I’m in a terrible mood today. Lots of factors. I haven’t been taking “my” time off. Noah feels a lot of pressure to go work more. I don’t think this is mostly coming from me. I think he wants to go do these things. When we get to the point of having more than $100k in cash and way over half a million dollars in investments before we get into some of our other assets and we have virtually no debt (other than our mortgage)… you aren’t working because we desperately need the money. That’s crap. Yes, I have things I would spend money on… but it’s crap that we need it. We don’t need more money.

But Noah would really like to stop working for a company. And he wants to build something on the side before he quits. From where I am sitting he is working two jobs.

I’m struggling with this. Recently he’s been doing a lot of wandering over to the computer to type frantically during our “family” time. I’m feeling abandoned and angry. I haven’t been spending much time with friends–most of what I do get is distracted or rushed. When I do have “time off” I wander off by myself and Noah follows me because he wants attention.

I’ve been sick for a while and that is making life hard. People make plans with me and then decide to cancel them. Three, four flakings in the last week? That adds up for me. Lots of people canceling on me in a week makes me feel really bad. If I hadn’t already scheduled the open house I wouldn’t add one to my calendar right now. Right now I feel like the only appropriate place for me is way way way under the water beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

I got a letter from Kaiser. My case manager is someone handling me being mad at the guy I just fired. That’s going to be what he does and that’s it. They are just trying to make sure I can’t sue for malpractice. They don’t want to help me.

I want to die. I want to get away from people dumping their needs on me while I can’t take care of my own. I don’t know how to get my body to feel ok. I don’t know how to stop feeling like people actually hate me. I don’t know how to feel like I deserve to be alive.

I should probably start with more medication. I haven’t had any today. Part of the trouble is: I’m running low on pills and I can’t bring myself to buy more pills when I have a freezer full of edibles preventing me from buying real food and putting that in my freezer. But all the edibles have wheat or dairy or both. If I have a minimum of three months on an elimination diet… that means I just don’t get to use a big chunk of my freezer for 1/4 of a year.

Reselling it isn’t legal.

I won’t want to take stuff that has been sitting in my freezer for 9+ months on the trip, so I can’t just start my stockpile.

I feel like I’m being mean to Noah and I can’t tell if I actually am or if I just think I’m a mean piece of shit. I’m not being cheerful, that’s for sure.

I feel like both Noah and I are tapped out lately. Both of us want support and the other doesn’t have much (if any) to give. Noah is being ridiculously nice with trying hard to figure out how to cook given this moving target.

Why am I so mad at him for typing a lot when I read a lot? Because I’m a hypocrite. Because the kids want attention and him checking out means that absolutely all of it falls on me and I’m bitter as fuck. I continually feel sad and guilty because I can’t actually help Noah with his work much, but he can help me with mine. And he does. So I feel like a using piece of shit. I’m not helping him so I have no right to expect him to help me.

It really doesn’t help that I’m sick and I don’t feel good and I have no energy. I’ve been doing very little for weeks and I’m not better. I’m less tired than I was, but I feel like “exhaustion” is still a good descriptor for how I’m doing. I’m eating a little more now that I can have garlic. I’m not pooping consistently (well… I’m pooping… but it’s not hard) on the expanded diet and that is making me sick with worry on top of not feeling good.

The last doctor I talked to told me it could only possibly be wheat or dairy. So I reintroduced everything else and lost solid poop. I think she’s wrong.

Also I suspect that I’m on the path to having just the word “Kaiser” trigger anxiety shitting. Yay for feeling like they “care” about my “health”.

I get into these states where I hurt and I don’t know why I hurt and people around me aren’t very helpful and I get so very angry. Then people don’t want to be around me because I’m such an angry person.

I want to die so much. Today I don’t feel very much hope. I want to cut so much.

Noah and I had a fierce argument about Paul Graham. Cause I totally fucking care and all. Or not. Noah likes Paul Graham because he explains how to do things. I am less enamored because the guy is clearly only talking to the top 5% of society but he tries to make it sound like his advice is applicable to *everybody* and if you don’t follow it you are just lazy. Or something.

I have a hard time with people with enormous privilege breaking down their process for success and saying, “It’s easy! What you do is start with step A and then go to step B and then move to step C.” When they don’t understand that there were actually 350 steps before step A that they didn’t realize they were taking. I used as a counter-example Warren Buffet. Everything I’ve read from that man sounded pompous. He makes it really fucking clear that if you haven’t taken the prerequisite 350 steps you’re fucked and he has nothing to say to you. (That’s what I’ve read–I’m sure I haven’t read everything he’s written.)

Not too long ago I read a story about a young girl moving to this country and getting a job as a maid/nanny. She couldn’t figure out how to use the washing machine. So she did the whole family’s laundry by hand. Week after week spreading things out on the grass to dry. (True story–written by the girl who later learned to use a washing machine.)

There are so many steps involved before you are able to go be “successful” in an advanced society. Some of them can be skipped, not most.

I think the most important step is when you figure out that it isn’t YOUR responsibility to hand wash everyone’s clothing. If that girl had even known how to complain about not knowing how to use the machine it would have been different. She had no words to use to ask for help with her ignorance at first. Her ignorance was so big it was hard to develop a chink in the armor for education.

There are habits of rich people. I read about this. (Strangely, many of my natural habits-early riser, be awake many hours before you start ‘work’ are actually habits considered mandatory by successful people in large studies. Whatever.) There are habits of poor people. Understanding what your habits are and changing them is hard. Doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor. Your habits are your habits. Examining what they are and how you got them is hard.

I get so angry because people like Paul Graham don’t understand that learning how to use the washing machine is almost a prerequisite for starting a company or it is entirely irrelevant. If you are rich enough to pay someone else to do your laundry it doesn’t matter. You have leap-frogged having that skill matter. If you are poor and you want to appear professional, you had best fucking learn how to do laundry. Doing laundry such that your clothes stay “nice” is a skill (one my mom had and I lack). I’ve seen this skill. My mom had clothes throughout my childhood that would have looked appropriate on a lawyer in a nice office. She could keep her clothes nice. I can’t.

I understand that Silicon Valley likes to believe that it has “changed all the rules” and really what it has done is make it so the people in the top 5% have more freedom than they used to have. Woo. Watch me do cartwheels in happiness.

We argued about this because folks online didn’t like Paul Graham’s most recent essay on being mean. Noah can’t understand why anyone has a problem with the essay. I said, “His definition of mean and mine probably aren’t the same. His friends are nice to him–their social equal who is also already rich. How do they treat the janitors in their companies?”

I’m sure these people are wonderfully civil to absolutely everyone in their lives. Even the janitors. But do they make sure their janitors have reasonable living wages or does that just not matter? My definition of mean may be different.

I’m fine with requiring civility from a “civilized” society but I don’t equate it with nice. And saying that mean people don’t succeed is… well…

Mark Zuckerberg is currently the cock of the walk in the valley, right? Know how his “real names” policy is harming a lot of people? Oh–but that’s probably not “mean”.

It’s always ok to step on people low enough down the ladder. You aren’t mean. You are just making good business decisions.

