Category Archives: judgmental asshole

Well, therapy isn’t an option. Try to talk it out.

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Why am I so depressed? Well. I built a lot of my sense of self worth around my value to people. Quite some time ago Sarah said that she was tired of having me publicly humiliate her when she made mistakes so I didn’t write as much about how she was treating me. I gave too much. I hate feeling like I am one of those assholes who justifies treating people badly or stalking by saying “I just love too much”.

But I went and did physical labor for her when it was literally causing me physical damage. I spent thousands of dollars helping her. Because I was trying to give her the kind of support I wish someone wanted to give me. She had me block out lots of time for her on my calendar and she showed up when she had nothing better to do.

Dad only offers help (that I have to pay hundreds of dollars for because I have to buy the plane tickets and send food money for my kid and send money for activities…. why aren’t I just sending her to sleep away camp–that costs less money?) when he also wants to ask me if he can borrow $25,000. But he doesn’t invite me to Thanksgiving or Christmas unless it is an Orphan/Leather Friends event. When he has holidays with his family I am not invited. I might be able to crash it… but he doesn’t invite me. Years ago when I asked him if he was willing to have a relationship with my kids he told me that I needed to know that all of his investment properties, all of his ability to help in this life is going to his kids. But I should loan him $25,000? Uhm. No. That kind of loan is for family. And you are letting me know that I am a Leather Family member… not a family member.

The folks we came to Hawaii to see talked about how much they missed us and how much they wanted to spend time with us. They have been begging us to visit for two years. And the daughter has totally flaked (she’s 20 and going through some shit… I get it) while the mother is manipulative, whiny, and cruel to my children all while asking me to fund her lifestyle. “I want to throw you a vegan feast to show you how much I care about you… but you have to pay for it.” Well a vegan feast is only welcome if it comes from t&T because their household is the only vegan household I fucking trust to make me food that will taste good. Your offering sounds like I am going to leave hangry and mean. And I get to pay for it. You will hang out with my kids and tell them that if they are not demonstrating enough gratitude that they don’t deserve to have as much food or money from their mother for play. WHAT THE FUCK? She mocked the size of my daughter’s ass because it didn’t fit in a climbing unit designed for fucking 5 year olds.

But I feel this terrible, overwhelming shame about cutting off people who treat me this way? They are willing to be my friends so how dare I judge what they have on offer?

Being really upset about these bigger boundary violations mean that smaller things feel more threatening. I *know* the CPS comment wasn’t intended as a threat. I *know* she didn’t mean to hurt me. But CPS is a deeply triggering topic and I am already wild with upset and I don’t have the ability to process that kind of thing without flipping out on top of everything else.

I don’t feel entitled to demand better treatment. I feel like these “friends” are treating me this way because this is what I deserve. Because I deserve to be treated like an ATM. If I don’t buy love I don’t deserve to receive any.

I deeply believe that my children don’t owe me anything. It is supposed to be a one way trip of support but that means I feel used all of the time by a lot of people and that’s hard.

I am still grieving Marcie. Her wife would not allow me to visit when Marcie was injured. Marcie felt abandoned. Marcie broke up with me because she couldn’t cope with feeling abandoned. I get that. I hope her wife is treating her better now. I will never know.

I am not blameless in any of this. I wanted too much from Sarah. I could watch her patterns and guess that she wouldn’t keep her promises and she would continue to want/take money and never think about how she was impacting other people. She is consistent with lots of people. I kept making stupid choices.

But I hurt. I feel like my hurt is stupid and I should just get over it and how dare I act like I have problems when I am not poor any more.

How dare I act like I ever deserve any support at all now that I have so much fucking money. I *should* have to pay for all help I get. And if people treat me badly as they take my money… isn’t that what I have always believed rich people deserve? Isn’t that justice?

I never meant to get this rich. I really didn’t. And now I don’t know how to view myself.

I don’t feel bad about the financial help I give to a lot of people. I bought Y a car and I don’t feel bad. I gave M a car and I don’t feel used. I have paid for people’s schooling. I have helped people start businesses. I loaned a friend money so she could get an apartment when she got her first corporate job and she couldn’t afford a place in the city she got the job in.

I don’t feel used by any of those situations at all.

I feel used by Sarah. I feel used by Dad. I feel used by the lady here in Hawaii.

Feeling bad about these people does not entitle me to treat other people badly. But I’m not coping well. I feel like I have to pretend I am not hurting and I am not capable right now. I don’t feel entitled to be sad about how these people treat me.

I abandoned my mother and my aunt when they needed help. I left them with a bunch of users, abusers, and takers. I feel like that means I deserve all the bad in the whole world. That means that Sarah treating me like shit feels like justice. And I hate myself for being someone who deserves this.

When I got my accident settlement when I turned 18, my sister told me that I had to use it to buy her a house and she would let me live with her.

How can I teach my children how to be in relationships without being users if that is all I understand?

It isn’t that all of my friends are users. Not even close. And it isn’t that I think I deserve endless support or financial help or…

I babysat for a lot of people hoping for trades. I was told that it was “easier” for me. They couldn’t handle having more than their own children in the house. But me providing free child care was so nice. It worked with the Bonus Family until it didn’t. Then my kids told me that a lot of her discipline was threatening to hit them and putting them in time outs for hours. I already knew that she expected my kids to come clean up after her kids because my kids are “more mature”.

I feel like almost every child care situation I have found has turned out to be shitty and abusive. I fear that it is happening because only shitty and abusive people want to be around me.

