I’m not physically sick but I feel like I got hit by a mac truck of exhaustion. Getting some rest is making me feel worse about how much lack of rest I’ve had for a long time.

A bunch of little things are disappointing. Having my screen die the way it did means I might have lost 15 years of digital pictures. I paid for cloud storage. Nothing is on it pre 2016. I lost the road trip. I lost my whole life before then.

I really need the mental health support weekend I thought I was going to happen again this year. Last year was excellent. But the person who insisted she wanted to organize… hasn’t organized anything and she can’t afford to go so I think she is not feeling motivated to get it done. I could potentially buy last minute plane tickets but I don’t think she understands that if you try to book a big house for a whole bunch of people… that takes a bunch of lead time. And this time we are trying to go during a school vacation when everyone else will be on summer break so vacation rentals will be booked up. I think it is going to fall through and I’m feeling super sad. Not to mention that being the one to do the research and figure out where we are going means you need to be able to drop a bunch of money on the deposit and… she can’t afford even her own share let alone floating everyone else’s share until folks pay you back. I am not mad at her. But I feel really sad.

When I express frustration with my kids not following through on the routine tasks that have been in their lives for years someone always always ALWAYS asks if I have tried making lists for them and then I want to break ALL OF THE THINGS. Yes. I write lists for them. They copy the lists. We go through verbal reminders. Then…. they sit and stare at the wall until I say, “What’s next? Check your list. What’s next? Check your list. What’s next? Check your list.” Then by the time I get them through all of the things (WHICH HAVEN’T CHANGED SINCE YESTERDAY OR THE DAY BEFORE OR THE DAY BEFORE OR THE DAY BEFORE THAT) they are all “So how are we going to have fun together now?

And I’m fucking exhausted and frustrated and I want to go in a dark room and cry by myself and NOT FUCKING ENTERTAIN YOU.

Most of the time I suck it up and find something entertaining/bonding/fun to do because I feel like it is my job. But then sometimes (like now) I feel dead inside. I’m fucking rocking the baby to sleep as I type this. Because I am doing something for my children nearly 24 hours a day. (I have talented feet. Thank god this baby will go to sleep in a stroller with rocking.)

I have a growing number of emails to respond to and I feel sheer panic at the idea of trying to respond in upbeat, friendly, supportive ways.

I canceled my online therapy plan because I wrote as much to her as I write here and she would respond with a couple of sentences a couple of times per week. I get more response from my friends. My friends say more helpful things. Why am I paying $200/month for this? Maybe if I didn’t already blog it would be more useful but it really isn’t helpful for me to have that little back from a therapist.

It drives me nuts that I clean up from meals and the kids come back for seconds and make a big mess and expect the fucking fairies to show up and re-tidy the kitchen.

Getting a little bit of a break always feels like it hurts more than it helps. Because it doesn’t undo the damage I have done to myself with overwork and it just reminds me that I need so so so so so so so much more and I can’t have it.

I keep telling myself that it has gotten much less stressful every time a kid hits 18 months old. Only 3 months to go.

I keep thinking, “It would be better if I cut.” Because the very best thing I can do with feeling shitty is to make sure my feelings don’t impact anyone around me. I’m drinking more alcohol than I wish I would (about a shot, occasionally two) in a day because otherwise I will be hitting the Ativan more than is healthy for me because I need some kind of sedative and I keep thinking “It would be better if I cut.” And that makes me feel really bad about myself.

I was googling last night wondering “Is it bad for your kids if you pretend to be happy” and loosely paraphrased the responses I got were “Yes that is bad. So you should use your drive home from work to decompress so you aren’t faking it. You need to be actually happy.” and “No it’s great to pretend to be happy because fake it till you make it! Smiling even when you aren’t happy encourages your body to produce hormones that will make you feel happy even when you aren’t!”

It would be better if I cut.

I have yelled a couple of times since we got to Scotland but only a couple. And not in a few days.

I’m still doing better than I have done in California in years. I fucking hate that Mother’s Day is coming up because I always remind Noah to think about his mother and I always feel like a flaming pile of dogshit that I am not going to do anything for my mother so I don’t deserve to have anything done for me.

I am going out on a date with Jenny on Sunday. It isn’t Mother’s Day in this country anyway.

I have this terrible resentment that people will try to talk about how horrible family estrangement is for them but then you ask them more questions and it turns out they talk to their mother every week or their father lends them money every time they have a problem or their step mother comes over and spends whole weekends cleaning their filthy, disgusting house because it is just “Too hard for them to manage alone”.

And I want to put my head through a window. That’s your idea of estrangement? I haven’t spoken to my mother in eight years. I probably never will again. If I did she would ask me for money and to do things for her in the first five minutes.

It would be better if I cut.

It’s not even that I object to giving people money! It’s that she would combine it with telling me how stupid, ugly, and worthless I am. I am a failure. Now why don’t I pay for all of her needs?

Why don’t I just cut? It would be better.

Why don’t I get up and do more work for people. Why don’t I cough up more money to support people. Why don’t I just kill myself and leave a detailed will so that everyone who is better than me can have access to the only part of me they want?

Jenny has never asked me for money. And I will see her tomorrow and again on Sunday.

But I need to keep my shit together. I need to not be a problem. Or I will lose her too. Like I lost Sarah because I could not pretend well enough that whatever I got was good enough.

At least Jenny doesn’t ask me to fund her vacations while she hides and refuses to talk to me.

I feel really bad about myself.

Just keep moving. Keep pretending you are happy. Don’t let your problems make trouble for anyone else. This isn’t Burkina Faso and no one thinks your problems are problems for the community.

If you get upset again someone else will tell you that you have Borderline and you need to shut up.