This weekend I moved a bunch of furniture. Now my Bonus Kids have space for them. So that if my kids are being twerps about “Come in my room so I can throw you out” Bonus Kids don’t have to sit in the living room crying feeling like they don’t belong here. You belong here. I want you here and I love you. You can have your own spot where you can kick people out. I can do that.

Of course now I find out they might be going home this week. Life is hilarious.

I won’t lie, it’ll be nice to have my house back. But we will be really sad when our friends leave. We’ve been enjoying this time a lot.

Today is the Christmas Cookie Exchange. The house is tidy!

I worked and worked and worked. The house looks pretty darn good.

Also: I noticed that I’m driving to Cupertino twice this week for dentist appointments. Damnit.

I’m really happy about so much cleaning being done. We can walk through the house without getting hurt. Oh blessings. On our travels I was reminded that we live in a fairly small house. Most of our friends had more space than we have. But you know what?

My house is easier to clean. I learned so much appreciation for my house this year. I can manage it all by myself. That feels good. The number of my friends who don’t clean their own houses staggers me. Everyone thinks of that as being one of the first chores you dump on someone else when you have enough money to do something better with your time.

But but but… I like knowing where everything is. That works best if you are the one to put it all away.

Also: I have major issues around paying someone else to clean for me. Who the fuck do I think I am?!

Definitely not the sort of girl who pays people to clean her house. I’ll be the one on my hands and knees with a scrub brush, thanks. I can’t wait till the house is settled enough that I can go outside and start yard work again.

I think only one more day of solid work in the house and I’m ready to go outside. Maybe two days of work in the house. Yes, there will be more later. But I’ve really gotten a handle on the big part of the mess. Yay.

We had some hilarious/frustrated exchanges yesterday. Eldest Child wanted to have a nice restful day. I said, “I told you I would like to skip having parties in December and you begged me to schedule them and you said you would do a lot of prep work. You told me you would help because I wanted to skip this entirely. It’s not fair for you to keep resting after you already had a no chore week.”

Seriously. She didn’t do much last week. I didn’t ask for chore help. I promised them a week to rest and I was serious. Buddy your week is over. Are you a worker or a shirker? If you are a shirker how about if we email our friends and cancel these damn parties cause I don’t give a shit and I’m tired.

She got up and did a prodigious amount of work. Like she can when she puts her mind to it. Oy.

I was an asshole for the first few minutes. I started to shout. She told me that wasn’t necessary and I could talk instead.

I left the room to cool off.

I started to shout because she had iPad time in the morning then I told her she was done for the day (once the sun came up and the house was awake so we could do work without bothering people) but… She’s seven. She decided to take a little break after the first two minutes of work and sit down for some nice screen time.

I was a bit cranky and I started yelling. It didn’t last long.

This child blows my mind. I love everything about interacting with her. “You can be mad at me. Stop yelling.”

“Stop yelling. I wasn’t thinking about it being rude. You can talk to me, don’t yell.”

She has so much control it blows my mind. She’s been doing this every day of her life. This isn’t hard or difficult or conflicted for her.

I have so much internal conflict around defending myself verbally. I’m more likely to flee a situation than to tell someone to stop yelling at me. I think I deserve it most of the time and I just crumble under people getting mad. Unless I feel waves of righteous indignation then I light up like a candle with fury and scream at people. I’m a mixed bag.

She isn’t. She is consistent in a way that blows my fucking mind. I can’t imagine having such consistency in personality.

It’s really cool.

I don’t think I insist on consistency and I don’t think I require them not to have emotions.

After she told me to stop yelling she cried. She says it really makes her sad when I yell like that because it feels like I’m mad at her instead of being frustrated about something she’s done and she doesn’t like that feeling at all.

We hugged it out and talked. Of course I apologized.

I’m starting to think my apologies have about as much value as Monopoly money.

I’m sorry I over reacted. It felt like a lie. I am such a complete asshole about that. You said you would help then you weren’t doing it. I’m an asshole about that. I really am.

Later in the day she told me she can’t wait to grow up and move out so she doesn’t have to live with a neat freak any more. She said it with a grin and a twinkle in her eyes. I said, “Whatever. You’ll probably ask me to come over and clean.” She laughed and agreed that she probably would. Then she hugged me. She said, “And you’ll do it, grumbling the whole time. Because you love me.”

God damn she’s got my number.

I like to complain. Everyone needs a hobby.

I’m feeling horrible anxiety because I’m still getting tons of hits from the trolls. It feels really bad knowing that I write for myself and my husband and my friends and to document my behavior for the sake of my children…. and that means people want to make fun of me. Because that’s just how human beings work. We like to ridicule others. It’s a game. Everyone needs a hobby.

It isn’t that I believe I am above reproach. Ha ha ha. Anything but. I just like my criticism mixed in with people wanting me to still continue living and doing things. It doesn’t feel like that when anonymous strangers want to dissect you for shits and giggles. It feels like, “You aren’t a real person who matters. You are a thing to be mocked. Awwww, does that feel bad? Well you shouldn’t have existed where people can see you.”

Oh, I know.

Believe me believe me believe me it has been drummed into my head that every bad thing that happens to me is my fault.

I know.

I wouldn’t have been raped if I hadn’t put myself in those situations. I wouldn’t have been beaten if I hadn’t opened my stupid mouth. I wouldn’t be made fun of if I would just shut the fuck up.

I know.

I’m very aware that choosing to continue existing in the form I exist in is inviting contempt.

I know.

I can pretend to be more like other people. I could be quieter. I could choose to share less about my internal process.

Quite frankly if something happens to me and I die, I think my children will feel a lot of comfort in reading this shit. It’s conflicted, it’s confusing, it’s all mixed up. But that’s their mom. Yup, that’s how I am. I’m also intensely, fiercely loving. My children know how I treat them. If they grow up and read this shit and contrast it with the behavior they experienced from me….

I think it is going to be intense and powerful. Yes, I fucked up. But really not so much compared to what I was afraid I would do. I barely fucked up compared to the damage I am capable of inflicting.

I choose not to. It’s a choice. Every single fucking day I choose to be careful and gentle with my children just because that is who I want to be.

I think my children will be interested in this process some day. EC says she’d already like to start reading my writing and I told her I really really really need her to get through puberty before she reads my books. Preferably adulthood. “It isn’t that I want to keep it a secret from you. It’s that I want you to develop without having those pictures in your mind because once they are there they can never be taken back. You will be happier for your whole life if those things don’t imprint on your brain in childhood. When you are an adult you could choose to be a sympathetic friend if you want… not as a kid. That could hurt you.”

We talk about the fact that trauma (and having really detailed pictures in your head of your parents being hurt traumatizes kids) changes your brain forever. The absolute best thing you can do for your whole life is minimize the early trauma exposure you have so that you can develop a strong core identity and that will lead you to being more able to handle rough life bumps later. It may not occur as trauma if you have a solid enough base. So we are working on your base.

She agrees that sounds like an awesome approach.

A lot of these conversations come up because she’s been saying she wants to be a doctor for four years. I take it seriously. We have lots of intense conversations about what it means to help people take care of their health. That includes mental health and psychological boundaries.

“You can’t take care of other people if you are destroyed. You have to care for yourself before you have anything to give.”

She tells me often that when she is an adult she wants to be able to help a lot of people. I tell her that it is extra important that she spend her childhood learning how to adequately and appropriately care for herself so that she is strong and capable and she will be able to do those tasks more automatically. You must have the habit of self care if you are going to spend your life focusing outward in a healthy way. If you don’t care for yourself, you have nothing to give.

This is hilarious sometimes because she notices that I have issues caring for myself. I tell her, “You know how you talk about being a doctor or the president or both and you want to go out and help change things for lots of people? Notice how I don’t have dreams like that? I can’t do those things. I am not good enough at taking care of myself to even consider taking on such work. I have to do work that can be dropped when I’ve gotten into a state where I’m not caring for myself and all work must halt. Other jobs don’t work the same way. You have to figure out what you can carry because you aren’t me.”