Only that isn’t true. I have friends who aren’t shitty and abusive. Well. I have people who want to talk to me for a few minutes or hours a year who aren’t shitty and abusive.

I feel like I should have known that my children would be treated badly by caregivers, as if it is a generational curse.

I don’t want to be bitter or angry or pissy with new people because I hate how this has all gone down.

But that means I have to lie about how I feel all the god damn time because I don’t trust people and I assume people are going to use me or treat me or my kids like crap.

M came through for my last birth. I need to never ever do anything again that puts me in such a vulnerable position. Because I can’t ever again need that much help. I can’t guarantee it. I am sure that people will help me in the future but they will help me randomly and when and how they feel like it and it won’t be based on my needs or issues. It will be about what makes them feel good that day.

That has to be ok. That has to be enough.

Which means I need to not try to be bigger. I need to not try to accomplish things. I need to just sit around and do nothing and wait for my kids to have needs because they will have needs and I am the only one who will be available to help them. I can’t ever believe anyone who tells me they will help again. If someone offers to be a penpal I need to to not believe them. If someone tells me they want us to come visit because they want to spend time with us I need to assume they are a liar.

I am so fucking grateful that Jenny said she has maybe a spare hour one day a week. Maybe. That is not consistent and I cannot count on it.

Thank you.

I hate that I need to assume that people are lying to me all the time. I need to assume that people are telling me what they wish was true, not what is true.

And I wonder why I feel depressed?

I really don’t want to live near the ocean. I don’t like it at all. I learned that, at least.

I can change how this story ends.

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Yesterday my children got a tiny taste of what I dealt with as a kid. The babysitters mother told me she would take the kids… but only if it was for pay because they are so hard. Ok, that part was fine with me. We agreed on $20/hour. I suggested three hours, she pushed for four. Hm. Ok. She sent me a long list of stuff she wanted me to pack and have ready for the kids (snacks, water bottles, clothing for the baby, all the stuff). It would have been a great list for a trip to the park. (She didn’t use any of the things she asked me to pack. The kids came back hungry and the baby was absolutely filthy. So why insist on having the supplies if you won’t use them?)

When she got here she said she was so excited. She was going to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese!! Isn’t that great! That way the kids will each have a hand stamp so they can’t get out of the building and she doesn’t have to stress herself out watching them! I was a bit dubious about that. The last CEC birthday party we went to a few years ago didn’t go that well because my kids have aged out already. But uhm… she didn’t really want to hear that when I tried mentioning it gently.

(She has told me over and over on this trip that she is not interested in hearing blunt truths. Either sugar coat it or don’t tell her at all. Uhm. That’s a point of view.)

When the kids came home they had stories. All of the stories are in line with behavior I have witnessed in milder form or they match up with stories that the babysitter has told so I believe my kids.

I sent the kids with $20 each to use for food or tokens. The food ended up being comped because the babysitters mother threw a tantrum about them not having gluten free pizza. She wouldn’t let the kids have that money for tokens. She made them spend their own money and she was very proud of herself when she handed me the money when they got back.

Apparently Eldest Child’s shoe broke in the first few minutes of them being there. She walked around on it for the whole time at CEC but as they were leaving the woman decided that it wasn’t acceptable and she made EC buy a new pair of shoes with her allowance. (The lady did contribute some, but… EC hated the shoes and they are physically uncomfortable and now she’s out her allowance money on shoes she will never wear again.)

But that’s the petty shit.

I don’t know what the fucking phrasing was, but she told Middle Child that he got more tokens than Eldest Child because EC wasn’t demonstrating enough gratitude. When there were an uneven number of pieces of pizza she told my kids that the child who behaved the best got the extra piece.

OH FUCK YOU AND THE FUCKING HORSE YOU RODE IN ON YOU GOD DAMN BITCH.

That’s the kind of shit she used to do to the foster kid she tried to adopt; he ended up punching holes in her walls because he couldn’t handle how controlling and manipulative she was. He was rehoused for his own safety. You have to be pretty fucking bad to have your foster kid taken away.

But my kids have never had stories like this before.

No wonder her daughter won’t talk to her anymore! She was telling me that she is very disappointed because her daughter won’t share any real feelings with her, she only presents a facade and she (the mother) wants to know the truth. I said, “Maybe telling you the truth isn’t safe.” “How dare you say that. Now you have upset me. You have to tell me something nice about myself now.”

I feel like letting her babysit was a desperation move. It was like letting fucking Kira watch my kids.

But I canceled dinner. And we aren’t seeing them again.

Before the CEC shit went down, we had been negotiating dinner tonight. She wanted to tell us to come over at 5 and swim and play for a few hours and then cook and then her husband would drive us home when he felt like it. Uhhhh no. If we come over at 5 we will be ready to eat, not play. We will be going home at 7 on the bus, not in your husband’s car because we will not have a car seat and we will not be breaking the law. “Well, you can try to assert your will with him, but people have died walking on that street so he may insist because he wants to protect you.”

Bitch I have taken my family all over the world without your fucking control. You don’t get to decide how or when I go anywhere.

So ok! I learned a lot on this stop in Hawaii.

I sat my kids down and explained that this kind of thing is why I come down on them so hard about lying. If they make a habit of lying to me, when bad things like this happen… I have to hear the other side of the story and try to find the truth that I can act on. If they are reliable narrators about what happens to them, when someone acts like this… ok we aren’t seeing them again and no I don’t need to hear her gaslighting bullshit.

