Tommy has been dead for fifteen years today. I don’t blame myself for his suicide any more. I used to. It took a long time for me to stop feeling like it was all my fault. I didn’t even think about it until I called a girlfriend yesterday and said, “I am completely freaking out and I’m not sure what is triggering it.”

She said, “Don’t you have a big anniversary at the end of June?” Oh. I had managed to not remember until she said that. Yup. This is a big one.

I called her because I’m told often that calling people is the right thing to do when you can’t think of what else to do other than hurt yourself. Distraction is your friend and all.

I haven’t cut in quite a while. The last time was one night when Alex was here and I could not get my body under control to even talk to him. That was a few years ago. I haven’t beaten my head on the floor since my 30th birthday. That is going on two years.

I have been appropriate for a couple of years in a row. I don’t scream much. When I do I immediately apologize and I have to take a time out to model dealing with inappropriate behavior. I haven’t hit anyone in a very long time.

I maintain “good” behavior by removing stimulus so my life is nice and boring.

Right now my stomach hurts so much that I feel like I could vomit on my bed. I haven’t medicated yet today. I have been playing games with not medicating. Because I go through these shame spirals about only disgusting bad people are addicts. I need pot. Therefore I am a disgusting, bad addict. Aren’t addicts supposed to be punished? Isn’t that what we do here?

I think that thinking about Tommy is part of the emphasis on the burning-alive screen in my head. Normally that show isn’t so prominent. But when I think about Tommy pretty much what I see in my head is a flip-flop between images of him burning (which I didn’t actually see) and the physical feelings of him trying to rape me. I wish I could forget what that felt like.

Next year he will have been dead for half of my life. Due to funny math it takes a bit longer until my father has been dead for half of my life. I had a birthday in between their suicides even though they were only four months apart.

Just breathe. Therapy tonight. Not going to the park today. Thank goodness for rain. Please start raining, sky. I want to have a good reason for not going instead of just being a whiny bitch.

Sometimes I can not-hate me for the things that have happened to me. Then there are all the other days when I look around and notice that other people didn’t have lives like me. I must have deserved it. I must have been supposed to be treated like that.

The one thing I have no fear of as a parent is whether or not I have snuggled my children enough. It would not be physically possible for me to spend much more time snuggling my kids. We spend hours every day hugging and cuddling. My children will not have brains and bodies full of the feeling of being hit and held down as someone tries to remove your clothing.

My children have never been told that they are whores who are required to open their legs whenever they are told. No one has ever hit them and told them to be still and silent while they are being hurt. No one has ever humiliated them and then told them to stop crying or they will be given a reason to cry. No one has ever told them, with fingers in their vaginas, that this is the only part of their body worth keeping them alive for.

Sometimes when I think of all the evil poison I have inside me I feel like the only way to run away from the toxic sludge is to be dead. Otherwise I don’t know how to stop remembering these words, these feelings.

Just get up and do something else. Even if the first attempt to distract myself fails I have to try again. And again. And again. I have to get through today so that I can have a tomorrow that hurts less. It will hurt less. I believe that in the pit of my stomach in a way that I believe very few things. Not every day hurts like this. I know this.

I suppose that is actually major progress. I don’t think I had that belief in the past. When I was young I remember feeling trapped in the fear and pain. I did not believe I could ever not be in pain. Then I had my children. They bring me more joy than anything in the whole world. A lot of the time I am able to immerse myself in the joy of being near them and forget everything that came before them.

Sometimes I feel like I was born with them. I am trying to write a new story. It started on May 24th, 2008. That was the day that me being in pain wasn’t really something that bothered me. It was pain with a purpose. I needed to help my daughter be born. I wanted it. I wanted it more than I have ever wanted anything.

And the person I got is even more incredible than I imagined. She is more loving than I thought she would be. I think I believed that my children would always have thinly veiled contempt for me like I was told to have contempt for my mother.

My father, sister, and brothers all told me to have contempt for my mother. She was weak, powerless, stupid, ineffectual, unable to handle real life. We were supposed to lie to her always because she couldn’t handle anything.

So far my children seem to believe that in any average room I am going to be the most competent person there. If something needs to be done they assume I can do it. Even if I have never done something before I say, “Well let’s check the internet!” Then I just do it. I don’t care if it is “hard” or not. If it needs to get done and a person can do it then I believe I am capable of doing it. (Ok, barring some limitations of sheer strength or size. But there are tools that help you over-come such short comings!)

