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.