This was posted on the YS forums this morning. I’m just in shock.
Someone suggested I repost this here since this forum gets a bit more traffic. If this isn’t allowed, please delete this. Deep breath…I can do this this…I’ve had to admit some hard truths to to myself and my associate pastor this year.I was raped (again) at the beginning of last year. I spent a good 6 months in denial until it got to the point where my body couldn’t take it anymore. My senior pastor noticed me crying in church one day last summer and after a couple of weeks, I managed to admit to him what happened. He was the first one I told about it. He’s been very good at supporting me through this and some other things. He kept quiet about it at my request and I’ve spent the last year or so trying to figure out how to deal with this and keep some shred of sanity.About a month before we left on our mission trip, I decided I had just better mention the bare details about what’s been going on to my a.p. I figured if I ended up waking up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares (which usually isn’t a problem since I live alone) it might be nice if someone had some clue what was going on. She was supportive of me during the mission trip when things got a little rough for me and I needed some time just to “be.”Fast forward to about a month ago. I got highly overwhelmed one night, decided I had enough and well. Put it his way…I still have the scar on my left wrist where I sliced it open. I told my sp about it, and we talked some. It took me another week before I managed to screw up the courage to mention it to my ap. She was supportive enough, but seemed more worried about me getting past the pain so I’m a good role model for the kids.I know I need to be a good role model, and I’m not worried about that or about being the happy, perky one around everyone. Just yesterday I had a church member comment to me that “it’s so nice to see [me] so happy all the time.” So I’m quite the actress.Unfortunately, I’m nearly too good of an actress. I’ve since decided that I don’t want to deal with this anymore and it isn’t fair to make anyone else have to deal with it either. I’m fairly certain that it will eventually blow up in my face. I’ve been sort of on shakey ground this past week or so, but I’m still hanging in there. I’ve been in the midst of pushing everyone away who would ever think about caring about me (don’t get me wrong, it’s not even a large group of people in that category, but still). I know I’m setting myself up to eventually fail, but I’m tired of all of this.How in the world do I wrestle all of my huge faith issues amongst all of this mess, take care of myself and still be the good role model that I’m expected to be? I was actually a bit surprised that I wasn’t told to stay from the youth after I admitted all of this, but apparently the ap realizes I can do this. And I can…that’s not the issue. I’m just worried about sacrificing my sanity in the process.Please don’t tell me this is the wrong time for me to be diving head first into this ministry. I know I can do this. I *WANT* to do this. I’m just questioning things right now.
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