Not having pot is going to be the hardest part of traveling. I use it for so many reasons. It’s an antidepressant, anti-anxiety, appetite stimulant, pain reliever, and it helps with my ADHD symptoms. Pot is the best thing ever.

I haven’t screamed in over a week. I feel pathetic for that being an accomplishment… but I have been an asshole for the last couple of years (OF LIVING IN THE “PERFECT” BAY AREA) and I’m trying to get that under control.

I had separate time with all three kids yesterday. An hour or two of just playing with each kid one on one. That was really nice. I don’t manage that balance very often. I asked EC if she got to change one thing about our life what it would be: she said me yelling. Otherwise she thinks our life is basically perfect for her.

I have finally figured out parental controls on their computers (it is hard to get around to all the things I “should” do) so that I can stop nagging about timers and them not respecting timers and limitations. Now their computers shut off when they are out of time. If I can convince Noah to stop logging them in on his half of the partition this will work out. Noah hates being the heavy even more than I do. That’s not the best part of our parenting dynamic.

Throwing away the workbooks was the right choice. Both kids are writing a lot. They are rushing through books with glee. They have been doing more cooking because we have a math based recipe book and they are really excited about math not being “sit and do variations on the same type of problem for 2 hours”.

Thank you for the chat about unschooling and math, Mr M. I needed all of the information you gave.

We watched Saving Mr. Banks together in the morning and that lead to some really interesting conversations about loyalty and imagination and coping and control. I have to worry about my daughter burying herself in loyalty. My son is trying to figure out how he can have as much control over himself as he wants so he only treats people how he believes is right. It’s wonderful hearing him say, “How can I make sure I never do _____?” Well, wanting to avoid crossing boundaries is the first step. Let’s talk about how to practice with small boundaries in your every day life so that the habit of noticing other peoples’ boundaries is so ingrained that you don’t cross bigger boundaries. He takes it very seriously.

I am a lot better at helping them with interpersonal skills than I am about enforcing an elementary school curriculum. I hated teaching in elementary schools so… that’s not that big of a surprise.

But my kids are writing me emails and I respond with lists of questions for them to expand on and they are really good at that dynamic. Writing isn’t hard. Doing stupid worksheets is hard. Doing math as a grind on boring shit is hard. Will we probably miss some steps? Yes.

I missed so many pieces of school because every district taught things at different speeds. I don’t think I have it in me to be pleasant and gentle as I force them through every stupid step. That sorta makes me feel like I shouldn’t be home schooling and I also feel like school is stupid and pointless a lot of the time so them not having to do it is… better in the long run.

I don’t know. We had a really good day of interacting.

I have had to deal with depression since I was a little kid. I think I was first officially diagnosed with depression 30 years ago. Grief hits me hard. It is hard not feeling like my brain having these patterns is my fault and a sign of my moral weakness. If I tried harder I could be a better, less mentally ill, mother. WITHOUT THE ONLY EFFECTIVE MEDICATION I’VE EVER FOUND, DAMNIT.

But that is one of those lies we tell ourselves and each other. You can’t will yourself out of mental illness.

I know I sound like an absolute asshole when I say that I need to assume that people who say “Oh I’ll do _______ with the kids” is a liar. I’m not saying that because I will be mean to people when they make claims like that. I’ll try to smile and nod. But I need to not believe it. Because when I believe it I develop expectations, then I am disappointed. The people who have relationships with my kids didn’t tell me that they were going to… they just did it. They established their own lines of contact and they talk to the kids as it suits them and the kids. There are people who do that. Then there are the people who tell me that they will… but they don’t.

I’m not trying to recognize these patterns to be mean. I am trying to stop over reacting and feel like I hate my friends. My friends are my friends and they are not obligated to be friends with my kids.

Being diagnosed as autistic makes me feel more kindness towards myself on trying to compartmentalize. Black and white thinking is my natural territory. Trying to figure out where other people are telling social lies to make themselves feel better about themselves is hard. Most people do it. I probably do it sometimes too and I gloss right past my own deficiencies.