Fifteen years ago when I was told that my brother was dead, no wait–let me be clear: when I was screamed at that I was a stupid bitch who killed our brother I went off by myself. Eventually I went to Jenny because I had nowhere else to go and I knew I wasn’t really welcome in our house. It was all my fault after all. Everyone was so mad at me.

If I hadn’t prosecuted my dad none of this would have happened.

Fifteen years since I called 911 and said, “I need to talk to someone about my dad molesting me.” I cried and could barely give the operator my address. Hell, I barely knew my address. I think I had to find a piece of mail and read it off. I hadn’t lived there very long.

That was when I started really fighting back. I wish that I knew some way of fighting back other than disappearing. That is what I have done. I left. I left everyone who was previously in my life. I treated them like there was an ultimatum and they lost.

Pick my abusers or pick me. Given that you never knew about any of the abuse and you don’t believe me that it happened I will take that as you picking them and I will leave.

I don’t need you.

I don’t need my mother or sister or brother or aunts or uncles or cousins if they aren’t going to believe me about what happened to me.

I live in hell because of the things that were done to me. And I’m supposed to make nice-nice with the people who hurt me. I’m supposed to forgive and forget and support them and love them because they are family.

I think that if a dog was treated the way I was treated my family would go to jail over it. Animal rights activists are fucking fierce.

I learn every day how bad it was because I make conscious choices about how to talk to my children. I weigh my words very carefully. I have to think about every.fucking.thing.I.say. Or I might slip and be inappropriate. I know how very inappropriate I could be. Oh holy fucking shit I could be wildly inappropriate.

Someone tried to tell me that I don’t understand how upsetting rape pornography is. I said, well very few people have pictures of themselves being hanged by the neck but I do. Do I understand how upsetting it is that generic men might want to do that to generic women? Uhm, how about having to live with the fact that someone I loved very much wanted to do that to me. He thought that was the appropriate way to treat me. He masturbated while watching me choke.

I am very careful what I say to my children all day every day. I have had an entire life of Not Safe For Children. Like 99% of what is in my brain is not appropriate to share with children. So I have to think very hard and very carefully all day every day to ensure that I am appropriate. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. I have to think about my words, my tone of voice, and my facial expression. I have to do this full speed ahead while interacting with two very challenging individuals all god damn day every god damn day.

I actually feel proud of myself when I think about it. I am not perfect. I am snippy and I say things that are too harsh sometimes. Hopefully not in a long-term damaging way? Who knows. I’m saving money towards their future therapy if needed. Seriously. Growing up with me is an Adventure!

They sure don’t act like children who have had all the joy taken from the world. (I’m sitting in the play room watching them interact. We’ve been in here a while.) Ok, actually they aren’t both in here any more. I guess stuff changes.

I should probably start chores. It is a day and all.

Sometimes it is inconvenient that I think it is so important to model this shit every day. It is inconvenient that I prioritize their having these memories over what my body wants to do. It is just more important to care about their future selves having this stable scaffolding to build on. It doesn’t matter how I feel. I want to sit in bed and watch The West Wing season two for the sixth time.

But that wouldn’t be functional, now would it? I’m pretty sure I am getting sick. My nose is running and my throat is getting sore. We still need to go on a walk and get work done. The world does not stop just because you aren’t feeling perfect. We won’t run but we do need to move our bodies. We need to be active. We need to be out in our community seeing people and continuing to exist. We won’t stop and chat as long and we won’t stand as near them.

This feels very important. Just keep moving. It doesn’t matter if you want to be alive you are still alive. Keep moving. Act like you will be alive for a long time. You can either do it miserably or you can do it in reasonable health.

If you want to actively die get it over with. Stop the bullshit. Don’t kill yourself with a thousand paper cuts. That is chicken shit. If you are doing that, stop it.

There has to be a different way. What is it? Time to go start the day.

I have vague suicidal ideation pretty frequently. I’m basically always aware of at least three ways to commit suicide within the next hour. Usually I consciously try to physically stay a bit away from the methods I am considering.

Today is really bad. I am having a terrible time distracting myself. I can’t get off that track. I feel scared. My body physically hurts. I feel useless and bad. I feel like I must die. I don’t know how to explain this very well. It feels like dying today is the will of the universe and if I ignore what I am supposed to be doing there will be serious consequences.

I called a friend and talked to her until she had to pick her kid up from school. I watched a movie (sorta). I saw maybe thirty minutes total out of the pilot for Little House on the Prairie. (I feel annoyed that the presented Pa without a beard.) I tried to wash dishes. I’m having trouble getting through a task. In the middle my knees turn to water and I start crying.

