Struggling woman
Hi Ernest, hope you are doing well. First of all, before you read this I would like you to read it with your wife because it is a sensitive topic. If you can’t read, let your wife read it herself and tell you what you need to know.
I am a lady who has really struggled with sexual purity. Sometimes I felt like life was not worth living because of the struggle. I felt like committing suicide because I didn’t know how I would handle it in the years to come. Although I didn’t sleep around, I often got scared that if I got married I would cheat on my husband. And if that would happen, I would live with hate and regret my entire life.
This is where all these issues started. At 4-years-old I joined kindergarten. Unfortunately what was supposed to be an innocent place for a child became doom for me. I had a male friend who would take advantage of me sexually. He was a child too but he already knew all about sex. He was even known as a Don Juan of sleeping around. He would come home and my parents would think we were playing but I was really being used.
As if that was not enough, my parents had a man who used to manage an orphanage they ran. That man had a son. All through the son’s stay at my parents’ place, he took advantage of me sexually. I soon got used to the sexual activity and started to consent. I even started to solicit for sex from him. He would then threaten to report me to show how bad of a girl I was. Oh did I also tell you that in my primary school there was another man who was taking advantage of me? I guess the place I lived in was just full of people living in a mess.
The worst happened when my parents sent me to their spiritual mother’s home. She was a prophetess. I used to sleep in the same bed as the prophetess’ daughter. She introduced me to lesbianism which she learnt from school.
There is more. We had some family friends from our church that would visit with their daughter. The daughter used to come home to play and visit but by the time she left, we would have kissed and engaged in sexual activity.
One day, I don’t know what exactly happened; I got convicted as a child. Maybe I was 9 or 10 years old. I promised myself I would never sleep with anyone again. I managed to keep my vow but my battle for purity did not end there.
Most of the orphans and underprivileged people that my parents were helping were older than me and they were secretly watching pornography. I was curious so I would peep through the keyhole of the door to see what they were doing. That is where I got hooked to porn. My parents never put parental control on TV I would watch porn movies all night. I would reduce the volume and watch them throughout the night. As I got older, we got an Internet connection at home and that made me worse. I was good at tech stuff and knew all the ways to get to watch porn online. I was addicted.
When I had no access to TV or the Internet, I was always with a romance novel and of course, they have explicit X-rated scenes described. I can’t count how many of them I read. When my parents sent me abroad to study, I got a smartphone; that worsened my condition. I would buy a lot of bundles and starve myself just to watch porn. I soon graduated to gay porn because mainstream porn would not satisfy me anymore. What made me realised that I had gone crazy is when I toyed with the idea of bestiality. I knew I needed help. I needed to quit for real.
Coupled with pornography is always masturbation. If you are not sleeping around it means you are satisfying your urges in another way. Thanks be to God, I never got to use sex toys. When I think about it, it makes me happy that I never crossed that line.
Concerning my dating life, I have dated 5 guys so far. Two were Catholics and two were in the church but not born again. The fifth was born again. With the Catholics, there is nothing we did not do except sleep together; I did not sleep with either of them. Among the ones in the Pentecostal church, one really just wanted my body. I crossed all the lines with him but except having intercourse, I was startled to stop because I really thought of my future. Oh, he was a church elder’s son! For the second church boy, it happened when I travelled to another country. He was even my leader in the church. Although I am the one who brought up kissing in the relationship (I was not born again by this time) I did not expect him to try to sleep with me. I was so shocked. When he tried to do sleep with me, I felt so guilty; I started blaming myself for being a Jezebel. I was the one causing all these men to want to sleep with me. I called off the relationship and confessed to my pastor everything and how I wanted to change.
God began to work on me. The Holy Spirit prompted me to send a message to all I introduced to pornography and to tell them how it was wrong. I called my previous boyfriends and asked for forgiveness. I even talked to that leader that wanted to sleep with me and apologized to him. (I can’t believe that until now he has never apologized to me for what he tried). We’re still in the same church.
I really fought these urges for long. I was struggling and crying alone in my room. But the battle became manageable when I joined a Christian fellowship. I even became a leader teaching others about purity and other challenges of life.
At some point I travelled to another country to study; that country was so scary. They believe secular teachings and they actually hate Christianity there. We could not hold any Christian meeting. This tough environment helped me build my spirituality. I would worship in the morning and late at night and do my devotion thoroughly. I would fast for two days a week. The school would teach abhorrent secular ideas. I was so scared of that environment. It was spiritually toxic. I was defensive in my approach to their teachings and it wore me out; I got mentally sick.
The mental illness exacerbated my sexual problems. My sexual argues got out of hand. I would be attracted to anyone including children, teenagers, women and animals. I would lock myself in my room to watch sermon series on purity or cooking shows. The mental illness got worse. I started having suicidal thoughts: I can’t even explain how they came about. I could not bear it anymore. It was demonic.
I remember one night I was worshipping then I suddenly felt so much guilt and shame for my sin. I fell on the floor crying to God to forgive me. After that, as I was stepping out of the bathroom, I felt something strike me on back. I was so shocked that I ran to the road as if I was crazy. I talked to the pastor of the church I was attending. He did everything in his power to help me.
With the mental illness, my trust in God really dipped. I could no longer worship or pray or fast. In fact, I decided not to anymore. I could not even feel the presence of God anymore. However, it started coming back and I am better now though. I have started serving in the church again. I worship but I no longer feel that deep connection I used to have. I no longer pray for long hours, just a few minutes in a day.
I filtered my movies. I decided to watch Nigeria movies because they have good lessons, but at times there would be an unexpected sex scene. So I would forward and avoid those parts. However, I started to realize that the filth is still getting into my system. At some point, I Googled some pornographic pictures. It only happened once. I asked God for forgiveness and downloaded an app to blocking obscene media. But I still need help. My affection for those things has not been replaced by my affection for God so I am easily tempted. I don’t want to go back to where I was before.
Nowadays, my major problems are my thoughts. I fantasize a lot about my husband (who does not even exist). I am not even dating. Or sometimes I fantasize about a guy I really like, which I hate because that is someone I should respect even in my thoughts. Mind you, Ernest, Imagine that both my parents are missionaries. They are evangelizing and training people to be disciples of Christ, helping orphans and the needy. How did I get here? Why did I get here?
I wrote to you because you have a platform on your blog to share my story. By reading my story one can learn from the many mistakes that I made. I don’t mind you talking about this story. I just want to remain anonymous. I just don’t want another child or teenager to ever go through this again. I have suffered a lot and I am paying. My only prayer now is that God may transform me first and then give me an understanding husband who will be patient with me and walk with me without condemning me. It is even worse now that I have a psychiatric condition, which is stable now but the person who will marry me would really need to love God and love me a whole lot.
