Yesterday I felt sad and drained by the suicidal ideation slowed down. In the afternoon I talked to one of my favorite men in the world. He helps me gain perspective on life. We talked about shame and pain and being a problem vs. having a problem. We talked about what it means to be trying to change. We talked about how very hard it is to change.

This friend has dealt with a lot of suicide. Three people in the last two years. Now his dad is talking suicide in the “threatening” sort of way. My friend called the police. He told his father that either his father start a) going to therapy, b) seeing a psychiatrist to discuss medication, and c) find some sort of peer support group that my friend will have his father declared incompetent and he will sue for guardianship. That’s kind of intense to hear from my friend.

I asked him how he feels about me talking about my suicidal ideation. He said, “Do you see a therapist?” Yes. “Do you see a doctor for medication?” Yes. “Do you have peer support?” Well… the support group didn’t work out but I have very close friends some of whom I speak to daily and I can call them in any crisis. “Then you ARE DOING what you are supposed to be doing. You are allowed to talk about how it is going.”

He pointed out that I’m not threatening to do it. I’m saying that I want to but know I can’t. I absolutely never fucking ever say, “If you (whoever) do/do not do ___________ then I will kill myself.”

That’s not the point. I don’t think that any one else needs to change what they are doing. I feel like a chicken shit for whining about being in pain. Isn’t every one in pain? Well, why do we act like everyone must suffer all the time? Why?

I don’t suffer all the time. I am in some kind of pain basically every minute of every day but I don’t think about it. I try to ignore it. That isn’t the focus of my life. I’m also breathing air and pumping blood and blinking my eyes and producing saliva. So what?

I don’t always have the standing-in-the-center-of-a-bunch-of-movie-screens feeling in my head. That just isn’t here today. Today it is pretty quiet upstairs. I wouldn’t say I feel “relaxed” but I have more or less decided that given how much I was screamed at today I’m not jumping through hoops to entertain my kids so I don’t have a lot to worry about.

I don’t have a big terrible anniversary looming. Not till October. I have Calli’s birthday and my birthday to get through before then.

Last night my therapist and I talked about my compulsive sexuality. She hasn’t had a lot of details outside of what is in the book. I’ve only been seeing her since October 2012. She has only known me as monogamously married. Hell, she thought we started monogamy at the beginning of the marriage. Snort.

No, actually not following the guy home from the grocery store is brand spanking new. For basically the first twenty-five years of my life I would have. I said yes all the time because saying no frequently resulted in my being raped and that process is pretty terrible so if a guy hints that he wants to have sex it is just a better idea in every way to say yes. Saying no is just flat dangerous.

I only want to be beaten when I ask nicely and say please. In any and all other circumstances I’m not ok with it.

My big girl came in to put her head on my chest while I type. Not a great angle for my arm. But gosh this is good for my heart.

I want to see what they are like as adults. I want to find out if they are going to be slutty or very monogamous. I don’t want to tell them to do either. I want to find out what they want for themselves.

My therapist asked me why I stopped being promiscuous. I told her I didn’t want to model it for my children. I don’t want to teach my kids that they should spend their entire lives hunting for sex. They can learn that lesson from someone else, not me. That’s not my role.

It is really fascinating listening to other people talk about their marriages and sex lives. I feel so grateful that I found someone who is extremely sexually compatible with me. I feel like that alignment isn’t actually common. This is why I test-drove so many people. Ha.

I should get dressed and water the yards and finish sanding the fence. Then I can bring some pencils over and start sketching. I bet I could get a lot of the layout done today and tomorrow if I tried hard. Then I would have next week while Shanna is in day camp to paint. I’ll have to think about how to entertain Calli. I’m not thrilled with the idea of just bringing the iPad but I might. She will have a hard time keeping herself busy without Shanna for three days. Stuff to ponder.

I was lying in bed the other night, crying–of course. I was thinking about how my entire life has involved crying myself to sleep while rehearsing all of the memories other people tell me to forget. Other people want me to pretend that my life never happened. They want me to swallow all of the poison down deep inside of me so that it is buried in the darkness of my belly. There they are safe from the poison. It only hurts me and that is not their problem.

I wonder if that is why my abdomen hurts. It is all the secrets I am not allowed to tell because they are too shameful. I eat them. I swallow the poison as fast as I can but it isn’t fast enough. I don’t do it completely enough. I am not able to do it while smiling and making other people feel good about themselves.

I am a failure.

I am supposed to take all of the suffering away from other people. It is not their responsibility to hurt. I should hurt.

But then I stop and think, “What a self absorbed stupid bitch.”

I haven’t spent more time crying about my friends miscarriages than they have. Who in the hell am I to think I am taking pain away from any one else? I don’t take anyones pain away. I wallow in my own.

I sit and wallow in shit and misery. Because I am too stupid to understand that I am in the pig pen. All I have to do is get up and climb over the fence and take a shower–right?

But this is the only home I’ve ever known.

My friend told me (and my therapist said she was so happy he told me this) I am changing my brain when I parent the way I do. I am creating the possibility of a different future for myself and my children. I am changing the pattern of my family.

My parents both had really bad childhoods. My mother cleaned up after her mother’s suicide attempts after school. My father had a violent, abusive alcoholic in the house. My mother was the youngest child and her older siblings were contemptuous and vicious to her. My father raped his sister.

What the hell happened to my grandparents that they would produce children who would act in such a way? One grandmother was the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute. One was the descendent of Mayflower Pilgrims. (My sister claims she saw records as a kid before my parents divorced.) One grandfather was a second generation immigrant born on a Mennonite colony. One grandfather was a Catholic printer from LA. His family had been in the printing business and in the military as long as anyone could remember.

For my children three our of four of their grandparents are mentally ill though I doubt my mother in law would like me saying so. My children have a great grandparent, grandparent, and uncle who have all committed suicide. They don’t need a parent too.

If I manage to have a happy sixtieth birthday that will be absolutely miraculous by the standards of my family.

And Noah would be really nice to me for all of the years in between. It’s nice to think about.