This lady talks about how proud she is of herself because she was a single mother but she NEVER ASKED HER DAUGHTER TO TAKE CARE OF HER. Her daughter (the old babysitter) has stories like, “My mom entered her first depression when I was 5. I have spent my entire life making sure my mom eats, has her medicine, has she taken a shower…. I’m tired.”

I believe the babysitter and I believe my kids. I am not giving this woman a chance to tell her side of the story because I don’t fucking care.

You told my son that if his sister doesn’t demonstrate enough gratitude to adults that he should punish her by withholding the shared resources.

FUCK YOU WITH A FUCKING CHAIN SAW. THAT SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE YOU.

I had so many foster families treat me like that.

My kids don’t have to go back to that.

I told my kids that I can’t save them from bad things ever happening to them. There are going to be bad situations in the future where we can’t walk away and we will have to learn to cope. But this bitch? We don’t need to learn to cope with her lying and control and bullshit.

And the babysitter dropped off the map after making promises to my kids. Ok. We learned that our perception of these people was clouded by circumstances. If you change circumstances, people change. We don’t need to keep in touch any more.

This woman is constantly complaining to me that she can’t make any friends here because Hawaiians are racist.

You know what, lady? I think the problem is you.

It’s kind of nice to occasionally have clarity that my wrong decision was trusting someone I shouldn’t because they are the bad actor, not me.

I think she doesn’t like how I parent. My kids are free to share when they are bored or unhappy or when a gift was a flop.

I like that. I like that they tell me “Mom I really don’t want to be at Chuck E Cheese’s. The creepy figures bother me and the games aren’t fun.”

Oh, oh… but the pièce de résistance…. Eldest Child kinda got stuck in one of the climbing tubes. Because they are designed for little children and my 10 year old is bigger than most adult Asian women at this point. She’s 100% shopping in the adult department. She’s not over weight, she is going to be a very large person. Her body is perfectly proportioned and she’s fucking fine.

THAT FUCKING BITCH MADE FUN OF HER. “wow. You are so big. Even I could fit in there. hahahaha”

The bitch in question wears about a size 4. Her daughter is a 0 or a 2. My daughter is pretty pear shaped and size small pants are already getting tight–she’ll be in mediums (so probably a size 6 at the moment) in the next year. She is height/weight proportional.

YOU DON’T FUCKING MAKE FUN OF A KID BECAUSE THEY ARE GROWING UP YOU STUPID CUNT. I am so angry that if I saw her I might hit her. She fucking fat shamed my daughter.

You know what… fuck people.

Our plans for the weekend sound pretty fun to me. We are picking up a rental car in 5 days and we will explore the other side of the island and deal with all of our crap on our own.

I am more than capable.

I. do. not. need. you.

Choices.

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“It’s a shame you choose to take it that way. I see people trying to help you.”

When I say, “I should back out of this conversation because I am incapable of hearing feedback in a positive way”… telling me that it’s a shame I am ‘making this choice’ is really harsh.

I’m autistic. I have ADHD. I have PTSD. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I have depression. But sure, if I’m having a bad day I should just buck up and choose to Be Positive! It’s a shame I don’t make that choice!

Thanks for helping me feel like my problems are because I am lazy and bad and I just won’t make the right choice.

Maybe that is one more place I need to stop going to talk to people.

Trying to find the right mirrors.

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I have a lot of people in my life who will tell me what is wrong with me and why I am fucking up. There aren’t very many people who spend enough time with me to be able to give me serious feedback on what I do right.

The mom of our former babysitter is an evangelical Christian. She’s seriously interested in converting people to her version of love and light and all that. She tries really hard to be positive even though she has a lot of anxiety and depression issues too. We’ve seen her a bunch of times already. Every single time we see her she comments on things she sees that are positive. “Wow y’all are really good at compromising and negotiating.” “It’s so nice to see siblings getting along so well and trying to be kind to each other.” “You are all trying so hard to get through work even as you are distracted and tired; that’s not easy and you are doing really well.”

I feel like a plant getting water. And I feel like I am a terrible energy vampire because I want more. More. MORE.

I feel my shoulders coming down. I feel less defensive and sad.

It’s not instant. I’m not going to get over this in a week. It’s been a bad two years for me since they left. I miss this family like an open, bleeding wound. And I feel like I’m starting to get a transfusion.

I love them so much. I am so grateful that they embrace us even though we are not like them and we do not share their values and we do not have the same life goals.

I feel accepted.

This is how all fucking Christians should fucking act.

Growing pains and mistakes

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Many of my friends are traumatized people. When they respond to me or give me feedback… they are not taking careful stock of what I am doing and reacting to my actions. They are responding from a place of wounding. That’s not wrong and it’s not bad and it’s not always irrelevant… but it’s important for me to keep in mind so I don’t flagellate myself to death because they are upset at what I am doing. Their reaction is more about them than me. But I take it hard.

I try hard to ask a lot of different kinds of people about my behavior for that reason. I try to ask people with a wide range of backgrounds and experience. I try hard to regulate myself more strongly off of people who have actual relevant experience in whatever issue I am trying to deal with at the moment.

Sometimes I really fail at that and I spend days raging at myself and feeling like there is absolutely no hope of me ever being better because I have triggered a traumatized person. That’s not very useful for me, my husband, my kids, or even my friends.

I’ve been reading more psych books. Because I’m trying to find the middle path.

No, offering my children a variety of not-so-comfortable inducements that they can try and reject at will is not the same thing as spanking them for being bad. It just isn’t. We are trying things because I am out of cope and some of the things we try are going to be less than optimal and they will fail.

That’s fucking life and it isn’t the same thing as child abuse.

