My kid is trying to figure out how they want to talk about a problem they are having. I am impressed with their willingness to see many sides of this issue. “Ok, you are upset about X person doing Y. How often do you do Y? How do you want people to react when you do the thing that is upsetting you right now?”

They are taking it in and thinking seriously about what boundaries and consequences mean. Setting a boundary and having a consequence for a behavior doesn’t have to be done out of anger or spite. It doesn’t have to be done out of hate or vindictiveness. It can be part of loving the other person AND loving yourself.

“Hey, we are friends and I like you but I don’t like when you Y. I need that to change.”

That’s… such a healthy thing. People are going to be challenging to your boundaries FOREVER. That’s never going to stop. The only part that you can control is how you react to people impacting your boundaries. You can say, “When Y happens I’m going to need to go home for the day. We can try again on another day.”

It doesn’t mean you hate the person because they are doing something you have a problem with. How you feel about a person can be separate from how you feel about a behavior. How do we talk about the problem without making it sound like the PERSON is the PROBLEM? Because that’s not true. People aren’t problems. People sometimes have behavior that is a problem.

How do we train each other? How do we teach one another what we can handle and respect? It’s a process. It’s a long, complicated process. It happens one interaction at a time. How do you structure these interactions so that you make progress towards your goal of preserving a friendship plus adding boundaries?

It’s hella complicated. I’m the first person to admit I’m kind of shit at this process.

But I remember the Dear Jane lady from years ago. I “used up all of my chances” without ever knowing that I was using chances.

I don’t want to do that to other people.

It’s a complicated world. People come from a lot of cultures and backgrounds. Folks expect different behavior. The way to ensure that your boundaries are respected is to be willing to walk away if they aren’t. You have no other real recourse. Which is tricky if you need the relationship for some reason.

I am so lucky that I don’t need many people past my nuclear family at this point. It makes it a lot easier to just set boundaries.

It has really bothered me how much my recently-fired-psychiatrist was convinced that I was using a horrifically high dosage of pot and she was freaked out about what an addict I was. I hear that and think, “But I’m currently using somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of what I’ve been using for years…. Oh.”

You would have really judged me then. Oh.

The pain doctor waves his hand and says he doesn’t care how much I use. I need it. Use it. Yes, even while pregnant. Being in a lot of pain and in severe emotional distress is worse for my baby than pot in his well educated opinion. I appreciate that before he got his DO degree he was a pharmacist for years. He has strong opinions about medications. He thinks pot is the single safest option available to me.

I met with a genetic counselor. I really wish this dude was somehow a bigger part of my medical team. I thought he was so fucking nice. He asked a ton of questions and I went along with it. He started to give me the “We don’t recommend marijuana usage” spiel and I cut him off. “Let me explain why I use marijuana. Let me explain the ways I’ve tried to find a different route and let’s talk about the result of those tries.” When I was done he asked how much I take. I told him I’ve been consistent around 100mg/day for a while (although I have used more yesterday and today because my pain levels are up to 6/7 and I’m trying to not freak the fuck out about how my body feels). He scoffed and said, “Oh that’s a low dose. That’s nothing. No one should say anything to you about that.” He asked me if I used “any other recreational drugs” and I said–“I don’t use any recreational drugs while I’m pregnant” and I smiled. He visibly flinched and said, “You are right. I said that wrong.”

The differences in opinion are just…

Perspective.

I have been honest more than once and said that I’ve used recreational drugs when not pregnant but I plan my pregnancies carefully and I don’t use drugs when I’m trying to get pregnant. Err, which is accurate.

I wonder if part of why I feel like I “need” children is because these clean and sober periods are healthy for me and I don’t completely maintain them other than breeding/breast feeding. When my body is for me I treat it differently. When my body is a host… I’m a lot more careful. I care very much about making this a friendly place for my little parasites. I fucking adore my parasites. I live and breathe for them. Sometimes literally.

I don’t like me very much. But I like them a whole lot. And I like the way they look at me a whole lot. I can put up with not liking me in order to have that experience.

And I will show them a face that has been carefully schooled to show the emotion I want them to reflect instead of a face that reveals what I’m feeling. Because that is the deal. Children learn what you fucking model. If you want to see it back from your kids you have to do it and do it and do it and do it and do it even when you don’t want to.

When I was younger and a lot more ok with being a blatant bully I actively wanted my children to be afraid of me.

My kids are a little afraid of me. Not a lot. But they do see me as a person who… could lose control and they need to be prepared to back way off. I don’t feel proud of this. I feel like with helping Jenny to stop flinching around me… I have to earn that trust. I am not yet as controlled as I want to be. I’m getting way better but it’s still a work in progress.

I ask my kids if they think I will hit them when I’m angry. Their response has been some variation of, “I don’t think you will but I feel like you could.”

And that’s… you know… consistent with reality. I could. I’m bigger. I’m stronger. I’m a mean mother fucker. I was brought up in a world where shit rolls down hill. I was brought up to believe that children should be seen and not heard. I was brought up with the belief that if you cried from emotional pain you deserved to have people hit you until you were crying from real pain.

I could.

But I won’t.

Yeah. I have a raging volcano of anger and violence inside of me.

I don’t take it out on my kids.

