Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Ashley Desormeau
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00088B
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00:15 Welcome back, so we are talking with Ashley and talking
00:19 Ashley about the whole journey you've had as far as 00:23 coming to God and I got to be at the part of almost the 00:27 beginning of that. 00:28 You went to the Ty Gibson program with Acts, then God 00:31 started moving you in the direction of recovery. 00:34 You talked about right before the break is that one of the 00:38 bigger things that He asked you to look at was the hockey. 00:42 As you said you lived hockey, you have been playing it all 00:45 your life, you were good at it, and He is I want you to 00:49 walk away from this right now. 00:51 Yeah it was hard and you know when you came though, I had 00:56 already given up the hockey a couple weeks before and I 01:00 knew that was something I needed to do because I had felt 01:04 impressed by God and He had been actually working on it 01:08 with me for about four years. 01:10 Did you know it was because all of your time was here? 01:13 That this was what you used to cover everything? 01:15 I did but I didn't, I guess I did know that I was pretty 01:19 much addicted to it, but at the same time I didn't really 01:22 want to admit it because I loved it so much and actually 01:26 felt like I belonged and felt importance, 01:28 so I didn't want to walk away. 01:31 - so I didn't feel that anywhere else. - no exactly. 01:33 Then it was just a crazy ride after that. 01:37 So it is really interesting in what I saw was the fact 01:40 that I'm looking at you and knowing that right now 01:44 you didn't know who you were, or where you were, 01:47 when you locked down, or the last time you were really 01:50 in touch with yourself so I think I said to you some 01:54 thing like you need to find that little girl where ever 01:57 she shut down. You said I don't even know. 02:00 I had no idea, you know I had been thinking okay maybe 02:05 it was when I was a baby, or maybe it was when I was, 02:10 I had all these different things that 02:14 I thought maybe it was. 02:16 And let me just say for people that probably didn't 02:19 understand what I just said is that when I was little girl 02:21 about three years old, I know that at that moment 02:25 something happened in our household that I completely shut 02:28 off and I don't even remember years after that because I 02:32 just closed off just to survive. 02:34 I think that is what I was responding to, at what age, 02:38 at what time do you remember losing yourself? 02:42 I had no idea, I really didn't and I just kept praying 02:46 about it, I kept God okay where was it? I need to find 02:50 that little girl? And I really tried on my own. 02:52 I tried so hard to try and find her. 02:55 It was just not happening and it wasn't until probably 03:02 six months later, if not more when I was just laying 03:06 there and I could not sleep, just could not sleep. 03:11 I was like what is going on? I have to work tomorrow 03:15 what is going on? It was like two o'clock in the morning 03:20 at this point in time and I was like okay God I can't, 03:23 what's going on? Because I don't know what's going on? 03:28 He took me back to the moment when that little girl was 03:32 lost and I was sexually abused at one point in my life 03:37 and that was the moment He took me to. 03:39 He it was like, are you kidding me? I had completely 03:42 pushed it out of my mind, completely blocked it out. 03:47 The more I have tried to recover from all that and heal 03:51 from that the last year the more real it has been 03:54 to me that yeah that was it. 03:57 That was the moment I stopped caring about myself. 03:59 You started gaining weight? - I started gaining weight. 04:02 I started hiding food, I started to really submerging 04:05 into the hockey because it was like 04:07 I am not going to feel anything. 04:09 Like I'm going to focus my time in all my space in 04:11 something else because I am not going to think about this. 04:14 And you have to think about too is hockey is a very, 04:17 you come close enough, I mean if I can hit you with a stick, 04:20 it's a very like I can be aggressive and I can 04:24 be that and nobody is going to take advantage of me. 04:28 It's like I watched as you started to say this is what 04:31 happened and I watch this kid come up that really is 04:34 going to take care of myself and defend myself. 