We tried it. The first day they thought it was very useful to them and they wanted to try again. The second day they didn’t like it and they felt kind of bad about it and they said they didn’t want to do that again.

Ok. We won’t do that again. My goal was not to inflict pain or punishment on them. It was to create a less comfortable environment.

The fact that folks would be totally ok with me drugging the shit out of my kids to have a similar kind of behavioral impact is utterly bizarre to me.

I am trying to figure out what lines need to be held. I am going to mess that up sometimes. We renegotiated academic goals about a month ago. We halved the work load. I tried to hold the kids to what they agreed to because that is my job. But it may be that once again the goals we set are not the right ones and we will have to adapt.

I am freaking out partially because I have not stood next to people who did this well. I am faking it. I don’t know what the hell I am doing. All my classroom experience did not prepare me for this part. In a classroom, the standards are arbitrarily set by the state and the students measure up or they fail. I am not setting arbitrary standards for my kids. I don’t have “You must be x proficient” goals for them and thus we are flailing really hard as we figure out what our goals should be and how hard I should insist on meeting the goals the kids claim they want to reach.

This is a process.

But I need to stop screaming.

I don’t have rest. I don’t get much support. Almost everyone who says, “I will help you by doing x” has turned out to be fucking lying and I need to stop allowing anyone to claim they will help me with my kids. It just results in me hating my friends with the fire of a thousand suns because almost no one follows up on what they say they will do.

The people who have absolutely rigorously met the standards they set for me are rare. I can pretty much count them on my fingers. I think that the fact that they go off of one hand is something that I should be celebrating instead of being so upset that the number of people doesn’t reach my toes.

But people keep making promises and not keeping them and that hurts me.

I don’t feel entitled to that hurt and that’s part of the problem. I don’t let myself admit to myself just how much these people are hurting me until I am exploding with rage all over the place because I can’t suppress my feelings anymore. I try hard not to get angry about people saying “I will do x with the kids” and then never doing it because I want to honor that people mean well. They want to be helping me. But the reality is that most of the time they want to feel helpful not be helpful and I need to stop looking to those people. Really almost any people.

We need to find a way to balance this so we can be self sufficient. That is not what I have been trying for…. ever.

The psych book I’m reading right now Born To Be Good talks about how in the US people define themselves as individuals (I’m an artist, a runner, a dancer, a writer) and people in other countries tend to define themselves through their relationships (I’m a daughter, a mother, a wife, a friend, a cousin) and a lot of my problem has been that I have been trying as hard as I can all of my life to define myself through my friendships because the daughter/sister/niece roles failed so abjectly for me.

But my friends have not been able to turn and be stable for me the way that family relationships do for other people and that’s been really destructive to my entire mental health.

Leaning this hard on my friendships for my identity and my self worth has resulted in decades of feeling worthless and like I should kill myself because no one is ever going to prioritize me like I do them. I hurt myself showing up for friendships when I should be selfish and care for myself and that’s stupid.

For the last couple of days I have been trying to process for myself that 50% of all people who hit grade 12 in school are below proficiency. My 5th grader is already writing essays that rival many of the 17 year olds I taught.

Maybe I don’t need to be so worried about them being “at grade level” and doing all the busy work of going through school. My kids have a very solid grasp of grammar and math. They are approximately at grade level. They would probably be B students if they went straight into school right now for the last few months of this school year.

Why am I so freaked out every moment of every day about failing them as a teacher and not preparing them for what they need to know? Because nothing I did was ever good enough to make my friends show up for me in the ways they constantly claimed they would so how can I know if what I am giving my kids will be enough for their future so they can show up and do what they want to do?

Maybe that isn’t entirely my battle to fight.

My kids have been digging in their heels and doing less and less. They were told weeks ago when we reset the metrics that they had to be current in order to go hang out with the babysitter. They then messed around on the boat and did nothing and got a week behind. They have not been interested in catching up since they got here.

Why am I wearing myself out trying to force them through the work necessary to earn the free time they want to have? This is so stupid.

I know that they can get all of their work done in 2 hours a day with time to spare. Maybe I need to give them two hours to do it then kick them out to play outside by themselves while I have down time. If you don’t get your stuff done so you can go with your friend, sucks to be you. Play by yourself and get out of my face. I act like I owe them constant stimulation and entertainment and so do they. And it is turning me into a psycho harpy. This is not working. I can’t be 24/7 stimulation for 3 kids and have anything left for my own health.

I don’t think we should lower the standards to nothing and completely unschool. But I also think that if they want to fail and not earn rewards…. I should let them. I have not been letting them. I have been hurting myself dragging them to their rewards.

Why. What am I teaching them?

That I care way more about their happiness than they have to. I care more about their happiness than my happiness or Noah’s happiness or my health.

Why.

Because I am afraid that if I don’t they will treat me like my friends.

You know what? I am leaving the fucking country because I am so angry about how my friends treat me. I have chased people for years begging for their love. I’m doing the same thing with my kids.

This is stupid.

I feel like I’m going to stop breathing

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If you tell me where this post is linked (and I get to go verify it) I will send you $20. Who in the hell is causing me to get so many damn hits on this post?

Holy. Shit. This is the month. 18 days. 13 days till my baby turns 1. We aren’t having a party. I am definitely depressed. I don’t feel able to reach out to anyone if my life depends on it. I am leaving. I never get to ask for anything again.

I get these people and the folks who voluntarily ask to be part of our life. I don’t have the right to keep begging people to be in my life.

I think back to Eldest Child’s huge first birthday ten years ago. I thought we were going to be part of a big community. Well, when I stopped doing all the driving those people dropped me. Ok.

