Monthly Archives: April 2013

Maybe final draft?

2 Replies

Today we get to participate in a modern day fairy tale. When people write love stories about getting to grow up with and marry the right person–they are writing about couples like M&E. Precious few people get it right so young. I have been lucky enough to know these two since almost the beginning of their relationship. I hope you will all bear with me as I ramble at them about the commitment they are making.

In English classes we claim that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Does life work that way? No, not really. Life is lived in medias res. What that translates to is “in the middle” and it’s the idea that for every moment in time there is a moment before and a moment after so everything is really in the middle.

Are we here to celebrate the beginning of M and E’s relationship? I submit that the beginning was long ago. This may be a doorway to a new stage but it is not truly the beginning.

This idea of transition is very important. It prompts you to step back and look at your life with perspective. How does a given event impact your life and how do you fit into the world? The world was around long before you and with luck will still be here long after all of us are a memory. How do you fit into this larger tale of humanity?

Marriage has existed as a word in our language for at least 700 years and as a concept it is much older than that. Anthropological records indicate that people have been engaging in monogamous pairings for at least 20,000 years. That’s a long time of people deciding, “Hey I’m sure I like you more than I like any one else.”

In Ancient Rome there were two kinds of marriage the poor people kind where a father deposited his daughter with a groom and they shacked up and the official kind with merging property. The merging of property is what made you someone of status and someone deserving a proper wedding ceremony. From there, a millennium later, the Church of England was kind enough to offer couples a choice between merely “loving and cherishing” their partner or “loving, cherishing, and obeying”; I know which one I would choose.

Marriage has changed a great deal over the multiple millennium that such unions have existed. I feel like we live in an exciting time for marriage. At no point in the past did couples have as much freedom to define their roles as we do right now. You do not need to have a marriage that will make someone else happy or satisfy their needs. You need to have a marriage built on mutual understanding of your unique quirks and desires. No other marriage will look exactly like yours.

In this marriage you are both focused on how you will grow together. You have been together so long that you have a good idea how you want the larger curves of your lives to go. You have already supported one another through transitions from one life stage to another. You have this built in advantage over most people who get married these days.

Do you know how to be happy and how to make goals? The first and most important step is to give and receive love. Check.  After that you sit and carefully think about what area of your life you want to see difference in. Then you try to decide what that area of your life means to you. How do you want it to look? Write all of this down. Then you organize your results. Then review the options for how to change what you don’t like. You can’t just “stop doing” something you have to replace the behavior with something you are moving towards.

We live in one of the most exciting times in all of human history. At no other point in time have humans had the option of changing as dramatically as we will in the next twenty year period. The next twenty years of your life will involve technology that was completely unthinkable even five years ago. Your children will be technology natives. You live in a time and a place where change is happening faster and faster. Being adaptable is one of the most important survival traits our species has to master right now.

Today weddings are about joining in front of family and community. The people who are here with you now are the witnesses for this new marriage and change in your life and your identity. These are the people who will hold you to your promises. In choosing to get married you are consciously saying, “The good of us together as a family needs to come before our individual wants.” That will mean hard choices sometimes. That will mean having to bite your tongue when you are feeling impatient. It will mean needing to learn how to express your wants and needs so that they can be met–if your needs aren’t being met then your family is not actually functioning. No one can be a martyr. I say this to both of you. No martyrs.

Whether what you dislike is your current brand of makeup or your current employer the process is the same. Notice that you are having a whole set of reactions to a situation or trigger. Find a way to make categories as you evaluate. Divide up your thoughts and make them patterns. Eventually it will be clear what you need to do. Maybe you will be yelling at your kids too much. Maybe you will be frustrated by deciding who needs to clean the bathroom. It literally doesn’t matter what part of your life the situation is in. Just do the process.

There will be conflict and unrest in your life. It is as natural as breathing. What will determine your strength of character and the strength of your marriage is how you adapt, how you change. Life is change, Princess, and anyone who tells you different is selling something.

I am standing here because I believe in you. Because I have watched you two support one another through massive life changes with good cheer, love, and kindness. You don’t need a lecture on how to be good to one another—you are already there.

Whenever you feel like you have nothing else to give you have to find a way. You have to ask for help. You have to find love and compassion and generosity no matter how tired you are, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter how angry you are. You are on the precipice of one of the most grueling stages of your life together. You need to treat the next five years as an investment in the next fifty years. The more kind you are to one another during this stage the more happiness, love and generosity you will experience over the whole rest of your life. Be selfish. Think of the future. Be nice to your partner.

It is about finding balance.

If you do not prioritize your needs and talk about them and insist on them being met then you will not get what you need this lifetime. I say this to both of you. If you do not ask for what you need then you will almost certainly not get it. You have to ask. You have to be brave. You have to take risks. You have to say things that scare you and make you feel vulnerable and weak. Otherwise you will not be able to grow as a unit. Vulnerability is part of the whole process.

You also have to say “no”. You have to say, “I wish I could support you in this way because clearly this is a need for you but right now I can’t.” Don’t be sorry or mean when you have boundaries. Just have them. There are reasons we as a species have extended clans and communities. You are not meant to be isolated as a couple deriving all of your support from one another. You must be vulnerable and you must ask for help when you need it. First from your partner and then from other people in your life who can help. They want you to be happy but they can only help meet your needs if they know what they are. (This is not an open invitation for people to meddle. People should only show up to help if you want them to–otherwise it is a boundary incursion.)

Every year on your anniversary you need to sit down together and reflect on how your marriage is progressing. Time will pass–that is inevitable. Growth is not. The only people who can evaluate whether or not you are progressing in the directions you want to progress are the two of you. If you do not stop and consciously take stock you will not be able to determine if you are doing the things that are important to you. Don’t drift through life. Make goals. Make lists of goals for one year away, five years away, ten years away, twenty years away. Make them together and separately. Then check them off one right after another.

M, when you are feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and you aren’t sure how to find more patience you need to close your eyes and think of E laughing. You need to think about how much you want to hear that laughter every day of your life. You want that to be the sound track of your life. You want to make E happy. You want to hear her laugh. As long as you can make E laugh everything will work out ok in the end–right?

E when you feel disrupted and like you don’t know the route forward you need to trust the process. M helps you feel safe. I can tell you right now today that you will not always be safe. M will not always be able to keep you perfectly safe. But you will always be able to return to safety. Within your marriage you have the ability to choose to make your home a place of comfort and calm away from the turbulence of the world. Your home is not about a building it is about the place of safety and love within your heart that you share only with M. As much as you love your parents and your siblings and your children you will always be one flesh with him. Your home will be with him.

Both of you need to consciously balance your own mental health. You need to develop new passions. You must never stagnate. Even when you feel completely overwhelmed because you have too much on your plate, you still need to learn new things every year. You must change. You must grow.

I tell you that the two most important things you must think about as you go forward with marriage is: how to constantly change on a personal level and how to support your partner through all of the dramatic changes that are coming. It is going to be hard for both of you. Both of you will have days that feel so overwhelming that you want to quit.

On those days stop and take deep breaths and remember that you have already spent most of your life loving this person. You have already given so much of yourself that you can never truly sever the bond. No matter what you two are entwined. Doing life as a married couple will be infinitely easier than as former partners. You are bound permanently. Find empathy for one another. Find compassion. Find love. When you are upset think about it from your partners point of view. Be selfish but not too selfish.

Marriage is one of the hardest and best things you will do with your life. In picking this person you are saying, “I am good on my own but I am better with you.” You are consciously choosing someone to be your helper and partner in life. It is a great honor and a great responsibility.

(Obviously addressing crowd.) Everyone here is a witness to this new marriage. You are here because you love these people. I charge each of you with being a friend to their marriage. Help them grow together instead of apart. Being married is not always easy. It takes community and support and love from a lot of people to make a really great marriage. I say that we are all here for a modern fairy tale because these two have all of the elements for a great marriage–they are so lucky to have all of you.

I have faith in you. I know that you two will find a way through hard moments and days and maybe even years. You will not allow life to stop you from making forward progress on the things you want. I have seen you come too far to allow any other road block to stop you.

So, does anyone know why these two fine young people should not be married?

Ok, can I got some approval instead?

It is time for you two to make some promises. Please repeat after me: {Insert personal vows that they have not given me.}

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded(husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

I give you this ring as a token of my esteem and promise. So that at any moment if you need a reminder of how much I love you all you have to do is look down.

The state of California says that I have the honor of pronouncing you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride.

More wedding babble.

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Hello and welcome. I presume you are all here because you know M & E, right? I just wanted to make sure we were all in the right place.

Today we get to participate in a modern day fairy tale. When people write love stories about getting to grow up with and marry the right person–they are writing about couples like M&E. Precious few people get it right so young. I have been lucky enough to know these two since almost the beginning of their relationship. I hope you will all bear with me as I ramble at them about the commitment they are making.

Marriage has existed as a word in our language for at least 700 years and as a concept it is much older than that. Anthropological records indicate that people have been engaging in monogamous pairings for 20,000 years. That’s a long time of people deciding, “Hey I’m sure I like you more than I like any one else.”

In Ancient Rome there were two kinds of marriage the poor people kind where a father deposited his daughter with a groom and they shacked up and the official kind with merging property. The merging of property is what made you someone of status and someone deserving a proper wedding ceremony. From there, a few hundred years later, the Church of England was kind enough to offer couples a choice between merely “loving and cherishing” their partner or “loving, cherishing, and obeying”; I know which one I would choose.

It feels presumptuous for me to tell you anything about relationships. You two have been together longer than I have been married. Luckily for you I have never let my lack of complete authority stop me from speaking.

Marriage is one of the hardest and best things you will do with your life. In picking this person you are saying, “I am good on my own but I am better with you.” You are consciously choosing someone to be your helper and partner in life. It is a great honor and a great responsibility.

Marriage has changed a great deal over the multiple millenium that such unions have existed. I feel like we live in an exciting time for marriage. At no point in the past did couples have as much freedom to define their roles as we do right now. You do not need to have a marriage that will make someone else happy or satisfy their needs. You need to have a marriage built on mutual understanding of your unique quirks and desires. No other marriage will look exactly like yours.

In this marriage you are both focused on how you will grow together. You have been together so long that you have a good idea how you want the larger curves of your lives to go. You have already supported one another through transitions from one life stage to another. You have this built in advantage over most people who get married these days.

Every year on your anniversary you need to sit down together and reflect on how your marriage is progressing. Time will pass–that is inevitable. Growth is not. The only people who can evaluate whether or not you are progressing in the directions you want to progress are the two of you. If you do not stop and consciously take stock you will not be able to determine if you are doing the things that are important to you. Don’t drift through life. Make goals. Make lists of goals for one year away, five years away, ten years away, twenty years away. Make them together and separately. Then check them off one right after another.

Do you know how to be happy and how to make goals? The first and most important step is to give and receive love. Check.  After that you sit and carefully think about what area of your life you want to see difference in. Then you try to decide what that area of your life means to you. How do you want it to look? Write all of this down. Then you organize your results. Then review the options for how to change what you don’t like. You can’t just “stop doing” something you have to replace the behavior with something you are moving towards.

Whether what you dislike is your current brand of makeup or your current employer the process is the same. Notice that you are having a whole set of reactions to a situation or trigger. Then you have to consciously decide what that part of your life means to you. Find a way to make categories as you evaluate. Divide up your thoughts make them patterns. Eventually it will be clear what you need to do. Maybe you will be yelling at your kids too much. Maybe you will be frustrated by deciding who needs to clean the bathroom. It literally doesn’t matter what part of your life the situation is in. Just do the process.

There will be conflict and unrest in your life. It is as natural as breathing. What will determine your strength of character and the strength of your marriage is how you adapt, how you change. Life is change, Princess, and anyone who tells you different is selling something.

We live in one of the most exciting times in all of human history. At no other point in time did humans have the option of changing as dramatically as we will in the next twenty year period. The next twenty years of your life will involve technology that was completely unthinkable even five years ago. Your children will be technology natives. You live in a time and a place where change is happening faster and faster. Being adaptable is one of the most important survival traits our species has to master right now.

I am standing here because I believe in you. Because I have watched you two support one another through massive life changes good cheer and love and kindness. You don’t need a lecture on how to be good to one another–you are already there.

The people who are here with you now are the witnesses for this new marriage. This change in your life and your identity. In choosing to get married you are choosing to say, “The good of us together as a family needs to come before our individual wants.” That will mean hard choices sometimes. That will mean having to bite your tongue when you are feeling impatient. It will mean needing to learn how to express your wants and needs so that they can be met–if your needs aren’t being met then your family is not actually functioning. No one can be a martyr. I say this to both of you. No martyrs.

Whenever you feel like you have nothing else to give you have to find a way. You have to ask for help. You have to find love and compassion and generosity no matter how tired you are, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter how angry you are. You are on the precipice of one of the most grueling stages of your life together. You need to treat the next five years as an investment in the next fifty years. The more kind you are to one another during this stage the more happiness, love and generosity you will experience over the whole rest of your life. Be selfish. Think of the future. Be nice to your partner.

It is about finding balance.

If you do not prioritize your needs and talk about them and insist on them being met then you will not get what you need this lifetime. I say this to both of you. If you do not ask for what you need then you will almost certainly not get it. You have to ask. You have to be brave. You have to take risks. You have to say things that scare you and make you feel vulnerable and weak. Otherwise you will not be able to grow as a unit. Vulnerability is part of the whole process.

You also have to say “no”. You have to say, “I wish I could support you in this way because clearly this is a need for you but right now I can’t.” Don’t be sorry or mean when you have boundaries. Just have them. There are reasons we as a species have extended clans and communities. You are not meant to be an island deriving all of your support from one another. You must be vulnerable and you must ask for help when you need it. First from your partner and then from other people in your life who can help. They want you to be happy but they can only help meet your needs if they know what they are. (This is not an open invitation for people to meddle. People should only show up to help if you want them too–otherwise it is a boundary incursion.)

