Below are real journal entries, edited to protect the innocent. This is more powerful than any sort of discussion about this topic. However, an essay is brewing. This blog is definitely an adult blog. If you are a minor and stumble across it, please show it to your parents so they can decide if it’s appropriate, and if you’ve read it, so they can discuss it with you.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 10:01 pm
I fucked up today. I fucked up so badly. I fucked up by staying up really late and looking at pornography, downloading it to my phone. I fucked up by calling in sick. I fucked up by looking at pornography all day and going out in public to Barnes and Noble and reading about gay men and looking at nude women. I fucked up by going to the adult bookstore and watching videos in a private booth. I fucked up by going onto a gay phone service and looking for someone to watch pornography with. I fucked up by watching hours of porn, most of it homosexual.
And even now with a huge weight on me I want to dial up that number again and talk to some stranger about gay pornography and my addiction to it and my history with it.
I read online last night about same sex attraction being different than homosexuality. I don’t crave to be with a man but I crave some emotional need I never got from my father. And in turn I have twisted this need into an unhealthy addiction and desire. I have been struggling with this for years but I am only now coming to terms with it. I need professional help. I’m going to get professional help.
I’ve never admitted this in my journal before. This is a hard thing to do. I want to just kill myself or disappear into the ether.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:46 pm
I was mistaken. I am dead. I have killed myself. Now I am a ghost and I dwell in prison.
Friday, September 11, 2009 11:12 pm
We had the sister missionaries over tonight. It was wonderful. They came almost right after I got home. Sarah came over and I just told her that I had messed up when they came up the steps. We had a nice discussion with Sarah taking up so much of the time with her being witty. She overdoes this and it’s probably just a weakness of hers. The sister, the blond and beautiful sister, who I can’t remember her name, did a wonderful job of being blunt and straight forward and finally avoiding the pitfalls that would start Sarah showing off a bit again. And she does do a bit of showing off.
They committed her to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning. She took the challenge seriously and said she would read. I will continue to follow up with her and commit her to a schedule. I need to adhere to a schedule as well.
I promise to set aside a time each day to read the Scriptures.
My prayers were answered and I got the exact shift I requested at work. I will be working from 6am to 2pm M-F. This is the greatest thing.
I woke up this morning and messed up again by looking at pornography.
After the lesson tonight Sarah went in my room and proceeded to freak out a bit. She started internalizing my own struggles, which I did tell her about, with her own and began to look it as one more burden to add to her already heavy load.
I then began to lay out the scriptures and my own hard past and how the Lord has assisted me. I read her some out of the Joseph Smith manual and from D&C 121 and 122. I testified of hope and prayer and Christ. I brought her into the living room and showed her The Lamb of God video. I testified of Christ and His being left alone on the cross so He could say He was truly the author and finisher of the faith. I testified that if she trusted in the Lord, and really pondered and prayed then she too would see miracles in her life. I then invited her to pray with me. We went back into my room and I began to weep and pray in front of her. Even as I begin to weep now I know that tonight was a very significant night in the building of Sarah’s identity as a daughter of God.
It was all so touching and wonderful to know how quickly the Spirit can touch the heart of my own Spirit.
I have yet a long way to go until I am healed but I am on my way.
Even as I write this I’m tempted to look at pornography.
Sunday, September 13, 2009 10:51 pm
I’m torn. On Saturday I worked and although I didn’t mess up in the morning I went to the adult bookstore at night. I bought some pornography—some magazines. I talked to a guy on a chat line who wanted to get off and I proceeded to discuss all of my addiction with him and all of its implications. Soon he was disappointed as he could see that I wasn’t trying to get off with him. He hung up the call when I was just opening up a bit. I need a councilor bad.
This morning I looked at the pornography and was again afterward in misery but I learned a couple of things, or at least one thing. I sincerely don’t want to be with a man. I simply want to discuss my problems with someone who has gone through an upbringing similar to my own. A large part of me needs this, maybe the largest. Sometimes I think it’s just time that takes care of things by making things surface even if you don’t want them to. I am not attracted to men. I have no desire to be with a man in all the ways I crave and desire to be with a woman. But I remember looking at porn as a young man and coming across some advertisements for gay porn. I remember being curious to look and not wanting to but doing it anyway.