I like writing books so that people can share what I know even at times when I’m hiding in my closet. I can’t be a doctor showing up to work every day to give people my all. Some days I have nothing to give. It is important to know yourself. Everyone is different.

Not everyone is cut out to home school their kids. I think this is a magical, wonderful journey and I am so happy to be on it. It takes all kinds.

Seven kids in the house today. It’s going to be a circus. I can’t wait. I should probably dig the Christmas presents out for this family. I’m not sure I’ll see them again in December. I’ve missed them.

I can’t wait to see how much the kids have grown in half a year. That excites me a lot. The little ‘uns coming over today are some of my little buddies. I think it is funny how much I love being friends with kids now and I hated it when I was a child. These kids like me and talk about me, apparently. That’s super wonderful.

The baby is probably going to be a kid now. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I’m sure I missed a big transition into kid-hood. I’m trying not to be sad. BUT THAT IS SUCH A COOL TRANSITION AND IT SUCKS I MISSED IT. Yes, I know it is my fault I missed it. I had to go.

I’m super happy I got home for the trailings ends of Bonus Kid slipping the shackles of babyhood. I love watching the kid blossom open from the baby bud. Love. Love. Love. Love.

You’ve always been you. Since the day you were born. The only trouble we’ve had is figuring out a language so you can tell me how to treat you. It comes in stages.

This weekend I went to a three year old birthday party. I was told I couldn’t sit on the huge bean bag because that is her special place to nurse with mommy.

You know what? Even though I’ve been sitting on that damn thing longer than you’ve been alive I got right up. Yes ma’am. I am sorry I intruded on your special place. I wasn’t trying to be obnoxious. If I sit over here are you less miffed with me? Yes? Awesome.

I’ve got a long game in mind. Who gives a shit if I can sit in a particular place on a particular day. I want you to think I am safe and trustworthy to set boundaries with. That takes respecting some obnoxious whims as children are going through the toddler/preschool stage.

Guess what? Most adult boundaries are obnoxious whims too. Children aren’t less important. They are just less good at being insistent about their random stupid preferences. So they normally get railroaded and they internalize that their boundaries don’t matter to people.

Guess what, honey. Your boundaries matter to me.

I want to respect your boundaries when you are three the way I will when you are twenty-three. You deserve that from me.

I’ve never really been a fan of hierarchical displays of dominance. Who cares if you are bigger or older? That doesn’t mean you actually know what someone else needs. I god damn ask kids.

I wish more people did. I think kids would throw fewer tantrums. Not none… kids do need tantrums. But it could be managed differently.

Shit I throw tantrums.

I was insecurely talking to my friend last night about how I explain things. I told her that I know that the perception exists that I drop too much on a kid and that isn’t fair. I “shouldn’t” process things as much as I do with a seven year old. Her basic point is those criticisms only come from people who don’t know my children and never from people who do know my kids and that is probably a big deal.

If everyone who knows my kids agrees that they are absolutely thriving then… they are probably not being abused. Instead they have a really deep and full understanding of the people around them.

Frankly my seven year old makes intuitive jumps that shock the shit out of me. I have no idea how anyone has the ability to make so many emotional connections so young. I surely didn’t.

I suspect it helps that she’s heard me say approximately 12 billion times, “This explanation is simple but the answer is actually very complex. Let me know when you’re ready for more levels of information.” She is so hyper aware that for every level of understanding there are dozens of deeper, more complex possibilities. She loved The Golden Compass. The alethiometer just set her mind to buzzing.

I swear that is how she thinks anyway. My mom always used to marvel at my brain. She would say, “You access things like a computer. If data has been entered it is there forever and you can cross reference it with every other piece of data you have ever been given and that’s weird.”

My mom said this to me because she read a Sun Signs book. She never used computers. She didn’t really understand them that much. Which always made that reference a bit more odd to me. She said it a lot. That was how she saw me. Complex and able to memorize things she couldn’t remember for more than a few seconds.

Then I turn around and look at my kid and think Holy Shit you have the memory I’ve always wanted. She has her father’s memory. NOT FAIR. God they can remember things.

Noah pisses me off. Give him a three word combination to trigger his favorite books and he can recite pages and pages. NOT FAIR. I can’t do that. It is one of the reasons I never tried acting. I don’t memorize like that. I don’t do verbatim.

I do connections between things that other people can’t imagine a connection between. That’s my thing.

It is a different way of thinking. It’s not better. In many ways it is frustrating and inconvenient.

Oh I envy my child’s memory. She picks up languages the way Noah does. We need to start classes soon. She wants to be able to talk to more people. I think she will succeed.

I am pretty sure I have never in my life met someone as hungry for connection as this child. Not because she wants support or attention. I’ve seen that. I know child actors. She believes she has an endless amount to share and that other people don’t have enough. She wants to give. Time, energy, help, attention, money… she’s not too particular what she gives. She just knows she has it to give and she wants to.

She has this internalized view of herself that blows me away. She has no rapacious need to acquire. If someone gives her an absolutely gorgeous present and another kid walks up and sadly says, “I wish I could have something like that” my kid will hand it off without blinking. “Oh well here then. I’m sure you will get more pleasure out of this than I will.”

Things don’t motivate her. Hugs motivate her. Connection motivates her. The option of seeing dozens of people she likes motivates her.

You have to get to know the children you have.

Strangely enough she’s also really concerned about learning how to make money. She says, “Well if I learn how to be really good at making money I can give more away.”

That is my sentiment exactly. I don’t want a bigger, fancier house. I want a small plain, easy house. I want to have more than I need so I can give it away. I don’t hoard. I do save up for a rainy day but I know that there are limits to what I’ll need and people who have real need today.

It is fascinating to me how stingy people are. They are so worried about someone not “really deserving” help that they often refuse help to anyone and everyone. That blows my mind.

If some rich asshole asks me for $5 and I hand it over I’m not hurt. Even though they might not actually need the money.

Most people who ask are sincere. I’ll keep handing over the money. Does that mean I’m used sometimes? Yeah. Oh well.

I’ll survive.

I think it is flat hilarious that I act more actually Christian than many people who loudly profess the faith. Help the unfortunate. Help the stranger. Be compassionate. Love thy neighbor and give him comfort.

Yes, I will.

I don’t do it because G-d told me to. I do it because I have been given so much help in this lifetime there is no chance for me to pay it back. I could work every day of my life and I could never pay back what I have been given. I am so very lucky.

I would not be alive if it were not for the kindness of strangers. I can hand $5 to anyone who asks.

I’m not a good person. But I am a compassionate person. I am not a nice person. I try very hard to be generous anyway.

I think that if we want to, we can all rise together. Given what I’ve seen this year, I want people to rise. Not because everyone is going to make it to a privileged first world existence. Because no one should be dying slowly and painfully in squalor. That is not necessary any more. People living like that now is a choice on the part of the people who have enough resources and who refuse to share.

That’s a real problem to me.

Today will be great. They will probably visit for 3-4 hours. Visits with families with kids rarely go longer than that. Then I get to putter organizing cupboards and drawers because I’m at that level of cleaning.

If these folks decide to decorate for Christmas we are about ready. I ain’t doing it. Fuck it.

My hands hurt. I’d rather talk to myself than decorate for Christmas. I am a nicer person that way.

I confess I do want the house decorated. It excites me. I just… need to have limits. I hurt so much.

I’m almost to the point of making more doctor appointments. Ugh. No fun.

Stupid bodies.

Maybe if I make these entries long enough the trolls will go away because I’m one of those mean people who write too much. *cross fingers*

Since so many of you went back to an entry where I talk about pot and hiding my crazy in front of people I’ll expand on that issue.

See, I don’t rewrite entries. I just… keep going.

One of the things I dislike about my writing is how much hyperbole I engage in. When I discuss things it is often hard for me to narrow down that I’ve been having a particular symptom for x weeks.

Everything (ha ha) feels like it has been happening for always. Or it has never happened, what are you talking about?

