Getting off Twitter and being off facebook means that I’ve been… hanging out in parenting forums. Where are my pregnant people at?
I hate pregnancy forums. Very full of “If you need to ask for help you are an incompetent, rude loser who shouldn’t have had kids.” But those same assholes usually have a mother who comes over and offers help and that isn’t rude at all.
I HATE YOU SO MUCH.
“If you don’t have someone in your life who perceives your needs and who volunteers spontaneously to meet them you are an incompetent loser who does not deserve anything.”
READING THIS SHIT IS SUCH A BAD IDEA.
I’m mentioning disability issues (mental and physical) and limits of not-having family. You fuckers don’t get to win this topic without a god damn argument.
I need a better hobby.
But I feel really lonely. I can direct my kids through work. Or I can listen to Noah talk about his work. Or anyone in the house will tell me more than I ever wanted to hear about video games and comics.
I feel really lonely.
I know I’m talking to friends on Skype more and that does help. But I still feel lonely. This is such a big feeling. Really I’m back to seeing people a fair bit. I see a whooooooole bunch of people… a little.
I can’t ever look for the enmeshed thing with a friend again and that is what hurts. Bonus Mama was my last try this lifetime.
People can handle me for a few hours a year. Sometimes a few hours a month. Almost no one wants to spend multiple hours with me in a week unless they live with me full time. I’m too annoying.
I spend all of my time with people consciously trying to not be too much. Don’t say too much. Don’t ask for too much. Don’t be too much.
Pam and Sarah and Noah can handle full unbridled Krissy. But Pam needs huge breaks. Sarah needs huge breaks. Noah’s fortitude is shocking. Noah can handle me, but Noah isn’t interested in the vast majority of things that interest me. He will tolerate me having huge thoughts and feelings… but he isn’t… there with me if that makes sense. He’s an observer.
I feel like almost everyone else starts pulling away from overwhelm after a few hours. It’s visible.
I’m not mad at anyone. This is my fault. But it’s hard. I feel so bad that I am like this. That I can’t be someone that makes people feel comfortable and at ease and like being around me is soothing.
Instead I am dysregulated and I make other people feel dysregulated and they need to get away from that. I’m not angry at people for it. That’s a good choice. But I feel sad. I feel lonely. I feel like *I* am wrong.
Why do I want to stay in the bay area? For my social life? Oh that’s so messy.
The bay area is littered with social groups where I feel like I don’t belong and I shouldn’t show up because I offend people. There can be one person in the group I had a slightly rude look from 15 years ago and I won’t come back. Avoidance is strong with this one. Or so many reasons.
I’ll never work Dickens again because I don’t want to run into my rapist. I avoid a lot of dance stuff for a lot of reasons. There are chunks of the bdsm community that are closed to me because they cater to rapists or racists.
I feel inferior. I feel like I don’t belong. I feel like other people are better than me and I shouldn’t inflict my presence on people. I feel like the only place I belong is my house and the best thing to do would be to collapse the fucker on my head.
I am struggling with having people “In Authoreteh” give me pats on the head saying I’m doing things “right”. Stanford, CPS, and multiple therapists are all on deck telling me that I’m handling problems as well as they can be handled. I AM doing the hard work. I am saying the things that need to be said. And I still feel like they all just misunderstand and I’m an incompetent loser who is ruining everything and I’m bad and I’m bad and I’m bad.
There is no possible chance on this fucking earth that I am doing the right things as a mother.
I am too globally wrong to be doing anything right.
I think it’s funny that I have to find stupid judgmental strangers on the internet to validate that I’m entirely wrong and bad because I can’t find people who know me or who have professional experience evaluating families to tell me I’m wrong and bad. I really am ridiculous.
If I were perfect I wouldn’t spend so much time crying because I’m a piece of shit.
I got 5.5 hours of sleep last night. It’s funny how it hurts. My body says, “YES! LIKE THAT!! MORE!!” but how much you want to bet I’ll get 3 hours the next night?
Apparently it is the height of being rude to ask people for help after you have a baby. If people offer you should mostly turn them down because if you choose to have a baby YOU DESERVE TO DO EVERYTHING FOR YOURSELF OR YOU ARE BAD AND LAZY. The internet is happy to validate that I suck. Cause I ask for help.
Krissy. You need a healthier hobby.
idk, I tend towards self-sufficiency but I see it as a cultural norm.
I see it as the most broken part of our culture.
I really, really relate to the bits about loneliness and withdrawing from social groups.
One of the harder parts of living in the Bay for me, socially, is how far apart everything is. Social sprawl that mirrors architectural sprawl.
But one of the harder parts of living in a smaller city like I did was if you burned bridges in one social group….there weren’t other options.
I dream of living somewhere where I can trade plants and food with my neighbors, with enough space to host play parties if I want, where I can have a vibrant social life and solid medical care even if I don’t own a car. I want to have fruit trees and a garden and space for my dog to run, and to be able to see shows and meet strangers within a 30 min radius or so. I don’t know where that is.
I think about your house a lot. What do happy healthy homes and societies look like? How do we build that?
I went to San Pablo to socialize today. I feel half dead. 🙁
For my first child it was all reading, birthing classes, and my midwife. There was no internet. For my second child I mostly hung out in ivf forums, where they truly, deeply understood what it all meant. What I was going through and how high my anxiety was.
All I’ve ever heard is that one should ask for help, one should try not to overwhelm oneself. LET people help you. I rarely let anyone help me, but when I’m pregnant (autocorrect wanted Pegasus there!! Now I want to be PEGASUS.) I’m more open to new and deeper friendship connections during pregnancy and the first couple years afterwards. With my first child I made a lifetime friend, Ramona. Our eldest daughter’s grew up together and are still friends, at thirty! With my second child I gained another wonderful friend, Dawn. You may never met these people, but I think you’d like them. 🙂 It’s generally not easy for me to risk rejection enough to get that close to someone. The stress and hormones of pregnancy and nursing really opens me up. You?
My favorite thing about you is your drive to do right, as a person and as a parent. You work harder at it than 6 other people put together! You may not always succeed, but you turn your failures into teaching moments and Move On. I just wish it didn’t come from a place of self-torment. But I do get it. I’m similar…, I excel at guilt and shame and I try All the time to be an ethical and honorable person, even as I hate most people many days. When I took neurontin I learned that it’s the guilt and shame induced anxiety that makes me try so hard and care so much. I was happier and more relaxed on neurontin, but I wasn’t nearly as good a person. Apparently I Need fierce and self excoriating motivation to stay on the right path. Actually, we’re probably quite similar there, but you’re hyper and I’m not, so you have more energy to put into your internal self-abuse.
I didn’t make any new friends when I was pregnant with EC. I met the Bonus Family when I was pregnant with Future Middle Child. That’s… complicated. 🙁