The Art of Breaking (part 1)

I sat in damp darkness, taunting death itself.
Life was far from me. Shadows of my mind were my only friends.
And even they tore at me with stilletto claws.
What I called entertainment, you called sin.
But didn't you hate me? Aren't I detestable to you?
No. Instead you came between me and the blade,
And took the death that I so rightfully deserved.
Then you destroyed my past? That, I can't understand.
Why would you go through that for someone like me,
Who cursed your holy name?
Yet, you gave me life, and brought me safely into the light.

Copyright 2000, Jerry Hanel

Yeah... I've found a theme. The album I mentioned last time is actually a great look into my own past... even my present. You want to know about me without the hassle of reading these posts, check out The Art of Breaking.

If you think you know me, and don't want to see my dirt, feel free to skip these posts. What is posted here is personal, and delves into everything that makes me who I am. It isn't a feel-good story, or a bit of "doctrinal wisdom." It's fact. Unfortunate, heart-splitting, raw fact. But this is what I have to do. I have to set the record straight.

Where do I even start? I guess the start for me was in my childhood. Those of you that know me know I have the world's best parents. No, Seriously. I do.

I really wish I could blame my past choices on my parents, my sister, my teachers or on something else as far removed from my own person. But the fact is, before I even start, the choices I've made are my own, and mine alone. The snipets of quotes in the remainder of this post are from TFK's song "Hurt" on the album "The Art of Breaking". Why that song? Because during this, the darkest period of my life, I was hurting. Emotional pain was something I could very easily relate to. I was struggling with things I couldn't tell people about...

Not my parents. How could I tell my parents what I have in this post, especially at such a young age? I was mortified. They couldn't possibly understand.

Not my self. I couldn't admit these things to myself for fear of going insane. Over the years, I learned very well how to separate my feelings into the two categories of my life.

Not my church. They wouldn't have cared. They would have been apalled at even the "light-core" stuff in my life. To tell them of ALL of my problems? I was mortified! My family would have been cast out of the church... or so was my perception.

So it starts. This is who I used to be.

Drop the ball, watch it fall far below
Suck you in, hold your breath
The undertow creeps in slow
Everyone owns a gun deep inside
It's just a matter of how much you let it slide

I was introduced to pornography at the age of 8 or 9 by a neighbor kid. I hid those thoughts and images in my mind. Did my parents know? Of course not. At least, I never told them.

I've let it slide, in various degrees all my life, and the pain of it grinding against my heart has been a daily familliar feeling. THis entire story has been a battle in the mind, and my scars are not physical, but emotional. All tht time, God was calling to me, very similarly to the lyrics in the song:

Help me help you. They wont be there.
Help me help you. They won't see.

It hurts when you need me
And I can't break your fall
It hurts when you can't see
And it hurts

I would love to say I walked away from those things and turned to God, but I didn't. I would love to say that I followed my lusts out of ignorance. But I knew the truth. I knew what was right and wrong. I knew. But I chose to fall, and God let me. It pained him to see me be stupid, but God was there, watching it all. He was standing beside me, watching me try on my own, and wallowing in my own lusts. Why? Because it was my choice. God allows us to choose... that's what "free will" is all about.

At 13, when every boy starts to wonder about sexuality, I thought about it, too. I pulled up those images from my mind and began to think about them. By the time I was 15, I had found ways to hide all of this inside, and began to really make a mess of my thought life.

Drop the switch, scratch the itch, watch it grow
Inch by inch, the cutting board, watch it swing to and fro
Everyone carries one deep inside
It's just a matter of how much you let it slide

My mom was a very handy-crafty person. She built me a desk for school. It ws a fantastic desk. It was rustic-looking with beveled edged drawers. It wasn't fancy, but it was special to me.

From 13 to 18, I sketched pictures and held those images in my mind. I hid the sketches in the wooden desk that my mother built for me. And under the stack of art supplies, papers, and other various toys, I hid a folder with some images I'd drawn that would make most sailors blush. I learned, on my own with those demons and monkeys on my back, how to lust. I learned to imagine and hide my lust inside.

On the outside, I remained the perfect "christian boy". I was the exact image Christ spoke to the Pharasees of a "white-washed tomb." I was stately and elegant on the outside, with a dead soul, rotting on the inside. I hated my life. I hated myself. I knew what I had was wrong. But I let it slide. "It's okay." I told myself. It's not like I was doing those things I drew. It's just a thought... a simple mental image.

I grew up in that life, learning to have two lives: one inside my head, and one I showed to the world. I knew it was wrong. Why else was I trying like crazy to not let anyone see inside... to see what I thought, and how I felt? Which "me" was the real me? There is where my insanity came from. Admitting to myself that the thoughts I would hide in the corners of my mind was "the real me" was something I couldn't do. But, in reality, that is who I was. The twisted pervert. But no one knew. No one knew me. I wouldn't let anyone inside to know me. They might discover my secrets.

