#recovery stories

[mindfulldsliving]

Put to the Test

Today's podcast emphasizes that God is fully aware of our lives and seeks to lead us, even into uncomfortable spaces. We often resist His demands, letting our personal feelings hinder our growth. Accepting God's call means allowing Him to shape us.

Today’s podcast emphasizes that God is fully aware of our lives and seeks to lead us, even into uncomfortable spaces. We often resist His demands, letting our personal feelings hinder our growth. Accepting God’s call means allowing Him to shape us. In 1 Corinthians 1:2, believers are reminded that they are called to be holy people. This message highlights the difference between having a vision…

[lizardho]

I think the worst day I had as a missionary is hard to pin down – for comedy bad day stories, I like to talk about my cute companion who ripped three pairs of pants in one day because his ass was so fat. Literally, two in the morning, we missed 3 appointments in the afternoon because people kept cancelling on us, and we ended up far away from home visiting “Less Actives” in the downtown area. We find a family who says we can come in once their dad get home, and we sit down to wait for the dad to get in and RIIIPPP goes the third pair of slacks this man wore that day. I hand him my suit jacket and he wraps it around his waist like a bashful adolescent who just started his period at an inconvenient time. We catch a ride home on a bus and ended up home an hour early. He cried for like 30 minutes while stitching up his pants, and I got to rest a lot more than expected that day. We ordered a 4-cheese pizza and went to bed early that night, having walked probably 5-6 miles that day knocking doors and getting turned away.

Another bad day was the day the Mexico City Temple was re-opening. It was a funny experience for me because the evening before I was contacted by the Mission President and told that an elder in our district had confessed some serious sins to him and that those sins precluded him from going to the temple. The MP told me that nobody in this elder’s ward could get time off to babysit him so he was begging one of us – I didn’t want to go to the temple, it was a crappy way to spend a P-Day in my opinion, so I told the MP I’d do it. I spent the day eating popsicles and napping with an elder who, in between Bolis and naps, would shakily and tearfully confess that no fewer than half of his companions had secret phones they used to watch porn, hire prostitutes, and buy drugs. This was bewildering to me since I had been Trying So Hard my whole mission and had always felt inadequate, and these elders who were doing better than me and more respected than me were somehow out here fucking, doing drugs, and jorkin’ it.

I was actually in a “Punishment Area” at the time because in my last area one of my life-threateningly attractive companions had gone into the homes of widows to repair their electrical wirings (he was a trained electrician prior to going on a mission.) Being alone in the home of an 80-year-old widow with failing lights was “against the rules” to the extent that me mandaron a la goma, and some handful of guys I’d been told to view as role models were out here breaking actual laws and shit. Of course, I knew in my heart of hearts that I was in this area because of the Deep Evil that Lay Within My Heart (wanting to kiss Elder Electrician on his stupid himbo lips) but my MP could not have known that, just like he didn’t know that the guys he was making Zone Leaders were getting their dicks sucked and snorting cocaine. That honestly felt outrageous to me.

I feel like the stereotypical “worst day” of a mission is the last day – they take you to the airport in a big van, all melancholy and nostalgic. We sang on our drive to the airport – elders and sisters tearfully sang or hummed hymns together. I was deadpan the whole time, it was such a relief to be going home. For me the worst part of the day was the relief – the release of pressure. The pressure to perform, to be “on,” to be at your best, is omnipresent for elders. I was the only person flying to Phoenix, so for the first time in two years I felt a release from that pressure. Nobody was scrutinizing me, I no longer felt that every thought, action, and feeling was being evaluated and judged as a sign of my true character. It was hard to realize, a the pressure let up, that I had been holding all that weight for two years without knowing when it had started. I remember getting confused in Customs and needing someone who spoke Spanish to talk to me because I kept forgetting words in English. I remember getting home and my family waiting for me and feeling like it was all finally done, finally over, I could finally breath. It didn’t feel bad, but it did feel heavy. And it definitely was not the worst day of my mission.

The actual worst day of my mission, though, was about 5 months in. At the 6-month mark I was expected to make a long trip down to an area of town near La Basilica de Guadalupe to submit my visa paperwork, and the mission office had sent me an extra $500 MX to use for transportation costs. When I withdrew the money they had sent for the month, I noticed it was higher than expected. My companion, a senior companion and district leader, had the cell phone. He was talking to another elder while he waited for me to withdraw my monthly deposit. I approached and asked if I could use the cell phone to call the mission office, as I had questions. He said “no,” and ignored me. I waited until the conversation ended and asked again, and again, angrily, he said, “No.” I said “Elder, relax, I just need to call the mission office to see why they sent me more this month than usual.” His face turned red as he realized other elders were watching the exchange occur. He handed me the phone, I called and was told the money was for transportation costs, and laughingly returned the phone to my companion. He took it, told the other elders he needed to tie his shoe but they could head on over to the District Meeting, and waited until they were out of eyesight. Once that was done, he grabbed me hard by the wrist, dragged me into a hidden corner out of earshot from others, and said, “If you ever disrespect me or my authority again I swear to God I will kill you.”

