Calli was right. It was too hot for a comforter. It made my sleep really broken.

I spent Saturday trying really hard to find perspective on my emotions. Perspective is one of those skills I specifically suck at. Developmentally it is a skill I am not so good at. What I feel this minute is what I have felt for all time and I will never feel any other way. This is good and bad. When I feel good I feel very good and can only dimly picture how I feel on off days. On bad days… there has never been good and never will be good and I should die. There have been so many years of pain. It is not worth more pain.

It’s like I store my memories in different color boxes and some days I’m only allowed to open red boxes or green boxes or purple boxes.

I KNOW I have good people in my life who love me. If I haven’t seen them or heard the expression within the last 24 hours… I’m rather a doubting Thomas. It doesn’t feel real unless I have seen it recently. Which is bullshit. Asking people to ‘prove’ their feelings is bullshit.

Thing is, I’m not sure there is anything that anyone could to do PROVE their feelings. I am very doubting of Noah’s devotion and if ever there was an irrational lack of belief… it is about Noah. That dude loves me so much he had reordered his whole life around accommodating me. I don’t get to act for a millisecond like Noah doesn’t like me. Talk about bullshit.

When I feel like the only place I belong is in a dark hole beating my head… I don’t perceive that Noah loves me. I don’t perceive that anyone could love someone like me. I don’t deserve it. I never will. I never could. I never have deserved love and I can’t change that.

And then my mood switches and I feel like an ungrateful piece of shit for having had any period of time where I am not giving my friends the credit they deserve. See, my inability to perceive the good things in my life real time are validation why they should be taken from me and given to someone more deserving. Someone who doesn’t forget that people love her. Someone who is safe all the time and not just sometimes.

How come someone injuring me causes me to react as if *I* am the one who hurt someone and I have to do penance?

I was the scapegoat for a long time. It is hard to escape that role. Now I do it to myself because it is comfortable. Now it is my fault I’m treated this way. Because it’s always best to put as much blame and shame on the scapegoat as humanly possible.

Yesterday we went to a birthday party for a kid in our life. It was at a place with giant inflatable climbing structures and slides. I have rug burn on my elbow from the slides. You go super fast. It was weird being there. I felt like I was visiting a surreal alternative reality. “Is this what life is like for rich, working parents?” We went from room to room. 30 minutes here, 20 minutes here, 20 minutes here, 40 minutes to eat. You lost 10 minutes of party time to room transitions because every kid has to stop playing and go get shoes. It was… surreal. Whoa. Is this what people expect from birthday parties? Wow. I feel super lame that my parties are “Come over to my house. There will be food.” Frankly… my non-school acclimated children were confused by the changes in location. “Why are we doing this?” Uhm… I think they want us to not get bored of a few places to climb? It was a fun party and the family inviting us is awesome. But I stand there talking to the other moms about their nannies and work schedules and I feel… lame.

You are all out doing something for the feminist cause. I’m uhm… well I garden a lot. Even that is unfair. I have a few months a year where I garden a lot. I … fuck I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’m a fucking loser who is a disgrace to the feminist cause. Pretty much that’s what I am.

I think it is funny that I feel way less secure about being a non-working parent when I feel on the outs with the home school group. I don’t have community backing. I’m not parenting in a way that is approved of by anyone so clearly I must be wrong. I can’t seem to line up with anyone. So I’m just wrong.

Right this minute I’d like to be curled up as small as I can make myself under my desk while I beat my head. I’d really like to stop the intensive screaming in my brain about how I’m a fucking loser who can’t do anything right.

I can’t express how globally fucked up it made me that my father spent years telling me that I was an inherited witch and if I failed to get people to do what I wanted it was because I wasn’t trying hard enough and I’m lazy.

I can’t get people to like me. I can’t seem to find a place in a community where I feel secure and ok. Obviously this means I’m not trying hard enough. It is all my fault that I am not secure. If only I weren’t such a stupid, vicious, mean cunt people might like me.

But they don’t. Because I am a selfish stupid asshole.

In my heart of hearts, I would give anything to be someone that people defended. But I never will be. That’s not my role in this lifetime. You have to be a good person before people defend you. I was almost a good person. I was almost defended against my dad. But he got the last word on that.

