This is so hard to even start writing. But I'm hoping maybe if I get some of this out even if no one responds, I might feel a little better. I'm going to bet this is going to be super long.
I grew up in a Christian family and grew up in a great small Bible Church from age 7. I'm now 21 and 3 days away from the end of my 5th semester in a Technical College.
I went to public school growing up. In high school I never really had any friends I hung out with regularly. I lived out in the country where anywhere was a 20 minute drive, so I lived near no one. I fit in with several cliques depending on what class I was in or who was where at any time. Who I even called an acquaintance changed every year. I never had any real friends though. I could get along well with some people, and some people hated me and I had no idea who they were. But I was always the quiet person, very socially awkward. I have come to decide the main reason I don't speak much in group situations is because I don't relate to what is being said generally, and if I do I can't get a word in or I get interrupted. I gave up on that idea and I just live with the question "why don't you ever talk?" If I am going to talk at all, I do best in a one-on-one conversation. There weren't many true Christians in school, so true Christian friends were pretty much impossible to come by. But that's ok, because I have a great church...oh wait, I didn't have any friends there either. Acquaintances I could talk to about random things, absolutely, but no true friends that hung out with me and shared secrets, or whatever friends do. There really wasn't that many people in my age group. I went through that all through school. But at least I could go home to my family of my mom, dad, and younger brother.
in the Summer of 2007 I got my first job before my Junior year of HS. Fast food, and I still hold the same job today 4 and a half years later, just not at the same store. I met some very strange people and some cool people, but I was still alone as far as friendship goes. Granted, working close to people for awhile, I did end up talking to and getting a little closer to people than I did in high school. But still, not very many Christians to mingle with there either. Most people still like me there because of the fact that I pride myself on being a good worker. I've found some of the weird people like me for no reason as I never even talked to them, then I get randomly annoyed by them when they are working with me. I suppose it's an aura about me that attracts them, I dunno.
Graduate HS May 2009. I have decided to move 3.5 hours away from home to go to a Technical college and study computer maintenance. Architecture is where I saw myself in 5th grade, but by high school I started getting into computers and ran a small business throughout high school. Essentially I am a nerd or geek (I never understood the difference), but without the dorky glasses (just regular glasses) and no geek/nerd friends to hang out with and get bullied by the jocks (cue the movie cliches). I am not big on changes, and moving out of the house and living on my own was a huge change and a big step out of my comfort zone. I moved on campus and got a roommate that smoked, had a girlfriend that hated my guts (there's a weird story behind that), and was very messy. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment so the only mess I had to deal with was mainly the kitchen, but being the clean person I was it bugged me. I never really got to know the guy. I have no idea what his last name was. His friends that came by were all pretty weird. I decided by the end of the first semester, a roommate was not going to work out and I moved into my own apartment. When I went through my first semester of college I met a few guys, but didn't really make any friendships. One guy was pretty cool, but he got really sick and had to drop out for the remainder of the semester because he got so far behind, so I never saw him again. As far a church goes, I looked through the phone book and found a Bible church similar in size to my home church. By the third Sunday a college guy approached me and introduced me to his friends and invited me to the college Sunday school. I eventually became good friends with him, his wife, his brother in law and wife, as well as another girl there. As a group, that is the closest I have ever been to real friends. Because of my schedule between work and school I didn't get to hang out with them as much though so I really was the "outcast" of the group, for lack of a better way to say it at the moment.
Fast forward a little bit and I've become pretty good friends with them all and at the end of the second semester the guy I met first is graduating from college and moving with his wife an hour and a half away. I still have 3 good friends in town when I go back to school in the Fall I think though. When I get back into town in the Fall I find out none of them have gone to church all summer since the other guys left town. As a result I hang out with them 3 times in that whole semester. That's where things start going downhill for me. No friends to hang out with I sit around in my apartment alone most of my free time.
The beginning of the next semester the wife of the guy that was still in town has decided she no longer loves him and he found out she was cheating on him so he moved back home. So I lost a friend and the other moved away. And the last friend that was still in town usually only hung out with me if the others were there, so I never saw her again after that. That was a very lonely semester. I made a few friends within school having had several classes with them already. But nothing in which I would hang out with them outside of school. At this point there really was no one of college age at church any more, I was literally the only one in the Sunday school class. It was decided to stop doing the college age Sunday school so I just skip Sunday school and go to church now. A family I had known since I started going to the church started taking me to lunch after church and I got along with them ok. The Assistant Pastor at church talked to me about the fact that all my friends had left and said he wanted to be friends with me. The main problem with that is he really has very little time, so at most it's lunch out and talk for an hour. Even at church he only says hi to me. I'd like to tell him some of the things that I've been struggling with, but the opportunity never comes or I just can't say it. I just don't see him as enough of a friend. One thing he said that really bothered me for some reason before I left for home, he asked me what I did in my free time. I answered with "sitting around in my apartment mostly watching moves/tv shows and playing on the computer." He said simply "you gotta stop doing that." I didn't respond to it, but I really wanted to ask, "What would you like me to do? I don't have any friends to hang out with. Where am I going to go that's that much better than alone in my apartment?"
