Monthly Archives: November 2012

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One of the weird things about not having a scale is I can see that my body is changing, but I'm not entirely sure how or in what ways. I'm not tracking any of it. I now have a weird hollowed out section right under my ribs. My "apron" (the leftover pregnancy skin) is a lot smaller than it was–but I don't have much data. My measurements aren't changing. I track those because I want Noah to buy me clothes so I write my current measurements on the white board in our room.

Actually my waist is an inch bigger than it was. Nothing else has changed. But that hollowed out section is different looking. Bodies are odd.

trauma in the body

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I’m not always particularly humble. Yesterday I was reading a book my therapist gave me The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment. It has been on my to-read list for a while but I haven’t spent money on books in a bit. Sometimes when I read books I think, “God damn I am a lot smarter than I thought.”

Specifically the author was writing about the introduction of the idea of short term/long term memory. It came into understanding in the 1980’s and wasn’t widely accepted until 1994. I clearly remember explaining my dog bite using this language when I was about six, so 1987.

Someone asked me if I could remember the dog bite and I said, “No–when you get that kind of scared, so scared that you think you will die then you stop being able to remember because your long-term memory isn’t working right then.” I remember that the person looked at me like I was crazy but didn’t say anything–I was just some kid. I was completely right.

Reading this book feels like independent verification of the things I have been variously researching on my own. I’m appreciating what she has to say. I would give almost anything to get a brain scan of my hippocampus. I would really like to know what size it is. I would be very curious what my body’s ability to produce cortisol looks like.

Page 7: “Somatic disturbance is at the core of PTSD. People who suffer from it are plagued with many of the same frightening body symptoms that are characteristic of ANS (autonomic nervous system) hyperarousal experienced during a traumatic incident: accelerated heart rate, cold sweating, rapid breathing, heart palpitations, hypervigilance, and hyperstartle response (jumpiness). When chronic, these symptoms lead to sleep disturbances, loss of appetite [side note–the anniversary of my father’s death has caused such anxiety that I don’t eat for a month and lose about ten pounds every October], sexual dysfunction, and difficulties in concentrating, which are further hallmarks of PTSD. DSM-IV acknowledges that symptoms of PTSD can be incited by external as well as internal reminders of traumatic event, cautioning us that somatic symptoms, alone, can trigger a PTSD reaction. PTSD can be a very vicious circle.”

Yup. That’s me. That’s what I am just supposed to “get over”. If you startle me I am very likely to jump multiple feet away and scream at the same time. it has always been true. People like to fuck with me because they think it is funny that I get so scared.

Randomly: I have often wondered if some of the people in my life do not in fact have ADD, ADHD but if instead they have PTSD and they just don’t deal with it properly. It’s interesting how many “adult ADD sufferers” often talk about similar symptoms to me. I don’t have ADD. My attention abilities are freakish. Except when I’m having panic issues.

This book also neatly explains triggers and why I don’t want people to care about my triggers. There are two “kinds” of memory: implicit and explicit. Implicit is for things like riding a bike and driving a car. You just have to learn the muscle memory. Explicit memory is for things like following a recipe. There is a very specific list of things to remember in order.

Pavlov trained his dog to salivate at the sound of a bell–a conditioned response (CS). If someone is raped by a person wearing a red shirt and then later (irrationally, but that is how CS works) red shirts may be frightening. It being frightening would be a “trigger”. It triggered your bodies instinctive memory of what happened to you.

I can’t expect everyone in the world to stop wearing red shirts. She (Babette Rothschild is her name, by the way) explained that you can get secondary conditioned responses as well. If you go out in public and have a panic attack while walking past a shelf of red fabric because it reminds of the shirt… that’s starting to migrate out. She theorizes that these kinds of progressions are how many people end up agoraphobic. You have more and more negative responses to going out that are further and further removed from the trauma. I agree with that.

It’s not like I actually worry about being thrown out of the homeschooling group. I simply have a lot of overlapping and layered triggers that cause me to be afraid when I am there. Some days being there is too hard because my body is overwhelmed by being scared.

When I use the spoon theory this is how I use it for me. Not every day but certainly many days I decide whether or not I can handle the stress of working in the front yard where I will have to deal with talking to people who walk by. That’s pretty limited. I feel ashamed of myself but I have to manage it.

When I was a child I would stop going to school when the stress got too bad. It didn’t matter if I missed a few weeks. A few weeks meaning up to three months. We would always be moving soon and I would just start over again in a new place and it doesn’t matter that I’ve been hiding in my house for two straight months because I can’t interact with other people without crying. This has simply always been my life. When I dated Tom I had long periods where I left the house to go to the grocery store and school and other than that I didn’t leave the house without him. Noah doesn’t want to do the same kind of role. This is complicated.

