My hands hurt. My head is full. My heart is confused.

I don’t do things because I want to hurt Noah. I do things for lots of reasons. The fact that I hurt Noah in the process isn’t the goal, but yeah it happens. How much do I need to not do what I want/need to do in service of Noah? That’s a complicated negotiation.

There’s a lot I need to agree to if I want to be considered in the exact same way.

Noah’s not wrong when he points out that he used to be more ok with poly because he was less enmeshed and I didn’t like it. I wanted more of him. So I need to act like I’m getting more of him.

An awful lot of what we like about one another is that we really see one another. There isn’t a lot of “Oh you’re so awesome!” without specific support for why we think that. We temper our positive beliefs with “And by the way you suck at _____, _____ and ______. Fix that.”

Neither of us desire being seen as better than we are. We are both fuck ups who want to fuck up less over time. That takes honesty and perception.

I don’t get that from anyone else and I know it.

If you can’t look back on yourself 18 months ago and say “Wow I really sucked” you aren’t trying hard enough. 18 months ago I was still willing to put my head down and grit my teeth through stuff that was hurting me that I didn’t like. I managed to get to a point where I can’t do that anymore.

I hope it is progress. I’m backsliding in other areas. Is it backsliding? I’m reverting and going back to tricks that worked well for a long time in different settings. I haven’t tried them much in a long time because they wouldn’t have helped. Did they help this time?

Yes and no.

God that’s hard.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Are we changing for the better? I hope so. We are talking about some things. Oh! And Noah has a therapy appointment scheduled.

We are trying.

Do or do not. There is no try. Oh fuck off.

How do you manage to do stuff without trying and failing a lot? I’ve never found a way. Is that a justification for fucking up? I kinda think being alive is the only justification that someone needs for fucking up. We all do it.

I want to write this for strangers. Which means I need to give context that might be annoying for folks who know me well. Sorry about that.

It’s been a long journey. I’m only 34. I turn 35 in just over three weeks, so I’ll call myself 35. I’ve spent  almost 33 of those years in therapy, much of it court ordered. I have long been considered “treatment resistant” with my many mental and physical problems. For those who don’t know my diagnosis list includes (in no particular order): Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, fibromyalgia, TMD (jaw problems), and Pre Menstrual Dysphoria Disorder. Recently my therapist and psychiatrist are starting to suggest ADD. Because I need more letters in my alphabet soup.

Pretty much what all that can be summarized as, “I’m a highly traumatized person who is fairly fucked up.”

When I say traumatized I mean both long-term severe neglect as well as periodic extreme trauma. Things like having my face ripped off by a pit bull (117 stitches were necessary to put it back on). Things like having my biological father rape me and hold a gun to my head. Things like moving more than 50 times before I was 18 and attending 25 schools. I mean things like having to steal food in order to not starve. It was bad. If you want to read more about it… I wrote a book.

I mean things like I am the product of rape. Fairly recent studies show that being completely unwanted by your mother during pregnancy can have a permanent lifetime impact.

All of these things combine to create a person (me) who has had a lifetime of very little intrinsic self worth, very few self protection mechanisms, and very little inherent ability to figure out what is healthy for myself.

It’s complicated.

I’ve been raped a lot. Starting when I was a toddler and moving into my 20’s. Some of these rapes were very clearly RAPE. Some of them were… kind of muddy. Guess who gets to define them as rape or not? Me. No one else. I wish I had a scale for talking about my experiences, not because I want to invalidate the experiences of other people but because talking about my personal experiences is really hard because they all sound… kind of equivalent when I’m speaking about them to other people. Or someone will think that some of them don’t count because on their personal scale, some of my rapes “don’t count”.

You know what? People are differently traumatized by experiences based on a wide variety of personal factors.

I’m not going to bounce back from some things as easily as some people. I’m going to bounce back from other things far more easily than most people. Because we are all different and that is normal, healthy, and ok.

It has been a long journey for me. It has been hard for me to manage my severe self hatred, self mutilation, and disordered thinking. I’ve had a freakish amount of support for someone as traumatized and poor as I was. I prosecuted my father. As a result I was able to get my therapy paid for by the state because I was the victim of a violent crime. My therapists submitted paperwork year after year after year to request continuances on my treatment because they knew I would probably die if I was left to make it through my early years on my own. I am very lucky. The state only wanted to pay for a few months of treatment. Instead they paid for almost ten years. Then I had private insurance and could handle the co-pay. More recently I just pay out of pocket because incest/severe trauma specialists often won’t fuss with insurance.

I’m very lucky I can afford the support I need.

Not everyone is so lucky.

I did not report most of the rapes I experienced. Why? Because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. Because the circumstances were convoluted and complicated and layered. Because after the one attempt at prosecution (which wasn’t actually successful because he committed suicide instead of going to court after fully confessing to the detectives who interviewed him) I tried again when someone spiked my drink and raped me when I was unconscious.

The detectives I worked with as a 16 year old were supportive, caring, and wonderful. The detectives I worked with as an 18 year old told me “What did you expect would happen when you went on a date with a guy to a party?” and “We aren’t going to ruin that nice boy’s life for you.”

I never again attempted to use the legal system to defend myself and I don’t know that I would ever have the courage again. The only reason I had the nerve with my father was because he raped me for so many years and it was so egregious. The detectives who interviewed him came to me afterwards and told me, while pea green, “I have never heard something so horrifying in my whole life. He corroborated every story you told and added details and told us many stories you don’t remember.”

I’m glad my brain decided I don’t need to remember everything. But sometimes I think about going through the legal channels to get the police report. Because… frankly with this much distance I sort of wonder what did I survive?

I came into the bdsm community at 18. By 19 I was in a 24/7 M/s relationship with a man almost 13 years my senior. He had been in the community for many years and had a really established reputation.

I would like to formally say that my Owner probably fucked up a few times with very minor negotiation details because we are all human but he never ever harmed me. He was the first person who respected my boundaries and lived up to his commitments with me. I’ll be grateful for him for the rest of my life. He did not abuse me. He did not rape me beyond carefully negotiated rape play scenes. They were never traumatizing and in fact helped me work through a lot of trauma.

Outside of my relationship with him my experiences have been more muddy. I would say that the vast majority of my bdsm partners have been respectful, honorable, wonderful people. Thank you for honoring me by sharing the gift of play.

Then there were the people who heard “Don’t do X” and did X after restraining me so I couldn’t resist. One of the people who did this has apologized profusely, publicly and in a way that made me feel like he really did misunderstand and fuck up. I’ve known him for 16 years after that event and I’ve never heard a single other story about him fucking up like that. It was a genuine mistake, he learned from it and I healed and life moves on. I don’t want to make it sound like all people who violate consent are horrifying unrepentant monsters who should be burned at the stake. I don’t believe that.

I have committed rape. I was a child. Five years old to be specific. I didn’t know it was rape for many years. When I found out it was rape I denied it and called the person who was accusing me a liar. I was twelve when I denied it up one side and down the other. I called the parent of the person I raped and said that the person was lying about me. I feel so much shame for my actions that I cannot possibly express the extent of my feelings. But now, as a 35 year old who has not (to the best of my knowledge) ever done something like that again… I am trying to forgive myself. I was doing what my father told me to do. I was trying to be good.

I understand that a great many rapists are following the scripts they were given by their family, by society, and by the media for how to be a good/strong man/person/dominant/whatever.

When I became an adult I reached out to the person I raped and I spoke to them. I apologized up one side and down the other for raping them and for denying it and getting them in trouble. I didn’t and don’t think I deserve forgiveness from them. That is up to the person I hurt.

You can never undo a wrong that big.

Back to my adulthood. During my relationship with my Owner I had the great fortune to be introduced to a number of professional sex workers. These women were the first people to really explicitly talk in front of me about boundaries, how to enforce them, how to keep yourself safe, and how to not give a shit about not meeting someone else’s needs. I’m still in touch with many of them. I count them as friends and I’m grateful for their presence in my life.

When I left my Owner I… didn’t do a great job of keeping myself safe. I had friendships with several men that involved a lot of small slow increases in boundary violations and I didn’t retreat from the relationships. I didn’t really know how. I was still in contact with my biological family. I was still trying to figure out how to separate my feelings of worthlessness/feelings of deserving to be hurt from whether or not I should put up with the person in front of me hurting me.

I still struggle to identify within myself when my desire to engage in bdsm practices comes from a Harm Reduction desire to have someone else hurt me (because they will probably do less damage to me than I will do to me) or when it comes from a place of just genuine sexual desire. I do genuinely get off on bdsm. It isn’t all bad. It isn’t all trauma and fuss. Bdsm has been the door to me learning a lot about my own strength, worthiness, and genuine friendships.

I am grateful for my friends in this community. Your faith in me has carried me when I could not carry myself.

One particular rape sticks out in my mind. It happened when I was 24. I was at a public sex party. I had decided to do GHB with a few friends at the party. When the party host (who was a sometimes sex partner of mine) asked me to go to a back room with him I thought nothing of it. I was completely ok with the idea of having sex with him. With a condom. I was not on any form of birth control and as a fertile womb carrying person… I needed a condom to be used. He knew that about me. He had unprotected sex with me while I said “No no no no” and tried to push him off. I wasn’t strong enough, not at all with the drug in my system.

When it was over I stumbled out, grabbed my clothes and went to sleep off the drug in my car before I began the 35ish mile drive home. I cried a lot. I didn’t tell anyone for a long time.

I thought I deserved it. I didn’t think I had the right to call it rape.

It was rape. I didn’t deserve it. After a while I started writing about it publicly and I used his full name. Some of our mutual friends brought it to his attention, asked him about it, and asked him to contact me. He said, “I don’t remember that happening but if you feel hurt by something I’m sorry”.

I… didn’t feel better. In the years since I have had to deal with his name coming up in a variety of contexts and I feel sick to my stomach every time I hear about him. He is a serial predator and I’ve heard about a number of other women with similar and worse stories.

I am very lucky that a number of party hosts know me, trust me, and based on my story and other stories they have banned him. Thank you my friends.

Recently on Fet I’ve been reading about cases of “consent violations” that turn my stomach. The part that turns my stomach is all the people saying, “Oh don’t condemn the person who made a mistake.” Wow. I…

“When do we forgive people who have made a consent mistake?”

I cringe. I cry. Do you know who decides when someone needs to forgive someone who harmed them? The person who is harmed. No one else.

I may want a scale so I can talk about the effect my rapes have had on me, but I don’t want a scale so I can judge whether or not someone else’s experiences “count” or not. I do not have that right. Only the person who is harmed gets to decide that. I wish I had a scale for talking about my experiences. But I sure as shit don’t want someone else deciding for me.

When people say, “Did you go to the police? No? Then it’s not real rape” my stomach clenches. I tried twice. Once successfully. Once I was rebuffed. There were many other rapes. Starting when I was seven years old.

