Monthly Archives: October 2014

Just can’t.

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I feel guilty, but I can’t sit at the table and watch them eat this morning. They are eating pancakes and muffin and eggs. I’m eating shitty rice cereal with shitty rice milk. I’m having grape juice so I can handle swallowing pills. I literally can’t do it with water. I throw the pills back up.

I feel bad physically. This morning started with several bouts of violent diarrhea. I feel sad and yet hopeful. I hope it was the egg. I hope. I pray. I hope I have one indicator god fucking damnit.

I’m trying to not take my extreme grumpiness out on every one around me but I am not sure how successful I am being. I’m apologizing a lot. I don’t really think it makes anything better. But I don’t have the pause before I emote asshole-ness and there isn’t anything else I can do but apologize.

I’m feeling like I should stay home pretty indefinitely and not talk to anyone. I’m not a nice person. It is hard to be polite enough when I feel like this. I mostly managed to stay civil with the moms at the park yesterday (I think) but it is really hard to monitor my tone when my body hurts like this.

I feel like I should stop reading about diarrhea on the internet. So. Much. Conflicting. Information. These lists of foods directly contradict one another. As in: from one dietician to another one will say asparagus is a no-no and the next says eat lots of it. Some say I shouldn’t be eating *any* rice and some say I should be eating *only* rice.

I’ve gotta say, I attained poop *with* the nuts and nightshades in my diet. Then I went one day without, had some egg, and there is an instant return to violent diarrhea. That makes me wonder if I should bother with taking the nightshades and nuts out. But egg is staying out for a bit.

I don’t think I am going to be physically capable of taking out all the vegetables. I fucking need some bulk in my stomach. And I can’t stay on just turkey for weeks. Unfortunately I have a “delicate system” and if I try to eat too repetitively of foods I don’t like that much I will vomit and vomit and vomit. My body is more contrary than my personality. Which is a stretch. I find it annoying how self-defeating I am.

For all my fuss and whine the kids and I had a decent day together yesterday. They are being ridiculously understanding of my moodiness. “Mom, it sucks that you can’t eat anything tasty. I’d be grumpy too.”

We also had a detailed, hilarious, conversation about buying clothing for the children. I told them that when they don’t care about the stuff five minutes after I buy it I feel less impetus to buy anything else in the future. They can have the basics and not a lot more. Ingratitude is a real hot button for me. Shanna asked me how she could show more gratitude so that I would be happier about buying her stuff. So we talked about sucking up and the difference between that and begging. They practiced a bit and I gave them feedback on, “That’s not sucking up that is begging–and closer to pestering than begging.” Demanding that you get something is *not* sucking up.

I found it pretty funny. I’m ok with talking about these things bluntly. If you want me to do things for you, I need something back. I don’t need groveling. But if you start bitching loudly about how something isn’t that great right after I spend money on it… I’m taking it back to the store and forget you. Especially when it isn’t something you need. You are not entitled to luxuries, buddy.

(Specifically: she asked me to get her a Merida dress for Halloween. I did. Her grandmother sent an Elsa dress the week of Halloween and all of a sudden she spent a lot of time shit talking the Merida dress and how it isn’t as nice. I was not a happy camper. Other than the fact that the sewing on the Merida dress wasn’t amazing (split seams all over the fucking place) it was a really cool costume. Luckily Pam can sew better than me and she was here when we noticed all the seams and she fixed the dress. I am so grateful for my friends.)

I talked about how I feel sad that I put effort into negotiating with her over what she wanted, getting the supplementary accessories, and I spent a bunch of money. If you start shit talking less than a week after I get you something I won’t want to do it next time. This feels really bad. I feel like I wasted time and money and I don’t like that feeling. I have other uses for my time and money.

If you are actually happy about what I do and nice to me… I’m happy to do lots for you. Lots. LOTS. But I need something back.

I don’t need 24/7 groveling. That’s annoying. I don’t need you to only agree with me and I don’t need to have you parrot my opinions. I just want you to express appreciation for my effort. If you don’t I will stop putting effort into you.

I god damn need those words of affirmation. Or I feel like I should die because I am stupid and I try really hard for people who don’t care anyway. If I don’t get that acknowledgment I feel like an unworthy piece of shit. Is it fair? No. But it is.

I figure the best thing I can do is be as clear as possible about how important it is to me. I need acknowledgment.

I feel like I’m not doing enough for my family lately. But I also feel entirely out of spoons. I could use a full week of hiding under my bed. I used to do that. Just take a week off of school and hide.

I feel so yucky. My body hurts so much. I want to cry.

Day 16: two steps forward, three steps back

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Breakfast: puffed rice cereal with rice milk and some turkey lunch meat.

Lunch: stir fry made with leftover rice, green beans, carrots, salt, pepper, leftover blueberry chicken, and olive oil. Remarkably tasty.

2nd lunch: rice cooked with vegetable broth (so technically tainted with onion powder) and turkey lunch meat.

dinner: rice cooked with vegetable broth (I read the fucking label after I dumped two cups in the rice cooker), turkey, grapes, and a little bit of egg.

 

5am-long, thing mostly formed. Pencil thin and brown.

5:50pm- REAL POOP. I POOPED. I POOPED!!! Ahem. Brown and formed and everything.

I spent this day feeling like shit. My whole body hurts. Massive headache. Joint pain. Stomach/abdominal pain. I suspect a lot of the pain is weight lifting but oh holy hell it is intense.

I’m going to give you a preview. I had one more “real poop” after midnight. Then for day 17 I woke up with truly wicked diarrhea. The kind that is entirely liquid and yuck and burning. I don’t think the egg agreed with me.

I POOPED!!!!!

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I POOPED!!!!! I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!I POOPED!!!!!

 

I’m scared that this means I *will* have to eliminate some of the things currently out of my diet.

Also: I am not going to be able to do turkey and rice. I just fucking can’t. I’m going to try some egg tonight. It is normally fine for folks with IBS and I don’t think I have an allergy to it.

Day 15

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My last hurrah day. After this my diet narrows even more. To that I say: fuck my life. I will be cutting nightshades and nuts.

Breakfast: gf pancakes (made with almond milk), banana, peanut butter, pecans, maple syrup

Lunch: the last of the soup with nightshades

Dinner: rice, fried potatoes, chicken with blueberry and maple syrup, green beans

Dessert: grape juice and a banana

 

Two visits to the bathroom. One at 3:30 am and one at 12:15pm. The first time was lots and lots of quantity and very dark brown grainy and totally unformed. The second time I had a few discrete pieces, which is awesome, but they were really thin and pencil like (in that way that indicates gall bladder problems).

Worth mentioning that I did 4.5 miles of running and over an hour of weight lifting with Noah.

My whole body hurts. Every part of me. I have a headache so bad I would cheerfully beat my head on concrete just for the distraction. I feel worse and worse with every passing day. It isn’t even just that I’m hungry (though I am).

Also: now I have a fucking cold.

DO ALL THE THINGS!