I am incapable of thinking of a company as “successful” if it treats the janitors and secretaries badly. I think your company sucks and I hate it and you if you try to convince me why really it is so great. Don’t get me started on Google. (Yes, they are better than average in the valley. That impresses me less than you might hope. I want ALL employees to be treated like people.)

Is this why I am not a Captain of Industry? Probably. I also make no claims to being “nice”. I’m sure Mr. Graham would be happy to tell me that I’m failing in life because I’m so mean. (Or maybe he wouldn’t–after all he’s NICE!)

I think people fail for reasons a lot bigger than whether they are nice or not even though “niceness” may appear to figure in. People who succeed have the largest social networks and often that comes along with being charismatic and likable. In my personal experience being charismatic and likable means that people get away with being extremely not-nice whenever they want to.

If you make sure your rep’ is clean enough, you can do fucking anything.

Look at Bill.fucking.Cosby. He’s “nice”.

My experience of dealing with people in the valley (and I’ve met way more than my share of millionaires and multi-millionaires and one or two who I think were close to billionaires) is that they are as nice as long as they feel like it and not a minute longer. I’m less impressed with this than other people might be.

I don’t hate Paul Graham. I don’t want him to stop running YCombinator because from what I can see–they do interesting and important work that I sure as shit don’t want to do. I don’t even want him to stop writing about what he does.

What I like about Warren Buffet is he is a shameless old bastard. He’s got what he’s got. He doesn’t feel ashamed. Near as I can tell he thinks he is better at earning money than almost anyone alive and past that he doesn’t seem to put his ego out in writing that I can detect. I’m totally good with that. Be what you are.

Paul Graham always sounds to me like he is writing for the top 5% but he really wants the top 40% to read it and be inspired and hurry up and do something. I have… feelings about this.

When I’m getting mad at Paul Graham I’m aware I’m doing it from a few different angles. First: I’m aware that as a bright female I’m definitely one of the ones who is letting my generation down by “not doing much” and his essays always feel… that’s my problem. That’s not about his writing. Secondly: I read his essays from the point of view of someone who grew up in the bottom 5%. Most of the people who were there with me are still there. I married up more than I “got out” on my own. There were no bootstraps present. Ok, even that isn’t true. I got out because of the settlement. I was bit by a dog and the accident settlement was well managed and I dragged myself out of penury. It wasn’t really Noah who did it.

But I had so much help. I am so painfully aware of the help and support I got from a thousand different sources. I’ve been good throughout my life at pulling five minutes of support from person A and five minutes of support from person B and making that somehow be enough. I’m sucking at that lately–my life is so different–but that has been how I have traditionally gotten my needs met. Most people like me aren’t given that help and I feel angry on their behalf. Mr. Graham isn’t really writing at the bottom 5% though and my anger is… not helpful. I don’t know how Mr. Graham could give most people in this demographic even vaguely useful help, period. For folks in this camp learning to use the washing machine wouldn’t help because they are lacking so many skills… they just won’t catch up.

The 6%-35% are the target demographic (I’m pulling these numbers out of thin air) I feel pissy about. That’s really complicated, though. Many of the people in this demographic could benefit from Mr. Graham’s advice if they really buckled down and took seriously that mistakes and failure are mandatory for learning. Most of these people have the potential and they’ve had most of the support necessary for ensuring that they have the ability to follow through on potential… what they need is drive. That is so much harder to teach. If you can teach drive you are a better teacher than me. I can’t.

I can’t teach drive. I can inspire it, sometimes by accident, but I don’t know the steps. I’ve read all the books on determination and trying (ok, not ALL the books) but I still can’t teach it.

Either you have the will to get back up when someone punches you or you don’t. I don’t know how to teach that.

So why do I get so mad at Mr. Graham? Probably mostly because he’s a successful white man and I’ve Got Issues.

I honestly don’t believe that being “nice enough” is what is keeping more women from succeeding and men like Paul Graham give people in authority more standing to reject women who aren’t nice enough. Paul Graham said that mean people fail! You were mean to me! I’ll make sure you never work in this town again.

When you research what happens to women in the tech industry… I think it is a big fat fucking lie that people who are successful are nice. Elon Musk seems like a pretty fucking successful guy and a quick casual google search seems to indicate that he’s a son-of-a-bitch to work with. He’s a mixed bag in terms of how “nice” or “good” he is. The actual word used to describe working with him was “dick.” He’s doing good for the world and bad at the same time. People have very mixed opinions on him.

I believe that when rich white men pompously stand up and say that the way to be successful is to be nice they are screwing over a lot of people. It is simply not true that being nice is the way to success. How many fucking people have “nice”d their way to richness and fame? I’m not sure I can name one. Wait! Maybe Julie Andrews. I’ve never heard a serious negative story about her.

And Mr. Graham does try to say that he’s only talking about his field–clearly in other fields there are meanie-pants walking around.

But I find it galling and irritating that he’s going to try and claim that he can evaluate whether or not his friends are mean and how much that related to their success. Maybe he and I just don’t use nice/mean the same way. It is very possible that he means just social civility with no actual measure of the impact of behavior on people around you. That’s a convenient way to ignore all harm caused by dominant groups.

Man I’m in a mood.

It really isn’t Noah’s fault that I’m in a bad mood. Even though he does like to show up during my “alone time” and act like a lost puppy in need of love. He is a lost puppy. He does need love.

I just wish he would ask for it when I’m not traipsing off to be alone. What was wrong with all those hours I sat in the living room and you were off doing your thing?!

I love you. I do want to give you attention. I also want attention. I want to have something to talk about other than my not-cooperating body. I want to feel cheerful and like life is good. I want to have positive things to say.

I could live a full-time life of denial. That way I could only talk about pleasant things. If I matter little enough that I don’t even need to come up in the conversation… then maybe I could manage to be pleasant enough that people would want to talk to me.

Today it is good that I can’t run anyway. I’d like to jump off the overpass in front of a semi. That sounds properly cathartic right this second. Maybe I could finally get something through my stupid brain. A truck! HA!

I should eat again. And my battery is D-E-D.

People who are “more important” than me are looking at how PTSD passes through generations. All I can say is, “No shit PTSD changes families.”

Sometimes I think of my mother’s terrible fear of the police. Then I think of my own fear, hatred, and dislike of the police. I learned it at home. I learned that feeling during the period of time when my family lucked into the unusual experience of being a white family that could not bear closer scrutiny. That’s unusual. Usually white folks just don’t have good reason to be afraid of the police in this country–so people occasionally tell me I’m irrational. Never anyone who is black–only other white people; I’m not sure that I am irrational, though. I mean just on that one topic.

Sometimes I feel awkward about the fact that the way I parent is described by therapists as doing exposure therapy. My kids have a slightly unusually low startle reflex. I have worked with them throughout their lives to have a less-active startle reflex. They are relaxed and happy and ready to approach whatever is coming. They aren’t afraid.

A lot of how I do this is by being a surprising, startling person who backs off fast at any sign of distress. They get to have an unusual amount of control over what happens to them. As a result they feel very confident in their mastery of many situations. My kids can adapt to different situations in ways I never could. I’ve worked so hard on this.