I didn’t think anyone would care about a piece of white trash. My reading of statistics and police policy indicates that I was right on the money. I’m very lucky I was supported in prosecuting my father. Very few victims get that kind of support.

I’m writing this because right now I feel on the crux of changing things within myself. I have managed to hit a fairly major breakthrough in my therapeutic process. I did actually find a way to release some of the shame, blame, and guilt I feel over existing. I have managed to get a break (at least for a few days… so far…) from the horrifying voices in my head that tell me I’m worthless and should die.

I’m very grateful after so many decades of being considered near-hopeless.

All of this to say that I feel like I might get to enter a new stage. I might get to figure out more about what bdsm, sex, connection, and intimacy might mean to me. This is exciting and terrifying.

I don’t know how other people figure out what drives them. I don’t know how other people figure out what they need vs what they want vs what would be tolerable if someone else really wants it but they don’t care about it.

I have had a very hard time differentiating these things in my life. I’m not blaming anyone, not any of my abusers, but I’m trying to be honest with myself about the difficulties I have experienced so that I can hope to make progress. If you can’t be honest with yourself how can you grow? If you can’t understand where you come from how can you figure out how to get where you want to go?

I need to find some compassion for myself. I have not traditionally had a lot of compassion for myself. I have felt contempt. I have felt fury. I have felt disgust and hatred. Right now I am empty of contempt, fury, disgust, and hatred. I don’t know what will come next. There is this void inside me where I am waiting to see what comes next.

What does being an integrated person mean?

It means having emotions in my body and being able to identify them without scorn. It means being able to have limits and boundaries without hating myself.

I haven’t had much time in my life where I haven’t felt consumed with self hatred. I’m having a fairly surreal couple of days here. I wonder how long this will last.

I’m writing this in this way because I feel heavily triggered by public conversations somewhere else and I’m trying to not wade in deep. There is no win for me in wading in there. So I stay here in my sandbox and talk to myself. This isn’t about my reaction to your journey. This is about me trying to figure out what I’m doing on this journey of my own.

Where am I going? What am I doing?

I’m trying to figure out how to have connection without needing people to harm me. I’m trying to figure out how to love myself. I’m trying to figure out what I have to give back in this life. Yesterday Noah reminded me of a quote from The Last Unicorn ““No,” he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a kings’s voice; not Haggard, but a king whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give.”

I am at a fairly unique point in my story. I can perceive how lucky I am… and not hate myself for it. I want to move forward with this feeling. I want to figure out how to use the extraordinary luck I have been granted in this life to help others. Others who have not been so lucky.

Not everyone who suffers terribly has years of therapy paid for. Not everyone who suffers terribly is awarded money in court, enough to keep them safe for more than a decade. Not everyone who suffers terribly ends up financially secure, nay rich. I’m not in the 1%. But there is the non-zero possibility I’ll get there. I don’t need many more years at the rate of income we have coming in before I will be able to manage that.

That is astounding to someone who once stole food to eat, to someone who slept in cars and on couches and floors in other peoples homes for years.

How did I get here? One step at a time.

Not everyone can do this. Why did I? It’s not because I’m a better person. It’s not because I’m more deserving. It might be, in part, because I am in fact smart. I am constantly shocked by the number of people who email me, call me, or show up at my house to say, “I don’t understand this and I know you will be able to explain it to me.” I wouldn’t be doing so well financially if I didn’t have brutal self discipline with money.

I taught myself first. That’s part of why I’m a good teacher. I’m a hard, resistant, obnoxious student. If I can get through to me… most other people are a cake walk.

Why am I still writing on this? Apparently cause I want my hands to hurt.

I think I’m just enjoying how it fees to be inside a head that isn’t screaming with hate. I’m enjoying the feeling of exploding possibilities.

I appreciate how many people who work professionally in mental health are excited about what I want to do with the incest data base in the future. I’m told over and over and over that there is a serious need for someone to go do that work. I want to do it. I want to learn how to be worthy of hearing the stories. I don’t want to interpret them. I just want to help those of us in the cohort feel less alone. I want us to understand the commonalities in our experiences. I guess I want to codify the stories? Is that the same as interpret? I hope not. I hope I can be more truthful than that. So much is lost in interpretation. I don’t want to lose the truth that each story carries on its own. I just want to…

Help us figure out what kinds of things tend to happen. I want to know how the others are doing. I feel kinship. I feel relationship. I feel connection with other incest cohort folks.

Even the perpetrators.

I’ve been reading a lot about forgiveness. Who should forgive the perpetrators? Maybe that forgiveness needs to come from elsewhere in the community and not from the folks they acted upon.

Notice how hard I’m trying not to say victims or survivors?

Perpetrators still… seems relevant and fair.

I need more words. I need to hear more stories. I need to hear what people call themselves. I don’t know.

I think I’m so god damn lucky in this life that survivor and victim are seeming less relevant by the year. It’s complicated.

Does that mean I need to forgive my father? I don’t know. Do I need to forgive Paul or Kevin or Michael? Or. Or. Or.

I think maybe they need to be forgiven by someone. Not necessarily by me. Even if I do forgive them that needs to be about me. It doesn’t mean I ever need to talk to them again. I don’t have to. I owe them nothing.

This is all so complicated.

What do I believe in?

I believe in my children. I believe in my infinite capability to adapt. I have proven to myself that I can adapt long past when other people freeze up and just can’t.

I can.

Why?

I don’t know. Will I become exactly what other people want? Fuck no. I didn’t say I would conform. I said I would adapt. Because I do. Over and over and over again.

The more I read about developmental trauma the happier I am with myself as a parent. I am doing the work. I am adapting as they need me to. I hold them close and let go whenever they need me to. I react to their emotions and mirror them. I teach them how to identify and deal with their emotions. I teach them all the things I had to learn painfully out of books and in therapy. I do it with a great deal of gentleness and love.

I’m not perfect. But that would actually be a problem too. I’m not supposed to be perfect. I’m supposed to screw up and grow. So I can model how that works.

We all violate consent sometimes. We all have to apologize.

That’s part of life.

Right now my beloved children are gathering milkweed seeds and spreading them all over the yard (and our neighbors yards… whoops…). They are dancing and spinning and singing.

This moment is perfect.

Several kind people have asked me if I’m taking all the supplements I should be taking to rebuild after using MDMA. Yes, sweet friends, I am. I know that fucking with your brain is complicated business and I am currently taking like 41 pills a day, two kinds of powdered supplements, some weird shit suspended in honey, and many kinds of homeopathic drops. I don’t “believe” in the homeopathy shit, but I have to admit I feel a lot physically better since I’ve been seeing this woo nutritionist. So I do it. (One Zyrtec, one stomach acid reducing pill, the rest are vitamins and nutritional supplements. Yes. I’m fucking taking the pills.)

I feel that I have been lucky in that all of my drug experiences have been with people who worry a lot about front loading and rebuilding after using drugs. The people who introduced me to drugs are functional people with jobs, children, and relationships who can’t afford to fuck themselves up. I was taught quite a bit about managing ones body when one makes alternative choices.

I wish my siblings had “grown up” around such advice. Maybe their lives would be different with their addictions.

Am I addicted to MDMA? I go years without using it. I use it for personal growth and it has helped quite a bit in that department. I feel it has worked better than all the psych drugs psychiatrists have ever put me on with lower side effect profiles.

How am I feeling? I slept well last night. I had a dream that has been recurring since I was young. It’s a fully fledged story about a homeless girl and a boy she falls in love with. Someday I will try to write it down to do it justice. It heavily features pistachio cake for reasons passing my understanding. I had to look up pistachio cake recipes this morning to see if such a thing actually exists and apparently it does.

How am I feeling? I still feel… calm. Not detached, exactly, but at a slight remove from my normal sense of being. I feel… empty but not in a bad way. I feel like I am not consumed with thoughts of self hatred and wanting to die. Instead there is room inside me. I don’t know what will fill that space.

I’ve been spending way the fuck too much time on Fetlife because I’m avoiding Twitter for reasons of it ripping my self esteem to shreds. There are a couple of scandals blowing up in my community. A rape case, which happens every so often in the community. And a case of a top using a technique they should not have used and almost killing people. I won’t get more specific because holy shit I don’t have the right. But these things are weighing heavily on my mind.

Holy crap for Crisco. Eldest Child just woke up and can read the paragraph about my dream. Time to close this forking screen.

———————————————————————

Took a break for snuggling, map reading, and breakfast.

Today is going to be nice. I get to go do post-trip-processing with the therapist I worked with and a lovely friend is coming over for dinner. It’ll be good.

My children are reading books right now. They should be getting dressed, brushing their teeth and hair, and otherwise getting ready for the day. I’ve already done some of that and we have to leave in an hour. I also need to water the plants before I go.

I asked Eldest Child this morning if she understood that her dad and I are constantly studying stuff the same way she and Youngest Child do. She said she didn’t know that. I started rattling off all the stuff they see me doing that I’m just learning and her mouth fell open in shock. “Really? You’ve only been gardening as long as I’ve been alive? Ha! No wonder you kill so many plants!”

Watch it, girl.

But… yes. That’s why I kill so many plants. I really don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

I feel so lucky to live the life I’m living. Loving and learning is what I do with my time. I… I don’t do much stuff I don’t want to do any more. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with housework and I feel like I don’t want to do it right now or I feel cranky about the fact that I have to clean up other peoples messes… but even that is progressively more rare. My kids clean up after themselves and I really don’t mind doing my share. I like living in a tidy space. We have a small house and living in a mess means it is hard to do art and projects and play. If we keep stuff picked up our house is incredibly versatile. If we don’t put things away our house is soon an impassible pit and I don’t like that. So cleaning is something I mostly do because I want to. Because I really want the result.

How many people really feel like their life is full of what they want to do instead of what they have to do?

If you list the things I “have to do” it consists of sleeping, eating, paying taxes, shitting, peeing, breathing….

I’m a lucky bitch.

I feel overwhelmed with gratitude.

These days with Noah doing so much of the cooking… seriously my have to chores are negligible.

God I’m grateful for that man.

I’m not going to finish painting the kitchen before we leave. Deep sigh. Noah has been pushing me to rest before/after the MDMA experience. Thank you, love. In general Noah has been actively encouraging me towards less workaholism. (I suspect this is partially selfish because when he demands that I rest I often want him to rest near me… which means I’m not working until I cry and yelling at him for resting while I work… no… I’m not always nice.)

Noah is trying to express more of what he wants from me in terms of bdsm. This is important. It means I can have a better idea of what he wants and try to figure out how it is different than what I want. This is complicated but important.

I have more work to do.

But this space I’m in right now, where nothing in my head is telling me that I should die… I think that might make it easier.