I mean that I get stuck in the extremes when it comes to talking about what is going on. Very few PTSD symptoms genuinely occur for me weekly for years and years on end. That’s just not literally true. You can more or less track the spikes in symptomatic behavior based on my journal entries. Yes, in those entries I make it sound like what is happening today has happened every day of my life. But on other entries I make it clear I’m having a different kind of day.

I dislike that aspect of my personality/writing but extreme emotional switches are one of the hallmarks of PTSD so I’m literally just behaving as if I have the diagnosis I have. But… that’s a weird shameful thing.

I’m always supposed to be pretending to be “normal”. I’m just… not. Only I am! It’s kind of weird. I don’t get it. I’m not “normal” only my experiences are like experiences other people have had so we validate one another.

My pot usage continues to go up and down and the amount of control I have does change with my dosage. If I could stop feeling ashamed I could probably get to the point of consistently dosing and just plain have more self control.

I’ve been doing more reading about the brain injury aspect of PTSD. That part is weird for me to think about because my brother Tommy had a severe traumatic brain injury after his head went through a windshield. I know some things about brain injury and managing that. Managing my own is more complicated.

Especially because I didn’t go through a windshield and abuse is one of those weird things. On one hand we know it causes permanent brain damage. On the other hand… we seldom believe people who self report these experiences so we minimize the effects of abuse and call people crazy when they accurately report what has happened to them.

I’m not as frantic as I was when I wrote the entry that so many people have come back and read in the last day. I haven’t been for a while. My anxiety was peaking for a variety of reasons.

There is a fascinating way to balance extreme exhaustion and pot and PTSD to make sure I’m really just not as punchy any more. At this moment in time if someone wanted to start a fist fight I would probably start giggling and slump to the floor already half asleep.

I wouldn’t go out into the world and do complex social managing like this. It would be incredibly dangerous for me.

But I’ll be honest and say that the extreme upside of this kind of bone numb exhaustion is my anxiety is hella less painful than normal. Thank you, body. I appreciate that.

I have a lot of other kinds of pain but I appreciate any break. Thanks, body.

Y’all trolls should find a better hobby. Garden. Decorate cakes. Let crazy bitches be crazy bitches without having to judge, ok?

Do you know what I think is funny? When people say, “I don’t care if it is illegal–it is abuse.”

You know what? Words have meanings for reasons. Well, actually it does matter if it is illegal. That is the line at which behavior requires outside intervention according to the specifically negotiated customs/expectations of a given area.

In Texas (to the best of my understanding) it is still considered jim-dandy-fine to beat children in school. It’s legal. Is it abuse? Doesn’t matter. You can’t stop a legal action.

It’s kind of like whether or not slavery was “wrong” or not. It was legal for a whole forking long time and there wasn’t much that could be done about it while it was legal.

Is how I’m treating my children abuse? Fuck if I can judge that. It’s really god damn hard for me to see. I literally can’t tell.

I know that compared to the people I know who say they were abused my kids are having a walk in the park.

Is that enough? Who the fuck gets to judge?

Well, actually a judge gets to decide. That’s the basis of having a legal system. Which means that in the end… what matters is what is currently legal whether that is right or wrong in the scope of history.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Are y’all rereading that entry because I go into the historical punishments I would have received? I’ve taken a lot of history classes. I’m very interested in how women have been controlled.

I notice that the Western world really has no stones to throw when it comes to the quality of interactions women have. Doesn’t stop the assholes from acting like they are superior. We ain’t.

When I was a child if I sassed I would have to stand there and let someone slap me until they felt they had changed my attitude sufficiently.

Are my children being abused?

Jesus-H-Roosevelt-Christ.

My daughter gets tapped on the face for the first time in her life and she bursts into tears and says, “That’s not ok. You can’t do that to me.”

Now that I’ve felt what that felt like… I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. It isn’t tempting in the same way. I really don’t like how it felt.

I didn’t feel like I was any more worthy of respect.

What is the point of addressing disrespect if you are worthy of far far less respect when you are done?

Well. I learned something from it. I learned a lot about how that doesn’t give me the boost I wanted to get from it. I didn’t “get mine back” in terms of feeling like I was still in control or the boss.

I felt like an asshole bully.

Cause, you know, I was.

I don’t really like that feeling any more. It’s not that I feel bad about having done it in the past. It is that my child is different.

Something that was interesting on the trip. We got to bounce in and out of other peoples lives and see how much time they spend at home or not. People vary so much. There is no normal.

Some people spend a lot of time and and around their house. Some people barely ever see their home while still awake. It’s all part of the variation of normal.

I’m more of a homebody with bursts of genuine wanderlust.

In the bay area it is very common for people to spend 1-3 hours/day driving. I just… don’t want it any more. So the shape of my life will be smaller. I have mixed feelings about that. It feels bad or wrong in some way.

I need interactions with other people the way I need to breathe. But at the same time… I have to stop bouncing between other peoples opinions. I need to care about the people who actually impact my life and not about the people who are outside my locus of influence.

Yes, my writing is overwhelming and intense. Given how many hundreds of hits my splash page is getting every day lately, I’m pretty sure you can tell why. Lots of people have been looking at the website but not buying the book. (If you are a cheap piece of shit you can download it for free at this point. Just look around the web.) You want the Cliff’s Notes version on why I’m so god damn weird?

There isn’t a Cliff’s Notes. You have to wade through the morass for a long time in order to understand. Those who have low reading comprehension will probably never be able to make sense of it.

And they will blame me for that fact and talk about how awful it makes me that my writing isn’t specifically designed for their consumption. Ho hum. I’m bored with that.

This ain’t a news blog. This ain’t some place looking for hits. I’m just documenting my life because that is my compulsion in this lifetime.

I let you read it because long trial and error shows me I just don’t write without an audience. I am an exhibitionist, I guess. I want to be seen in the world as a person who exists because for so many years I was invisible.

I’m not going to keep my dirty laundry in the closet ever again.

Yeah, that means I’m real upfront about the ways I’m a fuck up. If you are in denial about it while cataloging it in this way… you look kinda bad. So I have to accept responsibility.

That is actually one of my favorite things about myself. I acknowledge what I’ve done. I describe it honestly. I take responsibility. I sure like that.

 

Real life calls.

This is one of those songs for me. I like Phil Vassar. Even if he is a white man. His music… it definitely pervaded my childhood. I grew up wanting the world he described so bad I could taste it and I never had that.

These days my husband, my children and I wander around the house during the day humming this song and periodically hugging one another with a little giggle because we are so happy to be where we are doing what we are doing.

This is my first time being around happy people. This is the Golden Age of my life.

Even though there is stress in the house and the conscious need to adjust expectations and rules…

We are so happy. EC spends a lot of time talking about how she wants to find a way to grow up and find a partner who is compatible with this lifestyle because, “I already live in paradise. I just want someone to come hang out with me.”

It is really neat watching how the partner urge works with someone who has a clinical, distant understanding of sex. It’s… different.

YC is less convinced that a partner is necessary.

Today our friend and Bonus Kids have stuff that takes them out of the house till tomorrow. I’m going to enjoy the peace. I will be happy to have them come back tomorrow, but I’ll enjoy the quieter day. It will be easier to clean the house when I’m not running into seven other people (including the babysitter). It’ll only be four people.

Holy crudmonkeys we missed the baby sitter. She’s a like a cross between a mothers helper and a big sister more than a baby sitter. We rarely leave her alone with the kids. Instead, she comes over and plays with them and mediates conflicts while I’m distracted.

I feel so very lucky to have her. She is such a good influence on the kids. I have mad respect for her way with children. She was religiously home schooled and her mom ran a home day care for years. She has mad skills with kids.

She doesn’t want to do this professionally forever, but it is a great way to earn pocket money while she’s taking her first few years of college classes in lieu of high school. Works for me!

Her family is very very very conservative. I’m surprised her mom tolerates me as an influence but I’ve been very careful not to cross boundaries. I watch my language and my topic of conversation because I have no desire to make them uncomfortable. We even go to Christmas parties at their house. I can behave.