I withdrew from social situations, to the corners of my mind, where those images were stored.

Help me help you. They won't be there.
Help me help you. They won't see.

It hurts when you need me
And I can't break your fall
It hurts when you can't see
And it hurts

Did I buy magazines? Generally, I didn't have to. I drew my own pictures. But, as I got older, I wanted a frame of reference, so I did buy one when I was 17. I didn't get carded, and the clerk didn't seem to blink selling one to a smooth-skinned, still-in-high-school kid. Having one in our house was definately taboo, so I hid it inside my grandmother's old radio. A few months later, I went to college, and burned my childhood collection of sketches.

I didn't want mom to find those sketches and drawings. She is the main reason I haven't said more to the family until this post... I can't stand to hurt her. She is the most wonderful woman, and I have always feared that hearing what I've done would kill her, emotionally. I would never want to subject her to the pain and lonliness that I carried myself.

My father found the only porn magazine I'd ever bought eight months or so after moving to college. He began to take apart the old radio to see if he could get it to work again, and there -- right under the turn-table assembly -- was the magazine. He burned it, then confronted me that weekend when he came up to town. I told him it was not mine. WHOSE ELSE WOULD IT HAVE BEEN, JERRY?? But he let it slide. He let me off the hook... but I didn't let me off the hook.

I hated myself. I felt like I was slimy inside... Dark, humid, slimy, and grotesque. I was a living corpse, rotting at the very core and at each joint. The muscle under my pristine flesh felt weak and tired. I tried to repent from my sins. I asked forgiveness, but I would let myself climb right back into the grime when I got back to the dorms. I was a hypocrite.

In my Freshman year, the guys would yell down the hall once or twice per semester "Porn fest in the lounge." A couple of the guys brought porn tapes they'd borrowed from their fathers at home. I was introduced to the sex act on tape, and I was lost. No matter how much I told myself "If they shout again, I won't go," I did.

Wash it off, take the loss, let it go
Take it in, drink it up, we can just take it slow
Everyone carries one deep inside
It's just a matter of how much you let it slide

Yet again, I let it slide. It's just a video. By this time, I had gotten so good and convincing myself and lying to myself that I told myself I was admiring the female form. After all, I reasoned, wasn't Eve naked in the garden?

My double life began to take an even greater toll on my mental health... While I never was into cutting (I have a STRONG AVERSION to pain and blood... especially my own), I can relate to the pain and lonliness that drives a person to do so. I withdrew from my parents as much as I could. I was far from my hometown, and I knew no one excpet a few computer geeks like me who frequented the computer labs. I couldn't let people get close to me, for fear of them finding my secrets. I went from class to room to class to room.

And it hurts when you're lonely
And I'm standing right beside you there
And it hurt when you told me
That you told me that you tried this on your own

Hope you never hurt
Hope you never cry
Hope you never lose your way tonight
Hope you never crumble
Hope you never fall
Hope you never throw away the...

Drop the ball, watch it fall far below
Suck you in, hold your breath, watch it swing

I was very lonely. I was a terrified child in a young man's body. Lust and my secrets were draining the life from me. Even as I type this, I feel the familliar dark tug of depression and constriction around my chest. I was hurting, lonely, depressed, and needing something... but I was a "christian". I went to church. I helped with the kids programs. What could I need? Forgiveness?

I would cry on Sunday afternoons for God to "fix" me... but by that evening I was finding more porn on a new software invention called web browsers. In those days, there were a total of less than one thousand web sites in the world, and most of those were for research and term papers. Sex-for-sale-online wasn't even a concept, unless you knew where to look. But I knew where to dig. Deeper and deeper I would dig into the depression and lust that consumed me. The more I found, the more I withdrew. The more I withdrew, the more I tried to find acceptance in something. To find an emotion in the images, so I would dig to find more.

In my dark bouts of depression, I would sit with the lights off in my dorm because the florescent lights hurt... not my eyes, but my emotions. I would lock my door, hoping that no one would come in and see the things in my mind, and the things on my computer screen.

It hurts when you need me
And I can't break your fall
It hurts when you can't see
And it hurts

And it hurts

I was sincerely hurting... and God was hurting, too. He was waiting patiently for me to get to a point in my life where I would listen. I was stubborn, and I refused to acknowledge that I didn't know God. I knew OF him. But that is a huge gap.

I was 21 when that day came, and God became "real" to me. I can say I have felt the stern hand of God. And it was the most incredible feeling I've ever had... but seeing as this post is getting very large, you'll have to read that chapter next time.