It isn’t really about the assholes on the internet. I’ve been on the internet for more than 20 years. I know there are assholes on the internet.

It is that the assholes are echoing my fears. The assholes are echoing what it feels like my friends have come to my house to say to my face while I have been pregnant. Twice. Two pregnancies almost a decade apart. I’m a bad mother because I am mentally ill and I’m not a good person because I don’t care more about global population issues than I care about this horrifying need to have a family.

I think that one of the meanest lies grown ups say to children is “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” I’ve been hit with sticks and stones and whips and fists and… lots of other things. Those wounds heal. Do you know what doesn’t heal? The things people say that crawl into my brain.

Also: my keyboard is not working properly since I got it back from the apple store and this is pissing me off. My W key isn’t working right. I have to hit it many times before it registers and then it shoots out several W’s in a row and this shit is seriously irritating.

All the random people in my life who have told me I’m so “great” are fighting against the words of my parents and my siblings and my friends who tell me I’m not.

It was lovely seeing Pam’s baby sister yesterday. We had a great chat. I feel like I’m kind of a wind up toy. If someone comes over and wants to see me I can turn on the fake charm and I can act like a person who is alive and functional and everything. I can seem fine. Then they leave and I feel myself wind down again until I’m staring listlessly and all I want to do is cry.

I told her about something that is coming up that I’m feeling a lot of anxiety about. She told me I could spend the day texting her or calling her for support. Yeah. That won’t happen. Even though she’s very sweet to offer. I can’t do that. I’m in that place where any amount of rejection or appropriate boundary setting or “I can’t do that” feels absolutely catastrophic. I’m not asking people for support I’m holding them hostage in my mind if they can’t do what I need. And as long as any amount of “not now” is that big and that painful inside of me I can’t ask. It isn’t fair or appropriate. It’s only ok to ask if “no” is a perfectly acceptable answer.

I used up all the “asking” I get for a long time in arranging childcare for labor support.

I’m trying to read up on why antenatal depression is such a bad thing. Ok, the disturbed sleep and lack of eating is clearly a problem. Does it really matter if I cry for several months straight? I mean really?

In 4 hours I go in for an ultrasound. Probably my last pregnancy one. Maybe forever. I’m 26 weeks pregnant today. One more week till the third trimester. This incredibly active person residing inside of me could live with a lot of medical intervention already. That’s so amazing. That would suck and be expensive so I’d rather not…. 14 more weeks is a very tractable amount of time. The white board calendar system we use shows up to 36 weeks now. That’s kinda alarming.

Ok this W problem is seriously fucking pissing me off.

The kids have been pushier than usual about asking about the crying. I tell them that it is a hard question to answer for them because it isn’t ok for adults to ask kids for emotional support, that train goes one way. But I also really don’t want to lie or keep secrets so this is tricky. I told them that I’m crying about a bunch of things. I’m crying about old stuff I really won’t explain at this point. I’m crying because my body hurts. I’m crying because I’m really not as good of a mother as I want to be and I feel really bad about that. I’m crying because my bucket is empty and I don’t know how to fill it and that’s really hard.

It was kind of a funny exchange with EC.

“You know how we are talking constantly about impulse control with you kids? You know how I’ve been yelling a lot more than usual? I’m struggling with my own impulse control and I feel really ashamed that I am failing so much right now.”

“Mom you don’t yell that much. I mean, probably more than we deserve because we are perfect, but you don’t yell that much.”

The delivery of that snottiness was so smooth.

I tickled her a lot for that one.

Perfect. Snort.

I love you. I think you are wonderful and I’m glad every day that I get to know you.

There’s a bunch of stuff I’m angsting on really hard right now and none of them feel ok to write about. So I should stop for the day. Otherwise I’ll try to be all slick and talk around these problems and I just can’t do that right now.