may you see nachas from your son

and with your son

Thanks you, all you guys, Bard, Briut, FFTS, Zemmy, To come home and read your posts It's just sooo good.  I don't think i have the words.  I am touched in the same place Hashem touches me. 

I have some old baggage I need to dump.  but right now it's late.  But I'm putting this in the post as a commitment to talk about it soon, so I don't let myself duck out of it.    I may not be able to post until Sunday, so Good Shabbos, everybody.

Daat,

I am getting lots of chizuk from your posts and I really hope to be there for you as you go through this journey. Much hatzlacha my friend.

hi 1daat, how are things?

1daat wrote on 04 Nov 2010 04:41:


Sunday came & went.

You made a commitment.

You owe it!

....to yourself!

Yosef Hatzadik.  Thanks for the noodge.  It's coming.  I'm glad you said something.

Hey Zemmy.  Clean, Bz"H.  I'm working on cleaning out the closet with an eye towards more simcha.  I'm only as clean as my secrets. 

Yosef Hatzadik, here goes.

I was pm-ing with someone I respect very very much.  And he shared some lust things he'd done.  And as I read his post I felt my face starting to flush, and a queezy feeling in my stomach.  Then I started getting flooded with a bunch of stuff I haven't come clean about.  I don't want to get too particular because it could be triggering, and yet I know I have to say something and get this off my chest.

I feel sick so bad right now.  I am so ashamed of what I've done.  I won't dwell, but the regret and remorse are huge right now.  I didn't know it would be this much.  I am so sick.  I am so an addict. 

I just need to sit with this for a while.  I don't think this is a yh possession.  I just hurt, and feel ashamed, and so regretful.  Maybe spitting this out will help.

[Moderator's note: This post has been edited to conform with GYE policy].

hi 1daat, i can only imagine how it feels to deal with stuff like that. that you strive to clean house and move on is great. you are headed in the right direction. to Hashem. good for you.
rooting and tootin' for you
zs

Zemmy.  As always, thanks.  I could never do this alone.  I know you care, and that helps so much I can't tell you.

1daat, I missed what you shared because it was edited out before I got to it. But it sounds to me that regardless of GYE policy, you are on the right track. Ashrecha, ve'ashrecha. May Hashem help you with this most important part of letting go and getting free of the past: Getting the truth about ourselves out instead of sitting on it....Amen!

Hello daat sounds like you are hard at work.
Hatzlacha

OK. lemme be a Kofer here for a moment.

For me, feeling better about the 'stuff' that happens often means getting out of isolation.

Your 'coming out' to the virtual chevra here (regarding your previous deeds etc) is good for that.

For me, though, it's got to be accompanied by some way to get out of isolation IN REAL LIFE. REAL PEOPLE. REAL CONTACT & HONESTY & ALL THAT. It's just tricky for me to accomplish that when the issues are so, so, so raw. Even so, it's got to happen.

My bracha for you is that HKB'H bring into your life some folks who really, truly care and understand. So that the virtual support of GYE is only part of what you've got to work with.

Very true Dr.  Gye is just our jumpstart on life not life itself.

just like we know that Malchusa De'ara is a parallel to Malchusa De'rekia, sometimes what we start in the parallel - GYE - can be a beginning and a model for the 'real' life.

Ya know, I didn't start out to make a megillah.  Sorry.

dov wrote on 11 Nov 2010 01:03:


Dov, thank you for your brocho.  I AM blessed by this whole upset.  I can feel Him feeling like a father who's doing what he has to do to help me come back home again (B'chol tzohrohsohm loh tzohr).  It's just stripped me down of a lot of guyvah-type illusions I've been seeing myself as.  But I'm more settled in some way.  I'm less about what I look like and more about staying close to Him cuz I don't know how to be this.  Like a kid hiding behind his dad's pantleg.

FFTS, thanks for staying in touch.  You always encourage.  Thanks for the chizuk.