We have lots of conversations about, “Every building, every park, every space you ever enter has a slightly different set of rules that people are following. It is a good idea to watch people for the first few minutes you arrive–you will learn a lot about local tolerances. If someone has a problem with you, use your words to try to deescalate things and if the person gets in your face, come get me. Don’t face someone down alone. I want to be standing there as a witness. I’ll let you take care of it, but you need backup in place.”

My kids are preternaturally confident that with me standing behind them they can do anything. Sometimes I question whether it is wise to give them this much of a big head. Then I realize that for them… it is probably true.

Sometimes it is hard seeing myself as a positive force–I’m just bringing a whole string of broken genetics and terrible circumstantial training to the process of parenting. Then I look at my kids and I have to believe I’m not a waste. I made them. That’s something.

Heck, then I hear from yet another former student and I think I can’t be a complete waste of air. I am shocked in an ongoing way by the intensity of emotional connections the students still feel to me. I had impact like whoa.

Mostly it is the kids who stayed after school. The ones who cried on my shoulder about coming from bad families. The ones who were told and told they could never be nothing. I think crying with them and telling them, “Everyone said I could never be nothin’ but a drug addicted prostitute. Fuck them. Fuck. Them. You go be what you want to be.” helped a lot. You never have to be limited by the expectations of assholes who don’t love you anyway. Go be what and who you want to be.

Yesterday Call and I went to Dickens Fair. Shanna picked staying home with Daddy to make cookies. I support non-maternal-parental-bonding so that sounded great. Calli and I got to have a lovely date.

We were there for three hours. That was longer than I think I have managed with kids before so I declare it a solid victory. Calli had a lot of fun. She bought herself a HUGE cookie with her allowance for the thrill of power of ownership. I had a lovely chat with the cookie vendor who is apparently, a Brony. He’s a Pinkie Pie. I told him I’m an Apple Jack and he “hoof bumped” me. Hilarity. It’s kind of funny that in watching the show… yeah I’m totally an Apple Jack. I like reading and all… but I’m not much like Twilight.

Genetics are funny things. I watch my children and I regularly feel baffled about how they took all of my personality traits, put them on playing cards, and then randomly handed the deck out between them for a nice game of War. I switch between being preternaturally able to work a room of strangers–I can walk into an event and meet tons of new people most of whom will think I am terrific and wonderful; then all of a sudden I’m shy and standoffish and I want to wait and set the terms of engagement very studiously. Shanna is the first and Calli is the second. Only they don’t switch back and forth the way I do. So getting to really watch the pitfalls of either one being your primary approach is… interesting.

Calli had a lot of trouble engaging with people at Dickens Fair without Shanna to break the ice with her. She had a lot of fun–but she didn’t know how to deal with some of the character interactions. She is used to watching Shanna for a while before she has to talk to someone. She takes someones measure as she watches them talk to her sister. Calli handled getting dance partners with no difficulty including talking her way into a partner-switching-set she was way too small to participate in. SHE DID GREAT!!! All the Fezziwiggers were shocked but thrilled. She did way better than kids more than twice her height and given how tall she is for her age, Go Calli! So proud.

Calli is a dancer and Shanna is not. That’s kind of weird for me. Shanna is klutzy as the day is long. She has very little physical intuitiveness. She can’t follow to save her life. Calli is a natural. You get Calli on the dance floor and it doesn’t matter what style of dance is happening she can follow it in under five minutes. It means that I now look at Shanna kind of differently. Ha. When Shanna had a terrible time in ballet picking up the most basic of movements I thought she was too young. Now I think that Calli, while younger, could do better in the same class.

It is very hard for me to recognize that my perfect little angels aren’t perfectly well rounded. Sniff.

They are going to be different people. I look forward to discovering more about them year by year. I tell them in the mornings, “I have to get to know you again. You changed while you were sleeping and if I get complacent and I stop looking at you then I will stop knowing who you are. I have to look at you again and again to rediscover your changes.”

Holy f-in-Crisco. Yesterday Shanna woke up and her belly was basically concave. I said, “Whoa. You grew last night.” BODIES ARE SO COOL! Once in a while Shanna tests the waters with questions about whether my love for her will change if she is skinny or fat later. I ask her to describe the bodies of people I love. She eventually verbally acknowledges that I love people who are skinny as skinny can be and I love people who are about as heavy as it is possible to be and still be mobile. Clearly my love does not place limits on the bodies of the people around me. She nods and says, “ok”. I talk about logistical difficulties. There are pluses and minuses of being skinny and for being fat. Neither is objectively “better” or “worse” but being either might be good or bad for a specific task.

Heavy people have a weight and a leverage that often allows them to get something done when a lighter person just physically couldn’t move something. I have a deep admiration for this survival ability. Strength is a big god damn deal in my world. No, we do not prefer skinny around here. Skinny is fine. It isn’t bad. Love your body however it happens to appear. Skinny or fat can make it impossible to find clothes because designers are assholes. Being more slender makes it easier to do some things. Every thing in life has things that make it easier or harder. That isn’t a moral judgment.

I tell my kids that there are people in the world who make moral judgments about weight–I don’t like those people. I think they are bullying people who have minimal choices about their bodies. I have mixed feelings about the fact that I have been considered “fat” for most of my life but if I work hard enough, long enough, eat little enough, and exercise to a nearly unhealthy degree… I can get out of being considered fat. But it is nearly a full time fucking job. It is hard and it takes an overwhelming amount of resources. (I would not have been able to buy running shoes this often before I got married. I simply did not have this kind of money.) So clearly I was able to stop being fat–which makes me more moral in the minds of some people. But I was only able to do so because I had a big scoop of privilege dumped on my head. That makes me feel a little sick inside.

Don’t hold me up as an example of how it can be done. Oh god no.

I sort of feel like maybe I want to get the adipositivy calendar and put it on the wall. I want my kids to see unabashed appreciation of fat bodies the same way they will see unabashed appreciation of skinny bodies elsewhere in the world. Drat. Next year the calendar is a mosaic. I’m less drawn in. The 2014 one was rad.

I’m now eight days away from my next attempt at a visit from Kaiser. I may actually ask someone to go with me. I’m scared to go back given that the receptionist called the police on me last time I went in. What is going to happen next time I go, you know?

I don’t deal well with authority. People who work in systems need the system to Be Respected and I don’t respect systems. Your system doesn’t work for me. Fuck you for trying to force a square peg into a round hole. I’d rather you honestly say, We are not able to treat you.

I’m a special god damn snowflake. Just like everyone else.

My ankle hurts less than it did, so it is clearly healing. It’s been like four weeks? It doesn’t actively hurt all the time anymore, just when I sit cross legged. When it stops hurting when I’m sitting down I will probably try to resume running. I can tell the rest of my body is pissy about the lack of exercise. I’m stiff and sore everywhere. I want to live on Ibuprofen and I can’t because of the test in a week. Yay! Or something.

This year’s cookie exchange will be a lot smaller than it has been for the past few years. I’m not sad. I like both of the ladies who are coming over a lot. There are so few children that I can bust out some more interesting projects that I can’t manage with a huge group. It will be fun.

