It has been a while since I have written in my blog. My apologies everyone and those that might not follow me, but yet read this. For anyone that has not been following a brief summary. I have struggled with Avoidance for a long long time. Probbaly since birth, though like most others, there was an event that seemed to trigger it at least exacerbate it.
I was in the Air Force many years back and was put in something called Correctional Custody. This is sort of like jail, but in my opinion, way worse. I was humiliated by staff that did a full body search, I was backed into a wall while 4 senior staff of the facility yelled an inch from my ear that I was worthless and would never amount to anything.
I want go into much more as that is how bad it was. The summary was that the Air Force did everything it could to tear me down and make be believe I was worthless. The military did this as part of their process of then building you back up. What the Air Force did not realize is that they were inflicting irreparable damage to an already fragile and torn up self esteem and personality. To this day, I carry around this feeling that I cant do anything right and I cannot achieve anything.
I have been fighting with the VA to get this recognized and get disability on this for over 30 years now.
Ok, that was the bad news, but now for the good news. There is always hope. These things can be overcome. Is it hard? You bet it is. The thing I hear the most is that I should just get over it. Well, I am here to say that its just not that easy.
On my own, I think this would be completely impossible, but all things are possible with God. What the world did to mess me up, God intended to fix. Now I wont say that I am 100%. Perhaps I will be 100% healed some day, but I am not there yet.
What i can say and give you in my story. The whole story is very very long, so its best to summarize. The 12 years since I have been married have been a mess. I was not very nice to my wife. I never hit her, but I was verbally abusive. I did things that I am ashamed of.
Why my wife stuck with me I will never know. This year my wife asked for a divorce. I guess she had finally had enough. We drew up the papers and she was ready to go. She checked out completely. I dont blame her and almost let her go. Things had gotten so bad that even my daughter wanted us to get a divorce. We fought all the time, and my daughter was in the middle. She hated the fighting and was being beaten up by it inside. She had turned unhappy, she saw horrible things in her dreams, she wanted to always sleep right by us because she was afraid we would not be there when she woke up, and was just plain not the happy girl she once was.
But just then God showed up in my life and in my marriage. I told my wife just how much I cared and I changed.
I did not just tell her that I would change, but I actually did. All of the sudden, things changed in me too. I was ready now to be the husband and father that I was supposed to be. Its been about 2 months now. We dont fight anymore. Oh sure, we have the occasional disagreement, but its night and day compared to what it was like.
We are happy now. I tell my wife daily how much I love her and need her. My daughter is happy now, sleeps in her own bed and has joy returning to her life. I wont say that avoidance is gone, but its close. I am going to continue writing my book on Avoidance, I am going to be starting up a class on this soon in the hope to help others in their journey with this.
Even my wife is on board with this and wants to help. There is many Normals that are struggling to live with those that have Avoidance that need help. We want to be there and help others to walk out of this with hope. The class will be held online. Its coming up September 13th. Here is the sign up for it.
http://www.meetup.com/Meridian-Avoidant-Personality-Disorder-Meetup/
Phillip
This is my log of my issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also struggling with this disorder and others like it. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tyKSgW-IeaK851gvIjjthije0kOwg3tZxVqKXSC1xXg/viewform I am trying to get more information on this disorder so that we can find commonalities. Perhaps if we can learn more about this, we can figure out how to combat it and get better lives for us all.
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