It is probably “for the best” that Noah doesn’t want to continue to support my bad but semi-functional coping method. I have to develop new ones now. I’m not doing very well. This too shall pass.

I’m ready for a different brain cycle.

I think this is normal, but I pretty much always have a soundtrack to my life playing in my head. I was talking to Noah last night while brushing my teeth. I was looking at myself in the mirror and I started hearing the song from RENT “Will I“. On one hand I feel like a co-opting piece of shit. I don’t have HIV/AIDS. I am not going to die from a wasting disease.

I do worry about losing my dignity. I feel like my link to the world is tenuous at best. I worry about not being able to be calm enough to be treated like a human being. I worry about being treated like an animal again. I do not enjoy being treated like an out-of-control wild animal. Sometimes I feel like I would do anything, trade anything for a chance at having a body that reacted normally to the world. I want to stop feeling so afraid that I need to fight for my life.

I don’t want people to “learn my triggers” and avoid them. I want to not have them. I feel like most people say, “you triggered me” and mean “you made me feel bad/anxious therefore you are bad”. No, that’s not what triggers mean. I go through the world terrified because I have so many specific references to traumatic life experiences. I would like to have fewer. I really would.

I’m working on it..

On the tmi front.

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I have always had a highly irregular period. My cycles have varied between three weeks and three months and everything in between.

During marathon training my cycles settled into being 36/37 days long. That is unusually predictable for me and I was happy about it.

Then today I broke that patten. I started bleeding on day 29. That’s within a day of the dreaded normal cycle. Oh no. That would be kind of weird. And hilarious. And bad timing for Godmamam weekends.

Shrink your world

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One of the problems with living your life through the internet is there is this constant reminder that there is someone awesome in the world… only you don’t get to see them. They are far away. Sometimes they feel “only” thirty-five miles away. In the bay area that’s no big deal for dinner.

But all of this travel has a cost. The cost isn’t as obvious as it used to be. One upon a time thirty-five miles was probably multiple days of travel. Now… why are you being so lazy? Why don’t you join a group that has a one hour meeting once a week forty miles away from your house. I go to therapy in Oakland because I can’t find a compatible therapist closer. I spend four and a half hours and $10.50 on the trip. That’s a cost.

Life is about a series of choices. You can deny that you are making them and whine about the results but you can’t change the fact that it is happening. Most of the time people do nothing. They watch tv or play a video game or whine on mothering.com. Not a one is more moral than any other. What would people do if they were doing? How would they live if they didn’t center their lives around “making money”? The vast majority of software that gets written is thrown away without being used. The vast majority of my work is thrown away. Laundry and dishes are eternal. They are just life. Everyone must deal with them. They take so much time.

What do we do when we go do something? Do we go watch a movie? Do we build something? Do we go somewhere interesting? What is interesting about it? Why is it interesting? Everyone has a set of decisions they make that satisfy their priorities.

I spend a lot of time at home. More than anything I want my home to be beautiful. It is kind of becoming the thing I care about. I don’t care about cars. I don’t care about my clothes overmuch. I still wear clothes I bought when I was fourteen. (polyester cotton blend dress–I may have it till I am fifty–it fits from 135 lbs to 205 lbs miraculously) I’m not going to focus much on fashion.

I can’t control Noah and I can’t control my kids and I can’t control very much of how my life goes over the next few years. I have made long-term choices that require frugal living. No whining.

I want my house to be pretty. I want to feel proud of it. This is going to be an interesting journey. I’m going to have to learn how to do most of this by myself. When the kids get older they will probably help but I can’t reliably count on anyone else. I don’t know how much money I will have for these projects. All signs point to less than $100/month. I love freecycle like nobodies business. I feel guilty sometimes because I kind of feel like I am stealing from genuine poor people. I am making the choice to not spend money and someone else may not have a choice. I don’t feel like I should let that worry cause me to sit in a depressive rut in my house. If the only way I can get stuff is freecycle, I have as much right as anyone else to ask. Sometimes I win; sometimes I don’t.

I crossed two things off my to do list today. I finally got the van maintenance done (I’ve been putting it off for over a month) and I signed the kids back up for swim class. They have their own section of the budget so they get to do activities. I don’t feel like it is reasonable to throw them into a life of poverty in favor of some someday when things will happen. Their lives will be better if they know how to swim. I’m not signing them up for fifteen classes, but we’ll manage some things. I think that is fair.

My neighbor is pressuring me to put Shanna into a private (religious) school with her son next year. Hell no with a side of biscuits. Shanna keeps asking about kindergarden. I may sign her up for the online charter just to shut her up. I feel like my mantra in life right now is “We’ll see”. Whenever the kids ask me when something is happening or if something is happening I say, “I don’t know! We’ll see…” like a tv announcer. This would be more effective if they had ever heard/seen this schtick before. I think it is hilarious that when they see pop culture they will think it is imitating me long before they know I didn’t make this stuff up. I really like being cool.