Starting this Fall semester as my fifth semester I went in knowing I had no friends again at church. Between the horrible classes I had and the loneliness factor, it has been the worst semester so far. I did make friends with a guy at school, but he's a Seventh Day Adventist so he asked me one day if he could come to my apartment on some Friday nights to get away from his roommates because that's his (verbatim) "Jesus time". In this time he's only supposed to think and talk about stuff of his religion and nature stuff so he says. So he's not really a lot of fun to hang out with during that time (Friday night to Saturday night). It's great to have time to set aside to spend with God as I would do as a Christian, but I still try to live with Christian morals outside of any time I spend with God. He openly says bad words and talks about women in not so great ways as well as plenty of other things. Meeting him at school you'd never even figure he had any type of belief at all because of the ways he talks sometimes. I met his roommates and one of his friends and I have to say they are far worse than he is, I will literally never go back to his apartment again. I am happy he has at least decided to wait for sex until marriage. He is easy to talk to one on one once I got to know him though, and when he's not under restriction of what he can talk about he's a cool guy. About the best friend I really can get anymore...
As far as relationships with girls go...I've never had one. Not even been close. That's really fine with me, but something inside me keeps wanting a girlfriend. It really would be nice to have a girlfriend as that's the one person I could tell about anything, but at the same time I know at this point in my life it would just complicate my life. A full time student that works 24 hours a week and shares the same schedule as no one has very little time to really hang out with a girlfriend as one probably should. Although finding a good Christian girl in my area is nearly impossible, so yeah. Not to mention how much I move. I go home for Christmas break, as I am about to in 3 days, for a month. And I go home for the entire 4 month summer break. If I met her here I'd not get to see her for ~5 months of the year and if she was at home it would be even longer. In my experience watching many failed relationships, long distance doesn't work. I see people all around me getting into relationships though and it just makes me feel even lonelier. I looked into Christian dating sites, but because of what I mentioned above I never got registered for any. There really has been only one girl I really liked. She is from my home church. I've liked her since at least 2005, but never said anything to her at all. We actually made a couple short films together and through that I decided we would never work together anyway. When I moved away to college I stopped thinking about her so much. For some reason I saw her profile on Facebook and kinda relapsed today. Not really sure why. I've never had feelings for anyone else as strong as I have for her even though I don't see us ever getting together.
Now to get to probably the biggest issue I have going on in my life. I have not ever told anyone ever before. I've always been embarrassed about it. I am addicted to inappropriate content. I have been since I was 12. My parents found some internet history and asked me about it early on, but I found ways to hide it pretty easy. I went for nearly a year without even looking at it I think sometime in middle school or high school. My addiction wasn't near as bad then but I didn't want to stop either. Now I can't stop. I want to go cold turkey and I tried it for a couple days. I held strong for about 3 days and then gave in to temptation again. If I don't think about it too much I can go a week, but if I think about it it's hard to go even a day. It's bad as it is for my relationship with God, but I've also been lying to my family and loved ones. I really can't tell them now that I've been struggling with this for 9 years without their knowledge. It would hurt too many people. This addiction is another reason I don't want a girlfriend. I can't feel I can truly have a girlfriend until I can kick this addiction as I'd want to be completely honest with her. Another thing that is causing me to look at inappropriate content more often is the fact that I feel so lonely. I really never used to do it several times a week until recently because I feel so alone and feel for a moment that that will fill the void only to be let down again and again, but I keep going back to it for something it will never provide... I hate this.
I've never really been very good about regular prayer and outside of church I never open my Bible, despite being raised a Christian and knowing that is the way to live in God's Word and truly know Him. I always find time for other stuff before God. I've talked to other people about that, but I can't seem to ever get into it.
I honestly don't know what I'm expecting to come out of this as I know I really need to start praying about everything and put it all in Gods hands and I know that's what everyone is going to say, more or less. But maybe some encouragement wouldn't hurt. I just put my biggest secret of my life out there for whoever to read. That's a really big deal to me.