(Obviously addressing crowd.) Everyone here is a witness to this new marriage. You are here because you love these people. I charge each of you with being a friend to their marriage. Help them grow together instead of apart. Being married is not always easy. It takes community and support and love from a lot of people to make a really great marriage. I say that we are all here for a modern fairy tale because these two have all of the elements for a great marriage–they are so lucky to have all of you.

M, when you are feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and you aren’t sure how to find more patience you need to close your eyes and think of E laughing. You need to think about how much you want to hear that laughter every day of your life. You want that to be the sound track of your life. You want to make E happy. You want to hear her laugh. As long as you can make E laugh everything will work out ok in the end–right?

E when you feel disrupted and like you don’t know the route forward you need to trust the process. M helps you feel safe. I can tell you right now today that you will not always be safe. M will not always be able to keep you perfectly safe. But you will always be able to return to safety. Within your marriage you have the ability to choose to make your home a place of comfort and calm away from the turbulence of the world. Your home is not about a building it is about the place of safety and love within your heart that you share only with M. As much as you love your parents and your siblings and your children you will always be one flesh with him. Your home will be with him.

Both of you need to consciously balance your own mental health. You need to develop new passions. You must never stagnate. Even when you feel completely overwhelmed because you have too much on your plate, you still need to learn new things every year. You must change. You must grow.

I tell you that the two most important things you must think about as you go forward with marriage is: how to constantly change on a personal level and how to support your partner through all of the dramatic changes that are coming. It is going to be hard for both of you. Both of you will have days that feel so overwhelming that you want to quit.

On those days stop and take deep breaths and remember that you have already spent most of your life loving this person. You have already given so much of yourself that you can never truly sever the bond. No matter what you two are entwined. Doing life as a married couple will be infinitely easier than as former partners. You are bound permanently. Find empathy for one another. Find compassion. Find love. When you are upset think about it from your partners point of view. Be selfish but not too selfish.

I have faith in you. I know that you two will find a way through hard moments and days and maybe even years. You will not allow life to stop you from making forward progress on the things you want. I have seen you come too far to allow any other road block to stop you.

It is time for you two to make some promises. Please repeat after me: {Insert personal vows that they have not given me.}

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded(husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

I give you this ring as a token of my esteem and promise. So that at any moment if you need a reminder of how much I love you all you have to do is look down.

The state of California says that I have the honor of pronouncing you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride.

I now pronounce you husband and wife.

 

Maybe. Ok, now I email it and ask for feedback. I talked to the bride on the phone yesterday and I got the distinct impression she is hoping I will be on the brief side and this is ~nine minutes of talking.

If everyone likes you then you are doing it wrong.

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I’m not for everyone. I notice with great sadness that the pattern seems to be that I slowly invest more in people over time and once they get to know me a little too well they don’t want to be near me any more. My relationships survive as long as I don’t see any particular person too often and I don’t share too much of my inner process.

There is a line. People don’t like what they see once they get past that line. Well, Noah is ok with it. No one else ever has been.

It’s ok. It really is. If I bother you then it is appropriate for you to opt out of knowing me.

It is not my responsibility to change in order to make you more comfortable. I am not capable of doing so. If I make you feel bad then limit my influence as much as necessary to make yourself feel safe. I’m not going to show up at your house to come looking for you. The limit of my threat is occasional rambly apologies for many years to come because I know I am not nice. I have waves of shame and occasionally I go through and send out a bunch of apologies when I’m in fits of self-loathing. I think people roll their eyes and delete them. I have no control over that step.

I can only keep doing what I am doing. This is why I don’t feel like going out and investing in communities. I like seeing who comes to me. Then I don’t have to feel disrupted by the changes in the eddies around me. Who visits changes but what I do doesn’t.

What am I doing at this phase? I talk to my kids. I garden. I am creating the house I want to spend my old age in. My home base. I write. I run. I read. I help my kids create friendships. I see friends and have relationships in front of my kids.

Friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. You have to deal with people not coming around any more. Unfortunately my children will have to deal with the fact that people come and go from my life. I know that other people have more consistency. I have very little control over how other people feel about me. I can only decide on my actions and follow them through.

I should continue to act in a positive way towards people who do not want to be in my life. They are creating boundaries. That is good. I want them to do that. I do not want to be responsible for those boundaries. I can’t know where they need to be.

It’s ok. I have learned in my life that there are always more people to meet. My monkey sphere is only so big. It is ok that people self select out. It means I have the spoons to meet someone else. I miss the people who leave but I can’t control them so I move on.

That’s what life is, right? That’s what this moving on business means. I don’t sit at home lonely. Not really. Well, I feel lonely but I am rarely alone. Actually my alone time is wonderful. It feels lovely because I am rarely alone. My lonely is existential. My lonely is a fear deep in my soul that keeps me from feeling completely connected to people.

They will all leave me, one way or another. I can’t depend on them too much.

This is just the human condition. No bitterness. No anger. This is just life. It has to be ok.

I’m glad that people take steps to not let me hurt them. I don’t want to hurt them. I do not mean to hurt them. I am not trying to hurt them. If I am doing so unintentionally then yes, I need to be stopped.

I have to believe that is good policy. I am trying to raise kids who believe that they are not required to put up with shit from me. We’ll see how this goes once we get out of “Mommy is God”.

I can only really care about how Noah, Shanna, and Calli care about me. I don’t think I have the spoons this lifetime to actually care about any one else. They either like me or they don’t. Keep walking.

I will work on my behavior with these three people. If other people like or don’t like me I can’t control that. Keep walking.

Oh man. I need to stop this self loathing cycle pretty much any second. I have a wedding to prepare for. The wedding is twelve days away. I really should have a finalized speech for the couple in the next two days. I have to find a reason to like me so that I can stop wallowing in how much I suck. That won’t exactly be a good speech.

It’s not about me. It’s about them. They selected me. They have chosen to maintain a relationship with me so obviously they appreciate my point of view. It is ok that my point of view doesn’t work for everyone they believe it works for them.

They want me to talk about growth and change. They want me to talk about relationship expectations. They care about my perspective. How do I help them look at one another more objectively and understand what it is that the other person wants as an agreement?

I feel like that is kind of my role in this. I’m helping them correctly ask for the marriage they want. It doesn’t matter if I think it is “right” or not. I’m just trying to help them refine their language.

But not this morning. Food. Farmers market. See friend. Rest. See other friend. Sleep.

It’s a busy day.

I hate the way I react.

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I wish that failing didn’t feel like clear indication I am unworthy to be alive. I wish I didn’t wake up with the intense desire to die so that I can’t hurt anyone any more.

On my PTSD support site someone asked how our faith in God has survived the trauma. Mine hasn’t. I don’t think “God has a plan for me” I think that we are mean son of a bitches who want to hurt pretty much everyone we can. We are in the least violent period of human history right now. This is the absolute pinnacle of non-violent behavior our species can manage. I wonder where the next bombing will be.

With the exception of spurring on my brother and my father committing suicide I haven’t killed anyone. I’m just a mean spirited self-involved bitch. I’m more petty than that.

Today I have to act like I am not watching movies in my head that all feature very useful and easily attainable ways for me to die. I need to not act like I am empty and worthless even though that is how I feel.

I have to be a “good mother”. I have to be loving and attentive. I feel afraid to speak. What other mean nasty thing is going to come out. How else will I be hurtful and horrible? If I stay alive I will hurt people again. Probably over and over again. I’m not supposed to hurt people. I don’t think I will be able to stop as long as I am breathing. It isn’t really in my animal nature.

My stomach hurts and I want to bang my head. I won’t. I was told that every time I hit my head on concrete I up my stroke risk and given what I have already done to my body that’s not an ok risk. But it would be so convenient to die of a stroke. Then it would look like an accident. Not my fault. Not something that needs to scar everyone for life.

I feel so selfish. I don’t really like being me. I don’t find me very pleasant. I would like to be able to opt out of dealing with me the way other people can. I only really have one option for that.

Everything I read says that at this point I am supposed to stop chanting in my head that I am just a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid mean bitch. Worthless. Mean. Stupid bitch.

But I don’t believe anything else. How can I change the narrative?

It doesn’t matter how I feel it matters how I act. I have to stop crying before the kids wake up so I have two more hours. Then it really doesn’t matter how I feel. I have to act like it is going to be a good day. I have to play. I have to do morning snuggles. I have to tell my children I love them and that I can’t imagine a world without them in it.

In my head I will be in my bathtub cutting. I will be watching the water change colors.

I will be beating my head.

I will be stepping off freeway overpasses right in front of semi-trucks.

I will be swimming out into the ocean until my arms can no longer pull me. I hope it is over fast.

But I can’t indicate any of that on my face or in my words. I have to act like I am happy. Like I am where I want to be.

I don’t want to be here. I poison the well. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t see any road to stop hurting people while I am here. I am bad.

I am really sorry that I forced anyone to have to deal with me for twenty years. That was not a kindness. I shouldn’t have had children. I am not worthy of them. Mean fucking bastards like me should probably be forcibly sterilized before they can damage other people.

I’m glad I canceled the home school events at my house for the next few days. I don’t really think I can pretend with adults. I don’t know what my kids see but luckily they are still mostly in their own worlds. I’m just a support person. Mostly they don’t know or give a shit what is going on in my head. I don’t slip as often into inappropriate topics with them.

I know just to shut my mouth. I am stupid with adults.

Yup, I’m a dick. And not just to my kids. I really want to cancel everything on my calendar and stop talking to people. There could be no possible value in knowing me. It is inevitable I will hurt people. The only way I can protect them is to stop speaking.

I try to remember that I won’t always feel this way. As overwhelming as this is, surely I have days when I am happy to still be alive.

Today, if I were still doing that sort of thing, I would go find someone who identifies as a sadist and I would tell them I want to bleed and be unable to stop the violence. Maybe that would make me feel better. At least then I would feel like something in me had value to someone else. There are very few people in the world who will let sadists go off-leash. It makes them so happy. I really hate that I feel like that is most of what I have to offer. Maybe if I let people who are really pretty terrible hurt me they won’t hurt anyone else. Maybe if I deflect that amount of pain from the world it somehow makes up for all of the hurt I cause.

Probably not. There probably isn’t expiation for me hurting people. I’m just a fucking mean asshole.

“Recovery” and a brain dump about being an asshole.

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Resurrection After Rape puts forward this explanation for how one will recognize “Recovery” when it happens:

  1. When you can face the thoughts of rape rather than having to avoid them;
  2. When you understand the connection between your current self-concept and your rape, so that when you feel down on yourself you won’t accept that as a “permanent truth” of who you are;
  3. When you no longer engage in self-harming behaviors (including substance abuse) to manage emotions and memories;
  4. When flashbacks have diminished to the point they either no longer happen, or no longer interfere with your life and emotions;
  5. When you can appropriately respond to people’s ignorant attitudes about rape, rather than withdrawing from them and wilting in lonely shame;
  6. When you have begun to offer support to other survivors;
  7. When you have begun to view your body as a valuable thing and not as a betrayer or curse, and you take care of its needs;
  8. When you learn to recognize the warning signs of dangerous men and avoid them, no matter how charming they appear to be;
  9. When men no longer have control over your opinions of yourself;
  10. When you are able to confront, challenge, and speak proudly to men;
  11. When you make your own choices whether to disclose your rape to someone because of something you need to say, not something you need to hear for you to make progress;
  12. When you no longer feel guilty for asking for help, or for having rough days, or for taking the length of time needed for growth.

This organization does not recognize the medical studies showing marijuana to be the most effective drug for PTSD apparently. They exist. If you can’t find them then you are too ignorant to be allowed on the internet.

I think I’m fairly solid on 1, 5 (I have some inappropriate mixed in with my appropriate responses but I think I’m in “recovery” territory on this one.), 6, 7 (I thank the marathon for this. I was not capable of properly taking care of my body when I was pregnant–I didn’t know how. I learned during the marathon. It was a weird change.), 8, 11.

I’m working on 2, 3 (I have prescriptions from doctors for all of my drugs. I do use as minimally as I can get away with but I absolutely need these meds at this point. Is that abuse?), 4 (I have the ability to not react to them in front of anyone else. I can’t make them stop. They increase my overall stress levels slowly. I have to periodically go allow myself to consciously think about them or I start having ranty inappropriate outbursts in random settings.), 9 (onman don’t get me started), 10 (Often I am shitty at talking to men.), 12.

Mixed bag as usual. I’m just like that. And this guy doesn’t have a monopoly on definitions.

I will say that I appreciate the section on managing panic attacks. Education + replacement of negative self-talk with positive self-talk has been my approach. Glad to get my little gold star there. I read everything looking for confirmation bias to prove I am “right” like every other human. I like to blame it on public education but that’s a straw man argument.

A question from the book. If rape is a form of theft, what did it steal?

I am afraid of men. I do still stand near them–but I do so uneasily and with great anger. I feel that rape stole my faith in men. People can rant at me all day and all night about how women rape too and that won’t change the fact that I was raped by twelve men not twelve women.

Are twelve men a representative sample of all men? Can I judge all men based on them? Of course not. I don’t actually judge all men. I just avoid the ones who are not already through the barriers of trust. They have to come in sideways. Usually they have to fit in a nice, neat little box so that I can trust how they will behave. I really like men who are emphatically not interested in me even though they like me. When they feel the need to mention that I am completely not their type I feel a little relaxation of tension.

I am not a nice person. I yell. I say mean things. I say hurtful things. I am a dick. I am an asshole. I am a bitch. Pick a word. White trash whore. Sure. I say mean, nasty things. Sometimes there is a very small grain of truth in what I say and I use that as justification for my hurtfulness.

I’m not a sociopath. I don’t deny my actions or the results of my actions. I don’t deny my blame. I just don’t seem to be able to adequately shut my mouth. I think it would take suturing. Luckily I have friends who are into that sort of thing because they agree with me that women should just shut the fuck up. I would be a much nicer person if I just shut the fuck up.

Today I yelled what my mother yelled at me. I feel pretty ashamed of myself.