I walk away. I take breaks. I segregate myself until I’ve got my shit together. I mean, I say some louder-than-necessary hostile sentences sometimes. Then I slap my hands over my mouth and walk away.

I don’t rant for long periods. I don’t denigrate my children. But yeah. There are times when I start absolutely screaming, “WHAT DID YOU DO? OH MY GOD!!! WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS OK??!?!?! I AM SO ANGRY WITH YOU.” That’s usually around when I slap my hands over my mouth and walk away.

It’s not perfect. But I’ve come a long way.

I’m not perfect. I am not the best mother. I’m not sure if I’m a good mother in the abstract. I think I am overall a good mother to my children.

I defend their 4th trimester with a bloody sword. My children need to learn how to regulate their bodies in an environment with practically no stress. My children need to have their needs met as close to instantly as possible in the first few months. I will wear my back all the fucking way out wearing my babies.

We don’t come from a family of people who have healthy bodies or healthy minds. We have to put effort into building habits from birth to overcome the damage done to their genetic line through trauma and abuse.

My methods are not what everyone needs to follow. I sure as shit don’t think my methods are “general parenting”. I’m doing long-term therapy. Intergenerational trauma is a real god damn thing. It leaves serious marks on people. I believe that our government should be willing to just give big fat stipends to every parent who wants to spend a year bonding with their child. That should be a financially healthy choice for every parent. Because the fate of the nation would improve. Mental health, school performance…. all of these things are impacted by attachment.

I’m not saying that kids who go to daycare at 6 weeks cannot attach or have a healthy life. That’s not my point.

Ugh.

I’m saying that there are children who do well with a village approach. There are children who do better with having a very protective primary caregiver. I’m saying that some children need a lot of scaffolding to figure out how they fit into the wider world.

Every kid is different and every kid needs different things from their parents.

I have been offering my children school for years. “Do you want to go make more friends?” They have said every time, “No. I want to be with you.”

I have to just pray I’m not wrecking their lives, right?

Because how do you know? How do you “know” that your methods will work? How do you evaluate if your traditions/culture mesh with what will be expected of your children?

I think we all just kind of pray in our own way. Or we try not to think about it at all.

My daughter keeps saying that she “knows something is true if mom tells her”. I twitch and cringe. “Oh child. My facts get out of date. I sometimes misunderstand things I hear and then tell you the wrong thing. You need to double check the stuff I say. I’m not a perfectly reliable source.”

She… can’t deal with this yet. But I’m trying to plant the seeds.

I’m trying to get better about “here’s why I think this is true.”

I can certainly cite my sources and shit. I keep thinking that I should do a master list of the educational theorists I have relied on the most and talk about what I’ve gotten from different theories. To consolidate my thinking. What the fuck is my approach?

Oh a little of this and a little of that… err, I have to get my notes to remember which name goes with which theory. I am hilariously bad with names. But I could start writing paragraphs about the theories right now. But not tonight.

Hands hurt. Too many thoughts for organized scholarship. But clearly I miss academic study. I wonder how I should focus that with the writing that I do. I read and have read a gnarly cross section of books. I could try to put together a more formal paper. Just for myself. Because I am having a hard time with how little my brain is engaged in my life lately. I mean, I’m engaging my brain. That sounds worse than I mean it. But listening to my kids tell me allllllll about their (whatever) of the moment doesn’t use that big of a chunk of my processing.

And my house spends a lot of time talking about food. That doesn’t take much thought either.

I need to have a part of my brain that is working at a much faster rate so I don’t feel cranky and impatient. I’ve been really struggling to fill this gap lately. I’m so fucking tired. I hurt so much.

I’ve used sexual/romantic relationships to fill that sort of gap in the past. It certainly makes me feel more energetic. That’s not on the table. Ok. Masturbatory writing out of shit I’ve studied. Sure. Why not. What can it hurt (beyond my arms).

I think I’m trying to convince myself that I’m allowed to be my own authority.

I consult outside myself when I need active feedback on something I can’t see from my perspective… but I’m really fucking competent at deciding what is good or bad for me. It takes me a while. *cough*

But yet I reach for these opinions in my head. I had ended my relationship with former-psychiatrist thinking, “Maybe I’ll try again some day but for fuck’s sake not while breeding.”

Noah told me he doesn’t want me to try more psych drugs. He has to clean up the mess. He’s not up for more trials. He thinks I’m going to kill myself on a med trial.

Voices in my head.

I’ve had more than one medical provider say in a smirking way, “Wow. You really know how to advocate for yourself, don’t you?” I didn’t go back to see either of them.

You think you’re cute, don’t you?

Bye.

I’m afraid of moving away from the first doctor who has been willing to talk to me. I’m scared of how expensive this shit is going to be. Oh god.

But the tests are finding a lot of low numbers that concern him. In areas that are normally elevated for pregnancy.

That’s interesting.

It’s kind of funny watching the doctor turn his head to the side and say, “You are in really great shape for someone who is… really not in good shape.” It’s such an amusing thing to try and parse in different ways. Oh the field trips my imagination goes on. La di da.

He doesn’t want to talk about exercise recommendations until after the testing is done. Because otherwise he’s pulling it out of his ass. It is… weirdly cool that a doctor can admit the polite version of “Shit I don’t know. But I’ll know after a whole bunch of work.”

Why am I awake tonight? I know why.

I am not G-d. I am not G-d. I am not G-d.