So here’s the formula that Satan has utilized in my behalf:
- Molestation by father
- Beaten by father
- Lied to by father
- Ignored by father
- Manipulated by father
- Loved by father
- Love for father
- Looking at Penthouse magazines and playing with He-Men and Star Wars with friend. Waking up to watch Saturday morning cartoons with friend, watching dirty movies with friend, looking at hours of pornography with friend.
- Eventual experimentation with friends
- Drugs and drinking at early age
- Rebellion and being led by Satan for years
- Developing a huge dependence on masturbation and pornography as a teen.
- Constant lust for women at the same time solitary exploration of what pleases me and no others.
- Isolation from family and big addictions to drugs and alcohol and pornography
- Eventual viewing of gay porn off an on for years
- Eventual experimentation with men
Now why did this happen? Am I really gay? I’ve asked myself this secretly for quite some time now and the answer is a definite no. I am disgusted by a man’s intimate touch. I am just not interested in men. I know men can be attractive, but the desire and passion will remain with women and always has. What has happened to me is this: Masturbation is in itself a true homosexual act. It is sex with one. It is sex with the same. For men it is intense focus on the pleasure of the penis and nothing else. Fantasy is not real. And although fantasy can distract it is not reality. When a man is touching himself and thinking of a woman he is in reality, specifically: A) touching a man B) touching the same (self). This is same sex in its truest sense. Another man is no more the same as me as a carpet is, a tree is, or a woman is.
Masturbation and pornography lead to homo-sex because it is exactly homo-sex that is taking place.
The second thing I realized today as I was looking at unbelievably gorgeous women, I thought about that phone call last night. I was no more attracted to men than I was to my own penis. It also dawned on me as I was looking at the women, what an illusion it all is. I was indulging in the biggest lie of my life and perhaps the biggest lie that ever existed anywhere-that we can have something for nothing, that we can have something that isn’t real.
Perhaps this is why addiction stirs in the addict a desire and a need to go even deeper and deeper, because the Spirit and the will, no matter how deadened and dormant, can sense the absolute nothingness and will propel the addict further and further in search of something real that can actually sustain. But fantasy is fallacy and that can never sustain.
Addiction is schizophrenia because to sustain oneself is a battle of extremes and voices telling you, “it’s real; not it’s not. It’s real; not it’s not.” The inner voice, the conscience and the Spirit are constantly in a war with Satan and his mocking crowds. And at times these voices can seem truly audible.
I’m going to talk to the Bishop tomorrow and Sarah is too. As I am released (from my calling) I will begin counseling almost immediately. I feel I need to dedicate myself to helping others who have addictions, and especially the addiction that I have.
I’m going to begin to read Clean Hands, Pure Heart.
There is always hope for those who need it.
There is always hope to those who speak it.
There is always hope with those who seek it.
I am proud that the Lord has shown me these things even in my darkest abyss. Even when I lock the doors and roam the filth and sewers God shines down on me through the sewer grates.
One day again I will reach the surface for freedom.
Monday, September 14, 2009 11:41 pm
I met with the Bishop today and there is not a thing I could do to make that man detest me. I am so indebted to the Lord that I am beside myself. How I can be forgiven is beyond me.
I let the Bishop read the journal. While he read at his desk I knelt down and prayed and wept and hid. Then I considered if I was indeed praying or hiding. After the prayer there was a time of about ten seconds where I was hiding. I realized this, wiped my eyes, and sat down in the chair.
Then the Bishop began to speak nothing but encouraging words. He wanted me to keep my calling. He told me not to run from my calling and not to run from my feelings for Sarah. The Bishop is an incurable romantic…
I will try to increase my faith every day.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:36 pm
Today was a very good day. I feel so wonderful if not a little spiritually sore. I woke up early and studied both, The Book of Mormon and Clean Hands, Pure Heart. I’ll do this tomorrow as well.
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