I want to die. I want to die far more than I want to breathe. Breathing hurts. I want to stop.

I can’t. It doesn’t really matter if I hurt. I have these kids to take care of. I grow increasingly certain by the year that I would be dead if I had not managed to procreate. I feel grateful for them and very angry that they won’t just let me die.

Ok DSH–really my kids are more important than my marriage in terms of being able to have a permanent relationship. Can I be kind enough to them? Can I take care of them well enough? What is “enough”?

I tried to read. I can’t get through two pages. And I’m still reading the Little House series so that means my brain is toast. Yesterday I read the first book in the series in two hours. It isn’t that the books are hard. I just can’t think of anything other than killing myself.

It is like I live in a movie multi-plex. You can see all the screens from the center of the space. Like at the drive-in movies. On every screen I see a different way of dying. The speed and tempo of what I am seeing speeds up and slows down. Sometimes I focus in on one screen at a time and I watch the razor blade move with infinite slowness and deftness as it severs the artery. The bus hitting me goes really fast. I see that one happen over and over really quickly. I can hit by a bus 100 times in a minute. I can’t see anything else inside my brain.

I’m trying really hard to see something else. My kids are really clingy today, as you would expect.

What is it going to mean for them growing up with someone like me? I am keeping them fed. I think they have even felt the semblance of play today. I certainly haven’t said the word suicide nor the word cut nor die nor nor nor nor.

I say nothing. I just sit here and shake. Sometimes I go hide in my room. I sit between the bed and the wall under the window where the kids can’t see me because then they don’t jump on me immediately. I can cry and shake and try to rock myself.

Shouldn’t I put them in school and get them away from me? What in the fuck makes me think that I am an adequate human being to parent at all let alone home school? Shouldn’t my children be around healthy, functional people?

Do they know that I am not functional? Do they see me as broken? Do they see me as inadequate? Do they care that I cry while I walk around the house puttering through my chores?

Maybe I’m freaking out because Noah did most of the cleaning yesterday so I haven’t gotten into the flow of cleaning the house? Maybe I’m freaking out because tomorrow marks fifteen years since my brother lit himself on gasoline and burned 85% of his body.

Let me tell you, that screen in my head is festive. I’ve done a lot of research into what happens to the body as it burns. You never get those images out of your brain.

You can never unknow what you know. You can never unsee what you have seen.

My children do not know what is inside of me. All they know is even on my bad days they can say, “I need hugs” and I will immediately hug them. Ok sometimes I have to put something down first. My kids know that the rules for how the house works are consistent. Even on my bad days food has to stay in the kitchen or we get bugs. Even on my bad days you have to pick up after yourself before you get the iPad. Even on my bad days there will be food put in front of you at appropriate intervals.

Even if mom doesn’t eat because giving her food would clearly be an inappropriate use of resources.

Even on mom’s bad days big sister is still not the boss, sorry kid. Even on bad days mom will still smile and say that she loves you. Even if she is crying at the same time.

When they ask me why I’m crying I lie sometimes. Or I tell part of the truth. I tell them I am crying because I am so happy I get to be near them. I don’t say that I am so happy to be away from the people who used to hurt me. That’s a part of the story I can gloss over just now.

I want to die. Today I do not have more than 50% on the want to live side. It is just not there. I want to stop hurting. I want to be selfish. I want to only care about me.

But I won’t. I have these two kids to take care of. More than I want to die I want them to reach eighteen with a whole heart. I do not want to be what breaks them. Life will be hard enough without me destroying them. I will not kill myself today. It doesn’t matter that I want to.

In some way that is a kind of comfort. I feel terrible guilt because I know that Noah would not be enough today. If I did not have children today I would be done. I’m that sure. I want out of my head that bad.

But I can’t. It is kind of a weird feeling. I can’t. I made two people out of pure selfishness. I made Shanna because I have dreamed of meeting my daughter Shanna since I was twelve. Ok, she’s slightly more blonde than I pictured but otherwise I feel like I got exactly what I wanted. I designed this kid in my head and I got her. She is as outgoing and friendly and charming and considerate as I hoped. Those were the parts of me that I really wanted to see in an undamaged person. I knew that before she was born. I fucking prayed for a friendly child. I wanted someone who has never met a stranger, someone like me.