I need to get some of this food stuff worked out. I’m tired of feeling suicidal and food stuff is making that ridiculously hard. I spend a lot of time lately feeling like I should just die because keeping me alive isn’t worth the effort. Keeping bodies alive takes work. I don’t have much patience for such shit with regards to me. I’m willing to do the work for my kids but doing it for me is harder.

Learning to make gluten/dairy free food is much harder than learning to make healthy food for the kids. And that was a major educational journey for me involving reading a lot of books and spending a lot of time looking into nutrition. There are reasons I jump up and down and refuse to put my very young children on skim milk. Their brains are developing and need fat, thank you very much.

I remember my brothers being very skinny as children but they were athletes. I was never skinny. My sister was never skinny. My children are so slender. I’m going to give them forking whole fat milk. Clearly it isn’t hurting them. (Also: I see their poop. Not hurting them!)

My poop isn’t wanting to settle down again. I would blame myself and cheating on the diet but I’m more inclined to blame myself and say “anxiety”. Dealing with Kaiser is going to get to the point of inducing diarrhea at the name so this is going to get complicated. Yay anxiety! Yay for feeling like shit and like the people who work there would prefer I die so I stop bothering them! My body will do its level best to kill me just so that I don’t have to feel people hate me so much.

Melodrama much? I can’t tell.

People aren’t against you. They are for themselves and you are just incidental. That becomes malice when they hold the keys to the castle.

Sometimes I get these little whiffs of reminder–that people aren’t for me and I feel deflated. I feel like I don’t know how to be part of their life.

We haven’t talked to the Godmamas since before the accident. I don’t know how to reopen the doors of communication. Last I had contact I was told not to contact again. That ban was never lifted so I’ve just… not tried again. If the only thing I’m told is “Leave us alone” I’m going to back off. Well, I was told I could ask for information from the person who is buried in medical school but I also have to expect that she may or may not really return emails because… she’s busy. I take that as leave us alone.

Not to mention that I made a few comments on G+ posts and that was received with hostility so I stopped following and have backed off. This is complicated given the net of legal paperwork involving them. I really don’t know what to do about the Godmamas.

We need to go see our lawyer. And I need to admit to myself that all of the people who I thought were going to reliably stay in my life… are gone. Godmamas, Brittney, Alex–haven’t heard from them. Probably won’t ever again. That was my full list of people I trusted to be able to help my kids.

30 years, 14 years, 12 years of friendship and they are gone. Well, maybe I’ll see them again some day for a few hours of talk. But they are not present in my life and they aren’t appropriate as hand offs for my kids any more.

I feel like it is my just desserts. Please God, let me live till my children are grown so they never have to pay the full penalty for being my children. I only need 13.5 more years.

On the upside, Noah’s college best friend and his wife have agreed to be added to paperwork. We don’t have a backup plan. I don’t know who to name as executor. I haven’t scheduled an appointment with the lawyer to revamp the paperwork because I don’t have more names to give. I feel so sad.

Sometimes my friends hear Shanna mouthing off at me (by which I mean repeating verbatim [with the same inflection] things I have said to her) and they tell me they could never tolerate having a child talk to them that way. I laugh and tell them I appreciate it. She is looking at me and noticing me enough to have an opinion on my behavior.

We are all very clear with one another in this house: I love you and sometimes I really hate the things you do. Your behavior can be very annoying. Doesn’t change how much I love you and want you nearby annoying me day after blessed day.

Shanna has very little awareness that she is in a period of life called “childhood” where most people would give her very few rights. She thinks of herself as being shorter than she will be and less competent than she will be with more practice but she’s here. That’s what she needs from the world. She will not someday be worthy of doing things. She is worthy now. Maybe she won’t be as deft as an adult but that’s a stupid reason to refrain from trying.

It sometimes takes a lot of fast talking about safety considerations to convince her that a certain task should be held off until she is taller, heavier, has more fine motor control, etc. She thinks of herself as being here, ready, so let’s go.

I feel like watching Shanna gives me this really pure vision of how people see themselves as unchanging. She genuinely does not see herself as less than she will be when she’s 30. She is just there. She’s not waiting to grow up. She’s living. I spent a lot of my childhood just waiting for time to pass. I could do things when I was older. There was always the put-off. I was never interested in what I was age-appropriately allowed to do. I was always reaching. I’ve let Shanna reach.

Kid can use a very sharp knife with aplomb. She can cook a wide variety of meals. She can talk to just about anyone. I don’t worry about Shanna’s ability to make a place in the world for herself. She will be ok. She has such verve and will to live.

I feel like Shanna had a “baby” stage where she knew she couldn’t do things and then she grew out of it. Somewhere between four and five. I don’t think Calli has outgrown it yet.

Calli doesn’t yet feel like the permanent person she will be for all times. She’s still shifting, like water. They say that the personality hardens/forms/becomes set around 5/6. Calli had some fearfulness stuff when she was 3 so I have been working on it pretty hard for over a year and she’s past that. She’s got a ways to go before she’s 5 but it feels like she is on a great path. I’m glad that she will turn 5 on the road trip. (If I can get my blasted health in line.)

I think that Shanna is always going to be more of a wanderer with me than Calli is. I think Calli is going to have to really consciously learn how to adapt. I think she will have more struggles. But who knows. Maybe I’m wrong. Earlier in life I didn’t see Calli’s passionate devotedness to me. Lately it has become impossible to not see. The switch from 3 into 4 has meant that Calli is way more attached and loving than she was before.

Sometimes it looks like Calli felt like she wanted to be more loving before but she didn’t know how. Sometimes it seems like she eventually learned how to get the loving attention she wanted and then she asked and asked and asked and asked. She didn’t rebuff me when she was littler. She just didn’t ask much. And I had Shanna so I wasn’t pushing for more attention from Calli so Calli was left to be… passively ok somewhere more often. Now she’s done with that shit. She’s ready to be the Center of the Universe. (She has a t-shirt that says she’s the center of the universe. She wears it a lot and reminds me that she is special and I have to love her. It is hilarious. “Mom! Remember, I’m the center of the universe. That means I get what I want.” I look at her with a raised eyebrow and she practices her best shit-eating-grin.)

Shanna freaked out from day one if you set her down at all. Calli didn’t do that so I think I incorrectly interpreted that as a preference for being set down. Live and learn.

Shanna wore me the hell out. I’m sorry Calli. I had less need for 24/7 contact when you were born. I’m terribly sorry.

But now Calli gets her many hours a day of snuggling. Shanna’s down to just insisting on half an hour a day of dedicated snuggling time. Calli is a love-bug. She would be happy if I wore her on my back all day every day but I can’t. She’s too heavy.

I talk to my kids about disaster training preparedness and I talk to them about how to deal with emotional fall out from trauma. “Someday something terrible might happen to you. You might feel so scared. You might feel like you are going to die. Bad things happen to people. If you want to survive it is good to know in advance how to find help. Here’s what you do…” I’m not super dark about it. I talk to them about how to evaluate safe people. I talk to them about how to talk to police officers and give police reports. I talk about how the police are only sometimes your first call. I tell my kids which words are key to getting help fast. “I am in immediate danger”.

