I just read your adicle in Catholic Digest and had to check out your blog. I like what I see and agree with you on many points. I love to try new food and share with friends. Now that I am a widow sharing food and meals has become even more important to me.
I’ve had anorexia for 25 years, together with the other usual plethora of diagnoses such as complex ptsd ocd bpd etc etc. I’ve tried every treatment process under the sun and failed. I’ve stumbled across catholicism and feel deeply drawn to it, having failed at copious amounts of prayer ministry in my protestant background. But can there be any hope of healing for me as i await the eucharist…I’m a year and a half away from completing the next rcia course available to me. I go and gaze on his body in the sacrament but feel so unworthy of receiving him. not only that but i fall within the lgbtqi community and feel deeply uncomfortable with having a woman’s body after multiple sexual trauma in straight relationships. Sorry. Not your average set of circumstances. my body represents something terrifying and fundamentally broken as a gay woman. I’m married but celibate as we recognise now that i can’t manage intimacy without retraumatising myself. I just need to know that truly, even as i await admission to the church, God wills for me to eat, in spite of all my shame and brokenness and the pain i have to endure in ptsd symptoms as they resurface when i do. If i know it’s his will i can trust he’ll give me the grace to try yet again. Thanks for reading and. ..if you ever have time. ..responding. . Alys
Alys, what a cross you’re carrying. But how beautiful that you’re being drawn to the Eucharist. There is so much healing awaiting you there…even now when you can’t receive it. Just sitting there, and being with Him is healing. There are real graces there in His presence, and there is no better place you could be than right in front of him. I will pray for you in the weeks and months ahead. God loves you so much. He wants to feed you, and he wants you to feed yourself. Your body us a great gift from Him, and your job is to care for it with the most tender love. Have you hooked up yet with anyone from Courage? They are a wonderful apostolate that works with Catholics with same-sex attraction. I’ve know some great people involved with the ministry, so if not, let me know, and we’ll figure out a way to get you connected. In the meantime, read some thoughts I posted on the blog today, keep sitting in front of Jesus, and be gentle with yourself. God loves you so much. You are very, very dear to Him.
I just read your adicle in Catholic Digest and had to check out your blog. I like what I see and agree with you on many points. I love to try new food and share with friends. Now that I am a widow sharing food and meals has become even more important to me.
I’ve had anorexia for 25 years, together with the other usual plethora of diagnoses such as complex ptsd ocd bpd etc etc. I’ve tried every treatment process under the sun and failed. I’ve stumbled across catholicism and feel deeply drawn to it, having failed at copious amounts of prayer ministry in my protestant background. But can there be any hope of healing for me as i await the eucharist…I’m a year and a half away from completing the next rcia course available to me. I go and gaze on his body in the sacrament but feel so unworthy of receiving him. not only that but i fall within the lgbtqi community and feel deeply uncomfortable with having a woman’s body after multiple sexual trauma in straight relationships. Sorry. Not your average set of circumstances. my body represents something terrifying and fundamentally broken as a gay woman. I’m married but celibate as we recognise now that i can’t manage intimacy without retraumatising myself. I just need to know that truly, even as i await admission to the church, God wills for me to eat, in spite of all my shame and brokenness and the pain i have to endure in ptsd symptoms as they resurface when i do. If i know it’s his will i can trust he’ll give me the grace to try yet again. Thanks for reading and. ..if you ever have time. ..responding. . Alys
Alys, what a cross you’re carrying. But how beautiful that you’re being drawn to the Eucharist. There is so much healing awaiting you there…even now when you can’t receive it. Just sitting there, and being with Him is healing. There are real graces there in His presence, and there is no better place you could be than right in front of him. I will pray for you in the weeks and months ahead. God loves you so much. He wants to feed you, and he wants you to feed yourself. Your body us a great gift from Him, and your job is to care for it with the most tender love. Have you hooked up yet with anyone from Courage? They are a wonderful apostolate that works with Catholics with same-sex attraction. I’ve know some great people involved with the ministry, so if not, let me know, and we’ll figure out a way to get you connected. In the meantime, read some thoughts I posted on the blog today, keep sitting in front of Jesus, and be gentle with yourself. God loves you so much. You are very, very dear to Him.