I'm happily married to a beautiful and loving woman, and together we are raising a bunch of wonderful children, yet there is a side of me that no one knows about, a side of me that has been eating away at me for almost as long as I can remember. That side of me is the Mr. Hyde to my Dr. Jekkyl, the crazed sicko who gets set loose at night and does horrific shameful things. Being a true ohaiv Ha-shem, who really loves the aibishter and his torah and mitzvos this creates an enormous amount of conflict in my life, leading me to feelings of isolation despite being surrounded by people who love me, and despair despite leading a relatively successful life.
To compound those feelings, I am involved in avodas hakodesh, so while people are looking to me for inspiration, I'm sometimes involved in things that if they had the slightest clue of, they would pillory me in the town square. This makes me feel even more like a fake and a fraud despite the fact that all I really want to do in my life is bring people closer to Avinu Shebashamayim. Many times, I have thought about quitting, recognizing that I'll never really be able to inspire others if there's no gas in my fuel tank, but I'm reminded of the fish's response to Rabbi Akiva, "If in the water, the place of our life, we need to fear, how much more so on dry land, the place of our death!" So I guess I will try to stay close to the water, (besides all the teaching I do, I personally learn for hours every day, sometimes immediately followed by a most inglorious session of shmutz!), and just keep trying to slog through the muck.
I hope you can give me the chizzuk I need to make it out of my living hell.
Thanks again to everyone; my life has improved immeasurably since I joined this program. From the outside people wouldn't see any difference in me, but I feel the difference.
The constant battles are raging in my head much less, the feelings of guilt and fakery are mostly gone, I feel so much cleaner fresher etc...