When I was a high school teacher I had a phrase written above the top of my white board. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” The kids thought I did that to inspire them and they were only partly right. Mostly I wanted to remind myself that no one in that room had previous knowledge of me. I was allowed to reinvent myself over and over to fit any shape I needed to fit.

When you grow up in an incestuous family you know there is something wrong with you, with your whole family, by the time you are in high school. You know that people aren’t going to react to you the

After a bit more examination the shed construction will require pieces I don’t have and I should have help. The manual and the website say over and over not to try it alone. Ok. I’ll listen for once.

Hm. What to do with today then?

If you think that having a child will end your loneliness.. unfortunately not so much. You spend a lot of time alone in your head. You spend a lot of time not being able to do anything for yourself but you can’t go anywhere. I watched the movie “17 girls” this morning.

My run today was a sob fest. I cried and cried. I spent the time saying the names of every person I have ever known who has died. I said the names of every member of my blood line I know.

The Amanda Palmer song The Thing About Things is crawling into my head.

I was asked a whole bunch of questions else-net. I will put the answer in both places because I think that this person is not the only one who will want this information from me in the future. First and foremost: whereas my experience has been broad I am just one person. Your personal experiences are going to be different from mine in ways I cannot predict in advance. Take everything I say as very gentle guidance and not as an order. I am not the boss of you. Even though I speak in absolutes and I am a HUGE bossypants. How do you find people? Well I started on the internet because I am a lucky duck and I came of age in that era. I went to www.bondage.com, www.alt.com, www.match.com (ironically where I met my first “online dom”–that’s a lame story if ever there was one), and IRC. I was pre-www.fetlife.com. I don’t actually recommend fetlife as a good place to meet people. Go to munches. (Yes, I know people in NJ. Let me get in touch with people and I’ll see what I can find out about your area.) When you go to munches go with the expectation that most people will be really old, very over weight and fairly ugly. Of course that will not be even remotely true of a lot of people you meet. But if you go with that expectation then you will be prepared for the reality of the bdsm community. We are not the beautiful people. But we are real people. We are creepy sometimes. We are overly intense. People who find there way to the bdsm community have almost certainly spent a lot of their lives feeling rejected, wrong, and disliked. Not everyone but a large chunk. Go expecting to be your own entertainment when you get to a munch. Getting to know people sucks. It’s awkward and stiff and terror inducing. These are perverts. Many of these people would cheerfully tie you up and beat you until you scream bloody murder. The good ones will only do so if you say “Pretty pretty please with a cherry on top.” There will be predators around though. You will have to keep you safe. That is one of the hardest parts of coming into the bdsm community as someone with significant mental health issues. Trust. Bdsm is ALL about trust. The physical sensations are nice and all but really what we are playing with is power. The sadomasochists are going to string me up from a tree. I’m not talking about Dominance/submission. Not all people are into specific power differentiated roles. You don’t have to be either. Maybe you are just into the physical sensations. But I tell you that it feels different to be hit by a friend you love and trust than by someone who doesn’t like you very much. That trust and power bit are very important. If you are officially diagnosed with mental health problems I can guess that you have a hard time picking people who are really safe to be around. I may not be right but I probably am. When you have mental health problems your perceptions of the world are always a bit at an odd angle. It is hard to develop the conscious ability to be rational in judging whether someone is safe or not. You can’t necessarily go by the clues other people tell you to use. For one thing the most important book you will ever read is The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. When you have that small icki uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach get away from that person and that activity. That doesn’t mean that a creepy guy at the munch means you never come back to the munch. But if you feel chased off by someone creepy (could be a woman or a person of non-binary gender) then the right choice is to network online and find a buddy for the next munch. You still should go meet people. Munches aren’t for everyone. I have also had great luck hunting for partners on www.okcupid.com. Ostensibly it is a “vanilla” site but yeah right. If you want to top you need to make sure you never inappropriately hit anyone. If that sentence makes you feel vaguely worried, well then you need to spend more time thinking about it. Enthusiastic consent is the only way to begin a consensual bdsm scene. If someone is saying, “I’m not sure” then you don’t start. You have to both be completely sure that you want to be doing what you are doing. (I know a lot of experienced bdsm people who will reply that they start bdsm scenes with murky consent sometimes under some circumstances. The point of this essay is for people with mental health issues who are just starting. No, 301 play just isn’t a good plan.) As a beginner negotiate for what you will do rather than what you won’t do. Creative sadists will make you very sorry you thought you could limit the things you don’t want to have happen to you. Take my word for it. Negotiate the activities.

Eight hours of sleep feels glorious and sinful.

Sometimes the internet reminds me that other people do not like the sort of girl I am. Whereas I am not embarrassed by my body and I don’t dislike it and I don’t want to change it… I’m not real big on being half dressed and provocative in front of people. I’m a different kind of atten

We had kind of sort of hoped that we would

My shrink told me to watch The Brave One. It’s intense. It is about vigilante justice. What does it take to make a nice normal woman crack and take justice into her own hands.

