In an attempt to deal with my racing thoughts I’m going to leave this page up for the day. I’m going to try and never write more than a few sentences at a time for arm strain.

Do you know why I keep seeing the woo doctor? Because when I go in and stick my hand on the silly metal plate she comes back with, “By far the biggest thing to handle this time is emotional instability. The emotion that is coming up as dominant is alienation.” Shit. Ok fine. I’ll take the pills and drops. They do help.

I need to catch up on Mint. I’m freaking the fuck out. I feel like I try to get a handle on money and then, “Hey, wanna spend $6,000 repairing your kitchen?”

Do you know what I love about Mint? It is mostly a game I play with myself. Does whether I stay “in budget” in a certain random area really matter? No. At the end of the day the only part that matters is whether all of my bills are paid and there is still money in the bank. The distribution… isn’t ultimately that important.

I finally had that conversation with my trainer about boundaries. As I expected he spent a lot of the conversation looking like he was in pain. He was nice about it. He said thank you for telling him about my issues and he will work on treating me more appropriately. Can’t really get a better reaction. (He’s the sort to lecture me extensively about how it is Never Ok To Eat SubOptimal Food. Dude… there are days when I eat crap or I don’t eat. You are not the boss of my body. Don’t do that. You don’t know my story.)

I walked out in my back yard and I picked cauliflower and now I am turning it into soup. This feels mighty. Ok, I burned it a little. It was a very small quantity and took less time to cook than the standard recipe. It was… ok. Not amazing. Even with lots of asiago and pancetta.

Two friends said I should read this essay yesterday. It’s like my friends know me.

That’s yesterday

Man. My feelings of alienation are on turbo. I don’t know what is contributing to what.

I don’t feel like it would be smart to talk about all the alienation stuff. I feel unliked. I feel unwanted. I feel rejected. But I don’t think my feelings are based on other people’s behaviors. I’m seeing folks about as often as I’ve been seeing people for years. Only one person has clearly said “Go the fuck away” this year and that was just. No one else has divorced me. So it isn’t that these feelings are based on the actions of anyone in my life. (I’m not blaming y’all for my shit.)

All day long I’ve been telling people that I’m “having all of the emotions at once turned up to 11.” I’m sad. I’m ecstatic. I’m depressed. I’m anxious. I’m tired. I’m energetic. I’m frustrated. I’m patient. I’m laughing. I’m crying. I don’t settle into one emotion before the next one comes up. My thoughts are racing like a speeding train.

I can think about something like 70 topics in a minute.

Many of them about how I feel so weird and stupid and bad and like I don’t fit anywhere and it is my fucking fault I will never be part of a group.

I have tried for group membership over the years. I can manage to feel like I’m allowed to be in a group for a little while… then I have to leave. Often there is no real, specific conflict. I just feel restless and like I don’t belong.

This is me. I’m not blaming anyone for this. But it’s hella bad right now.

My dental hygienist thinks my teeth are in the best shape they have been in, probably in my life. She said I’m not doing my normal instant pregnancy degradation and that’s wonderful. I let the newbie dentist in the practice look in my mouth. After I warned him that I have extreme dental anxiety and I don’t know him and this is gonna be rough… he put down the pick and decided he would just look around with the mirror. I like him more already. My main dentist is a wonderful old Jewish/bear man. He’s heading in the direction of retirement. He can’t work on me forever. I have to transition.

Why do I love Jewish people so much? If I go through my personal history of people I’ve had super intense relationships… almost half of them are Jewish. Given how few people are Jewish in the scheme of things… that seems interesting to me. It’s kinda like autistics. The people I get along with best are very very frequently autistic.

I always wonder about patterns.

Speaking of autism. We saw a somatic therapist today as a family. I think this was a great idea. (Thanks L!!) They are gender nonconforming and can help YC out with stuff. They have a lot of feedback about how I live in my body and ways they can help me that other therapy models do not offer. I am really excited. We went through an autism screening and they seemed to think that yeah… that seems like you.

I freak out about a lot of things. I freak out about a lot of changes. It isn’t all trauma based. My mood swings are not just hormonal or random or cyclical. I do not have bipolar disorder. I react to stimuli. I react to things that make my body feel bad.

It’s really fascinating how my 30’s are changing how I feel about a lot of the stuff that is going on with me. I’m not “just crazy”. I’m finding people who will look at me in different ways and say, “Oh yeah that makes sense. There are ways to help you handle some of these issues so you feel more comfortable.”

NOT SO I MAKE OTHER PEOPLE MORE COMFORTABLE BY NOT HAVING EMOTIONS IN FRONT OF THEM BECAUSE FUCK EVERYONE WHO THINKS THAT IS WHAT I SHOULD BE STRIVING FOR.

I want to feel more comfortable in my body. I want to feel less out of control and scared and helpless.

So yeah. My list of diagnoses are now up to: PTSD, GAD, PMDD, autism, ADHD, Fibromyalgia, golf elbow, tennis elbow, TMJ, and IBS.

Want to know what’s fascinating to me about my growing list of labels?

I feel less like I’m wrong. Even with the extreme alienation I’m currently feeling.

Oh. That’s a common thing for people with both autism and ADHD to feel. That’s something that people like me often feel.

That’s not crazy at all.

That’s a kind of comfort to me that I don’t know how to explain. I mean, I still plan to work on making progress on the symptoms that bother me. But if I am broken I am broken in ways that have names. I am broken in ways that are understandable with effort. I am broken in ways that folks are right this fucking minute pioneering ways to help folks.

I live in a magical time.

I am so lucky.