I have no excuse. I do not get to deflect blame. I could give a laundry list of reasons why I was out of patience. Doesn’t matter. Being mean isn’t ok.

I will never be good enough. Ever. I’m literally not capable of it. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have had kids. I don’t deserve them. I am not capable of being nice enough. I pray that the damage I cause is slight in the scope of their lives. I cross my fingers that I am a net positive for them. I’m scared.

I feel very ashamed of myself for not being good enough. I’m just not. Just work harder is the only message I have on this score. I weigh, eternally, in my mind if my children would be better off if I got a job and let them go to school. Would they be better off if they didn’t have to deal with me so much of the time?

I don’t know. Every decision is so layered, so complicated I’m not sure I can know what the right decision is. I know what I am doing. I know why. Today was a rocky day. I think I have been over extending myself and I ran out of spoons. I was mean and nasty.

It’s not ok. It’s not justified. I’m not claiming any expiation. My choices and my behavior are my god damn fault. I don’t get to say, “Well I was just acting like my mother” like that excuses anything.

It’s really stupid but I think my next therapy session will be a whole long conversation about hair. About my mother screaming at me and hitting me and cutting my hair into ugly hair cuts on purpose as punishment so people would mock me and the nasty shaming that happened for months when I shaved my bangs off in fourth grade. My mom was so fucking pissed when I shaved my head when I was seventeen. She liked my hair about an inch long so she didn’t have to take care of it. I wanted to be pretty. When my hair was long it wasn’t pretty it was matted.

My long hair was the long unkept hair of a neglected child. I can’t figure out how to care for my children’s hair. And I can’t keep everything in the house under lock and key. My kid has some interesting impulse issues.

And I have a bad temper.

I need to get my temper under control. I need to not say the things my mother said to me. It’s hard having to stop and think carefully about everything you say because what comes out of your mouth naturally is poison. I know how to say what I was taught to say. Do you know why I cuss so much? My entire childhood was full of being told what a fucking rude ass bitch I was.

I’m struggling with the me-not-me boundaries. I know what I was taught to say in these scripts. The scripts I have are bad. I am not ad-libbing well. I am not trying to excuse or justify myself. I certainly don’t think I can continue.

Feeling guilty isn’t good enough. Crying for hours after I am nasty really isn’t good enough. It isn’t even remotely helpful.

This is broken. I don’t know how to fix it. I feel really stupid and pathetic and useless and bad.

You can’t just stop being something. You have to pick what you want to be and move towards that. I don’t want to say what I said today again. I don’t know what I’m going to say instead. That will take thinking. I don’t know what to do.

I have been told that people pity my children for having to live with me. Why do I feel free to say whatever comes into my head? Because people tell me things like that. I feel like I have listened to enough diarrhea of the mouth that I get to have it too. No I’m not taking the fucking high road. Instead I am the crazy ass old lady with the big knife who makes the punks run away in fear.

When it comes right down to it… I don’t actually want to be a nice person. I’m a dick. But I don’t want to be one with my kids. I want to treat them like they have earned better treatment than that from me. They have. They have a variety of character flaws, most of them age related, which I can’t exactly hold against them. That’s the revenge of grandmothers every where. “Ha ha. You used to do that.” And now my daughters do to me what I did to my mother.

Of course my daughter pushes every boundary to the point of breaking at all times. She’s related to me. And I want her to be that kind of adult. Yup, she’ll be somewhat sociopathic. But I hope she understands that I have earned consideration other people haven’t earned and she will be nice to me.

I want to be nice to my kids because I am a selfish son of a bitch and I want to have good relationships with independent adults. I don’t want them to be like me and I don’t want to decide what they should be.

I can’t insult their choices even though I find them frustrating. But what does that mean?

I don’t know. I fucked up today. I’m reading a book on rape recovery that harps up one side and down the other how one must be completely sober forever and ever amen or you are not “healed” and it makes me want to drink a bottle of wine. I don’t actually drink much–alcohol gives me terrible stomach aches. But I was told not to. So I want to.

How in the fuck can I get mad at my kids for being exactly like me? Punishing them for being something I will encourage in adulthood is kind of ass backwards. I am not actually working towards my long-term goals.

I think I need to do some work on my attachment to how my kids look.

I didn’t yell “You are a reflection of me and I’m fucking tired of walking around with an ugly little brat.” I just said that it was ugly hair cut and she looked funny and people were going to laugh at her.

I got mad because we are going to be in a wedding in two weeks. I said, “Now you will look ugly in the pictures forever.” That was what my mother said to me when I gave myself a haircut two days before school picture day. You know what? I don’t look any worse than I do in any other awkward school photo. It really hasn’t wrecked my life.

I shouldn’t have said that to my daughter. I have already apologized. But you can’t actually take it back. You can’t unsay things.

I’m not a monster. I’m self aware enough to really understand that on a primal level. I have not done monstrous damage to my children. But sometimes I take a little spike and a mallet and I insert those mean things she will hear in the back of her head forever. I hate myself for that. I don’t want to be her mean inner voice. I want to be the voice inside her head that makes her feel good about being alive.

I don’t want my daughter to hear what I heard. I don’t want her to have these tapes. Mostly she won’t–I get that. I’m already through a lot of important hurdles and I understand it looks like relatively smooth sailing through the next few years of non-anniversaries.

I’m going to freak out. She is going to do things just like me and I will react blindly. I will play the tape that is instantly related to the behavior. I don’t know how to completely circumvent this. Do I just stop speaking at all?

I need more of a plan than I currently have. That’s kind of a horrifying and overwhelming thought.

I need to schedule less. I’ve gotten schedule-happy again. I schedule things because I feel guilty about isolating my children. I know a lot of home schoolers who are out all day every day. I feel kind of uncomfortable about how much socialization my kids get.

I feel like what I am doing is not good. I don’t know why. It’s kind of a creeping fungus feeling. I’m not giving my children what is “normal” for their peers.

I don’t want to in some strong idealogical ways. But I think I drank the Kool-Aid on “Home schoolers aren’t at home”. I feel like I should be more active in the communities that exist. I should present a large peer group to my kids and then consistently expose them many times a week.

I’m struggling. I feel existentially not-ok. I have a really high level of self-loathing. My self-talk is all mean and nasty. It’s been on an uptick for a bit.

I want relationships but I can’t handle them and I don’t deserve them. Life isn’t really about deserve though.

The future isn’t written yet. Maybe my children will remember me as an abusive bully. Maybe not. They are certainly clear on the point that Mommy is not always nice. Sometimes Mommy is mean.

If I ever get dragged in front of a judge in a CPS court all they will have to do is print my blog. I don’t want secrets. I didn’t hit. I didn’t go on an extended tirade. Noah did step into the room and signal me that it was time to stop. Good for him. I’m glad he was home.

It feels very bad sometimes knowing that I am simply not a nice person. I would have died if I had been “nice”. If I had been more passive my life would have been so much worse. Being defiant and nasty has truly been useful.

It is still useful sometimes. Not all the time. It’s a hard character trait to keep under control.

People alternate between telling me I’m a bitch/dick/asshole/whatever and telling me that they like that they always know where they stand with me.

When I get up from this keyboard I need to be mostly done processing this. I need to talk to my therapist about it but I can’t keep going on and on with my daughter. That would be dragging her into my emotional quagmire. She doesn’t have the attention span to still be upset about a random one off comment she will probably never hear again. If I don’t turn it into a thing.

If I drop it and never say it again then I will have succeeded in not passing this tape on. If she wants to cut her own fucking hair she can cut her own fucking hair. I do. I have since I was a very young child. For me to get angry about it is so over the top ridiculous that there aren’t words.

But my tape for mothers is rabid anger because now people will think my child is unsupervised and ugly. She is neither. She does have access to scissors. She is out of my line of sight during the day. We have a small house and they wander at will. I work wherever I am working. I don’t pen them right with me–it seems silly.

If I want children who are autonomous and independent in their actions I need to give them more direct supervision (which would drive me ape shit) or farm it out or be ok with what they do.

Those really are the only options. It is not ok to expect micromanaged results from a free range kid. I honestly don’t want kids who require direct supervision at all times. My kids entertain themselves while I work. I can clean/cook/garden and they run around and play.

Short of putting padlocks on everything in the house, which I am morally opposed to doing, there is no “putting things up” at this point. Kid is too big. Yes, there will be consequences and occasionally fury over her decisions.

You can’t learn without making mistakes.

I tell other people that the way to get good at something is to make as many mistakes as possible as fast as they can–they will learn the most the fastest that way. Somehow that approach doesn’t seem suitable in parenting.

I’m off to feel awkward and uncomfortable and like I’m the biggest asshole in the room. Cheers.

Good fear bad fear

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I was standing in line at the grocery store. The snooty-ass Whole Foods down the street from my friend’s house. I was there for ice cream and to kill time as I waited for my friend to finish something at the house.

I’m standing there be-bopping in my little world while I waited in line. It was a very slow line. I don’t even remember what song it was but my “under my breath” singing became uhm not so under my breath and the guy in front of me turned around.

I turned bright red and looked down and started fumbling awkwardly with my back pack so that I could avoid eye contact.

“Ah, so what flavor is for tonight?”

I jumped a few inches. I didn’t think he would actually talk to me.

“Vanilla! Always vanilla. Uhm, err and Sea Salt Caramel.”

“My friends swear by that brand, what do you think of it?”

“I don’t have an opinion. I usually buy from my local ice cream shop in Fremont, Loard’s. I’m visiting friends tonight. This is within walking distance of their house.”

“Oh. Do you get up to Oakland often?”

At this point I shifted my arms to place my big fat wedding ring on top of my pile of stuff. “Naw I usually stay close to home and family.”

“Oh.” He turned around and finished his transaction. He stopped to rebag his groceries into his personal carrying sack because he had been busy talking to me and had forgotten to give the cashier his bags.

I paid in cash, pocketed the money and left the building about as fast as I could. I went up the street walking at a rapid pace. He outdistanced me. He stopped just in front of me and looked like he was about to verbally engage me again.

I kind of shrank away. He looked sad. He turned and started walking up the hill significantly more quickly than I could–he was more than a foot taller than me and I am pretty ambling.

He didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. It was an awkward mix of flattering and scary. I don’t want to be pursued ever again. I don’t want anyone to look at me as prey any more. It scares the ever loving shit out of me.

But I do want it. I do want people to think I am pretty. I do want to be desired. I do want to go sit on my Daddy’s lap and have him stroke my hair and call me Princess and grind me on his crotch. (I have this friend. He’s absolutely old enough to be my father. Really I have these three male friends and it’s very confusing and just go with it ok–my biological father is dead.)

I want these things. It is very confusing to read things about “rape recovery” because man it really presents a dim view of the idea of consensual bdsm. I feel like I don’t agree with the idea that just because I was raped there are whole classes of behavior I am now too tainted to engage in. There is a large and loud contingent in the bdsm community in general that wants people like me (crazy for short-hand PTSD and GAD for longer hand) to just opt-out.

Go be invisible. Fall out of the herd. Die.

That is the Darwinian message whether they intend it or not. That is what happens when fringe communities drift toward the mainstream.

It’s cool. I’m used to it.

I am gosh darn delighted to report that I’m starting to experience an uptick in libido. Last month was quite drought-like. Ha. I’m not actually entirely sure that directing my compulsive sexual outbursts into a monogamous relationship is entirely healthy either.

I’ve told Noah about some of the more extreme things I want to do. He is rather terrifyingly interested. The kinds of things you can’t write about in advance or people try to stop you. I’ll wait till my kids are adults–I promise.

I am what I was made. Is it ok for me to be? What is right and what is wrong? When I was sixteen I went to visit my mother’s life-long best friend over New Years. I remember her recounting a conversation she had in her Bible study class, “Oh goodness girl we get racy! You know, the Bible says that what a man and a woman do together within the bounds of Holy Matrimony is alright. It’s all good. You can go ahead. Have fun, sugar. But not until you are married.“ Death glare.

I spent a lot of my childhood thinking I would grow up and marry her son. I would do what he told me. I would obey. I would be his proper wife.

When I was twenty or twenty-one, I can’t remember which, I went to that guy’s wedding. I was with my Owner. We watched a wedding ceremony that was way more hardcore Dominant/submissive than our Owner/property contract. It was really pretty funny.

My Owner took responsibility for me like someone takes responsibility for a stray cat. He kept me safe and fed for a few years and he had some strict rules about behavior. It was all negotiated very specifically.

It managed my anxiety. I knew what I was good for. I knew what he wanted from me. I trolled his favorite hard core fetish pornography website to figure out what he wanted from me. I learned how to be what he wanted.

But it wasn’t me. I’m not an actual fetishist. I just want people to like me. I’m willing to do just about anything to feel like I deserve someone liking me. I have an intense need to feel pain. It is very easy to use bdsm as a reasonable source of satisfaction.

But what does being submissive mean? What does being a masochist mean? What does being a slave mean? Do these acts turn me on? Sometimes. Not a majority of the time. I err enjoy thinking about them a lot. My memories keep me warm alll winter.

When I was training for the marathon I enjoyed my little jaunt down memory lane. I ran past places I’ve had sex and thought about what might be happening with those guys. I have no idea. I hope they are well.

I was reading Wikipedia. Intrusive thoughts. That was what triggered this whole piece of writing. It’s very OCD focused and all sarcasm aside that’s not my set of issues. You know how much the “stereotypical guy” thinks about sex–right? A lot, constantly–something of that nature. It’s not true, but it’s kind of the attitude.

Outside of this whole “being with kids” thing I tend to think about sex obsessively and compulsively. Compartmentalization for the win! If you added up all the hours I have spent masturbating it probably stretches into a couple years of my life at this point. I like me.

It has been really abrupt and challenging to deal with having this split personality thing. I do not think about sex when my kids are around. That means I totally want to shove Noah into a sexless role because that is how I think about him right now. I’m not aggressively interested in sex yet. It’s starting to come back. I’ve had several years of very little sexual interest. This has been a very odd period for me.