I have picked a lot of bdsm in my life because I actively wanted to do that instead of self harming. I have picked a lot of the bdsm I have engaged in because I wanted to be hurt. I have not done all of my bdsm from a nice happy place of feeling good about myself and wanting to have my needs met. Having someone else hurt me in ways that were not fun or gratifying or enjoyable… was Harm Reduction.

You know why? Because mostly I pick people who genuinely don’t want to harm anyone let alone someone they like. I mostly have been fortunate enough to play with people who like me a lot as a friend even if they aren’t in love with me. And I would say that the majority of my play partners have loved me. Even if they did not want to marry me and settle down love me.

That is so easy to see today. My owner, my monkey fucker, Daddy, Puppy, Daddy James, Miss V, Dad… I could go on for a while but I’m running out of easy pseudonyms and I don’t want to actually out my play partners.

These people love me enough to want me to be healthy and ok. These people want to know me still.

That’s… a big deal.

Do you realize that I’m not many years away from knowing my scene friends for as long as I knew my biological family?

That’s…. a harsh thing to think about.

Beautiful let me know that Kacey Musgraves has a new album out (yay!) but she warned me to be careful of the song on the album about family. I’m so glad she did. I listened to a minute of it and turned it off.

My blood… is not there for me. And never has been. My children will be. Maybe. If I don’t fuck this up.

Do you know who has been there? Sarah. Jenny. My play partners and my lovers. Noah.

I feel like there is space inside of me to feel that love in a way I haven’t before. Like there is this chasm on the other side of a mighty dam just waiting to be filled with all the love that has been there for so very long.

Jenny has loved me since I was 12 years old. Jenny was there the night my brother killed himself. The night my father killed himself. I went to her right after Uncle Bob died and I cried on her shoulder again.

I am not alone.

And now I’m crying. But it’s not a bad cry.

I feel really lucky.

There’s something I want to write about desperately and it feels unwise to do so just now. Let’s see if I can organize my thoughts while being all vague and confusing to other folks. Cause I’m all awesome like that.

Long time readers know that I struggle a lot with self worth. This is a pervasive problem that comes up over and over for me. Do I deserve to be alive? Am I a waste of resources/oxygen/life/etc? I read lots of books about developmental trauma so I’m well aware that my issues are textbook for people who live through the kind of early life I had.

Sometimes I need to step out of the box in which I live. I stepped out of my bubble last year. I went across the country. But I was in my box the whole time. The box that tells me that I’m not as good as people around me. The box that tells me that I am a worthless whore who should be giving up the good things I have to people who are better and more deserving than me.

That’s pretty much anyone. It’s why I give so much money away. It’s why I help people to the point where it is almost damaging to myself. I do not see myself as a person who “deserves” anything good.

But I have a lot of good in my life. I have a husband and children who adore me.

{Side note: after a screamtastic/difficult morning the afternoon and evening improved. I ended up having a conversation with my five year old that blew my forking mind. This morning during one of my shitty moments I said, “I’d really like to say screw you”. Kiddo asked what that meant and Noah… delicately explained that it is an adult colloquialism that means I don’t care about you and you should go away. Later this same kid flipped me off. I said, “Are you flipping me off?” [A few days ago the kids asked what flipping someone off was/means and we explained in fair detail.] In the afternoon kiddo said, “I need you to never say screw to me again. That’s not ok. And I’m really sorry I flipped you off. That wasn’t nice.” This is what my five year old child says. Holy shit. I hope I can grow up to be as wonderful as this person someday. I said that I was very sorry too. I really didn’t mean it. I care about my kid so so so much and I’m really sorry I lost my temper and said hurtful things. I said that I can forgive flipping me off. I have done much worse. We have had a few good snuggles this evening. Kiddo asked if flipping me off was worse than running away. I said, “No. Running away means you don’t feel safe in your home and you have to get away from people who are hurting you. Flipping someone off means you are feeling angry. It’s ok to feel angry. If you feel unsafe we are doing something very very wrong and you should be protected from us. I really hope you never feel so unsafe in your home that you have to run away.” Kiddo turned to face me full on, grabbed my face with both hands and said, “Mom. I feel safe with you. You won’t hurt me. Even though you get mad you just raise your voice. That’s not nice but it’s not hurting me.”

How did I get such a child?}

I need help to step out of this box I live in. The box that says absolutely anyone could be a better mother to my children because I am such a nasty harpy. Sometimes it is hard to view their devotion as anything other than proof of how little I deserve them. Because, as I was told over and over as a child… abused children are the most loyal. This was always said with the implication that if I was not yet loyal I needed to be abused more.

Sometimes I wonder what in me is so broken that I could severe what bond I had with my mother entirely. That’s a huge thing for a person to do. My mother lives 30-some miles away and I haven’t seen her in over five years and I may never do so again in this life. That’s a big fucking deal.

People don’t abandon their mothers easily. There are mountains of literature on this.

How could someone who abandoned their mother like that turn around and create true, lasting bonds with anyone? I wonder and wonder.

I’ve read a lot about attachment theory. Not being attached to your mother usually means there won’t be a lot of attachment for you in this life.

I was reading just this morning about how women like me usually can’t pay appropriate attention to an infant and we pass the damage down generation after generation.

Do you know how I managed to pay a lot of attention to my infants? I all but stopped all other relationships. I went into my little cave and I met every need. I held every gaze with love. Every squawk of discomfort was met with concern. “Hey little person. What do you need? I love you. I want you to feel safe.”

Through this process I hoped to heal myself. I hoped that by handing this love and care to another person I would be able to plug the hole at the bottom of my leaky bucket and learn how to feel the love that people pour into it.

I know I am loved to an uncommon degree by my friends. I have fucktastically loyal friends. They have weathered storms of emotion and drama and fuss. They love me, warts and all. They love me even though I make it so very difficult to love me. They show up. They show up in my life and my house and my adventures.

Why can’t I feel this?

My submissive and his slave both love me to a degree that is nearly palpable when we are all in a room. Why don’t I feel it more?

I can see it. I know it is there. Why don’t I feel it?

Why do I build these walls between me and Noah?

Why do I persist and persist and persist in not feeling loved.

Jesus. I’m a fucking asshole.

Or maybe I’m brain damaged.

Can I be utterly worthless and priceless at the same time? Can more than one thing be true? Can I be loved and not deserving of love at the same time?

Is anyone deserving of love? What does it mean to be deserving of love? Do you have to do anything other than exist?

I love you because you exist. Not because of what you have done for me. I may be grateful for what you have done for me. But the love is separate. The love just happens. Why can’t I feel it from other people. I can feel the love I have to give to you.

I feel it like a cauldron bubbling inside me. It is going to overflow the pot and cascade all over the counter.

Side note: I just got a message from one of the folks I donate to every month. I make a difference in her life and in the lives of her children. I don’t give a lot of money, when you are that poor it doesn’t take a lot to make a difference. It is so easy to say to her that I give her help because she deserves to get it from the universe and I wish I could do more.

Why don’t I feel that way about myself? Why don’t I feel like I deserve love or support or care? I don’t think I deserve it. I think I get it. But deserve is… orthogonal to getting.

They just aren’t on the same axis at all.

I need to get out of this box. This box that says I should die because I do nothing but hurt people.

That’s a fucking lie. I just got a god damn email like to fucking minutes ago saying that I do a lot to help this person. And she’s not the only person on my donation list. And I have a lot of people that I help in other ways. My god damn neighbors wouldn’t be inviting me in to tell me that they have a whole bunch of questions about life and they just know I’ll have interesting answers if all I did was hurt people.

I struggle a lot with the idea of grandiosity. Many disorders I don’t want to be diagnosed with involve feelings of grandiosity. I don’t think I’ll be president. I don’t think I’ll be famous. I don’t I’ll be important to massive numbers of people.

I just think that I’ll have maybe a larger than average impact on the folks I do touch. The dozens or hundreds or maybe thousands of them.

Is that grandiosity?

I don’t leave a large impression because I’m important. I leave a large impression because I’m unapologetically weird as fuck. That seems to be utterly shocking for folks. I stick in the mind because I really don’t want to conform and I’m fucking mouthy about it. I can’t be like you. I can only be like me.

It isn’t that I will never change. I will change and change and change again. But I will do so to be ever more like me.

Whatever the fuck that means.

I keep wondering if I should stop swearing. I read about how swear words are implicitly violent. That swearing in a conversation is a way of establishing dominance and intimidating people. Well, shit.

I don’t want to intimidate anyone. I just fucking talk like this.

Sometimes it feels like my unwillingness to change for other peoples comfort is part of why I do not deserve to live.

I tell myself over and over and over that it takes all kinds. It takes all kinds. It takes all kinds. It’s ok for me to be alive. It takes all kinds.

But I don’t feel it.

When I look at Noah’s face I see my past and my future. I see the weight of inherited money. A while back he shaved his face and did it in stages to see what different kinds of facial hair looked like. More than one variation (I won’t even specify which historical figures he looked like) were… creepy as fuck. We are the very people who populate stories of horror. Money is made through exploiting labor which means exploiting people. We have to make choices. What are we going to do with the disproportionate privilege and security we have in this life? In Noah I see the challenge to be more than a white trash whore ever thinks she can be.

Noah doesn’t see me that way at all. I can tell by how he looks at me.

How can I climb out of this box?

I’ve been in therapy for more than 30 fucking years. (Approaching 33!) I’ve worked on behaviors. I’ve worked on learning self soothing techniques. I’ve learned how to be less black and white. I’ve learned about tolerance of myself and others. What I haven’t managed to conquer is this distorted thinking. This pervasive sense of worthlessness.

This fucking box. I’d like to fill it with dynamite and watch it explode. The only problem is I live in the box and that means killing myself.

Killing myself.

Killing myself.

Why does it all come back to the fact that being alive is a burden meant for people who deserve support?

Deserve.

Fuck deserve.

I want to see myself as the person my children see me as. I understand that my children are still young enough to see me with the besotted, unjudgmental gaze of the prepubescent. I understand that their gaze will grow more critical. At this moment of time, eight years into parenting, it is difficult to believe that my children will ever feel about me the way I feel about my mother. I don’t know what I would have to do, but it would have to be something powerfully evil to push them away from me. I think I’d rather cut my arm off than do something so horrifying to my children.

Did my mother really do something so horrifying? No. She didn’t. But she turned her back on other people doing so. She sent me from house to house and she did not protect me. My mother could not protect me.

Why in the world do I think I will be able to protect more children? Won’t it get away from me? Won’t the control and the power to protect be diluted with more children and I will be less capable? But instead of a big sister like my Sissy my children will have my daughter. My shining daughter who will lecture me fiercely when I’m being an asshole to my kiddo and say, “It is my job to make sure my sibling is safe. You can’t talk to them like that. Stop it.”

My daughter will never tell a younger sibling that they weren’t wanted and they should die. My daughter will never say, “It is your fault I was raped for more years.”

