Can't I just be happy?

So I am a therapist right and I know all the ends and out of how to help other people deal with their own issues...but my issues, well that is a whole different ballgame. The wonderful person that was mentioned in my last blog as someone that I was "talking" has graduated to boyfriend status. Yes an official boyfriend. Things should be wonderful right?

Well it would be if I wouldn't over think every text message and convince myself every other day that he is going to say that he was just kidding about this whole relationship thing and he doesn't really want that kind of relationship with me.

See the problem. I am the problem.  I have experienced heartbreak so much that I can't enjoy my relationship when it is going just fine. We are both busy professionals, we don't live in the same county and have to be at work before 8 a.m. This are all things that I know. But I keep comparing this to past relationships that failed or worrying that it will end the same way. Then the real kicker is when I compare our relationship to other peoples relationship. You know people who see each other more than once a week. We talked for a long time, and techniqually this is our first month of dating but I am 27 and I am sick of games but I can't tell him that because that could scare him and it would be over. I don't want it to be over....so why can't I just be happy with what I have?

Rapidly Slow

If things could be going painfully slow, and way to fast all the same time that might explain my world right now.
I am in that werid session of life, that admitedly I have been in for awhile now, but at I approch 27 which is far closer to 30 than 20, is starting to get to me. The season where all your friends are getting married and some of your friends are even having children, or their second child. You congratlate them, you send gifts with your best wishes, you even attend or accept the honor of being in the wedding party. Then late at night it hits you, even though are activily "talking" to someone those things, the wedding, having children, building houses...they aren't in your forseeable future. They might happen in the next three years, maybe, but most likely they won't and you celebrate your 30th birthday doing something really depressing like having yet another Harry Potter viewing party, alone, eating Ben&Jerry's in your comfy pants.
But wait, I sound sad but I have all these accomplishments, I have a Master's, I passed the NCE, I have a great job, I am working toward a National Certification in Tramua Therapy, I am the Director of a Summer Camp, I help with a youth (a lot) and do all these amazing things.
But where is the time for me to met with the Father? When have I blocked that off in my tight daily routine. When do I stop and thank him for all that he has done for me?
If I am being truthful rarely. Rarely do I take the time cultivate my personal relationship, I study for classes I teach, work on next years camp material. But time for me to stop being busy and work on my relationship with the father, well I don't make time for that. Because it is scary, what if he wants me to work on some things in my life, some areas that I keep to myself. So as I keep people out of the hard places, I try to keep the Father out too.
But where do I even start to change? Get in the word, listen to podcast, listen to music. All of these things I do, but what about being still and knowing that he is Lord. Well not sure if I have mastered that skill yet. I am never still I am always doing something. So how can I BE STILL when I have so much of HIS work to do. Camp won't plan itself you know, the lesson doesn't get taught without someone being there. I don't have an answer to this, just a heart cry. Teach my soul and heart to be still and calm.

Almost finished with my first year...

I am 36 hrs away from completing my first year of being a school therapist, and I have shown "growth in my abilities" so that was cool.  I love where I work, the teachers at the schools I serve at and my Communicare family. I don't know how I would have survived this first year without them. My outside of work life is a bit complicated. Due to the whole live in one County, work in one County, go to church/serve at said chuch in another county thing. So I have the really large triangle that I go around. I can't imagine change a single part of this it is who I am and what I am suppose to do for now.

My house is cute and I love being around my family that I never got to see and being in the Ingomar community, I have met a really amazing friend that makes this transition easier, and all I can say about him is he is the most wonderful friend I could have asked for in this session of life.

My work is hard and I really hate paperwork but the lovely ladies I get to goof off with make it so great.

My church, where to start....well in Aug. I became the unoffical interm youth leader and I love love love my Shady people. We done fall retreat, YEC, DNow, and in a week we will be loading up and going to Williamsburg KY for MFuge. I love seeing them grow and have fun.

I am also directing a Kid's camp for PCBA this summer...CRAZY, I don't know how I will pull it off, but I know that GOD will do great things.

NOW,  I got to go do some fun stuff for Mental Health Awareness day in the park.

my life is so different than it was a year ago but I am okay with it, the people that have been added to my life make all the change worth it.

in christ
Ash

Here's my life

I have struggled most of my life with acute axienty and depression. I know this because well I am studying it. It is odd to be in a classroom full of people and next to friends and be reading symptoms and realize that I really do have a problem. But it is also empowering to sit in the same class and learn what I can do the change the way I think. How I see myself.
You see I have never had a great self-image. I have never thought I was pretty. Until one day I looked in the mirror and thought you know you are pretty, and dang it your pretty flipping awesome too. I have some awesome friends and an amazing sister who tell me this but those words from them aren't the ones I have been searching for. It doesn't take to much to guess who I would have rather heard them from. But then when I do here them from guys I still don't believe they are being truthful. I then just tell myself that they are just lying so they can kiss me......well some of them may have just wanted to kiss me. Acutally I am very certain of that.
Know my field of study has mountains of research that would suggest that because I tend to need the company and friendship of males, rather romantic or platonic, I had some sort of father uses. My sister's therapist says our parents were verbally abusive. I don't know. I was always a daddy's girl. Somedays I call my dad just to hear his voice. I remember his relationship being strained with my sister and them fighting a lot, mostly about us having to be "perfect" because we were the preacher's family. By the time I got to High school she had been to therapy once and he had backed off that but I also had learned how to work them. I knew that if I was just really blunt with them they would back off. In High school though I didn't do a whole lot of "bad" things. I waited till college to do anything they would have not so much approved of. Then I was an "adult" and old enough to make my own mistakes. Trust me I have.
I have made more mistakes than I really want to admit to at this point.
(More Later)