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I now have two doctor appointments. One with an allergist/alternative medicine person a friend highly recommends (he is closer than Santa Rosa, K–your person is next in line) and one with the gastroenterology office for Kaiser. Those appointments are on the 3rd and 24th of November neatly overlapping with babysitting.

I ran 4.6 miles in 55 minutes. I’m pretty happy about how fast I’ve been running lately.

I did weight lifting with Noah at the gym. My form sucks and I’m not lifting much weight (little more than the bar) but I’m making progress. I feel like the squats in particular are helping with my running speed already.

I went through a pile of mail and sorted it into keeping or paying bills or recycling.

I emailed the person who might be interested in home school trades of kids. *Cross fingers*

I caught up on my “school” tracking. I try to write down what we are doing and I got a little behind. (Not a lot–I’ve been doing well with ALL THE TRACKING I’m doing.)

I put together a couple of cards to send out in the mail. I will have to go to the post office. Stupid international postage. Good thing my niece is way the heck too young to notice how fucking late my holiday cards are.

I found the box and receipt for something I need to return to Target. Whoo.

I finished Noah’s Christmas shopping. All I need to still get for the kids are a couple of gift cards and pajamas. (The gift cards are so they can have the experience of buying their own damn tv show from the iTunes store–Shanna will pick She-Ra.)

And it isn’t even noon yet.

The hilarious thing is… I feel like I “haven’t done much”.

 

Slightly less fucked up than yesterday

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Well I’m not waking up crying. That’s good. I feel less jittery and scared. I feel less like I need to die because I am a piece of shit. That’s probably good too.

Somehow I feel more ashamed of myself talking about the abatement of suicidality than I do about reporting it when it is happening. I don’t talk about wanting to kill myself for attention–if I did it would be a big fat fail. I don’t get extra attention when I’m suicidal and I’m pretty nasty to people who want to pop up then. I am kind of like a wounded cat. I want to crawl under the house and be left alone until I feel better.

When I feel shitty already I am going to lash out at every person who walks by whether they are trying to help me or not. Sometimes trying to help me is a big red flag. “What do you want? Why are you doing this? Clearly I need to drive you away.”

I’m very scared of being 5150’d and part of the reason I talk about being suicidal as much as I do is so I have a long track record to defend *not* going into the hospital. I am more likely to survive if I am left in the nest I carefully created for myself.

Yes, my behavior and my words can seem scary to other people. I am doing better than I did. I have improved. I *am* more healthy. No, I’m not where other non-traumatized people are… I never will be. I can never undo the past.

I feel both very bad and good about the fact that my kids understand “down” days. Today is a day when mom is going to cry a lot and not be good at answering questions–it isn’t personal and it isn’t a reflection of how much I love you. I’m trying my best and sometimes I can’t be chipper and entertaining.

I tell my kids, “People are shaped by the experiences they have. It is part of the reason I am so protective of you both. You will not have to remember back to horrible events that shape your whole life. You will be whole and able to make what you will of the future.”

Yesterday they played at the park for three hours. Mostly I could see their clothes in the pack running around at a great distance and that was all the “supervision” they had.

Well, I heard one kid yelling at Shanna for her foul mouth. He did so because his mother told him to. Shanna was bragging about how “bad ass” she is and he didn’t like that language. I didn’t hear Shanna’s response but I doubt she is going to drop the phrase because this kid yelled at her.

And it begins.

Also, the daycare lady at the gym told me she had to scold Shanna for her “attitude”. I kind of said, “Hmm” and nodded. Shanna is going to get scolded sometimes. That’s life. I sincerely doubt some random woman telling her that she must respect Miss Foxy is going to change her personality much.

My girls are not going to be quiet and demure in the ways people expect girls to be. I’m ok with that. I have never seen boys get “scolded” for “attitude” the same way I see girls get reprimanded. I’m sure it does happen. My vision is not omnipresent or anything. But I’ve seen it happen to an awful lot of girls. You aren’t being respectful (meaning quiet) enough.

What-fucking-ever.

Well, if Shanna is so rude that she gets banned from daycare then she will learn a lesson. Otherwise I don’t feel a need to get involved or care.

I love you. I think it is ok that you have lots of attitude. Noah has been having trouble with Shanna’s attitude lately too. Mostly because of a specific phrase that she picked up from me. So I don’t give her shit for it. She likes to respond to questions/orders with “Seriously?” just like her mama. I respond in exactly the same tone without any rancor. I don’t mind or find it problematic.

My kids respect me. I’m not worried about them using a tone of voice that “doesn’t sound respectful enough”. I have always thought that was a petty need to control.

Which is to say… I don’t flip out when they are disrespectful in the ways I model and I have other disrespect triggers. *cough* Like a proper hypocrite.

I want forceful, aggressive children who can assert themselves in just about any situation. I want bossy girls.

I tell them all the time, “Who is my wonderful bossy little plan-having girl?” They beam.

My girls believe that “being bossy” is synonymous with “having a plan” and that is fucking awesome. Have a plan. Tell people how to do things. That’s a positive trait. It will serve you well throughout your life.

And it is time to go.

Day 14

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Breakfast: gf pancakes (With almond milk), peanut butter, pecans, banana, maple syrup

Lunch: (raw veggies because it was a picnic and fuss and oh man) carrots, cucumber, turkey, potato chips, grapes, banana

Dinner: green beans, rice, chicken cooked with blueberries and maple syrup (Noah loves me)

I drank a scant cup of grape juice and peppermint tea.

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Permeability

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The fellow who runs the myPTSD website has come up with some good analogies for stress. Simple, visual reminders that once you have the disorder you permanently (or until you do massive amount of work to retrain) just operate at a “higher” stress level than average. He uses cups to illustrate how with PTSD your cup is always somewhat full even when nothing has happened to you today. You have less ability to absorb stress. Stress is such a stupid word. What does it even mean?

I’m having a hard time feeling like a self-contained unit. I feel permeable. I feel… thin. I feel scared. I feel like other peoples opinions just fucking matter too much.

So this year I set the date I wanted for a Christmas cookie exchange. There may only be two other women there doing it with me because my desired planning conflicts with the desires of most of the other folks I invited because they are all off doing a group thing together. That I’m not involved with.

Sometimes I’m good at feeling like people living their lives has nothing to do with me. Sometimes I’m good at knowing that a snippy comment from a friend is about *their* stress cup and not me and sometimes… not so much.

Sometimes I feel torn down and stomped on and spit on. Even though… no one did any such thing. The feeling is coming from me and it is really hard to have this feeling around people and keep it clear in my head that it isn’t about them. They aren’t the reason I feel this way.

I’m not sad because my friend made a bad joke about not loving me. I’m sad because my mother and father didn’t love me. My brothers and sister do not love me. If they do love me, they “don’t love me enough” to not hurt me.

Life is very complicated.