I am fascinated by the research happening around generational transmission of PTSD. Is what I’m teaching my kids helpful to them or not? I don’t know yet. We know that many layers of trauma happen because people are enculturated to go look for that trauma. I was taught to go find rapists. Taught. By my father and brothers and sister. My sister hunted for boyfriends by being pen pals with convicts. She did this many times. I’m dead fucking serious.

Siblings may have more effect than parents on behavior. Sissy, you taught me well. I don’t smoke. I don’t chew gum because you hated it. And I think it isn’t ok to tell men no for sex. Thanks for all the lessons.

That’s not true. I think it is now not only ok but mandatory that I tell men no for sex. But it isn’t because of my preferences or beliefs, my cunt is off-limits. It is already on contract with another guy. Sorry.

Awkward.

I ate half a meat pie yesterday. I’m not sorry. Even though it has gluten and dairy it was glorious. I dream about those pies. I love them so much. Calli hated the kind she ordered but she loved the kind I ordered and I equally love them all so I was happy in any case.

I was a big sucker. There is a downfall to going places with one child. The requests for stuff are halved and they sound so much more reasonable… Calli got a pretty pink bonnet that matched the Victorian dress she had on (that she will probably be able to wear for another year and which has a matching dress a size up that she will wear for two or three years after that… the hat wasn’t a bad buy) and a dress. The dress wasn’t necessary. But it was a really pretty hand-smocked Christmas dress. And it was less than half the cost of the other dresses she wanted. But it’s an every day play dress that she will really wear. And it’s SO LONG that her sister can borrow it this year (and maybe next year) and Calli will wear it for three or four years. See my defensiveness, it is mighty. I refused to buy another frou frou dress up dress. But a pretty little play dress that you can wear almost daily in the Christmas season that has fun little peppermint sticks? Ok. I’m that kind of sucker.

They got other new dresses from Grandma the day before. I’m willing to bet that part of my defensiveness is I know they don’t “need” this sort of thing from me. They truly do not need more forking clothes. (Especially not Calli. Anything itchy has already been shoved on her half of the closet so she has all the 5/6/7 dresses and she wears them interchangeably; size is a myth.)

Is it terrible that I am deeply grateful that I got daughters who are so into dresses? I liked dresses and hated pants. Well, I hated jeans. Leggings are fine to wear under your dresses. My kids dress exactly how I would have killed to dress as a child. I didn’t have a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes. I have pangs that my children wouldn’t if it weren’t for Noah’s talented mother.

My kids really have outstanding clothes. Noah’s mom hand-makes some really beautiful stuff. I am getting better at sending thank you notes just because year after year of largesse is making a dent in my hostility and hatred. I really appreciate the clothes.

Sometimes, in a weird way, I sort of think of them as presents to the little girl I was. I wanted to be pretty the way Shanna is. I never was. I wanted to be pretty the way Calli is–I never was. I was poor. I was dirty. I was erratic and weird and inappropriately sexualized. I wasn’t just pretty. I was attractive sometimes, but in ways no child really should be.

My kids are innocent in a way I didn’t know existed when I was a child. If I had met someone like them I would have done anything in my power to shatter the privileged fucking bubble they lived in.

It was nice seeing people yesterday. Many commented that it was “so good to see me” “I know it is hard for you to make it out–I’m so happy for you”. I was told that people miss me.

I’m sitting right here. You don’t have to miss me. You just have to come see me. But that’s effort.

What you miss is the energy I put into making your hobby more fun. It was never really my hobby. I just wanted to stand near you. I don’t care about doing those things you do with all of your time. And if I have to care about those things to be part of your life then I won’t be part of your life.

I am selfish. The older I get the more and more selfish I become. I am not good at fading into a system and becoming one of the worker bees. I don’t believe that the system is worthy of support.

One friend asked why I don’t bring the kids and work at Dickens. I said, “You mean why don’t I come work very long hours for no pay while someone expects me to cough up lots of time and money for elaborate costumes that I will be criticized if I don’t spend enough time and money to decorate?” He said, “You sound bitter.” I said, “Only about five people remember that I worked at Fezzi’s despite their impassioned “Once a Fezziwigger Always a Fezziwigger” and they all knew me before I worked there. If they honestly told people, “We won’t remember you unless you work here 10+ years and make it to management” I wouldn’t be bitter.”

Expectations, baby.

I put in my time in the bdsm scene. I understand that people don’t get instant standing in communities. I’m not trying to be a high status person in every community I walk near. But I want to be acknowledged as a community member. Or I’m going to think of myself as not part of the community and I’ll be bitter.

My bitterness isn’t the fault of anyone currently dealing with me. Not really. My family picked rapists over me. Even dead rapists. Loyalty to dead rapists is way more important than me. My bitterness creeps into other parts of my life. I’m not that important.

I certainly understand that communities can’t pathologically hold on to every dilettante who comes along. I get it. But can we get more honest advertising?

I actually feel like that is something that the lady who runs the home school group does really well at. Even though I’m flakey and there are gaps in my attendance–she notices when I come back and says my presence was notably gone and that was sad.

Why don’t I respond to that with hostility the same way I respond to Dickens Fair with hostility.

Ahh! No one in the home school group has raped me. So being there is inherently more comfortable and safe. People who are pissy about me not working Dickens Fair are telling me that my discomfort working with a rapist is something I should just get over so they can have their fun. Different.

I wrote till everyone woke up and Noah and I had a long fierce discussion of the merits of Paul Graham’s essays and it’s time for breakfast.

Pam was here this morning and she wanted to be helpful. She’s a kind soul and she likes being helpful. We ran into a problem I have in a lot of settings. I don’t know if this will turn into a real post or just some blathering.

The older I get the more I feel… not tenuous about my connection to language but I recognize my failures more immediately and they feel bigger than they used to feel. If I start a sentence and realize mid-way that it won’t be effective then I start feeling paranoia, anxiety, distress and my ability to talk in a coherent way rapidly plummets.

Pam asked me, “But don’t you like telling people how to do things?” I do! I love love love having my bossy pants on. But I like having my bossy pants on when I have had time to sit and think and prepare and get my ducks in a row before the person-who-needs-bossing is present.

I feel my failures to communicate well a lot more than I used to. I feel ashamed of myself and stupid and like a failure. I used to think that other people were stupid and they just couldn’t understand. Now I think that I have failed to communicate because I am too stupid. Then I get really mad. Then my tone of voice goes to shit.

It doesn’t work the same way with kids and I’m trying to figure out why. I suspect that part of it is–I don’t bother trying to “save face” with kids. If I can’t do something they won’t get mad at me–they can’t do it either. If I can’t find the right words to explain something they aren’t going to get mad, they don’t know the words either.

I love children more with every year that goes by.

So today I was trying to make a gluten free, dairy free apple pie. To the best of my knowledge I have only made one or two pies before and I don’t make crust. I buy crust. Today I had to make crust. And I can’t use canned fillings right now so I had to do the whole fucker from scratch.

I am not good at cooking. It takes a disproportionately high percentage of my brain to do it right and that causes me distress. It means I have to turn off many tracks I’m normally running. It makes me feel trapped and stupid and like I can’t do fucking anything right. Objectively I mostly understand that it is false–I make good things at least sometimes and passable stuff most of the time. But this is the crazy-thinking I’m talking about.