If someone killed one of my children in a brutal and purposeful way there is no doubt in my mind I would hunt that person down and kill them slowly and very painfully. I would not hesitate. Admitting this in public in advance means I would be found guilty no matter what. I would be ok with that.

We live in a very dark world. Tragedy is usually an accident. You can’t prevent it if you want to. Sometimes there are no “good” choices, only bad. Sometimes you just have to choose which bad choice you can live with.

I have beaten people until they lay bloody and nearly unconscious at my feet. Just because I wanted to find out what that felt like. What it took to actually do that to a person. I had their consent. We explicitly negotiated in advance and all. This was a person who had never been “traumatized” on accident in life. This was about seeing if it was possible to do that and not feel destroyed.

I keep up with this person. Life is a lot better than it used to be. Sometimes trauma that is consciously chosen can harden a person to what it takes to exist in the world

Fe

Dear 12 year old Krissy,

I need to talk to you about rape. Goodness knows no one else is going to do so any year soon. You have been raped. What your dad did was rape. What Michael and Jeremy did was rape. Rape is when someone (a man, woman, boy, or girl) forces you to have sexual contact. When your father put his fingers and his penis inside of you… that was rape. Yes, the fingers count. When a grown man puts his fingers inside the vagina of a little girl that is rape. Period. There are no other ways to describe that.

You don’t deserve any of what has happened to you. There is no such thing as deserving rape. No one can deserve to be raped. When Jeremy told you that he could go ahead and fuck you since you weren’t a virgin anyway? He was a crazy bad person. He should be put in jail.

Your father should be in jail. Some day you will try to put him there. It won’t work out because he will kill himself rather than accept the consequences of his actions. You will discover that most people will do absolutely anything to get out of being responsible for their own actions.

I’m sorry you didn’t have the words or the support to prosecute Michael or Jeremy. It isn’t your fault. You were so young. You didn’t even know the word rape. You knew what sex was. You knew you weren’t going to be listened to when you said no. You did say no. You did say that you didn’t want it, good girl. Speaking up for yourself is right.

I have bad news. You aren’t done being raped. It is going to take another thirteen years for you to figure out how to make the rape stop. I am so sorry.

You already know that no one believes you when you talk about what is happening to you. Don’t bother trying to talk to people about it until you are an adult and away from your family. When you have your family behind you calling you a liar every time you speak it becomes impossible to judge what is real and what isn’t. Don’t speak where they can hear you. You aren’t a liar. They just don’t want to hear it.

That impulse to speak up for yourself is good. Work on that. Even though people already accuse you of being a bitch and being too aggressive. Forget them. They don’t matter. They are not going to keep you safe. You are the only one who can keep you safe. You are the only one who will be there.

Read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. You need to know everything in that book. You need to learn how to identify which sick feelings in your stomach mean you should run like crazy.

When you get into bad situations don’t call your family. Instead of calling your family (who will hang up on you and tell you to deal with the situation you made) call the police. If you call the police and say, “Excuse me. I am 16 and I am in a house with my boss and another 16 year old employee of the clothing company I work for. Our boss is giving us crank and I really need a way out of this house and I don’t have anyone who will pick me up.” The police will come. They will come quickly. Your boss will go to jail instead of just being transferred to another store. Calling your family will just make you think that everyone in the world wants you to be a junkie.

When you are raped again, don’t go home and take a shower. I know you want to. I know that you think no one cares what happens to girls like you. It isn’t true. There are good people in the world who care. They just don’t know you yet. They don’t know what is happening to you. They don’t know that you need their help.

I’m not a huge fan of RAINN (Rape and Incest National Network) because they have never been good at hooking me up with resources where I live. But they do have phone hotlines that you can call in a crisis. When you are raped again, call them first. (1-800-656-4673) Then see if you can find the courage to call 911. If you can, go to a hospital and get a rape kit. That is the only way you will get access to the legal help you need. Your family is uniquely unsuitable for helping you.

People with better families might do well to call their mother before going to the hospital for a rape kit. Not your mother. Your mother will tell you to be ashamed of yourself and take responsibility. It isn’t your fault. No matter what she says. Sometimes mothers are very wrong.

Sometimes calling 911 won’t be an option.

This week I told the students to be prepared to write about themselves. I am thinking and thinking and thinking about this idea of different people having different things to offer the world.

One of the primary things I believe I have to offer the world is that when I look at people I see what they do well and why they are necessary. I don’t have to like them. I don’t have to personally value what they have to offer–that isn’t quite the same thing. I see people and most people go through life unseen. I didn’t recognize it as a gift until I was an adult.

For most of my life I have believed that the only “talent” or “gift” I had was the ability to read fast. Sure, I can read faster than 80% of people alive (maybe more than that–I read really fast) but how much has this actually made my life better? No way to judge.

I was thinking this morning about how my kids are growing up. One of these days I will blink too long and they will be adults out living on their own. What do I do then? How do I continue to believe that I should not die to conserve resources for someone better and more worthy. 