04:36 It's crazy because as I was laying there I said no I'm 04:42 not going to deal with this, I can't do this. 04:44 - it will kill me. - it's going to be the death of me. 04:49 And it was like God just whispered and part of the reason 04:53 why He showed me that too was because I had spent from the 04:56 time I was in college so much time on the Internet chatting 04:59 with men on different Christian sites and stuff like that. 05:03 It was really inappropriate conversations, but I felt 05:07 special, - I felt I belonged there even if it's just for 05:11 a moment - exactly, even if it is just this one guy that 05:15 says I love you and I'm oh really, yea like yea somebody 05:19 actually loves me, but they didn't. 05:21 It was just like they really didn't. 05:23 When did the cutting come into all this too. 05:26 The cutting actually was more in high school. 05:29 - 14 or 15? Yeah around 15 -16 probably. 05:34 Because I want to know to get a picture of this spin 05:38 that starts happening and that starts literally spinning 05:42 out of control and the more I spin the more I grab hold 05:45 of anything that is going to help me feel like I fit. 05:49 I spent a lot of time drinking as well and that came in 05:53 on a hockey trip and for the first time when I was 16. 05:57 Even though it was a long time before I drank again, 06:02 it slowly started to creep in and even though I wouldn't 06:07 say I was an alcoholic, but it did play in as another 06:11 distraction, as another thing to keep me from dealing 06:15 with what was really going on. 06:17 - Another Band-Aid - another Band-Aid. 06:19 You know and in recover sense, because we are talking 06:23 about recovery issues and recovery sense is that it is 06:27 like I don't want to feel, I don't want to be me, I don't 06:32 want to do any of that stuff so we just grab hold of almost 06:36 automatically grab hold of things. 06:39 That night that God showed me that I had to parent myself 06:44 and I had to say no it's okay it's just you and me and God. 06:48 That's it, there's nobody else here, we can do this. 06:52 I'm not being molested right now, I am safe right now. 06:55 - exactly and you know. - and it's time to look at it 06:59 for sure and it was I cried and I cried and I cried 07:02 which was good because one of the things I remember 07:05 telling you too when you were in McBride was that 07:08 I actually had for the longest time just this hardened 07:12 shell and wall so high that I never cried. 07:16 Even though I wanted to and should have been, there were 07:19 so many times where something sad would happen and 07:22 I felt it inside at a funeral and feeling so sad, 07:25 but not being able to cry, I just couldn't. 07:28 It was like what is wrong with me? 07:30 I am like messed up, something is wrong. 07:34 Even feeling that is like, and I hate the way our 07:38 addictions do us, because even feeling that now I feel 07:41 more abnormal and so something is really wrong with me. 07:44 Maybe I am crazy and I really believe there is a devil 07:47 that sits right on our shoulder and says absolutely. 07:50 Look at you, everybody else is crying, 07:52 what's wrong with you? Or everybody else fits in, 07:55 what's wrong with you? The more we spin the more we feel 07:59 like somehow something is horribly wrong with me and it 08:04 spins me again. - you know one of the biggest things is 08:09 part of the main reason is not just in a distraction from 08:13 that, part of the reason why I was doing the chatting and 08:17 stuff was because I was so lonely, I just felt so alone. 08:22 It was crazy and like I said before I never really felt 08:27 God's presence was really there and feel that year 08:31 you came and I heard Ty Gibson. 08:33 There were so many things coming up that made it, 08:36 so many things happened after you came to make God so real 08:38 to me that I knew that I was going to be okay. 08:41 You open up your life instead - I really started opening 08:43 up in one of the biggest things that was so hard was I had 08:48 to go on, that July, I gone to a friends house and had 08:53 a couple of drinks and came home and my dog was gone. 08:59 She was like my best friend, I felt not as lonely because 09:05 I had my dog. - I was really afraid for you during that 09:09 time period - it was so bad at once she was gone it was 09:13 like what has happened and I spent that whole weekend 09:17 drinking and not feeling anything. 