Cooking is hard for me for no reason I can really pin down. Yeah I grew up in poverty not seeing cooking, but a lot of things are in that camp and I don’t scream at people who talk to me while I do those other things.

Cooking takes so much thinking for me. I read and reread the recipe many dozens of times and I still do something wrong, basically every time. I’m a lazy bastard and I skim most things and it gets me through life. Cooking proves that my reading skills aren’t what I think they are. That hurts.

Luckily Noah is willing to do most of the cooking.

With kids I say, “I can guide your hand through the process I’m using but I can’t explain it. You have to feel it.” With adults I don’t want to fucking touch them and I can’t find the words and I feel so upset with myself.

Also: it is weird to me when and where and why I accept touch from people. There are people I grow to feel close to and I generally like hugging them. The people who really prove they love me are people who walk up to me and ask for a hug. That’s a big fucking deal. YAY FOR LETTING ME HAVE PERMISSION TO DECIDE WHO TOUCHES ME!!!!!

But I get into a lot of situations where people think it is totally kosher to just start touching me. Most of the time this happens with women of color. I think I have more hostility with white women and they notice and don’t lean in without solicitation. But I’m touched just about every week by a woman of color. Often they hug me, without asking. I freeze, try to consciously insure that I don’t hurt them, and try to breathe deeply. It is a shock every time even though it happens all the god damn time. It is rarely men but it does happen once in a while.

Usually this happens after a conversation that causes the person to feel emotionally close to me. They want to touch me to cement that bond. I feel like they don’t fucking know me at all and why in the fuck are you touching me? Very rarely do I respond with hostility any more. Sometimes I pull back, but I try to do it without comment. Strained smile sort of thing. More often I make the conscious decision to give them a hug because clearly they need one even though I don’t want to be hugged.

I’m not a martyr. But I do think that most people in the world have a touch deficit they don’t know what to do with. I also feel like I am very blessed to get a surfeit of touch in my life from people who love me more than life itself so I can pass some along. I needed hugs badly in my childhood and I didn’t get them. I understand why people would interpret my verbal sharing as a sign of bonding. I understand why people want to hug when they feel bonding.

But man this shit is complicated.

I feel like having people show up and “want to help” is sort of similar to how I treat the touching. People want to help because they want to feel helpful and they usually need a lot of direction and assistance and basically the make the work harder.

I would like to take this moment to stop and say that there are big exceptions to this problem. And when I run into genuinely competent people I tend to want to fall at their feet and worship them. When I remodeled my garage I had help from such friends. It was one of the most wonderful projects I’ve ever done. At the time I cried and angsted and fussed like I do. In retrospect what I remember is that a whole bunch of people showed up and said, “Tell me where you want me” and with the barest guidance they produced results that were often better than what I could have described. Friends with many years experience doing exactly that type of work showed up. It was like having a bunch of mentors show up at my house to guide me through the process. That feels like magic. Usually this isn’t how it works.

I don’t think that most of my friends are incompetent. I feel like most of my friends are smart enough to notice that I am picky as fuck and I have a habit of flying off the handle when people do things in a way that doesn’t follow my weird, hard to explain preferences.

Jesus fuck, why do you people spend time with me?

A few blessed times in my life friends with expert knowledge have told me, “You have ____ problem and it falls into my area. I’ll be at your house on Saturday to fix it because it is bugging me.” Err, that’s why I clean my friends houses. Exactly why. Because it bugs me. Well, sorta. It bugs me to sit in a mess and not do anything. I have horrible anxiety if I sit idle in a messy room. There is clearly work to be done. Get off your ass. (To balance the equation–I almost never dust and a lot of my house gets dirty and I don’t care that much. Good thing Noah notices filth! I notice clutter.)

I don’t know how to explain quickly, when I feel anxious, “It is nice of you to offer help but explaining how to help would take me approximately 2.5 times as much work as doing it myself so just go away.”

Part of it should probably include, “I am reading the directions and following them. I am at step #. If you can just keep going from there on the directions you can help. If you need help or instruction then no.”

I don’t know how to talk to people very well. I am such an asshole.

I take comfort when Pam tells me she comes over here because people are way more nice than at her house. It makes me feel like I might be over-stating how bad I am. She says that even though she is my screaming-at-person-of-the-month. God I’m sorry.

One of the moms in the home schooling group is super woo woo and she drove to my house yesterday with woo medicine for me. Because she was really worried about me at the park. The only “permission” she really asked for was my address and to know when I might be home so she could hug me at the same time.

I like that and I don’t. It is very hard for me to let people love me or help me. I want to be so mean. I want to drive them away before I get attached and they leave anyway. At the same time, I am not doing well health wise. It was really kind of her. She believes  in her woo and she wants to share it with me. It won’t hurt me.

I’m taking the pills and smelling the oils and all the shit. I should go outside and do the moxa acupuncture thing too. All the woo!

But you know what? Despite my mouth still hurting I feel a bit better today. I actually suspect the Pedialyte is partially to credit with me feeling better. I feel noticeably better after each liter I drink. I feel like a wilted plant that gets water. I go from feeling weak and nearly unable to stand to feeling like I could do something–nothing ambitious like exercise, but something.

And I had diarrhea long enough to give a great stool sample to Kaiser and my bowels have mostly resettled. The chick I saw on Tuesday was really adamant that I have to keep dairy and wheat out of my diet for three months. I am mostly willing to follow this. I am adding raw milk to my tea because the other faux milks taste gross in the tea (I’ve tried) and the whole tea-drinking-ritual is a big part of my self-care. No, herbal tea doesn’t cut it. I drink decaf Earl Grey and that’s that. (Ok, I like peppermint too. But it’s not a great breakfast tea.) But I feel like if I’m drinking 2ish ounces of raw milk every few days that is as down-to-little/nothing as I can live with for many months. I think I can settle into gluten and dairy free if eggs and corn are reintroduced. They have been. No diarrhea so I’m going to take eggs off the no list. I’ve started eating them again with a vengeance (I missed eggs.)

You know…. I introduced a much broader diet that is still tightly controlled for metrics like organic/pasture raised/raw and I feel a lot better than I did when we were eating out more and I was eating lots of dairy and wheat. But I still don’t know for sure if either of them are causing the problems because clearly I can have at least some of both and poop because it has been happening.

Stress is pretty clearly the biggest problem.

That is part of why I’m saying “I’m keeping black tea with raw milk” because I really do that as self care. I think about Jenny and Sarah and Laura and Denise and Mo and Lisa and Julie and Julia and Marisa and Angela and Paula and Erin and and and and…. Drinking tea is when I stop and do my emotional check in with women I love. Who I think about rotates through an enormous list. I could not begin to name them all here. I am very blessed to have lots of women in my life who deserve a lot of love. And I’ve tried it with milk substitutes and I spend the whole time I’m drinking thinking poisonous thoughts about how gross the shit in my mouth is. It is not self care.