I feel like if I went through and listed off my favorite things about myself: how good I am at meeting people, how good I am at taking charge, how good I am at making sure something is followed up on, how tenacious I am, how stubborn, how sure I am right I am. That describes my daughter. Maybe I’m lying to myself but I see her trying to be those things. (Maybe I am inappropriate in how I direct her, maybe in the long run none of these things will describe her.)

I can’t leave her without someone who understands her. Noah has a very hard time understanding her behavior. He gets so furious sometimes when she does stuff. Then I sit down and explain to him how the situation looks from her perspective. Then he figure out how to handle her. How would they get along without me?

They would get by. I know. I can come up with a lot of reasons why it is ok for me to just be done.

But then I look at Calli. No, she would never be ok. That one would be broken by this. Shanna would try to fill the void by loving other people. I think she would be ok. Calli is different. Calli is different parts of me. I think that if Calli is betrayed by the person she loves most in the whole wide world she will never get over that. It will destroy her sense of self-worth. I can see that so clearly.

I can’t do that. I see the power I have here. Just living is good enough some days. Just continuing to hug them when they ask is enough some days.

Some days I don’t really make forward progress. Sometimes I, to quote my therapist, am immobilized by reliving trauma and I have to coast on how good my kids are at entertaining themselves and being responsible.

This was how I did it as a teacher too. I had such a strongly ingrained routine that I didn’t actually have to do much of anything. The children taught themselves. I showed them the process then they went through it over and over because I was consistent in the beginning. It was ok for me to mentally check out some days. I could say, “Hey you! I have decided that you are teaching this lesson. All of the material is right next to the overhead projector. Get to.”

They did it. They did as well as I would have. Sometimes watching them learn the material out loud was really instructive to me. I learned things I hadn’t really understood even as I prepared my materials.

I didn’t teach from what was in my head. I wrote everything down. I knew to the minute what to do every day. I knew what questions to ask and what things to say. I didn’t follow pre-prepared curriculums. That’s why I worked seventy to eighty hour weeks.

My children have similar sorts of patterns. Even when I fall of the flow they still follow it.

The job of children is to play and learn. You get two hours a day of iPad usage. Other than that it is your responsibility to figure out how to entertain yourself. No one else can crawl into your brain and know what you want to be doing. Figure it out. And they do. Ok, so I do interact with them. And they follow me around and interact with me a lot.

Today I am writing because this manages to pull a track of my brain away from thinking about suicide. When I type it is like abruptly switching screens with keyboard shortcuts. It is abrupt and sudden and there is only text. The movies switch off. Very little else can interrupt the flow of images. That is interesting to think about.

I can’t flip between the screens at will like this for anything else. Typing pulls up a part of my awareness that other things don’t. It is kind of interesting to wonder how typing will play into the personhood of humans in the future. How does the activation of our brain work differently for typing as opposed to other methods of communication or living?

I don’t know if it works this way for other people. But man is typing awesome as a focus device. I think that is why I like it so much. I write terribly slowly. I hate my hand writing. It feels like torture. Which is why I am thinking of hand-writing my next book. I’m just not getting the feel of it in typing.

Today is a funny day to think about the next book. It does need to be Outrunning Suicide and it’s kind of funny to want to write about this process this way. It will be ironic if I write a book about not doing it and then I do it. Ha. Fitting?

Maybe I want to write a book about not doing it because I am trying to convince myself. Do I really believe in any of the things I want to write down? Why do I want to record them? Why do I want to share them? Who do I want to share the ideas with? For what purpose do I want to write this book?

I’m not dead. I have wanted to die this much before and I am not dead. I have done incredibly risky things one right after another and I am not dead. I want to really examine for myself what I have done.

I think I want to hand-write it because I want to write stories that young people can read. When I type I get kind of out of hand. *cough*

I think that the most important thing to remember when I am suicidal is that this is a feeling–well, a whole set of feelings, really.

One of the most profound experiences of being a parent is knowing that if I believe that on some basic level my children require me to live then I have to change my behaviors in a variety of ways.

I have to really think about what it means to live even though I am suicidal. I need to actively work towards not dying. I need to stop taking stupid chances. I have to actively stop and consider the results of a wide variety of actions and I have to act as if the results matter.

I have to think about taking care of my body. I have to think about what it means to keep a human animal alive. I have to act like I am important. Or, statistically speaking, I won’t live very long. Some of the people in my family get old. Some of them kill themselves early. Some are alcoholics and destroy their bodies that way. My sour stomach keeps me from drinking. Even though I think about having alcohol almost every day. “Wouldn’t that taste nice?” No. That stomach ache isn’t bloody worth it.