I get very enmeshed with my BFFs and I’m bossy and controlling in ways I shouldn’t be. Because it is one of the longest-ago-examples and because she will probably never speak to me again it is easiest to use Anna as an example. She isn’t the only one. I’m not going to give all the details (I have a small amount of tact) but I’ll say that she came from a problematic family. Not like mine–fucked up in their own special little way. Every single thing that I judged (then and now, really) as “wrong” or “fucked up” can be explained as a difference in what we have been socialized to accept.

With the 20/20 of hindsight… I’m very certain I was openly contemptuous of things I should not have been judging. I would yell at Anna about some of the interactions I witnessed. I swore at her that she needed to stand up for herself or she was pathetic. I was probably as abusive as her parents. I love Anna. Very much. I understand why she ended contact with me. I was not capable of hearing about the problems in her life without becoming so distressed that I reacted as if *I* was trapped in that horrible situation. I was never able to step back and objectively feel like it “wasn’t my problem”. It felt like my problem. Her family engaged in a wide variety of behaviors that…. Ok I can’t say more. She and her parents are semi-functional people.

What does “functional” mean? It is one of the things I focus on in raising my kids. How do I turn them into functional people. One of my relatives worked at a movie theatre for a few years starting at 18. He quit at 20 because he didn’t feel “respected” enough and he hadn’t been moved into management. He somehow destroyed one of the super expensive pop corn machines by fucking around. No shit they haven’t promoted you yet. But he was completely indignant. And proceeded to not work for years and mooch money off his much younger sister who worked at In-n-Out.

I want my kids to be able to support themselves without effectively stealing from people who don’t have enough for themselves. I think that being poor is something that happens. I think that being a house wife when you are poor is not the same thing as taking money from a sibling with an after-school fast food job. If one or both of my daughters married someone who worked with his hands and didn’t earn a lot of money I would try to encourage my daughters to figure out how to supplement their income even if they wanted to be housewives. But I’m going to encourage my daughters to prepare for a future of working no matter what.

I have written two books in the last few years on top of many other large projects. (I have entirely fallen into a spiral of self hate and I have not submitted books for publication.) My children think of me as “working”. They don’t think “stay at home” is the same as “does nothing”. That is not part of their world. They do not live in an environment where the work I do is devalued–it is seen as important and something that someone  has to do and you can’t pay someone to really care about the same exact things as you. Even if I put my kids in the best hippy dippy unschooling-not-formal-curriculum private school in the world I couldn’t pay their teachers enough to care about them as much as I do.

Yes, some of those teachers would be better educated on a variety of topics about which I’m entire ignorant. That gap has been more obvious to me lately.

I don’t know everything. I don’t know what is right for everyone. I know that Noah and I both have family backgrounds that are very devoid of love. If you hear the stories about our parents’ childhoods and our grandparents’ childhoods…. no wonder they were miserable assholes. They were miserable. And they were totally assholes. We’ve got a long line of bullies and violent people behind us.

My kids are going to need an inordinate amount of love. Generational trauma leaves effects that are detectable on brain studies. DNA is altered from severe trauma. Tendencies towards problematic parts of your DNA are switched on. Just about the only thing that any science can find that really solves this problem is a ridiculous, over-whelming amount of love. More love than “normal” people need.

I can’t pay someone else to love my kids as much as me. It just isn’t possible. I am deeply grateful for the privilege that allows me to be with them day after day, even as I crave more time away from them like a heroin addict wants a needle.

But I can carefully find people who come close. I can make specific, careful choices about how and when and where I make the decision to leave them with someone else even though they won’t be loved for a while. Because I am privileged.

It has occurred to me more than once that when I travel I should consciously prefer states with my gym membership. 2 hours a day of workout time with a baby-sitting system I feel comfortable with. Oh man that just sounds fucking awesome to balance all the sitting in the car. I’m having thoughts.

But appearing at least moderately stable is important for the kids. When I’m having bad periods (like I am) I talk to the kids about it. They feel free to ask me questions.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I am sad.”

“Why are you sad?”

“I’m thinking about things that happened long before you when my life wasn’t wonderful like it is now. Sometimes it is hard because I feel like I am 2 and 12 and 22 and 32 and 33 and 42 and 52 and 62 and 72 all at once and all of the things I want to have done crowd in my head with all of the things I have done and they mix up with things that have been done to me and sometimes I feel sad. When you feel sad, it is a good idea to cry. That lets the emotion out of your body so you don’t have to hold on to it for a long time.”

“Oh. Should I hug you?”

“You don’t have to hug me just because I am feeling sad. But if you want a hug it is ok to ask me for a hug even when I’m sad.”

“May I have a hug?”

“Yes.”

Calli is the one I worry about. Calli is the one who is going to need to have practice with boundaries 1,000 times with someone who is willing to call the plays standing there. Her emotions are so big and it is so hard for her not to hurt other people when she is angry. She wants to hit. She hasn’t hit in a while. I’m very proud of her. Someday I will think back and laugh at myself for worrying so much about a transient behavior problem when she was three that she outgrew by four. But I think she’s going to need more direct work on managing social interactions. She is less naturally inclined in that direction.

I’m more or less a one on one therapist she has to live with. Man that has to suck. But they are allowed to tell me, “I did not ask for feedback on this topic” and I usually back off. Usually with a quick “Yes, ma’am.”

That’s why my kids say “Yes ma’am” to me. I say it to them when they ask for just about anything. Modeling works.

Wendy, I want to not yell because if I don’t think it is ok for someones boss to yell at them… why is it more ok to yell at my kids? There doesn’t always have to be punishment. Sometimes a punishment doesn’t have to be manufactured in the form of a headache from being screamed at. Me being an asshole won’t convince them that I am right.

I need to stop yelling. I’m thinking about painting it on the wall. I found a pinterest quote I like. “There should be no yelling in the home, unless there is a fire.” David McKay, apparently.

Yes Wendy, I’m already working on a lot of things. Maybe I should work on fewer things for a few weeks and instead stay home and work on not yelling.

I don’t want to destroy any relationships this year. I don’t think anyone has done anything worthy of punishment. I just am out of spoons. I don’t have much on the calendar for November or December other than running and home school events. I consider those something I have to do to check my attendance card for “socializing” the children. It is funny feeling collegial with them. It is lower pressure than “friends” socializing. (Which isn’t to say that no one there is a friend. But the people who are friends are people I have spent one on one time with talking in a non-group setting. You know, like friends.)

I’m sad. And it isn’t anyone’s fault. I scheduled the open house to coincide with my birth mother’s birthday and my leather mother’s birthday. Complicated. I didn’t do it because of that coincidence. I mostly did it because it is my lowest mileage weekend in a seven week block and I would prefer to be all peppy and such. But coincidence.

I am not done with Noah’s stuff for Christmas. I need to do that. I want November and December to be mostly no shopping. Just the basics of staples. If I’m having trouble with food… I just don’t have the spoons to do much more eating out plus running plus paying attention to the kids…

And now they say I’m done.

 

So many big feelings.

