Celebrate Recovery

Is Change a Bad Word?

/ Nicole Bartell / 1 Comment

In 2011, my word for that year was “change”. I can still remember driving to work that January morning, talking to Father about what word He would give me to represent the coming year and hearing that word spoken to my heart. I was NOT happy! Firstly, I felt that I had already gone through a great deal of hard, life-altering changes the previous couple of years, and I dreaded there being more. I avoided, as much as possible at that point in my life, the pain of living in reality. I was still in so much denial, and I truly wanted to escape the reality of my situation, frequently at any cost. The desire to avoid reality drove me back to the past hang-ups and habits of control, food, and pornography in an attempt to shove the pain back into a box where I didn’t have to deal with it. Later that year, something happened that changed our family drastically. I couldn’t escape it. The burnt husk of what remained was a constant reminder that my life had altered. I was also trying to help an eight year old figure out how to navigate this new reality. This was the catalyst that drove me to take my very first steps toward recovery. I sought help. I began to see the high, impenetrable wall I had built around my heart to keep people out and to keep me safe from harm. I also began to realize that the wall I had erected for my protection also locked in all my pain and darkness, and that I wasn’t allowing the Healer to access any of it so I was stuck with it. Opening the gate allowed Jesus and His light in, but it also let all that pain I had barricaded within begin to pour out. I was overwhelmed. It was hard for me to cling to the Scripture Father had given me that year to go with the dreaded word “change”:

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.“ Isaiah 43:2 NIV

It felt exactly like a flood, and I was certain I would drown. At that time, I was trying to work through it on my own. My counselor had moved, and in my codependency I didn’t want to burden anyone else with my problems. The darkness was so great during this time that I often contemplated suicide, just so the pain would end. I couldn’t seem to stuff it back down. It demanded to finally be acknowledged. I made the choice to go on anti-depressants because I didn’t want to leave my still young child. The pills took the edge off, enough that I could somewhat function, but I was still in a lot of emotional agony, so my acting out increased in an attempt to shove it all back down. That continued for the next few years until Father finally led me to Celebrate Recovery where I learned that I didn’t need to go through it alone, but that the only way I could truly be free of it was to to walk through it.

I could not have imagined back in 2011 all the changes that lay before me. However, change became a little less scary over time. As I learned to accept the things I couldn’t change and sought courage to change what I could (me), and as I learned to stay in the moment, one day at a time, “change” became easier to bear. I’m no longer dealing with it on my own. Besides my sponsor, mentors, and a supportive accountability team, recovery brought another change in my life. I became even closer to my Father. He began to show me what a good and perfect Dad looked like, and I learned I could trust where He led. Psalm 27:10 (LB) says, “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.” I came to experience just how true that is. 

That being said, my initial reaction to change on the horizon is still fear. Change isn’t bad, not if I am following my heavenly Dad, but it still means some discomfort. Change fundamentally means that things will be different, whether it be in circumstances, people, or even me. But growth means change, and I want to continue to grow in recovery, in my relationships with God, myself, and others, and in my awareness of my calling. I’ve heard many times that if you pray for patience, God will put you in situations where you get to practice it. I’m finding that to be true about a lot of things. If I want to grow, He is going to allow my faith and my recovery to be stretched so that I can begin to practice, growing organically into this new area. I think back on my son learning to do new things: walking, math, reading (which as a dyslexic was especially difficult for him). Each of those things presented him with a new and often uncomfortable challenge. As his parent, it was my job to support and encourage him to keep practicing, knowing that as he practiced, he would get better until he could do it well. I didn’t berate him every time he failed. I realized he was still learning. When he mastered one thing, the next challenge would come: from walking to running to riding a bike, from addition to multiplication to algebra, from phonics (which he struggled with) to trying multiple new things until we finally figured out he needed to read and hear it at the same time, and the even harder things of life such as learning to heal and trust again after being hurt and abandoned. Father used this picture to show me how He wanted to love and support and encourage me through the scary transitions I’m still making toward growth in this life. He’s my Good Dad, encouraging me to get back up and try again. The question was asked in my Bible study this morning, “What changes, if any, are you sensing the Lord leading you toward?” (Lysa TerKeurst, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes). In pondering that question and feeling a little overwhelmed by the answer, this post is what came out as I was journaling. And this is why I record spiritual markers, “stones of remembrance”, to help me to recall Father’s faithfulness in the past to give me courage and strengthen my faith in the present to take the next step moving into my future … whatever changes it may hold.

Heed the Warning!