The biggest limitation is how much work can I do while still being nice. Gosh it varies. But if I do manage to get a lot done I am more likely to feel good about myself than in any other set of variables. Of course.

I’m obsessively thinking about money. Some time in the next month I’m going to lay out the year, talk about my problem areas and why I’m being stupid in the ways I’m being stupid (cause we go for the honesty here). Sometimes I’m stupid. Unfortunately my family has to live with that. And I’m the kind of freak who is going to explain to the internet how so and why. For no reason beyond I want to. Then I stop freaking out about it. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s better than most of my traditional ones. Just go with me here.

And I want to write out why I have the attitude I do about Christmas. I have been feeling really weird about writing lately. I’m not making any progress. I’m not able to work on editing. It’s too god damn depressing. I think I need to explore some non-typing, spoken word technology for the next book. I’m kind of worried about my arms. Luckily I have friends to ask about this.

I need to go get ready for a tea party. We invited the nice waitress from the local breakfast restaurant. She often brings small gifts for my daughters and we have gotten to know one another over a period of about six years. I’m scared. I want her to like me. I will be crushed if she decides I am bad. I’ll keep my mouth shut and the door to the bedroom with the pornographic pictures closed. No actually I don’t care if my kids see them. One is a really gorgeous artistic shot done by a friend of mine and the others are all me naked while pregnant. So not “pornographic” but people have expressed shock. Bite me. I think they are cool.

I need to stop wasting time. But I don’t want to work. Of course not, Krissy–you are depressed. Never the less the work waits. Here I sit. Yup, still here. Suck.

stop wasting your life

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Recently I got an anonymous comment on the post My Father Raped Me:

“I don’t think you’re disgusting. So you masturbate while thinking about getting raped, so what? I masturbate to the exact same kind of stuff, and I know I’m not disgusting. Human sexuality is nutbar. Might as well stop fretting and embrace it. You’re just wasting your life with all this moaning and groaning. Get out there and live, goddamn it!”

I read these things and think, “OH MAN. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT YEARS AGO?!?!?!!!111”

And then I get up and I get dressed and I leave the house and I do something stupid or someone says something minor to me and I have a panic attack and I run back home and I don’t leave the house for a week or three. Unless we need food. I have a minimal level of functioning I manage. We can walk to a farmers market and to multiple small food markets (yay ethnic food) so we can get by within the limits of my cope.

You see, in order to drive I have to be sober. So all my functioning out in the world right that involves driving has to be without the anxiety medication that makes me functional. We walk miles and miles. I think Shanna walks at least ten miles a week and many weeks more than that if they successfully pressure me to go out. Calli is in a transitional stage where she literally can’t keep up with Shanna but she wants to and resents almost everything we do to manage it. She hates the Ergo. She only wants to be carried in arms. I’ve been a stupid typist for a decade–my arms go numb in a minute or two and that’s not particularly safe. We are in a fussy period. I recognize that other people would push a stroller but I quite frankly feel resentful as fuck about doing it so I don’t. We manage what we can manage. Sometimes there is crying because Calli is so fucking pissed that she can’t physically do what Shanna can do.

It’s funny when I’m not listening to the screaming.

 When I am stoned and Calli gets to this point in frustration/exhaustion/rage I will force her kicking and screaming into the carrier (I’ve got mad skillz) then I walk along with my hands stroking her legs and her back and her behind and I talk to her about frustration. I tell her that she is strong for walking as far as she did. There is no shame in needing help–that’s why you have a mommy. Mommy’s help their kids. I comfort her while she cries and I calmly in a near whisper ask if she can please lower her voice a little because my head is really hurting.

When I am sober I shake and clench my teeth and have trouble not exploding with rage of my own because most of the time screaming triggers horrible headaches and I would cheerfully like to shove my head through the nearest car windshield just to get the fuck away from that noise.

It’s like being two different people.

One is able to be compassionate. One is already hurting too much.

My problems are not because of what I think about while masturbating. My problems are because my brain was damaged by long term severe neglect and child abuse. Telling me to stop moaning and groaning is pretty dismissive.

A long time ago I explained to a therapist (I can’t remember who or when) that I manage my symptoms through stress management. I have fine tuned what I can handle and if I go over what I can handle then I have problems because all of my coping methods are bad.

That is still mostly true. Being a mother has not worked out like I thought it would. I can’t financially afford to do as much as I would kind of like to do. Life is just like that. I get to do a fantastic amount compared to most people. I don’t complain about the fact that my life has limits.