I can not save anyone. I can not help anyone other than my children, not really. And even my children I can only help to a point and then I’ll be hurting them. I’m on a timer. I can’t guarantee my children a good life. I can just promise that I will try and teach you physical skills and mannerisms that will help you to figure out being an adult. Even if being a kid is harder.

But good golly I have a hard time viewing my kids as having a harder life than average. Life isn’t an easy experience. If I tried to give them an easier experience than they are getting I’d probably be harming them in the long term.

Which isn’t to excuse bullying or anything like that. I just mean…

Oh a thing happened and that child is getting old enough to not want to be talked about in the same way and that means that when I have feelings about things I need to be vague and annoying. Hi. A child didn’t get what they wanted in a situation. Repeatedly.

Ok. Yeah. Welcome to life.

Child expected coddling. I uhhhh failed to deliver. I said, “Yup. That happens. Welcome to dealing with schools/camps/institutions. They will say what they need to say to move the herd along but they aren’t serious and they don’t care about you as an individual.”

I feel like an asshole. But that is what my experience has been as a professional educator, as a patient, as a student.

If I have 30 students in a class, I can’t hand hold through a lesson. Catch the fuck up.

It’s mean but true.You are always failing someone. Maybe you’d even be willing to handhold but the person can’t say they need it. Or can’t say how they need it and what you offer is useless.

That’s such a fantastically shitty feeling. Knowing that what you offer is… useless.

But here I go. Centering myself again. Well, this is my whine space.

I get to have my feelings here. They are ok.

I’m having a hard time with a thing I’m instinctively doing. I’m a gendering piece of shit. So in my head I keep thinking, “If I have an AMAB child… will I put him in a dress?” Because allll the baby clothes I’m getting are from little girls. I put my daughter in boy clothes when that was all the hand me downs I got for years.

I’m an asshole.

I don’t practice what I preach.

Dresses are convenient on diaper wearing babies. Why the hell not?!

You know, Franklin Roosevelt even grew up wearing dresses. I’m not declaring shit about anything about my child’s gender if they wear a dress. They are just following precedent. Or I’m weak sauce. I’m already weak sauce. This is internalized misogyny. Boy stuff is “good enough” for a girl but boys can’t have “girl” stuff? Which is also enforcing a binary opinion and haven’t I learned my fucking lesson yet?

No matter what I do I’m pushing an agenda.

Ready to flop.

I am mature enough to not get in a shouting match on a forum site when I feel like someone is being a bitch face. When someone tells me that I’m a shit mother and my kids are going to grow up to feel smothered by me… I can think that the person is a bitch face. I’m not going to call them such on the forum, I have some boundaries.

But here in the place where I put all my defensive posturing, why the hell not get into it.

Yes, I had children because I felt like I needed to. You think that means my baby was born with a job and my children will hate me for that. Well, that’s an opinion. Your opinion is worth exactly how much I paid for it.

I was not capable of treating my body like it mattered before I had children. I have learned how to eat, how to exercise in more healthy ways, I’ve done things to manage my pain, and I’ve made fantastic strides on my mental health. Because I owe it to my children. I brought them into the world and I owe them this labor.

In preparation for my need to have children I spent ten years pre-children researching child development and working with children at many levels. That never scratched the itch. I was still never part of a family. I never got to work through my issues of always feeling like I don’t belong and I should go because they were always someone else’s kids.

I need to be a parent because I have to work on boundaries. I talk to my kids about establishing boundaries towards me all the fucking time. “You don’t exist for me. You exist for yourself. You need to please yourself, not me. You are the only face you will see in the mirror every day of your life. I don’t need to approve of what you do. You need to approve of yourself.”

I’ve been offering my kids chances for more space from me for years. So far they adamantly refuse. I don’t think I’m just smothering them. I give them as much opportunity for distance and space as they will permit. But I don’t force distance. I don’t force them to go to full time care. I don’t force them to go to school. It would take forcing.

I think that as long as I have Stanford behavioral health, a pediatrician who specializes in intergenerational patterns of abuse, and a list of mental health care providers who interact with my family all saying that I’m doing well and my kids are fantastically lucky… I think bitch faces on the internet can go suck on a battery.

Do you know when I tell people that they need to change how they are parenting because their kids are having problems? WHEN I INTERACT WITH THE CHILDREN FREQUENTLY AND THE CHILDREN HAVE MAJOR PROBLEMS. What the fuck. Someone saying that they needed to have children is not the same thing as “I do not provide my children with the care they need.” It is in fact… orthogonal.

I needed to be in a role of responsibility that didn’t go away. Where I can’t fake being “ok” for 8 hours a day and go home and mutilate myself to deal with my emotions.

I needed a family. I needed a family where I can say, “We don’t hit in this family” and I can leave the room if someone gets rough with me and that’s ok. I needed to live in a family where violence is not the solution.

Lately when Future Middle Child does something less than stellar we have these chats, “Is this the kind of behavior you want to remember? Is this the kind of person you want to be?”

I tell my kids all the time that my evaluation of their behavior isn’t that important. They need to care about their evaluation of their behavior. If FMC says, “Have I been doing good at _____?” I say, “What do you think? Your evaluation is the important one.”

BUT SURE. I’M SMOTHERING THE SHIT OUT OF MY KIDS.