I feel so incredibly hurt by all of the people in the Bay Area who drove past me to help other people but fuck me I should do everything alone.

I am leaving partially because if you asked me for help I would show up. Even though you treat me like shit and I know it. Because that’s who I am. Thus I am moving to get the fuck away from your using ass.

“Aunties”. Fuck it.

I am so bitter.

There are a lot of days I wish that having kids wouldn’t have worked out so I could be dead already. I am so tired of feeling abandoned and unimportant. When I ask you for help and you tell me no but you drive even farther to help someone else you remind me of my mother. Anyone but me deserves help.

Fuck me. Why am I still here? Why haven’t I died already.

Things like: when I used to try hard to be part of the home school group I would find out that all of the major decisions for when and where to schedule big events were made at private “just a couple of friends” off shoots of the main group so that my schedule was never taken into consideration. “Well this is what works for us. You can either come or not come.” *hair flip*

Yeah. I see you there. Why don’t you go do all of your own work from now on.

You have no idea how much satisfaction I get from having over a dozen people tell me that the group sucked after I left. No shit mother fucker. That’s because you all suck and I tried to rescue you from how shitty you are but it was too much work. Go to hell.

I am not willing to invest in the new group at all. It’s too late. Not even in terms of time. I am angry and bitter and I owe none of you a god damn kind word let alone labor.

I feel sick to my stomach thinking about how much damage I have done to my body helping people. I drove to fucking Arizona and caused pre-term labor problems doing manual labor for someone who didn’t really appreciate me.

Because I’m stupid.

Because I don’t value myself.

Because I treat people allowing me to work for them as the same thing as love.

I mean, she did kind of appreciate me. But not enough to talk to me on a vacation I’m paying for when her more interesting boyfriend is present. Not enough to keep her promises. Hell, not enough for her to bother remembering that she made promises! Fuck me.

I really don’t want to feel bitter like this. It really doesn’t help that a lot of this is so old.

It dates back to when all of my siblings were good enough to stay with our parents and I couldn’t. Because I was too much trouble. I needed too much help. So go stay with people who hate you and talk all day long about how much you are shit.

We will never go camping again because how dare I act like able bodied adults showing up and expecting a disabled adult to do everything for them is rude.

How dare I act like I am anything other than a menial serf here to do your labor for you. You are the good one. The one who grew up with a family and parents. You deserve good things. I should wait on you because that is the natural order of things.

Waste people don’t matter. They should serve the people who matter.

Fuck you. And fuck you. And fuck YOU with a chainsaw.

Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you. I am so mad. I am so bitter. I am so angry.

Fuck Marcie. Fuck Chris. Fuck Laura. Fuck Kira. Fuck Deborah. Fuck Alex. Fuck Desiree. Fuck Jen. Fuck fucking Tamy. Even though it hurts so bad I feel like my chest will implode: fuck Sarah.

You treated me badly and I did not deserve that. I can come up with excuses for all of you. Your feelings are so much more important than mine. I can justify you dropping me or ignoring me or lying to me or not keeping your promises or you thinking that everyone else is more important…

BUT FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

I get to be mad. I shouldn’t take it out on everyone else in my life but frankly talking about it helps me not do that. It helps me compartmentalize it.

I am angry with these people because they actually did things to hurt me. Maybe if I name them I will stop feeling like I am a monster who is blasting everyone in the world equally even though most people don’t deserve it.

I wanted some people more than others. It wasn’t returned. I feel like the problem came partially from me being stupid and allowing myself to like them so much. I shouldn’t have. They truly weren’t worth it.

That’s the trouble. These people make me feel like I am unworthy of being alive and none of them deserve that power. They aren’t worth me feeling this bad for this many years. I have cried for literal years over every person on that list of names. Because they didn’t love me like I loved them. Maybe the trouble is I pick selfish assholes. Maybe part of the trouble is I know that I have to get very angry with those people; I have to move; I have to create distance or I will be pathetic and crawl back and continue to beg these fuckers to love me.

And they aren’t worth it.

Maybe if I write it down I can put it down.

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I heard the end. I kind of recognized it as it happened and I kind of recognize it in the rear view mirror.

I like doing things for people. I like feeling useful and valuable and like I am of service. It’s a pretty overly core part of my identity. Many of my relationships involve a lot of me doing work for benefit of other peoples lives. I like being a supporting character in your story. I love you and I want you to have a glorious story arc that has nothing to do with me. So I’ll show up and clean your house.

I’ll drive across state lines to unpack and repack you while you are too depressed and in pain to do it for yourself.

I’ll take you with me on major vacations, even to other countries.

I’ll buy a fucking time share so you can have the vacations you want that you can’t afford.

But when you spend a week ignoring me on the week that was supposed to make up for you ignoring me for a year and you turn to me and casually say, “Oh by the way I need to talk to you about using next years points for a trip with my family” that I am clearly not invited on….

I just because an ATM to you.

No. Done. Stop. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Nobody gets to treat me like an ATM. Especially not a rich white person. I don’t think so.

That right there is my line. I can see it very clearly. You stopped seeing this as a relationship where you have to give back. I’m supposed to keep giving to you no matter how shittily you treat me. No matter how much you cancel plans with me because everyone and everything else is more important.

It was a solid year of you canceling 80%. You wanted me holding time open for you so that you could cancel at the last minute. That makes you feel wanted and loved and connected. You could show up if you felt like it. I feel like you very rarely fucking prioritize me while expecting me to prioritize you greatly physically, spiritually, and financially.