Losing that chance meant losing any chance I would ever be worthy. No vindication for me. No validation. No proof that I don’t deserve bad things. Instead just more affirmation that I *do* deserve the bad stuff. Bad things happen to bad people because they deserve it. Haven’t you heard of karma? Clearly I’m paying for being a mass rapist in another life.

I want to die. I can’t pay anymore for sins I have already committed. I have nothing left.

I feel so empty.

Right now I get myself through the urge to hit my head or cut or drink or or or by rocking and telling myself, “This night will end. These feelings aren’t forever.”

It is hard to have faith.

Less than shockingly the plans we had for today are cancelled. She got a better offer. (Ok, it was her mom asking her to come help with something.) At least she emailed me more than 16 hours in advance. I haven’t had that much notice of someone canceling in a while. A text an hour before is usually the most consideration I get. Mostly people just forget and don’t show up.

I’ve now had the experience of almost a dozen different families in the home school group making plans with us and completely forgetting and then just not showing up. I never bring up that they stood us up. Apparently we aren’t important enough to remember and I’m not going to beat people over the head with that.

We aren’t very important. I know.

I feel bad for my kids. I have no idea if I’m treating this ok. I don’t tell my kids who from the group might be coming over on a given day because everyone is so flakey. I’m tired of my kids getting disappointed because other people make plans and then don’t bother to remember.

I’m feeling very frustrated with people lately. I don’t have the right to have expectations around how people treat me. But I have them. And when I feel let down… I don’t like people very much any more.

If you make plans with me and I clear a day and then I sit there all day waiting for you to show up… I don’t like you any more by the end of the day. Sometimes people remember and try to apologize and I go through the motions of saying it is ok. I know the script I have to follow or I’m the bad person. But I’m not ok. Being forgotten like that is a massive trigger and I’ve not invited those families over again. I’m not trying twice. Which means i’m running out of people to try to get to know in the home school group. People aren’t interested in keeping commitments and I can’t deal with this degree of being disposable to everyone around me.

“I’ll make plans and then only keep them if sitting at home in my jammies is less appealing.” That’s how I perceive people as treating me. Which is self-absorbed of me. Of course I’m self absorbed. I’m just like everyone else.

I’m a complaining piece of shit. But in the past few weeks I’ve had almost half a dozen people no-show specific plans with me, I had a kid kick me in the throat with no consequence, and a dude I semi-respected told me he didn’t know anything about me other than that Noah likes to fuck me so I must be ok.

People fucking suck.

Not “everyone” but enough people that I’m struggling with having any patience or love or consideration to give. I’m tapped out.

I spend a lot of time wondering why I had kids instead of offing myself. Seems pretty stupid in retrospect. Now I’m stuck. I owe these people a minimum of 20 years of hard work. I chose to bring them into the world. That is a huge responsibility.

But lemme tell you, I wasn’t given a similar launching. Why do I care so much about doing this? Sometimes I struggle with my jealousy and anger. No one loved me. How can I turn around and love other people? I don’t know what it feels like. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know how to act.

One thing that I think I’m doing well on: my mom used to get very angry with me and scream at me when she felt bad about being inadequate. When my mom couldn’t feed me she would get furiously, insanely angry at me for asking for food. I was supposed to know better than to ask for things she couldn’t do. I’ll not deny that I get snippy sometimes with my kids. “That is a need I can’t fix in this minute. You have to wait until we get home.” On my 469th repetition of that phrase I get kind of pissy sounding. But I deliver it kindly many many times. Dozens of times.

Maybe my mom used all of her nice up on my sister who was born 13 years earlier? I’ve seen that happen with parents.

When I can’t meet a need for my kids I try hard not to get mad at them. I try hard to acknowledge that it is a need and it sucks that it isn’t getting met right now. Sometimes your mom is going to fail you. That is one of the hardest lessons in life. Moms can’t fix everything.

Shanna is the most forgiving soul I have ever come across. When I tell her that I’m at my limit and I can’t do anymore she says, “I understand. You are trying and sometimes you run out of ability to do things. That happens.” Then she does something nice like patting my head or stroking my face and she nods like she is 76 years old.

For all the problems I have with people outside my house, I must say that within these walls I’m the luckiest bitch ever.

