Does a nasty, flat rat reflect on you personally?

In case you don't follow me on twitter (which, you should follow me @Jenelle_Stone ), I thought I'd tell you about a very harrowing experience that will scar me forever.

Now, the way I see it, there are three types of hardships. Self-Prescribed, Natural, and Someone Else-Prescribed.

If you did something to directly give you a trial or hardship, then it is self prescribed. If someone else did something that resulted in you going through a trial, then it is someone else-prescribed. If your trial came about naturally or without fault to anyone specifically, then it is a natural hardship.

I think we all go through each type of hardship throughout our lives to make us stronger, to teach us, and to test us.

At least in my opinion.

So the other day I met a swindler, a master of destruction, a real RAT!

No, really. It was a real rat. Well, actually, it was a gopher or a vole or something.

We have pocket gophers, which I have seen on a regular basis, but this guy looks so much smaller.

Anyway, I stepped on him in my garden without realizing it, tracked him out into the yard, and then looked down and freaked out! Maggots crawled out of the dead rodent, which made it worse.

See his nasty looking teeth?

                                          

Ack!

I had to wash my shoes, scoop up the flat, dead creature and dispose of it.

Honestly, how am I supposed to overcome that kind of trauma?!!!

Now, I am tempted to ask, "Why Me?" or "Why did this happen to me?"

But sometimes things happen that have no reflection on us. I didn't go looking to step on a rodent. No one tried to put the rodent in my path so that I would step on it. This occurred naturally. It just happened.

NATURAL HARDSHIP!

Your trials don't always reflect you personally, especially if they are brought on naturally or by someone else's decisions.

Like with spouses of addicts. You hear all the time that your spouse's addiction is not about you. And it's true! Their addiction does not create you or define you. It will try, though. A spouse's addiction will try to make you feel awful about yourself. But it is false. It doesn't reflect on you at all.


Your trials don't always reflect on you personally.

Now, not following me on twitter (@Jenelle_Stone) will reflect on you personally. I'm just saying.

Dealing with the nightmares

I would be interested to know how many spouses of addicts out there suffer from nightmares surrounding their addict spouse. Especially in the beginning after you first find out about their addiction or something related to their addiction.

My personal advice for this is thus: Prayer and reading scriptures

When you just can't go to sleep because your brain won't stop thinking about life. When you can't get rid of the nightmares about your addict spouse.

I won't say that prayer and reading scriptures gets rid of nightmares, at least not immediately. I think that time has to help a little as well. But they do offer a comfort, a chance for peace and a chance to think about something other than what is going on in your life.

And, when you just need that help, that life line to constant love and a plea for peace, who better to ask than God? If only for that short amount of time before you sleep, talking to your Father In Heaven will help.

I had a time in my life where I had to pray while falling asleep. And waking up from the nightmares, I would pray again until I fell asleep again. The nights were too full of nightmares to have the waking time around them be full of nightmares as well. Heavenly father was my lifeline, my constant Go-To. Even though I was tired, I knew that thoughts about what I was going through and my situation would keep me up. So I would read my scriptures until I was even more tired, and then I would pray until I fell asleep. Time definitely helped, prayer and reading  scriptures helped, and healing from the trauma helped.

Whatever your traumatic, hard situation is, remember to pray. Sometimes the greatest peace you will ever find is during your plea for peace.

What do you do to find peace in hard situations? Please feel free to share!

Leave Josh Dugger' s Wife Alone

Dear Media,

Leave Josh Duggar' s wife alone. I am purposefully not using her name, as to the point of my letter.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a whole ton about the Josh Duggar situation. Apparently, though, no one does. Which I'm pretty sure is common in this type of situation.

What I will say is this:

Leave his wife out of the picture! I have seen her photograph on articles discussing Josh's actions, articles about herself and the rest of the family, etc. 

This really bothers me! There are people out there who do so many more worse things than Josh Duggar and their spouses aren't pasted all over the news. 

When a wife is faced with the horrific situation of dealing with her husband's addiction, everything feels like it's in turmoil. You are sorting out your feelings, sorting out the situation, trying to find out what is really going on. 

And does life around you stop? No it does not. And you still want to celebrate the things worth celebrating. Not that you are always in the mood to celebrate, but you don't want to miss the happy occasions. Like babies being born, holidays, family get togethers. You WANT to be happy, you don't want to miss out. 

Only it is hard because usually your supposed knight in shining armor is dishing out crap by the barrel. 

And as you are figuring out your relationship, you are also figuring out your self image.

I can tell you for sure that most spouses of addicts would not want to go through all of this in the public eye. 

And most don't have to. Whether or not they stay with their husbands (and hopefully develope a better relationship through counceling), or if they part with their husbands, most don't have to go through it and figure this out publically.

So leave her out of this. Let her go through this hard time without the focus of the media being on her. 

I realize that the Duggar family is a sort of public family, though I never watched their show myself. But back off on this one. Let her be.

Thanks,

A very annoyed citizen

These girls just don't get it

Do you ever have an Aha moment? 