/ Nicole Bartell / Leave a comment

One of the earliest things I learned in recovery was the need to FEEL my feelings. I had spent so many years, pushing them down, denying them, even being told that my feelings will lie to me and I shouldn’t listen to them (anyone else get that message from the church?). My first sponsor explained it to me, as she had learned from one of her many mentors, that my feelings are like the instrument panel on my car’s dashboard. If one of them is on, it means there is something wrong, and I need to explore to find out what the problem may be. Perhaps it is something simple. My bright yellow triangle with an exclamation point is currently lit on my Highlander. I’m not particularly worried because I know it is telling me that it is time for an oil change. It prepared me for it the last couple of weeks by reminding me that maintenance would be required soon. It is reliable and constant….every 5000 miles (because I ALWAYS reach that before five months!). But if that light came on suddenly with no preemptive warning, it could mean any number of things are wrong with my car from something as simple as my air filter needing to be replaced to something REALLY serious….thousands of dollars worth of serious. As she explained it to me, to ignore that light and not show curiosity as to the source of what caused it to come on is what we call “denial”. I am, in essence, pretending the light doesn’t matter. And I had learned for many years to do the same with my emotions. I shut them down. I ignored them. I medicated them. Anything to pretend they weren’t there. And most of the time, I was successful…for awhile. Until the dark reaches of the night when insomnia set in, and I found myself all alone with the whispers of my psyche reminding me there was PAIN!!!! “Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!” Is it any wonder that there are so many who give up the fight in the middle of the night, when it is difficult to quiet the voices with noise or busyness or friends. The nights are long and seemingly endless. That is where most of my suicidal thoughts hit me the hardest when I was deep in depression.

When I was working through my first step study in Celebrate Recovery, I was digging deep into my past and answering the questions about my hurts, my beliefs about myself and about God, my parents, and the “family secret”. My sponsor encouraged me to be as honest as I could, that I would get out of the step study what I was willing to put into it. And she told me about the instrument panel thing. My emotions, she told me, are not lying to me, they are actually telling me the truth about what I believe. Now, I may believe a lie (or a number of them), but my emotions are honest about what I feel about that belief. For me, that was the sense of unworthiness, not being good enough, having to be perfect in order to deserve love and acceptance. I believed that I was a waste of space, and that I couldn’t do anything right. And I hated myself above anything and everyone else. I literally thought I deserved to die. I believed I was unlovable. Because of that anguishing belief, I truly FELT there was no way God could REALLY love me. And that belief was truly soul crushing. I had felt the weight of my father’s emotional abuse, my mother’s neglect and inability to connect with me or protect me. I had experienced bullying and rejection so severe that it just reinforced all those early beliefs, that everyone (including me) would have been better off if I had never been born. That was the “truth” that my emotions were telling me, and that I had wanted to escape from as long as I could remember. Emptiness. Worthlessness.

A funny thing happened as I started actually taking the time to look at these emotions and the beliefs that drove them. I started to bring them to Jesus and let Him look at them. And for the first time, I started asking Him if they were true and really listened to the answer. He assured me that they were not only lies from the pit of hell, but that even if no one else wanted me: HE DID!!! There were so many precious things that He communicated to me during this time that I have shared with only a few, but the main thing I came away from that very first step study with was that I was truly LOVED by God. Not only was I loved, but I was wanted. I was precious to Him. He began to show me all the ways He had shown up in my life, in large and small ways, long before I ever knew Him. There were terrible things that were done to me, but He still came in hidden ways that I had not been able to see under the weight of the lies and the blinders my pain had put on me. People He put in my life to be a salve against the cruelties of others. People who were the hands and feet of Jesus long before I acknowledged who He was. As I came to realize and accept this truth in place of the lies, the miraculous happened. I suddenly found myself FREE of depression. I had been depressed at some level or another my entire aware life. But all of that was GONE! I was free of the heavy, heavy weight that had crippled me for so many years. Bob Hamp says that the opposite of depression is not happiness but rather expression. When we DEPRESS what we feel, we are actually turning all those emotions inward as weapons against ourself. Anger at what was done to me was transformed into self loathing. I believed I was the problem. There was something intrinsically wrong with ME. Everything was my fault, and the one person I couldn’t escape was myself. So I suppressed. I dissociated. I denied. But expressing, getting out the feelings, speaking or writing them down, allowed them to come into the light. And The Light, Jesus, was able to shine truth on them.

Just like ignoring that warning light on our dashboard could lead to bigger problems and end up costing us more money than if we just went to get the first thing fixed, so acknowledging our feelings, owning them, bringing them out into the light with a safe person (or people…it just should never be done alone! We need others who see more clearly than we do to be our guides in this) actually begins to fix the core problem that has been spiraling out into other issues that break us down. Our feelings are actually our friends who tell us what is really going on inside, if we are willing to put forth a little courage and see what is going on under the hood.