Maybe people optimally have all their shit together before having kids. But I had my financial shit, my relationship shit, and my housing shit pretty fucking together. No I didn’t have all my self care figured out.

ALMOST NO ONE ACTUALLY GETS ALL OF THEIR SHIT TOGETHER BEFORE HAVING KIDS. GET OFF YOUR FUCKING HIGH HORSE.

Some of us won’t have all of our shit together until decades past the breeding period. So you’re saying that unless people have their shit together in a way that you approve of they don’t deserve to have kids. Good thing your opinion isn’t worth the pixels it takes to display. You don’t get to decide if other people have kids or not.

I don’t get to decide when other people should or shouldn’t have kids and neither do you. That’d be eugenics.

I feel like my kids are glowing examples of good health. I think this partially because a whole bunch of people who spend their entire lives evaluating children tell me that they think so too.

Fuck bitch faces on the internet.

Hey, better to rant here than on a stupid forum. That just goes so bad.

I’m in a weird head space. On one hand, I feel remarkably zen. I feel peaceful and calm and even happy. But I also feel really really overwhelmed.

I feel like I can’t focus on what I’m doing or I’ll feel bad. But if I put my head down and just do it I’m fine.

Today will be kind of rough. We were invited to a party this evening. That means my kids are going to want to stay out later than I should be out. I’m not sure how I want to handle this. I see a midwife today for a check up. 11 weeks.

My therapist seemed to expect me to put her on hiatus. She was just set and explained her trailing off procedure. She’d like me to check in quarterly for a while. She specifically said she is comfortable doing this because I found a closer/more convenient therapist.

I delivered a mild smack down to the pain doctor yesterday. He tried to tell me that if only I exercised more often I would feel less pain. I said, “Yeah I don’t believe you and here’s why. I’ve already gone through the process of training for a marathon, which took me a year. It would not be healthy in any way to exercise more often. Yet I never stopped feeling pain.” He looked back at the screen and just started typing.

I’m at this point where I feel violently angry with doctors who assume they know how much you exercise by looking at you. I exercise a lot! God damnit! Just because I’m not skinny!

I’m really looking forward to book club this weekend. I can’t wait to hear what other people are getting from this book.

Of course I am also looking forward to celebrating a wonderful newly-minted-five-year-old in our life. But oh man book club. Because I’m boring.

I’m ollllllllllllld.

I think I have mentally packed for the Alaska trip approximately 30 times. I’ve memorized my packing list. Maybe if I wrote it down I would stop rehearsing it. I still haven’t tried on a pair of pants to see if they work. They are normally my extra extra fat pants. I have to wear a belt with them 95% of the time. The magic of these pants is pockets. I haven’t tried them on recently because they are heavy and it is too hot here! Why didn’t I think of this immediately! Sometimes, I’m kinda slow. But I’ll probably do it today. I don’t leave for 9 days and I might just start mother fucking packing today just because it feels like my happy place.

I emailed my friend and asked for specifics about their house. He said that they are food mellow and any type of food is welcome in the house. Phew. I can and am willing to adapt to my friends preferences in their homes out of love… but it makes my life easier if I just have to worry about my wonkiness. I’m hard to feed. I am capable of adapting to short term stints in gluten free/vegan environments… but I feel weird the whole time. My body is… out of sorts. I keep looking around for AND WHERE IS THE FOOD I WANT TO BE PUTTING IN MY MOUTH. WANT WANT WANT.

Yeah, it’s totally an addiction. I don’t think that’s a big problem.

My daughter asked me to please bring my computer so I can leave my Skype account open and she can video call me when she wants to. I… I feel like my heart wants to explode with joy. My babies do love me.

I haven’t fucked it all up yet.

I was a jerkface to Future Middle Child yesterday. Lately they have been requesting braids in the morning. No trouble. Happy to help. But then by like 11 kiddo starts unraveling the braids. Then by the time they get to their physical activity skill class in the afternoon I have to do something to get their hair back again. My hands have not been doing so hot. Re-braiding hair is pinchy work. Know how for years and years and years I’ve been ranting about pinchy work and how much I hate it? I do it once a day with a smile on my face. I can do that. I believe I owe you that. I will do it for as many years as you need help. Sure, I could braid my own damn hair by your age… but they just have no desire to learn braiding. And they want fantastically long hair. Ok, I can deal with braiding once a day.

But I’m not always nice about doing it a second time. Yesterday I was complaining and ranting about how irritating I find it that they undo the work in the middle of the day because THEN I HAVE TO REDO IT AND IT HURTS AND THAT JUST REALLY SUCKS, DUDE. I don’t feel bad about the grousing. I wasn’t picking on them and I wasn’t being mean. What I feel bad about is that at the end of the ranting, I tugged on a braid. I didn’t do it like super hard or anything… but I did it too hard. I was mean.

I have apologized. But when will I outgrow shit like this? When will I stop being mean? The ways I’m mean get smaller and more petty by the year… but that’s still shitty. That’s still mean. I don’t like it.

I’m way better with my words. And most of the time when I’m being pissy verbally I’m super duper careful to just not have my hands on someone because I do get rough.

I epically failed at the pinchy hair braiding plus rant combo. Well, epic may be the wrong word. I was a petty bitch. That’s not exactly an epic achievement.