Maybe everything will be different.

It isn’t my fault that my father raped my sister. It really isn’t.

But I still feel so bad. Like my very existence causes more pain. I hurt my mother by being created. I hurt my sister by being born and preventing my mom from leaving. I hurt my brother by taking away my mother’s attention so that he was left to roam the streets and get hit by a car.

My fault.

My fault.

My fault.

I hate this box. I hate this box so much.

I don’t hate the bubble I live in. This elitist as fuck bubble of hypereducation and tolerance. God I love the bubble I live in. Bay Area, never change.

But I hate this box. This worthlessness. This despair and hopelessness.

I spent last night reading yet another book about suicide. I think it would be more useful to someone who hadn’t already read almost all of the books this author cites. Yes I know that Shneidman is one of the best minds to ever write about suicide. I’ve read his work. Stop quoting him and tell me something new, mkay?

But the one piece that jumped out at me over and over through page after page. Hope. Hope is the difference between someone who will navigate their way through mutilation, ideation, suicidal gestures…. and never complete a suicide attempt. Hopelessness seems to be the absolute hallmark of completed suicides.

Hope.

I think hope is why I want more babies. In these precious little lives I see a self I desperately wish is true. I want to be the person my children see me as. I want to be their mother. I want to be the one who protects them and nudges them towards freedom.

After the apologies my five year old started talking about private parts and consent. (It was just post-bath so the kid was naked and thrilled with this fact. Like children do.) Kiddo said, “My private parts are just for me and you.” I said, “Oh no no no. Your private parts are not for me. If there is a medical reason you need help with your private parts you can ask me for help with that. But it is never ever ok for me to touch you without your consent. It isn’t ok for a doctor or your dad or anyone to touch your private parts without your consent. Know how you can’t ever remember me touching you there?” Kid thinks…. then says, “Yeah I don’t think you ever have.” “Oh I did. Before you were able to care for yourself. Once you could take care of your body, there is no need for anyone else to touch your private parts unless you invite them to. And really you should only invite people to touch your private parts if you need medical help or if you are a grown person who really freakin wants to invite someone to touch you there. Once you are grown you might want to invite people to touch you there. That will be up to you to decide.” “So once I invite someone to touch me then they get to touch me whenever they want.” I almost squeaked with indignation at that bit. “NO!! Consent is not permanent. Consent is always something that has to be actively given. If someone has permission to touch your private parts sometimes and you fall asleep… they no longer have permission. If you grow up and drink alcohol and you can’t make a good decision… they no longer have consent. Your consent has to be given at every moment when someone is touching you.” The kid sat and thought about that for a while. Then hugged me. Then completely changed the topic.

I wish someone had told me that I had the right to not have my father’s fingers inside me.

This is my chance to create in the world what I want to see. Who I want to see. Who I want to be.

There’s a line in a Rihanna song that I like a lot. Ok, more than one line:

All that I wanted from you was to give me
Something that I never had
Something that you’ve never seen
Something that you’ve never been!

I feel like that about Noah. About my life. All I want is to have something that I’ve never had, never seen, and no one I know has ever been. I don’t want much, do I?

I need something different.

I’m just a giant pain in the ass.

I need to go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. I’m nervous. But… such is life. Just go do what you need to do.

Sobriety sucks. Today the kids woke up on the wrong side of the bed. So they screamed and fought over everything. (Seriously. We need to have a screaming match over bowls?!)

So of course now I’m flamingly pissed. They are… calming down because once I’m in a towering ranting rage… they don’t really want to keep fighting.

And my wrists fucking hurt because I slept on them wrong. It isn’t even from typing. That pisses me off.

I just want today to be over and it is 9 in the morning.

I AM NOT REINSTALLING THE GOD DAMN CAR SEATS BECAUSE I AM THE ONLY ADULT IN THIS EQUATION WHO HAS THEIR ENTIRE HANDS GO NUMB FROM DOING SO.

But if I want to be able to walk through the house I have to put them back in the van.

I want to rant for hours. Only I don’t. Because my hands hurt and it is all petty and stupid and I know I’m just being an asshole.

Fuck.

This article about Susan from Narnia made my morning.

Yeah… you get no context on the music conversation yesterday. If you are close enough to ask me one to one I’ll tell you. If you are a blog reader you get a mystery.

14 days till we leave for the trip. I’m excited.

Things with Noah are going a lot better. A lot smoother. More gentle. Quieter. Less fighting and fuss. I’m not rocking the boat any more.

I read something a while back, I don’t remember who said it. “If you have a life better than most people can imagine, you don’t get to complain.”

I have a life, right now, that is far better than anything I could have imagined when I was young. Does that mean I don’t get to complain about it?

Does the fact that most of my sex life is good mean I’m not allowed to complain about feeling hurt or degraded sometimes?

I don’t know.

How much pain am I required to shut my mouth about because I have it so good? I don’t know.

I was thinking about this as I watched my whiny-baby-eldest-child do martial arts yesterday. She is in a new/harder class because she bumped up. She must have complained loudly, “OW THAT HURTS” more than a dozen times. Her classmates kept freaking out thinking she was seriously injured. No, that is her, “You want more energy than I feel like expending” voice. When she’s hurt she’s higher pitched.

I talked to her about crying wolf. If you say OW every time you round the corner as you jog around the room because you hit the edge of a pad, no one will notice when you break your arm.

I could barely talk my mom into taking me to the hospital when I broke my arm because I had such a habit of complaining about being in pain (Well, I was in severe pain but now I would say it was caused by trauma/anxiety.) that my mom didn’t believe me.

I believe my kid. But I think there is minor pain and serious pain. How do we learn to tune out minor irritations? My kids haven’t had to. Whatever is happening to them in this moment is all that matters and… oh sweetie. I’m not doing you favors. Some hurts you shrug off and keep moving. A paper cut doesn’t end the morning.

Instead of screaming and freaking out when you stub your toe, you learn to pick it up.

I think I’m sucking at teaching some kinds of resiliency. They are emotionally resilient and physically… not so much.

Hm. We should work on this.

I think keeping them in martial arts is the right first step.

I’m… feeling better? Less anxious. Less frantic. I don’t feel suicidal. I feel a little slow and sad but not overwhelmingly so.

I don’t think I’ve suffered from an intense long lasting depression or period of anxiety in years. I think the worst was after Uncle Bob died. Everything else… I can shake off a lot faster. I have more ability to be upset and then stop.

That’s progress, right?

I don’t know how the sex stuff is going to work out. I really don’t and that is hard and frustrating. But I think it is going to take a long time and I just can’t sustain burning energy on that problem all the time because I think it is going to be handled slowly, case by case over the next ten years.

I have no idea how much play we will do with others in that time period. I think we will play with friends this weekend. How much play? I don’t know. Will sex happen? I don’t know.

We’ll see.

And yes Noah, I’m being very selfish about this. We aren’t searching for people you want to play with while I help. I’m playing with my old friends and partners. I’m being utterly and completely selfish about this.

This Saturday I hope I will get to play with the very first person who ever put me in bondage. I love her with all my heart and I would really like to celebrate the 16th anniversary of that with play. She is a dear and beloved friend. I would not be who I am without her. Knowing her is an honor and a privilege.

I am a ridiculously blessed person.

This weekend is the 16th anniversary of meeting the group of people who changed my life. I’m pretty excited.

I’m probably going to bring my Owner flowers. We started dating a few days after that first meeting of the whole crowd. I ended our relationship on our anniversary. So 16/12 years ago respectively. I’ve sent flowers before.

But this year I’m thinking hard about myself and who built me and whether I am worthy of love or respect or… anything really.

I need to stop hearing in my head that I’m a worthless whore. I need it to go away.

Oh goodness. On the vein of sex work is completely separate from my issues with the word whore, recently a friend noticed that I was in distress and reached out to me. Unfortunately I can’t have dinner with her because she forgot I don’t live in her city/state, but it was lovely anyhow. I am… surprised sometimes that my network of support includes some of the most famous sex workers of my era. I like who I get to be. If these are the sorts of people who are like, “Gosh you look like you need some help” then I’m doing something right. Because I love these people so much. And they love me back.

Holy shit.

That one needs to go on my mental list of “See you can’t be all bad.”

I have friends reaching out to me from an incredibly diverse array of communities. My neighbors represent a rainbow of ethnicities and religions and I’m out about the kind of weirdo I am and they are all checking in on me because I am not being as social as usual and I seem down. They invite me into their homes and tell me all their problems and listen without judgment to mine. Even when mine involve promiscuity and drugs and their eyes bug out. “Wow. I have never… met someone who had any problems like that before. I… I have no advice. What do you think you will do?”

But they’ve already known me for years and years. I didn’t unload about this shit early on. At this point, they have this deep well of trust and affection for me.

It’s trippy as shit.

I’m out about being kinky. I’m out about being non-monogamous. I’m out about my mental health problems.

I get to normalize the fuck out of weird populations for these people. It’s hella cool.

I am trying to find a way forward that honors the totality of support I am getting. It blows my mind. I feel like I am living in a storybook. People don’t get to have this kind of real life.

Something I get told when I’m freaking out and they have no advice, “Krissy… I don’t know what you’ll do but you’ll find something. You’ve already figured out more hard things than I have.”

I get told minor variations on that over and over.

Why in the world do other people have so much faith in me?

Breakfast.

Have you ever had the experience where you “knew” something but you don’t believe it at all. So like, for example: my brother committing suicide. I wasn’t there. I didn’t pour gasoline on him and light him on fire. It is not my fault he died. He did that to himself.

But I don’t believe that. I believe he died because he was in so much pain from me and our father and our mother and our siblings that he had to. That’s what I believe. I believe I am to blame, in part.

So there is knowing and knowing.

At least I no longer think it is all my fault.

I came back from the road trip and things were much better in the sex department. It’s true. But then we had a triggering sex event. And I exploded. I can’t do that anymore.

I didn’t explode in a way that will really solve the problem and that sucks. I did what I have done since I was very young to try and solve sex problems. Add more sex with more people.

It did increase my overall responsiveness and readiness for sex. It did mean even a no-frills quickie can get me off because I’m just primed all the time. It did mean I wouldn’t get so mad at Noah for times when he… doesn’t do the work.

But at a cost Noah can’t bear. So it failed.

So it worked and it didn’t. I know that it didn’t work and I know that it sorta did.

Trouble.

Noah wants me to be fulfilled by him alone.

I know. But I don’t know how. I need so much connection. I need so much attention. I need so much love. I need so much adoration. I need so many people.

I am a black hole and I can consume him entirely.

I don’t know what to do.

Yesterday I discovered that some people consider the controlling of music to be a nearly unreasonable boundary.

No one else has ever wanted that before. Well I fucking do. I’m a special god damn snow flake.

If you want me to open my mind and my soul I’m not going to do it to shitty instrumental music of your choice. I will get up and start breaking things in frustration. No. No. No. No. No.