It’s kind of hilarious, really, how closeted I can be when I want to be. I’m aware that people see what they want to see based on what I choose to bring up.

One of the things I’m proudest of in my interactions with this girl is our conversations around yearly raises. I’ve pushed her really hard on this topic. “Ok it’s been about another year. We have something that is very important for you to discuss on a yearly basis for every every every year of your working life. Ahem. What do you need to bring up with your employer every year you have a job? Ahem.” Big cheesy smile. She cringes and tries to avoid it, but then she goes for it. We talk about why she should get a raise. I point out all the new responsibilities she has taken on over the year. I talk about what skills she is teaching the children. I point out how her interactions with them have broadened and deepened. Then I say, “And this hard work you are doing deserves compensation because your time and energy are worth compensation…..right?”

She kinda grins and ducks her head and whispers yes. It’s kind of funny and awkward for both of us. I rarely push her in this way. But once in a while I’m going to jump up and down and say you are not allowed to undervalue what you offer the world. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not in my presence.

People are always more complicated than you think.

Their family has taken in a teenage foster child. I told the babysitter that I 100% trust her to adequately supervise my kids around this other child who has been viciously abused. I know that she would intervene instantly and redirect and keep people safe. She was never allowed to be alone in the house with my husband when she was cat sitting and taking care of the plants.

Her family knows how to keep people safe. I have a lot of trust when it comes to them caring for my children. They are probably… more conservative with risk than I am. I’m grateful I have such an opportunity in our lives. I can’t believe we got this lucky.

Small annoyance, I’m on day 38 and I haven’t started bleeding yet. That makes it harder to control my emotions. Not sure why. The hormonal flow is really complicated. Things start getting harder around day 25 most of the time and things don’t ease up till I bleed. My emotions are just more intense and harsh.

I’m going to stop and say a prayer of gratitude that there are no suicidal impulses or feelings.

Thank you, body.

I’m trying really hard to convince myself that there is just so much I want to do and if I die no one else will care and it won’t get done.

Traveling like I did convinced much much much more strongly. My future career is incest research. I want to understand this phenomena better. I want to so very badly. I find other survivors everywhere. The fact that I have such a disturbing history means people don’t feel judged and know they are safe telling me awful stories. I won’t freak out and I won’t judge you. I will accept and believe what you tell me without collapsing or acting like you hurt me by telling me. I will act like you allowed me to make it easier for you to carry this terrible burden and I am grateful. Secrets are terrible. This is very important to me. Still. This work isn’t really enough to motivate me to stay alive until my body gives out.

But put that together with Noah and the kids and my friends and… maybe that is enough?

Yesterday I started poking one of my wonderful girlfriends about how we should consider rooms next door to one another in a nursing home if we outlive our husbands. Just think of all the trouble we could cause. Oh that would be so much fun. Hahahahahaha

I don’t want to outlive Noah. Statistically speaking it is likely. I’m the sort who needs some potential plans.

I haven’t followed all the plans I’ve made in this lifetime. But making the plan got me to the point where I didn’t need the plan. I can do that again.

I’m a future tripper. I’m not that good at living in the moment. I’m trying right now to improve at that skill. It helps that I know, when I manage to pause, that this is the Golden Age of my life. This is going to be the absolute best it gets in terms of a river of affection and love being dumped on my head. Puberty will change all this. I know.

It’s part of why we take so many pictures. I want to remember this. I want to feel these feelings in my body in memory. I want to relive this.

I want to forget the first twenty years.

I think of my life in terms of BK and AK. Before Kids. After Kids.

I feel like I was reborn with them. I got a second chance. I get to try to not be a piece of shit. I haven’t fucked up yet.

Ok, at this point I’ve fucked up. But when they were born, I’m sayin’.

Sometimes if I get started crying in the back yard and the kids come out, one or both of them will stroke my face a few times and say, “None of your mistakes with me are very big. I forgive you.” I don’t know why they do that. I never asked like that. I never asked them to forgive me. I don’t get to do that. It’s not ok.

But they know I don’t feel like I can forgive myself. I’ve done a lot to hurt people. I don’t know what I could do to believe I deserved forgiveness.

There is a giant tattoo on my back of a woman reaching into a tree. There are many banners on the tree of things she could be seeking. Love, Hope, Trust, Joy, Dreams, etc. The thing she wants is Forgiveness.

I want to forgive myself and I don’t know how.

I want to forgive myself for hurting my mother by severing our bond. I can’t. I want to forgive myself for pressing charges against my father even though I knew very well it might kill him. I can’t. I want to forgive myself for starting the fight with Tommy that got him burned and sent to live with our father so he got hit by a car. I can’t.

Slapping my daughter or pulling her hair just…

Scope.

I barely slapped my daughter. We talked about it. Even she said, “You barely hit me. It didn’t really hurt. But it was so rude and disrespectful and it made me feel so bad.”

Yes. I did that. I’m sorry. I was so wrong. You are right. I felt disrespected and I lashed out and disrespected you. It was the wrong way to handle it. It really was. I am so sorry.

I am so sorry. That was petty, stupid, and mean. It was a ridiculous thing to do.

Put it on the list of things I will probably never forgive myself for doing. I don’t need to disrespect my children. I don’t need to act like they must jump when I say jump or else.

That is not ok.

I don’t feel bad about the hair pulling. That was negotiated.

Just like how it might be a real problem if your husband spanked you and it isn’t a problem if my husband spanks me because it is negotiated. We all get our own boundaries.

I don’t like the hair pulling. I really try hard to use other methods. But we talked about it. I’m not disrespecting them. I’m not hurting them. I am annoying them. That’s so true.

I do that sometimes. I’m hella fucking annoying. Sorrynotsorry.

So are you. And I love you for it.

Weird as it sounds, I really do love them partially for being so annoying. For being so willing to assert their preferences and desires so that people must see them.

I love you. I love you for believing you have the right to want to be seen at all times. Because you are wonderful. I know. I love you.

I’m definitely a “words of affirmation” kind of girl. I will tell you in fantastic detail all the things I like about you and that I see you doing well. Yeah, I’m an asshole and I criticize too. But the positive to negative ratio is approximately 4,583:1.

I’m trying to fill my head with tapes of positive interactions. It is a conscious process.

I really really really want my children to replace my mother as my inside voice. To that end I choose how I speak to them very carefully to create the kind of environment I want to imprint on.

I really am not as harsh as I sound in writing. I have to put that intensity somewhere.

There’s an expression I heard a lot when I was a kid, “When the chips are down.” I feel a little weird about it. I’m inconsistent. I feel like there should be “some way” you are ultimately. Some really consistent core and presence.

I honestly don’t feel I have that. Because it depends on which “self” I’m currently manifesting. If I have loud tapes playing inside my head about how I am a worthless whore who deserves to die… I don’t do well under pressure. I’m nasty, mean and vicious. I treat everyone standing near me as if they are attacking me even if they are silent and neutral. It isn’t fair.

But I am like that less and less as the years go by. I have less reason to feel like that point of view is the dominant view of me in a room. I feel safe having other perceptions of myself.

Noah and the kids act like I’m a fucking rock star. That’s… different. That’s a whole different role for me with different expectations and attitudes and everything.

When I met Noah I was consciously trying to sell myself as a possible future partner. I interviewed a lot of people on a whole spectrum of gender. Noah was the only one to really leap at the chance to go do what I imagined doing with my life.

I want to have children. I want to home school them. I want to learn what appropriate means. I want to spend my life doing research. I want to travel. I want an abusive relationship with an on/off switch that I get to control. I want to only be hit or called names when I want to and not at other times. This is not out of anger but about the fact that at this point, my cunt has strong opinions.

Ahem.

I do not actually want to be degraded. I want to raise children in an egalitarian relationship so that my children do not see a model of a submissive woman and later in my life I’d really like to return to being a slave. Because I like it. Because it suits me. Because it is fun.

But not in front of my children. I’ve heard stories….

I’m not doing that in front of my children. I will never kneel quivering in front of my children.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

I’m not shaming you. We all get to have different limits.