And that’s the most physically mean I’ve been in a long time. The intervals in between fuck ups is growing. But I’m still not where I want to be.

I’m feeling calm and happy and I’m also feeling this weird piece of dissociation because I keep thinking about my mother and having this crushing feeling that I shouldn’t exist. That is what I want to work on in somatic therapy. This weight has been on me for most of my life. I can’t ever remember really feeling like I should exist.

I was born of trauma and it feels like that is all I will ever be. I will just be a source of pain for everyone who touches me.

Don’t start arguing with me. That’s not the point. This lives in my body. This isn’t a rational belief. This isn’t a “fact” I think I’ve arrived at based on a list of factors. It is how I feel. I mean, I can list the factors that contribute… but whoopie? None of those factors HAVE to cause this feeling. They just happen to be what I hang my hat on to describe pieces of the feeling I have anyway.

My mother and my mother’s mother and my mother’s mother’s mother all didn’t do a very good job of loving their children and their children all grew up damaged and broken and went on to seek out abuse in romantic relationships and within their family.

My children alone out of my entire extended family have a working vocabulary for their emotions. My children alone out of my entire extended family have a working vocabulary for how to express physical and sexual and emotional boundaries. My children alone out of my entire extended family have the glow that comes from believing you should be in the world. I know lots of other people who have it. But no one from my family other than my children.

Instead my white trash family are all mean and violent in the ways that people are when they believe that they are disposable.

My daughter says, “Generationally our family is improving a lot! I probably won’t have to fuck my kids up at all since you are barely doing it.”

My children do know when a well timed f-bomb fits.

But they do it so rarely and never when they are around other people. Their control is a marvel to me. They code switch better than me.

They like themselves.

I would like to do somatic work on how much it hurts that I don’t like myself and I don’t believe I deserve any of the good things I have. It really kind of sucks to go through life believing you deserve violence and so provoking it regularly.

Lots of cycles.

What is violence?

It occurs to me that I should look through the consignment sale and see if I can find one of those ugly huge Barbie heads where you can brush and style their hair. This kid needs to learn how to braid. I’ll do it once a day for you. But dat’s it.

When you’ve woken up 6/7 times by 1:30 in the morning… It’s not a good night. (I’m losing track of how often in my sleepless haze.) I’m in a lot of pain. Hips/back. I miiiiiiiiiiiiss massage but neither of my massage therapists will work on me during the first trimester because I’ve had two miscarriages within two weeks of massages. I’VE ALREADY BEEN PREGNANT THIS TIME LONGER THAN BOTH OF THOSE TIMES, ISN’T IT OK YET?!?!?!

Being a host for a parasite is a shitty job.

Noah and I had a really great conversation yesterday afternoon. We’ve been having a lot of good conversations lately. I feel like that’s on a noticeably good uptick after a long time of being too busy/tired to really talk. But yesterday we talked about group identity/membership. He pointed out that we’ve talked about this before. I have this longing for a group.

But I’ve walked away from every group. That was me. I haven’t been rejected from a group… not really… in longer than I can remember.

Do you know why I’ve walked away from almost every group? Rapists.

Merrie Pryanksters, Dickens Fair, Burning Man (which is a much bigger community and I probably could have found a sub-group without any rapists in it but then I’d have to avoid them all on the playa), the Leather Community, the casual sex communities I’ve been part of….

I could name 1-5 rapists who were active in each community. I just… can’t.

Which seems kind of hypocritical, don’t you think? Given that I’m a rapist married to someone who has committed rape?

Both Noah and I have talked to the people we have hurt. We admitted culpability. We asked if there was any kind of taking responsibility the people involved wanted. Ok, Noah did this partially because I told him it was not optional because the girl in question came to me. I was going to have her back no matter what.

There are ways in which I do not believe in “The Sisterhood” and there are ways I do. If a human being (man/woman/nonbinary person) comes to me and tells me that they were raped and they need my support I’m going to fucking give it. Because I wish to hell it had happened to me and I can’t change my past all I can do is make sure I behave the way I believe is honorable.

So when I feel bad about not being part of a group because each of the groups I’ve tested had more tolerance than me for people who are actively harming folks without accepting consequences….

Most of the rapists I can name are serial rapists. For most of them I know 2-5 victims. For a couple of the rapists I know just one victim and I’m willing to bet if they sat down with a mediator to talk the rapist would be genuinely horrified to hear what they were really doing. But for a lot of them… naw. They fucking know and communities protect them because “They are such fun people.”

You know what? I don’t need to be part of a group.

Naw.

I can vacation alone and not have to worry about defending my boundaries from someone who habitually disrespects boundaries.

I’m honestly not that good at keeping rapists from raping me. I have a really bad track record. I keep myself safe by keeping a lot of distance.

It’s why I have kid-centric parties these days. The boundaries are so much more clear and easy to enforce. If you are sexual in any way, get the fuck out.

It’s not that I object to sex or sexuality. It’s that policing my boundaries is haaaaaaaaaard and I suck at it. I suck in a variety of ways on a whole bunch of levels.

It isn’t just that I have a hard time getting people to hear “no”. It is that I have a hard time saying it. I don’t have a strong self protection mechanism. Not in the moment. Not when I feel pressured to “behave” and “be polite”.