But we still have a lot of sex. If we only have sex six times in a month that is drought-like. And I feel guilty and like I am not holding up my end of the bargain. We’ve only had one month where we had sex less than ten times and I felt really angry with myself the whole month that we only had sex six times. I just couldn’t god damn do it. If I had tried I would have hated him.

It is hard knowing that if I grow to hate him it wil be largely because I have not told him about small boundary incursions and then it will escalate into a large problem without him even knowing the storm is about to break. I don’t want to hate him. Hating him serves none of my life goals and would basically prevent most of the rest of them.

Sure, I could find new goals. More humble goals. But man that makes it sound like I like him because of money. It’s not money. Noah pays attention to me and encourages me. I have always written but I needed Noah to give me permission to write about the really dark stuff. I needed an Audience.

My Owner wouldn’t read stuff I wrote. My ex-fiancé wouldn’t read what I wrote. Puppy wouldn’t read anything I wrote. All of them told me, “People should be allowed to have private space to write about their feelings.” It was practically that exact wording from each of them.

I’m not sure I would be able to keep believing I deserve to exist if I didn’t live with someone with an ego the size of Texas. He is brash and self-assured and god damn full of himself and he’s completely sure he wants to spend his time with me. He tells me so over and over. He proves it through actions and patterns of work over long periods of time. He’s consistent. It’s really not about the money. The money is more a side effect.

I will always have a hard time remembering him raping me. He really enjoyed how much I did not enjoy that. He gets one. I agreed to one. I set those boundaries in advance. I didn’t try to say “safeword” or anything hokey like that. I fought him. That was really weird. I knew he wouldn’t stop. I knew that fighting him just antagonized him and made it worse. If I actually wanted a dead fish rape I could have had it. I just would have had to go limp. It was my own fucking fault it was so brutal.

It’s always my fault.

I write this knowing that people in the home school community will read it. People who were in my house today. People who are quite Christian. I’m not like you. Only I am.

I have heard my friends in the Leather community wonder if we should have some kind of “coming out day” like Gay Pride. I think that if I am in the closet to you it is because you have never actually looked at me. You instead chose to see a mirror of you and you ignored the shadowy parts where I was different.

We all have more similarities than differences. Whether you are talking to the prostitute or the investment banker or the gas station attendant or the flight attendant or the programmer or the sys admin or the house wife. It is said that if you look for the good in people you will find it. No, that’s not true. Abe Lincoln says that if you look for the bad you will find it. I’m ignoring him. I don’t like agreeing with people very much.

I think that if you want to get to know people and find commonalities and ways of getting along you can. There are stories about Auschwitz prisoners talking in a friendly manner with guards. I’ve read them in classes. Of course with my Swiss cheese memory I have no idea what the names were.

People can find ways to relate. The things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us. Blah blah.

I don’t believe it but I believe it is true enough in a pinch. I think that as a species we need to have a live and let live philosophy. The problem is how to handle perception of scarcity of resources?

Sex is a resource. There are a lot of people who are sad they aren’t getting any. Did random dude at the grocery store for sure want to get in my pants? Enh, It’s not 100%. But I have an extremely high success rate with this kind of scenario. I can generally get that kind of approach to result in sex within six hours.

Then I probably never speak to them again and eventually cannot remember their name. I have a vague dread of running into them but I’m cheerful and apologetic about not remembering names. They are only sometimes mad at me. Ha.

Guess what? Guys aren’t more ok with being used than girls are. Well, some are. Not mostly though; they get hurt feelings. This is why you can’t date/have sex with too many people in a given social group. You poison the well.

Love and affection and sex are different needs but we often try to meet them in a jumble. What you do when people don’t actually meet all of your needs? Go find someone else?

I get the general impression that if I worked harder on exercise I could sleep with an even more obscene number of people than I have already slept with. Four digits. Five digits. Why the hell not? All it takes is low standards and a willingness to ask–right?

I don’t think I would find any more self-esteem at the bottom of that well. It’s not like I’m doing the equivalent of being a born again virgin declaring fidelity to my man. I’m not made  sanctified in my compulsive sexual acting out because of some fucking walrus in Nevada.

I have a lot of sex because it is what I am required to do. Not required by Noah–we don’t have that kind of relationship. This is what I feel I owe him. I somehow have arrived at this being part of the trade he gets for putting up with me.

Lately I have initiated sex because I was actually interested. And I got off. And it was only a little uncomfortable and not even painful. That’s fairly unusual these days. That whole combination doohickey. I have sex because that is the deal.

You get married and you are his whore. That’s the deal. You had better find someone you can handle whoring to.

That is what my mother taught me. Word for word. I bet you money she would deny ever saying it. I can’t forget. I remember and remember and remember and seal my lips. My daughters will not hear that from me. No Sir.

I don’t know the difference between wanting to feel like I am allowed to exist and wanting to have sex. Most of the validation for my existence has come through sex. Kind of pathetic, right?

Now I have these kids. It’s different. This incest shit will not go on to my children. They will be kept away from my whole family and aren’t all women in my position absolutely convinced that their partner would never do such a thing? All I know is my kids show absolutely no signs of abuse. I can cross my fingers and pray. Seriously–isn’t that how life works?

How do I ever trust anyone? How do I ever let go of fear enough to go to sleep at night? I lie in bed sometimes and can’t stop thinking about my father touching me. Intrusive memories. I’ve got ’em.

Just get over it. Just move on. I have increasing neuroscience on my side motherfucker. It’s not that easy. Trauma damages the brain. New instances of trauma layer on top of older layers in difficult to dissect patterns. In the scale of a lifetime I am getting over it; I am moving on. It’s just not as quick or as silent as you would apparently hope.

I’m still existing. I’m still talking and talking and people only have to listen if they want to.

I’m only really writing for my Audience. He’s read everything I have written since the age of twenty. Well, not all of my school papers. Only the ones I put on the internet. I can’t say all of the things I wrote in this post to him. He’ll get all conversational off-roady on me and we’ll talk about something else. I want him to see this. I want him to be part of this struggle. This is his sex life too. I want monogamy because I want a partner who is very invested in helping me figure my shit out. Me not figuring my shit out means big dips in your sex life.

I married someone who thinks nothing of taking NLP, hypnosis, and cooking classes to meet chicks.

What I need most in this lifetime is for someone to love me and believe that it is not only permissible for me to change it is required. I want to be loved by being encouraged to grow. I want to be loved by being taken care of. I have a provider, let’s be clear here. It’s a fairly primitive sort of gratitude.

What trade does anyone make in relationships? The pleasure of one anothers company? What does that mean?

When I am around people I feel uncomfortable, anxious, and like people are going to start screaming at me pretty much all of the time. Apparently I cause other people to feel like this as well because they comment on being afraid I will yell at them regularly. Noah says I don’t yell very often. I suppose it’s all relative.

I still want to be around people. I understand that this is a kind of fear I have to learn to work through.

Rapists don’t make me feel more fear than random groups of people. Hanging out with predators makes me feel more comfortable. I know how to play that game. I know how to get through that scenario.

Learning how to tell the difference between “good” fear and “bad” fear has been the journey of my adulthood. I need companionship and community. I just need it. It’s a species-level need. I don’t need to feel fucking guilt about it. There are six billion fucking people on this planet and precious few of them truly want to be alone. I mean, people need alone time. That’s not what I mean.

I struggle with how to build friendships. There are all these rules about what you can discuss and when. I uhh don’t like following rules. A while back I was a rude fucking asshole with a friend as I pushed her to try and change her sexual boundaries with her husband for me. Not cool.

I think that being monogamous will keep me from shitting where I eat. Sexual monogamy means that I am not a threat. I can be a non-sexualized being to the people I meet. I don’t have to know or care about their sexual interest in me.

Only sometimes it appears whether I like it or not. Good fear. Bad fear. Move towards it. Move away from it.

How the fuck do people figure this out?

And then! We paint.

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Today some of the home schooling folks came over. We painted my house. Nine kids between the ages of 2 and 11 and two moms (including me–we did clean up not major painting) produced some pretty fun stuff. I particularly like that the butterfly/rainbow are right at eye level when I sit at the table to eat. And just off my line of sight it says “Love You”. I’m glad I did this.

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There are no personal problems; all problems are community problems.

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Yesterday I found out that some folks I love are struggling with domestic violence. That scares me pretty bad. I was aware that I wouldn’t sleep for fretting about them so I called them up and asked if I could drive up to their house after dinner for a meddlesome conversation. They consented. I’m so glad.

The whole drive up to their house I chanted a variety of phrases. “I will be kind. I will be thoughtful. I will be helpful. I will be useful. I will be considerate. I will say only necessary things. I will say kind things. I will be helpful. I will only be compassionate. I will be calm. I will be loving. I will be a friend to their marriage. I will be supportive. I will be kind.” etc. I chanted it over and over as I drove.

I fetched ice cream as part of the preparation for the conversation. We sat down and talked about why things are hard. Life is really hard sometimes. Some of us have very good reasons for the way we panic and over react and freak out.

One of the folks in this couple is like me. There were very serious childhood issues. Well, they both had hard childhoods. One of them clearly doesn’t have PTSD and one clearly does.

I talked about the amygdala. I talked about self-control. I talked about how if your brain was damaged in these ways approximately 50% of people cannot change their behavior without conscious professional help–read that as therapy. I am not qualified to be anyones guide. I do not have specific training on how to help other people heal from PTSD. I am just not adequate. I can love you and support you and help you find the help you need but I am not capable of giving it. That’s over my head.

I talked about how the only way to still be married in twenty years is to deal with these emotional issues. If y’all continue to be unable to keep your hands to yourselves you will not be married in twenty years. You will flee an abusive relationship and spend the rest of your life bitter and angry. Is that really what you want?

Changing your behavior is hard. I no longer hit people. I hit people a lot–basically constantly–for about twenty years. I understand how hard it is to stop hitting. I really do. When your brain was damaged by being severely abused and neglected as a child you have to consciously work at changing your behavior to be more appropriate. You have to go out and learn what is appropriate and how to get there from where you are. It has to be a conscious journey and you need professional help. This isn’t optional for us.

50% of people who have PTSD cannot get better without help. That is not because we are weak or because we failed. Anyone who implies that I struggle because I am stupid or because I lack willpower is welcome to sit on this greased fire hydrant I have over here. I am not lacking in willpower. Not all things can be changed through willpower.

I don’t want anyone to get in jail. I don’t want CPS invading the lives of my friends. I don’t want my friends divorcing because they are both sad and angry because of things that happened long ago and they are unable to truly understand what is going on right now because everything is still seen through the lens of “must survive.”

I meddled. I pushed. I interfered. It isn’t my place and yet if I don’t do it who the fuck will? Who will show up and say, “Let me explain the results these behaviors will have on your children. This is very well studied. I can tell you each of the different patterns your kids might follow. There aren’t many options.”

I love you all. I do not want any of you to be hurt. I do not believe any of you deserve more pain. I think you have been through enough pain and that you desperately need a reduction in pain. We really really really need to figure out how to reduce your pain. You can’t live with this much pain.

I feel wildly resentful that no one ever tried to help me. I cannot do that to children I love. I have to talk to their parents about things that happen. I have to. I did not lose this friendship over my meddling. Instead therapy appointments are being made. It’s not that I am “right”. It’s that everyone needs help. Everyone needs help on their path. Please oh please find the help you need so you can help your children. You cannot teach them how to be a functional adult if you are only quasi-functional yourself. You cannot teach what you do not know.

Hands are not for hitting. (Ok, unless you negotiate a bdsm scene. Different.) Love one another. Listen for why the misunderstandings are happening. Respect boundaries. Set them earlier and more firmly.

This life business is hard. I want all of us to have the support we need. Sometimes that is having someone who loves you say, “I can see the road you are on and I don’t see it going somewhere you want to go. Would you like to diverge onto a different path?” It’s not that I have a crystal ball. It’s not that I know everything. For the love of Christ I want to be wrong about my predictions.

Let’s make me wrong. Let’s sit next to one another holding hands at your childrens’ high school graduations. Let’s still know one another in twenty years. Let us choose who we want to be instead of ending up like our parents.

We are better than them.

PSA: Exit plans

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Sometimes talking to people makes my heart stop.

If your partner knocks you down that is domestic violence. That is something (s)he can go to jail for. If you do not know this already: please learn it from me. Your partner is not allowed to knock you down. Your partner is not allowed to knock you down. Your partner is not allowed to knock you down.

If you have a partner who has done so then you need to find a coffee can and dig a hole in the yard. You need to start hiding money in that coffee can because there is the very real and escalating possibility you will have to leave in the middle of the night or you will be killed.

I wish this was hyperbole. This is statistical fact. There are very distinct patterns to domestic abuse.

Does every single person who knocks his/her partner down once kill them? No. Of course not. And one is allowed to forgive such a thing happening once. We are human beings and we fuck up. We are allowed to forgive fuck ups. You can maybe even forgive the second time.

By the third time you need to have an exit plan. You need to have a diary where you record every incident of violence along with the date and time and description of what was going on before and after the incident. You very seriously need to find a way to hide cash. I’m not fucking kidding. If you are financially dependent on someone else you need to have as much cash physically hidden as you can. Multiple thousands of dollars if you can. If you can’t put that much in a can to hide then take $20 out of every paycheque.

You deserve to be safe. You deserve to not be hit in your home. Your children deserve to never see their parent get hit.

If your partner hits you and you need a place to go in the middle of the night, call me. If you have my phone number then you are welcome to show up in the middle of the night during an emergency. I swear to god.

Everyone should feel safe in their home.

Triggers

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I’m reading from Resurrection After Rape it is available online for free.

“But in addition to the physiological and chemical basis for triggers, there is another way to look at them. Your rapist, through his act of violence and invasion, has tried to create a “map” for you of what your life is. His actions are his efforts to define you to himself, to yourself, and to others. You are naturally trying your very best to resist his map of your life, but triggers are those occasional moments when something seems to confirm his view rather than yours. The reason they cause so much panic and distress is that for a flicker of a moment, something around you seems to suggest that his world, not yours, is the real one.”