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Over the past few days I’ve had this niggling little thing in the back of my mind. I feel very upset by someone joking that they “don’t love me enough” to do something. But I’ve been turning it over and turning it over and turning it over and as I’ve gone through a variety of adrenalized states I’ve had access to a lot of memories that are normally kind of buried because I don’t know about you but my memory is a funny place. I remember best the things that happened when I was in the same emotional state I am in right now. So I’ve had a lot of interesting memories surfacing.

I have totally made that joke. Not once. Not to one person. Many, many times. I’m pretty sure I went through a phase where I was saying it to a bunch of people with great regularity. When I think super duper duper hard… I may have said it to that person before.

Well shit. That means I have to get off my fucking high horse.

I really hate it when that happens.

Part of the trouble is, I have a lot of sympathy for all the circumstantial reasons behind it coming up last week. I didn’t expect her to jump up and abruptly change her day for me. That wasn’t on my agenda. I wasn’t gunning for that. She was responding to feeling overwhelmed and the things in front of her were things she couldn’t drop. So she joked. Ok, I hated the joke and it made me feel bad… but she didn’t say it because she consciously wanted to hurt me.

I didn’t actually want to hurt people when I used to say, “You are really awesome and all but I don’t love you enough to drive to Davis for a relationship.”

I said that a lot.

Man I’m such a hypocritical asshole.

It doesn’t help that the last two things I’ve tried to schedule at the house flopped. I “understand” that it was scheduling issues. That totally happens. But in both cases I started out with a whole bunch of enthusiastic people and then they all… kinda flaked. It happens. But it feels bad when large groups of people all do it together. I tried having an event in September and I tried in October. Both just failed. I’m not angry at anyone–but I feel wounded and like if I hadn’t already stupidly announced the holiday open house I would cheerfully hide alone in my house till spring.

I don’t feel very loved. So having one of my closest friends joke that she doesn’t love me… it was stepping on my broken toe. I “get” that it was a “joke”.

But I don’t feel very loved so it doesn’t feel like a joke it feels like just telling me the truth. One of the hardest parts of having big gaps in between people is I hold on to the bad feelings of being rejected and and unloved for a long time. Seeing different people doesn’t help that much. Maybe it is a distraction and maybe not.

It isn’t Noah or the kids fault that I don’t feel loved. It isn’t the fault of this joke. I’m just in that kind of cycle. I’m sure the elimination diet isn’t helping. I’m also trying hormonal birth control for the first time in many years and it is NOT REGULATING MY EMOTIONS. I’ve been trying to take vitamins which is resulting in spontaneous vomiting in the morning. The class over the last two weekends was physically and emotionally draining in the extreme. In that 24 hour class I put out more energy and force than I normally do in over a month. My body hurts everywhere. I have some truly impressive bruises.

I’m having trouble feeling loved. Even with the kids. It doesn’t feel like love, it feels like momentary manipulation so I will do what you want. I recognize this as a problem in my perception and not a change in how my children treat me. Their actual attempts to manipulate are far less subtle and nuanced. They are quite charming, really—it’s different than when they are being loving. But I just can’t see it. I feel very empty and hollow.

I’m a weird introvert/extrovert blend. I need alone time and I NEED people time. I need the right kinds of people time to fill me up or I get emptier and emptier. I haven’t been getting “the right kind” of people time much lately. I get most of it with Noah or Pam and I get very little actual attention from either of them because the kids are always in our faces demanding all of the attention. I’m scared of Pam going to Taiwan soon. I am going to miss her.

Over the past few years we’ve had a series of wonderful people who come over once a week for dinner for long periods of time. Sometimes we have two wonderful people at once who come by weekly. It has been just Pam for a while. I really like Pam, unfortunately so do my children. The kids vocally and clearly negotiate how much time they have to share with me because they want all of Pam’s attention. It’s funny.

People stop coming for a variety of reason. My favorite reason to ascribe it to is because I’m an asshole.

A stopped coming because after I drew him extensive graphs and charts to describe how tired I was and I said I needed help he continued to expect me to wait on him hand and foot like I have since I was 19. I stopped inviting him over because I can’t be the god damn service submissive forever and either you help or I can’t do this.

P had health issues. It wasn’t personal.

C I specifically uninvited because I got to the point of feeling actually unsafe in his presence. That’s a good enough reason to uninvite people in my opinion.

It’s a mixed bag that in my youth I went out looking for perverts and people who felt dangerous. It means I look at my friends in new lights when it comes to sharing my children with them.

Pam is the only person currently on a steady roster. Even the home schoolers who supposedly are supposed to have a set day of fun stuff… we skip it more than we go. We see home schoolers every week, but which day and where move around a lot. I am very very certain that my kids need to have friends of their own. I make it happen. I take them to places where they can socialize and see the same kids and get to know people. It is a specific goal. You can’t home school your kids and keep them from having friends. That will fuck them up for life. Finding friends can be hard but I consider that one of my job duties.

I think it is funny that I do not prioritize teaching from a curriculum–I prioritize learning how social interactions work. I think that early life should be about learning how to manage people. You will have plenty of time for book learning later. I am trying to teach emotional regulation (which is a hilarious thing for me to teach) and boundaries. Those are the biggest and most important skills we work on with conscious intent.

Yesterday I was an asshole to Shanna. They like to reach through their toy bookshelf and grab all the jars of jam and bring them to their side and play with them. I mostly object because these are glass items and I already clean up a lot of broken glass and I don’t want to clean up broken glass plus sticky. I’ve asked them four or five times not to do this. So this time I screamed. I screamed, “It is not ok to play with my stuff. You have your own stuff. STOP USING MINE. IT BREAKS. I AM REALLY CRANKY ABOUT CLEANING UP ALL THE GLASS. JUST STOP IT.” So I’m an asshole but I’m not an asshole who will be picked up by CPS. Just a garden variety asshole.

Later in the day I was reading the internet and I saw one of those pithy quote things and it said, “In our house we only yell if there is a fire.” I felt floored. Oh man. How can I ask my kids not to yell if I am such a yeller.

So I read the quote to Shanna. She gave me a side eye rule and said, “I wouldn’t mind if that became a rule for our house.”

I looked at her for a few minutes. She didn’t quite meet my eye. I asked her how scared she felt that morning. She said, “Well, I knew you wouldn’t hit me or anything so I wasn’t *that* scared, but it makes my tummy feel really bad.” I nodded. I apologized. She apologized for playing with the jam jars again. We hugged.

I feel beyond blessed in my children. I feel I got unusually empathetic children and I get down on my knees thanking anyone who will listen daily. I am so grateful for the specific children I have. They really work for me. I don’t dislike other peoples children (well… sometimes I do but not mostly) but my kids are so well suited to me. Occasionally I witness family interactions where the parents and the kids aren’t well suited and I feel this surge of anxiety mixed with gratitude. That would be so hard. I’m so grateful I don’t have that specific issue.

Not that my kids are easy 100% of the time–ha.ha.ha. But we are annoying in compatible ways. It’s important.

A while back Pam told me I was too hard on my BFFs. I expect too much from them. She then let me know how much time she spends with her BFF and it isn’t much.