Congratulations and thanks for reading if you even read to this point. I figured this would be long, but didn't figure on it being this long... I guess I had more to say than I thought.
I grew up in a Christian family and grew up in a great small Bible Church from age 7. I'm now 21 and 3 days away from the end of my 5th semester in a Technical College.
I went to public school growing up. In high school I never really had any friends I hung out with regularly. I lived out in the country where anywhere was a 20 minute drive, so I lived near no one. I fit in with several cliques depending on what class I was in or who was where at any time. Who I even called an acquaintance changed every year. I never had any real friends though. I could get along well with some people, and some people hated me and I had no idea who they were. But I was always the quiet person, very socially awkward. I have come to decide the main reason I don't speak much in group situations is because I don't relate to what is being said generally, and if I do I can't get a word in or I get interrupted. I gave up on that idea and I just live with the question "why don't you ever talk?" If I am going to talk at all, I do best in a one-on-one conversation. There weren't many true Christians in school, so true Christian friends were pretty much impossible to come by. But that's ok, because I have a great church...oh wait, I didn't have any friends there either. Acquaintances I could talk to about random things, absolutely, but no true friends that hung out with me and shared secrets, or whatever friends do. There really wasn't that many people in my age group. I went through that all through school. But at least I could go home to my family of my mom, dad, and younger brother.
in the Summer of 2007 I got my first job before my Junior year of HS. Fast food, and I still hold the same job today 4 and a half years later, just not at the same store. I met some very strange people and some cool people, but I was still alone as far as friendship goes. Granted, working close to people for awhile, I did end up talking to and getting a little closer to people than I did in high school. But still, not very many Christians to mingle with there either. Most people still like me there because of the fact that I pride myself on being a good worker. I've found some of the weird people like me for no reason as I never even talked to them, then I get randomly annoyed by them when they are working with me. I suppose it's an aura about me that attracts them, I dunno.
Graduate HS May 2009. I have decided to move 3.5 hours away from home to go to a Technical college and study computer maintenance. Architecture is where I saw myself in 5th grade, but by high school I started getting into computers and ran a small business throughout high school. Essentially I am a nerd or geek (I never understood the difference), but without the dorky glasses (just regular glasses) and no geek/nerd friends to hang out with and get bullied by the jocks (cue the movie cliches). I am not big on changes, and moving out of the house and living on my own was a huge change and a big step out of my comfort zone. I moved on campus and got a roommate that smoked, had a girlfriend that hated my guts (there's a weird story behind that), and was very messy. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment so the only mess I had to deal with was mainly the kitchen, but being the clean person I was it bugged me. I never really got to know the guy. I have no idea what his last name was. His friends that came by were all pretty weird. I decided by the end of the first semester, a roommate was not going to work out and I moved into my own apartment. When I went through my first semester of college I met a few guys, but didn't really make any friendships. One guy was pretty cool, but he got really sick and had to drop out for the remainder of the semester because he got so far behind, so I never saw him again. As far a church goes, I looked through the phone book and found a Bible church similar in size to my home church. By the third Sunday a college guy approached me and introduced me to his friends and invited me to the college Sunday school. I eventually became good friends with him, his wife, his brother in law and wife, as well as another girl there. As a group, that is the closest I have ever been to real friends. Because of my schedule between work and school I didn't get to hang out with them as much though so I really was the "outcast" of the group, for lack of a better way to say it at the moment.
Fast forward a little bit and I've become pretty good friends with them all and at the end of the second semester the guy I met first is graduating from college and moving with his wife an hour and a half away. I still have 3 good friends in town when I go back to school in the Fall I think though. When I get back into town in the Fall I find out none of them have gone to church all summer since the other guys left town. As a result I hang out with them 3 times in that whole semester. That's where things start going downhill for me. No friends to hang out with I sit around in my apartment alone most of my free time.
The beginning of the next semester the wife of the guy that was still in town has decided she no longer loves him and he found out she was cheating on him so he moved back home. So I lost a friend and the other moved away. And the last friend that was still in town usually only hung out with me if the others were there, so I never saw her again after that. That was a very lonely semester. I made a few friends within school having had several classes with them already. But nothing in which I would hang out with them outside of school. At this point there really was no one of college age at church any more, I was literally the only one in the Sunday school class. It was decided to stop doing the college age Sunday school so I just skip Sunday school and go to church now. A family I had known since I started going to the church started taking me to lunch after church and I got along with them ok. The Assistant Pastor at church talked to me about the fact that all my friends had left and said he wanted to be friends with me. The main problem with that is he really has very little time, so at most it's lunch out and talk for an hour. Even at church he only says hi to me. I'd like to tell him some of the things that I've been struggling with, but the opportunity never comes or I just can't say it. I just don't see him as enough of a friend. One thing he said that really bothered me for some reason before I left for home, he asked me what I did in my free time. I answered with "sitting around in my apartment mostly watching moves/tv shows and playing on the computer." He said simply "you gotta stop doing that." I didn't respond to it, but I really wanted to ask, "What would you like me to do? I don't have any friends to hang out with. Where am I going to go that's that much better than alone in my apartment?"