The deer jumping on the car is going to be kind of hard to absorb financially. I’m going to have to make a lot of choices not to go anywhere just because I can’t pay for gas. The van is really expensive to drive. Going to the homeschool park days is approximately $12 in gas for every trip. That’s a toll that adds up. Given that Noah had to drive the van for two weeks our gas budget was more than twice what it usually is during that period. I have to absorb that. The only way to do so is to cut back on my driving.

It’s going to be kind of lonely but I expect the kids and I will get a lot of exercise and the house will be decorated. We will do a bunch of projects.

Ack. breakfast.

Tried something different.

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“Do you know why I usually don’t touch you when I cry?”
“No. Why?”
“Because my mom used to hit me when I cried.”

Last night I cried on Noah’s chest. I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure that you can count how many times I have done that on one hand with fingers left over. We have been married for six years. I cry nearly every day. Often for many hours. I cry alone.

“No one wants to see that Kristine. No one wants to hear it either. Didn’t I tell you to shut up? Fine. I’ll give you something to cry about.”

The fact that I was raped over and over wasn’t good enough. The fact that people chased me home from school throwing rocks at me wasn’t good enough. The fact that I moved constantly and didn’t have friends or toys I could trust owning wasn’t good enough. The fact that I usually didn’t know if we would have a place to live next week or if we would be homeless wasn’t good enough either.

I cry alone. Often (though not always anymore–I kind of glory in being able to make noise when I cry now) I cry completely silently. Even my breathe barely raises in volume. I shared a bed with my mother till I was sixteen. I know how to have tears run down my face and slowly control the sobbing with breath so that I don’t get hit again. Mostly I just prefer to be alone in a room.

I was always told that I wasn’t allowed to cry unless I was hit–that’s the only good reason. Sometimes I wonder if I found the bdsm scene because I knew I needed to cry and I’m just not allowed to cry without being hit.

When other people think of “bdsm” I’m not sure what they think. I think there isn’t a lot of point if someone isn’t crying. A lot. Mostly uncontrollably. As a top I am ridiculously sadistic. Don’t play with me unless what you want from today is to end up curled in the fetal position on the floor sobbing your heart out. That is what I have in me to give. I prefer when my play partners nearly kill me. I want them to hurt me terribly and risk my life. I know I am not important. I know that very sick people exist in the world. I hope that if I can give them a cheap thrill they won’t hurt someone important.

When Noah raised his hand to stroke my face I flinched.

I was kind of randomly curious tonight so I looked it up. I’m pretty sure that I qualify for SSI for disability due to PTSD. If I had to hold down a job right now my life would be pretty nightmarish. I have continual flashbacks. I have a lot of panic attacks. I barely leave my house. I have to talk myself into believing there are “safe” people on the other side who don’t hate me before I manage. Going to the grocery store is hard. I understand that it is for most parents. But when other peoples kids misbehave in public they don’t crumple to the floor crying because it seems so overwhelming to deal with. I feel like a very pathetic person.

In order to figure out how to talk to my kids I sat around reading Jane Austen books. That is the language Shanna learned. That is why she is so excessively polite. I model it all the time. I made sure that for the first few years of her life she rarely heard anyone but me talk and I modeled extreme manners constantly.

I am trying to figure out how to shape the voices in my children’s head. I know I don’t control who they become. But I *do* control the messages they get about themselves right now.

My children believe manners are not optional and the world will crash to a halt with horror if you are rude. So they don’t do it. Except for the one big exception. “If anyone is ever touching any part of your body in a way you don’t like you need to ask them politely to stop once. If they continue, hit them. Scream. Run away. You are allowed to defend you.”Shanna is extremely aware that her vulva is a private space and that no one should touch it until she is full grown and has asked them politely to touch her there. I told her the “whys and whens” around sex are conversations we will probably have in more like ten years. She tried to ask for more information. I said, “At four all you need to know is no one can touch you there. You won’t be grown up for a very long time.” She’s ok with that for now.

It was weird to cry on Noah. I felt really bad about getting him all wet. The snot flows like a river. Mmmm sexy.

One of the things that is hardest for me about being rich is how isolating it is. I feel like I have gotten to know my neighbors to an unusual degree. They are certainly all shocked that I am attempting to do so. My experience of poverty (I understand that my life is not universal and I do not have the “universal poverty experience”) was that people had a lot more time on their hands. There was a lot of time to kill and no one had any money. People had to either fall into a depressive rut in order to survive or they had to get creative.

I am very creative. Unfortunately I hate working alone and I am really struggling with the period of time when my kids are no help and instead a bunch of extra work. I’m willing to bet that in two or three years Shanna will be able to do most of the things I like to do. She helps a little now.

I like building things. I like having a concrete change on the world. I often get very frustrated with myself because I am a perfectionist and I get little practice to practice so I’m not improving at skills at the rate I want to.