09:20 I just surround myself with alcohol and then ironically 09:24 I had, it sounds hypocritical to me because I've been 09:27 having Bible studies every Sunday starting them and here 09:30 I was going to have a Bible study on Sunday and I just 09:33 spent all Saturday drinking, like what is going on? 09:37 I'm such a hypocrite and then it was so amazing. 09:40 - wait, wait I want to time out on that because 09:43 I love that I really believe that I am such a hypocrite 09:48 is right from the enemy's camp because what God says you 09:52 are so afraid, and you are so hurt, and these are the 09:55 things that always worked for you and you grabbed 09:58 hold of them again. 09:59 But God is yelling out to all of us addicts is it never 10:03 has really worked, it robs you of years and years and 10:06 years but to me when I hear messages now of hypocrite 10:10 and all that kind of stuff, I know exactly 10:12 what camp that's coming from. 10:13 God is so gentle, He's so gentle but that is what your 10:17 feeling is - that is what I was feeling at the moment. 10:21 Then that Sunday I was sitting there preparing for my 10:24 Bible study, about Angels was a topic that night. 10:28 Before anybody was going to come, the funny thing is 10:31 nobody actually ended up showing up that night except 10:34 for me and God and it was like oh okay. 10:38 What is going on? I was sitting there and writing things 10:43 out and all of a sudden it wasn't an audible voice, 10:47 I just heard this, like my dog would meet me at the 10:50 other side of the door, she'd see me pull-up and would run 10:53 inside and I would hear her running down the hall and 10:56 then I would hear her scratching on the door and 10:57 she couldn't wait for me to come home, she was so excited. 11:00 She was snuggle up with me on the couch watching TV or 11:02 whatever, she would follow me around like a little shadow. 11:06 So all of a sudden I'm sitting there I hear this Ashley, 11:10 I want to be the one that meets you on the other side of 11:13 the door when you come home. 11:15 I want to be the one snuggling while you are watching TV. 11:18 I want to be the one that's licking your face, or kissing 11:22 your face when you are having a hard time and holding you, 11:25 and I was just like whoa, where did that come from? 11:29 Like whoa. - the incredible intimacy with God. 11:33 Let it be Me. - I never really felt like God was more 11:38 real than that moment and I knew even though it was hard 11:43 that I was going to be okay. 11:45 In a sense how cool is God? In a sense He is saying 11:50 let Me take everything you have used for a security 11:54 blanket that really hasn't worked, let Me be that and 11:58 I will pour into your life the things that are real. 12:01 It is like, that exchange happens in our recovery and that 12:06 is what is the most incredible thing I think 12:08 about healing in our journey, is that 12:10 He says let that exchange happen. 12:11 You are now in a place where that is starting 12:14 to happen, how did He get you to look at 12:18 the whole molests thing? 12:21 It has been mostly in the last six months I would say 12:25 when it has really started to come up, because again 12:29 I ran from it to try and not have to deal with it. 12:35 You had a couple different incidents of molesting? 12:41 Yeah and it was hard because I've always felt not good 12:47 enough, always felt like ugly or whatever and the thing is 12:53 that is such a lie. - it is a lie. 12:56 I know that now but I was in so much time hiding behind 13:00 my baggy clothes, hoodies and whatever and try and 13:05 lose weight and I couldn't and stuff. 13:06 It wasn't until about six months ago that I realized 13:11 that I had found, really found that little girl and 13:16 I needed to not just recognize she was there but really 13:20 help her to heal, and love her and bring her up to 13:24 where I am now. 13:25 - let her grow up? - yes exactly let her grow up. 13:28 So a lot of my healing has actually happened mostly in 13:33 the last three months but it has just been crazy. 13:37 He has helped me to realize that, that moment it changed 13:43 everything and I started seeing everything differently. 13:49 In a negative way of course, like I always thought the 13:56 worse in stuff and that He's brought me to that. 14:00 - even during that time and for a lot of people don't 14:03 know this about you, at that time you had someone in your 14:06 life that was telling you, you are fat, you are ugly, 14:09 you're stupid, and so you are hearing that message. 