u/Frequent-Specific215

Looking into your past is a troublesome matter. Especially when you start to understand why you are the way you are. 

An individual is just that, an individual, from everyone and everything else. From a first person perspective - my experiences, my thoughts, my feelings, my demons. 

You never think you will be in a state where vulnerability is a requirement. Moments that you need to put every fiber of your being aside, and take a leap. Where you are exposed to the most important person in your life. To the one person that you are so afraid of letting down.

Yet you understand that the only way forward is through hell. One of your personas might say, ‘I can do this on my own, nobody else has to know’ - this reflects the principle that you are already in your own personal hell. Struggling, alone.

Time passes, you find ways to live with it. Ways to think, ‘I can do this.’

Doors close. Those ways are finite. You can only hide behind something for so long. 

Current events, work, friends, demands, edibles, or any other materialistic coping mechanism. 

Each and every time you hide, you forget the most important fact - what you’re hiding from is still there, waiting for you. Ready even if you are not. 

No relief.

Pornography, this letter is to you. 

Individuals may not struggle with you. The world may not see you yet for what you are. With all different niches, kinks, or themes available, it is socially accepted. Not a burden, but just something that exists in our world. 

I struggle. I pay the price. My wife pays the price. Never you.

All the shame and lies to myself, the lengths I would go to hide you - I never felt better. There was never a moment where I thought that you were there to help me. Yet I was chained to you.

Chained, and scared. 

I took the leap. I made the choice to do what needed to be done. Because of it I felt the warmth of what should have always been. 

The warmth that had always been there. From day one, the warmth was on my side. Not knowing the struggle I was facing. The pain. The shame. The hate. The sadness. 

I held the warmth close before I said the words. Preparing for the harsh reality that it may be the last time it ever shines on me. Preparing for the new kind of hell I was going to be in.

I took the leap. I felt the warmth, and it had a voice  

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to help you.” is what she said. 

Hi everyone — hope this kind of post is welcome here.

My grandfather was Diné (Navajo), somewhere in southern Idaho in the late 60s — that's essentially all I know about him. My mother never pursued finding him, and my biological grandmother has passed, so I'm starting from almost nothing. The records I've found online have mostly been dead ends.

I'm not here to claim anything. Growing up I was told I had native blood and to mark myself Native American for diversity purposes — and honestly, that always felt wrong to me. I don't want to leverage a heritage I know nothing about. I want to actually understand it.

If anyone has advice on where to start looking — records, resources, anything — I'd genuinely appreciate it.