I consciously tell people that I am white trash because I will explode with anger when people do things in front of me that I don’t approve of. If I set the bar of expectation low for my behavior then I am at least in character. Seriously–what else did you expect from white trash?

The more I read about the amygdala and primitive reactions the more I feel like my understanding of white trash is inexplicably linked with this idea of being unable to move forward with modern ideas. Unable to join the less violent modern era.

I formed most of my early understandings of social hierarchy from reading The Clan of the Cave Bear. Even if status is not explicitly stated in terms of a numerical hierarchy I feel like I can see the imprint of such importance in every gathering.

I believe that the only reason people are ever lower status than me is because they are younger than me and we live in a place where children are always below adults but as soon as they grow up they will be better than me.

Ok, I don’t rationally believe that. But in the pit of my stomach that is true. That is my self belief. That is what I was raised to believe. Someone has to be on the bottom. It might as well be me.

In some way there is an element of wanting to protect other people. I can take more pain than other people so if I deliberately stay on the bottom I can protect people who could not take the strain of being in this position–they would die. It happens.

I think I am just flat triggered by men. I think I am angry with them for existing. I am angry with them for allowing women to wait on them. (Note I did not say forcing women to wait on them.) I am angry with them for not seeing the work they create by existing.

But none of them have to give a shit that I am feeling that way. I have a partner who treats me how I want to be treated. Why do I give a fuck if other people have different relationship styles?

I think this is part of why I left the bdsm community. I couldn’t handle watching relationships that felt like train wrecks in slow motion. I watched people do horrible emotional damage to themselves over and over. Not everyone but the people like me. The people who really didn’t have a lot of self esteem. The people who believed they deserved to be treated like a piece of shit.

I have learned a lot about geek culture since I got married. I finally have a mole in that camp. None of my ex’s were proper moles. They treated me like the enemy. Noah isn’t in a camp other than his own but he likes to go spy sometimes. We are so freakishly well suited.

I have a lot of empathy for people who feel like me. That’s normal and natural for my species. I treat everyone who is different from me like they are sub human and a potential threat. Men feel different–scarier, more powerful, inherently threatening. Men never seem to understand the amount of power differential I see between us. Men never seem to understand why I feel scared by them just assuming someone else should have to do everything for them.

I have to get control over this. I don’t think Noah would appreciate it if I ran off and joined a lesbian separatist group. So I have to stop feeling scared and mean and combative around men.

Oh good fucking luck.

More on being judgmental

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After I go on my little tirades about things I tend to feel very guilty for days. Who the fuck am I to decide who is and is not a good father? What right do I have? How the fuck do I know? How do I know how people treat their children and families when I am not around?

I don’t.

So how dare I judge?

I’m not sure I can help it. I judge. I evaluate. I think about everything I hear and see and I think about how it fits into my world and value system. Ok, “everything” is hyperbole. But I think about a really fucking lot of things. 

It’s kind of a modern joke that moms go read a bunch of baby books when they get pregnant. It’s a trope. It is something to mock. I started out preparing to be a parent when I started the credential program. I went and learned how to work with children. When I got pregnant I started reading childhood development books which are a very different category than “parenting” books. I want to know what researchers have found.

I have spent thousands of hours reading medical/behavioral research. I mean real stuff in medical journals. I mean like reading the vaccine studies. If I lived in a small town in the middle of the country with a low immigrant population and I never traveled I wouldn’t vaccinate. I would be a selfish asshole and decide the risk outweighed the benefit for my kid. They are vaccinated because I did a fucking thorough evaluation of the risks and benefits. Given where we live and how we live vaccines are not optional.

I read about child development because I have never seen a healthy childhood before. I have seen a few minutes or a few hours of someone else having healthy childhood in brief spurts. I need to learn how to take care of my children. I do not want to fail them.

I want to be a good parent because I want to find out how that works. No one is perfect. But I want my children to grow up in a house where their mother is respected and not taken for granted. I want my children to grow up in a house where no one is inherently better than anyone else. I want my children to grow up in a house where everyone must share the work of living. There are no free lunches.

I’m like everyone else. As I walk through the world I am continually surprised that people aren’t like me. They don’t sit down and think, “I want my children to have ____ experience” and then prepare a course of attaining it. And even the people who do think about it generally don’t share my values. Like, at all.

I’ve read so much research that I feel confused when I see people making choices that are uhm outside how I interpret research. But that just makes me as big of an asshole as everyone else. Other people can’t understand why I reach the conclusions I reach. It was a process. A long one. Same for you. I need to stop getting angry with people for being different from me. It’s not fair. People are going to stop putting up with me. It’s not only a realistic possibility it is what people should do if I am lashing out at them constantly. No one should tolerate that from me.

There are reasons that it was initially useful and helpful for me to have that “This is bad” reaction. It is no longer as useful. Once upon a time lack of nuance may have saved my life. It will, at this point, destroy my life.

I have been watching the Bill Gates top 13 recommended TED Talks. Things like “This is the least violent period in all of human history. Yes, even with these bombings.” It makes sense that my physiological response is violence and anger and hatred–those things would have enabled me to kill people who seemed a threat to me or mine. We live in an unprecedented era where our mouths and our ability to persuade are uniquely necessary. Violence is no longer the answer. The rage that I learned how to feel no longer has any advantage in my life. This is fucking inconvenient and my ancestors would not have handled this better than me.

My nearly five year old keeps asking “Where did the first people come from before there were parents?”

“Well, there are a lot of different theories. I’ve told you what a theory is–right? A theory is when someone takes all the clues they have about a problem and they try to guess the answer. Some theories have more evidence than others. Some people believe that everything started in a big explosion of gas in space and we slowly evolved into being humans. We are kind of related to apes. Some people believe that a magic invisible sky friend decided to make the world and all the animals and people–they think he did this in a week. Some people believe we are descended of a giant rainbow serpent. I could go on for a long time. There are a lot of theories. But the plain truth is we don’t know. No one does. It’s a mystery. People tend to pick the theory that suits them the best.”

I have this basic physiological problem. My brain says, “It is ok for people to be different from me. That does not challenge my safety. Everyone is allowed to coexist.” Then the rest of my brain gets a big club and whacks that part of my brain for a while screaming, “SHUT UP SHUT UP THEY WILL KILL US ALLLLLLLLLL.” It’s kind of melodramatic. And while this is happening I have to stand very still with a neutral or positive expression on my face or there may be consequences.

I dislike the fact that I work on being “nice” because I don’t like dealing with the social consequences of being not nice. I don’t want to be shunned. I don’t want to be rejected. If I didn’t give a shit what people thought about me I would be so much more hostile I would not be recognizable as the same person. Seriously.

I feel like part of the reason I scream at the people I do (because I don’t scream at everyone) is because they fall into this weird cross section of feeling safe to get mad at, like someone I want to influence, and someone who feels similar enough to me that I have a prayer of influencing them. But only if I stop fucking screaming because no one listens to a screaming banshee.

My behavior is not serving my goals. I want community so bad I stay up late and wake up early crying and crying and crying because I don’t feel connected to people. I feel like people secretly hate me and tolerate me for…. I really don’t understand the reasons. It just feels that way. It’s not exactly rational.

Part of what I like so much about hanging out with my kids is they walk through the world wrapped in a blanket of security. They believe they deserve to be loved and wanted and that they are wonderful people. Shanna can absolutely spout off, “Even if someone gets mad at you that has nothing to do with whether or not they love you. Everyone gets mad sometimes. You shouldn’t be mean to people you love though. That’s not cool.”

She in fact rattled that off nearly verbatim yesterday when I screamed at her. I think her wording was closer to, “Even though you are mad at me you are not allowed to scream. You have to use a polite voice.”

Sometimes I feel like the top of my head will explode. But when she says that I stop mid-shriek and say, “You are right. I will leave the room until I calm down and then we can talk about it.”

Her saying that to me gives me this psychological permission to say and believe the same thing. Shanna is allowed to have boundaries and so am I. So are my friends. My friends do not need to put up with me screaming at them no matter how dysregulated I feel. That is my problem and not theirs.

I feel like I keep having these weird flashes into peoples lives. As I was being mean to my friend’s husband the other day I felt like I couldn’t stop the rude words from coming out of my mouth but as I was speaking I saw this whole full-length movie in my head of what I know of his life. He is behaving entirely appropriately given what he has known and experienced. My nastiness seems totally irrelevant and inappropriate. I wish the movie had started playing like three minutes earlier so I could have buttoned my lips shut. Or said something appropriate.

If instead of being pissed off at him I had said, “Well, we’ll see if things change or not. Babies have their own agenda” then maybe I would have had a prayer of opening his mind. Yelling at him… not so much.

If I want to influence people I need to think about how my behavior, tone of voice, and attitude affect how I am perceived. If I want to be influential in positive ways I have to make conscious choices. Otherwise I will still be influential but I sure as fuck won’t be a force for good in the world.

More self-control. That is pretty much the beginning, middle, and end of that conversation. But no one has endless self-control. I could choose to just avoid the people I blow up at. Honestly that is usually my first choice. If I find myself blowing up at someone over and over I start avoiding them because they don’t deserve to deal with my ill temper. I consciously don’t want to do that any more. I’m tired of walking away from relationships because I can’t control my temper tantrums. It’s really lonely.

The thing I am getting the most strongly from the survivor books I’ve been reading is: you have to figure out a way to have the worst things that happened to you become sources of strength. You have to have a sense of humor and perspective.

It was very useful at one point in time that my brain developed the ability to categorize behavior as Good/Bad but that doesn’t serve the same purpose any more. I’m still looking for my Faith in Gray. Just because something would be bad for me does not mean it is bad for someone else and I need to not freak out. Seriously.

Speak less. There is no shortage of words in the world. Consider what I will say before I say it. Play that fucking video of peoples lives in my head before I start being a condescending bitch. It is truly not my place.

No one is trying to make me be like them any more. Why do I turn around and tell people to be like me? Because that’s a species level attitude. I have to find a work around.

Progress, not perfection–right? I feel sad because it feels like when I fuck up that I have to abandon all the work I have done on that relationship so far because I am no longer worthy of that persons company. If I can’t control myself I should not inflict my asshole behavior on other people. I have no way of knowing if that is actually the best choice or not. It’s the only way I can figure out to ensure that I am not nasty to people.

It feels very lonely sometimes. Even though I have no right to claim loneliness. I’m really over-scheduled right now.

But if I have to be careful and never really just speak to people then it doesn’t change how lonely I feel. If I have to weigh every word because I know that I am not really appropriate and I don’t really belong in such an environment I feel terrible the whole time. I know I am a fraud. I know I am not really connecting. I am a card board cut out of a person standing where a person should be. A person would be genuinely kind and loving. I have to pretend.

And then I think about some of my male friends. Holy shit do they not care about being kind and loving. And they are real people. I feel like I am caught in the trap of being female.  It is just too dangerous for me to fuck with my herd status. I will die. It’s not really true any more–we no longer live in that world. My brain doesn’t know that.

I can’t help but feel that there is no way to make progress on rape culture without finding a way out of this anger. This anger is paralyzing.

Working on rape definition

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This is disjointed and out of order. I’m cut’n’pasting from else’net where someone asked me to explain rape and power and hitting people to them. It is a little disjointed because I took out personally identifying information.

 

Rape happens because someone who has power, either conferred through age or social status or physical strength or emotional intensity, pushes through to sex with someone who is not an appropriate partner. That is kind of the “full” explanation. It’s not that rape is “about power” per se. It is that it must involve a power imbalance.

The sexual drive is really intense, lack of control over it is dangerous. Most people contain it most of the time–we are socialized to. People can either deal with their sex drive in a positive way or a negative way. Having sex can be positive or negative. Not having sex can be positive or negative. None of these things are imbued with a rightness inherently. Just like prostitution does not always involved victimized people–sometimes people make conscious choices to have a career doing something they like.

I know people in the bdsm community who do the most extreme things you can imagine. I’ve watched them do a lot of it. I have done many of the things on the safety “no-no” list. The difference between bdsm and rape is consent. That is the only difference. In my opinion bdsm *is* abusive actions that have been placed in a permissible setting. Actions are not inherently good or bad. Hitting someone is not automatically evil. There are levels to hitting people. Why you are hitting someone matters. If you hit them because it arouses them and you both think that is fun and they consented… it’s not evil.

I know a lot of people who have no trauma history who genuinely get off on the strong sensation involved in bdsm. I have spent enough years watching this and thinking about it. This is a genuine thing. It’s kind of weird, but ok.

Hitting is one of those things where you don’t have the right to do it just because you want to. If someone is a professional boxer they are not allowed to go around punching people in the grocery store. There is a time and place and a consent process. Some people consent to acts. Some people consent to processes.

Get over yourself.

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So like yesterday when I post something ranty about other people I then have this huge rush of shame and guilt. Who the fuck am I to judge other people? Why in the god damn hell does my fucking judgment matter? Who the hell wants to hear it anyway.

It’s weird writing about what I see in the world. Because a lot of the writing process for me is narrowing down who I want to be. I get the impression that other people can do this narrowing down without being a judgmental asshole out loud.

I don’t think I am better than anyone else. I do think I have a strangely functional marriage–I take very little credit. Noah is amazing and flexible and supportive. That isn’t about me. That’s luck. I found someone who is worried enough about his own future that he will defer a lot of short-term satisfaction in favor of future success. That’s not about me.

No one has to change their behavior to make me happy. No one has to alter the course of their life for me. I am aware of this. I don’t think people need to change because of me. I write because these are the things in my head and if I don’t write them down I feel like I have these fifteen different television stations all playing loudly in my head simultaneously. I can’t hear what I am supposed to be doing over the cacophony.

I hope like hell that I don’t hurt peoples feelings by saying stupid self-absorbed things. I’m afraid I do sometimes. I’m really sorry. I am not trying to hurt anyone.

I want there to be room for me to exist and room for other people to exist. I want it to be ok that I have my opinions (even if my opinion is negative about someone’s behavior) and it isn’t something that people have to take personally.