If you want me to go within and feel safe, I am going to set the terms.

It’s different at the grief ritual where I am part of the music being created. That isn’t shitty background instrumental music. That is life.

I’m  not going to relax in your environment unless I get to change it. Because if I can’t change it I can’t make it safe for me. Yes, the accommodations I’m asking for are bigger than normal. Deal with it or I walk.

He was surprised that I was so ready to accept, “Ok I’ll go” as the answer. Then he wavered and decided maybe it would be ok.

First he said I could send him a few tracks and he would decide if they were ok to include.

No. That’s a boundary. I am not doing work so you can approve or disapprove my inner journey. That’s not your place.

He looked fucking stunned.

“Is this journey about you or me? You don’t know where I am coming from and you don’t know where I’m going. Music sets mood. I set the mood or I’m not interested.”

Given that this is meant to be therapeutic I said, “I’m open to suggestions of listening to music or turning it off for a while to move into different stages of processing. I’m open to questions about ‘Why did you pick this song?’ I’m open to long periods of silence. But sometimes I’m going to want to turn it on and that has to be ok.”

I’m doing this because I need to be able to think about myself for a while in a state where I don’t hate myself and feel like a worthless whore. I don’t have access to very many states where that happens. So I’m going to god damn do it whether people approve or not. So don’t fucking share your disapproval.

I’m outwardly focused to such a degree that it creates problems. It’s because I don’t like looking in. It is like looking into a mouth full of decaying, rotting teeth.

I don’t like myself very much. Not because of the promiscuity, amusingly enough. The “whore” thing and the actual sex I have don’t seem to be related. I mean, sometimes they do? When I’m gritting my teeth it matters.

I don’t feel like a whore when I have joyous sex with my friends. It just… never becomes part of the dynamic. Even if they whisper that I am a good little whore. I’ll orgasm. But I don’t feel bad.

If only it were that simple, kids…

Breakfast is ready.

I started the day with chores. Watering the yards, making breakfast, showering, getting the kids ready for a day. Emailed with the contractor. I also arranged one leg of the shuttle journey for the Florida trip. The other two legs are proving cantankerous. So it’ll take more work. I tried for half an hour then had to leave.

We drove to Oakland. It wasn’t a fun drive. Gosh we have a hard time being nice to one another lately. We had a therapy session together. It was… so festive my therapist asked if Noah could pretty please come back again. (My therapist is feeling pretty freaked out the “Best Marriage She Has Ever Heard Of” is flailing so badly. She feels the need to uhhh intervene.) Then I drove him to a thing he had in El Cerrito and dropped him off.

Then I came back to Fremont. I scarfed food. Emailed insurance broker because we are getting harassed by the bank again. Went to the nutritionist to pick up yet more pills. Went to pick the kids up from the movie they were at with their babysitter. Had to sit and wait 20 minutes. Whee.

Dropped off the babysitter, went grocery shopping. Came home. Threw the food into semi-appropriate housing. Got the kid dressed for Tae Kwon Do. Went to class. Came home to get the thing we forgot for the girl’s class. Went back to Tae Kwon Do for a second class.

Came home. Cleaned up from enormous mess that arrived from the grandmother. When she sends us stuff it always comes with three garbage bags full of non-recyclable packing materials. Yay. And a full recycling can full of recyclable bits. All so the kids can have a third god damn horse for their dolls.

Assembled dinner for the kids. Assembled dinner for myself. Sat down. Ate three bites. Oh. Time to go pick Noah up from BART.

Did that. Now here I am. I’ve eaten half the bowl of soup. (Leftover split pea, hella good.)

I had a good time in the car on the drive home from El Cerrito. I spent a lot of time listening to Beyoncé sing about how her husband ain’t married to no average bitch.

I’m not married to an average bitch either.

I have a deal that is better than one could imagine if they made it up. Is it perfect? No. God no. But I need to figure out how to make this work.

I told the Quiet One I need to stop talking to him. I poisoned that well. It’s my fault and I’m not blaming anyone but me. But I’m hurting Noah by continuing any friendship at all there and I need to stop. I need to not make Noah veto someone. Making him feel backed into a corner is… something I need to not do casually.

There are a lot of things I don’t like in this life that I have to do anyway.

I’m trying to figure out what that means.

I can already feel the pendulum swinging back towards center on several points of my hysteria. I still don’t know what the answer will be.

But I feel a lot more sure I need to find an answer with Noah.

I didn’t have any alcohol yesterday. I proved to my satisfaction that it will be an ok way to help bridge the gap when I’m traveling and I don’t have other options. Beyond that it has a super high toxicity load and I just can’t drink all the time. I can’t be an alcoholic even though it sounds kinda nice right now. Maybe it’d help me die faster.

I self harmed yesterday. I’m not doing well. I don’t want to talk about it.

I can sorta hold my shit together when someone is looking at me. Then they stop looking at me and I crumble.

I can be trusted while someone is looking at me. Otherwise I’m pathetic, worthless and not worthy of trust. Only I didn’t do anything when I was out of eyesight last time either. I don’t really want to deal with it being all my fault when I get hit.

Fuck everything.

I’m ranting and raving this morning. I’m being a fucking asshole. Youngest Child is feeling fussy and particular and I’m… not being nice. I’m trying to vacuum the house, cause folks are coming over and my house is gross. And the kids are standing around watching me or fighting instead of picking up their stuff so I’m yelling. This sucks.

So I’m coming out to the garage cause it’s only 9am and I’m not ok.

I’m kinda sick of “Pick up the floor” being interpreted as “Move one or two big things and pick up none of the little things.”

I can’t vacuum up all these beads, bracelets, slippers, play money, pencils, and hair bands. Pick.Them.Up.

I’m such a mom.

And today I’m an asshole mom.

I keep wondering why it is so important that I get off the medication that works and has a very low side effect profile so that I can get on something that doesn’t work, makes me sick, and has a ridiculous side effect profile of damaging my brain forever.

WHY?!?!?!!?

Because it is illegal in many places, that’s why.

I had dinner with a friend last night and she really wanted to help me brainstorm how to sneak pot on my trip. I finally yelled, “I have no interest in ending up in a Caribbean fucking prison can we change the god damn subject!”

She meant well.

Cannabis is not more legal if it is in a pill or a brownie or oil.

I have now smoked my first bowl of the day. Do I feel better yet? Not really. Sad face. If one bowl could do it, I’d feel ok with my usage during pregnancy.

Ok, I got up and walked around the house and finished vacuuming since the kids finished. Maybe this is more impact than I think. I think that means one more will be enough. That’s not bad for me.

And frankly… the kids actually didn’t take that long. They needed four reminders, but… I think that’s the same kind of lack of spatial awareness their dad has.

Their dad can’t find things in the refrigerator. Even if it is on the right shelf if it isn’t in the exact quadrant he expects. This happened again like a week ago. Literally, it was 5″ from where he expected it to be and he couldn’t find it.

So maybe my kids come by it honestly.

This is what I like about pot. I go from “WHY THE FUCK ISN’T THIS DONE?!?!?!?!?!?!111111” to “Ok, you missed a few things but you are making progress. Well done.”

Anti-psychotics don’t make me feel this way.

I feel sad that I have to hurt myself in order to hopefully stop feeling like I can stop hurting myself.

I got almost nine hours of sleep. I declare allergy medication to be a miracle. I think I’m going to ask for allergy testing. I am pretty sure… I have allergies. Like whoa. All of a sudden I can breathe. I’m not even waking up to pee until 8 hours of sleep. That’s a miracle.

Noah is going to take the kids to martial arts. I’m going to stay home and clean. Maybe it will help my cranky. I feel so cranky in a messy house. Messy houses = work waiting to crash on my head. I dislike messy. It makes me anxious. It’s like having 100 unread emails in my inbox. That’s overwhelming. Have I mentioned that my whole house is messy because of the remodel and it has been since February and I’m about to lose my mind?

But! The plan revision is finally appropriate and at the city. Once I get it back I can submit the new contractors information to the city and start work again. Right as we are leaving. So really it should wait till we get back. *beat head on ground*

September 12th will hopefully be the start date then. And I get to pray it is done by Christmas. I hope that means the roof will be finished in September. I will have to consult with the contractor and the roofer. I hope the roofing can start on September 26th. I sent an email to that effect. To both folks.

Oh boy. Being a grown up is lame.

Second bowl is done. I feel… better but not good. Sigh. I’m going to go do more cleaning. Meh. Fuss. Whine. Folks are coming over in two hours.

I have way more thoughts about my leaky bucket. But my house won’t clean itself.

I’m so tired. I’m so tired I have managed to nap today. Yay? BaGG was wonderful. My friends embraced me to their pervy bosoms and nurtured my slutty nature. Thank you for loving me and tolerating my come and go nature.

I asked Noah for permission to play a little since my month isn’t really over. I said I would keep it light. I did. I played for like 15 minutes with a person I met at a party recently. It was fun but not real intense or in depth. I also spent a lot of time flirting/kissing/dancing/rubbing on a variety of other friends. Some of whom are previous lovers/play partners.

The kissing stayed light and not intense. The play never got sexual. Ok, rubbing my butt on people while dancing was sexual but that was the most of it.

I feel bad that I haven’t been better at keeping things at this level. This would not have hurt Noah so much.

One of my former lovers/play partners actually asked me if I wanted to leave the club and go to a motel for a few hours. I said thank you, but no.

Your wife may be fine with it. My husband would have feelings and I need to care about that right now. But thank you for the offer. You are aging wicked hot (God damn) and I feel quite flattered by your offer.

Noah keeps telling me that I’ll never run out of tempting offers. He’s probably right.

I have to say, knowing that I’m 10 weeks out from trying to conceive (that means we’ll get started trying right after a bleeding cycle ends–convenient) means I’m less tempted to push hard on new partners or renewing a partnership that hasn’t been acted upon in more than ten  years.

If Deity flirted hard saying no would be much harder.

Sigh.

The music wasn’t great… but honestly that’s typical. Oh well. I did get to help demonstrate that a polka can be done in an incredibly constrained space.

When I got home Noah was waiting up because he doesn’t sleep without me. That makes sense. I don’t sleep without him either.

I have been binging on season 5 of Call the Midwife. I like the examinations of families and interactions and burdens and joys. This season is brutal and sad. I wouldn’t recommend coming in at this point to anyone. It would not grab the heart in the same way. But it is informative as to history still. And beloved characters are carrying on. I like seeing what that means even though most of it is sad.

I understand that mostly, life is sad.

My beloved submissive is going to come watch me paint so that I feel a little more motivated to get done. My neighbor wants me to come over so we can have more girl talk. Friends will drop by this weekend.

I hate how not talking to people all day long on the internet means I feel lonely. It is an existential feeling that I hate. I don’t deserve to feel lonely. My life is full to bursting. This is misperception. This is broken.

