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"Recovering" Radical Feminist

I want the e5guys to know I think what they are doing is really helping me. I signed up for this when I got it from a friend and then really forgot about it. I wasn't saying the prayers or going to mass (sorry) but I think now I'm going to start. There has been something in my life that I have struggled with, bad thoughts that lead to sin, that I have traced back to a time in my life when, as a teenager in college, my boss sexually harassed me. I left the job, had to move back in with my parents and had to delay going back to school for almost a year. At the same time this was going on, women were being pulled out of the parking lot at my school at knifepoint or gunpoint, were beaten, raped, robbed and abandoned in deserted areas where they could have died. The president of the college didn't tell the students at first because he didn't want to cause a 'panic' or make the school look bad. More women were kidnapped, beaten and raped. The police finally had to go to the media to get the word out. I was angry for a long time that the man responsible for protecting us failed so miserably. I was angry he left us in harms way in an effort to save his reputation. I was angry I had to rearrange my life because my boss was a jerk. I was convinced that men hated us and I was very scared of them. I became a feminist.

It has been a long road back. (I am now a recovering feminist.) I won't even go into some of the personal relationships I've had with men, but you can imagine what kind of a guy you end up with when you are scared of men and incapable of healthy relationships.

Part of my road back took me to a great parish where I sorted out a lot of who I am as a child of God and how to love and be loved. But the residue of what happened to me and my reaction to it continued to affect my spirituality and I continued to fall into the same sin. Even many hours of therapy and tons of money helped my brain but not my heart. I have prayed to St. Joseph, my guardian angel, went to Rome in 2000 and maybe its all finally catching up to me. Something has changed for me recently, just in the past few months. I've been amazed at the strength I've had and my bad thoughts don't return . . . they don't even stand a chance in my brain . . .

I must say when I first noticed this, I knew it wasn't me. I wasn't doing anything differently. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I got the last email from you. That's what is different. No one is beyond the striking distance of God and his 'special forces'. Not even a stubborn, not paying attention, recovering feminist like myself. Please let the guys know God is using their efforts in a very powerful way.

E5 Woman, IL, USA