I don’t think you (generic you) need to give a shit about whether or not I judge you harshly. I truly don’t. I know that I am not the judge nor the jury. If I make you angry I’m sorry.

I want to be allowed to have strong opinions and be a judgmental asshole without actually being an asshole. I really want my writing to be the place where I get to be as loud and offensive as I want.

I promise I will try harder to reign in my mouth when I am in other peoples houses. You did not invite me over to hear my asshole opinions. I hate it when I fail at the basics of civility. It feels like proof that I am a worthless white trash asshole. I am not capable of being nice to decent people.

I swear to god that I walk into some houses and I feel like, “Oh my god these are decent people” and I feel my hackles go up. It isn’t their fault. It is not anyone else’s fault that I walk into their house and feel like I am a lower class than them. It is not their fault that feeling lower class makes me hostile and nasty. I know I have to “get over” this. I really do. I’m better than I used to be. I know that isn’t adequate. I can’t take my class issues out on people and have friends.

I have learned to stop picking on Noah because I developed some enlightened self-interest in that department. I need to understand how other people fit into this. I feel like a complete failure because I am not yet good at understanding in the pit of my stomach how important each different piece of the puzzle is. I still don’t value the contributions that other people give sufficiently. I need to learn how to do that. I need to learn how to stop judging everyone for their ability to meet *my* needs. My needs are not the only important needs in the world.

I’m sorry I am such an asshole. Thank you for tolerating me. I’m really sorry it takes such effort.

Before you speak evaluate if what you want to say is: true, necessary, kind. If it isn’t all three it had better god damn need to be said. It has to be really fucking necessary if it isn’t kind. Mostly saying unkind things is just a way of kicking people. I have to stop kicking people verbally. I have stopped hitting people with my hands. I need to stop kicking them with my words.

Enlightened self-interest

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Mostly I understand that everyone has different things they want from a partner. When I tell a man that he should expect to help his pregnant wife with diapers, dishes, etc the most common reaction is, “Yeah right”. My husband is better than that. My husband has no desire to sneer at helping me. I try not to judge husbands out loud because they all have different strengths (and it isn’t like Noah is a saint) but man I judge this.

The idea of standing on the precipice of parenthood and thinking, “I’m not going to help” makes me want to spontaneously vomit on the floor. What is wrong with you that you begrudge your partner and your child this help? I fucking guarantee you that it is in your long-term interests to help. To be accommodating. To do way the hell more than you have ever done before.

It strikes me as “That’s your job” thinking and that means these people believe they are responsible for only certain things. If Noah needed my assistance in making money I would do so–I couldn’t make as much as him but I would do it. I wouldn’t be pissy and whiny about how it is supposed to be his job to earn money so whyyyyyyyy do I have to do it too? It wouldn’t occur to me.

Noah has responsibilities with our children. He does a lot of work. He’s part of a family–he is not the lord of some fucking fief.

Marriage is about each person giving absolutely to the maximum of their ability in order to allow both of you to maximize your potential and happiness in life. That is what my marriage is like at least. Kinda socialist because I steal his money and I still make him do work.

I have the general sense that I could have talked a few former partners into kids with me–they wanted kids in general or were on the fence when I knew them. I didn’t want to just have kids with someone. I either wanted a partner or I was going to do it alone.

Yesterday I had a first visit with a new dental hygienist. She has been seeing Noah for almost ten years. She made a crack about how I have “three children” and I almost bit her head off. Don’t you fucking talk about Noah that way. (I didn’t curse at her.) I was adamant that I do not have three children. I have two children and a partner who blows my mind with how enthusiastic he is about participating in my life.

I know dads who work two and three jobs in a day and come home and wash the dishes. That’s a man right there. If you sit on your ass all day doing a computer job and then you whine about how when you come home you need time to go play your video games because you’re tiiiiiiiired then you aren’t a man. We are all tired. That’s the parent condition. Yes, parents need down time. But the dishes also need to be washed and unless you have god damn fairies visiting your house (send them to my house when they are done with you–ok?) by saying that it isn’t your problem you are dumping it all on your partner.

The families I know where the husband stays home and the wife works all seem to involve the wife coming home and helping. Why do husbands resist? Oh yes, women’s work and all that crap.

This is why I hold no desire in my heart to “have it all” in terms of a serious career and doing the domestic shit. There is so little value or respect given to domestic work and yet it must be done. If a woman takes on a job it doesn’t seem to lessen her share of domestic work in most cases and gosh that sounds like she is getting screwed to me.

I like my feminist husband who looks at how many hours we each have to “work” during the day and divides tasks with me and values what I do. My work makes his life better. He is happy about that. So he’s grateful and helpful.

Noah’s work makes my life better. I am ridiculously privileged and lucky. I happened to find someone who has the ability to make a lot of money. I don’t think my expectations of him are less because he makes a lot of money. I treat him like he gets forty hours to go do his job and then he needs to be at home with his family doing his share of the work to raise our kids–you fucking wanted the kids and you want a relationship with them when they are adults. That means bonding and labor while they are children.

Children bond most strongly with the people who meet their needs as opposed to their wants. Weekend-entertainment-daddies aren’t respected and loved the way dads are who are serious caretakers. You can’t trust a weekend-daddy the way you can trust someone who has protected you and cared for you and kissed away your owies.

I looked at my slave contract and realized that was what I was doing with my Owner. I was creating the structure of artificial exchange of needs on a predictable schedule so that I could learn to trust him. I’m glad I did that when I did it. I’m glad I’m not still clinging to the idea of slavery.

I have decided that a life lived as a support source and that is all is not a life I want. I don’t want to be an invisible support leg holding up someone else’s life. I want to matter. I want to be irreplaceable.

If someone is just a paycheque then they are easily replaceable. I am increasingly certain that no one else could ever feel good enough after Noah. I don’t think anyone else will ever do so much to take care of me and make me feel important. No one else will ever have a window into my needs. This breeding period is a uniquely vulnerable time. I have needed help and my husband came through over and over instead of saying it wasn’t his problem. I didn’t think I would ever deserve that.

Marriage is not a proposition where you should each contribute your “half” of the labor. Each of you should act like you have to keep the ship afloat and you are responsible for noticing when things start sliding. You can have frequent role assignments but they are not set in stone.

If Noah walks in the door from work and it looks like a bomb exploded he gives us each hugs and starts working. I don’t think there are any words in the English language to adequately describe what that means to me. What that feels like. I feel honored and seen and loved and respected and acknowledged and appreciated and like he believes that my work is important. Validated may be the closest.

On days when he walks in and everything is nice and tidy and cleaned up and dinner is ready and he gets to just sit around and rest he beams at me all night. He’s thrilled with what I accomplished. He is grateful and flattering and appreciative. He comments and notices me.

I don’t want it to sound like Noah spends allllll his non-work hours slaving around after me. He gets time off. Up to ten hours in a week that he can use for video gaming if he wants to.  For someone with as many irons in the fire as he has that still isn’t enough time but this is the rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul part of our life. We aren’t doing it financially, thank goodness, but we do it with energy stores and finishing projects.

I don’t hate guys who do less than Noah. I’m just deeply grateful I will never have to live with any of them. I would rather live on the streets and openly deal with the fact that other people do not care about my needs than live with someone who will put on a pretense and abandon me when I am desperate. I feel that strongly about it.

I like knowing people who are different from me. They tolerate different things. They like different things. They seek out different things. It isn’t that other people have bad marriages–they have a marriage they are willing to be in. They are happy. That makes it a totally acceptable marriage. But it lets me know how I need to phrase things with Noah. It gives me kind of a shadow edge around our relationship to remind me where I need to encourage and discourage Noah.

Oh my god I appreciate Noah. Knowing that I get to come home to Noah makes any trip out feel ok. I can be brave and go to places even though I am scared. I worry about stupid things like falling in the parking lot. I fell yesterday and hurt my ankle. I had this overwhelming rush of terror and I sat on the curb having a panic attack because I believe so strongly that if  I was desperate people would ignore me. If I had fallen and hit my head and been unable to call for help, would people pass by and leave me? I do not trust my fellow humans much.

Sometimes when I am out I have to sit down and reread the note Noah gave me. I asked him to give me permission to be places. He wrote it down. I carry it in my wallet. When I am scared and I feel overwhelmed with how lonely and isolated and estranged I feel while standing near people I excuse myself to the bathroom and I take out the note and I read it. I remind myself that I can come home and deal with my needs later. I won’t be alone. Noah gave me a pass. He wrote down on a piece of paper that I am allowed to be here. Whichever here I happen to be at right now. He signed it. It’s official. So I’m allowed to go out and I am allowed to be places.

I don’t believe that other people are responsible for my needs but I feel sad that I don’t matter to them. When any partner finds out that his/her partner is about to have increased needs and they respond by saying it isn’t their problem… It isn’t that I think everyone “has” to care. There aren’t rules like that. I just feel this wild grief. I feel like weeping and throwing myself to the floor because there is such a vacuum of love in this world. Everyone is so miserly with their love. I could help but that is icki so I won’t help. I know fathers who have never changed a diaper and they have multiple children over five. That turns my stomach. I know fathers who have never put their child to bed. I know fathers who have never prepared a meal for their child.

I’m glad those children have a mother who is perfectly able to meet their needs full time. I could not do that. I am not competent enough. I would crack. I would be mean. I would get vindictive and nasty. I’m not nice enough to do that. I don’t have enough to give. If I had done single parenting I would have had to work and the kids would have been in daycare. I could not have done the 24/7 available thing.

I have needed help in order to not be abusive. I have needed help in order to be a good mother. I’m very grateful that my partner is invested in his children enough to care about them getting a high level of quality of care. That means he sees me as a person who has needs. If my needs aren’t met the children will suffer. Letting me suffer is not really in his long-term self interests. He has a lot more to lose by being selfish than he has to gain.

I believe it helps enormously that we have a time limit on this all-in period. We would both like it if he was independently employed and did not need a 40 hours/week commitment. In order to get to that point he is going to have to take a big scary leap and pull all his energy away from things he is currently spending energy on and focus on this stuff I can only sort of help with. All of a sudden my support will have to come from elsewhere.

This is what enlightened self-interest looks like. I want a fairly specific life. I’m working like a dog to get there. So is my partner. We have drawn up a list of goals together. We have things we want for both of us. Noah specifically came and asked me to marry him because he wanted to have children and I wanted to have children and he thought I would be a good mother. I was right in thinking he would be a good father. Folks who didn’t see him as I did–well jokes on you. (The hygienist really kind of irritated me. I hate the “all men are immature children” trope. Yes, I bloody well argue with it when I hear it.)

I feel so lucky that I found someone who looks at me and sees my potential. Who sees what I have to give and says, “That would make my life better” and who sees that I am a weak and frail creature. I need help. I am not weak and frail because I am a woman I am weak and frail because I am animal. All animals can only handle a limited amount of work if they are going to perform at a high level. Noah gives unstinting support; that means that I have to do the same.

Gratitude on my part usually translates to sex. You can see where this is going. Enlightened self-interest.

Noah gets up and makes breakfast for us five or six days a week. He says, “I want to make sure that life without me would be so unpleasant that you never ever want to leave. Ha! You would have to make your own breakfast!” And he has over time adjusted his recipes to my taste. Insert swoon here.

Not everyone wants the things I want and not everyone has the needs I have. I can see why people end up partnered with the people they do–they balance one another differently. Their relationship works for them. I am still a judgmental asshole. I can’t understand an attitude of not wanting to help. I don’t think it is good. I judge it. I’m an asshole. Ok fine. I can live with that. I’m trying to be less rude about it in other peoples houses and I failed yesterday thus my outpouring of whining on the internet.

Do other people get to vent about me in the ways that I vent about people? They have to be able to or I have to shut up. That’s only fair.

End rape culture at the playground

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Sometimes I feel a little weird on park days. I make a conscious effort to always trudge out and rough house with the boys. Ok, I do miss some days when I’m being whiny and want to talk to grown ups. But I try to do at least a little rough housing every week.

I talk to all the little boys. They are getting used to me. I’m pretty different from their moms–that’s cool. We wrestle. Some new ones got brave yesterday and joined in. We had to negotiate. I talked about how breasts are really sensitive so be careful not to whack them and never grab a woman or girls breasts without permission. That’s a private area. But I did it with a smile on my face and a gentle voice and I went right back to wrestling and rolling around like puppies.

I think this is what really influences character. I feel like a lot of the rape culture ranting that yells at adult men about how terrible they are for the patriarchy is missing the point. I don’t want all of the adult men in my life to feel terrible and guilty for having a penis. That’s not what I’m interested in. That won’t make anyones life better.

One of my buddies in the home school group told me that she likes talking to me because I am very opinionated and very different from her but I’m not trying to convert her–I have no interest in having her be like me. So she gets to listen to things that are totally outside her experience and think about them without feeling pressured to change. I feel like that means I am doing exactly the right thing and I am tuning my message appropriately. Good.

I want to exist loudly in front of people. I want people to understand just how different from them the people around them actually are. I want it to be ok that I exist. I don’t need a whole bunch of mini-me’s running around. I’m not trying to become the dominant culture–I’m trying to be allowed to exist. I’m trying to stop feeling like I should die.

Playing with the little boys is part of this. I hug them. I will even kiss the top of their heads when they are being very affectionate (Err, this has only happened with boys I have known multiple years or who were under one year old I’m not incredibly creepy or anything.) I don’t kiss their faces. I don’t get into long embraces and I talk about body autonomy all the god damn time. I am very conspicuous about asking for hugs before I touch them. I model how I want to be treated. How else can they learn?

I have been seeing a lot of things on the internet advising parents to work on boundaries with their own kids–I agree with that message whole-heartedly. I just think it doesn’t go far enough. I don’t have responsibility just to and for my children. I need to talk to the kids at the park. I need to talk to talk to the kids in our neighborhood. I need to talk to all of the children who could be the ones my kids will sneak off and play sex games with.