I’m not alone. I am loved and cared for. I do not know how it would be possible to end up with more/better than I have. Not for someone like me. Why don’t I appreciate it more? Why don’t I just sit with the gratitude I feel?

Where does all this pissiness come from?

It isn’t that I think I should have more or I should get more. That’s not it at all.

My sweet loves have cuddled me for a lot of today. I’m afraid this oxytocin rush is going to have to come from them. I won’t be able to kiss my friends to get it. I just get to love my children.

Wife and mother.

Be that.

Why doesn’t it feel like more?

I am more? Does it matter? Does any of it matter at all?

I don’t know. But that’s enough typing for today. Ow.

Thank you, Beautiful, for the ride. I had a great time. I’m glad I get to be friends with you.

I’m asking Noah over and over: why more kids? He says he didn’t know how good we would be at parenting (fair, that was hard to evaluate with a 28 month old and a 6 week old and that’s when he got snipped) and he didn’t know that we would adapt and have so much fun. He says he waited until I got to the point of saying that I will accept a lot of medical management so I don’t die.

I’m definitely ok with signing up for whatever support I need so I don’t die. I know this will be complicated.

Why do I want more? I never didn’t. I have cried through every period I’ve had in about the last five years since I started bleeding again. I always wanted more kids. Why? Biology is a bitch. I like breeding. I like my kids. I hate being pregnant–I’m a miserable pregnant person. But at the end I get this baby. I can put up with nine months of anything.

Baby.

And my babies have turned into little people I like and respect who behave in ways I’m frankly quite proud of. My kids aren’t perfect. They are assholes just like their parents. But they are trying. They care about how their behavior impacts people and when they hurt someone they apologize and try to make it right. I respect them. They try so hard to be good people.

The struggle is real.

I’m going to have one bowl this morning. That’s uhm, barely using any pot for me. The Bonus Kids are here and hopefully this will be enough for me to get through breakfast without fuss and I need to start managing my mood more sober. Fuck. Shit. UGH.

It’ll be great. All four of these kids make my socks roll up and down with joy.

I uhh start off most days with 6-10 bowls. So 1 is a huge taper. Like whoa.

In my opinion if I could get my usage down to less than 5 bowls in 24 hours… that’s a level I won’t hate myself for during pregnancy. Less/none would be best. But… I use a lot. I don’t want to think about how much because my tolerance level is so ridiculous. It took me a lot of years of gradually increasing to get where I am. I haven’t had a month off since we went to Europe. Ha.

I didn’t sleep for the first 8 days of that trip. I need to not experience that again.

Noah’s vasectomy reversal is 6 weeks and 2 days away. We leave for the trip in 3 weeks and 2 days. So we can start trying for a baby in 10 weeks.

Holy crap.

This is Noah’s 35th birthday present to me. Surgery.

So I can have a baby. Baby. Baby. He keeps saying things that are freaking me out. He doesn’t think we’ll stop after one more. I HAVE SAID THREE FROM DAY ONE. NOW HE’S TALKING FOUR OR FIVE.

We would have to move. Probably out of the bay area because we won’t be able to afford a bigger house here. I mean, we could if we gave up the kind of travel we do. That’s hella expensive. But I don’t want to. Hell, it’s going to be even more expensive with more bodies. We are jumping from one to two hotel rooms in a lot of places. Eeek.

This is how I will have a family. I do not have sisters or brothers or aunts or uncles or parents or cousins who want to know me. I get to have children. With Noah. That’s the only family I am ever going to have.

Yeah. I’m ok with more. This is going so well.

My kids radiate joy and love. That has been their whole life. Yes, I’d sign up for more of this. We are so much more patient and loving than I expected.

I think that for me, parenting and teaching are all mixed up. This is the relationship in which I am allowed to be my best self. I am allowed to give the things I have that are the most valuable and worthy. I don’t have to slice down my offerings to be what someone else wants to hear in their brief 15 minutes of listening to me in this whole lifetime. I suck like that.

My children get to see what I do habitually, what habits I actually prioritize, how I behave all the time so they know the difference between doing well and failing.

They get a pretty uncensored picture. I mean, I don’t tell them all my feelings or thoughts but my children have witnessed the vast majority of my behavior for years. They know where I’m a hypocrite (I’m such a fucking whiner) and where I walk my talk.

Mostly I do walk my talk. I am consistent even if I can’t do it in the ways other people want from me. That’s ok. I may not be the person who can get the kids to the library story time like clockwork every week for years but I am the person who will show up to help, whenever necessary and I’ll do whatever is necessary.

I am not good at being a community member. I’m a top notch foul weather friend.

I am not the kind of person most people want to spend lots of time with. I’m abrasive and challenging and stubborn and controlling. But god damn I’m great in a crisis.

I have to believe it takes all kinds. There is a need for lots of kinds of people. I have to believe there is a place for me.

Someone has to be willing to talk to the incest cohort. I was reading through more studies recently. WHY DO MOST OF THESE “STUDIES” MAX OUT AT 50 PARTICIPANTS. I’d put money on these populations being homogenous. UGH. THIS IS NOT USEFUL INFORMATION. GOD DAMNIT.

There are millions of people who have experienced incest. You couldn’t find them? Shit. I’ve met more people in my lifetime who have talked to me about their incest experiences than these god damn researchers can find.

I think you need to be able to smell them. And I can. It’s remarkable how often I sidle up to a complete stranger and start talking and in under two hours they’ve told me that they were raped by a family member too.

We are everywhere. If you can’t find us… you aren’t looking.

That’s the only piece of sad I have about more babies now. That’s setting back my research by 10-15 years.

I guess I will have to stay alive longer if I want to really do this. I want to compile information on the incest cohort. I’m trying to find language for this that works for me.

Tribe is out. Victim is out. Survivor is out. Sufferer is out.

Why?

Because all four of those words will alienate a lot of the people I want to talk to for complicated reasons. I need to find language that will generalize and be ok.

How do I talk about incest without implying from the get go that someone is always hurt? It… isn’t true. Some of us have been hurt quite badly *raise hand* but a large number…… weren’t hurt. Either because they were perpetrators (and god damn I want to talk to them) or because… they didn’t feel hurt. That happens. It’s normal and ok for someone to have that set of responses.

I need to not alienate those people if I want to understand incest. They are a big part of the picture. They are what my father wanted from his incestuous acts. I don’t think he truly wanted to kill the souls of his children. I think he was looking for connection in the fucked up way he knew how.

I want to talk to people who manage to connect that way and have positive results. I want to hear all the details they are willing to share. I sincerely hope that when it happens I get to be a balm to their souls because they haven’t ever been able to be honest with anyone else about it.

Truth is freeing.

Tell the truth and shame the devil.

I write as much as I can about what I think because for good or bad… I am. I exist. I am here. I am complicated and good and bad and… that’s life. That’s what being a person means. No one is all good. No one is all bad. We are all trying, in our stunted ways, to reach for the light.

Most people who deal with the kinds of racing thoughts and mixed feelings and experiences I have don’t ever find a voice. They live with this cacophony trapped inside their brain.

I am so sorry. It is much easier when you can pull a thread out of the melody and release it into the world… somehow.

I may not feel connection exactly from sharing my words but I definitely feel like I am solidifying who I am. I feel like I am making sense of a terrible enigma. I am figuring out why I am doing what I’m doing. Sometimes it is biological compulsion. Sometimes there is even less sense than that.

People suck.

Done with the one bowl. I’ve been writing for an hour. Get off the computer. (Hey, I took breaks! I went slow! Yeah… your hands suck. Stop it.)

I must say: this Afrin nose spray is heavenly. I’m getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I want to fall down and kiss the feet of the doctor who suggested this. I am definitely bringing some on the cruise. Maybe allergy pills are worth exploring? I should ask. Or maybe just god damn try something over the counter and skip a doctor.

Breathing is kinda miraculous, you know?

I see my med doctor in 10 days. I’m scared she will want to put me on something extreme again.

Can we please please please stop treating my body as if it has schizophrenia? That is going quite poorly for me.

I need something different. I don’t know what it is yet. But not to be treated like I have schizophrenia.

I come from a family with PTSD. I get the impression it has been around for generations. We have a lot of stories of neglect and depression and self harm and suicide. Over time my opinion of the depression I have felt and the depression I see in my family has changed. I’m not sure I see it as something bad that must be avoided at all costs. I see it as something that sometimes makes sense. I’m not saying depression is logical. I’m saying it makes sense. That’s not really the same thing.

I’ve had more than one period of my life where intense depressions are probably the reason I stayed out of jail. Maybe it wasn’t so terrible.

Complicated.

I have reached an important conclusion about myself as a bdsm player. I will never again play without a safeword. Because that’s the difference between setting myself up for trauma and being able to protect myself. I need a way to say stop hurting me.

Or I can’t do bdsm at all.

Because the difference between bdsm and abuse is the ability to stop it when it is a problem. I couldn’t stop Noah from “doing a scene” on a day that already overwhelmingly traumatic and it has had consequences for our marriage and my body for ten years.

I can’t let that happen again. I need to be able to say, “Not now. Motherfucker.”

Hell, maybe that should be my safeword.

If I get to the point of saying that…. back away….

ha

I don’t defend myself unless there is some very good reason to. At this point my reason to is because I don’t want my children to see me not defend myself.

I do a lot of things now because I want my children to see someone who does them.

I know that is part of why Noah was so surprised by me going off leash. It seems so out of character.

It is and it isn’t. My character has many facets. I worry about being in the closet. I worry about being perceived as a liar later.

I missed Dore Alley. Will I miss Folsom too? Sigh.

I miss my friends. I miss the person they accept me as.

I keep thinking it would be fun to write up a class called Rape, Rape Play and what I’ve learned.

It would be offensive as fuck, I’m sure.

Ok I’m done.

Today I was reading a post about rape and there was a comment about marital rape in the 80’s. That made me think about something I’ve probably never considered before. I’m pretty sure my father raped my mother on his birthday. The timing fits. It fits exactly. I’ve never thought about it before though. Fuck.

I also read this post. It’s about ways to commit rape you probably don’t think of as rape.

I spent a while today talking to a woman who is dealing with some pretty extreme domestic violence.

I wonder often if Noah is a boogieman or a monster. Has he hurt people? Yes. Not like that. Perspective.

I’m worried about Noah flipping out if I push him too far. That’s not what other people deal with.

A friend said to me today that we marry the person we think we deserve. Maybe. I’ve spent most of my marriage wondering how I talked someone so far up the ladder into marrying me. Sucker.

I got to talk to my Pam today. She says someone should write a story about her. Ok. I’ll make it happen. Not in the next month.

Noah is working really hard lately. He is… showing up for stuff he’s never shown up for before. He’s trying so hard. He’s always been a good husband. These days I feel like a towering pile of shit who does not deserve him.