This is why I surround myself with people who are ok with me kind of losing my shit. People who need me to be civilized and polite don’t want me to protect myself and I need to stay the fuck away from them. I’m not good at protecting myself in a civilized and polite way.

I can go fucking insane or I close my eyes and wait for it to be over.

I am so grateful that Noah is fairly supportive of the fact that there are boundaries I have to express in really over the top ways. He doesn’t take it personally that I have to get almost out of my mind with anger before I can say some limits. He just steps back and protects himself from the blast radius and tries to listen to the truth behind the fury. He doesn’t engage exactly when I’m angry (it isn’t that wise) but he listens. When I’m crying and empty of anger he tries to phrase back what nuggets of truth he got out of the ranting.

I know I don’t deserve a partner who is this kind and generous with me about getting to the core of what is wrong with me in any given situation.

It isn’t that he lets me rage at him all the time… we have explicit rules in our relationship about me not being allowed to do that. But there are boundaries I can’t express until I melt down and he deals with that. I can’t tell if I’m abusing him by sucking so much in this way.

I feel really pathetic knowing I’m a lot better than I used to be. That just seems… sad and kind of horrible. I honestly don’t know how I’ve managed to have any friends or relationships at all. It isn’t because I deserve them.

Does anyone get anything “because they deserve it”?

One of my lovely friends brought me piles of baby clothes. I am probably 50% or more of the way towards what I need for the first year. This is exciting. Without spending a dime. Even better.

This kid is going to be wearing a lot of dresses regardless of perceived gender. Ha. I find this funny because I only got butch/boy clothes for Eldest Child and she’s a femme little thing. All of her early dresses were either: hand-me-downs from me when I was an infant or from a grandmother.

I don’t think Noah’s mom is going to be so prolific this time. I think I’ve gotten what I’m going to get on that front. That relationship is so layered and complicated. I’ve dropped Noah’s family since the road trip. I feel like I tried for years and got such a mixed bag back and through the remodel I stopped contact most people. I’m having trouble restarting even though I feel I owe Great Grandma a letter the most. She doesn’t even know we are expecting. And I really like her.

We were going to have a lovely weekend of seeing friends. Instead we stayed home and cleaned. As in: my house is just about put back from the remodel now. Yippeeee! The next time a group of kids come over no one will have to sneer, “Your house sure is messy.”

Because after all, not being judged by ten year olds is totally what my life is about.

Future Middle Child has been trying out language to explain their experience of being in their body lately. “I was a girl then I was a boy then I realized I was neither.” I asked them if they ever actually felt like a girl or rather if they were assigned female while not having a choice about how people refer to them. They are thinking about that one. It’s really fascinating watching them internalize these questions and try to figure out what is true for them.

Both of my kids constantly hear me say, “I need to ask you a lot of questions because I’m not inside you and I don’t know who you are or what you need. Sorry if it gets annoying but this is how I can treat you appropriately.”

I have this belief that there are people in the world who can intuit these things and get it right without constant obnoxious questioning but I can’t. I don’t understand people well enough. I don’t understand my people as individuals enough to just assume. I need to ask and ask and ask and ask.

The older I get. The more I understand how little I understand people. It’s almost a charming experience.

It isn’t that I need the people in my life to be perfect or to never fuck up. Not even when it comes to rape. It is that I need to see people honestly acknowledging their fuck ups and trying to fix their fuck ups. I need to see people consciously trying to grow.

Or I’m better off hanging out by myself.

And that is why I have come so far in this life. Loneliness can hurt sometimes. But it is also a spur to keep trying to grow and improve myself. If I’m going to spend a lot of time in my company it would be nice to hate myself less.

I’ve never understood the way other people just seem to “forget” or not pay attention to their flaws. I feel choked by my flaws. I have to fix them. Or at least as much as I can.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll wind up being someone you’ll like. It’s complicated.

Oh man. I just watched To The Bone on Netflix. Keanu Reeves acts. It’s an intense movie about eating disorders. But it’s really about life and pain and finding a reason to keep trying.

Maybe I can sleep again.

I know how ridiculous it is that I spend so much time feeling sad that I don’t know how to make the friends-vacation thing work on a regular basis.

A while back a friend said something to me that has stuck with me. She was commenting on difficulties I have with my therapists. She said, “Your therapist seems to think you should treat your friends as friends but your friends are your family.”

I know too many people who vacation every year with a group of friends. It’s a thing I hear about constantly. There was a group in high school that I was almost a part of, I was invited to their group thing once, but it got really fucking awkward because my ex wasn’t very polite about me being there.

I can make it work to visit people. That often goes well. I can go see a person at their house and have that go well.

I even think that the trip to Hawaii with my girlfriends went well.

The cruise was… really challenging. Since the Bonus Family divorced me I can say that traveling with them was kind of a nightmare. The fact that they have never traveled on an airplane nor dealt with so many changes for a trip in their familial life wasn’t the problem. The fact that the adults got really angry with the children for having stress reactions was a real problem. Don’t fucking yell at and shame your kid for vomiting when they are exposed to an excess of food like they’ve never seen before. That’s not ok. I don’t give a shit that it is your birthday and you want to feel like the center of attention and everything is perfect. Kids get sick. You’re a parent. You put your big kid panties on and you cheerfully help your kid. What the fuck.

Kids are dragged along on trips. They need to be accommodated. When you know your kid has a bunch of special needs to start with… You need to pack extra patience. Period.