Noah has a pretty strict no-yardwork policy. Yesterday he used a big sledge hammer to break up concrete for me. He worked for at least three hours. (We broke in the middle and I didn’t track it carefully.) He did that so I wouldn’t have to do it alone. Because I want the concrete gone this week so I can put up the swings before the party. I’m about out of time. I also tacked down the edge of the slide, attached the bottom of the rope ladder, and put up all the rock climbing hand holds.

Dear Dear-Jane-Letter-Lady,

I think a lot about how I want to frame the world for my daughters. I try to think very carefully about what I say. I am going to be their inside voice. What they know and what they don’t know is mostly my fault.

Before you become a parent you need to make sure that you are able to meet the needs of your child. That either means being prepared to stay home yourself, having a partner who will stay home while you work, or both of you working and your kids will go to some sort of day care. All choices are good and worthy choices. It depends on what you want to do with your days.

I like what I do during the day. I often feel kind of ashamed of liking what I do so much. I spend a lot of time talking to very smart people. Many of them have very interesting and complicated jobs. They think I am smart too. They think I must be under-stimulated as a stay at home mom. I must be so bored.

I’m not. I am learning so many things. I enjoy the freedom I have so much. I have time. I have luxury and privilege. Sure my house is small and not in a “Nice” neighborhood and I will never have nice cars. I’ve never had those things any way and I would feel wildly uncomfortable.

The more time goes by the happier I am with where I am. I like my neighbors. We get to know one another. We talk and hang out. We just sit around shooting the shit. People make comments about feeling sorry for us for not having a tv and offer to let us come watch tv with them if we are that poor.

It is bizarre to me how often this happens. Really, people? You assume I am just too poor to buy a tv?! No. Not so much.

But in my neighborhood I think it happens. I hear that enough that I am starting to think that some of my neighbors are actually that poor.

Which kind of makes me feel like an asshole for watching Netflix on one laptop while I semi-browse Pinterest on another laptop and play Plants Vs. Zombies on the iPad.

I really have a surfeit of privilege. I look around my messy house and think that I should probably do a pass of getting rid of more stuff. Because we have a birthday next month. This will expand.

I live in a world that tells me that the answer is to buy a bigger house. I don’t want to clean a bigger house. I can’t keep up with this one. I feel very overwhelmed sometimes. And I can get my house party clean in under three hours at any moment. (Not true of my yard right now. Hoo boy.)

I feel very weird about how much time I think about potential entertaining. I like having people over. Doesn’t everyone want to feel that they are liked? When I am invited to someone else’s house I still don’t feel liked. I don’t know why. I don’t feel comfortable. I feel scared. I feel like I need to be careful to not be bad.

But it feels good when people want to come to me. I feel important. I feel appreciated.

When I was a child I didn’t invite people over much. I knew that it wasn’t a good idea for people to come to my house.

I have such intense need to make a safe house. I like my Wonderland. I like that I have flashing stars over my head and I get to look out at the palm trees. I am so excited about how my yard is progressing that I feel giddy.

I get to grow up in the house I always wanted to grow up in.

I didn’t have grandiose dreams as a child. A house like this would have been potentially above what I dreamed of. I never felt comfortable when I visited Britney. I was always in trouble at her house. When I am in a fine house with nice things I feel tense and uncomfortable. I am going to be screamed at any second now. I am so sorry I am bad.

I don’t think I will ever hire professionals to “finish” my whole house. I think that even if I do pieces of it I will leave things fairly funky. I want to feel like I am allowed to be here. I know what happens to girls like me who try to rise too far above their station.

In July I am committed to being out of the house for at least twenty hours each week and for half the month more than thirty.  Inside the house I have at least an additional twenty hours of work per week.

And I’m not running. And I’m not working on the books much. And I’m not getting all of my chores done. I’m behind on fucking everything.

I’m tired. I am over-committed. I feel ashamed of my limits but there they are.

What am I doing with this phase of my life?

I feel bad that my efforts to reach out and make community involvement a priority are met with the brick wall of my limits of sustainable work.

I don’t honestly think that teaching English is worth the work on my end. Most of the students aren’t doing much work, like an average of 20% of the work. The kids are so disparate in age that it is basically impossible to usefully challenge everyone. Additionally the oldest girl is quite advanced for their age and the younger ones are, well, young for their ages.

But it feels good to be badgering children towards finding their own voices again. I don’t do that with my kids in the same way. At this point I try not to say any of those things to my kids any more because I get them back on a loop tape.

I like that I get to just sit and watch my kids. Sometimes Shanna asks me what I am thinking (I ask her that all the time–I am really annoying.) and I tell her (err, some approximation of), “I am wondering how your story is going to go. You are the main character of your story. I want to know what happens to you. I am fascinated by watching you change.”

I want my kids to think of each person as being on a highly individualized journey. What do you want to do with your life? What things do you want to accomplish? What kind of grown up do you want to grow up and be?

I think I’m not even close to being done growing up. I feel like my life is, in some bizarre way, giving me resets. My Owner gave me a safe place to grow up. He was a Daddy. I have so many.

After I wrote the book Noah said he “got” the “daddy thing”.

It isn’t like it was.

I should do that more often. Other than being incredibly sor