I feel like maybe I need to pull into myself for a while. Looking outside me for validation isn’t going well. Other people have the audacity to have bad days and they aren’t just sitting around waiting to have positive interactions with me. WTF.

On one hand I feel like what I would like to do is stay home and do projects and invite people over. On the other hand inviting people over doesn’t usually work and then I feel rejected so I think that I should just work by myself.

I’m feeling really sad. I have to forgive people for hurting me because they really didn’t mean to. And I’ve said basically the same thing so I can’t have more harsh boundaries.

But I don’t feel very loved lately. I’m not *blaming* anyone. I don’t think this feeling is the result of the actions of A, B, C, D, or E people. That’s not my point. I cycle through feelings. It happens. Right now I feel very alienated and alone. I have a Noah and a Shanna and a Calli who love me and never actually let me be alone so this feeling isn’t about “reality”.

But my relationship with my kids is only kind of about me. I have to very carefully always partition of the parts of me that would be problematic or dangerous. It is very hard to constantly censor everything I say so that I am only appropriate for my kids.

If you knew me before kids–did you think I would be physically capable of minding my mouth enough to be appropriate for children? Probably not.

But it comes at a cost. It comes at the cost of feeling like *I* am not important, just that there is someone standing here who is willing to work. If I could find a suitable replacement it would be better for everyone if I died. Then I would stop hurting people. No one would have to listen to my whining about how neeeeeeeedy I feel.

On Saturday during the Impact class we got to do a “custom fight”. You have the choice of battling an inner critic, an event from your past, or something you are afraid might happen. You can choose to have the battle be verbal or physical.

I went first because I knew I wouldn’t have the courage to say what I said after I heard what everyone else wanted to fight. I knew mine was going to seem “crazy” and “intense” compared to everything else.

I told them it was a combination of inner critic and past events. I told them I grew up in a family who had generations of alcoholism and drug addiction and incest. With all the beatings such a description implies. I told them that I knew all my life that I was the child of rape and no one had wanted me from the minute I was born. I told them about my family members telling me that I am a worthless whore–I should die and stop wasting the resources that should be spent on someone worthy.

My fight was super fucking intense. It went on and on. The suited instructor was really verbally awful. By the end I was crying and screaming “I am not your whore anymore” as I was viciously kicking him in the head.

If that had been a real fight with an unsuited person there would have been major hospital time. I’m happy about that.

I keep wondering what will happen if I ever run into my sister again. The funny thing is, I have about a 1% fear of getting randomly mugged or assaulted. I just don’t live in fear of that. I know people who have had it happen to them–I shouldn’t feel so shielded from that assault. But it is way outside my realm of experience and I have enough to be afraid of so I’ve just never spent brain cycles on worrying about it.

I’m scared I will run into my sister again. I strongly suspect that will turn into a fist fight. Given that she wanted to start one when I was 6 months pregnant I doubt her wrath has cooled. She has hated me all my life. “It is your fault that son of a bitch had three more years to rape me. Mom was ready to leave when you fucking came along.” Well, go ahead and hate me Sissy, but it wasn’t my fault I was born.

For all the bloody noses and bruises and wounds my sister gave me… I could cheerfully put her in the hospital. And I know her knee has already blown out more than once. The fight wouldn’t even have to last long.

It was funny at the end of the class. At my turn to reflect the instructors verbally noted that I came in with fighting skills and I was willing to adapt them. I said, “Well most of my other fights have ended in a trip to ER to deal with my injuries so I’m grateful to learn techniques that might prevent that.” As soon as the bruising goes down I am going to spend a lot of time with my punching bag practicing. But first the bruising needs to go down. My elbow fucking hurts.

Maybe it is just best to stay home alone for a few months. I’m needy and sad and I can’t hear what people say the way they mean it. I can only hear more reason to hurt. That isn’t about everyone standing near me–that comes from me.

Today is the Halloween parade at park day. I’m supposed to bring a pot luck contribution. Fuck if I know what to bring. A tray of carrot and cucumber sticks? I can bring you a fuck ton of bok choy. Want some plain rice? fuck my life.

Just to add a little bonus gross to this entry: I’m weirded out that since I bought the bell peppers my poop looks like it is sprinkled with little red confetti. I really don’t digest food much.

I need to get back on the horse with half marathon training. I semi-slacked in the week between the Impact classes because I felt so dead. Today is a five mile run. I feel continually shocked that five miles is no big deal. I’m debating between running in the dark before Noah goes to work (I would have to leave in about half an hour) or taking the kids to the gym so I can run on a treadmill. I mostly prefer running outside. But I’m not sure I have it in me to run in the dark today. I feel wobbly. In the dark, when I’m wobbly–I trip. And it hurts. So I’m kind of loathe to go do that on my already injured body. Even my ankle is feeling twingy and sore. Treadmill it is.

I’m at the point on the elimination diet where I’m 14 days in and I haven’t seen much change. This is all fairly normal poop to me. That makes me think I should take out nightshades next. This thought makes me want to cry. I won’t until I finish eating the current cooked nightshades, because I’m not so big on throwing food away, but I probably should.

I feel so bad. The really sad/scary thing about taking the nightshades out: it removes almost all of the GF “bread” stuff I could eat. No more pancakes. I’m going to be eating rice at every meal. (I’m vaguely aware that there are products like millet and couscous in the world but I have essentially never eaten them and switching to them on an elimination diet seems… kind of weird. Should I really be randomly switching to food I’ve never eaten?” If I have to long-term follow these restrictions it makes sense to introduce them after a while… but not during the elimination diet, right? I don’t fucking know.

A friend offered to make a meal plan. I don’t want one. This is a moving target. This is hard. I am so frustrated. What I can handle putting in my mouth shifts from moment to moment and day to day. I feel so much hatred and anger all wrapped up in food. Nothing good comes from food. Unless it has lots of wheat, dairy and sugar. Then the food carries love.

Noah isn’t even cooking much for me. Which is another sad thing. This stupid elimination diet is taking away one of the most common things someone does to express love for me. No wonder I don’t feel very loved lately.

This moment isn’t forever. But it is shitty. And I feel sad. I don’t want to go pretend to be happy and festive and part of a group today. I want to wedge myself between the wall and the bed and cry.

The main thing I can think of that would make today easier is if I went into the bathroom and locked the door and lighted my candles and got out the scalpel blade that is secretly hiding in a drawer in my room (I no longer have a handle, but I somehow missed a blade when I cleared out the house a while ago) and cut for a long time. I want that feeling so bad. I am not calm and I could be. I care too much about feeling unlovable and I could shut that off. It would just take a few cuts. Then I would be calm and sure that I’m not loved and that is just how it is. I wouldn’t feel frantic and sad. Just resigned. This is how things work.

I feel so sad. Not cutting at this point feels like not caring enough about me to take care of me. Instead I just force myself to feel as shitty as possible for as long as possible. Just so other people can feel better. It’s a reminder of how little I matter.

If I could find a suitable replacement I would go. I am tired of flailing and hurting. I’m so tired.

I want my mommy.

Days 12 & 13

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I didn’t feel like typing yesterday.