The Scotland trip was… mostly hard because I couldn’t sleep to save my life. That made me so fucking crazy. And Uncle Bob died the month before the trip and I was out of my mind anyway from divorcing my family. I’m surprised Scotland went as well as it did. And I’m still wearing the underwear that some friends kindly purchased for me. I think of y’all when I wear them. (All of my underwear was actively falling off because I was losing weight from stress.)

I was invited to Scotland. That was a HUGE DEAL.

Pam invited me up to Clear Lake and taught me how to water ski with her boyfriend’s family when I was 18. That was awkward but fun.

But I’m not someone who gets invited back. I wear people out. I know it is my fault.

I wish it didn’t bother me so much to hear my friend talk about the annual vacation her family takes with this large group of friends every year. They’ve been going for over ten years I think? I don’t begrudge her the trip. I’m really glad she has such a tight group of friends. I think it is fantastic that her children get to grow up with a community like that.

I will never have that. Just like I’ll never have parents. I will never be part of traditions with anyone outside of my nuclear family. I won’t have “This is what I do every year in X month” with a bunch of other people. That is not my story.

I spend so much time thanking a God I don’t believe in for the gift of my nuclear family. They are the reason I get up and face each day.

Noah is the reason I have a family. Because he decided to take a chance on me. Because Noah looked at broken, shitty me and decided that I was his best chance in this life for a happy family.

I think I’ve been doing better lately at being nice to Noah. I’m working real hard on it. Even as I feel whiny and mean.

It was hard when I started inviting people to the cruise multiple years in advance and something like six people told me no… and then went on a cruise within 3-6 months after ours.

I would have smaller feelings if I felt like an asshole inviting people to things that were simply beyond their reach. But that wasn’t it. Other friends and other timing was better.

Ok.

I don’t fit. My timing is wrong. I want the wrong things on the wrong days and other people have better timing. Ok.

I feel like I would be a happier person if I stopped looking to do things with people. I feel like my life would improve if I didn’t want to spend time with people. But I’ve failed entirely in my devious plan to be an isolated loner.

I know too many people who are wonderful. And I wish I got to do more things with them. Both locally and travel-wise. Because I think it would be fun.

I have a lot of good in my life. I have a husband who would learn how to do backflips through a fiery hoop if that was what I needed to find him entertaining. I have children who adore me and still tell their friends that they’d rather be with me all day than anyone else. I have a fucktastically cool house that is cool because *I* made it that way. I have financial security. I have a growing team of competent medical providers after years of struggle. I have a library that would make my child-self fall down and weep with envy. I have a garden I find delightful and healing. I have lots of people who love me and who give me everything they have to spare.

I don’t have a lot of genuine reason to feel sad and whiny. That sure as shit doesn’t slow me down.

I don’t even think I need the expensive shit. It isn’t just the travel.

If A had followed through on his promises to be family “no matter what” and he had shown up and down real work for Sunday Family Dinners instead of being a giant man baby who expected to be taken care of forever…

But depending on people sucks.

I could pay to go to leather events and be part of that. If I could find consistent, safe childcare. But no.

Just… no.

I can’t.

And that makes it my fault that I don’t have a group. I guess. Ok.

Most of the things I’ve ever done with people have been at my initiation. “Hey, we could do _____”. My suggestions are rarely good for other people. But people don’t counter with, “We could do ______ at this other time though.”

Ok.

Shrug.

I’ve deleted three social things off the calendar over the next few weeks. All of them involved a bunch of driving. Nope. Can’t do it.

A while ago I felt like a horrible asshole because I was visiting a buddy and I got a glimpse of her life. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack the whole time I was there because their life is intense. Her family gets a lot of shit done. They go a lot of places. They have a lot of commitments and responsibilities. I… I can’t do what they do. I’m just not that good.

My life is too much like their life right now and I’m melting.

I have four or five changes of tone/activity today including 2 hours of driving and it feels like hell.

Tomorrow only two changes of activity. But one of them interrupts my fucking bed time because the fucking martial arts belt test is now later at night because my fucking kid is now an advanced belt so we’re the last fucking test of the night.

I mean, I’m glad she’s made progress–that’s cool. BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE AT THE MARTIAL ARTS STUDIO TILL 8PM.

I’m a whiny wussy baby.

I cancelled Saturday’s fun plans. I can’t be fun right now.

The charter school told us they expect the kids to be doing a minimum of five hours a day of academics. Oh this is going to be a fun switch.

Not.

And given that Future Middle Child is decidedly not reading yet… That’s five hours a day of direct instruction. This right here… this is why I wasn’t interested in a charter before this. Fuck.

I think Eldest Child is ready. I feel this is going to be appropriate. FMC is going to flail and spend a lot of time resisting and screaming. I can’t wait.

I’ve been talking to EC. I don’t think we are going to keep looking hard for her to have a one on one therapist. There are no pressing issues in her life. There is nothing she feels she wants to work on/through. I can’t handle adding the driving plus one more thing just so she feels like she gets a captive audience. FMC needs a therapist because we are establishing a paper trail on gender identity stuff. That’s different. If EC had a reason I’d make it happen. But she’s not in distress. She’s not struggling. Nothing is bothering her.

I just can’t.

