Today is only fourteen miles. When did more than a half marathon become “only” fourteen miles? It was a gradual process. In my mind and body I am already looking ahead to running twenty miles in seven days. I want it. I want to run the marathon. I want it. I want to do it. I want it so bad I itch and twitch and nervously sweat thinking about it.  Twenty-nine days and counting.

I can tell that right now my depression is pretty bad. I kind of hate everyone and everything in the world. I hate that I am told over and over that I an only ______ if I have __________ and I never fucking have the prerequisites. I will never have “the support necessary to heal”. I will always be alone. No, I don’t have a higher power to depend on. At this point in my life that isn’t going to work.

Because when I think very hard about it–I am getting it done. But I’m getting it done with a lot of fear and effort and work and crying. But it’s getting done. I’m already 20% through my parenting time. This phase of my life is not going to be forever. I believe in my heart of hearts that once I am done with the baby phase things will be easier.

Babies and toddlers are triggering. Arwyn wrote about that first. Babies and toddlers hit you and scream right into your ear over and over. They hurt you and you can’t do anything to defend yourself. My relationships with Shanna and Calli are the last fucking time in my life I will god damn let any mother fucker hit me. Well, maybe Noah–but that’s different.

If anyone other than my kids treated me the way my kids do I would give them a black eye. I’m fucking serious. If a god damn adult or teenager hurt me casually, fucking constantly, I would deck them. This isn’t ok. But it’s not on purpose. It’s an accident. They don’t mean to be so rough. You can’t get mad at a baby. Thus I stay stoned. So I’m not angry. So I’m not hateful. So that my brain is able to understand, “Oh, you aren’t attacking me. You aren’t a threat.” Plus having my sense of touch deadened by the pot is a great thing for me. Heightened arousal is kind of a nightmare after a while.

I love them so much. I have to believe they are worth the time and energy I put into them. I have to. It means I don’t have much left for myself or any one else.

Shanna keeps asking me about my mom. And about us. “What do I do if when I’m a grown up I dislike you the way you dislike your mommy?” “Well baby, if you decide you feel about me when you grow up the way I feel about my mommy I’m not sure I am the right person to ask. You will need to ask Marcie and Kitten and P and K and those other people who love you very much to help you. You are not going to be alone in this world, ever. There are people who love you and who will help you. And I don’t dislike my mom. I’m just not going to let her hurt me or you and she can’t really help hurting people. I hope I never treat you the way my mom treats me. If I do you will be right to protect yourself. I hope you never need to.”

What else can I say? It’s hard. It’s so very hard. I miss my mom. I miss my mom in ways large and small. I don’t dislike her. How can I explain? My mom told me over and over from when I was tiny that I was bad and that everything was my fault. If there is a fucking tsunami is southeast Asia it is my fault for being disgusting. I am aware that she wouldn’t make Shanna or Calli the scapegoat–I would still be that. I don’t want her to teach my kids that I am to blame for everything bad in the world. I’m not. I’m really not.

I am not doing well with that whole “making friends” part of life lately. Talking to adults is hard. How do you carry on a conversation when all you can see in your head is slow moving pictures of all the gore involved in shoving a head through a window. I know what it does quite well, actually. That’s why Tommy had to start wearing a helmet. He put his head through several windows. I know exactly what it does because I have cleaned up blood and glass and hair matter before. This is not news. I want to hurt. I want to make a big mess. I want to fucking inconvenience people because I am hurting. But I won’t. I’ll just see it in my head a lot. To the point where sometimes it is kind of hard to see the people in front of me, honestly.

I’m having a very hard time with not mutilating. In my head the things I “should” do are escalating terribly. I want to hurt me so much I can barely breathe. I feel like I am choking on the need to feel pain. I am disgusting. I am bad. I need to stop looking for help. The harder I look for help without finding it the more I believe I am worthless. No one will help because I don’t deserve help. Maybe other people do, but not me. I should just die. It would be better for the entire species.

I’ve sent out a bunch of emails looking for therapists. I’ve left messages. I don’t get calls back. I really am just too much trouble. I really hate me right now. I feel like all I want to do is go through the litany of why I hate me. Why I am disgusting and bad. Why I deserve everything that happens to me. Why I deserve so much more bad than I have gotten lately. Why it is time for someone to brutally hurt me–because I’m a piece of shit and that is what I deserve.

This is when I used to describe really elaborate scenes to Tom. Then he would act them out and hurt me as much as I wanted to be hurt. Noah isn’t Tom. Things work differently between us.

I don’t know what the road looks like. But it’s 4:51 and I would like to be on the road around 5. I should probably stop typing and start getting dressed. I’m giving myself four and a half hours to leisurely stroll down the fourteen miles. I’m hoping I beat people there so I can sit on the ground and stretch for a while first. That makes the food experience more pleasant.

A friend said on facebook that she will meet us at the restaurant. It is still continually surprising to me–I have friends. I don’t really understand this “friend” thing. Friends give you what they have to spare. A different friend gave me arm braces (thank you J!) so I will hopefully not kill my body on the next book. I don’t understand people giving their spare to me. Shouldn’t they give it to someone who is capable of giving them something back? I feel like I have nothing to give. I feel like an empty shell. I try to just decide that I don’t need to decide what other people get from a relationship with me. If they pick a relationship with me they probably know what they are getting. I don’t really do a lot of misleading advertising or anything.

I am a needy piece of shit. I have nothing to offer. I’m hostile and angry and tense. My experience of the world has been pretty unpleasant and it shows. I try to hide it but I can only do so much. I don’t understand why anyone would want to know me. I’m not sure I would want to know someone as angry as I am.

I think this is going to be a very crying filled fourteen miles. Slow. Just walking. It will be fine. Even though I feel sad, even though I am going to move slowly I will still be going towards Noah. Noah wants me. Noah wants me more than he has ever wanted anything or anyone. (Ok, maybe he wants to be a programmer more than he wants to be with me–maybe.)

When people in the recovery world ask about “support” and I say “I have a husband” it’s not really what they mean. It’s not good to be as dependent on a partner as I am on Noah. But he’s all I have. He is the only person on this planet who picked me and wants me. It makes it a lot easier to keep going because I know he will be on the far side. I can’t repay Noah’s support by forcing him to clean up bloody messes as I hurt myself. He deserves better.