I am ridiculously, painfully literal. I always have been and that character trait is not going to go away. Trying to learn how to not get freaked out when other people are not literal is hard. I have to put effort into it because other people are rarely literal.

There have been well over 100 entries in my address book. I need to cull people from my mental roster of “important people” because most of those people don’t reach back much. I put in the effort of carrying the relationship and it’s too much. And that means I spend time analyzing our interactions to see who is worth my time. If that is the same thing as scanning for betrayal…. ok?

I have to be kind of mercenary about this. There is only so much time in the day and I can’t carry friendships with people who don’t treat me very well. They drain me. They contribute to my dysregulation. But I don’t like ending relationships. I tend to have “I will give and give and give because I don’t want to lose you” extinguish bursts with people before the relationship ends. It isn’t healthy and I know that if I want to be more stable in the future I need to do less of this.

I need to stop trying to buy peoples love. But given that my mother stole all the money I earned when I was a teenager and my brother asked me for thousands of dollars the minute I turned 18 and my sister asked me to buy her a house and…

It’s not a big surprise that I end up in that dynamic. But I need to stop. It contributes to my general feelings of worthlessness. It makes me feel like if that is all people want me for I should kill myself. I am not interested in being someones friend if they primarily view me as an ATM.

The thing is… once people notice that you have a boundary weakness they will poke at it. If someone has fallen into that habit… I need to fire them from my life because I won’t be able to get them to stop in a healthy way.

And there is a big difference between someone pushing through a boundary weakness and accidentally triggering me.

The folks who only want to see me if I spend hundreds of dollars on them getting what they want? That’s pushing through a boundary weakness. Mentioning that someone could call CPS on me? That’s accidentally triggering me.

I do understand the difference. But when my central nervous system is exploding with panic and fear… it takes days or weeks or sometimes months to calm down. Because these kinds of triggers always seem to come packaged with something else going wrong and then my reaction to the trigger is 2 or 10 or 100 times bigger than it would be if it happened at a time when I was doing ok. That does not make someone evil for stepping near a trigger, not at all.

All I can say about that is that trauma therapists are impressed I can calm down at all. The last therapist I worked with, a somatic therapist, spent our last few sessions working with me while I had my baby present. They were constantly commenting on how my emotional dysregulation is clearly not causing sheer physical panic because my baby would pick up on that and she is… super placid and happy. That’s not supposed to work like that. Babies respond to the “vibes” of the adults around them. My baby acts like she lives with fully regulated people.

I am the best faker, ever.

Given how much calm I must present to my children sometimes I have none to give my friends and waaaaaaaaaaaaaay less to give to my blog. So I write in hyperbole and extremes and fury. If you take that personally, maybe this isn’t healthy for you to read. These are my thoughts. My thoughts are not the same thing as my actions. If you want me to feel bad about my thoughts then we shouldn’t be friends because you are not a healthy person for me to have in my life.

There is a reason I don’t go write these thoughts in chat rooms or send them as comments to other peoples sand boxes. That would be cruel. That would be actively seeking people out to hurt them. I don’t do that.

But sometimes I freak the fuck out in my journal and I write all the extremes of my thoughts so I can process them. You don’t have to be part of this roller coaster. I can’t get off it. If I don’t write these things down my behavior is dramatically worse and that’s not ok.

I stopped feeling like I could write about how Sarah was treating me. Instead I screamed at my kids.

I’m sorry, none of you are worth that. I am sorry I tried to let Sarah’s feelings be that much more important than mine or my children’s feelings. That was the wrong fucking priority. If she feels “publicly humiliated” by me talking about how she treats me, I can end the relationship or she can change how she fucking treats me. I only have control over one of those options.

People triggering me are not in that camp. That’s differently complicated.

Sigh.

I should schedule some video chats with folks for later this week. There are people in this world who love me and want to see me and talk to me. I shouldn’t focus on the people who don’t show up.