We all come from different perspectives. Mine is strong and distinct. What I will and won’t do in front of my children is incredibly defined. It has to be. That’s how I can follow the rules and believe I am doing ok.

I have to be the kind of woman who doesn’t ask for permission, I just tell you that I’m going to be gone for 5.5 months and I’m going to spend tens of thousands of dollars. See you when we get home! Love you!

Feminism means a lot of kinds of things. It means it has to be ok for women to do lots of different things in their lives.

Noah chants, practically religiously, that 50% of everything he makes is mine to spend however I see fit.

He makes a metric fuckton of money. That’s access to some serious privilege. I could pay for a private school with my share, so I have less work to do. Bwahahahaha.

Or I could take them across the country to talk about politics, religion, culture, history, language, cultural and social mores, and let them actually see how differently people live.

I always wanted to do this.

I wanted to do this when I was 17.

Now I’ve done it. It was more glorious than I could have hoped. We had hard days. I challenge you to find someone who has gone on a serious adventure and never had really hard days.

Managing those are part of the adventure. My children have such intensely positive attitudes that they blow me away. They can recover from just about any blip in mood and say, “Clearly you need more food/water/rest. How about if you stop talking?”

It’s hilarious.

Do you know why they are this way? Because it works. Their observations about the world around them (including about my physical person) are treated seriously. I act like they are a fully fledged companion who needs some guidance sometimes. They treat me the same.

They have every intention of going to college and having careers and not spending as much time with me in the future. We aren’t fully codependent. They don’t care for me like a parent.

It’s funny watching that. I feed myself. My food needs are not their food needs. They really like eating a lot of raw vegetables. That makes me have burning diarrhea from hell. So I feed myself when we travel and they feed themselves. That’s fine. More for me.

They don’t tell me how to manage money. They don’t tell me how to regulate things.

This is all funny stuff for me to observe because I remember mothering my mother by their ages. My mom would forget coats then be freezing so by seven I often carried an extra coat of hers when we left the house. She had too much to think about and she just couldn’t… add taking care of herself. By the time I was older she got into a habit of wearing blazers because she was always cold and she wanted pockets. Also she had a job with a “dress code”. But I remember there being a period of time when I was young.

My kids don’t do that. They will observe that I’m getting cranky and I should check in with my body. But they don’t bring me food because I’m sitting in a chair staring into space listlessly. I did that. Even when I’m in pain and crying as I move because every joint feels like hot coals are dancing around inside of them… I still feed myself.

I am a nasty fucking bitch if I don’t. My body is just done with that.

It’s funny how that goes. I don’t like feeding myself. I often skipped long periods of eating before kids. It wasn’t that I was anorexic. I wasn’t. I was poor, self hating, mentally ill and sometimes I didn’t eat. It’s different. Different people manifest self harm issues in very different ways. For me the withholding of food was always about punishment. I don’t deserve to take resources from people who are better than me.

I mean, I did do “can of corn per day” diets as a teenager because people were telling me I was fat and fat and fat and fat.

I weighed 145lbs at 5’3″.

I hate people.

I did do Weight Watchers as a 20-something after I went to Disneyland Paris and my ass couldn’t fit in one of the rides. Well that sucked.

I think my highest was actually higher, but by the time I got to WW it was 208. I got down to 158. My Owner did want a more pliable bondage model. I lost the weight and lost the Owner. I was fat and happy. He didn’t like it that much. He wanted a thin, pliable young slave girl. That’s what he signed up for. I’m not very flexible emotionally.

Oh well.

I don’t think I’ll ever diet again. At this point my physical activity level is so high I literally could not have conceived of this as a child. I’m pretty god damn fit. I can take off to walk eight miles and it just isn’t a big deal. Three miles I don’t notice.

This is not something I pictured for myself.

I keep feeling this burning feeling in my chest. What I’m doing is great, I’m building my endurance but it isn’t enough. I have to get faster.

I can’t help but feel that at some point in my life my ability to run the fuck away will save my life. The stuff I like to talk about causes some really big feelings in people.

I need to get faster.

That’s going to need to be a specific thing I train for. And thankfully I’m right next to this big, beautiful hill that local people like to call a mountain. (Given what I’ve seen this year… it’s not a mountain. It’s a nice hill.)

There will always be people who disapprove of me. I have to be ok with that. I choose talking about things that are uncomfortable but important. Folks don’t like that.

It’s ok. I have to do it any way.

Why? I don’t know. We all have different things we have to do. This is just… me being the right kind of me.

I can’t be a different kind. I will always be something different. Even though we are different I am glad you are here. There might be some of your opinions I want to change… but not because I want you to go away. Because I want you to be able to see the value in more kinds of people.

I’ve met so many kinds of people. I see value in all of them. Not all of them have anything to specifically offer me. That’s ok. I’m not that important. You don’t need to have anything for me. You offer something to the world. Something it needs to have.

Thank you for being here. Even if you are an asshole. I’m an asshole. It’s nice to have company.

Ack. A kid who can fluently read is awake and reading over my shoulder. Time to stop writing.

I’m cranky. I didn’t wake up and medicate before everyone was awake. Instead I started working. In the process I found a bunch of stuff of our current roommate. Much of it is stuff I would throw away without thinking twice. But it’s not mine. So I asked. I’m not allowed to throw it away.

Today is going to be very rough for me. This is important for me to acknowledge to myself so that I don’t take it out on other people. I am a flaming asshole about my space. This is why I’ve never lived all that well with other people.

This time it isn’t just hurting my adult friend and our well established friendship. This time it would be hurting a friend who is going through some trauma and her two already challenged children.

I can’t fuck up this time.

Shit.

I haven’t yelled yet. Instead I noticed that I was about to start and I said out loud, “You know what? It’s a good time for some medication. I don’t need to take my feelings out on any one around me.”

The funny thing was most of the children in the house chorused, “Yup! It’s a great time!”

Sarah, I’m not your mom. If my children notice that a coping method makes me easier to put up with, instead of eschewing it I will embrace it.

I will decide these children are pretty fucking smart and they can notice patterns. I’m a much easier person to put up with when I am appropriately medicated with the medication I have been given by doctors. Right. I’ll get on that.

I’m not good at medicating. I don’t want to do it. I think I’m a gross dirty drug addict. Everyone around me says No. You. Aren’t. So I medicate. As my doctors want me to do.

Reality is a very difficult thing to perceive. When I’m adequately medicated do I mind that my friend has stuff when she’s staying at my house? Not one little bit. When I’m not medicated I kind of mind people having the audacity to breathe in my presence let alone have stuff that impacts me in any way.

I don’t perceive this as a rational reaction. Nor an appropriate one. Nor a nice one. But it’s the one I have. I’m trying to get better about managing it.

I’m fucking medicating, ok?

The people in this house deserve every ounce of self control I can come up with. Even if that requires medicating. That is what I have to deliver.

This morning I had one of those chats with Eldest Child that remind me I’m on the path I want to be on. She sat there and explicitly listed off all the things she really likes about her life. The list was long and detailed. At the end she said, “I like that dad teaches me about video games and I like that you teach me about white supremacy so I can do something about it.”

I swear to shiny green apples I almost threw her off of me so I could jump up and down and do a touchdown dance.

Fuck yes. This is doing exactly what I wanted it to do. She can’t unsee what she’s seen. This trip really and truly did what I wanted it to do.

I don’t care that she isn’t reading yet. She isn’t ready physically. She’s an “emergent reader”. She’s improving dramatically but she’s not fluent yet.

She has the passion that will fuel her in life. She’ll learn to read. She’ll learn to read fast because she thinks incredibly quickly and she has a genuine thirst for knowledge. She wants detailed explanations often faster than people are capable of speaking. She gets impatient.

She’ll learn to read like me. I have no fear. But I have weird anxiety because when she interacts with school age peers they are all much more fluent and she’s starting to get comments. I notice them.

Do you know how she responds, “Enh. I’ve been working on things I care about more. I’ll get to that. For now you read to me, ok?”

I almost fucking hyperventilated. Her friend blinked, shrugged, and started reading.