14:12 - yeah I was hearing that all growing up in my teen years 14:16 and so that was the hugest part of the healing that took 14:21 place when you came because I had always been stuck in 14:24 this negative rut and could not get out of it no matter 14:28 what I tried. Even though I had the hockey I was still 14:31 hard on myself, because I would be like I could've scored 14:34 six goals in that game and found one thing that was wrong 14:36 I was dwelling on. 14:38 My team was like Ashley's good job and I'm sitting and saying 14:41 what ever did you see what I did? 14:42 Obviously you wasn't watching the same game as me. 14:45 I was so hard on myself. - it was amazing when we first 14:49 met, I could see that you put yourself down more than 14:53 anybody that I had met in a long time. 14:56 It was funny, I mean you were funny but you were slammed 14:59 every time you made a joke. 15:02 Yeah and it is funny because after I went home that night 15:06 from the anointing, He really, well even that night, 15:11 He said no Ashley you're beautiful and you're smart and 15:16 your Mine and I'm just like whoa, okay. It was crazy. 15:21 So now as you're stepping into healing, as you are 15:24 looking at these issues and some of them are really 15:28 difficult, without the things that used to work, not 15:31 saying you have a relapse because I know that you have. 15:34 You stood right back up again which I am so proud of you 15:37 with, but as I get looking at these things through the 15:41 eyes of God what has your journey been like? 15:44 My journey has been incredible, it has been absolutely 15:49 incredible, the last few months my eyes have been opened 15:53 so much to people around me that are going through similar 15:58 things and I never would have seen that before. 16:01 I was so stuck in the negativity that I only saw my stuff. 16:05 I didn't see anybody else, and it wasn't that I didn't 16:09 care, I always cared about people. 16:11 I just wasn't capable of it, I didn't care about myself 16:16 so how could I, you know, I didn't want to face my junk 16:19 so how could I focus and see anybody else's hurting? 16:22 In the last few months it has just been insane I have been 16:26 opening up and people open up to me. 16:29 God has been helping out in the youth room now. - and 16:32 you want to care about their hearts. - exactly. 16:35 And that is what is amazing. - exactly and now I am 16:37 working with these young people that are starting to get 16:41 to those places and feeling those temptations to do 16:43 things that I have done. 16:45 I feel like I need to give back and so now I am working 16:48 in the youth room in helping teach the Sabbath school 16:51 lesson and just be an honest with them and real, 16:53 I mean you have to be and before I wouldn't have been. 16:56 I would have just sat there with my mouth shut and 17:00 I would've said anything, but now our lesson quarterly 17:03 has been amazing too because it has been all about that. 17:07 All about emotions this whole quarter. 17:10 This whole quarter has been incredible so far. 17:12 Things will come up in Sabbath school with the young 17:15 people and they are asking real things about sex and 17:18 drugs like real stuff and I will just tell them 17:23 you don't have to do that you don't have to. 17:27 We live in a society, when you say that you don't have 17:31 to do that, we live in a society where everybody talks 17:35 about everything and have even experimentation 17:42 with sexual stuff, to be on the Internet and go to chat 17:45 rooms and talk about sexual stuff. 17:47 Same-sex kind of stuff is so out there and so okay if 17:52 somebody doesn't have a place to talk about that, that 17:57 is where we get in trouble. - exactly. 17:59 I'm not afraid of the discussion. - exactly and 18:02 I always just wanted people to be real with me growing up 18:08 and I always wanted people just to tell me things. 18:12 People told me things after I was an adult and I 18:14 thought if you would have told me when I was a kid 18:17 I wouldn't have been feeling all of this, 18:19 like are you kidding me? 18:20 Why didn't you tell me this when I was 13 and I would have 18:23 totally thought of it differently and done things 18:26 differently, so now I'm choosing now to let God take me 18:32 through this journey and let Him help me and fix me so 18:38 that I can help other people too. 18:39 I've had people come to me that I never thought even for 18:43 a day were hurting, I'm like they're always have a smile 18:47 their face and everything. And I'm like what? What? 18:51 So all of a sudden you're coming into a relationship 18:54 with God and experiencing the healing and the joy of that 18:57 and then reaching out and offering that to someone else. 19:00 That is the gospel, that is recovery. 