Day 12-

Breakfast: unsweetened rice cereal (to get rid of the apple juice–it’s pretty gross), almond milk, blueberries, pecans

Lunch: home made soup with turkey stock, bits of turkey, bell pepper, carrot, cabbage, bok choy, tomato, and rice

Dinner: fried potato and more stir fry.

 

Day 13-

Breakfast: GF English muffin with raspberry jam, fried potatoes, banana

Snack: big bowl of the turkey soup

next Snack: almond milk ice cream (I ate like 1/4 of a cup) and grapes

Lunch: GF pancakes cooked in ghee, (mix uses almond milk), with banana, pecans, maple syrup and peanut butter. This meal was the best meal I’ve eaten since the beginning of this diet. I felt really full and happy when I was done eating. It was dramatic.

Dinner: more soup.

Now on to the poop.

Continue reading →

Flattened.

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I am so tired. I feel like I got run over by a truck. Given the physical fights I was in today… that makes sense. I had more than one extended fight–that is the equivalent to being attacked by someone on PCP who has a lack of normal pain sensors. It was glorious and really hard.

I am glad to be home with my babies.

I want to stay home.

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I don’t want to go to the class today. I want to stay home and cry. Lots of reasons and no reason. I had several uncomfortable interactions yesterday. Some of which confirm my suspicion that I am an asshole who should be kept away from decent people so I don’t hurt them.

I don’t like me very much. I fell asleep crying and I woke up crying. I want to cut. I want to beat my head. I feel really bad. I feel very unlovable.

I think I am going to stop extending invitations for a while. I’m not handling the responses very well and that is my problem. Just stay home. Just shut up. Just shut up. 

Day 11

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Breakfast: last of the peanut butter puff cereal with corn so corn should be out of my diet at this point, I think it is the last item. I also had rice porridge for second breakfast.

Lunch: rice, chicken (more of yesterday’s recipe) with stir fry (bok choy, carrot, bell pepper, and cabbage) and a banana.

Dinner: exactly the same as lunch, including another banana.

Only two poops. My 4:30 poop was a soft cloud at the bottom with one floating chunk. Pretty brown. My 6pm poop had multiple discrete chunks! That were brown! They are still very soft of course, but any sign of packing-together is a good sign. I’m still crossing my fingers as I feel hopeless and dispirited.

Crash.

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The class was incredibly emotionally draining. I feel flattened. I feel very sad. I have had half a dozen small interactions today that feel shitty. I feel like a worthless piece of shit.

So much for beating up that inner voice today. I will continue to fuck up so much and so fast that I am just not capable of believing that I am anything other than a worthless piece of shit.

Day 10

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I’m very very cranky about this right now.

Breakfast: rice cereal (last bowl of stuff sweetened with either apple or pear juice so after today I should be clean of apples), almond milk (I suspect that when I run out I will switch to… I don’t know what the hell I switch to. But almonds are on the limited list for FODMAPS so I should just cut it out for now), banana (I hesitate to remove bananas because I should eat some fruit and supposedly bananas are constipating), and pecans. Some diets say no nuts. I am feeling conflicted. I could probably handle the loss of protein in the day but I really like having the texture with the cereal.

lunch: I ate potato chips. And cried while the “real food” cooked on the stove.

1st dinner: chicken (mostly this recipe with some substitutions like no garlic and I didn’t use the hot sauce recommended, instead I used a shake of cayenne), stir fry of the week (bok choy, cabbage, carrots, bell peppers), and the rice didn’t finish cooking in time.

2nd dinner: (after an active park trip) one more piece of chicken and more stir fry from above and I added rice.

4 poops ranging from soft yellow to mostly light brown. Wavered between pasty and foamy. The first poop of the day was almost half large, undigested food pieces.The two poops in the middle of the day were very low quantity but urgent.

3am, 5:30am, 5:15pm, 7:30pm.

Emotional/psychological abuse and control

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A friend linked to a scholarly article that was talking about how psychological abuse often causes as great or greater problems than physical or sexual abuse. Of course that means I have to stop and spend a lot of time wondering if I abuse people in this way.

I am a bossy motherfucker. I like telling people my opinions. I FUCKING LOVE telling people “what I would do in your situation” and I get funny feelings in my tummy when they ignore me. But I try hard not to explode or follow up with asshole comments like, “I told you that wouldn’t work.”

I think I was probably emotionally abusive towards Anna. I made her feel really bad. I didn’t do it on purpose. I wasn’t trying to hurt her, but I did. I had no right to tell her to get a new dream. That was none of my fucking business and I hurt her very badly. Just because she had been trying for five years running to get into medical school with constantly worsening health problems that made it so she could barely stand up and she had very little cognitive functioning left… I should have shut the hell up. I have no idea if she ever made it into medical school because she got fucking done with hearing my bitchy-ass comments. From the small amount of google-stalking I have done… I don’t think she made it. That doesn’t make me feel good about myself. Predicting that someone will not be able to live out their dream doesn’t make you a good person.

I hope I learned from that. I hope I am… less forceful now. Even if I was right I was severely unkind. I could have supported her better by helping her see related careers that were more attainable without being a raging asshole who yelled that she was never going to make it to medical school and she needs to stop killing herself trying. That was not my place.

To the best of my knowledge, after Anna the next person I have been most abusive towards has been Sarah. I take responsibility for my inappropriate responses. I feel it was reasonable for me to be triggered by many of the things that happened.. but I did not have the right to shout at her nor make her feel scared. And I did. I did not have the right to make her feel less competent or like she was “failing” at meeting my expectations.

Whereas sometimes I am an asshole… I don’t know if I have hurt my kids. I don’t know if I have perpetrated things that feel like abuse to them. It is very hard for children to be able to even evaluate such things. All I know is that my kids seem like the perfect picture of psychological health. I can’t judge by anything else. They have ups and downs like normal people but overall they are very happy with life.

Abuse is about making other people feel small or bad. It is about trying to control them in ways you have no right to control them. You may not mean to perpetrate it but that doesn’t change the fact that you do it sometimes. Usually between grown ups you look for patterns not isolated incidents. With children a couple of isolated incidents can have serious long-term damage.

It is hard for me to look at my relationships and tell if I am making other people feel small or bad. It is almost as hard for me to tell that someone else’s behavior consistently makes me feel bad.

Recently a long-term very close friend said, “In the past year more than 50% of your feeling upset (that I’ve heard about) has been related to a particular person.”

What do I do with that? I don’t know.

I stay in relationships with people who insult me and make me feel bad because mostly I feel comfortable with those people. Mostly I am comfortable with people who feel free to speak disrespectfully towards me because I am very used to people… feeling disrespectful towards me. I’m used to it. I’m not sure that makes it good.

Someone said online today that people who “offer help” are usually doing it to make themselves feel good, not the person they are giving help to. I can say that is 99% true when it comes to me cleaning for people. The list of people I have cleaned for is long and not-that-distinguished. I feel comfortable in such a role. I feel like it gives me an excuse/reason to stay in peoples lives. I’m worth something. There is something I can do. There is something I have to offer.