I need for everyone to be playing by the same rules. No one but me is standing up to loudly announce the rules so I’m happy to do it. I go to the park and I don’t care if I know the kids or not I referee. I don’t micromanage or anything–I stay out of 80% of the arguing. But I intervene when they can’t share. I intervene when hitting starts. I intervene when someone is on the side-lines crying because they are too young to understand how to join the game.

I don’t favor my kids–Shanna is pretty bitter about that–because I care a lot about being neutral. I don’t pick sides. I model how to work things with words. I give lots of examples, “So you could say____ or ____ or ____ what feels closest to what you are actually feeling? Or something else entirely! I could be wrong.”

I tell them over and over that they own their body and they have the right to dictate how people treat it. I say that the other kids they are playing with are in the same spot. You can’t touch someone without consent. You have to ask. Don’t assume just because you are “friends” that it is ok to touch someone.

(My kid is not picking this up fast. Oy. Touchy thing.)

I’m trying very hard to create the idea that everyone has preferences and you must follow peoples preferences–which means asking questions.

One of the boys was playing with my belly jiggle yesterday. He said, “You have fat.” He was smiling and laughing and delighted by life. Clearly he didn’t see this as a problem. I bet his mom has done exactly the same thing to his belly.

I laughed and said, “I do! I do have fat! I looooooove fat. Mmmm tasty delicious fat! Fat! Fat! Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!” Then I grabbed him and rolled around on the ground with him. Other boys jumped on the pile, also laughing and started offering up types of fat:

“Like bacon?”

“Yes! Like bacon! And ice cream! MMMMMM”

Everyone was overjoyed.

A few minutes later after the crowd had dispersed one of the boys lingered and said, “I don’t think it was very nice of him to call you fat.”

My response was something close to: “Well he didn’t call me fat. He said I had fat and that is true. If he had said,” I deliberately made my voice all sneering and nasty, “‘Ewww you’re fat’ then I probably would have hurt feelings. Because he would be trying to make me feel bad about myself. But he wasn’t. He was just commenting on me. It’s like saying I have brown hair. I’m ok with him saying things that are true.”

He looked so confused. I’m sure he and his mom talk about me outside of actual interactions. Ha.

The reason going to the park is so “high spoons” for me is I believe with every fiber of my being that I am obliged to be nice to the kids. They are just learning and if I can seem positive and loving while I am giving instruction they will remember it and imprint on it more deeply. I am consciously didactically teaching children basically every time I am near them. It’s exhausting.

I think that’s what home schooling community is about. I think we are agreeing to teach one another’s kids. I realize not everyone feels the same way so I try not to say it too loudly. Ha. I’m not forcing them to memorize times tables or anything neurotic like that but I use group social outings as time to consciously work on the rules of society.

What the hell else are such times for? And if kids have to learn every rule completely on their own without adult help things turn all Lord of the Flies. Judicious adult intervention while mostly letting the kids direct and handle things is the optimal learning environment.

Studies god damn prove this.

It made me really happy when I commented to some of the moms that I was talking to their sons about boundaries and touching stuff she said that I’m going to teach sex ed when the kids are a little older. YES! Please! I’ve been training all my life. Ha. *beat head on wall*

The thing they don’t understand is I won’t be starting when the kids are older. I’m starting now. I’m starting when they are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, ,9, 10, and 11 because that is how old the kids are in our group. I’m talking to all of them about touching and consent. There are slightly different explanation levels–I don’t talk to the three year olds about nerve endings. I say sensitive.

Sex is part of life because touching is part of life. If you want your kids to grow up to be healthy adults who are good at sex then they have to be good at touching–that is how things work. I understand that most parents feel kind of nauseated at the idea of their kids growing up to have sex but I have my eye on the end goal.

I want healthy adult children.

I have to teach my children and their peers about healthy touch if I want that to be the norm for their world. That means I have to be didactic. I have to choose to send on a message. I can’t just ignore things and let them slide or I don’t get to be upset when the culture isn’t what I want it to be.

Am I changing the world? If my little cohort of kids manages to grow up together and everyone gets a fresh healthy launch together to go out and feel like they are allowed to have the sex they want within the boundaries they choose then maybe I will have done something.

You don’t know what someone wants by looking at them. You only know what they want if you ask. If you have never asked what they want then you have no business having your hands on them.

If people believed that in the core of their being–how would the world be different?

There’s a first time for everything.

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NSFW.

A long time ago in a life I used to have I hit girls a lot. I don’t mean that I gave them playful slaps on the arms. I mean that I liked to make them scream and cry and beg me to stop. That’s kind of my thing. I don’t care how hard or how soft I have to hit you–we will be doing so until you beg me to stop.

That sounds pretty bad, right? I negotiate up front. I tell people what they are in for. I like to punch and slap and pinch and kick. I don’t like using instruments. I want to be in as much pain at the end of the scene as the person I am playing with. Ok, maybe not quite as much.

There was this one time. I was in the middle of my Cheers-period of attending the local fetish club. I went every Wednesday. I had been involved in the bdsm community for five or so years at that point. I had been broken up with my Owner for a while. I was hunting. I went out a lot.

So there was this one time I was there and a friend came. She was someone I had known for many years. We had been slaves together. We were both no longer with our former Owners. That’s complicated shit, yo. She had even been married to her Owner which is even more brutal.

One of the thing about the serialist nature of relationships in the bdsm community is there doesn’t look to be much room for depending on being interesting if for any reason you need to develop lots of limits. People with limits aren’t interesting. Newbies–fresh meat–are interesting because they say they want to try everything.

So when I saw this friend on that night we had a conversation. She and I had played a fair bit back and forth. I’m not sure that we ever crossed to what the vanilla’s would deem lesbian sex but I beat her, she beat me, her Daddy beat us both, my Owner tied us together (clothed because he’s into clothes) and “made us” kiss and wiggle for their entertainment. That sort of thing. We were friends, after all and isn’t that how friends behave?

She and I had a similar problem. We don’t safeword very well. Safewords are generally thought to be the way you signal “I’ve had too much and I need to stop.” We have both incurred physical damage because of play that has gotten too intense and we both have differently troubled psych histories. So we bond and all that. And when you bond and like someone you want to make them feel good. We were taught that the way we were supposed to make people feel good is through a mixture of pain and pleasure.

Culture is complicated.

So I don’t even know how things got started on that exact night. We didn’t play every time we saw one another–it was more sporadic than that. She mentioned that she was having trouble with her ongoing inability to safeword or something like that.

“Well… have you ever actually said “red” during a scene where that was a prearranged conditioned? Wait–no. Let’s back up. Have you ever said “no” to someone who was beating you?” (I have the background knowledge of knowing that she plays with the biggest, baddest, nastiest people in the community. Sure they are teddy bears on the inside and all that but they fuck people up.)

“Uhm… no.”

“Ok, we’ll start there. That’s what we are doing tonight. I am going to hit you until you tell me to stop.” Then I smiled and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her roughly into the play area. That was a very short negotiation. Usually I go on and on but I’ve played with her a lot and we had a history of experience to build on. I wouldn’t do that with her now. Even if it were permitted within the boundaries of my marriage I haven’t played with her in more than seven years. I don’t have the right any more. It worked then.

I slammed her really hard against the St. Andrew’s cross. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her forward then repeatedly slammed her back again and again.

She kind of gasped and made thumping noises. Intermittently she giggled. We like to have us a good time.

I started in with light punches on her upper chest. I thought long and hard for maybe a minute about whether or not I should properly warm her up.

If you want to be nice to a masochist you start out with a series of light blows and you slowly wake the skin up and get their endorphins running. These hits don’t hurt. It’s just patting the skin. It’s a very kind gesture and all.

If you don’t want to be nice to a masochist (or if you want to be very nice to a masochist) you don’t bother and you hit them beyond their ability to read something as “strong sensation” and well into the realm of “holyfuckingshit that hurts” pretty much instantly. I may have even given ninety seconds of consideration before I started slapping her hard enough to leave large hand prints.

Upper arms, sides of hips, upper thighs inside and out/front and back, chest and breasts. Not as hard on the breasts. Cysts are bad things. Be gentle with breasts.

I didn’t even bother to take her clothes off. I wasn’t here to get her off–I’d do that somewhere other than a bar with random lookieloo’s. I was here to teach her a lesson. We all have to learn how to say no. There is a god damn first time for everything.

If you are cautious and want to extend the length of a scene then you give people time to breathe in between blows. You let them “process” the pain. Folks who are being hit usually appreciate a bit of time in between strikes. I didn’t really do that.

I beat her hard and fast. I switched off between slaps and punches. Sometimes I would pinch a section of muscle in my hand and pull her forward before slamming her back.

I could see her panic response rise.

The whole time I was doing it I was leaning in and yelling (the music was loud) as softly as I could into her face so no one nearby could hear (ha) what I wanted from her. I took her on a journey.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, then I’ll switch things up.” I do know what she likes after all. “Uhm, so are you still enjoying it?”

“Not so much ma’am, not so much.”

“Then we are finally getting somewhere!”

All of this probably only took about five minutes of hitting. I’m really mean when I want to be. In between taunting her I like to try and build her up. We had a lot of the conversation go more like:

“I think you are beautiful and I love you.” (She cries harder.)

“I think you are worth protecting. When you stop wanting this I want you to tell me to stop.” (She cries harder.)

“Please, please tell me to stop when you don’t want it any more. I don’t want to hurt you. I love you. I only want to do things to you that you want. Please please tell me when to stop. I love you. I love you.” (I beat her harder and she cries harder.)

At some point I have to back off because she is hyperventilating–I don’t want to kill her after all–and I just stand there holding her hands while she gets her breath settled down. Then she nods at me again and says the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever heard:

“I want more.”

I beat on her until my fists were bruised and mangled. The beating lasted something like forty five minutes. When I was done we were both sweaty sobbing balls on the floor.

I could see it coming. I wasn’t allowed to cry till the finish and I could feel my composure slipping and I could see her finally see that.

“Stop! Stop! Please stop.”

I grabbed her and hugged her and we fell to the floor and rocked each other and cried and cried. She thanked me and I thanked her.

When you are in a bar you can’t sit on the floor very long and “process” after your scene so we moved over to a booth. We didn’t talk we just held each other. There aren’t words sometimes.

When I think about missing bdsm what I think about is that feeling of transformation. Before that moment she had never said no. After that moment she had. If she does it once she can do it again.

I’ve learned how to say no. I have boundaries that I previously didn’t believe I was allowed to have. My life has changed.

Nothing is set in stone until you are dead. And even then the bastards keep re-writing history.

PTSD morning.

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I often feel really guilty about the way my brain works. I feel very guilty for being so broken. I don’t even mean the flashes of anger and rage. I had a good day yesterday. I was scared of the reaction from the book club (outing yourself as a big freak is a big no-no in mommy-groups) but I sent out a tentative “Please confirm you don’t hate me” (worded differently…) and got positive feedback.

I don’t feel good about asking for it. I should just let other people have whatever feelings they have and not care. But I do care. I’m scared of not being liked. I’m scared of actually feeling safe because whenever I’m stupid enough to feel comfortable and I actually share my thoughts with people they don’t stick around too long. Goodbye Brittney, Anna, Sarah. 30 years, 11 years and 8 years of trust. I understand that it is my fault.

I’ve been reading a lot of survival skill books. Who are the survivors? Apparently people who accept responsibility are more likely to live. I didn’t know that. I have a (perhaps unhealthy) strong internal locus of control. I believe I am responsible for what happens to me. It happens because of my actions.

It goes back to when I was really small. I remember conversations about this with my mother’s second husband he was gone before I was six. If things don’t work out the way I want it is all my fault that I didn’t work hard enough to make it happen and I have no one to blame but myself. Ok, so he was blaming me for not getting done the things he wanted done but that’s not the point.

I was taught that things were my fault. In fucked up and inappropriate ways but it has served me so well.

I need to not take it so personally that I offend people. There will always be people who decide they don’t want to be my friend.

Why PTSD morning? Because when I wake up with a little bit of anxious like this it manifests as rapid heart rate, sweating, I see time after time of people rejecting me and telling me I am disgusting playing in my head like a news reel. I see the dangers and problems of being alone. I start to cry. I want to wake up and cancel every RSVP I have and not talk to anyone ever again. Even the ones who have never shown signs of being mad at me because it is inevitable that they will and I don’t want to experience it. I wake up wanting to hurt myself.

But I had a fucking good day yesterday. It isn’t fair to have this kind of bounce. I should not be down right now. No, I will never be prom queen or anything like that. I understand the shape and limits of my community. I’m not sure I will ever try for having a best friend again. I talk to K the most but I expect that to change as the years go by and I’m just grateful I have it right now.

I have to not expect that anyone will be in my life in twenty years. I can’t plan around anyone but me. Maybe Noah.

Someone on my PTSD forum said that he was jealous because when I told someone in person about my trauma I got to be comforted. I got to be held and I got to cry. I didn’t laugh in writing but I laughed as I read it. No, actually when I told Noah about my traumas I made him go to the mall and we walked. I didn’t want him to be looking at my face and for the love of all that is holy I did not want to see his face. I didn’t let him touch me. He didn’t see me cry for years of marriage. I’ve only let him hold me while I cry a few times recently. It’s very scary and overwhelming.

I feel guilty because I start out the day smoking pot. But my options are to skip smoking and continue to feel anxiety and like I should set fire to every relationship in my life just so that I don’t have to sit around waiting to be dumped… or I can smoke and have a nice day. Today is the day to clean the bathroom and the floors. And gardening. The kids and I will laugh and have fun. We will go snag the big huge crate I saw out running and the little girls will each get their own raised bed to do whatever they want with. I’m pretty excited.

It’s going to be a day full of only the things I want in my life. A local homeschooling buddy SMSed me last night to ask if they could come over and weed with me for an hour or so in the afternoon.

I’m obviously not a leper. I feel like a bragging piece of shit when I talk about my social life because I am extremely busy. Why do I feel so hated? That’s mental illness, folks. I catalog what I do and who I see to remind myself that it isn’t possible that I am as disgusting and bad as my family told me. If so I wouldn’t go to a fair in San Jose and see several people who squee and rush at me to hug me.