19:03 We are going to open it up for questions which I think 19:05 it's going to be fun and so what I would like to do 19:08 because I know a few of you have questions and Pelicia 19:11 I know you wanted to ask her something so I'm going to 19:13 turn it over to you first and go ahead. 19:18 We do know I have been sitting here listening at you and 19:22 you are talking about all the stuff that has gone on in 19:26 your life and I would like to know, I have grandkids 19:29 myself and they are young, how old were you when you 19:33 started hiding and started doing things that you didn't 19:36 want your parents to know while hiding from them? 19:40 I was probably around 13. - 13. - when it started, 19:43 when I started hiding things, I started hiding food and 19:48 wearing baggy clothes and not really caring about how 19:52 I looked or anything really, you around 13 years old. 19:56 Did you ever lose interest in academics? 19:59 I did actually, started to grade 8 and 9 I did really well still, 20:06 but it was probably grade 10 when I would have been 20:10 around 16 when I started to not do so well in math and 20:14 that was always my best subject. 20:16 I was always really good in math. 20:18 I just didn't care anymore, I just didn't study very hard 20:22 in my first year of college I didn't do well either and 20:26 it wasn't until my second year that God had told me that 20:30 summer through a friend that Day Care was the road 20:35 He wanted me to go and that's when I actually started to 20:38 try a little more with the schooling. 20:41 But yeah academics was huge. 20:42 I have a comment for you too, I was just noticing as you 20:46 were talking about when God was talking to you and that 20:50 relationships were so important, your friends, our peers, 20:52 and everything and we are created for relationships but 20:55 the time you say God was speaking to you, He brought 20:59 things to you and He made Himself clearer to you is when 21:02 you were by yourself. 21:03 I think that is so important to know that we need to make 21:07 time to hear God talk to us and not be surrounded always 21:11 with people. - absolutely - I love that. 21:14 Especially when we start out in recovery and there is a 21:18 saying in most recovery program, we talked about all the 21:23 different recovery programs of this series. 21:25 But in most recovery programs there is a saying that the 21:28 best of what you have got you to where you're at. 21:31 It's got to be that we stop and decide to spend time 21:35 with God because God is going to bring us out. 21:38 Don't lean on your own under- standing, don't lean on your 21:41 own thinking, I even sometimes I'll shut my eyes and say 21:44 Jesus is that how you want me to think about this? 21:47 I stopped speaking at that point and I feel like Jesus 21:51 said sometimes absolutely not. 21:53 I love you or like I love to exaggerate, I don't know 21:57 if anybody has noticed that, I'd love stories and I love 22:01 exaggerating I'm sanguine and all that stuff. 22:04 I'll start to say something and I will hear the Holy 22:07 Spirit say don't go there because that's not true. 22:11 And it may be funnier, but it is not true so I think 22:14 that's those times where we actually slowed down and 22:17 are with God that are important. 22:19 Ashley something what police have said to me as far as 22:24 her having grandbabies and they are going into an age 22:28 when you were in all this stuff that started happening, 22:32 can you tell us some more about the things that were 22:35 obvious about you that somebody could have caught? 22:38 I think a lot of it was that I was the very bubbly happy 22:43 person before that, and I just had fun, I just had 22:51 a genuine smile on my face slowly it wasn't very obvious at 22:56 first, but slowly that joy started to leave my life and 23:00 I would stare down at the floor when I would walk, 23:03 or stare down at the sidewalk and not feel like 23:07 I was good enough, or not feel like things like that. 23:11 Other things were more obvious was hiding the food, 23:16 gaining weight, not caring so much about appearance so 23:22 much and I would just get out of bed, have a shower and 23:28 put my hair in a ponytail or just wear it down. 23:32 Like I never really wanted to be really beautiful. 