Noah not wanting to build with me is hard. He doesn’t want to do any kind of physical labor on the property. I feel like I am having to drag him kicking and screaming (by the god damn hair) towards the idea of doing any help with homeschooling beyond teaching programming. It is feeling very invalidating of the “us” label.

I feel like I subsumed who I was into my family. My life, my time, my work are all spent on things that directly benefit people in my family other than me. It feels like. Because I am self-serving like everyone else and I enjoy lying to myself.

I do home improvement stuff and I cook and I clean.

It is kind of funny because I feel a little competitive because many of my friends have kids in the same age range. Shanna is behind most of the kids we know academically. (I am tracking various kids in my head. It’s interesting.) On one hand I feel like this means I am failing as a homeschooling parent. On the other hand I have the belief that early academic instruction is a bad idea. I am making a conscious decision. It still feels weird that all my friends kids knew their ABCs faster, can count earlier and higher. Blah.

I believe, because research tells me so, that early introduction of these concepts does not improve IQ or overall achievement down the line. I still feel kind of weirdly insecure about my kid and what I am doing. I don’t exactly think my friends are drilling their kids. Why are they picking things up so much faster? I have no idea. But I feel insecure. That is one of the many things I am just going to have to live with being insecure about. I made a decision based on sound principles I still believe.

What I specifically miss about having community was there were always two or three women in the kitchen talking. I thought that was what the future looked like. I’m very sad because my life won’t look like that for another fifteen years. And then they may very well want to go off into the world and spread their wings. I may do all of these years hoping for that and not get it. I have to be ok with it. I can’t spend my life wishing for that. I would be doing something inappropriate. It’s so hard to know that I can never hope for that. I tried to have that with Sarah. She hid from my anger in her room. I don’t blame her.

I don’t share my anger with my children. I share it with the adults in my life. I’m afraid that if I have hopes for what they will do as adults I will get very angry with them for disappointing me. Talk about poisoning the well. I try very hard to not have expectations of them beyond how they are treating me right now. I treat them how I want them to treat me and by and large it works out. When they are having a bad day and they freak out and cry a lot I comfort them even though my head hurts so much I start to cry too. I rock with them. I tell them it is ok to cry.

I tell my kids over and over, “When you feel sad you are allowed to cry.” I will be their inside voice whether they are with me or not. I want them to believe it is ok to exist. I don’t want them to feel like me.

I tell them it is ok to be frustrated. It’s not ok to shout at people. Let’s figure it out. And mostly we do.

I feel like oozing toxic waste. I feel like poison. I am so sad and so angry. I miss my mom. Isn’t that crazy? Shouldn’t I just be glad to be away from her? But she’s my mommy. I ache for her so bad I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel like my organs want to go into failure. I want my mommy. I have been crying for my mother my entire life. Even when I had her I didn’t have her. My mother didn’t take care of me. My mother damaged me.

My mother told me I wasn’t allowed to be angry when I was raped. She told me I wasn’t allowed to yell or scream or cry. I have made my bed and now I have to lie in it. Silently. While men do whatever they want. And I still miss her. Sometimes that feels like the most fucked up part.

I am sad about not having a father. I do not miss James Archer. I didn’t know him. I don’t even remember what he looks like. That part makes me sad. Sometimes I think of writing Jimmy a letter and asking for a picture. I don’t know if he would send me one. I feel very sad about not being allowed to know what my father looks like. My mother gave Jimmy all the pictures of him many years ago. When I was still a child. I don’t even know if he kept them.

 I don’t miss my sister. I think a wall came up when I found out about her forcing my niece to give my nephew a blow job. She became the living enemy. Being in a room with her and not spitting in her face is tantamount to supporting her behavior. No thank you. I think she is a piece of shit I stepped on.

I wish I felt like people loved me. I wish I could feel loved. I think part of the reason I cried on Noah last night was because I wanted to feel like he loved me. I didn’t feel that way. I feel dead inside. I feel like I went on an extended vacation to Chernobyl and my insides are radioactive and not quite functioning right.

I feel hollow and empty. I feel already dead. I feel like the cessation of breathing is a mere formality.

I have been here before. I know that how I feel right now is not how I feel all the time. I am dimly aware of that. I did have the chutzpah to up and get married. I felt loved. But mental illness is a liar.

When I was in the teaching credential they told us that a child has to hear ten positive things to cancel out everything negative said to them about themself.

When I think about what my mother said to me I cry. My inside voice is strong and loud and dominating. Shut up Kristine. No one cares, Kristine. Shut up.

I’m very ready for this cycle to change.

More about privilege

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I’ve been reading about privilege all day. Mostly because a friend posted that he thinks the word “privilege” should be added to Godwin’s law. If you mention privilege in an argument you automatically lose. Of course my friend who thinks this is a white male.