But then I think about the fact that I skip parties at friends’ houses sometimes because I can’t handle being in the room with their rapist friends. Maybe I am tolerated in the same kind of defective zone in society. I’m afraid that is true.

I yell at kids because I honestly believe it is good for them. Right now there is a whole wave of parenting that kind of thinks I am from the devil. I say, “Your kids have to go live in the world. How in the hell do you think they will handle people like me once they are grown?” I’m really not that extreme out in the big bad world. And after I yell I explain why and what needs to change in the future and I don’t carry a grudge and I generally hand out food right afterwards as a bonding thing.

No really, kids need to hit a brick wall. They need to be told that what they are doing isn’t acceptable. Then it needs to be made clear that you have a problem with their behavior, not their personhood and you believe in zillions of chances. Just don’t do that one again, m’kay?

I wish with all my heart that someone would have cared when I was a kid. I wish someone had told me that my misbehavior was very dangerous and they didn’t want me to be hurt. I was kind of told that half-heartedly by people who never followed up and with whom I had no bonding experiences.

I need to be told things I don’t like. I’m blessed with having people who look at me hard enough that I trust their feedback. That feels good.

No person, no personality, no path is completely set in stone until you are dead. People can change and change and change again up until that point. There aren’t really any rules.

Once upon a time our species had very little impetus to figure out how things like PTSD worked. People died in their 30’s or 40’s and it just wasn’t a big deal. You deal with it then you die. I’m going to live post-trauma with symptoms for decades and decades and decades. That’s pretty fucking daunting. That’s motivating. If I don’t think really hard about how to handle this then I might have a miserable life.

If I just drifted through accepting what happens to my body without question I would have an unpleasant life. If I want to change what is happening in my body I have to do it. No doctor and no pill can fix it for me. I have to map a path through doing this.

Neurobiology, brain imaging scans, and psychology are sort of trying to solve this for me only they really don’t understand what is happening to me and that makes them rather impotent.

I would give just about anything to be part of a study that does brain scans of me every five years as I try to change my PTSD symptoms. I want to know what is happening with the grey matter. I wonder if I can change the brain damage. I want to know where it is and the shape of it and the extent of it so I can put my energy specifically towards what I need. Right now I am throwing darts in the dark. I’m not even sure I am hitting the wall.

The thing that I am most convinced of as I grow up is that humans really do have the ability to do magical things–you just have to want something bad enough. “I’ll find a way or make a way.” People survive things that simply can’t be survived. People heal from incredible injuries and diseases–because they want to sooooo much.

The more I read about combat PTSD the more it scares me. The big difference between me and them is I was taught to be a prostitute. They were taught to kill people. I think that is a different scope of anger issues. I’m at risk of maybe giving someone a bruise if I really lost it and whacked. I don’t think that’s ok so I work on my anger issues.

I live in a culture that does not permit violence. Adapting to it is very complicated. I did not grow up in that kind of culture. I grew up in a culture that thrives on violence, encourages it, and consciously teaches it. After I kind of hinted to my big brother that I was having trouble with boys he taught me how to grab someones pinky and do serious damage to them and control their whole body. I have never done it in earnest because I am too afraid of it failing and what the consequences would be.

I think I partially got into the bdsm community because I was abused a lot as a child but I wasn’t hit very often. I was shamed continually because I wasn’t beaten enough. When I was four or five years old someone in my family (I don’t even remember who) snapped that they were going to beat me and I said, “If you do I will call 1-800-FOR-A-CHILD and report you for abuse.” I didn’t get hit. That wasn’t my mom. Like a cousin or Uncle Bob. A man in that house.

So I grew up and proved that I could be beaten. That I wasn’t weak. That I could take it–I just wasn’t going to fucking take it from them.

I tell Shanna that yes, she needs to be prepared to defend herself with violence if necessary but it should rarely be your first step. If you hit people as your first step you won’t have any friends because people will think (correctly) that you are an asshole. You use your words so that you can still have friends. If you want to be allowed to exist near people you have to be a certain level of civil. This extends to yelling in public places, etc.

My kid is going to get in trouble some day for correctly saying someone is an asshole. Ha. I’m trying to model that you don’t need to tell people your evaluations of them. I have a visceral problem with the word “bad”. I don’t want to tell my kids to not be “bad”. Many of those “bad” behaviors are things that could save their lives. I want them to understand that it isn’t about being good or bad it is about figuring out the correct behavior for the place you are in and following that.

I actually got into that with the book club yesterday too. Other folks are far on the other end of the spectrum wanting their kids to have uniform behavior. Not in this house.

I simply do not identify with the idea of one behavioral code. I behave differently in the park (where I run and climb trees and shout and keep cussing to a minimum and Do Not Get Into My Shit) compared to a bar hosting a munch. Mostly: less running.

I want my children to have a bone deep ability to sense when and how to change to deal with the people around them. That means exposing them to an extremely wide array of people and SUPERVISING the contact and helping them understand it later.

I don’t intervene. I don’t guide during most interactions other than small manners coaxing. I learned how to do all of that in sign language so that I could do so unobtrusively. They do need scaffolding still.

What I am doing is giving them what I needed. Which may not actually be what they need. As they get a bit older it will become more obvious if I am just a narcissist or if this is working for them. So far they seem to be doing well.

My goal in this parenting business is to prepare them for how to be an adult. “People who cannot care for themselves are always dependent and that is a shitty place to be in life. Get up and learn how to do this for yourself.” And they do. They want to model off of their mom because your mom is the best person in the world–right? I mean, dad’s cool too… I guess… but but… MOM. Geez.

I can’t really recall feeling that way about my mother. I wrote up budgets for her when I was seven. I didn’t want to be like her. Only I did. Only I didn’t. Only I did. Oh god.

I wanted to be her with upgrades. I kind of sort of am. I’m a housewife. But I’m not like her. I don’t have the same priorities. I’m not trying to impress anyone. Well that’s a big fat lie. I’m not trying to impress people by having fancier things than them. My mother was big on collecting crystal. She wanted to “look” rich. I want to be rich and I understand financial planning enough that combined with Noah’s salary making efforts–I will get there. I can work with the hand I was given and multiply it. I’m good like that. My mom… not so much.

My dad had to babysit her. He had to handle all of the finances or she would have fucked them over badly. When she was a little girl her mom took in a lot of foster children and neglected her. She was totally trying to make up for the lack of love in her life with things. I feel bad for her. I understand that she had a very hard life.

I can’t be selfish like she is. The funny thing is–in order to not be selfish like she is I have to be selfish in ways she is not. If my mom is flush she is quick to lend money to anyone and everyone. She doesn’t pay back the people she owes… but that’s just the deal, right? Money should always flow downwards in “earning potential” no matter how many times one is told one will be paid back.

If you could have stopped lying to me about that one we might have had a chance.

I live in a world where there are consequences to financial mistakes. I need to act like I’m working without a net. I don’t have a Bank of Mom & Dad. I have an extended clan of disabled (being lifelong drug addicts hasn’t helped–both legal and non-legal drugs) and dysfunctional people. They don’t know how to change themselves. They are producing more little legacy welfare babies.

That’s why I have been a registered Libertarian for over ten years. I grew up knowing that the welfare system was exploited by people like my family. I watched my sister commit outright fraud. It horrified me.

It took almost ten years for me to understand what a statistical anomaly my family is. I had to get to know a lot more people. MDC gave me that. I’m glad for the experience.

My heart rate is lower. I’m going to need to do a lot of stretching today. I had a wonderful massage on Saturday (thank you again, Tay) and the running and now typing = oh boy. But I feel less scared. I don’t feel as much like if I am stupid enough to look up I will see the sword of Damocles.

I smoke because I don’t want to yell at my children because I am terrified of phantoms in my head. I don’t want to be short-tempered because I am spending my spoons on not crying in front of everyone. I don’t want to be short-tempered because I am spending my spoons on trying to block out my perception of the evil reel going in my head. I don’t want to be mean.

So I won’t be. Thanks medical card.

Diarrhea of the mouth.

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Here’s to hoping that the stunned expressions at book club were not from shock or horror. I will find out soon if I am excommunicated. Ha. I’m really not good at being in the closet any more.

The topic of hitting came up. I clarified some of my positions. Like: I don’t hit my kids and in my culture I have no plans to ever hit my kids. I think there is the distinct possibility that at some point in time we will be in a different enough culture where I will believe that hitting a kid in order to make them be quiet and safe until we have the ability to go aside privately and talk about the problem is ok. Does that mean that I think that I will automatically hit my kids when we travel? Of course not. Shanna has been to four foreign countries and nary a slap to her credit.

I understand that sometimes parents hit their kids as a way of showing extreme boundaries. “I do this so you learn from this experience and don’t die.”

In the book Outlander there is a scene where the 18th century guy tells the 20th century chick not to wander off or he will beat her. She wanders off and incurs major risk and badness for lots of people. Her husband beat her. After it was over they negotiated that it won’t happen again.

But I get why it happened. I don’t feel upset with him for living according to the rules of the culture he was raised with. She risked lives. She needs to feel how god damn serious that is.

If we were in an Islamic country and one of my daughters wanted to mouth off I would silence her. I do not know how much risk we are taking by different behaviors. I don’t know what will result in my daughter getting seriously harmed by people who disapprove of her existing. I know that there is actual serious risk involved. (Much like Jaime did in the book I would warn my kids about the consequence in advance–we are traveling and the rules are different. This is how and this is why.)

In the process of discussing it someone asked me about how I can process something like that quickly. How can I read books as fast as I do–don’t I have to stop and think about them?

Specifically I was asked how I could just take in a man beating his wife and not have to stop and think about it.

It was in context so I weighed the consequences for like twenty seconds (obviously I am ready to be ostracized if it is going to happen) and said that I don’t particularly have to stop and think about him beating her all that much. I just accept it as the story and keep going. I don’t get hung up on things like that partially because when I became an adult I went straight into the bdsm community and spent two years as a 24/7 slave. The idea of being hit just isn’t something I have to think about much. It happens. Ok.

We didn’t stay on the book much. We wandered into a lot of third world travel situations and how crossing cultures works. We talked about internal vs. external locus of control. I don’t even remember all of what we talked about. I had fun.

The fantasy faire was great; I look forward to it next year. They had a *wonderful* game section with a wide variety of board games and good games for small children. Calli and I spent a lot of time tossing stuffed frogs into a bowl. It was more fun than it sounds. They got their faces painted (unicorns) and I got a bodice so that I can go to Ren Faire again someday. The one I had before today is from a friend and she has much wider shoulders than me so it just didn’t fit. The rest of the garb is more flexible and easy to make work. A bodice must fit.

I’m glad today went well. I feel like we all needed that. I feel really good about my interactions with the kids today. Boundaries are good. Not yelling is good. Talking about  responsibility is good.

I’m glad I got to spend today with my children. I’m very lucky to know them.

GAD sucks.

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I need to leave in forty-five minutes. Book club. We read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Woo! One of my favorites. I’m excited.

Then I will come home and get the girls and go to a fantasy faire. So like a Renaissance Faire (has anyone ever told these people that the Renaissance mostly took place in Italy?) but even more obviously based on people just liking the clothes. Fairy tales and princesses and pirates. It’ll be fun.

I ran. 5.85 miles in 80 minutes. I will be more enthusiastic at the race because I will be trying not to hold my friend back so I think it will be fine. *cross fingers*

My inadequacy is trying to drown me lately. Every playful jab feels like a slap in the face and a refresher of the idea that people don’t like me. People aren’t trying to hurt my feelings. I’m just over sensitive don’tyouknow? I don’t feel likable. I feel like the cracks about, “Wow. You’ve got some issues to work out” just don’t really seem necessary. I want to turn around and snap, “What’s your fucking point? Just because you don’t want to work hard that doesn’t mean you should fucking mock me for doing so.” (Err, we were weeding at an apple tree orchard. It was an off-hand comment. No one meant any harm. I shut my mouth and put my head down. I didn’t say a word.)

No one ever seems to mean their harm. So if you are harmed shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up.

I can see myself hiding in a lot of corners. I am worried about people being behind me. I feel unsafe. I feel like people are going to talk badly about me. I hate feeling like walking into a room is going to result in a rush of whispering as people talk shit about me. I understand that at this stage of life a lot of this is paranoia. But it isn’t all paranoia. I piss people off.

And they don’t ever have the fucking balls to talk to me about it. I hear about it through back channels and gossip. It insults the fucking shit out of me. It makes me feel much less happy about seeing people at all.

If everyone expects me to yell at them all the time I feel like there isn’t really a point in showing up. Obviously my company can’t be much of a pleasure. I’ll stay home and not inflict my unpleasant nature on anyone.

I’m sorry I exist.

I know I’m too loud. I know I’m too harsh. Why do you think I consciously identify as white trash? I’m explaining to you that I do not share your middle class values. I do not think I should be quiet. I do not think my household should be quiet as people tiptoe around trying to “not bother” anyone.

If someone is fucking bothered they either need to god damn deal with it or not snidely fucking imply that I should fucking share their culture. I don’t. I don’t know your fucking culture and I couldn’t fucking conform to it if I wanted to. I don’t have the instincts. I will never have the instincts. I don’t want them.

I don’t want to be like you.

It’s not because I think there is something in particular wrong with you. You are fine and all. But I can’t be you. If I tried to be like you I would have to sit down and consciously think all the time about how I had to behave. I would have to work really hard for months or years on learning to modulate my voice–all activities you did in your culture in the first five years or so of your life.

I learned that I had to yell or I would be hurt really badly. I learned that I had to make some fucking noise. I have to be obnoxious and pushy and difficult and demanding. I have to or I will die. That is what I learned.

It’s interesting as I study child development and as I watch my kids and as I think about my own life.

I won’t ever be like you–whoever you are. I can’t. I don’t have your culture. That has to be ok. It has to be. I can’t change it.