The whole family therapist is going to fall into an every 3-4 week schedule. That’s kinda sustainable. I’m going to put my main therapist on hiatus indefinitely and see the somatic person every two weeks. FMC currently sees their person every week and I think that is important as they get established but after a couple of months I’m going to ask to move to every 2-3 weeks. FMC is not in major emotional distress. They don’t have big problems that Must Be Fixed. They need someone to help them in court someday and they are going to benefit from having Enby role models who help them figure out how to grow up. That’s important but it doesn’t have to be weekly.

The pain doctor is going to be a pain in my ass as far as driving goes for a while but not forever. Long term I think he’ll be more like once a month.

I’m just in crunch “get established” times with several people at once and that’s breaking my schedule.

I am looking forward to running away from home more than I can express. I need a break. I need to only think about myself and my physical needs for a while. Over a week! I’m SO EXCITED.

Oh wait, break time. I went to pick up the big girls from the park. They wanted to come home because kids were harassing them. Including commenting on their butts. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE THAT THEY WILL COMMENT ON THE ASSES OF 9 AND 10 YEAR OLD CHILDREN.

I hate the whole world.

I’m going nutty. I’m driving out of my city almost five days a week. This is not ok for me. I’m losing my mind. I’m cancelling friend meet-ups because I cannot fucking drive. Modesto today sucked.

I mean, the trip was fine. But driving to Modesto and back sucked.

This week I have to drive to Mountain View, San Jose, Modesto, Sunnyvale, and I was going to drive down to the Santa Cruz Mountains. I just can’t. I’m about to lose my shit.

I’m having 4-6 medical appointments a week. This is not sustainable. Not when so many require lots of driving.

I’m pretty sure I’m putting my main shrink on time out indefinitely. I may not fire her in messy fashion, but I need a break from driving to Oakland.

New/Somatic shrink says they really appreciate me telling them to read my book slowly because whoa. Yeah, I know. I can’t read more than a chapter at a time because it is so distressing.

I feel like I want to be having 3-6 appointments in a week. Instead I have 14 depending on how you squint. (4 appointments are kid exercise classes so… getting 3 a week just isn’t happening.)

In random news: I’ve felt much better after puking last night. My body felt almost human today. Even in the car. It’s not like a euphoric DXM puke, but that was a good puke.

Ok, random confession: I’ve been having weird urges towards using harder drugs. I’m not going to in any way shape or form but it is interesting to me that I’m having this compulsion. I don’t remember feeling like it would be fun during previous pregnancies.

Let me reiterate that I’m a fully cognizant adult who thinks the pot I use is bad enough… but I had the impulse and I want to be honest with myself.

Like, DXM sounds fun. Because for a few hours I wouldn’t feel any pain at all and being in my body wouldn’t feel like hell. I’m not going to do it because holy tomato Batman that’s not ok. But I’m thinking it.

In this moment I don’t even hate myself for my horrible compulsions. I’m not doing anything about it. I’m just thinking about it.

I’ve been thinking about our M/s contract. The first line I stole from my friend’s contract. The first duty of the slave is to protect their mental and physical health.

I’m in a different place with that sort of thing right now than I ever have been in my whole life. I hurt myself less now. I damage myself less. I put myself in fewer toxic/abusive situations. I actively eject people who are showing red flags.

This has been a slow, gradual process. I was not ready to be told I had to put my mental and physical health first at any other point in my life. I may have pretended so with my former Owner but goodness that relationship was fucked up. It was fucked up with strangely healthy boundaries but it was still fucked up. I made a lot of choices that hurt me because I wanted to make him happy.

I’ve made a lot of choices in my marriage to Noah that hurt me because I thought it would make him happy. Changing those dynamics is hard.

This was the point of my marriage though, right? I wanted to learn how to be healthy. I wanted to learn what supportive and loving looked like. It’s still weird and different for me than it is for other people.

Other people can handle “teasing” that I can’t handle. I am too sensitive. I will flip out. Many of my friends are in marriages that… well… I’m glad it works for them because it wouldn’t work for me for five minutes.

Noah doesn’t taunt me. Noah doesn’t tease me. Noah doesn’t put me down in “jokes”.

I don’t think I am as respectful of him and that makes me feel small and ashamed. I need to stop denigrating Noah. Even in my thoughts.

He says I’m doing much better than I did for a few years. There was a peak period of me being shitty to him and this isn’t it. Even the cheating period was different.

It is hard feeling a mixture of feelings for him. I feel like he has earned love and adoration and respect. I STILL WANT TO BE FUCKING NASTY TO WHITE DUDES. This is a problem. Is it because all white men deserve it? No. Because I’m a petty fucking asshole. Because there have been just enough white men who suck that it is really hard to let my defenses down, even with someone who has been as kind as Noah has.

I told Noah that part of my asshole-shit is based around the fact that when I was a kid the only valid stories were about white boys/men. The only music that was supposed to exist was either men singing or women singing about men. Movies are supposed to tell the white male story because that’s all that matters. I am so completely oversaturated in stories about white men.

But diversifying is complicated and messy.

How do you appreciate the stories of people from other demographics without appropriating and being evil?

I don’t fucking know.

I just know that I’m bad and bad and bad and I don’t know a way to not be bad.

Somehow telling myself “But I’m getting better!” just doesn’t make me feel good about myself.