Well, I had one of those moments a couple of weeks ago while reading a blog post on alicross.com. As she points out, the porn system has changed in recent years to include material that is instigated, produced and distributed by young girls. I knew this before, but I had never had it hit me quite like it did while reading this post.

Ack! Gone are the days where the young girl has to travel to the slimy part of town, praying that no one she knows sees her. Now all a young girl has to do is pull out her cell phone, link to the Internet and voila! Instant moral defecation!

What kind of message does that send to our young boys? No longer can parents say that that isn't indicative of what women are truly like. No longer can parents say that girls don't like it when boys look at that kind of stuff. Because even though these statements are as true as ever, the boys won't believe them. Why? Because why would Suzy from school post bad pictures if she wasn't OK with it? No one made her do it.

These girls are helping to ruin it for the rest of us.

What are these girls thinking? Truth is, they don't know he extent of the problem hey are perpetuating. They don't realize that they are helping to further men's addictions and that they are helping to hurt and ruin relationships, marriages, and families. 

And, frankly, they probably don't get it. They don't understand the issue and the pain caused to both the addict and their families. Lots of these girls focus on the "girl power," the ability to "choose whatever they want to do with their body" without thought to how it will affect their futures or other people.

Maybe they will have their own Aha moments when they catch their husbands, a couple years down the road, looking at other girls' pictures online.

I love this quote from Author Ali Cross (who by the way is super awesome!)

"As a mom of boys, my perspective might be a little different. Because I think the tables are turned and while “girl power” is playing loud and clear from the sound system of social media, my boys no longer have a clear, unobstructed path to becoming the sort of men women want them to be." -Ali Cross at AliCross.com


Go check out her blog  post at http://www.alicross.com/being-a-boy-in-the-instashame-world/

And help your daughters to understand the extent of the problem. They are not just sporting their bodies, they are supporting a maniacal world of family-destroying material.

Do you want to know the details?

Remember I am not a therapist. These are just my thoughts.

It is so tempting for the spouse of a pornography and sex addict to want to know all of the details of their spouse's addiction. I personally think it's because you want to know what is going on, where exactly your spouse and marriage stands and how deep they are into it. You want to understand, you want to know and figure things out.

But this is very, very dangerous. Because knowing all of the little details can make you feel worse.

I think that the addict should be very forthcoming and honest about his or her addiction, and that they should answer any questions that their spouse has. Completely and honestly. 

I also think that you as the spouse of an addict should really think things through before you ask. Ask yourself if the information you seek is really needed. 

For example, I would definitely want to know about the major details of the addiction. How long they've been into this stuff, what does that stuff include (like, is this all on the internet, phone lines, etc.), how have they been accessing or finding this stuff, how often do they engage in this kind of activity? Does their addiction include anything having to do with children? 

It's not a fun conversation(s).

But then there is the stuff that won't help you and will only make you obsess. Do you really want to know the names of the women whom they've been looking at (if they even know)? Ok, I just made that question up on the spot. But it gives you an idea of somethings you might ask in a moment of pain and hurt that later won't help you at all. 

On the other hand, that question may be very appropriate. If you can't think of a situation where that question would be needed, then good. Be glad that you can't.

Aggh! It's not an exact science by any means, but it is something to think about. 

Consider what information you need and what information will only make you obsess. Though many times these two things coincide. :( 

War of the Window Stickers

I HATE HATE HATE when you see the window stickers in the shape of an alluring woman on the back of someone's car. It's offensive.

Then I saw this sticker on someone's car. A cowboy with a gut. I'll admit I laughed! And since I first saw this sticker, I now see it everywhere.  I laugh every time because it's totally making fun of the other, offensive sticker.

So, I thought I'd share it with you. 

Because really? Come on! There are very few faster ways to make your car seem trashy than to cover it with pornographic outlines of women.

"I feel so low and your head is high"

WARNING: THIS POST AND THE LINKS ARE FULL OF SOME VERY SERIOUS TRIGGERS FOR THE SPOUSE OF AN ADDICT. TREAD WITH CAUTION, OR DON'T READ.

For those of you who don't know my very well, I am a major fan of 80's music! I was listening to a compilation of 80's songs the other day and T'Pau's "Heart and Soul" came on.

I loved the sound of this song, but had never really known the words before. So, I looked them up.

And Whoah! This song is totally relateable for anyone who has ever been in a "complicated" relationship, had a spouse with a pornography or sex addiction, had a spouse that participated in affairs, etc.

The whole song is about how she loves this guy but he isn't reciprocating that love back to her. She realizes he never did, and that he's been lying to her. The songs says he left her for another. Part of her wants him to make it right and give her "love, heart and soul." But the other part of her doesn't want him around. Her blood runs cold when she realizes that he is coming back.

Part of me is mad. Couldn't this song just have been a fun, 80's song and not some deep meaning, heart felt ballad?

But, this song hits the spouse of an addict predicament on the head of the nail.

Check out the lyrics- http://www.metrolyrics.com/heart-and-soul-lyrics-t-pau.html

And then listen to it as you read the lyrics. If you've been through something like this, I'll bet you'll get the shivers.

I still love this song anyway.