Starting this Fall semester as my fifth semester I went in knowing I had no friends again at church. Between the horrible classes I had and the loneliness factor, it has been the worst semester so far. I did make friends with a guy at school, but he's a Seventh Day Adventist so he asked me one day if he could come to my apartment on some Friday nights to get away from his roommates because that's his (verbatim) "Jesus time". In this time he's only supposed to think and talk about stuff of his religion and nature stuff so he says. So he's not really a lot of fun to hang out with during that time (Friday night to Saturday night). It's great to have time to set aside to spend with God as I would do as a Christian, but I still try to live with Christian morals outside of any time I spend with God. He openly says bad words and talks about women in not so great ways as well as plenty of other things. Meeting him at school you'd never even figure he had any type of belief at all because of the ways he talks sometimes. I met his roommates and one of his friends and I have to say they are far worse than he is, I will literally never go back to his apartment again. I am happy he has at least decided to wait for sex until marriage. He is easy to talk to one on one once I got to know him though, and when he's not under restriction of what he can talk about he's a cool guy. About the best friend I really can get anymore...
As far as relationships with girls go...I've never had one. Not even been close. That's really fine with me, but something inside me keeps wanting a girlfriend. It really would be nice to have a girlfriend as that's the one person I could tell about anything, but at the same time I know at this point in my life it would just complicate my life. A full time student that works 24 hours a week and shares the same schedule as no one has very little time to really hang out with a girlfriend as one probably should. Although finding a good Christian girl in my area is nearly impossible, so yeah. Not to mention how much I move. I go home for Christmas break, as I am about to in 3 days, for a month. And I go home for the entire 4 month summer break. If I met her here I'd not get to see her for ~5 months of the year and if she was at home it would be even longer. In my experience watching many failed relationships, long distance doesn't work. I see people all around me getting into relationships though and it just makes me feel even lonelier. I looked into Christian dating sites, but because of what I mentioned above I never got registered for any. There really has been only one girl I really liked. She is from my home church. I've liked her since at least 2005, but never said anything to her at all. We actually made a couple short films together and through that I decided we would never work together anyway. When I moved away to college I stopped thinking about her so much. For some reason I saw her profile on Facebook and kinda relapsed today. Not really sure why. I've never had feelings for anyone else as strong as I have for her even though I don't see us ever getting together.
Now to get to probably the biggest issue I have going on in my life. I have not ever told anyone ever before. I've always been embarrassed about it. I am addicted to inappropriate content. I have been since I was 12. My parents found some internet history and asked me about it early on, but I found ways to hide it pretty easy. I went for nearly a year without even looking at it I think sometime in middle school or high school. My addiction wasn't near as bad then but I didn't want to stop either. Now I can't stop. I want to go cold turkey and I tried it for a couple days. I held strong for about 3 days and then gave in to temptation again. If I don't think about it too much I can go a week, but if I think about it it's hard to go even a day. It's bad as it is for my relationship with God, but I've also been lying to my family and loved ones. I really can't tell them now that I've been struggling with this for 9 years without their knowledge. It would hurt too many people. This addiction is another reason I don't want a girlfriend. I can't feel I can truly have a girlfriend until I can kick this addiction as I'd want to be completely honest with her. Another thing that is causing me to look at inappropriate content more often is the fact that I feel so lonely. I really never used to do it several times a week until recently because I feel so alone and feel for a moment that that will fill the void only to be let down again and again, but I keep going back to it for something it will never provide... I hate this.
I've never really been very good about regular prayer and outside of church I never open my Bible, despite being raised a Christian and knowing that is the way to live in God's Word and truly know Him. I always find time for other stuff before God. I've talked to other people about that, but I can't seem to ever get into it.
I honestly don't know what I'm expecting to come out of this as I know I really need to start praying about everything and put it all in Gods hands and I know that's what everyone is going to say, more or less. But maybe some encouragement wouldn't hurt. I just put my biggest secret of my life out there for whoever to read. That's a really big deal to me.
Congratulations and thanks for reading if you even read to this point. I figured this would be long, but didn't figure on it being this long... I guess I had more to say than I thought.