I have specifically spent a bunch of time reading rants from (self-identified) straight white men and their anger about the word. It is uhm educational. Near as I can tell most of the anger about the term comes from, “But I’ve had hard things happen in my life so how dare you act like I have had things easy.” I see a lot of people saying that privilege may or may not be relevant in population discussions but it is entirely irrelevant on a personal level. Everyone has so many factors involved that they cancel each other out.

I am white. I have benefited from white privilege. I got to leave my ghetto ass school in the projects in LA and come up to Los Gatos to benefit from a really quality education. There were about six black kids in Los Gatos High School. They all had to be exemplary examples of their race. They were all athletes and had high GPAs and *still* when one walked into the Togo’s where I worked the people behind the counter would say, “Oh shit. Lock the cash register.”

When I was five years old I was attacked by a pit bull and had half my face ripped off. I had excellent legal coverage because my best friend’s father was a lawyer. Because my best friend at the time has rejected me since I wrote the book I no longer feel bad about saying it was Brittney’s dad who sent me the cease and desist letter. The lawyer who protected me when I was five? He was quite happy to threaten me legally now. And given what I know about him I would bet you thousands of dollars that he wouldn’t have allowed Brittney to be my friend if I hadn’t been white. I wouldn’t have had that expert legal counsel. I wouldn’t have had the settlement that set me up for life.

I could go on and on. I could list the things that have been better for me because I am a woman. There have been many times when I was basically spared because I was a girl.

Like when I was fifteen and I stole my mom’s car? I didn’t have a drivers license (or an appropriate licensed driver in the car). I sobbed that I was on the honor roll at Los Gatos High School and had never been in trouble so he called my mom and let her pick me up. You want to guess how likely that would have been if I was a black fifteen year old boy? Or a Mexican boy?

I feel ashamed of the ways in which I have been accommodated yet other people are harmed. There is nothing I can do about it. It just happens.

I can list off ways in which I am privileged. I could keep going for as long as the kids will let me type but that seems kind of pointless.

I don’t actually think that my privilege makes me a good or a bad person. It is pretty value neutral. Whether I am good or bad is not about whether or not I have this privilege. You can be a good person and have privilege. You can be a good person and have very little privilege. They are completely irrelevant scales.

For me the reason that privilege is an important concept to talk about is because we are all locked into our own personal experience of the world. Can we all agree that mine was unusually hell-ish? Yes? Ok, good. Is it right that I get to go out and make decisions about how white men are treated? No. It’s a good thing I can’t. Because I am ridiculously biased. I am very prejudiced. I would not be a good person if I was put in the position of having to treat large groups of adults fairly. For some reason I don’t have a problem with kids. I had a few Mexican kids try to tell me that I was racist when I was teaching but when I made it clear that I hated everyone they backed off.

I don’t think I am perfect. I often doubt if I am even good. What I want is a world where people who have benefited from a lot of privilege (like me) go through their lives actively working to counter the effects of privilege on other people. Does that mean you should work every minute of every day on making your own life shittier (if you are white) because you believe it somehow evens the score?

Why did this become a race to the bottom? Why is this an argument about “You have this tiny advantage I don’t have so I am going to hate you.”

I have a hard time with the concept of white men (something that some of my white male friends express anger with me because I mention) but when you look at my life I am continually learning from white men. They hold most of the keys to the kingdom. When I want to learn about things I usually end up visiting a white guy and having to bite holes in my tongue to deal with their condescension as I try to gain the information I am there for. It’s really fucking annoying. (Ok, not every white guy. I’m mad at two people.)

I don’t feel that privilege conversations should be about shoving white men away from privilege. But I do think that more computer geeks should find ways of volunteering their time.

If you genuinely believe that you do not benefit from “privilege” but you are a white collar professional–why couldn’t you help tutor underprivileged kids? Why can’t you help them in the ways their parents literally can’t? It’s too many hoops? It’s not convenient enough? What’s in it for you?

I feel like post-marathon I have crashed into one of the worst depressions of my adult life. I’m having a very hard time moving from the position on the floor where I have been sitting for a while. I am not sleeping much at all because I cry all night long.

I know that at this point in my life I have almost nothing to give anyone. I am technically taking care of my kids–they are fed, supervised, read to, bathed, taken to educational opportunities… but I’m flailing. A lot of what is crushing me is the lack of community in my life. It isn’t that I have no one who is ready or able to help me–that isn’t true. I have pinch hitters. What I don’t have is community.

A good friend started up a canning group. A whole bunch of people I know through various other communities (people I’ve known for more than a decade longer than I’ve known her) are all joining. Apparently there has been this underground group of people doing this and I had no idea. I think it is wonderful that it exists. I don’t go to their meetings because no one ever showed me how to do canning. I’ve basically figured it out from the internet (I hope) but I don’t do a lot of it and I definitely don’t do so much of it that I have a bunch to give away.