I was actually shocked. This guy had spent the last month and a half being SUPER nice to me, so I thought he was kidding and I was just confused. I laughed and said “Haha, yeah, your authority over the cell phone is sacred,” and tried to walk away but he didn’t let go of my wrist. He pulled me back and said “I will literally slit your throat if you ever talk to me like that again. As senior companion my authority over YOU is sacred, and I will not let God be mocked by you.”

I realized that he was serious. Like, actually threatening-my-life serious. I could see it in his eyes, I could feel it in the way he squeezed tighter on my wrist. In actuality, the idea seems laughable now. The guy was absolutely chickenshit. He cried if his shits were too hard, he couldn’t end a human life, but I still didn’t let myself fall asleep first for the rest of our time together. And I still hid the two knives we had in a different area while he was showering the next morning.

If I’m being honest though, even that wasn’t the worst day of my mission. That was bad, and each subsequent time he told me he was going to cut my throat for minor infractions against his God-Given Authority Over Me (like not wearing a belt for morning scripture study, or not taking the path he thought was best to get to a lesson) was a bad day. Every P-Day where he read my emails over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t telling my parents about how he was treating me, every day he told me that the ward members would never believe me over him, every day he put me down in front of other elders and they laughed in agreement, every day he was in a bad mood and took it out on me was a bad day. But the worst day was the day I told the mission president about it. I told him about the threats to my life, his temper, his physical abuse, hiss manipulation and rule-breaking, and the mission president told me “The time to tell me this was 6 months ago. The time to forgive him and focus on your own failings is now.”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as confused or betrayed as I did then. Like, man oh man, that was a rough thing to hear, but as the day went on I kept feeling more and more confused and scared – had I misinterpreted everything? Had I miscommunicated something in telling the story? Had I not been objective enough in recounting the threats against my life? Was it true that a senior companion actually had the authority to hurt me if I went against his authority? Was I wrong the whole time? I had no idea, to be honest, but it was bewildering.

Knowing now what I wish I had known then, I would have done things differently. But in the moment, on a mission, knowing that my biggest reason for going on a mission was the hope that the Spirit of God, which hymns told me burns like fire, would burn the faggot out of my heart. I think I felt like I deserved it. Like somehow that elder knew the evil I was hiding and felt compelled by God’s power to hurt me. I think that’s what made it so hard to defend myself in the moment – I did not have that problem with other elders. The companion who told me we were gonna wrestle to settle an argument lost three consecutive matches and pouted about it for like a week. The elder who threatened to punch me for making a joke at his expense got knocked on his ass just for raising his fist. But this elder got into my head first, and that made it hard to fight against it. Instead of fighting against it, I just silently lived with actual, verifiable, diagnosed, by-the-book, DSM-5-TR Posttraumatic Stress Disorder because I thought I deserved it. It took consistent supervision of my clinical work revealing countertransference with Male LDS clients (I consistently discussed addressing shame in a client’s presentation where no shame or discomfort had been reported), an awkward conversation with @inbabylontheywept after an even more awkward dinner with a cousin who vaguely reminds me of that companion, and a bad acid trip where I had visceral flashbacks to my mission, before I was able to realize that I was living with a pain that was as abnormal as it was unnecessary.

Even once I realized it, even once I got help, it was hard. I remember telling jokes about what happened to my therapist and seeing her jaw just…drop. She said she didn’t know it had been that dangerous for me. The session ended and he sent me the PCL-5 (a good, evidence-based, highly face-valid measure for PTSD) and some other measure for dissociative symptoms and I was like “Girl, I just took this class, I know what you’re trying to measure and this ain’t it.” I reported my symptoms accurately and was fully prepped to confront her the next session. She showed me my scores and the norms used, and I was like “Oh fuck, this looks really bad on paper,” and she was like “Yeah, I can’t imagine living like this” and I just sobbed for most of that session. We ended up doing 9 months of TF-CBT and ACT (largely because I am a terrible and uncooperative patient, realistically I think I could have been done in like 5-6 months if I wasn’t so stubborn) before I was discharged from treatment successfully.