Keep Walking

/ Nicole Bartell / Leave a comment

“You ever feel pressure to be perfect? Like, once you start in your steps you can never fail again? We all have the ability to become robotic in our recoveries and avoid feeling. Nobody likes to be tense, uptight, or stressed. Celebrate Recovery can help people recover from perfectionism or control. We all make mistakes and will continue to make them. We need to have grace for ourselves and others… just like God has grace for us. You are not a robot.” (quote from February 1, 2022, post on Celebrate Recovery Facebook page)

This year, I volunteered to co-lead a Journey Begins step study in my local CR. I was honest with my other co-leaders that I had come to realize that my first step study really dealt with my own self-hatred and the issues I was dealing with when I first entered recovery. As I have dug deeper into my heart and sought to bring ALL my hurts, hang-ups, and habits to Father, I realized that there was a lot of pain I had still been suppressing. Those have been rising to the surface in a desire to find the same freedom and healing that I initially experienced, and I have been hard-pressed to continue to ignore them. In fact, I did try for quite awhile, but there is still a hurting little girl inside me who demands to be seen and taken care of, and I have learned I am not loving myself well if I neglect those hurting parts of myself. I feel like I am clinging with all ten of my toes to a precipice overlooking deep pain, and I have no idea how I am going to react once I step off that ledge. There is a part of me that fears that possible reaction. I am afraid that it will be more than I can handle, and that I will shut down or even have an emotional breakdown. I wanted to be upfront with them, even though a dear mentor and one of the leaders of my very first step study assured me that would not happen. It’s so easy to fear the unknown, even when that is one’s self.

As I have gone further into our first Participant’s Guide answering each question honestly, I have seen my anxiety, my co-dependency, and what I am calling my control-freakiness explode. It took me awhile to realize that a lot of this is due to the fact that I was caught unaware by all the pain that I still have lurking, including, to my dismay, things I thought I had already worked through. My sponsor has encouraged me that I HAD worked through some of those things, but as I access deeper pain I also am bringing to surface the coping mechanisms that I developed in order to be able to survive that pain when I was not ready to deal with it. One of those things, I am finding, is perfectionism. I’ve always known I had perfectionist tendencies. That tends to go along with having a critical parent whose love seemed to be conditional upon my performance. Failures were always noticed and criticized. Achievements were rarely acknowledged. I have lived my life with a debilitating fear of failure. If I was uncertain if I would be able to learn to do something quickly and proficiently, I would not even try. Failure was not an option. It was too great a risk to try something I might not be good at, or even worse, FAIL in doing. And I have come to realize that my fear of failure is rooted in an intense fear of rejection and abandonment. The whys of that are for another time. What is relevant to me right now is that taking a step to lead this step study has been a huge risk. What if I FAIL? I have spent my life perfectly content to be in the background, on the sidelines, out of notice but also out of responsibility. Now, there are women looking to me to lead, to be an example for them to follow and learn from my experience, strength, and hope. Becoming a sponsor was terrifying. This is on a whole other level. What happens if I lose it? What happens if I fall apart? What kind of an example am I then?

The truth is, which I would tell any sponsee if she asked me the same questions, I WILL fail…in some things. I am NOT perfect… and that’s okay. In fact, I am incapable of being perfect. In recovery, relapse is not the end. All I need to do IF I relapse is go back to that first step. Choose again to admit that “I am powerless over my addictions and compulsive behaviors and that my life has become unmanageable”. The great news is that I have travelled this road before. The steps are familiar, and I know the way. I just need to release the control, “consciously choose to commit my life and my will over to Christ’s care and control”, and work the steps again…one at a time. I don’t know what the future of this step study holds for me. I don’t know what my next inventory will dig up. I do know a few things. There are a whole lot more positives on my inventory this time around. I have experienced healing and freedom from the pain of addiction before, and there is HOPE that I will do so again. Father hasn’t changed. He is the same God who took me through the pain of my sexual abuse and equipped me to truly forgive my perpetrator. He is the same God now who can heal the wounds of emotional abuse and neglect and be the constant and unconditionally loving parent that I lacked. And IF I fail, as long as I don’t give up, as long as I start with that first step again and keep taking one step at a time, I am not a FAILURE. The road to recovery is full of starts, stops, rabbit trails, resting, sitting down by the road, going back to the beginning, but still moving in a forward direction. Recovery is “Progress, not perfection”. And no matter which way this goes, I know my experience will still be able to help and encourage others along the road.

Keep walking.

Recovery During a Season of Grief

/ Nicole Bartell / 1 Comment

Recovery is hard. I’m not going to sugar coat it as anything other than hard work and tenacity. There are seasons of rest and joy and celebration when the work pays off, but there’s also a need to be honest with myself about the pain that has driven me to do the things I do and make the choices I make and a willingness to work through the pain I’ve spent decades avoiding because the only real way out is through. But those times I get that victory, and those hurts get healed…it makes every step of the journey worth it.

