Why am I me?
This is my story, this is why I am a person who wants to write, I hope that those who are having similar experiences will find some strength in what I have lived.
I moved to Tennessee in 2013 (if I remember correctly) I was 10, and while I had some head knowledge about what it meant to be Christian, being Christian didn’t change anything for me. I lived and thought like an atheist except on Sundays when I went to church and ignored the sermon. When I was 12 I got into porn, it started with an unhealthy curiosity, and ended in a nasty addiction. In God’s providence, my sister caught me after 4-5 months and safeguards were put in place to keep the temptation away. The 12-13 year old mind can, however, be very devious; through various means, I impeded the healing of my own mind by continuing to view porn. As my parents increased their efforts to distance me from the source of my addiction, their effort began to pay off, and while I had not yet learned to battle the temptation itself, I did learn to avoid the temptation as much as possible.
My relationship with my parents had never been very strong and under the pressure of all this it broke down and I became deceptive and uncommunicative, and developed a habit of sneaking off to watch movies or TV for no other reason than that it was not what I was supposed to be doing. Strangely enough even though my sister caught me at least as often as my parents did and though my relationship with her was almost as flimsy, rather than becoming bitter toward her I felt faintly sorry for her, sorry that she had to catch me.
The year I was 14 passed generally in this way, but after I turned 15 a couple of things happened, I was wearing thin, I didn’t have any really strong relationships left, most of my friendships were based on common occupations, church and gym, and the sibling I was closest to moved away. I felt alone and without purpose, and that is a recipe for depression. My emotions broke down until I was beginning to have suicidal thoughts, luckily I never reached the point at which I might have actually harmed myself, for this I can only thank God for the impulse which made me approach my sister. I remember sitting on the couch in her room and just thinking “If I don’t tell somebody then I’m going to keep on hurting until I destroy either myself or somebody else” and I just let my frustration come out. The other thing I remember is that I found out how much my sister cared and more importantly how much it had hurt her to see my constant rebellion, I can hear her literally saying “you are the only person in the world that I would die for.” I could see that she was telling the truth.
It has been a hard trek from there, but I believe that as long as I remember what my sister said I will never want to commit suicide. I am far from done with the task of killing my addictions to porn and escapism but at least I am going in the right direction now. I have taken a few steps to fix my relationship with my parents, and I reconnected with an old friend with whom I feel at least the beginnings of a strong relationship.
I try now to make Christianity mean something to me, I begin try to focus my mind on the truth of Christ throughout the day (with limited success), and when I go to church I listen to the sermon as best I can. I have walked on the edges of the valley of the shadow of death, many have gone deeper than I, but for all, it is necessary to understand that Humans are social creatures. The turning point was when I asked for help. I had to be humble.