The thing that was so weird about starting therapy for PTSD was that it made things feel worse for a while. I started taking edibles a lot more. I started behaving differently around family members and Mormons. I started being outright hostile to elders I could see. It took about 3 months before I could see the missionaries and not have an actual fight-or-flight response to their presence. I think the way I had made it a far as I did without getting treatment was by repressing the thoughts, feelings, and memories that made it all hurt, and a soon as I let them just be there it was like all the confusing aching hurt came back. The first few months of therapy were just spent expanding the amount of time I could feel that hurt before turning to other means (like dissociation, cannabis, repression, etc.) so I could actually address the experiences without crashing the rest of the day. It was hard. I know I ended several sessions sweating a LOT from the exertion it took to just let the feelings happen. By 6 months, however, I could go into a church building without blacking out from panic. By 9 months I could sit in the same room as elders without sweating and shaking like a chihuahua on Adderall. 3 months after therapy and me and my supervisors noticed that my work with Mormon men had improved substantially. 6 months after therapy and I was able to begin writing anonymous stories online. Now, about two years after completing therapy, I feel like I can talk about it without needing the cloak of anonymity, and that is empowering.

Again, I am not sure why I’m typing these stories out – they’re not fun to write, I don’t love that my family can find these posts, but I guess I just like to remind myself and others that it can always get better. That mind numbing platitude, the old thought-terminating cliché that “it gets better, just power through it” doesn’t give enough credit to how much it hurts to get through it, but it does get better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. The triggers can go away with time, great effort, significant expense, and a lot of discomfort. The world can feel safe again, the hurt can feel bearable, that nagging worry that I might have deserved this, or that I did something wrong, can eventually go away too. It’s not easy to do it, and I have an incredible respect for the patients of mine who can pull it off, but it is undeniably as doable a it is difficult. If this story resonates with anyone, if it feels close-to-home, if these experiences feel shared, just know that the relief I talked about can feel shared too. Know that it’s worth it to get the help, that you deserve the help, that you deserve to live a life that doesn’t hurt you, that you deserve to be a full person and not a living prison for the pain and memories. Know that healing yourself does not involve extending forgiveness to Them, whoever They are. That the pain you felt will not be made less important by making the pain less potent. Know that taking care of yourself now is, in a way, taking care of yourself then. And Please, with a capital P, take care of yourselves.

Thank you to my family, especially my immediate family (special shout outs to @flowerologists and @inbabylontheywept) for the support and patience with me as I dealt with this.

Thank you to my therapist, Jordin Borques, who I recommend highly to anyone seeking trauma therapy in Arizona.

Thank you to my wife, @cintailed, for being the push that got me into therapy, and for taking care of me at my worst and still being here with me.

Thanks to my mission president for being such a colossal disappointment to Christianity that my departure from the church was inevitable.

And a general thanks to the queers for being so cute and making life worth living, even on bad days.

[impossibleperfectionnerd]

Beda homecare charity they can’t steal those. You guys have to retrieve those. 4 day time science rule.

[ooooo-mcyt]

No because I actually don't think Scott wants to constantly sacrifice his desires and life for other people.

I think Scott, on a base level, wants to be safe and happy and to have his friends also safe and happy and with him. Fundamentally I think Scott just wants to sit in the grass with his friends on a sunny day that never ends.

So- Scott is willing to sacrifice. Because he wants people to like him, and because he doesn't want to lose them (either to resentment or to death), and because maybe it makes him feel safer to give away his life than to have it stolen.

That's the sticking point for me, I think- I don't think Scott should have to feel less unhappy and helpless than he could feel, I think Scott should be happy, especially when he generally has such simple wants.

No matter how good he is at finding the silver lining in a situation, at turning any scenario into a happy ending, I think it's a deep tragedy that Scott has to convince himself that willing is the same as wanting and that it's normal to have to squint to find your 'good ending' buried behind a million things you never wanted.

(on a very much related note, have i ever talked about how much i loved witchcraft smp?)

[autismvampyre]

you know, I barely think about it anymore

the fact that I'm a csa survivor used to be my whole existence, it was everything I thought about and thought I'd never live to see a day where it did not define me. it felt like that was all I was, just a husk of a person who had everything scraped out before I even knew how to spell my own name. I was very young when I was assaulted, and I used to mourn the little kid that I was and who that kid could've become had she had normal childhood. it was hard

I don't think about it anymore. my skin doesn't crawl every time I see something that once upon a time would've reminded me of him. I'm better, and I'm not normal cause I never will be, but I've healed in a way I never thought I would

what I'm trying to say is that it can get better. one day you might wake up and you won't feel as bad as it did the day before. there is a future for you, and it might not be perfect but it can be good still.

[lovelydrusilla]

Feel Good (2020-2021). Created by Mae Martin.