Never make someone your priority when you are their option.

I wanted to be as important to you as you are to me. I was an important source of labor and money. You didn’t show up to be support for me.

You promised me that you would have strong relationships with my kids. I can count how many times you’ve seriously spent time with them in the last three years on my fingers.

Stop acting like I can’t track things and notice patterns. I’m not stupid. You make promises you won’t deliver on and you broke my fucking heart.

And you told me that you dropping me was all my fault because I got too angry. A lot of why I was angry is because you make promises and don’t keep them. So this cycle is all my fault.

Ok. I will step out of it. I don’t need to be in it. Then it won’t continue. Then it won’t be my fault. That is the power I have.

I know. It is never your fault you cancel. You are disabled. Hi. According to the very expensive team of people I pay I am disabled. And I am hurting myself by trying to show up for people who have no regard for me or my limits.

When will I decide that I am worth treating like a person of value? Because as long as I keep getting myself into situations where I believe I must stay in the relationship because I have known them for X time and I need them to stay in my life or it means I am bad and unworthy of having relationships…. that’s not a good dynamic. I should keep people in my life if I feel better about myself with the relationship instead of worse.

I turned hard to her when the cheating debacle went sideways. I was not allowed to pour myself into romantic relationships. I tried to have a major non romantic relationship.

It was never as major on the other end. I am very optional. That’s healthy! I need to… understand that this is very optional.

And stop picking the option that makes me cry. Cause hey dumbass, if you keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that someday someone will finally treat you well… fuck it. Move on with your life. There are 7 billion people. Don’t chase people who are going to treat you like an ATM. That’s not psychologically healthy.

What a day

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Yesterday, for all kinds of reasons, was awesome. Middle Child decided that instead of lots of academics he wanted to clean the whole apartment. He spent an hour and a half on it. I allowed it. He was doing work for the family and it is unusual. I’m not sure why he decided to spend his morning that way but I appreciate him taking the workload off of me. Eldest Child got 18 pages done. That is by far her best day. She’s two days behind now. She’s feeling really excited. She won’t be caught up by the time we go home because we are taking some time off of academics to look around but it’s feeling pretty good.

I feel so much more calm and relaxed about it than I have in a long time.

I’m trying to figure out how to write about something and not be mean because being mean isn’t the point. I don’t want to inflict pain; I want to record my process.

I think this needs to not be a break with Sarah. I think this needs to be the end. Something I have struggled with for years–it was the primary reason living together failed–is that Sarah chronically over promises and under delivers. She always has a good reason for her not doing what she promised. It’s usually health related. And then if I get mad then everything is all my fault and she has to retreat because she is triggered and she drops more promises and she hotly defends herself and blames it all on me.

This relationship is not healthy for either of us. She needs me to never get angry about how she drops things. She needs me to not notice and to just show her a happy face all of the time and I can’t do that. If I get angry she tells me that I am triggering her, which is a reference to her mother.

For the record her mother beat children.

But frankly she is just like my mother. She likes making promises she has no ability to keep just because making the promise is as good as doing the thing in her mind.

We hurt each other so much.

For her, intention is as good as delivering. But I half kill myself keeping my end of bargains because intention is absolutely nothing to me. I get the work done. Even if I’m a nasty bitch in the process.

But then she doesn’t want to be near me because I’m a nasty bitch. Fair. Then her share of the work doesn’t get done and I’m left holding the bag and everyone in my family is left dealing with my hysterical anger.

This is so incredibly unhealthy and I need off this train permanently.

That sucks because I love her so much I feel like I will crumble into a ball of pain without her. But my children need me to be consistent and that’s not possible if I am ever looking to Sarah for anything. Because I don’t have enough spoons in my drawer to cover her just…. not doing what she said she would do and never ever admitting that she didn’t show up.

I can’t.

This sucks. I wish this could be a break. But it can’t be. We can’t be close friends. We hurt each other. I hate having to be an adult. I hate that I have to never come back to this because my children need me to not be on this roller coaster.

I’m glad she has found a partner. I hope it lasts. I hope he meets her needs. I’m glad she has many other friends. I hope they take care of her. She deserves to be taken care of.

But I can’t do it. I hurt myself trying to be dependable for her. I hurt my kids when she doesn’t do what she says she will do.

Neither is ok.

Fuck.

It’s not that she does nothing for me! I’m not claiming that! But she makes a lot of promises and keeps a few of them and that’s not something I cope with well. The complete and utter inability to be honest about it destroys me. I am angry for months. My kids don’t deserve to deal with that.

In order for me to be the person I want to be I have to be honest about my behavior. I am a basket case when I am looking for Sarah and she’s “too busy” and she makes plans and breaks them. When I’m not looking for her, I manage my spoons better.

And frankly in the last year I haven’t seen many friends because I budget most of my friend-time for Sarah and then she frequently cancels and I don’t get to see anyone at all. That has been hurting me a lot and it is good that she sent me a “Fuck you, you can’t fire me; I quit” email. I’m not sure if I could have made the break. I love her so much. I’m ride or die. But if you quit on me I can respect that and stop chasing you.

Now I will never need to show up and do a ton of work for her again. Wow. How many things could I do for myself with the energy I’ve spent on her? Soooooooooooo much.

Much like how the Bonus Mama firing me was a really good thing for my family, we’ve all done so much better without the drama the Bonus Family brought into our lives…. we will be more stable without Sarah. Without her promising things to my kids she won’t deliver on.

My kids already know that when Sarah promises something they have at best a 50/50 chance of getting it and that really sucks.

