June 23, 2015:

Last night I had an incredible experience. It was while I was watching a movie called Area 51 after I had written in this journal last. So, I could feel the buildup of this experience coming for quite some time. In this moment, I experienced a series of emotions. The full sensation in my body and heart. This may not sound like that big of a deal. But for me, I have been repressing my emotions and feelings connected to my thoughts for most of my life. I repressed them because they were just not safe to experience in my mind. This is because everything I was experiencing was so extreme and severe that at a point, I said to myself that I wouldn’t feel anymore because if I did, I would surely have just died of a broken heart. That sounds cliché and melodrama but I sincerely mean it. Anyways, last night was maybe the first time in over a year in which I had experienced my emotions. Funny that they should arise during this movie. Rather I feel that it was indeed a buildup of experiences that led to the expression. It started as anxiety but slowly my heart warmed and by the end of the evening, I was feeling joy and peace. I nearly wept. It was a beautiful thing. And it reminds me that beneath all of our flesh and defense mechanisms, beneath all of our anger and aggression, we are all such beautifully, complex and wonderfully made Creatures. I am so grateful for my weaknesses. For as much as they bother me and limit my experiences, they have given me reason to live and to fight to improve myself. Today, I am grateful for my friends and church family. I am thankful for my anxiety. Because it gives me a good reason to challenge how I feel and a lot of the emotions beneath that anxiety. I’m grateful for time and the fact that while we are alive, there is always hope and opportunity to change and become a more loving person. I am thankful for my salvation today. For the goodness and grace bestowed upon us by a Heavenly Father who truly wants the very best for His children and creation. I am thankful for my body. Yesterday in my support group, we continued our discussion about sexuality. I had a lot to say again but I am unsure whether I expressed the way I felt properly. I feel that because a lot of the trauma started happening when I was preverbal that I have had a lot of difficulty in connecting verbally how I feel with words. When I am relaxed and not feeling anxiety, I can express myself well. Anyways, with regards to sexuality, yesterday I mentioned that I was very ashamed of my body. I described the fact that I felt a lot of guilt in the fact that my body responded to the abuse. Even though, on an intellectual level I know that regardless of the situation and even if it’s not something you want, your body, physiologically will respond to stimuli. And I know on an intellectual level that this is not our fault. But there’s a deep part of my heart that feels a lot of guilt and shame over the fact that my body reacted when I didn’t want it to. I expressed that I feel shame when I ejaculate much of the time. Especially since I have gotten my sexual compulsion under control by cutting out the porn entirely and giving my body a break between emissions. A lot of the time, when I ejaculate, I feel filthy and unlovable. Today, I am so incredibly thankful for my body. I am thankful for how it looks and reacts to stimuli. Even though I know that I could lose some weight, I remind myself that I am actively trying to improve that. And even though it struggles to do things that most people do with ease, I remind myself of what it has gotten me through. Yes, it responded. I remind myself that it responded to unwanted touch and forced behavior that I had no control over. It was just being a body. And for that, I have to forgive it. It is my vessel and regardless of its weaknesses, I am proud of it. I am going to make the conscious decision right now to take better care of it. I can’t believe that I filled it with so much negativity all these years ago. The cigarettes, the alcohol, down to the fact that I was very rough on it simply because I didn’t care about it. I am saying right now that my body is beautiful and deserves to be cared for and treated with respect. Today, I am thankful for my past. Because without it, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I am thankful for Christian worship and gospel music. Because it is filled with so much positivity and joy. When not all, but definitely a lot of the world’s music is a bit negative and about things that are not always the most beneficial. Right now, I am listening to Tomlin’s ‘Here for you’. I am filled with joy and so overwhelmed every time I listen to this beautiful praise of the Lord in music. I am filled with joy and so overwhelmed every time I listen to this music. I am grateful that I am healing. I am grateful for forgiveness. For the fact that I have been able to forgive what happened to me. I am grateful that I can forgive because I have been forgiven when I didn’t deserve to be. List of things I want to accomplish with my life: Writing this list because for a long time, I truly felt as though I didn’t have a future. I lived each day in apprehension because of what happened to me. Writing this to prove to myself that even if my future is not to extend long that I matter enough to create goals and to have hopes and dreams. To love and receive love freely, To show my true self to the world and to God, To continue healing and while doing that, use my own experiences to help other people who are struggling through the same things, To keep learning, To be happy and feel strong, To be as generous with my time and compassion as I feel I am with my money, To become a father. To be a good father. Adopt. Fly an airplane. Captain or chaplain a ship. Also, one that I can do probably pretty soon: Learn how to bake. Spend time volunteering more. Particularly in missionary work, once I am able to find my voice and in advocacy for vulnerable creatures. Children and animals. To work in a library for a couple of years. Spend some time in Antarctica. Travel the world. To continue writing. Clarity of mind. To see people the way they are: loving and not instinctively trying to hurt me. To learn as many languages as I can. To be intimate. To encourage the world with my work and with what I have been through. To spend more time in prayer. To love myself enough to take care of my body to the best level that I deserve. To foster a beautiful relationship with a woman. Run a marathon. To fly in a hot air balloon. Plant trees, watch them grow. Learn piano. Learn a martial art. To be truly alive. To change the world, in whatever small way that I can.