Oh. My. God.

I think it is funny that I feel guilty for sitting down to write. I should be working. There is so much to do. But I will work better, I will be less cranky, I will be more patient with everyone around me if I get my head together.

This is, essentially, my form of meditation. That’s part of why it is so stream of conscious and random seeming to folks who don’t know me. I put together a lot of very random pieces of my life in this writing. I make connections that allow me to be in the moment with people in a way I can’t when I’m flailing around in my emotions and reacting moment by moment.

I was completely shocked by how hard the driving was on my arms. I literally couldn’t type like this. My arms burned for months. There were days it was… really pretty sketchy. Typing like this was just out of the question. So I sent Twitter some diatribes. They are approximately 1/10 of the typing damage. It’s not that they are no damage. It is that it is harm management.

I need to hiccup my emotions into the ether. That allows me to put them down. Yeah, I know I’m weird. Duh.

I can be patient if I put my frustration here. If I acknowledge to myself that I’m feeling it and why I’m feeling it. I can say, “Oh. You would feel sad for someone else who had that frustration… but you would tell them they still have to knock their shit off and get it together.”

It’s easier to do that if I create distance from myself and my behavior. Writing it down forces me to examine it.

Part of the reason I need to never go read troll threads again is because I am constantly paranoid I am the most abusive, nightmarish monster on the planet.

Then I talk to a guy who casually tell me that his mother nailed his foot to the floor because she got sick of him running in the house.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

You know what? I’m not the worst. I’m really really not.

So if this is instead some big gray area and spectrum… oh gosh. That’s so much harder to figure out.

I mean good grief. No, I’m not the worst. I’m really really really not. It isn’t just that I don’t nail my kids feet to the floor. I don’t make a practice of hitting them and we talk about how anyone who ever hits them is someone who has lost control and it isn’t their fault and these are the steps to dealing with it. When I have fucked up (and I have) they absolutely respond as if that was a violation of their basic human rights and it stops now.

I don’t feel proud of fucking up. I feel proud of the fact that they think they are worth such vociferous defense. That’s the kind of entitlement I want them to have.

It isn’t that the people around you will be perfect. They won’t. People are a fucking mixed bag. Some of the best, brightest, most amazing people in history have also done horrifying things.

It’s complicated. I’m not perfect. I’m not even that good. But I’m not near the worst. It is hard to figure out where the boundaries are, exactly. There is no guide book. There is no way to be “perfect”.

EC asked me “Why is it hard for parents to learn how to be gentle? Why do parents hit their children?”

I said, “That is a really fantastic question. It has really deep cultural and historical roots as well as some simple psychological explanations. This is one we will come back to a lot of times before you understand it more fully. The most basic explanation is: things are changing. In the past parents thought it was ok to hit. It was more common and normal. At this point in time human beings are finding out about the problems that hitting causes and as a massive group we are trying to change a very ingrained behavior. That’s complicated. In many cases we hit because we were hit. That doesn’t make it right. But it makes it something you have to consciously choose to change. And you have to make that decision over and over and over every day for years because when you are really frustrated… you revert back to your most basic training.

Changing your basic impulses is really hard. That’s why we spend so much time working on your habits. So that for you, this won’t be a struggle. For you it will be as natural as breathing. You will be more like our friend ____. You’ve seen how she mothers, right? Your instincts are more like what her mother taught than like what my mother taught. I’m using her as a model.”

She smiled at me and told me she really appreciates me. I told her that I appreciate her. I told her that every single day she teaches me more about who I want to be and I will never ever stop being grateful for such a magnificent gift. She hugged me. She ran off to play.

Maybe this is all too much for a seven year old. I don’t really know. All I know is in life we get what we get. Some people have their house blown up by enemy insurgents. Some people are beaten and raped. Some people live in one place in safety and never ever hear about one upsetting things because they are sheltered from knowing that bad things exist in the world.

What are the limits?

I don’t know.

I’m not trying to cause PTSD in my children. I am, in full consciousness of the fact that PTSD is in some ways genetically related, trying to consciously teach them resiliency skills without having to expose them to direct trauma.

You parent the children you have. If I look at my family tree… I see a lot of very broken people. Many of these issues are genetically linked as well as being cultural and the result of generational poverty.

If you want to change things you have to have some idea of what you have. Then you can figure out what your resources will allow you to accomplish.

Everyone is different.

I am an abject failure at many parts of life. I am not in denial about this. I try not to spend too much time focusing on my failures and I get on with the parts I do better. Sometimes this makes me sound like a braggart. I’m trying to convince myself that maybe I do have something to offer.

It’s complicated.

Having my friend and her children here is providing a whole bunch of quick lessons. I apologized for starting off this morning ambushing my friend. Good grief that was stupid of me. Why in the hell did I wake up yelling about the fact that the house wasn’t already clean?

Why in the fuck do I do that?

Well, I hadn’t medicated, eaten, or given anyone a chance to wake up and help me. No fucking shit things didn’t go well.

I’m kind of ridiculous sometimes.

I’m so sorry.

But when we had a poop miss (potty training involves accidents–the parental/adult attitude is what decides if mistakes are a big deal or just part of the learning process) I was the only adult in a position to drop what I was doing and deal with bath time.

I wanted to be sitting outside medicating and writing to myself. I’m selfish like that. You know what I did?

I gave the baby a fucking bath. And I smiled. And I was super gentle. And I talked about how proud I was of her for recognizing that it was happening and running to the potty. It’s ok that she didn’t make it. She’s didn’t have one miss yesterday. She is learning. Mistakes are ok. I love you. I love you.

She beamed through the bath. Then we cuddled as we dried her off and played silly games. Then I dressed her.

Then I got to go be selfish again because the other three fucking adults in the house can handle what is going on with the four kids.

Holy crap for Crisco I like this ratio of adults. Ahhhhhhh.

We can all do work and we can all pay attention to the kids. This is like magic.

I really do better when I medicate first thing instead of getting distracted by my idiotic “Must start work” thing I do.

I need to work on that. Today didn’t need to start cranky.

You have to get yourself ready for work before you are ready to work. I’m not very good at that. I don’t want to take care of me. I want to just be a tool doing the work that kind of runs on air and impatience.

It doesn’t work very well. Shit.

I’m completely codependently handing off responsibility right this minute. I got home and told Noah and the roommate “I’m going to be an idiot for a while. I’m going to work. If you think it is a good idea for me to eat so I’m not a nasty bitch you should probably put food in front of me sometimes. No I don’t care what it is. Don’t ask me.”

They are doing splendidly.

This isn’t permanent. But the house being utter chaos is driving me completely batshit and I just have to fucking sort everything. Everything. It’s kind of insane. I do this.

They have both been kind of gently teasing me about the fact that things stayed in one place while I was gone and that was kind of novel.

Shush you.

If I didn’t know that they really like this aspect of my personality I’d worry. They are happy the mess is evaporating around them like magic without them having to do anything. Other than deal with me being stupid about self care so I get nasty. Sigh.

I’m in the house with two feeders who don’t like to clean. Surely we can make a trade.

(I ain’t complaining. That part is going great. The food is lovely. Thank you, dears.)

Switch topics.

I’ve been thinking really hard about gossip and reputations and community. I’ve been thinking about black lists and patterns and missing stairs.

Do you know who gets kicked out? The people who don’t freely offer to do enough work for people around them. People who don’t make the people around them feel better about existing.

It isn’t that the monsters get kicked out.

Often the monsters are the fucking pillars of the community and that is why they are allowed to stay no matter what they do.

It’s complicated.

Am I am abuser? Yes. I have abused people. That is absolutely, unequivocally true.

The question I need to focus more on: am I currently abusing people?

Holy fucking shit that is complex. People are so different. What they need is so different.

Figuring out if you are abusing people is partially about figuring out if you are even capable of seeing the needs you are not meeting. That’s god damn hard. How do you know what you don’t know?!

You ask for the opinions of lots and lots and lots of people who have actual reason for having an opinion.

Do you know who you don’t fucking ask?