People I like and respect tell me I am a good person. I think lots of people are good people. They still hurt me. I hurt people.

Lately I’ve been thinking that we do ourselves and our society a disservice by acting like hurtful actions are the result of “monsters”. Very few people qualify as monsters. Very very very very very very few statistically. My father was a monster. Not many other people have raped lots and lots of children.

Good people can hurt others very easily. Sometimes through inattention, sometimes through lack of caring enough to consider what you are saying/doing before you do it, sometimes through being so self-absorbed they just don’t notice.

How do you protect yourself from the good people who will hurt you? How do you decide how good is good enough?

People tell me frequently that I’m a good person and I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I am aware of how far I have come and I not interested in backsliding. I want to be better than I am. I don’t think the way I treat people is good enough.

When I talk to people I want them to feel built up and competent. I want them to feel like even if they can’t do something right now they can build up the ability over time and practice.

Right this minute I can’t play a single musical instrument. I have the sneaky suspicion that some decade I will learn. Even though I have it in my head that if you don’t learn as a child it is too late. Some day I will have time and energy and money going spare and I’ll learn. It is never too late.

I need to feel like the people in my life are building me up and not tearing me down. It isn’t ok to make jokes at my expense, no matter how many little “Oh I said it because of x and y” you include. It’s not ok to do that to me.

I understand that a lot of people are deeply comfortable with “little jokes” that are mean and cutting. I am Not. Ok. With. Them.

Once in a while people will comment to me that it is kind of weird that Noah never mocks me. I usually give a death glare to those people and say, “That is because he doesn’t want to become one of the many people I cut out of my life.”

I am prickly, sensitive, and overly conscious of my dignity. It is so easy to poke fun at me. I know. Hundreds of people have done so before you. I didn’t think they were very fucking funny either.

As much as I am growing to believe that the moving I did all the time as a child was overall a positive force in my life it means that I have gotten to go through a lot of different environments. People aren’t that different. If you have the misfortune to be at the bottom of the social ladder… you fucking stay there in place after place. When I say that hundreds of people have made fun of me I’m not kidding. I went to 25 schools before I dropped out at 16. That means I only needed 8 people at each school to get to 200 people being nasty to me. Most schools had 20-30 people who had a serious problem with me. And that’s not even getting into all of the adult situations where I bother people.

It isn’t hyperbole to say that people putting me down is a major trend in my life. People who are mentally ill are treated badly. They are bullied at 2-3 times the normal rate in the US. We are “weird” and that makes us targets. (It is also true that people with mental health issues are also more frequently the bullies. It’s a double whammy of awesome.)

I am not a special-more-hurt-than-anyone-else snowflake. I don’t think I am a professional victim. I think it would be a far stretch to say that anything that has happened to me in the past… almost eight years counts as “victimization”. I still struggle with the long-term results of trauma. Yes, I’m over-fucking-sensitive.

That happens when you are hit in the same spot hundreds of times.

“Oh just ignore it.” Oh man. Psychological studies prove that you are a giant asshole. Just so you know.

I don’t believe that I am exempt from examination of abuser tactics just because I was abused. If anything else I believe that the fact that I have an abusive background means that I must be Much More Vigilant in examining my behavior and being willing to change when someone else has a problem with something I’m doing.

I don’t hit any more. That is huge. I used to be really mean verbally. I was happy to verbally vivisect someone. I don’t do that any more. I no longer join arguments for the sole purpose of making someone who is “wrong” cry. It has been a very long time since such shenanigans have appealed to me.

But I don’t deny that I’ve done it. Honesty is key here.

I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. I don’t know if I’m “good”. Other people say so… but whatever. I can ignore that (as I can’t ignore people saying I’m bad… life is funny). But I’m trying. I am steadily trying to insult people less and be less hurtful. I am trying to devote less of my energy to making other people feel bad… even on accident. I am not sure if I am succeeding or not.

These things are very hard to judge. It’s a process. I will never “arrive” at my ideal good person state. It will always be a work in progress. I will always fuck up. I will always make mistakes and say something that sucks sometimes.

How do you also include forgiveness if not everyone who does bad things is a monster? Where do you put up boundaries if “good people” do things that accidentally hurt you?

My kids keep asking when an uncle is coming over to dinner. An uncle I have uninvited from my house because things he said and did made me feel like he was unsafe to have around my house and my children. Is he a bad person? I don’t think so. He has opinions that make him dangerous in my opinion. Why don’t I “get over it” and invite him back over.. he didn’t directly hurt me… Because I am responsible for my children. Because I am responsible for showing them adults and saying, “This is how you be a grown up” and when I show them that behavior and act like it is ok I am harming them. I am encouraging them to accept broken, toxic attitudes as “normal” and “acceptable”. No. It isn’t ok to think that shooting people who bully you is an acceptable choice. And you don’t get to tell my kids it is a solution.

There are lines in the sand that are really clear. If you tell my kids they can shoot people who hurt their feelings… that’s clearly on one side of the line and it’s a side I don’t want to stand near. Just no. Smaller issues…. they are more complicated.

I really don’t know what the solutions are.

Day 9

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I didn’t eat very much. Given that I had one day of almost formed poop and otherwise I’m staying with the soft mass I’m wondering what else I need to take out. The cereal sweetened (possibly) with apple juice is gone. I should probably entirely stop eating fruit. Because apparently “healthy” food isn’t actually healthy for me. I’m eating bananas like they are going out of style because everyone tells me they are constipating.

Breakfast: gf pancakes, pecans, banana, maple syrup

Lunch and dinner I ate out of the same container: rice, chicken, carrot, cucumber, grapes, fried potatoes (in cold-pressed olive oil because apparently that totally fucking matters). I had another banana for dessert.

Yesterday I only pooped twice, both in the morning. 2:30 am and 4ish am. Both times they were weird little almost chunks that were really too soft to be chunks. At least it is more brownish now instead of being Bright Yellow.

For exercise: 1.58 miles of walking with a friend and 5 miles of bike riding (pulling both kids on the trailer–we are doing much better with it).

What else can I take out? If I get to day 21 and I have no improvement then I think I will need to “test” wheat and/or dairy and then remove something major from my diet like corn or nightshades. Corn and nightshades are the only possible “allergens” I’m still eating and that is happening because otherwise I can’t eat since many vegetables make me sick in big obvious ways. I can’t turn to a nice healthy diet of lots of salads. I will never leave my bathroom again.

I hate my body right this second. I just want to stop hurting.

It doesn’t help that every elimination diet says, “If you feel a lot of anxiety you may not be able to get accurate results”. Fuck everything in the whole fucking universe. I’m feeling very discouraged and sad.

Clarification

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I know that I have to be specific about what I want in order to get it. But when you end up feeling intensely suicidal as one of the result options, you aren’t supposed to tell people that. If the situation is, “Don’t make jokes about me because I will spend days haunting my house like a ghost and wanting to kill myself because it doesn’t sound like a joke it just sounds like a continuation of my life story” then you are being manipulative.

