It’s not that I can’t handle anyone judging me. I am well aware that I have been hate followed for over a decade and people take great delight in being nasty about me on troll sites. (I found it and read the conversation once then decided I didn’t need that toxicity in my life.) If you are a loser who needs to read about the lives of strangers just to be mean about them having problems… well that’s on you.

Writing has been my big outlet for years. It is how I organize my thoughts. How I cope with my feelings. How I process things that are too big to get my head around in other ways. I also have done it in part because I wanted specific people to be able to know me in ways that our in -person lives don’t allow for because there literally isn’t time available to share this much speech.

But then I noticed the cracks in the system. You have a personality disorder. Your children are retarded. I wouldn’t have had time to see you anyway.

I’m not going to explain all the context of those statements. But they are… continuing to weigh heavy on my heart and I am aware that I need to get over the illusion that people respect me and love me and think of me like family.

People think I am broken and wrecking my kids and they want to spend time with their real families. Ok. That all makes sense. But I need to stop clinging to the illusion that I am important to you. I am occasionally convenient or amusing or good to get work from or I let you express things that other people in your life don’t want to hear.

Those things aren’t bad. They have value. But I need to stop thinking they have enough value to balance out all the downsides.

I know I am a hypocrite. I judge the shit out of people. I judge whether their actions line up with their professed values. I scorekeep what people claim they are going to do and then I make tally marks about how often they follow through.

I’m not saying that it’s a great thing. It isn’t.

In the past I have absolutely said savagely hurtful things to people as I shared my judgment about their life. At this point, if I feel like I am going to say things that hurt people because I cannot contain my judgment… I think it is better to end the relationship because people don’t want to hear my poison.

I have spent years looking to a tripod for support only to find that all of the legs have wood rot.

I feel like it is my fault. I feel like I have been stupid.

Nobody owes me anything. I need to stop listening to the lie that people will choose to be there for me even though they don’t have to. People will be there for me sporadically. Randomly. When they feel like it. That has to be ok.

I moved partially to sever my own entitlement and expectations. I was wrong to have expectations of people. I know I was wrong.

It makes me really scared for the future. Will I make friends here? How will I become part of the community? Will I ever trust people? I don’t know. I feel so wounded. I feel like depending on people has been a massively unwise undertaking in my life.

If I am open to anyone showing up or not as they see fit I do fine. People do show up. It’s not that I was without friends or connections or support. But it’s rarely the people who make big promises. It’s rarely the people who told me that they would be there forever and ever. Those people… had better things to do.

Or maybe they are ok with being there. But I have to accept that they feel contempt towards me. Will they admit that they feel contempt? Of course not. I will just have to accept that our relationship originated in them thinking I was stupid and slutty and now they think it is my fault that my children are retarded.

I can no longer deny that I see great contempt there.

I can’t model for my children that it is ok for “friends” to talk to you like that. I might as well keep my mother in my life.