And then, I suddenly find myself an orphan. And the one person who had been there from my first memory isn’t there anymore. Suddenly, recovery becomes like trying to drag a 50-lb. boulder tied around my waist up a steep mountain on a path I can barely see anymore. It takes concerted effort just to put one foot in front of another. It takes a lot of setting aside time just to sob uncontrollably in a safe environment so I don’t lose it in a public place. It takes relapsing and running back to food to find some comfort when there’s none to be had. And then it’s shame because I feel like I failed, and I’m right back to step one…again and again and again. Recovery is hard. Recovery in the midst of grief is a battle. I lost a few skirmishes along the way. But I kept fighting. I’ve been bloody and bone-weary and felt like giving up. But I kept fighting. I’m still so very sad, and I miss my mom so much sometimes it is a palpable pain. But I keep fighting. I keep taking one step at a time, even if it is just an inch, because I know the fight is worth it. I know there is still hope and healing in honesty. I keep trusting the process. And I put my hand into the hand of the only Parent I have left because I KNOW He cares for me, and He will never leave me. And the journey continues.

Recovery is hard. Grief is hard. But I do not walk through either one alone. I have a team. I have encouragers. I have those who just sit with me and let me cry. I have people who pray. I have a coach who tells me the truth even when I don’t want to hear it and never gets upset when I say I’m not ready to talk about something. I have mentors who have walked the path before me. I have those who reach out when they haven’t heard from me in awhile because they know my tendency to isolate and shut down when I’m hurting. And I have a few friends that stick closer than sisters. I am not alone. Because I know I’m not alone, I know I can keep fighting. I can do the hard, “one day at a time, one moment at a time”.

1,095 Days – One Day at a Time

/ Nicole Bartell / Leave a comment

Three years ago, I could not have imagined where I am today. I walked through those double doors on a Friday night, absolutely petrified. I didn’t like crowds. I felt uncomfortable around strangers. And I had no familiar person to hide behind, which was my preferred place to be. It had been a long year to get to that point. A year of Father prompting and nudging that these were the steps (HA!) that I needed to take. Even after I decided I was desperate enough to seek help and shared with my best friends I was finally going to start this journey, it still took three weeks of loving (annoying) prompting from one of them (“Are you going this week?”) before I finally surrendered. And truth be told, I went that first week just to shut her up. (I did not realize yet how much of a people pleaser I am.)

Walking through those doors into that cavernous room filled with a cacophony of voices, I made a beeline for the outskirts, my favorite place to be. All the way to the left, as close to the wall as I could get, buried in the middle row so I wouldn’t be too far forward or visible from behind. A wallflower; invisible. My comfort zone.

Once worship started, I was able to set aside my fear briefly (for the most part). People around me weren’t paying attention to me. They were worshiping! It was glorious! I was able to lose myself in the singing for awhile, but soon the music was over and the lesson began. I don’t even remember what the lesson was that night. All I recall was sitting in that seat completely certain that no woman there in that “Fellowship Hall” was struggling with what I had been battling for three decades. I felt alone, hopeless, and fairly sure this place couldn’t help me.

Anyone’s first night at Celebrate Recovery, they are encouraged to go to a one-time group called CR 101. This is a group that educates newcomers on the small group format, what group options there are, and answers any questions. After large group, I dutifully filed into the room where CR 101 was held and sat down in the very back. I don’t remember processing consciously that it was so I could make a quick getaway, but having come to know myself a bit better, I’m pretty sure that was definitely a consideration. CR 101 has both a male and a female leader, and the group starts with each leader giving a short 2-3 minute testimony of their recovery. The woman that was leading that night began to share her story, and all I could do was sit there in shock, tears coursing down my face, as she told my story. In fact, her story was more horrific than mine, but there she was, boldly proclaiming that she had sought recovery for much of the same that finally drove me through those double doors. And I began, just a little bit, to have hope that maybe, just maybe, this WAS where Father wanted me to be.

The next week I returned, a little more hopeful, a little less afraid. I went to a small group I thought might fit (it didn’t). After small group, I went to Solid Rock, a gathering for meeting new people and developing relationships. I had skipped it my first week because I was so overwhelmed, but this time I was determined to track down that lady leader from the week before. When I found her, I expressed to her how much it meant to me that she had shared her testimony, that I had been convinced I was the only one. She listened to me then shared how she hadn’t even been on the roster to lead CR 101 that night. The woman that had been scheduled to lead had to cancel that afternoon, and she was the one asked to fill in. I don’t think I will ever forget the immense awareness of Father’s love for me in that moment.

I could not have imagined the amount of healing I would experience over the next three years. After decades of being depressed, I had no concept of what it would feel like to NOT be. I didn’t have a clue of the number of tools I would gain to help me learn new strategies for processing my pain, or that one day I would be sponsoring other women and helping them learn those tools. All I knew that night was that, for the first time ever, I had a sense that there was hope, and that I had taken that first step.

And I’ve never looked back.