You aren’t allowed to tell people “If you do x I will want to kill myself.” You aren’t allowed to do that. Even if it is true. It is “mean”. It is considered abusive to tell people that.

I don’t know how to get out of this double bind. I never have known how. Many things cause me to feel intensely suicidal and lose days of my life to crying and weeping and hiding in my house. Talking about them is “wrong”. Not talking about them means I have to cut people out of my life because I can’t deal with being triggered.

I don’t know what the solution is.

Define yourself.

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I have been having a lot of thoughts lately about identity and what I do and who I am and what makes different choices matter so much. I’m doing too much “Well I’m not _____.”

I need to not define myself in comparison to anyone else. I need to not define myself as what I’m not.

What am I? Who am I?

Well… I’m kind of a pain in the ass. I’m picky. I’m sensitive. I have a lot of very detailed preferences in life from temperature to fabric choices to food choices to how close to me someone is allowed to stand. I have a very large personal space bubble and I’ve really organized all my issues inside it. I have lots of issues. I know that. I am very emotional–to the point where it causes me social problems and difficulties because I react to things that other people consider “no big deal”.

I’m intelligent. I read a lot and study a lot of things and constantly challenge myself to do things that are hard for me. I’m proud of that. I learn new things. I learn hard things just because I feel like it.

I am an intensely physical person. I used to be sedentary. It was very bad for me. I have a lot of emotional issues tied up in how sedentary my childhood was. I’m deeply grateful that I am now in a position to be physically fit and I’m additionally grateful that I can bring my kids along with me. I’m fucking thrilled that my kids think a 5k is no big deal. That is our standard Sunday morning walk. I have worked so hard on this. None of this physicality came naturally to me. I had to want it and go make it happen.

I am a parent. I’m not sure if I’m a good parent or not. My kids like me, my husband thinks I’m doing a good job, and beyond that I just have to pray it all comes out ok in the end. Shanna says, “Even though sometimes you can be a pain in the neck, you are a really good mom and I’m glad I get to have you.” I tell her I feel exactly the same way with the word mom taken out and daughter slipped in. Calli continues to want to be physically attached to me 5+ hours out of the day so I’m pretty sure she is doing ok with me. And she thinks that I must sleep with her every night. So really she thinks we should be touching for 18+ hours a day.

I’m a wife. I’m not a great wife. I’m ok. I’m needy and kind of annoying sometimes but I put out a lot and I do a lot of chores to make up for being difficult to live with. Noah says he is happy with the trade he is getting in life.

I’m not the best friend in the world. I am demanding and difficult and I get upset about things and withdraw and that hurts people. I wish I was better able to support my friends but I’m really a pretty shitty friend right now. I feel that I used to be slightly better at being support for other people. Right now I am so mired in my own bottomless need pit that I don’t have a lot to offer anyone. I’m sorry. I just have no spoons. I have nothing to give. I have no more support or understanding or anything to give anyone. I am so tired.

My body is a mixed bag. I struggle with various kinds of pain and I do my best to keep my whining to a minimum. I know I’m not very good at keeping my whining to a minimum because people feel the need to comment on how whiny I am. So I know I’m really bad at keeping my mouth shut. If people only knew how many complaints I sit on they wouldn’t think I was as big of a whiner. But, whatever. I am a whiner. I’m not denying it. I’m just saying it isn’t as bad as people make me sound sometimes.

My shrink asked me why I sign on to do events with people. I told her that I generally sign on for events with people because I want to guarantee that for x hours that person will be near me and interacting with me. If that isn’t my goal then I don’t sign on to do an event with someone. This was really mixed and conflicting for the last 10k that I flaked out on. I signed on for the race thinking we would train together and then race together. Her life blew up (not her fault and I am not mad) and that didn’t happen and by the race I felt like, “Well I’m training past this for the half marathon and we didn’t actually spend all the time together so maybe I have to take care of my body.” So I was selfish in how I talked to her in the week before the event and I hurt her feelings a lot. I did not handle it well.

A friend said, “Going to Dickens Fair is so much more fun with a group” (Dickens Fair is a historical reenactment like a Renaissance Faire but set in the Victorian period around the novels of Charles Dickens.) and I practically choked. I don’t have fun at Dickens with a group. Most of the times I have tried to go with people it has blown up and I have left crying.

If I want to do an event for myself I generally don’t sign up to do it with anyone else. People don’t follow through very often. I know it isn’t “personal” but it really bothers me. I don’t recover very much when someone flakes on a commitment to something that is important to me. I take it too personally. I feel shitty. It takes days or weeks or months for me to stop freaking out about how people always let me down. (It isn’t true that people “always” let me down but FEELINGS have their own measuring system.) It is so hard for me to trust people to show up when I really care about something.

A few years ago, the first time I ran a major race some friends said they would come watch because the course was right next to their house. Turns out they didn’t feel like getting out of the house so they didn’t show. I cried the whole way home.

If I’m doing something *for me* then I’m really sensitive to people showing support or not. If they do show support then I feel validated as a person. If I don’t get what I nebulously want then I feel like I should walk off an overpass into the pathway of a semi-truck. So I try to do those things alone.

I don’t express how important these things are to people because then I am being “manipulative”. It’s not ok to tell people that if they agree to something and then flake that I will spend days struggling to not kill myself. But that is the reality I live with. And I have to carefully keep it off screen and not talk about it too much because then I’m “inappropriate.”

I rarely write about how upset I am with people not following through. Often the person reads my blog and I don’t want them to feel guilty because of me. I don’t want other people to feel like I’m hurting them by having my feelings. I don’t want to be accused of being a drama queen. Better to shut the fuck up. Just shut up you crazy bitch.

If you can’t clearly ask for what you want from people you can’t expect to get it. If what you want from people is too complicated you can’t expect to get it. If you ask in a way that someone else doesn’t like you can’t expect to get it. But if I clearly talk about most of my mental health issues then I am being manipulative or I am traumatizing people. I can’t fucking win.

Something positive since this is yet another round of “what is wrong with Krissy”–everyone’s favorite game.

I’m very creative. I have a lot of ideas and lots of energy to follow through on my ideas. I like that about me. I have so many things I want to do. I can’t do it all immediately but I have a lot of neat ideas I work on.

I like my writing ability. Even though I should stop. Right. Now. Because my arms hurt like hell.

I love you internet. Thank you for being there for me.

Day 8

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I started a probiotic.

Breakfast: gf pancakes, banana, pecan, maple syrup

lunch: soup I made a few days ago with vegetables and chicken

dinner: rice, turkey, raspberries, green beans, pineapple (made my mouth itch like a mother fucker–I think I’m off pineapple for a while)

I had a lot of belly pain and distention around dinner. I felt really nauseated and I couldn’t actually eat while everyone was sitting at the table because I felt really bad. I slowly managed a full plate but it took hours. Given that I ran 4.5 miles I thought it was important that I eat even though I felt yucky.

It was a day so you get a cut tag. Continue reading →