It is hard knowing that people demonstrate love and it is irrational to doubt them but my body still doesn’t know how to process feeling loved. My body still wants to deny that I am loved. My brain? I don’t know. There are 53 god damn people on our mailing list for events. That’s not including their spouses/kids. I have absolutely no justification for believing that EVERYONE hates me. That’s utter bullshit.

Surely this is something I can hack one of these years. This can’t be a permanent unassailable attribute. This must be something I can alter. Neuroplasticity for the win.

It was lovely talking to one of the pioneers studying neurodiversity today. I feel so lucky to live where I live.

I walked 1.85 miles today. I’m trying to keep moving.

It isn’t that my friends somehow fail to display the right behaviors. Because Noah has danced backward across a tight rope to demonstrate love and…

I really struggle to feel it.

The only people who I can easily feel their love are my kids. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if that will change as they age. I’m terrified of the future. But hey, I’m stretching out the little-kids-phase as long as possible. I’m going to have a solid 20 years of little kid time because of the spacing. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that sounds overwhelming. That’s what my mom did. *shudder*

Well. We’re in it. I want this so bad I feel explosive with need. I want this child in my life. I want this child.

And god. We are talking about two more. So that there isn’t a straggler kid who feels alone and like they don’t have a buddy.

Now it’s time for bed time reading. This is going to be our life for… decades.

I’ve blocked social media on my computer so I have less temptation to stand around talking to people with my fingers all day. This is going to feel really isolating and lonely. I use the input of social media to fill a lot of bandwidth in my brain that feels like it wants people-contact. With where my arms are… that’s not sustainable through this pregnancy.

I feel really lonely again, which makes me feel guilty. I don’t have any good reason to feel lonely. I’m surrounded by people all day. People where a lot of what we talk about are chores, learning exercises, video games and comic books.

I had this moment where I realized something: Noah’s fanatical hatred of “spoilers” means we just don’t get to talk about anything he hasn’t read/seen in front of him. And now he’s around a lot.

I’m still failing to make him feel like I like him a lot. Even though I don’t really talk to anyone much any more other than him. Even though I rarely leave the house other than for medical appointments. I’m not focused and gushing about him the way I did when I was 23. So I must not care any more.

I really should learn more about programming even though it is going to cause me pain and I hate it so much it makes me cry. Because we need more to talk about. Because he believes I don’t love him if I’m not obsessed with what he is obsessed about.

I can’t focus more on video games or comics. I just can’t. I’m at my limit.

But apparently I just can’t love him enough.

I blocked facebook (I shoulder surf on Noah’s account–I know a bunch of people who are sick with cancer and facebook is how I find out about them) and twitter on my computer. My memory of pregnancy is that my arms are going to buuuuuuuuuurn like fire. No more social media.

I revamped my pill box again. I took out all of the Tylenol PMs I’ve been using in the absence of genuine sleeping pills. I pray for pregnancy exhaustion.

I’m grateful that I’ve made progress on reducing my pot usage. At this point I feel very comfortable with my level of usage. Is it perfect/ideal? No. But mental illness is rarely ideal.

I’m really thrilled about how exercise is going. We are getting regular again. We are walking many days a week. We bike at least once and often several times a week. Noah and I are trying to do some running. Summer is coming and we have season passes to the water park. It’s a 30 minute bike ride away. We have like 7 more dance classes. I have 4 more sessions with my trainer. I won’t be continuing with dance or training through the rest of the pregnancy.

My massage therapists are on hold until the second trimester. Both of them are completely paranoid about first trimester massage. Given that I miscarried twice after massages… I’m ok with this paranoia. I’ll be careful with anyone touching my ankles or lower back.

Things are going much better with home schooling. I laid down the law with the kids “It will be this way or you will go to school” and all of a sudden they are super fucking compliant. They want to be home with me really bad. That’s wonderful. But I need to not have to baby you all day long if I’m having a baby. I can’t baby big kids any more. Both kids have been showing up and doing their chores and academics with one, maybe two prompts in the morning. We have been doing really well at getting everything done by 11am. I’m excited. They want to be with me; they want to jump through the hoops I’m putting in front of them. As a former public school teacher I find this startling. They want to please me in a way I have rarely ever seen a child want to please adults. It’s surprising every day.

I am not yet to a point where I am keeping my house as clean as I want and it’s bothering me a lot. It isn’t really any one else holding up my work. I’ve been struggling with my own internal motivation. I’ve been feeling sad and withdrawn and like I don’t want to keep pursuing friendships. I feel like I should run away and start again with people who haven’t already proven that they have limits. I mean, my friends are better than I deserve. I know that. But I’m feeling really sad and like the problems I have are all my fault and I should go where people are not already sick of my stupid ass. Almost every time I’ve seen someone lately I’ve felt like I said everything wrong and I was horribly offensive and stupid and rude and judgmental and I should be silenced.

I feel so wrong. I’ve been thinking it was PMDD but now that I’m pregnant… I’m just a self hating mother fucker.

I feel like I’m failing everyone in every way.

I’m barely keeping up with my garden. I feel so weary and useless.

I’m struggling with my cat and her decline. This feels so sad.

I’m kinda freaking out about all the death right now; I feel like I am failing all of these people who need more support and I’m not providing it.

I feel guilty that I’m not supporting my neighbors more because I know they need support and I’m feeling empty.

And at the same time I feel overwhelmed with elation because I’m going to have a baby. I get to meet another little person who isn’t going to hate me and see me as useless. They won’t see me as wrong and bad in the way other people do. They wouldn’t prefer that I die.