There is this wonderful community forming. Of women I like and know and enjoy their company. I have spent hours and hours crying because it feels like one more group that is only for people who had functional lives and learned skills in the normal ways.

I learned how to be a whore. It’s not very useful these days.

I have unimaginable privilege compared to what I experienced as a child. Other people still have privileges I don’t have. Does that make them bad? No. But I bloody hope they recognize that they have different skills and opportunities. I hope they don’t dismiss me and talk about me being unwilling to work just because I have not succeeded in the same ways they have. I have worked very hard at the things I have accomplished.

Unfortunately not-dying isn’t something for which they give you medals.

When I talk to my male friends about privilege I am trying to beg for the right to be as important as they are. “See, look at all these things that happened in your life to make you have a much safer and in many ways better life than me. Is your life always better? No. But let’s look at the handouts you have and the handouts I have.”

I suppose that the important part is–what do you do about privilege? Well… when I told my friend that many of my female friends were no longer willing to be in a room with him because they find him so offensive his response was, “What is their problem? I’m not sexist.” He can even find one woman to back him up so he’s golden. He’s not sexist. That’s the end of the conversation. The fact that he treats women like servants… irrelevant. The fact that he is rude and domineering in conversations… not relevant. I have watched (the two friends in particular I am mad at) basically shout down a room full of women who were trying to have a private conversation. They thought the women were wrong and they had to tell them so. Over and over. Loudly.

If you are walking into a legacy professorship because of ties you have from when you were a teenager through your parents (who are also professors) you benefit from privilege. Stop telling me about how you work harder than anyone else. You will let your house become so disgusting that if I turned you into county health you would be sanctioned. Because you don’t believe you should ever have to do “work” when you aren’t being paid for it. That’s for losers like those chicks you bang.

But there’s no privilege here.

What do I think white men can do to deal with the fact that they have privilege? Well, for one thing you being offended is not actually a capitol case. I’m offended all the god damn time. Welcome to the internet. Something being less favorable to white men above all others is not reverse racism.

Individuals can suffer while the larger system favors their class. It happens all the time. Just because an individual isn’t getting the absolute limit of benefit from his/her privilege that doesn’t mean that they have none. I wish that people would stop denying that they have had advantages in life. Seriously. Be honest with yourself. What things have you had handed to you that you shouldn’t have been? Where were you lucky?

And then next time you want to pass judgment on someone for not doing the same things as you or for not being in the same place as you–maybe wait a bit.

Technically right now “I” qualify as being in the top 5% of the country based on tax returns. My husband provides well. That is a privilege I god damn didn’t earn. Am I a better person than anyone else? Hell no. I vote constantly for higher taxes and more entitlement programs despite the fact that I think Welfare is inherently broken and should be entirely redesigned. I’m aware that my intellectual issues with it are not very important in the face of all the real-live-people who would suffer and maybe die if I was more selfish.

I tell Shanna (and I suppose Calli though I lecture her less at this point) constantly that with great privilege comes great responsibility. I suppose I feel White Man’s Burden. I have had things handed to me. I have had things easier than other people–what do I do with that? If I spend the rest of my life hiding in my house because my life has been so terrible–oh poor me–then I have failed. I have failed at being a good person. I have ridiculous privilege. What am I going to do with it?

I wish that my male friends felt more of the challenge to be better than spurred to be worse when they think about their lives in comparison to other people. I wish it wasn’t, “I’m going to step on their head so they can’t compete with me.” We will rise or fall as a society together.

I want to rise. So when I notice my privilege I try like fuck to share. Because I didn’t earn it. It’s just there. And I bear a lot of responsibility because it is there. I wish I knew what that meant.

Don’t ask me questions if you don’t want the answer.

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You asked me what I am thinking.
I don’t know how to answer.
I don’t know how to tell you what I am thinking.
I am thinking about death.
I am thinking about status and privilege.
I am thinking about how I am a whiny bitch.
I am thinking about how hard it is that I have to fuck you in order to get cuddling.
I am thinking about how frustrating it is that I can no longer disassociate away from my cunt hurting like this.

I’m thinking about how sad I feel that when I talk about privilege my white male friends think I am saying their experience and life doesn’t matter. The fact that I have quietly sat and listened to them for many many many years before standing up and saying that they have to listen to me too–oh well. I am being unreasonable.

Sometimes it feels like I am supposed to stop existing so they can have all the space there is. They will certainly shout me down to take up all the speaking space. But I’m imagining things. They’ve never said anything sexist. They are victims just as much as anyone.

