Originally Posted by Soliloquy

FREEIN your post was incredibly insightful and I'm going to try and use the angle of seeing myself through the eyes of the creator. I struggle with faith and I'm not sure what I believe but I am spiritual to the extent that I pray daily and believe in a higher power. Just not sure what exactly God is, but the "God is love" thing sounds about right. So I guess God probably wants us to love ourselves. I do believe that part of why we were put here is to learn. And I somewhat believe that each of us have different struggles based on what we need to experience to enlighten our souls. This is how I cope with the "why does this have to happen to me?" or "this is so unfair" feelings. War is awful. And on memorial day particularly, I was struggling with faith. What kind of world is this? What kind of God lets these things happen? And my mom fighting for her life seems like a cruel joke. But somehow there is some grand design. I don't know, maybe bad things are the devil's work. I'm not sure I believe that. Like I said I don't know what I believe but I wish I believed more and knew more so that I could have more faith. I envy the devout Christians, Catholics, Buddhists etc. who find such solace in their religion. Well I do pray and give thanks and I ask for help and forgiveness. I follow my conscience and do what I believe in my heart is right. I know it's not in vain. SOLITARY Yes, I love Volbeat! I don't own any of their music yet but I listen to the Volbeat Pandora station a lot. I also like Millencolin, from Sweden. They're more punk rock, rather than metal. Worth checking out if you've never heard them. Metallica's acoustic cover of Last Caress is awesome! It makes me laugh for some reason. So does Lemonheads "Skulls" cover. Saturday Night is probably my favorite song from Famous Monsters. How it sounds like some 50's love song but it's gruesome. APPLEKAT I also tell my kids not to use the word "hate". A while back, my husband used it in a sentence when we were in the car and my daughter yelled "Bad word!" from the backseat. I feel too that it's such a strong word and shouldn't be used lightly, especially by children who hopefully haven't really had much experience with the emotion. This morning I woke up from a nightmare that my husband had cheated on me and was in love with someone else. I was trying to scream and cry out loud but with all of my mite I could only force out a meek, high pitch, weak, pathetic sound. My self loathing and feelings of inadequacy have crept too deep inside. Waking up from that was a bit of a wake up call. I just have this mentality that beating myself up will motivate me but I think I've been taking it too far.