That’s what I grew up with.

My kids know that if I don’t deliver on a promise I will acknowledge it, apologize, and make it up in some very specifically delineated way.

Sarah doesn’t do that. She can’t. She makes too many promises to too many people and she spreads herself too thin to make it up to anyone. And the apologies? Heh. Ha. Yeah right.

This is a gift of freedom and I need to take it.

It’s time to go.

I think if I am ever going to know in my bones that I deserve better than my mother gave me that I need to stop replacing her with friends who will treat me the same way. It’s not that I don’t love Sarah or my mother. It’s that the way they are in the world hurts me. It doesn’t hurt everyone. Some people are good enough with their boundaries that they don’t believe the promises or leave space for them in their lives and they can do fine with the disappointment.

I don’t do well with disappointment.

And that’s really something I need to be aware of and deal with. I need to insulate my children from that. I need to not invite it into my life constantly. Constantly. CONSTANTLY.

I need people who under promise and over deliver. And I think Sarah was the last person left who is completely the opposite. I loved her too much to do anything about it. I guess I got mad enough that I caused the break up? Was that passive aggressive of me?

I didn’t get mad because I wanted the break up. I got mad because I was promised attention but because I was grumpy she spent the trip in her room and then told me it was all my fault because she was triggered and has to flee my ill temper.

That’s fair. You shouldn’t have to be around an angry person.

But yeah. I’m not an angry person all the time. I have absolutely been grumpy for a while because of math and Eldest Child, but my fury is different.

I take responsibility for my side. The best part about the break up email is that there was only blame. Everything was my fault because I wasn’t cheerful enough.

That’s clear. That’s a pattern I can’t ignore.

I need to take that as the sign it is. And be done.

I spoke too soon.

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Well dinner sucked. Fucking grandmother. So grandmother didn’t order enough food. And then grandfather was encouraging everyone to take as much as they wanted! Eat more! And then I realized that everyone who was supposed to eat… was arriving staggered. So I ate the last fucking burrito approximately 3 minutes before the last person arrived.

So I looked like a huge selfish asshole. It was my second burrito. I really would have preferred to eat three because they were small. I’m fucking nursing a baby and the only lunch they had around during the day was cheese, bread, and greens. Oh, and cookies. So by dinner I was fucking hungry.

Then the room mate was helping to clean up after dinner and he and the grandmother stood around and loudly talked about how rude and disrespectful my children were because they didn’t offer to clean up the kitchen and do everyone’s dishes.

Oh, side note: I did everyone’s fucking dishes after lunch.

So I was expected to clean up after lunch and my children were expected to clean up after dinner.

Other fucking note: we had intended to come into town and see the one brother. It turned into a fucking family reunion with alllll the siblings and their entire families expected to show up. Oh. So it was a lot of people in a small space and everyone is super touchy about shit being messed with. But they also encourage the kids to touch things. But then they get mad at the kids.

This is such a head fuck and I am so god damn angry.

My kids do a fuck ton of house work. But no, they don’t show up at other peoples houses for a meal and offer to do all the cleaning. That has not been part of their home training.

That’s not something that most of the people we visit would allow or want. BUT HOW FUCKING DARE MY KIDS NOT SHOW UP AND WAIT ON THEIR FUCKING GRANDMOTHER. DON’T I KNOW THAT THEY NEED TO BE TRAINED TO BE A WOMAN IN THE KITCHEN GETTING ALL THE GOSSIP. THAT’S HOW FAMILIES ARE FORMED. THAT’S HOW CHILDREN LEARN HISTORY. CLEARLY I DON’T CARE ABOUT THEM BEING PART OF A FAMILY.

Fucking woman just pissed me all the way off. I am so tempted to ask her to step outside with me before breakfast and tell her, “If you can’t keep your viper’s tongue quiet for the few hours you see my children you will never see them again. Do you understand me?”

But we are here for someone else’s tragedy.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I fucking hate this woman and I fucking hate Texas and I am so fucking pissed that I am fucking here.

Oh, and my cousin called me this week. I returned the call yesterday. She asked if she could travel with us to be our au pair. Uhhhhhhh that would blow up. That would explode and go poorly and then I would lose the only tenuous relationship I have with an adult relative. No. No. No. I can’t do that. I’m too fucking old to pretend that something like that has a chance at success.

I can’t see a way for us to recover from that mistake. I couldn’t live with Sarah or Jenny. If I couldn’t get my asshole into check to live with either of them…. I don’t see a way of it working with my cousin. Not with a bunch of international travel. Not when she is flakey and undependable and couldn’t get on a fucking plane to see me for Christmas. No.

So I feel like an asshole for understanding these limits. But holy shit they exist.

I feel so full of rage and hate I want to explode. I want to punch that fucking bitch in the face. We came out here to be nice. And this is your response. Why in the fuck are we nice to you?

I am going to have to say something to her. I am going to have to say, “We will not be back for many years. Because of your mouth. If you open it again, it’ll be forever.”

Something needs to change.

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Ok. I’m in a cafe with music I like playing. I have my braces on. I need to be home in 90 minutes. Let’s see if I can defrag my brain.

I had a great therapy session today. We talked about the difference between PTSD and autism and how my various issues are compounding on one another. We went through which of my choices they were responding to last week (yes they were in fact biting their tongue to not say WHY ARE YOU MAKING BAD CHOICES) and why I am making them.