We are trying to figure out how to get the pain-during-sex to stop. We have a few approaches we are trying. They depend upon him having more self control than ever and me having more initiative to say no than ever. Wish us luck.

I feel terrified of not writing down something about our dark side. I’m terrified of presenting this false Leave It To Beaver front.

But mostly things are good. So good I don’t think I belong here. I should be killed off so my understudy can step in. She will be more deserving and worthy.

Fuck.

I could point at dozens of women who are more deserving than me. They aren’t violent pieces of shit. They aren’t monsters who have to struggle every fucking day to control themselves.

They just… don’t have this ravening monster inside them.

I am unworthy of what I have.

I know.

Sometimes folks ask me why I don’t like myself.

I don’t see much to like. I’m a fucking selfish asshole.

I’m sorta terrified what my med-doctor will suggest when I see her on the 16th. I’m on my own till then.

Whyyyyyyyyy can’t I have a sleeping pill?!

Nope. Anti-psychotics for you, motherfucker.

Great.

I’m too dysregulated.

Sigh. Can we please not treat my dysregulation like it is an extreme crisis? Can we act like, “Alright. Let’s see how to turn the nozzles down a notch or two” instead of “OMG IT ISN’T OK TO FEEL LIKE THAT IT HAS TO STOP LET’S GIVE YOU THE STRONGEST DRUGS THAT EXIST.”

Ya know… I haven’t found this approach to work at all.

Maybe I’m depressed because shitty things happen and being well adjusted to them would be fucked up.

I would like to made a radical suggestion at my next appointment. I played ball and tried four drugs I didn’t want to try because I have to prove I “trust” the med-doc. Ok, how about if you try trusting me a little. What I want is a sleeping pill. Not a silver bullet. I want something to help me catch up on sleep because I’ve been functioning with a level of sleep that qualifies as torture for years because I am physically unable to sleep. Can we fucking address this symptom and see what happens? I’m cool with trying the appetite stimulant faux-pot thing to see if that would solve part of my need for pot.

Can we start there for a few months? Please? For the love of Crisco.

My body does not tolerate extreme medications like antipsychotics and ssri’s without going fucking ballistic.

HAVE I PROVEN IT TO YOUR SATISFACTION YET?!

Or do I have to suffer more for your amusement? This is why I’m all for the UN’s proposed rights for the survivors and users of the psychiatric system. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER USA. BRAZIL IS MORE HUMANE. WTF.

Stupid congress. Go fuck yourselves.

I should stop typing. But I’m very lonely without Twitter. If I’m not on Twitter or Facebook it is like my friends… fade away.

That’s not entirely true. I love you IM buddies. You are a balm to my soul.

I feel like the last few years have created kind of a perfect storm of needing to deal with my thoughts about violence. Who am I in relationship to it? How do I want to react to it? How do I feel about it?

I feel like it started with the kick to the throat before I left on the road trip. When it happened I physically withdrew instead of attacking and tried to talk to the mother after the fact when I was calm. Ok, it blew up to hell and back and ended up with me on the outs with the group because I am dangerously angry… uhm… ok. Whatever. Fuck all y’all. I’m proud of how I fucking handled that. I did well in my opinion.

This year more than one person has threatened to hurt Noah. In one of those circumstances I wasn’t standing there and I just get to decide how I feel about having someone in my life who will casually threaten to break my husband’s legs. Easy choice: I will never set foot in your house (your turf) again and I’m going to be distantly polite in public. We will never be friendly again and if that means I lose a relationship with your wife… so be it. I don’t like it but that’s the choice I need to make.

We don’t always get choices we like.

Someone else got up and threatened to punch Noah. Fists were waving. It was loud and threatening. I inserted myself between the person and Noah and deescalated the situation. I did not end up with a friend, but if someone is going to do that to Noah… they weren’t going to be my friend anyway.

I’m proud of the fact that I can deescalate when someone else desperately wants to escalate. I am proud that when I am hurt I no longer blindly react.

This is fantastic progress for me.

My kids have been a bit slap happy lately. When one child struck another child yesterday we had a Very Long Chat About Hitting.

It went something like: “Ok, if you keep hitting your sibling does this mean you think it is ok for us to hit you?”

“Yes. I deserve it. I’ve been hitting.”

“Oh baby. That’s not what I believe. I believe none of us deserve to be hit. I believe that if one of us hits someone else it is a loss of control and we need to fix it. I believe that I do not want my babies to ever believe they deserve being hit. So I’m not going to ever ever ever hit one of you again. I fucked up *once* and that’s the fuck up I get in this life. Oh baby. You don’t deserve being hit.”

Followed by a kid sobbing and clutching on me and thanking me.

If you are hitting too often then we will have a chat with your martial arts instructor a bit more about reminding folks in class not to use moves on siblings. I may censor the videos you are watching a lot more carefully because you are having trouble managing the images and impulses that are coming into your brain.

But if I hit you to teach you that hitting is wrong I have failed. I have taught nothing except that I am yet another bully.

I know I can be a bully. I actively seek to suppress that instinct every single day. I know I can. I don’t want to be though. I reject that paradigm.

I want to be something different. I want to build you up, not tear you down.

It isn’t that I’m 100% opposed to violence. As a sadomasochist I want carefully negotiated violence in my sex life. As a traumatized person I believe I have the right to defend myself from attack up to and including terminating a life if I really must to eliminate a threat. I will not go farther than necessary, but I can come up with many plausible situations where I will do what I must to walk away.

But I don’t hit people who offend me. I’m offended all the god damn time. I don’t hit people who irritate me. I don’t hit people who disgust or bother me.

No. Violence is a big deal. In order to cross the line and hurt another being, human or otherwise, I believe there must be a fucking good reason. I won’t kill an animal for funsies. I would if I needed to eat. Sure. I wouldn’t hesitate. I would probably apologize and say thank you for the sacrifice. Never for fun. I don’t kill insects willy nilly for fun and I yell at people who do. We need the insects too.

I would say that violence isn’t fun, but my sex life is violent as fuck and fun as hell.

Uhm, context matters?

As much pain as I’ve emotionally felt as I’ve solidified these positions for myself… I think it’s going to long term be worth seeing that I have changed. Ten years ago I did hit people when I was bothered, irritated, annoyed, or poked. Ten years ago if a child had kicked me in the throat I probably would have hospitalized the child.

Not now.

I’m proud of the progress. I have worked very hard on having control over my body and my emotions. I am not just an animal blindly reacting any more. I have conscious volition and I am so fucking proud of myself I cannot contain the pride.

This is a big deal for someone like me. I don’t know many people who start out as violent and hateful as me who get it under control. It is a big deal.

I need to recognize that for myself.

*pat self on back*

Switching gears slightly: Rose suggested that I feel like monogamy is killing me by inches. I’m not sure it is the monogamy.

I think sexual violence that I do not consent to is killing me.

A friend made a comment, trying to be joking, about how many times have I been raped in the past ten years. I squinted and said three. He said the last one with Noah didn’t count.

Hooo.

I consented to it in advance. That’s true. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I was stupid and I didn’t know what kind of trauma I was signing on for. I “consented” to something that has fucked me up for years. Something that has made it very hard to trust my husband fully because I god damn know that if I try to fight him off I am going to lose.

So it doesn’t count. But it is a mound of earth over my face in the hole I have dug for myself.

I’m aware it is all my fault. Doesn’t change the fact that it is a loop in the noose about to slip over my neck.

That’s how my problems go. They are mostly all my fault.

I genuinely thought I was going to end up with a “rape scene” like previous ones I have done. This wasn’t like that at all. He picked a day when I was already sobbing and traumatized. I would not have consented to doing something like that on a day like that. I was stupid to not give more parameters. It’s my fault.

I know.

Part of the reason the banging the wall next to my head bothers me so much is that I have had to remove absolutely all signs of tapping Noah in irritation because it feels like hitting him to him and he escalates and hurts me. It feels like I am bounded on several sides by threats of violence. Don’t touch him too hard. Don’t use words that he dislikes. Don’t behave in ways he doesn’t like.

Or the Sword of Damocles is coming down, bitch.

It isn’t the monogamy that is hurting me. It is the fact that I feel like violence is inevitable if I step out of line.

Guess what I’m going to motherfucking do in this life? Yeah that’s right. I’m going to step out of line.

I’m scared and angry.

I am very very angry that I have gotten myself into a situation where I feel terrified of upsetting my partner because he will hurt me and my partner thinks it is fine to “defend himself”. He weighs 50-60 lbs more than me. This is some bullshit.

Sure we are honeymooning right now whilst I am going limp and not pushing a fucking boundary in any way shape or form. How long can that last? I’m fucking angry that I have the threat of violence.

And I feel like there isn’t a lot I can do. I feel helpless and upset.

I don’t think it is the monogamy getting to me.

Why do I think there is violence in my marriage when I step out of line? Because I’ve had the bruises to prove it. Sure, I only got bruises when I “hit” him first. I was thwapping him. He didn’t get a bruise. It was one of those scoffing “Oh you are so annoying” hits. He returned it with force.

“If someone hits me I’m going to make them sorry.”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I’m pathetic.

Oh fuck me and what I fucking want.

Does this threat of violence keep me permanently in line? Nope. Cause I’m a right proper stupid bitch.

And then we took a break to have a conversation we needed to have. And now the kids are up. End of train of thought.

 

Hyperbole: one of the hallmarks of many of my psychological problems is black/white extremist thinking. I struggle for balance over months and years. I won’t get there in individual posts much.

My children continue to be my favorite people.

I think I wish my friends acted more like boy/girl friends, Noah. That’s the problem.

I’ve gotten errands and chores done today! *pat self on back*

I’m seriously struggling to not manifest that I feel like a worthless piece of shit. It’s being hard.

Noah thinks I am learning that I deserve better treatment and I’m noticing that some of his treatment of me over the years hasn’t been all that great. Maybe?

I don’t know what expecting better means.

It is incredibly hard to not check Twitter but I’ve pretty much told myself to stay off it till after the Florida trip. I need to break the habit and see if I actually get value from it.

I won’t be going to Dore Alley. Sad face. Babysitting canceled. But! I support them taking care of their health. That needs to be the priority.

Noah has already relaxed visibly from the strain of waiting to see what I’ll do next. Not much. I’ll hang around the house. I’ll do chores. I need to finish painting this damn kitchen. I’m trying to move on with remodeling fuss.

Hey time to wander off.

Today was a bit of a scream fest in joint therapy. The therapist got to the point of saying, “I’m hearing this as non-negotiable.”

I’m trying to figure out how to talk about what is non-negotiable here and historically speaking I have not been willing to talk about it at all so the fact that I’m getting to the point of being an asshole and maybe saying more than I should is complicated. Historically the problem is that I won’t say enough about this topic. When I start arguing I’m being nasty.