I’m ok with giving up cutting, promiscuity, drugs, alcohol, and junk food. I want to keep my fucking tea with milk. God fucking damnit to hell. I want to sit and think about the women I love. It is better than meditating.

But back to help. I am not good at accepting help. I want help. I need help. But I suck at accepting it. I’m not nice. I’m not a good person to help. It probably seems like a waste of time because I’m not very grateful. My experience is that the most needful people are the least grateful. They fucking hate you for helping them. It is like you insulted them. People who don’t NEED the help can be very grateful. Life kind of sucks.

I am going to interview some babysitters tomorrow. Oh man. I’m nervous. I’m not very good at this sort of thing. Being upper middle class (you know… having employees…) is a whole skill set I didn’t grow up with.

I don’t know how to be the person I’m growing up to be. I’m not gracious. I want to say motherfucker in almost every sentence but I’m trying hard to cuss less because Shanna lecturing me is getting really fucking annoying. I have not been willing to care about anyone else’s feelings on this matter. Shanna is a god damn master manipulator. “Mom! I’m going to get in trouble if I say that and if you keep SAYING IT then I THINK ABOUT IT and I’m going to SAY IT. STOP.”

That kid.

See why I can’t give up the tea right now? There are limits. I’m not even supposed to cuss as I walk around my house any more.

There are huge down sides to having children who think they are allowed to be as bossy as an adult. And yet her harping on me is going to be good for me in the long run. It was a real problem that I couldn’t control my swearing when I was teaching. I swore a lot. Eventually I was going to get in trouble. I played R rated music in class about incestuous rape and murder. (It was a unit on tragedy. One kid said that there were no modern tragedies–that the genre was older. Another kid came in after school and played me this song and said “Hey Archer–give it a serious listen. Don’t get distracted by the swearing. Tragedy isn’t dead.” So I played it for the rest of my students as a modern example of the genre and assigned them all writing assignments about the feelings they had after hearing that song. It was *intense*. One mom called in to ask what in the hell I was doing and I explained in detail. She sounded… shocked… but totally went with it when I was done tying it in to Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare and Freud and… I can argue well sometimes.)

I should stop typing and go serve pie. Gluten and dairy free pie. Mmmmm. (I have to say: Noah did great with a gluten and dairy free meal. And now we have enough leftovers for a week. And I can eat all of it.)

 

I am apprehensive about being assigned a case manager. My instinct is to treat it like a punishment and recoil with a hiss. I’m so rational. But I can instead choose to find gratitude. This is an Opportunity. And since I am frantically thinking about this process instead of winding down for sleep, I will record my thoughts. Maybe parts of this will be useful to recycle for emails with new person.

Dear So And So (because)

Hello! I am excited for this chance to work with you. I do hope you are a person who likes puzzles because I’m kind of a challenge. As I’m sure you know, mental and physical health are intrinsically linked. All of the work of treating my physical health is held up by the work of treating my mental health. Before I get into either my physical or my mental health issues (don’t worry–I’ll get there) I feel it is important to introduce myself a little.

I like to set people up for success. I am quirky and it is hard to guess what things I am particular about and thus I volunteer more information than perhaps people might want to hear. I’m usually good at hearing boundaries like “I’ve heard enough on this topic, thanks” but unfortunately as a medical provider that is sticky. If you don’t let me finish on a topic (yes, it is annoying that I’m long-winded) you may not get all the necessary details. Sometimes they are at the end of a long schpeal.

I take a lot of patience to deal with. I am mercurial and moody and because you will almost entirely be dealing with me in a hospital setting I will frequently appear very angry. Unless we have just had a specific negative interaction the anger isn’t about you. I have a long and storied history with medical treatment. My family has had a lot of medical issues and I have spent many years of my life unhappily in hospitals. I am also in a lot of pain and very frustrated. I’m not angry because of you. I am angry when I’m in hospitals. I chose home birth partially for this reason. It was easier to change the setting than my attitude.

I know that this anger makes it hard for doctors to talk to me. I try to manage my feelings. I try to monitor my tone of voice and my words but they get away from me. I am suppressing a lot. I promise. This complicates health care a great deal.

As a case manager it is useful for you to know that I have a major chip on my shoulder about “people in authority” not caring about me. I fell through every crack in the system when I was a child. I had a horrifying life and no one helped and I’m bitter. I’m sorry that this will mean that I don’t give you as much patience as you deserve at first. It is very hard for me to build trust. If you are interested in the Readers Digest version of my list of traumas I can send you the one page sheet I give to new therapists. Approximately one sentence describing the major traumas that happened every year from two through twenty-five.  I don’t need to get into it here.

Working with systems is very hard for me. I have not traditionally been very successful in them. I have complex, unusual needs and it is very hard for me to get the awkward help I need. I look so very functional and mental illness is funny and invisible and so hard to treat.

I am particular about being both highly rigid and accommodating. What I mean by that (I’ll take punctuality as one example but there are many) is I can be very rigid about what I hear. “I’ll call you tomorrow” that doesn’t result in a phone call feels like a deliberate slight. A stab in the back. A betrayal. (I am… somewhat prone to the dramatic. Better to warn you.) However if you know that you are someone who is often running late you can say to me, “Hey! We have an appointment at x’o’clock. I frequently run up to an hour late. That is the reality of the kind of job I have. Bring a book and prepare to enjoy your lovely down time in the waiting room.” I will nod and say: “Cool.” And it will be totally ok. Even though usually I get kind of nutty when people are more than about twenty minutes late. If you set my expectations appropriately I am easily managed.

Really that is the key to successfully working with me. Set my expectations appropriately and I will think you are better than cheese on toast. Which sounds really good now that a doctor told me to cut gluten and dairy for a minimum of three months. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. (Obviously I will be editing before I send to a real professional. I’m crazy but I’m not that crazy.)

Physical health (in no particular order):

• digestion problems
• joint pain that has been sporadic, perhaps linked to PMDD/period?
• headaches
• nutrition support–this is *not* something where a generic group class would be even vaguely appropriate. I need someone to work with me on my food issues and they are weird.

Mostly (As my blood work and other work ups will tell you) I’m healthy. But I’m in pain. Pain that is sometimes severe enough to make it hard for me to engage in my normal life. Why?