So I am a School therapist....wait WHAT!

oh how good and amazing the Lord is,
Sometime in March or April I was sitting in my car getting my oil changed, ( I really miss my oil change place) when my phone rang. It was a lady from Communicare in Oxford asking me for an interview in May. Obiviously I said YES! and got it schuduled for the Monday after I finished my Grad program.
Fast Forward to May. I had my last day of work at BXS on May 16 and walked on May 17 (of course in typical Ashley fashion I had a horrible sinus infection the whole weekend). On the 18th I spent the day going to graduation services with my best friend and sucessfully took photos (really bad photos I might add due to previously stated sickness) with all the graduates that I knew. It was fun and tiring and I fell down not once but twice that day. THEN I drove the 4 hour drive to Batesville to my parents/my new homeish. (we will get to that part.) On Sunday I went to church, went to a retirement luncheon for two of the women who helped shape me to who I am. My first grade teacher, Shirley White, and my Career Discovery teacher, Wanda Gooch. THEN I got to see my house for the first time since my Papaw went to the Nursing Home.
On Monday I interviewed with Communicare, and then went and started cleaning my house. On Tuesday I went BACK to Hattiesburg and cleaned on my apartment some and came back sometime on Wednesday. I was then no longer a resident of Lamar County (though my car tag says other wise :D)
Then the next three weeks I spent cleaning, painting, and talking about floors and furniture with my mom. In conclusion I think I will never try to build my own house. In the middle of all of that I was asked to go on the youth trip. The Friday before we left I got a phone call from Communicare asking me to come in for fingerprinting.
July has been less let say busy, mostly working at Cracker Barrel. I waited and waited and waited for a call back from Communicare. FINALLY I got a letter for a job in Calhoun County in the Bruce School District. SO blessed.
I started today and I am now trying to read the employee manual.
(More on how cool that I am in the SCHOOL system later)

so much has happened...

Well I was not as prepared for my self challege as I thought and Satan is so ready to tempt...Well December was not a great month, and I have learned I know some really not great guys!

BUT since Dec. 29 I have been kiss free.....

I have only 63 days till I finish my MASTER'S what what! The road that has brought me here has been crazy hard. BUT so grateful for the things that the road has taught me

Humm...What next, what next. STAY TUNED big announcement next month

A year without Kisses...

Last night I got the joy of hearing Miss Mo Isom speak to my beautiful Calvary girls. I know they needed to hear a lot of what she had to say. But One thing she talked about stopped me in my tracks.

SHE had a year long intimacy fast. WOW! like Wow, God just spoke to me there and said Ashley this is what I want for you for the next year. I didn't say anything to anyone as I packed my things and drove home with my best friend who had been with me on the trip.

I should explain: 

 The past two years have been rough emotionally. You can see previous post. I have had a roller coaster of emotions that have left a path of destruction in its wake. At the end of my relationship with Mitch I had started down a really dangerous path. A path that isn't easy for me to talk about, But I am coming clean, I had started viewing pornagraphic materials and reading erotic novels. It was a crazy road of conversations that happened between two people who where planning on getting married. Though now I know that those conversations should have never happened. When he broke up that relationship it let a whole in me. A whole I was trying to fill with just about anything. The addiction deepened. 

Then almost exactly a month later I went to visit my sister. A friend not really thinking about what he was saying said something to the effect of I bet you couldn't get "___ _____" to go out with you a 5th time. My brain went all "challenge accepted" and by the time I got back to Amory I had been texting ___ ____ for awhile. I sent many text and had a lot of phone calls to the guy and most nights the conversations sounded more like the books I had been reading than a conversations that a Children Director at a church should be having. We planned to meet to go to a football game. The game would be a middle ground, THEN he suggested that we get a motel room and Then my this is not who I am alarm went off and I ended up lying to him and telling him I was sick...(I was not sick and I still went to the game) There were many other times that we ALMOST meet up between then and January. We still were texting and my addiction to porn was getting stronger. 

In Feb. of 2011 I moved back to Hattiesburg, I was deep into the addiction at that point and NO ONE knew about it. Sometime in March I started talking to my friend Brittni Clark about my addiction. She was a great help she pointed me to a great filter and put in on my computer and keep the password for herself. 

BUT I had another way to have my "fix" I entered into a very unhealthy relationship with a guy I should have Never dated. It was all physical, it was more physical than I ever wanted to go. To say that  I am still a virgin after that relationship is spliting hairs. I pushed every boundary. I was so broken,  I had a need to feel wanted by a man, and even though at that time I was not watching porn I was in deeper than I had ever imagined. I ended that relationship at the beginning of May. But within a week I had contacted "___ ____" and bought a new computer. I needed the computer. But I was not smart. I did not protect my computer. It took me almost 6 months before I would protect my computer. That summer I also got an iPhone so I had two devices that I could watch porn at anytime I wanted. That summer my addiction deepened even more. I was becoming more and more broken. That fall I began as I started getting more and more under conviction about my addiction I started telling my best friends and my sister about my addiction. It still had a hold on my life. I even looked at personal ads and on two occasions almost met up with random guys from the internet. I have had amazing friends who have done their best keep me accountable even when I would hide my actions from them. They have literally taken my smart phone and iPad out of my hands and blocked all questionable websites. They have "grounded" me for going to see "___ ____" But the desire is still in my heart.

I feel like I need to take a fast from guys from the persuit of their attention and from the relationships with them that feed the desires of my addiction. IT will be hard but with God I can do anything.