I don’t know how to have these boundaries.

I have not been good at saying no to sex I don’t want. I have not been good about saying, “Yes today is a good day.” I’m shit at this. Beyond picking up a new person or avoiding them… I’m utter shit at these boundaries.

It is hard to not feel like our sex problems are all my fault. If only I could communicate better then it would be easier for Noah.

I know things have improved. I know you are trying. Yeah, trying doesn’t cut it when I still sustain damage.

I don’t think Noah only has terrible sex with me where he is selfish. I really don’t. I have not tracked these things largely on purpose. I don’t want to see him that way. If I could have tracked, once upon a time, that 70% of our sex life was really crummy for me that would have been super duper hard. At this point it isn’t 10% of our sex life that is shitty. I know. I know it has improved. I know you are trying.

“But it only happened once this month and I worked so hard at getting you off the other times.”

You did. And I sound like an ungrateful bitch.

After years of not knowing what I was going to get from sex, whether it would be pleasant or painful and awful, I don’t relax for the first several minutes of intercourse. I’m tense and paranoid that it’s going to be over in under two minutes and I’m going to be left with a sticky ripped up cunt and that’s what I get.

I know you have been much better for a long time. I’m still scared. Because only happening once a month means I can’t stop being scared. Intermittent reinforcement is a much better teacher than constant reinforcement.

It isn’t fucking fair that I’m so wounded by all this. But after so much sexual assault the fact that a lot of my marriage has involved a ripped up cunt…

I’m not handling this any more. I’m just not.

It isn’t fair that this one issue is so big for me. It really isn’t. I know how hard Noah works to support me in a variety of ways. I feel like the biggest ungrateful bitch on the planet. Does it really matter so much if my crotch burns and itches? Really?

Yes. Yes it fucking does.

It does. It does. It does. If I matter at all it fucking matters that I should not have to submit to sexual contact that hurts me.

Noah keeps telling me that if it would make me feel better I could hurt him sexually. No. No that wouldn’t make me feel better at all.

I’m angry and resentful and all kinds of other feelings. I may feel some desire for revenge in a way… I definitely think I’ve been stomping my feet and screaming, “My sexuality matters TOO” in a way that has not been kind or considerate.

But what I want is more pleasure for me not more pain for Noah to get even. Even the idea of that makes me so sad.

It isn’t fair that Noah can get me off 24 times in one go round of sex and that doesn’t make up for the times when he fucks me without warm up. It isn’t fair at all. It should make up for it.

Noah has gotten way better at noticing, “Oh shit I shouldn’t have started” and he is withdrawing without completion. Which is awesome for the itching and… does nothing for the burning if I’ve already torn.

So he’s trying. He really and truly is. He has made steps towards greater consideration that are not about me stomping up and down and screaming and saying be considerate. I see that.

But it still burns. And after 32+ years and counting of my cunt burning because men want access to it…

I’m so broken.

I have no more give left. I am out of consideration and patience. I’m out of forgiveness. I need this to god damn stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

I feel like somehow there was something that changed in some substantial, structural way on the road trip. I had such an extensive break from sex I didn’t want that it changed how I felt. I wanted sex I didn’t get on the trip. The sex I had with Noah was great. When he was with us on visits we had as much sex as we could arrange and I’m not complaining about how that went.

And then I came home and it happened again.

And I fucking lost it.

And I started fucking everyone.

And Noah fucking lost it.

And here we are.

I know that part of this change has to come from me. I have to find words in the most small and scared place I have in my mind. That is excruciatingly difficult.

Know how I have a torrent of words most of the time? I did that to myself. I overcame the desire I had to be silent because no one wants to hear from a loser whore anyway. Now I have to find it in me to believe that when someone wants to have sex with me and I don’t want it I can say no in the moment and not be raped.

I don’t think there much of my subconscious that is ready to take that risk.

I don’t say no.

There is this huge problem in needing to know that the person you are married to can rape you.

Now I know.

I know.

I’m scared.

Should I be scared?

Cue hysterical shrieking laughter.

I’m a monster married to a monster. I know what I did to myself.

But he’s the nicest god damn monster I’ve ever met. I consider my life to be supersaturated with monsters so I’m actually doing some comparing and judging here. Hell, I think Noah is nicer than most “nice people” I know.

He’s something.

Noah is nicer to me than any other person on the planet. I feel like an ungrateful bitch for complaining about him. But the sex without prep has got to god damn stop.

Well it is a week. I feel drained, exhausted and weary. I feel like I can’t do anything right. I feel like a fuck up of the first order. I feel like communication is pointless, tiring, and futile. I feel like if something could be good, I will wreck it. Because I exist. I guess that means I’m not a narcissist.

Noah keeps telling me that all he wants is to be with me. I keep coming back to: but I am so selfish, petty, and small. Why?

We are lost children together. Lost children aren’t usually nice, not as a rule. Lost children are brutal, nasty, and cruel.

That has been my personal experience at least. I’m sure someone else will say no: children are sweet and wonderful.

Sure. Maybe to you.

It isn’t helping that there have been non-dating upsets in the last month too. I feel like dog shit.

My therapist was trying to be cute when she told me that marriage is about doing what your partner wants sexually for the rest of your life. I freaked her out a little bit when I started screaming and flailing THEN WHY IN THE MOTHER FUCK DOESN’T THAT INCLUDE DOING WHAT I WANT?! WHY IN THE MOTHER FUCK DOES BEING MARRIED MEAN I HAVE TO BE A FUCKING FLESHLIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!? She decided it was time to invite Noah to a session after all these years.

I’ve tried to communicate about this issue. I’ve had calm and reasoned discussions for years. I’ve cried. I’ve explained in great detail how much physical and emotional pain it causes me. And 10 years in I get, “Well I guess I just need to get better at foreplay.”

Burn.Everything.Down.

Recent conversations involved Noah telling me that yeah, part of my initial appeal was that I didn’t have a normal girl’s boundaries. I didn’t say no to things that other girls said no to, because I was habituated. Just yesterday I was paging through a sexual assault recovery book and one of the chapter titles was, “If It’s Painful, It Must Be Sex.” I wanted to put my head through a window.

I am so tired of having my cunt hurt. So tired. So tired. So tired. So tired. I am so tired of being a hole.

My most recent attempt to deal with this was through having sex with other people. Because if I am more regularly stimulated by a lot of people it’s easier to get me going even if the sex is kinda shitty and then it doesn’t hurt me.

But that attempt failed in a big fiery crash.

I am freaking out.

And I’m going to have a hard time with the fact that for the next few months the entire narrative around sex is going to be hurry up and get off so that your cervix is more open for sperm.

Oh. I. Feel. Sexy.

I am not just a hole. I am an incubator who has to hurry up and provide service.

I want the baby. I even like breeder fantasy shit. I’m a sick motherfucker that way.

I’m still having a very hard time. I’m having a hard time with the fact that for most of my marriage my pleasure has been an afterthought at best and often not thought of at all. I’m here to serve his pleasure.

I’m not wired to think that is hot. I feel empty. I feel like I was the child of rape created to grow up and be raped for the rest of my life and it really doesn’t matter how I feel about it.

I’m feeling incredibly sad that I’ve wanted this baby this much for this long and now it will be created under these circumstances.

Shit.

I feel like a fucking asshole because my life is pretty close to perfect. Other than the fact that I have a ton of sex I don’t want and don’t enjoy. It hurts. It hurts physically and it hurts emotionally and I don’t shake it off. Because I owe it to Noah in exchange for him doing chores and being nice to me and the kids.

It’s not like I do other things in trade. It’s not like I’ve managed his money for years. It’s not like I do his laundry or ensure that his car is maintained or clean his house or homeschool his kids. The deal is I owe sex.

And I feel like I am the stupidest whore ever created because I set my rate so low. I give up so much of myself for this. I feel like someone built a bird roost right over my soul. So that I can be shit on all day long as everyone takes flight off to do more interesting things.

I know this sounds melodramatic.

I’ve been struggling with the sex stuff for a very long time. Everything I’ve tried to fix it has failed. Because I can’t make someone else be considerate or care. That has to come from them and Noah has used up his consideration and care outside of sex.

I get what he has to give. This is what there is and he’s doing his best so say thank you and don’t be ungrateful. Don’t you know how much he has done for you? Shut up if your pussy hurts.

Shut up.

Shut up.

Shut up.

Shut up.

It’s just a pussy. How much can it matter anyway.

I’ve spent a lot of years trying to suppress how much of a problem this has been for me. Really my whole life.

I know how to bed hop and find people who will be nicer to me. I do not know how to inspire it in someone who already has used up their nice putting up with what a fucking bitch I am.

I feel like I should figure out how to be ok hiding in a small dark place then only coming out when I feel like I can behave. And when I’m there I really need to stop smoking so much pot and typing. Because baby.

Just shut up and stop making people feel so fucking inconvenienced. You are too god damn demanding. You want too much. You want a partner who cooks for you and gets you off? Get over yourself you fucking bitch.

It’s not like you do enough to deserve that.

He does get me off sometimes. When I catch him in the right mood and I’ve born enough constant unsatisfying sex that he has some lasting power.

It’s my fault if it goes quick because I haven’t been putting out enough lately. Duh.

If I can’t get off fast enough, that’s my fault and my problem.

I know.

I feel really bad.

The trouble is this resentment builds up and it impacts all the time. It is hard to appreciate Noah’s company when I’m seething or hurting or both.

It doesn’t help my feelings of resentment or seething that I know that if I go too far out of bounds I will be scared until I stop. I am angry that I have been asking to not have someone bang the wall next to my head to silence me for ten years and it is still happening.

I know I’m a contemptible bitch. I put up with the screaming. I put up with a lot of having to agree all the time that you are right and I am wrong and I am wrong and I am wrong. I know that it is the deal.

But I’m fucking tired of the wall hitting. It is scary as shit. You are going to fucking miss and you are going to fucking hit me. The last time was what, 6″ from my head? Don’t fucking act like you have control of this, motherfucker.

You have escalated a lot in your desire to shut me the hell up.

If you need to not hear me so bad get up like a god damn adult and leave the room.

Stop scaring me into silence. You want to find out what it feels like for me to hate your fucking guts? Keep doing what you’re doing.

Yes. You win in the moment. But every battle you win that way loses you long term trust and love and affection.

I’m not saying I’m doing well in how I’m trying to figure out my side winning some of these battles. I’m being a fucking asshole. I know it.

I know I’m scorching earth I need to use to grow crops. I know I’m hurting myself. And so are you.

I don’t know what to do right now.

I’m not talking very much. I’m writing less than usual and after today I shouldn’t write anything big for days again. I’m crying a lot. Like the loser white bitch I am. Recently I was reminded how completely contemptible I am because I’m another crying white woman.

I feel like shit.

Fuck everything.