The internet.

hahahahaha

It was fascinating traveling with my children and feeling what it is like to be far from people who know you and are accustomed to you.

Everyone in my life feels absolutely comfortable telling me I’ve crossed a line because I tell people that I need that and I welcome it and I respond positively when it happens.

Do you know why I wanted to go see the woman in Missouri? Because years ago when I was breaking up with my family she sent me a piece of artwork in conjunction with providing support online.

But I’m a gross weirdo for wanting to meet her. Even though her art is on my wall.

That feels really bad to me.

I’m going to be getting rid of the artwork. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like a yucky person for touching something that was made by someone who has so little regard for me that they would publicly shame me for wanting to be friendly.

Hey, I’ll put something I like better there. Something from someone who doesn’t despise me.

I have lots of options.

It’s ok for things to not work out with people. I acknowledge that in ways other people don’t. I can live with being  something different.

And I’ll stay in my sandbox. I will not act like a cat wandering over to shit in someone else’s sandbox and argue.

I think I need to be done with forums. I’m not trying to tell people what they should do or not do. I need to just focus on me.

That’s kind of hard.

I’ve spent… kind of a ridiculous amount of times in internet forums. At this point I’m probably busy enough that I don’t need them in the same way.

I know how to make a web that touches my real life better. I’m very happy about that. It means I am less eager to jump through hoops to prove my status to strangers.

I need to not care what you think. That is vitally important to my continued good health and success in life.

If I care about you I will fail. I won’t base my decisions on the people who are in front of me. I would be wrong.

I don’t need to live up to the demands of your culture. I need to live up to mine. That’s complicated.

I don’t think yours is wrong. I don’t think you should stop.

But it wouldn’t work for me for oceans of reasons. It isn’t your fault and it isn’t mine. It isn’t bad and it isn’t wrong.

It takes all kinds.

I’m sorry I don’t always do a good job of pointing out where I need accommodation from your culture to mine. I’m trying to learn how. It’s very very hard.

There are a bleepin lot of you.

It has been hard for me to understand the size and shape of my culture. It’s been hard for me to understand what makes it different from the people around me. That makes it really hard to explain. I’m trying. I’m learning.

How in the hell does a fish explain water?

I think it is funny that a lot of my training for this skill came from being a bdsm demo bottom. How do you explain the physical sensations that are happening right now and why you want them to happen and what is pleasurable and challenging about them and…

Skills generalize in some fascinating ways.

Do you know why we missed the poop? Because the adults have backed off on a lot of the supportive “fun” structure we had in the first few days. We are acting like she just needs to do it.

Which is a whole new level of skill. It’s a huge step up of expectation for her in terms of body awareness. Of course she will make mistakes.

That’s what people do.

If you smile and say, “Whoops! Now you know what that feels like” and you gently help them take a bath…

They want to learn. They get bloody sick of the baths.

Aversive training doesn’t need to be mean or awful.

Diapers sure were convenient. But you aren’t a baby any more, my love. It’s time to help you learn a new part of taking care of yourself. I know you don’t want to. I don’t want to either. But life is like that. We all change.

I want nine kids. Damn his vasectomy.

I would die. Bless his vasectomy.

Fuck you for bringing reality into this relationship. (I say as I talk to myself.)

I decided I should spend as much of babysitting time sitting still as I could force myself to do between bathroom breaks. I’m drinking a lot of tea cause it is damn cold out here.

But this is the only peace to be had. There’s no room at the inn. Ha.

I understand smokers so much more now.

I’m back to my noisy as heck neighborhood. It’s a busy suburb under a bunch of different airports with a railroad track right next to our house between two major freeways.

I’m home.

I don’t live in a city. I don’t want to. In cities… I don’t fit. I’m wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong.

I don’t do that much better in truly rural settings.

I’m something different.

But you know what? My neighbors like me.

I’m home.

My next door neighbor laughed when I told him about people ranting about how they don’t like those weirdos in California.

He laughed and said, “We are weird.”

This was intensely amusing to me.

Given that I am… weird.

He’s uhm yeah. He’s not much like me. Nope nope nope. He is what I would think of as the stereotype of someone who is a suburban dad because that is his dream come true. We’ve talked through some (entertaining to me) personality issues he’s had as a coach over the years. He’s a good guy. And he says stuff I absolutely yell at him for because they are not ok and I call him on that. You know what? He tells me all the time he is glad he knows me.

When I was younger I’d get really pissed off about people saying “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel.”

I absolutely fucking exploded.

Because it means, “Shut up.”

These days people say, “I really like that you don’t hold back. You tell me how you really feel.”

It’s different.

I don’t know how much it is that I am different and how much it is that my methods are different and how much it is that peoples perception of my position in life and the relative worth of my opinions has changed.

That whole fucking spectrum baffles the fucking shit out of me.

I don’t spend that much time bragging about my victories because my arms fucking hurt. I save my damage for preventing other self harm. I record my fuck ups. So I can never ever deny them. Or if I start to deny something I’ll check myself and say, “Wait. You say I did ____ when you were _____. I would have written that down. Let’s go check. Yup. I totally did that. I really did and it was completely wrong. You are right to remember it as a I time I violated your boundaries. I’m sorry. I should not have done that. I should have done _____ or _____ or ____. But I didn’t.”

And then they will get to decide how they feel about that.

I don’t want to be able to rewrite history.

Yes, it is technically possible for me to rewrite blog entries. Know how I don’t edit much? That’s part of that.

I don’t want to change the story.

I know that if I go back and edit things based on a different mood I may very well change things in ways that dramatically alter the perception of what happened.

I don’t want to do that. If I want to add more on a topic, I do that. I don’t go back and rewrite it though.

It happened. I was wrong. I am very very very very wrong sometimes.

It is not your fault. It is my fault.

I wish people didn’t have to forgive me for fucking up. I am not at that point yet. I am not sure I will ever get there.

But I sure hope the fuck ups are… something different. You know?

Am I abusing my children? Goodness I hope not. I’m told I am not. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid the people saying so don’t really know. But my children say no. I try not to pester them with asking.

I “know” I should never ever ask. I should just know. But I have to ask because I don’t know and I don’t think I am a very good judge.

I know that is an unfair burden. I should be good at judging. I’m not. I have never been good at that. People are so different.

I don’t ask them if I abuse them. I ask them if they would like to change aspects of how we are interacting or if things are working for them. “When x happens I do y and I’m not sure if that is your preference. There are a, b, or c as options if that would be more appropriate.”

And the “work” they do is mostly drawing and playing lego’s and destroying my house as they tell fantastic stories involving almost everything we own going on the floor.

They are learning how to build with what they have. They are also learning how to clean up and how to be a person who is capable of caring for themselves.

I think this is the work of their lives.

I’m ok with you having different plans for your children.

It takes all kinds.

Time to go in.

At some point in the last year or so I got tired of the word bully. I don’t think it means what people think it means. It is used in all kinds of histrionic ways that I don’t think are appropriate.

To me bullying is an extended type of interaction between people who have no ability to get away from one another. In schools, children don’t have the option of avoiding their peers. So if one kid constantly targets another kid, that’s bullying.

People I don’t know showing up out of the blue to be assholes… that’s not bullying. They are being mean. They are assholes. But they aren’t bullying me. Bullying is about specifically trying to coach a set of conditioned behavior out of someone you perceive as being less than you.

I mean, it’s pretty obvious these women think they are better than me. But I don’t have to interact with them. So it isn’t bullying.

I can choose to not go to their sandbox. I have the right to stay in my sandbox, where I am adored.

I tell you, my ten year old self wouldn’t have believed that this many people would ever like me.

I will never be universally liked. That’s ok. If I were it would mean I had no true principles.

Pam told me last night that I previously said something like “Even fucking Santa Clause isn’t universally liked. There is no chance for me.” I stick by that.

I will continue to write people letters and postcards and attempt to insert myself into their lives. Even in cunts in Missouri think I’m a gross weirdo for doing so. You know what? The vast majority of people think it’s awesome.