23:35 Have you ever thought about one time this women came up 23:39 for prayer and we were at a woman's retreat and 23:42 she was coming up for prayer for weight. 23:43 As she was walking up I heard the Holy Spirit, not a voice, 23:47 just an impression of the Holy Spirit saying to me this is 23:51 a molested woman and her weight has protected her all 23:56 these years and if you pray for the weight and you don't 24:00 deal with the protection she'll get scared. 24:02 So I said to her can we pray that as you lose weight and 24:07 become more attractive and beautiful that the molestation 24:11 won't come up for you in the same way? 24:13 So the molestation was the issue, like right now you are 24:17 losing weight and figuring out who you are. 24:18 There has to be a little fear of that, if I lose weight 24:22 and am attractive, what if I draw that kind of attention? 24:25 It is not safe. - oh absolutely I did it as a way to 24:30 protect myself, as a way to not be hurt again. 24:34 I had trouble for so many years to lose weight that I 24:37 would always lose maybe 18 pounds and no more than that. 24:42 It was I just I couldn't figure it out and was so frustrated 24:45 with it and was so tired of being the fat friend or the 24:50 one with pretty face or just the one with the beautiful 24:55 voice, or the one that's good at hockey, or the one that's 24:59 whatever it happens to be, like the fun one and stuff. 25:02 I wanted to be beautiful, like really beautiful and it 25:06 wasn't until I started dealing with all of this. 25:10 Doing the dental work and stuff and everything is 25:13 starting, I'm starting to feel in really know deep down 25:19 that I am worth it. 25:21 Again, we didn't talk about the dental work, but even taking 25:26 care of yourself in that way you hadn't take care of 25:28 yourself as far as the dental work or any of that stuff. 25:30 You really did say I'm just going to be this hockey 25:34 player, I'm just going to be this one. 25:35 And if I am unattractive then nobody will hurt me again. 25:40 Even though I craved the male attention and looked for 25:43 that - on line - online and stuff - online so you can 25:47 take it there. - They couldn't see me - they couldn't 25:50 see you and they could hurt you because it was all in our 25:54 heads. - yeah exactly. 25:55 and it's really incredible, I guess the reason I want to stop 26:00 on all those points is it's incredible to watch your 26:02 journey, it's incredible to watch any of our journeys 26:05 where all of a sudden God says we are 26:07 going to strip everything and make it real. 26:09 None of the online relationships were real. 26:12 You had no idea, I had a girlfriend and I really hate to 26:14 say this because I probably might get fired but I had a 26:17 girlfriend that had a sex line that she made her living at. 26:20 She was 300 and something pounds but she could be on the 26:23 line and sound as sexy as ever. 26:26 She really did all that stuff, but she wasn't any of that. 26:30 So God says you know what? We are dying with what we put 26:34 around us as Band-Aids, I actually want to give you life 26:38 and like more abundantly. 26:40 I want your relationships to be real, I want your heart 26:44 to feel it, I want when you laugh to actually be a laugh. 26:47 And you know that is the thing that He has really been 26:51 working on me the last few months that I have been 26:54 doing the dental work. 26:55 It wasn't until November that I started doing it and like 26:58 I told Him I'm going - and I can smile now and smile big 27:02 and not hide my face anymore, and I told you earlier in the 27:07 day that I will walk by the mirror now and smile and say 27:12 man they look good. 27:14 It's crazy because before I just wouldn't, I would 27:22 hide my smile and hide my teeth. 27:24 And God is sitting there and you didn't even know it needed 27:28 to be addressed. - exactly until it was a whole week of pain 27:32 that I finally said it was enough. 27:34 - you have to go in? - yep. 27:36 You know we are really lucky that God just says you know 27:39 what I am taking you in, I'm taking you into recovery. 27:42 We're going to go ahead and take a break and come back 27:44 for the close, can you stay for the close with me? 27:46 - Yeah sure. - Okay good. 27:47 We will be right back and stay with us, I love her and 27:51 I love her recovery story I wanted to say 27:54 a few things about that. |
Revised 2014-12-17