What am I doing with my life? I’m being nice to my kids. I’m teaching them how to be nice to me. It’s a really wonderful experience and I feel overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to have this experience. I feel guilty that “being nice” is a lot of what I’m doing with my life and my time. If I get too tired from other activities I can’t be nice any more. So gardening, painting, writing, socializing… everything takes a back seat to my ability to be nice to my kids. If I feel like nice is slipping I drop everything and sit around and read until I can be nice again.

I feel like I have the most wonderful life I could have.

Then why do I spend so much time feeling like I should die? Because I don’t deserve this good. It should be taken from an ungrateful loser and given to someone worthy.

I’d really like to meet this “worthy” person some day. Just to find out what they are like. I’m pretty sure I’ll find reasons to complain about them. I’m magical that way.

I was thinking about something yesterday. About emotional control. I can control my emotions in some situations and not others. I can keep it together until I can’t. It is hard to figure out what triggers the loss of control. It is partially that I am more prone to lose control once I’m safe again. Safety means having less control. In unsafe environments I am much more capable of keeping my shit together. The home school group felt safe for a while. Thus I did more emotional sharing. Now that feels wildly unsafe. Which is going to be interesting for my control. I bet I will cry less at events. I will cry more when I come home. I won’t have to take breaks to go to the bathroom and cry for stress relief. It’s wacky.

The less safe I feel the more I create a crunchy candy shell around me. It means I feel less supported because I can perceive support less. It means I feel much more isolated and angry. It means I feel misunderstood and unwanted. No one wants trash here. I have to hide everything about myself before I am punished.

I feel so angry when I am behaving this way. When I am carefully protecting myself and ensuring that people don’t get new ammunition today.

I can tell I’m not doing ok partially based on the body changes. Yesterday was a massage day. (I have the best fucking life.) I’ve worked with this guy for over six years. He is a God. Yesterday he was very confused because I had a bunch of ‘hot spots’ I don’t normally have. Areas of pain where if you touch them gently I will levitate off the table as I shriek out my pain. That’s unusual. I’ve been blessed with a lot of body work in this lifetime. Reacting like that is unusual. I have a lot of pain issues. The hot spots are different.

It is fascinating to me how the more prickly I feel emotionally the more physically sensitive I become. It’s like when I’m feeling vulnerable to pain my body and brain are going to ensure that I have the maximum amount possibly available.

My back hurts so bad that I asked Noah to move heavy things… and I did not have sex in trade. That’s pretty fucking unheard of. Both me asking for help and me not making a trade when I ask for help. That’s a debt. I don’t like debts. I discharge them as fast as humanly possible.

I hurt. I can tell that the physical pain is related to how emotionally bad I feel and I don’t know how to change that right now.

I feel like I’m at this juncture where I need to “take the power back” but I never had any to begin with so this “back” part is baffling me.

The kids have swimming on Monday and a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Otherwise we have baby sitting scheduled next week. The grief ritual is next weekend. I’m looking forward to that. I anticipate not being able to speak or move without pain next Monday. I anticipate screaming until my throat locks and my head hurts so bad it feels like it will explode. I’m looking forward to the grief ritual. A safe place where I can have my big feelings and no one will tell me I’m scary or bad.

I could use a serious cry right now. It’s good timing. I am so grateful that Sobonfu is in the world doing the work she does.

The funny thing is–I don’t feel personally important to Sobonfu. I don’t think she will remember me much beyond a vague facial recognition. She meets a lot of people. I don’t really care. I don’t have a personal relationship with her. I have a student relationship with her. Teachers don’t need to understand their students in the same way. Teachers need to be examples and they need to answer questions. They don’t have to understand the full circumstances of their students. It isn’t necessary.

Why does it bother me less to be not much of a person to her? Because I’ve never tried to be. I’ve never asserted myself. I’ve never asked for her attention. It means I’m not being rejected. I never tried.

If I had put less energy and effort into courting the home school group I would probably care less. But I’ve been with this group longer than any school group I’ve ever been part of. Very soon I will have been part of this group longer than I was really active in the bdsm community and that is my longest span of community participation to date in this lifetime.

Maybe I just hit my expiration date? I don’t belong in any group for longer than three years? I don’t know.

What I want to do is delete all IM applications, delete my email, delete all social media (including fucking meet up) and say that there are only about three people in the world who care enough to call me. Maybe I only need them.

Doesn’t seem fair to my kids, though. Shit.