I got yelled at yesterday by a stranger. I probably deserved it. The kids and I spent the day going from store to store because they wanted to spend their allowance money on toys. We went to one last store, on the way home from the park, so I could get knee braces. I let them play in the toy aisle while I checked out and then I couldn’t get them to come with me short of dragging them out of the store. They wanted to stay and play. Given that I had already spent four hours facilitating them playing in stores I was tired and I wanted to go home.

I wasn’t all that nice as I ranted on the way to the car. So a dyke yelled at me that I should pick on someone my own size. (And yes, with that hair cut, with those clothes, in that Jeep, with that bike on the rack… she’s a dyke.) I find myself noting these details about her personhood because I would not be so upset by a mom yelling at me. I wanted to turn around and scream that as long as she is opting out of breeding, she doesn’t really understand how hard it is. I didn’t. I said, “That’s probably a fair point” and I got in my car and left. She followed me home. That really bothered me.

And I want to die. Not really because of her. I was feeling this way before I got yelled at. But it is harder after that. Sit very still. Don’t make any decisions. Don’t do anything. Just… sit.

I am not always a nice person. And it is hard to believe that anyone else could have done enough bad things to deserve having to be near me. Not cutting right now takes pretty much all the self control I possess.

How do I live with being suicidal? How do I live with my self-harm urges? I sit very still. I try not to move. I try not to make decisions. Maybe if I just don’t do anything the feeling will go away.

How many years so far? It hasn’t gone away yet. But nothing else I have tried works better.

I asked Shanna when we got home how bad I was being. She said, “Well, it wasn’t great. But it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t appreciate it but I didn’t feel like my feelings were hurt.”

If I thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that killing myself would result in them getting a mother who could actually be nice to them I would be dead in ten minutes. I know how the world works though. People get good mothers by luck of the draw. My kids are stuck with me. Stepmothers… rarely turn out to be better than your mother. Sometimes. Not much. (I actually had a great step-mother. I was very sad when she died.) And I know what it does to someone to grow up knowing that your parent killed themself rather than know you.

I can’t do that to them.

So I’ll sit very still.

I know I write about this. I have to, or I’ll crack. I probably won’t speak about this. Maybe with my shrink, probably not. Maybe with Noah, probably not. Speaking out loud isn’t really an option I have. Not about these things. There is too much potential punishment involved.

I can’t really tell my shrink because if I tell her about the really bad days she might feel legally obligated to 5150 me. I can’t ever go through that again. If I believed that an ambulance was on the way to my house to pick me up for that I would take my keys and never be seen again.

I can’t go through that again. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I cannot. I can’t. I’m not sure I would be able to pull it together to pretend to be sane enough to ever be let out. I wouldn’t be able to respond the way they want and I would cry and cry and cry and cry and… they don’t let people like that out.

I can’t go back to the hospital. I just can’t.