Dear Doctor tell-it-like-it-is. Briut, thanks for your direction. I hope you know I check in with you every day, even though I don't post much.  But please know I'm in there rooting, and shaking you and oyoyoying over the hard parts, happy at your incredible growth that is so much a model for me of being plain spoken no holds barred.  It's just on my side of the screen. Thanks for checking in. You were one of my "welcoming committee" when I first came here, and I'll always be grateful to you for that.

Briut wrote on 11 Nov 2010 20:48:


I do have people in my life that I'm really really close to:  My sister and brother in law are major family support through thick and thin.  I suppose I could share all this with them but....  I got a ton of buts.  Maybe that's part of the problem.  It's not like they don't know I've done major bad things.  they know I'm bipolar, and I sure talk with them about things, like when I went off on my son.

My rov knows about my arrest for soliciting, but not about my addiction.  I am very close to him and his whole family.  We do stuff together a lot.  So I dunno about going into this stuff with him either.

I have a therapist, and she knows absolutely everything.  Not one secret I can think of.

then there's my bet friend.  He also knows everything.  totally everything about my past, my perverted stuff.  Also no secrets.

And then there are the cadre of friends and acquaintances, chevra from shul, etc.  So I'm not isolated in that sense.

But am I right that what you're saying is I need to not be isolated about all the stuff I talk about on GYE?  Besides my therapist and my best friend nobody else knows all the details.  Both of them know about the stuff I posted.  But if that is what you meant, then I need to start thinking along those lines, because I take your counsel very seriously.  I'll pm you.

Zemmy, thanks.  You're keeping an eye on me is very very reassuring.  Your posts are always full of wisdom.  (though your thread has turned into total fun.  bunch of clowns out there).

ZemirosShabbos wrote on 11 Nov 2010 20:53:


ok guys I'm missing something.  Can you clear up for me what you mean by "real life"?  Am I in lala land that i DO have a real life?  And if I don't, and I'm fooling myself, could somebody please explain my blind spot to me?  That would help a lot.  I'm just so damned raw and probably oversensitive right now.  I keep hearing I'm "doing it wrong", and I know nobody here would ever say anything like that. 

With all the above stuff I'm probably sounding like I'm a basket case.  But here's the good stuff:  I am about being close to Hashem waaaay more than ever before.  I talk to Him a lot since my "coming clean".  I talk to Him totally differently know.  No more dramatics.  Just work, avoida.  Chassidus, mussar, longer talks with the rav.  Kavannah without so much patting myself on the back with how much kavahnah I have.

I'm handling my IRS problems.  It turns I can document everything they've challenged and I'll probably end up owing them a lot less.

I've been dealing with the attorney, Kaiser not wanting to write me a letter, all about my upcoming board hearing.  I haven't gotten freaked out (B"H).  A few times I got pretty frightened, and I went back to basics and was able to just trust Him that He'll take care of this for me one way or another but that it will always be for the good.

I've been talking with my older son (not the one I was mean to)in Spain for very long conversations (skype).  When I told him about how my younger son and I had had our heart to heart, he got kind of chocked up and said how totally happy that made him, and how he knew things would work out.

I'm learning more and more often.

AND I'VE STAYED CLEAN THROUGH IT ALL.  I know how we so often say Bezras Hashem.  But that's stopped being a concept.  If He's not around I get scared.  Let me rephrase that (cuz I ain't erasing it).  When I go away and don't feel Him there and taking care of things, I feel scared.  I guess it's histarta panecha hayiti nephal. that's an in my face reality now.  And if it took this "strip down" to get here, nothing better could ever have happened.  Is this not what I've sought my whole life?  Is He not the security, the knowing who I am, the peace of not having to work so hard at stuff, the comfort that I turned to my addictions for?  So as raw as it is, I'm not falling apart, I'm doing better than I ever have in handling things, I'm closer to Hashem.  What could a yid ask for?