Calli picked Alice in Wonderland as the movie. It is funny hearing it. She knows she is growing up in Wonderland. She actively refers to our house that way. Shanna doesn’t usually and kind of resists the label.

I think it is kind of magical that Calli can point at the kitchen floor and say, “I was born right there.” I can’t leave her. I don’t want that to be her story. I think that knowing that I am the one who decides what kind of childhood they have is going to be the thing. That’s the trick for me. Everyone has their own trick.

I don’t get to be the author of the story of how life goes for very many people. There will be only two people who get to experience the world entirely shaped by me. My children  believe that most people are good and that meeting people is a great experience. They know that some times people do bad things. They know that sometimes people are evil. It isn’t common but you have to prepare yourself for life any way. You need to take care of your body. You need to be strong. You need to be able to do a lot of things. You need to be able to teach yourself how to do things. If you sit around and wait for someone else to teach you how to do what you want to do you are going to sit for the rest of your life. Get to.

Sometimes I’m pretty impressed when I think about it. My oldest is five. I’ve gone that long. I have not been perfect. There have been outbursts of anger. There have been consequences. I have to fix the holes I kick in the walls. I had to fix the cupboard door I kicked off the wall. I had to feel ashamed of myself. I had to do it in front of my kids. I had to talk about why my actions were wrong. I had to talk about what I should have done instead. I had to apologize. Three violent outbursts so far? Oof. That’s not a good ratio.

I’m sorry is a chicken shit thing to say. Don’t fucking do that shit if you are fucking sorry.

I am pretty sure it has been more than a year since I have done anything. It isn’t like I am not being tested. Hoo boy.

I hope that these will be things that happened before Shanna’s memory started. I hope they never witness me losing control.

Suicide is, I think, a way to get out of being more of a failure. I won’t fail them in a million small ways and watch them decide they don’t want me any more after I have been uhh overly enmeshed for years. Yes, oh internet, I know I am enmeshed. Sort of. I know that I have very little permanent influence over them. I know I’m on a timer.

It is very hard for me to believe that my children will grow up to like me. Even though Shanna loves fucking everyone and Calli isn’t sure she loves anyone like she likes me. I know that sort of thing does change. I would have to fuck up pretty big. I have done well by her so far.

Noah says I was much harder on Shanna than I am on Calli at the same age. My response is: well when Shanna was at this age I had a kid this age and  a newborn and I just bloody couldn’t cope. I was very liberal with time outs. I am softer on Calli. I have felt a lot of guilt for weaning her when I did. She clearly wants to still be nursing. I forced her to not be a baby a whole year earlier than I cut off Shanna. I pushed her to potty train early. She just hasn’t had as much of a babyhood. So, yeah. I tolerate more whining from her. I haven’t let her be much of a baby. I will never have another baby.

I find it weird that every month and a bit I sit down and cry for a child I will never meet. I didn’t do that before I had kids. I actually think the miscarriages effected me far more than having children did. Those were children that I almost met and didn’t. I miss them every month. I don’t wish Calli away though and I definitely wouldn’t have met her if I had either of the other children. It’s a weird thing.

It doesn’t matter much if I feel distracted-enough by typing. I need to go eat something.  I need to get the kids ready for ballet and swimming. (All driving within three miles of my house at 24 mph.) I need to get the rest of dinner started.

I am probably clinically “depressed” because I feel like I am swimming up a river of molasses. It really doesn’t matter that it feels harder. I believe that my future self requires me to get off my ass and get work done today in order to be happy. I know this. What I am feeling right now cannot be what is important.

It is hard really believing and forcing myself to act as if it is true that I am required to provide a good childhood for my kids. I signed on to a specific job. I am doing it. I have bad days.

They often coincide with bad weather. And my period. And the anniversaries of suicides.

Oh man Tommy. I have therapy tomorrow night. That’s useful. Fifteen years. I am ten years older than he was when he died. He always was my big-little brother. I actually think that him committing suicide is ok. He had a severe traumatic brain injury. He was a very fucked up person before the car accident. He was going to be a truly scary sociopath. Then he was just a freak. I get why he didn’t want the future he had available.

I actually like the future I see for me if I just keep on keeping on.

Just don’t die today. Tomorrow can take care of itself.

But that isn’t good enough once you are a mother. You can’t just not die. You have to get off your ass and provide care. Like right now. Go. Ack.