[enden-agolor]

i have nothing else to offer but this little doodle page 😔 i don't have much time to draw as of recently so i hope this pleases the gay minecraft man audience

[whumpberry-cookie]

Some more of:

Irritated Caretaker

(Cw: bodily fluids, swearing)

_____________

"Oh no, no worries. It took me only over an hour to prepare something you can actually eat. Go full fucking ahead and puke it all out"

*simply applauses Whumpee's big lash out instead of comforting them or demanding an apology*

(W:) "Enough! Leave me alone!" *Whumpee slaps their hand away. Caretaker stands up and throws the new bandages in the bin. (C:) "Great. But no reclamations."

(W:) "Hands off. I don't need any medic" (C:) "oh nOo, lEt me hElP you. I waNt to sOo bad!" *snorts with sarcasm*

"Which part of don't go out without warning me didn't you understand? Come here, I'm tying you a helium baloon on a neck as a location mark (...) It looks dumb? Don't you fucking say. Consequences, Whumpee. No. Don't touch it. I'm NOT playing."

OKAY! No needles, Jeez!! I get it! I'll give you an alternative! *puts the needle back in the bag. And takes out of it.. a middle finger. Then proceeds to poke Whumpee with it in half-agression. "STOP. Being. SO. Difficult."

________________

Here's more of irritated Caretaker:

(1) (2)

[retquits]

2023 is only my third year of actually living

it’s all still so new to me—stuff like enjoying being alive every day, and doing things with purpose

maybe i’ll draw a comic about it. but i just wanted to say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! i’m glad i’m here to see 2024 with you 🥰🌻

[glassofoj-twitter]

Polnareff’s Prosthetics (read more about this au in the tags)

[yaegeram]

Comic wip! Not sure if I'm gonna be able to finish this anytime soon. I wanted to do it fully colored but ya 😭

So as a but if background info they all have fuckin PTSD (obv) and the walrider isn't actually back, the guy is just hallucinating it because it's so dark. I have never drawn a comic before so this is kind of exhausting 😔...

[toothspurs]

some cas pics from the drafts

[scarlettshazam]

So I got laid off from my dream job due to budget constraints. I’m not actually sure what my following is on tumblr anymore, since I recently migrated back, but I think it’s worth a shot to ask for help here — not for myself, but for the school. I was an academic coach at 5280 High School, which is the largest recovery high school in the United States. The student body it serves is made up of kids recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, and mental health crises. I was one of seven who was laid off, which aside from being a devastating blow means that these kids won’t be getting the care they need.

My position was a part of the Special Education team, and I worked closely with kids with IEPs to help them graduate while accommodating various disabilities. I affectionately termed my position “professional homie” or “professional opp” depending upon the day. Mostly I got to remind smart kids that they are in fact smart and listen when they needed me.

When the kids come back from their winter break, they’re going to need resources now more than ever, so if there’s anyone out here in this tumblr internet void who has something in their pocket to spare for these students, there is no one more deserving. They are down seven trusted adults. If we can at least get them some funding for programming and make sure my former coworkers get paid, then I know I’ve done everything I can to make sure that 5280 is able to continue to help its wonderful, messy, brilliant student body now and into the future.

If you can give ‘em something, would you?

Tell them Scarlett sent you or something, I don’t know

[iamirhen]

Prev

Thanks @moosemonstrous for proof reading as always and also thanks @wazzappp for the artistic feedback.

[echoingalaxies]

"Close your eyes."

Said Caretaker to dying whumpee, caressing their hair, trying to make their last moments as peaceful and comfortable as possible.

Said Caretaker to scared Whumpee, holding a knife to Whumper's throat, about to make sure they never lay their hand on Whumpee again but wanting to spare Whumpee from witnessing any more violence.

Said Caretaker to injured Whumpee, cupping their chin and guiding their head up, not letting Whumpee look at the wounds covering their body.

Said Caretaker to sleepy Whumpee, who fears falling asleep because of all the traumatic nightmares they know they'll have, but with Caretaker by their side, whispering all kinds of reassurements, they might be okay.

[hoaxghost]

Is your demon oc Ariadne an assistant/apprentice to Stolforns?

Astute observation! Didn't think people woulda given thought to Ariadne since I don't talk bout her much.

She was part of a shared universe I had with an old friend that featured a lot of my demon ocs + Tiff. She was actually Stolforn's daughter created through a dark magic spell where a doll is imbued with life. He wasn't really the best dad in the world alas... but due to File Recovery becoming it's own separate thing, Ariadne's origin just didn't fit with anything anymore so she was kinda cut.

I can still see her being an assistant to Stolforns but she's no longer his canonical daughter.