The Dark Mask

As it turns out, I did not have what it took to ensure that the right decision was made and followed through. I remember feeling and knowing that an abortion was not the answer. Was I mature enough to have a child? NO WAY! Were we in a position to provide for a child in the way that we thought we should? NO WAY! The truth is that had we had that child, who would now be a teenager in high school, we would have struggled and it would have been hard. The only thing, however, that we needed in that situation to provide everything that child needed was God. Period. Unfortunately, neither one of us knew Him in the true sense and we made a decision that would haunt us for years to come.

I don't know what ever happened to my girlfriend. We never really dove deep into the pain that came with that event. We chose to bury it. I remember hurting deeply. I remember drinking to mask the hurt. I smoked pot and did cocaine to mask the hurt. I remember doing anything and everything to pretend like it never happened and that it was just one of those things that "we had to do."  Pretending that I believed it was the "right" decision. Truthfully, it wasn't. It hurt. My girlfriend hurt in ways that I will never understand. I hurt in ways that I can never explain with words. My unborn child never was. This event, and events to come, only dug the knife of insecurity deeper and made me feel even more like I would never be that "someone" to anyone.

Because I masked this pain and never addressed the difficult and unwise decision that I had been a part of, I would find myself in the exact same place just a few years later with a different girlfriend. How could I get back to this place? I am destined to be this horrible of a person? Is this just who I am and who I was meant to be? How could I put someone through this much hurt again as a result of my selfish, uncensored, and unfiltered pleasure? These are all some of the thoughts that went through my head. I was in a very dark place. A place that, in all honesty, I had been in for years. I found myself stealing from roommates, taking out a pay day loan to pay for my girlfriend's abortion, and all the while smiling and pretending everything was ok. The end result was the same. I had lived through yet another abortion. I had hurt another girl's heart. I had dug that dagger of insecurity even deeper into my own heart.

During this time in my life I spent a lot of time and effort blaming Christians and criticizing church as a whole. They were hypocrites,  I said. They just smile and pretend it's ok and talk behind your back. They were all screwed up on the inside but faked it so well on the outside. This was my attitude towards anyone who called themselves a Christian. Funny how similar that looked to who I was at that time. There is a type of emotional behavior in the psychiatric field called cognitive dissonance (defined below). It's an avoidance tactic that I became very good at. Alcohol was my medicine of choice and I drank it very well. I like to say that I was never an alcoholic. In the medical sense of withdrawal and all of the clinically related aspects of the word I probably wasn't. What I was, however, is socially and psychologically dependent on alcohol. It made me happy (at the time). I became the life of the party. It gave me the opportunity to share stories and a common bond with my friends. Most importantly, it helped me to cover up and avoid facing any real issues. I was broke because of bar tabs. I was unmotivated and lazy because of hangovers. I was, in every sense of the word, depressed and drinking was my ironic solution.

So, what's the God side of this part of the story? Where does He factor in? Where was He through all of this? Isn't he The All Mighty and powerful, couldn't he have stopped this and/or saved me, my girlfriends, the abortions? The answer to all of these questions is yes and He did but, unfortunately, this is an ongoing blog. So to get the rest of the story you'll have to keep reading. I will, however, leave you with this verse to ponder until next time. Remember that it's not presence of God that is absent but it is our lack of acknowledgement and pursuit of Him that keeps up from His promises.


But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 4:29New King James Version (NKJV)

Cognitive Dissonance: Tension between thoughts and actions inconsistent with those thoughts. A tense and uncomfortable contradiction exists unless your actions support your thoughts and beliefs. To close the gap and relieve this tension humans often revise their thoughts to support their actions. People who cannot stop smoking convince themselves that smoking is good. They highlight the relaxation, autonomy, sophistication, weight control, and maturity symbolized by smoking. They certainly don't emphasize the health risks, expense, and filth created by the habit they cannot escape. Irrevocable bad decisions are similarly defended. People who bought the wrong car, lost money in the stock market, went on a disappointing vacation, or got a bad haircut spontaneously invent clever defenses for the actions they are now stuck with. What is remarkable is how strongly we believe these self-justifying stories when we make them up ourselves.
Source: http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/