"All Aboard The Rollercoaster of Life"

This picture above here is one of the happiest days of my life, but not for the reasons you might think. While most celebrate their wedding days together after months of planning and dreaming of their big day (and the life together that will follow), our engagement looked very different.

Just two weeks after I popped the question, my darling fiancee fell ill. She was in bed 18 hrs a day with no energy and no explanation. We were planning to be engaged for 6 months, but we had to postpone our wedding twice because of Shaloma’s complex health situation. After the second postponement, I wondered if we were going to stay together. It was rough.

Eventually, we started to get some explanations for Shaloma’s condition. Turns out she had complex PTSD, which is caused by regular or consistent exposure to traumatic conditions. This was explained by growing up with an older brother in the house that had schizophrenia. The home was not always a safe and reliable place and it caught up with her.

For us, we were beyond relieved to finally have an explanation for what was going on, even though sometimes having a diagnosis is a bit scary. We went to work, educating ourselves on trauma, PTSD and everything else while getting Shaloma the treatment and therapy that she needed. It was remarkable to see how quickly things turned around. After a year of doctors appointments and specialist referrals without any answers, we finally had some progress. Shaloma had life in her body again.

And then, just when we thought we had turned a corner and were ready to get married, her brother with schizophrenia died. We were crushed. And I honestly wondered if we were ever going to get married! It felt like everything was opposing us.

But that is why this picture I’ve posted here means so much to me. Because we did eventually get married. We pushed past the obstacles life threw our way and we tied the knot. A couple years in, we are loving our lives. It’s not always easy, and Shaloma is still recovering from complex PTSD, but we made it. We got married.

Whatever you might be going through in life, I want to take this moment to remind you that things will get better. Push on. I cannot guarantee your conditions will change or that circumstances will life, but if you keep a resilient mindset, you will grow. And that’s what counts.

Our journey as an engaged couple is sometimes how the journey for freedom from pornography feels. You start aimless and wondering if it’s even possible to get free. Then you find things that are helping and start to make some progress. Usually, somewhere along the way you hit a roadblock and then wonder if you’ve actually made any progress or if you were just kidding yourself.

Trust me, you made progress!

These are the key moments where you have to persevere. Keep going, because if you can push through the roadblocks, it will get better and you will be better for it. And eventually, with perseverance, you’ll hit your goal and wonder how you got there! And maybe you’ll have a big goofy grin on your face like I did on my wedding day.

Cheering you on,

Sathiya