January 14, 2016:

It’s my birthday in half an hour. I’m feeling good. After returning to write this, it’s been my birthday for an hour. My friend who I went to see in Niagara sent me a beautiful card and a gift. It was very nice. I’m feeling grateful today. Though, filling my heart right now is deep sadness and grief. I’m feeling so sad lately and having experienced a lot of challenges. I want you to know that I’m not acting out on purpose. Believe me, I see how I am acting a lot of the time around others. I’ve noticed though that sometimes people are put off by me based on stuff that I have no intention of doing maliciously. I’ve said this before but want to emphasize again. I know and want to thank you for being as understanding as you have been. Things like when I avert my eyes. I’m not doing this to be defensive or to be a jerk. I avert my eyes from people because I am ashamed, the feeling of which is magnified by what I endured as a child. Since my abuse occurred during vital formative years. I was faced with reconstructing everything about myself down to my very core. Relational and emotional wounds not exclusive to me. I have heard a saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This, although a nice idea, is not always the case. When a child experiences trauma in childhood, especially in infancy, often, their ability to cope with further trauma later in life will be hindered. They won’t have the strategies to cope and to process the information. It is so important to treat our children with love and respect. Anyways, regardless of how all of this has affected me and is affecting me, I continue to work on defence mechanisms like this and I am proud of how far I have come. I am a good and worthy person. I’ve done bad things. But I have learned from them. Some of our flaws are resulting from maturity and others from damage done. I don’t want to consider myself damaged but to deny that there have not been some very serious injuries would be irresponsible as well. I’m not going to lie to myself by saying that I am miraculously healed. But I am doing much better. I’ve made a continuous commitment to process my emotions. I know that much of the time I am simply stifling my emotions. I’m doing this when I go to play games at the computer café, when I gamble, when I eat a lot. Still, I have to take time to recognize how far I have come. In that I have quit smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I quit porn. I quit alcohol. Still, there is a lot left unprocessed in my mind. I’m going to keep trying. For myself at least. I went to the gym today. I continue my fast. I’m doing very well. Nearly twenty days. I have eaten some vegan seed based crackers a couple of days ago but after that I continued still. Moreover, the feeling of sadness I am feeling stems from the fact that I am having such difficulty. Again, I want you to know that you will get what you’re waiting for. God is a good and just God. And He loves you. I am sorry. “God’s love is not exclusive. To be forgiven, in my opinion, you must trust the Christ, Jesus. But God’s intention is to love everyone” . . . who comes to Him. I know you’ve been through a lot. Please keep faith in God. And have patience on Him and His love. Those who wait on Him will be rewarded.