring check in post to let you know that although I have my bechirah, I am still being tested by the RBS"O. I still have urges that are growing but are still in the manageable range. I am checking in with my friend and davening to HKB"H to protect me.

pischoshelmachat wrote on 12 Apr 2016 16:48:

Great to hear from you pisco. Give me a boring day over a dragonfirebreathinglustmainiashotintheheadfallingday any time.