We are all victims. But some of us are victims making $100,000/year and some of us are victims making $20,000/year. Not me. I make nothing. But it’s a choice. I could have been making $60,000 right now because I have benefited from a lot of privilege. Not everyone gets to make the choice to be worthless. Most people work as hard as they can and are still told that their efforts are worth very little money. That means nothing. Those people are just lazy. Or stupid. Or something. Just less.

Oh I forgot. You have what you have because you worked harder. You wanted it more. You deserved it more.

I won’t talk about it again. I’m sorry I mentioned that it sucks that you had help that other people don’t get. I’m sorry that I mentioned that it sucks that you had a life I can’t really imagine having.

Yes yes. Being ignored and made fun of is terrible. I know. I had that happen too. In between people chasing me with rocks and sticks. Yes, someone punched you once. I understand that is terrible. I’ve been punched too. It really sucks.

I think that seeing as how I am supposed to only talk when you want me to and only think what you want me to and only fuck when you want me to…

I don’t think I want to be here. I feel stupid. I feel petty. I feel as selfish as I am. I don’t want to be here to continually tell you how awesome you are. I’m tired of being a fan club. I’m tired of being a cheerleader. I’m tired of telling you that you are so awesome and so smart and so worthwhile.

Because I don’t hear you say it back to me unless I badger the shit out of you. And then it’s grudging. After I’ve given you what you want.

I think that if I am stupid enough to pick a life where I am dependent on someone else then I deserve what I get and what I don’t get.

That’s what I’m thinking about.

No one is perfect.

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I’ve been mad at Noah for a bit. That’s hard. When I’m mad at Noah I don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t want to rant about him in unfinished ways in public. Everything I put on the internet is here forever. I have to be prepared to live with having said everything I say. It keeps me honest.

Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what I am really mad about. I have to go through multiple layers of pissiness before I get to the bottom of things. I wish I were faster and able to do this process without uhm loudly bitching at him but I am where I am. The best part of being married to someone who is nearly incapable of reading body language and tone of voice is that I get away with sounding like an evil harpy if everything I am saying is true. I have to make god damn sure it is true. No one is fucking quicker to argue with me if I get a god damn detail wrong than Noah.

But sometimes I say true things. Sometimes the things that upset me really should make a person upset. I’m having trouble figuring out how that works.

Right now Noah doesn’t feel very successful or like he is good at life when he is with the kids and I. The three of us are an intense bunch of irrational non-vulcanlike-non-programmer freaks. How in the fuck can he talk to us? Everything that he has spent his life on is uhm weirdly irrelevant to the three of us… only he supports us. It’s kind of weird. As far as the kids are concerned he might as well sit at work and watch youtube all day. That is what computers are for–right? Sometimes when I walk into the garage on his work from home days I certainly wonder.

I feel horrible that I provide so little satisfaction to Noah. Being around me doesn’t seem to provide him with a lot of good feelings. Other than having sex he would rather be working. I know that a lot of it stems from the fact that he feels very pressured to make more money (he has multiple side gigs–he has been making more than $2k/month outside of his dayjob) because uhm… we spend a lot of money. I feel fairly sure that a lot of the spending the kids and I do would change if he was around more. I spend money in order to not sit in the house feeling alone and sad all day. The kids are a weird company/not-company. Uhm and we spend money when things happen like the washing machine flooding my garage and a deer jumping on the car. It’s not like our spending this year has been completely frivolous. And that’s right around $10,000 just with those two things.

I get that Noah feels a lot of pressure. I feel a lot of shame that I am no longer contributing at all to my own maintenance. In order to make money from sale of the book I would hve to a)get the cajones to get into print and then b)do a lot of marketing.

I don’t know about you but I’m having trouble coming up with a marketing angle for “Come read my tale of woe and tragedy. Don’t worry–it has a horrible ending so you can be sure to experience all the angst possible. No I haven’t written part two. You have no idea what happens next beyond, ‘Not dead yet.'” It just doesn’t have zing.

I feel like a burden. I feel like an impediment to success. But Noah wasn’t real motivated towards success until he got married. Not really. He did a lot of coasting.

Yesterday I went down and talk to my neighbor, Ed. We found out recently that Ed is in his 70’s. I would have said early 60’s. He’s an interesting fellow. I talk to him a lot because he spends a lot of time hanging out in his front yard. He likes to talk about his car. I’m not going to tell you about it because I don’t care. What I care about was yesterday I asked him, “How many hours did you work every week when your kids were little?” He said, “Oh I guess it probably came to about 60 hours per week. But there were a lot of weeks when he traveled

and right there is where I have to stop before I beat the shit out of someone. Out of time today. They won’t stop yanking on my arms.

come back later:
I don’t beat the shit out of anyone. I hiss through clenched teeth, “You need to stop touching me for a few minutes.” Then I stand in the corner of the room by myself until I calm down. I wish I didn’t get so angry when they are grabby. God it’s hard.