Then of course we get into the layered mental health. Also in no particular order:

• I have PTSD
• I have GAD
• I have been diagnosed with depression at various points. It is not a label my current therapist feels is an over riding feature of my presentation so I’m including it partially for background notes.
• I have been diagnosed as bipolar, but this is again disputed. Some doctors claim my issues are all chemical. Some doctors look at the calendar and notice Hey! Every freak out is timed right next to a major trauma anniversary! 
• I deal with suicidal ideation. NOTE: I SAID IDEATION. I DID NOT SAY I AM CURRENTLY SUICIDAL AND FOR THE LOVE OF CHRISTMAS DO NOT FREAK OUT. Sorry for the shouting. Man this is a hard one to deal with. It is hard being me. People who say, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem” can spend a decade or so in my life before they speak. My problems aren’t temporary. My problems are big and ongoing.
• That said! I am completely aware that I am living in the golden era of my life. I am more loved now than I have ever been or than I will be in the future. My kids will never like me this much again. Ha. Mental illness doesn’t care that my life is kind of awesome right now. It just tells me that I should be sad and scared and I should die because I am bad.
• I have a therapist. She is an incest specialist. She is totally happy to talk to you about my treatment if you are interested in her contact information. I hunt high and low for therapists. I need people who are used to dealing with some of my specific brand of broken.
• I am not particularly interested in trying psych medications at this time. I have tried in the past with great ill effects and little to no positive effect. I have a delicate balance in my life. I am not going to upset the cart to make Kaiser feel better about getting me on drugs. Thanks!
• I have a medical marijuana card. I recognize that Kaiser doesn’t do that sort of thing. Whatever. That’s fine. Could you please at least be polite about the fact that I started using pot when I was 27 and using it for medical reasons? I mean, if I had started self-medicating at 16 you should still be polite to me but I tried all of the meds you want to offer me first (and all of the other doctors at Kaiser should be polite too… and they aren’t..). I’m going to yank out a big fat-ass was of privilege mother-fucker. (Yes I will edit.)
• Even if there is “Some New Med” I’m kind of done. My body doesn’t like new hormones, thanks.

Leading me into: can I please, please, pretty please work with a nutritionist who cares about holistic health? Do such people work at Kaiser?

I understand that “gut health is the key to mental health” and I’m aware that seratonin is produced in the gut and it is common to get depressed when you have diarrhea (which I’ve had for most of my life) when your seratonin is flushed out of your body without being absorbed. Awesome, possum.

Ok. I’m starting to nod off.

My emotions are going up and down and up and down and up and…

I’ve been basing my elimination diet restrictions around things I find on the internet. Because that is at least more information than I have previously been able to get from doctors. This is very frustrating because every body has a unique set of needs and limitations.

I’ve been eating tons of bananas and eschewing apples because the internet told me to. Today the woo-doctor told me I’m allergic to bananas and not to apples. Cue image of me beating my head on the floor.

I stopped eating pecans because the internet said that was probably my problem and I kept the peanut butter because the internet said it couldn’t be causing my issues.

Woo-doctor says that pecans are fine and peanuts are a problem.

I just… Oh my god this is so visceral and primal and hard. Every food feels like poison.

Today he said I react to tomatoes even though he said I didn’t last time. I had violent diarrhea after eating the tomato recently. Like whoa. I have had a spectacular amount of diarrhea in my life. This made me go whoa.

Food is just so god damn hard.

At this point I have been “treated” for all of the food allergies he detected. As of this morning… I still have diarrhea. He hasn’t finished treating all of my environmental factors. That will take at least one more, maybe three more visits. I’m feeling sad that I’m this far into treatment and it still hurts.

I see the GI department at Kaiser next Monday. I am not anticipating meeting a doctor who will give a shit (ha ha ha). I’d be willing to put a lot of money on the idea that I will leave crying with no help. On Wednesday I will have a broken tooth repaired. At least I have full confidence that I have A medical professional (singular) in my life who is fully worth what I pay for his time.

I’m feeling entitled and pissy. How can I spend THIS MUCH MONEY AND TIME in order to get… no relief of pain.

Because that’s how it fucking works sometimes. But it is why I don’t give poor people shit for not solving their problems. Health problems are fucking expensive.

I have three or four emails to respond to. I have several people who have kindly extended invitations and I need to respond. I feel… ugh. I want to be around people so much my skin aches but trying to schedule and follow up feels painful.

I’m going round and round in my head with some of my feelings about my friends. I can’t stop thinking about Pam telling me that I’m too hard on my BFFs.

My BFFs aren’t treated fairly at all. They don’t walk into a relationship with someone who sees their good qualities and wants to appreciate them for those qualities. I’m a using piece of shit. I see how people complement (or not) my own issues and I pick people who have gaps in their life where I can convince myself that I’m neeeeeeeeeded. Only I’m not. And over and over I run into the brick wall that I am not necessary to anyone’s life. Period.

Oh my fucking god it hurts. I know that just about everyone is in the same boat. I don’t feel my existential whining is tonier or deeper. Same shit different day.

I don’t want my friends to love me like a friend. I want them to love me like family. I want someone to love me the way I love my children. It isn’t going to happen. And sometimes I come up against unmistakable proof that I will never have that love. Ever.

I spend weeks crying and weeping and wanting to die.

It isn’t anyone’s fault. No one owes me that. The one person who maybe might have owed me something has given me what she had to give and that’s that.

It is so hard stepping back and having to be ok with the fact that I am a friend. No one will ever love me that much. Noah comes the closest. My kids will grow up and move on with their lives more than likely. I won’t be their bestie either. Noah is it. That’s my chance.

Noah is very separate from me. We will never do the enmeshment thing I do with women. We are too different. We don’t really like spending our time in similar ways. He is not one to work with his hands beyond typing and I struggle with not holding that against him.

I really am an asshole.

It feels really bad that people do love me and I look at it and think “it’s not enough”. I don’t feel very good about myself. How fucking dare I demean the gift of love that people didn’t have to give me in the first place?

I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.

It has occurred to me that it might turn out to be true that the only person who can love me as much as I need to be loved is me. Only I’ve been taught I’m not worthy of love. So I can’t really love me very much.

Something else occurred to me. When I talk about being the lucky one for having found Noah… that isn’t because I believe that Noah is actually categorically The Best. (He isn’t.) Noah appreciates me. I don’t know very many people who are appreciated the way Noah appreciates me. I don’t know many spouses who feel that way about one another. I don’t even know many friends who really feel that way.

It is weird being appreciated. Not many people are granted that gift in this lifetime. Most people get moments of being appreciated. They get some specific incident. Noah… it’s just more broad than that. Even though I’m obnoxious, and moody as fuck, and hard to live with… he can wax rhapsodic at the barest hint that I would like him to cosset me. No matter how angrily he was arguing with me seconds before.

Noah is my biggest fan.

I don’t get the impression many people ever get to know what that feels like. And I am sorry for everyone else.

Sometimes I think that if I had found a woman to love me and enmesh with me the way I wanted but not a man… I would have exactly the same problems with my friends but the gender would reverse. I don’t throw myself against the brick wall of friendships with men any more. I just don’t.  Either a friendship with a man is easy or it doesn’t exist.

But holy shit for Crisco I bang my head on relationships with women. I want to fall in love so deep and so fast that I get dizzy.

I feel like the biggest asshole in the world because I tell these wonderful, caring, giving women that they aren’t enough. That’s what I do to my BFFs. I need so much from them and I get so angry when they just plain can’t. It is very codependent of me.

A long time ago I had this epiphany–if I have the same problem with person after person after person… it probably isn’t their fault.

Kira loves me. Sarah loves me. Anna probably still loves me. Brittney probably still loves me. Lauren feels strong affection for me. Julia probably still loves me. I say probably because I haven’t spoken to them in many years. I just… can’t imagine that feeling changing. Not from those women. Just like I will love them, Steve, my Owner, Air Force Michael until I die. Just because you are not in a current relationship with someone that doesn’t mean you stop loving them.

None of the women I weep over dislike me or are mad or are rejecting me. It comes from me. The push and the pull both.