I’m trying to be friendly. I don’t want to take anything from you. I don’t need you to do anything for me. I want to sit down and chat for a few hours so I can learn more about the wonderful variety of people in the world. But if your response is to ignore me and go bitch on the internet, you are a cunt.

You could have returned one of the letters “return to sender” and I would have gotten the hint without you having to bring dozens of people to my sandbox to point and laugh at the freak. How in the world do you live with being yourself?

Well, you need to spend your time wandering around the internet looking for people to put down.

You know what? I’m so glad my kids didn’t meet you. You did me a huge favor. Thanks!

You know what? I am an asshole. I’m ok with that. Are you ok with the fact that you are an asshole too or are you delusional enough to think you are nice?

So of course I’m thinking of the damn Taylor Swift song.

You’re pointing out my flaws as if I don’t already see them. As if I’ve not spent years carefully cataloging them so that I can punish myself with the utmost severity for every time I screw up.

It’s kind of funny.

I think the world wants me to hate myself. I think that is the reflection the world wants to see when it looks at me. That is what I have been told to think all my life. Since long before I actually was the monster they accused me of being.

The thing is, the more I hate myself the worse I treat everyone around me.

My children deserve better than that.

My shining, joyous children. My children who teach me about everything good in the world. The children I strive to deserve every day.

I do not assume I will have a relationship with my adult children. I know that I have to earn it through decades of consistent good behavior. Or my children will leave me how I left my mother. I know how these things go.

So it doesn’t matter if people on the internet think I am abusive. It matters if my children think I am abusing them.

I check in with my kids a lot. Pretty much every day. “Am I asking too much of you? I want to push you but not break you. If I’m pushing too hard tell me to stop. I don’t know what you are capable of. Only you know.”

I have done this since I was teaching them to walk. Since I started trying to teach table manners. Everything.

I want to help you learn as much as I am capable of helping you learn so that you can go have the most wonderful life you can possibly have. I don’t want to hurt you. But I’m a rough and aggressive person and I totally could if I’m not careful. I’ll check in a lot.

We actually spend a lot of time around different people. My children interact with a lot of different personality types. They get buffers. They get all kinds of treatment from kid glove to kind of rough.

They have god damn opinions about all of it and they will tell you so in about 97 parts.

I know that my behavior is not always correct. They tell me when they have a problem with me. I know it is popular to believe that children should not ever have to tell their parents to stop. But the thing is, I’ve never met an adult who is a mind reader. Ever adult oversteps with children sometimes.

The difference is in my house the kids are allowed to say stop.

“Mom your voice is harsher than you intend. Don’t do that.”

I do not believe that I am allowed to assure myself that I am not abusing my children. I do not have that right. Not ever.

Not until they are adults and they tell me so. I am absolutely on the hook for policing my behavior every minute of every day until they are not under my control and they tell me that I did it right.

I don’t really give a shit about any one else in the worlds opinion.

And for once, I also have the self control to not go check. Just to verify that people think I am as evil as the most severe of my fears.

You know what? Those are not the tapes I want in my head any more.

There are literally already hundreds of tapes of people telling me that I am bad and worthless and I can’t do anything right.

I genuinely don’t need more in order to have a balanced picture of myself. But thank you for caring so very much about ensuring I am able to provide the highest quality care for my children that I possibly can. I know that your actions are motivated by years of training, education, and love.

Clearly.

What is “neglect”?

It is when children have explicit, clear needs and they aren’t met. That can mean so many many many many things.

I’m not going to try to get into a list.

There is the possibility, maybe even the probability that my children have needs I am not meeting. It is highly likely that there are aspects of their personhood I am 100% blind to and I am not doing what they need to help them towards their future life because it is entirely outside my scope of imagination.

Yes, I know. I tell them that. I deliberately and consciously bring them around lots and lots of kinds of people. Many kinds of learning environments. Many kinds of teachers. So they can have exposure to skills and talents I lack. So they can learn, “Hey mom. What so and so did really felt like it was scratching an itch I didn’t know I had. I need more of that.”

Ok. Let me figure out how to arrange that. I’ve never considered it before. Please give me a few days to do research and I’ll come back with a whole list of possible plans and you can tell me what will work best for you.

No, I’m not perfect. I’m a mean asshole.

I know.

I try hard not to take it out on the people around me. It isn’t their fault. I try hard to be very aware that I am angry about things that are over. It isn’t fair to bring them into today.

I shouldn’t be scared and reacting with anger because of that fear. I know.

I know.

I’m trying.

I noticed recently that my suicidality actually was far less present than average on the trip. My usual PMDD nightmare days just weren’t as big of a problem as usual. I had some bad moments. I didn’t have whole days of lying prone and crying. (I pay for babysitting so my children don’t have to deal with this. No, they do not put their life on hold for my feelings. Near as I can tell my feelings are off stage for my kids most of the time.)

My sweet Eldest Child just came and knocked on the window and waved wildly and smiled super big. Then she signed that she wants me to come inside and snuggle her.

Well god damn. That’s better than whining on the internet.

Given my childhood history I have a whole cascade of feelings when folks say I’m abusive. I experienced abuse. What my children live in is on a whole different planet. But that doesn’t mean I get to say it isn’t abuse. I don’t have the right. My perspective is really irrelevant.

The only people who have the right to say if I am abusing them or just being kinda mean sometimes… are the people I’m interacting with. And my kids feel very fucking empowered to defend their boundaries.

Yeah, I pull their hair sometimes. We’ve talked about it many times. We have brainstormed other, less obnoxious ways of getting their attention I try them for a while and they abjectly fail and I communicate my frustration and the kids say, “Ok I can see why you pull my hair. Keep it gentle.”

My kids get really fucking absorbed in things. They’ve been allowed to develop the ability to concentrate so fiercely they don’t have much awareness of what is happening around them. Especially in loud and/or crowded situations. It can be really fucking hard to get their attention. So I pinch a little hair between my index finger and my thumb. I don’t do it hard. I’m not trying to hurt nor punish them. That’s not the point.

When I’m too rough they turn around and smack my hand and say, “That was too rough. More gentle.”

So you know what… I find it kind of hard to believe that pulling their hair is going to be high on the list of things I’m going to hell over.

Frankly I’m kind of disgusted that the hens weren’t getting angry at me for slapping my daughter. Why in the hell wasn’t that brought up as far more objectionable?! Jesus you people have the weirdest god damn perspectives.

Yes. I’m mean. Yes. I’m kind of a bully sometimes. This is a well known and published fact.

And you know what? I tell my children, “I am sorry I am kind of a bully sometimes. I am trying to change the behavior I was socialized to have and it is really really hard and sometimes I fuck up. That’s because of me failing to have the control I am supposed to have and it is never because of you. You are not capable of forcing me to lose control. Only I am responsible for me losing control.”

And you know what? That’s the best I god damn have.

Yes. I am a bully sometimes. I know.

They know too. And they feel free to tell me that my tone of voice is too harsh, that my hands are too rough and that I need to be more loving because their bucket is feeling empty.

I can’t do more to prepare them for life. There will be mean bastards in the world. I’m trying to hand them as many tools for coping as I can.

Given how many times I was paddled in public school and dragged around by a whole handful of hair…

You know. I have a hard time believing that what my kids have is so god damn bad.

I’m not saying I think I’m nice. I’m not even saying I think I’m a good mother. I’m saying that (as my Eldest Child likes to tell me) generationally we are improving massively but as a family we aren’t yet where we want to be. We are working on it though.

When I walk through the door back into the house I need to shake this off. I need to act like I am a perky, happy person who can make mistakes and move on. I have to act like that because I have to model it. Right now I don’t just have my kids. I have my awesome Bonus Kids. And their mom. Frankly, it is really important to me that I nail these interactions.

Sorry I don’t live up to your standards.

I don’t need to live up to your standards.

Why did I send a break up card? I sent an acknowledgment that I will stop putting effort towards you. I don’t do slow fades. I call it like I see it. I understand that it makes me weird.

I’m really really really really happy to be weird like me instead of normal like you.

I’ll keep doing me.