One of the things about tracking my body obsessively…. I was looking at my Fitbit data last night. I get 4-5 hours of sleep in broken chunks most nights. I can count how many times I’ve gotten 8 hours of sleep (not consecutively…. hahahahaha) in the past 6 months on my fingers. I don’t have more data than that because I switched watch types and the old one was too bulky to wear to sleep in because it KEPT ME AWAKE. But let me tell you, the first six months of a baby and pregnancy…. not much sleep.
Why don’t I have more to give.
I track when I get my PT exercises done so that I can talk to my medical providers about my issues. I miss them more than I don’t because if I spend hours freaking out about stupid academics…. I don’t get to PT. Because I’m sitting very still trying not to be a bitch and that takes all the energy I have left.
Why don’t I have more to give.
I can look back over my calendar and track literally every phone call I’ve had with friends over the past few years or when I see people in person. Due to planning around fucking Sarah most months I spent less than 12 hours having conversations with friends that are not done through my fucked up hands on the internet. It’s part of why M & B coming for visits was so fucking euphoric for me. I got to try to relax into someone being around and try to get over the awkward as fuck hurdle. My social skills atrophy. (I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the internet conversations. I would break completely without them. But it’s different.)
Why don’t I have more to give.
I can track on Mint all the money I spent trying to get help with my kids. All the money spent to services trying to locate help. It’s harder to exactly quantify how many hours I spent writing and responding to ads only to get… nothing. My time off is almost entirely for medical care so I don’t collapse under the weight of working *literally* 19 hours every day/7 days a week.
Why don’t I have more to give.
Working that much is my fault. I get it. I chose to have another baby and the first year is a nightmare. I knew that. I chose to do a whole bunch of big projects (have older children, travel, sell our house) while having an infant.
I chose to sell our house to get away from the bay because it was killing me.
Do you know that when almost anyone says they will write to my kids or talk to my kids or spend time with my kids I now place that person in the category of “Fucking Liar” in my head? Because I have so much hostility and anger and rage about this topic. I can count the people who can say “I will talk to the kids” and I actually believe them on one hand.
Why don’t I have more to give.
A lot of my energy over the past few years was spent on looking for connection and it failed. It failed and failed and failed and failed.
Geeeeeeeez, why don’t I try harder to be niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.
I wasted my nice on believing that you would do what you say. You don’t. So here I am.
Fucking Sarah.
“When you get angry at me because of my behavior you are acting just like my mother and that’s why I don’t come around. You have Borderline Personality Disorder.” A bunch of people who are actually fucking qualified to judge that have said definitely not. I am not borderline. But they think you sure sound like a bitch and they understand why I’m mad, so ok.
I am angry with myself for trusting you. I am angry with myself for believing that anyone would want to keep such promises to me. I am angry with myself for not cutting you out of my life 15 red flags ago. I am angry with myself that I wasted a week of vacation time on you treating me like shit again. I am angry that I may never go back to Disneyland because it feels like fucking poison on my tongue.
Disneyland is about my mom and Sarah. Pretty much the two women I have loved the most and they both treat me like shit.
Why don’t I have more to give.
Noah is an amazing partner. He tries hard to give as much as he can. But he’s one person and I’m a black hole. That’s not fair. Not to him and not to me because one person will never be able to fill my bucket. My kids take from me. They don’t give much and that’s appropriate for now. Some day them taking and giving nothing back is going to be a real issue. That day is dawning over the horizon but it is not here yet. It’s still years away but I can start to see that it is coming, just barely for my oldest child. And she will never be able to be my adult friend the way that people outside the family can be. It will just be less of a one way street all the time. It’ll be like here where they set up three lanes of traffic going in the primary direction of traffic with one lane coming back the other way. They reverse this mid-day. Unless I get old enough for her to be my care taker (which I kind of doubt given my body) I don’t think it’ll ever switch to being three lanes back to me.
I am supposed to give my children all the love and support I never got as a child. Stuff I never even witnessed up close happening to other people. But I’m supposed to know how to do it because I’ve read some books.
Why don’t I have more to give.
I am doing my best. The fact that I’ve come as far as I have means that people basically expect me to be a non-traumatized person now. I’m supposed to have gotten over it. But I am having to teach myself a lot of interpersonal shit without help. Yeah I’ve paid for a lot of therapy. I’ve gotten pretty much what I am going to get from that setting. I can write scripts with the best of them.
The actual pressure of having to give like this day after day after day after day after day after day…. therapy doesn’t really prepare you for that. Therapy is an hour a week. How can you learn how to regulate this much intensity in an hour a week? I can’t. If anyone has fucking tried I have fucking tried and you can’t say I haven’t.
Why don’t I have more to give.
I give everything I have to give. But my bucket was filled with poison a long time ago. I’ve tried adding healthy shit since then, but when I get down to the bottom…
Sometimes all I have left in the bucket is the poison. And I should not be giving anymore. That is so very complicated.
The kids are almost to the end of a couple of their workbooks. When we leave Hawaii, they will each have math and one workbook left. For the love of cheesetoast, can we please get the fucking math done some year? (This is because I culled their workload before we left Fremont.)
We’ve spent the last few days talking about negative attention and positive attention and how I really want to be giving them positive attention but they are wearing me out and I don’t have any left because I am spending 3 or 4 x’s as much time on academics as we should be spending and I am wrung out by the end. I feel as bad about what is happening as they do. But, yesterday they got it done and they got to go with a friend. They even made enough extra progress that today is pretty certain too. The three people we know in Hawaii would be happy to see them daily until we leave. We allllllllllllllll need this support. Please, do your work so we can all have this. It’s not much work. It’s not too advanced. It’s not too hard. You just have to… do it.
There are good reasons I don’t have more to give. But that doesn’t stop me from giving all day every day. Even though I’m exhausted. Even though I’m tapped out. Even though my bucket was filled with poison and lies.
Is what I give always perfect or ideal? No. But I give my best every day. I have variation. Like a human being.
And yes, people do expect that I will always be good or they have the right to criticize and demand more. Even though they are not helping. Only hurting.