The MONSTER

For far too long, bitterness, self-loathing, isolation and despair have defined my mentality, my relationships, my very life. Those that have been hurt the most by my insular, self-destructive, and depressed mentality and actions have been those most close to me; more specifically, my mom, siblings, family, fiance, and what very few friends that I have left in this life. Silent, introverted, CRUSHING depression has deprived me of much the joy I enjoyed in this world.

I have very recently admitted to and been attempting to encounter a contemptuous DEMON of alcoholism, a damned fear made manifest by seeming self-fulfilled prophecy. My family has a history of the disease, and being aware of this, I grew up in almost debilitating fear of succumbing to the grave infliction. Strangely enough, a man in Kodiak, Alaska supposedly told me that I would collapse under the hell of alcoholism while in a confessional. I thought that surely, I was destined for such a path if I did not follow God's path impeccably.

Around a year and a half or so ago, I was partnered with a few friends that attended St. Innocent's Academy in Kodiak, Alaska, an organization we were (and still are) convinced is a religious personality cult, headed by a man of unflinching stubbornness, despite his deposition because of the overwhelming evidence and testimony of spiritual, medical, psychological, and even physical abuse. I personally witnessed many inappropriate, outlandish incidents, much to my horror and confusion. This was a man of GOD! How could he do such things?! Yet here he was, assuring us and yet THREATENING us, saying that he knows what he is doing and no one else could do what he does, and yet, if we tried to report him to anyone, no one would believe us. No one would believe a snot-nosed kid over a priest! And surely one who has tried so hard to put on a happy-go-lucky, godly facade as him! To defy him was to not just defy him, but God and the community at large. Such was inverted death sentence. There was no escape on the Island. Yet so I thought...

Fast forward around 7-8 years, after my public face-off with the man at Kodiak and the episcopate via social media, a website, news  articles and news segments on news stations nation and world wide did a little bit of something come about. The man, Paisius DeLucia, was deposed and defrocked of his priestly title. Yet, horrifically, even though many of the core members, especially the families that supported him and his group leave and go to the adjoining church (including the two clergy at the Academy), he still insisted on wearing his cassock, a sign of clergy membership of many various ranks in the Orthodox Church! And despite his beloved bishop!

Yet, with this small victory, I actually felt ever the more confused, self-doubting. I tried so ardently to serve so many people during this period of my life, yet I felt all the more hollow, unfulfilled. I suddenly stopped going to church, my new beloved church here in Omaha, All Holy Spirit Greek Orthodox Church. I started spiraling around a drain of misery, losing/abandoning not only my center of life and focus, my faith, but I turned to the bottle for comfort in secret. Thorny weeds were springing up with shallow roots, choking me, blinding me.

Depression much of the time grips my mind, but quietly, subtly, as I try in all manliness and superficial pride to bury it. Yet, especially at night, when I try to sleep or in the middle of the night, the MONSTER, that old croke, sits upon my back crushing me, yet, at the same time, he digs his curling claws into my chest, pulling my ribcage. Psychologically, I feel my breath being squeezed out of me and then my sternum and ribs being pulled apart, the snapping, cracking horrifically echoing in my ears. The MONSTER laughs as you then convulse under his weight, drowning in your own pooling, hot, sticky blood. You cannot scream, you cannot move; you are in astute yet numbing pain. I scream, there is no sound.

This is my every day reality as of this point. Despite me having started going to AA and now having a sponsor, I feel this anxiety, this MONSTER in me, on me, around me every waking moment. I have made genuine attempts to make some reconciliations, to rebuilt relationships and started going back to church, along with my endeavours with AA. Yet the hollowness persists. The creeping hoarfrost has snagged my legs, my arms, my chest, and mind. But I am fighting to step into the morning sun, to bathe in it's warming rays, to melt this cold that has seized me. Oh, LORD, let this ice thaw from me, let the light cast away the shadow of the MONSTER that stalks me.

I am entering a time in my life where joy and light should outweigh and outshine the darkness. I am getting married very soon, to a woman that loves me, takes care of me, and knows me better than I know myself. And yet despite all my faults, she loves me all the same. This I try to focus on every day of my life. I only pray that the MONSTER is not just kept at bay, but that he is banished forever from my life and those around me. I want only light, love, joy, and PEACE to pervade.

And I want the same for all those struggling with addiction and/or depression. You are NOT alone! You never are, and never can be!