They are worried about Malaysia because a melt down there could have bigger consequences than in many other locations. That is a valid fear. But I have pretty good reason to think that I’m at risk if I melt down in a lot of places and I don’t honestly think Malaysia will be harder than a lot of other places. I believe that I will keep a lot more to myself. I will have to go rest faster because the consequences are extreme for a fuck up.

Why am I going? Because Noah was invited! How often is he going to be invited to a Muslim country? Probably not that often and I want to find out what it feels like in my bones. I want to taste the air and meet all the wonderful people who are living full and complete lives that don’t resemble lives I already know about.

The lack of medication is going to be hard. Sarah says I should get Prilosec and she’s not wrong.

But bigger than that trip is how we live our lives over the next few years. Sarah points out that I’m doing this thing where I completely deprioritize myself and I have done so while breastfeeding before. My shrink was adamant that my experience of decentering myself and my needs is absolutely board standard for breastfeeding parents. This hormonal soup is hard. But this is going to stay true for another few years and I need to manage my big kids. I can’t treat them like they are as important as an infant. Well… importance doesn’t feel like the right word. Their wants aren’t urgent. Their needs can be somewhat delayed without a problem. They are old enough that we should start having times when they come second or third and that’s healthy and appropriate.

It’s not healthy nor appropriate for me to always come in fourth or fifth place.

I am proposing a basic change to our schedule. I want to request that we all have one hour off in the afternoon without screens or the right to ask anyone for anything. No snuggling. No questions. Unless you are bleeding, figure it out for yourself for one hour. My big kids are 8 & 10. This is absolutely appropriate.

Also, we are talking about mixing up the order of our day a bit. Noah is not getting enough uninterrupted time to be creative. That’s a problem. I absolutely understand how hard it is to be creative when you are interrupted every 15 minutes for bullshit. His job requires near constant creativity. It’s not ok that we are acting like we don’t get to set boundaries with the kids. This is an extreme over correction.

I am proposing that I take over breakfast again and Noah work in the evenings after dinner and he gets to sleep in. That after dinner time is a great window for the kids getting predictable screen time (if they get their chores done) in a way that allows me to rest when I’m most tired. Noah is more of a night person and he likes those evening hours for creativity. My best creative hours are 4-8am. We are very different people.

I feel like we have been flailing and failing to create the structure that allows the kids to know what to do and when. I’m tired of having to be a jerk to get them off of the screen in the middle of the day. If they get the screen at 2pm, I am usually getting nasty to get them off for dinner around 6. Sometimes they tell me they don’t need to eat. That’s not good.

I am really struggling with how much my kids blow me off unless I get nasty and throw a tantrum. Everything short of that is worth ignoring.

I am not ok with this dynamic. It means I get to be an abusive bully or I get to be abused. Both suck.

I don’t want to abuse anyone. I need to learn ways to defend myself without being nasty and the last two weeks I have *sucked*

I am having a hard time setting boundaries all over the place and part of it is how worn out I feel. I feel like I’ve been massaged with a cheese grater. That’s not a great feeling. I’m exhausted. Taking care of a baby is draining as fuck. The whole first year is hard. I could seriously use a night of sleep and I am not going to get one for months. That’s hard to contemplate. My body has needs and those needs are not going to be met for months.

How do I find space for that? How do I find space to be gentle with myself as I cope with being pushed well past bearing? How do I find space to be nice to the most important people in my life?

How do I stop feeling hatred because I am so far past capacity I have nothing but hate left. That is the worst feeling.

I never want to hate my loves. But frankly, when I feel like I’m losing my mind… I do. I hate the whole world. I hate every person who wants me to think or interact or work. I get so tired and empty.

And filling my bucket feels so hard these days. I don’t even know what I need. I need time. I need to feel interesting. I need to feel like I have potential and worth and value. Not from working.

That’s so hard.

What kind of worth do I want?

I know I spend so much time on advice forums because I want my shitty ass life to help someone else have a better life. Not that my life is currently shitty. Past tense. I want to feel like the experiences and wisdom I have are valuable. Not because I serve you. Because it is wonderful that people exist who share what they know with the world.

I want to feel like I am more than a mommy/wife appliance. I want to be something that impacts other people. That is a big part of filling my bucket. I adore my family–don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to stop home schooling. I don’t want more space from Noah. I want to have a self outside of them the way Noah gets to but my available hours for such an existence is so small.

I need to take my writing more seriously and I feel like I have danced around that for years. I am so afraid of trying to be an authority about anything. I actively hide from being allowed to be authority.

Sometimes I wonder if my kids are disrespectful in the ways they are because they are learning from me that I’m not really worthy of respect. I sure act like that. But I don’t know. They are their own people and sometimes their behavior really sucks. Because they are people. Because they are kids. I don’t think they suck extra hard or anything. They are very normal. And I need to teach them how to treat me and I’m sucking at that.

This is tied into appearance stuff. I have to care more about how I look because I have to show people how to treat me. That’s so hard. I have been asked to leave businesses because I didn’t look good enough to be a customer. I’ve had the police called on me because I looked like a vagrant on the road trip. I am not imagining it that I ping a lot of “icki person” buttons for people and quite a lot of people are innately programmed to be mean to people they perceive as lower than them. It’s absolutely normal. And hateful. And cruel.

I remember when D told me years ago that if I don’t want people to be mean to me for looking bad then I had better do the work to look better.

The unstated implication there is I deserve the mistreatment if I don’t jump through hoops to be “pretty enough”. That feels degrading. I feel angry about this situation. But my anger doesn’t do me any good and it doesn’t change the fact that the world is full of abusive monsters.

This weekend someone told me that she thinks that something isn’t abuse if it is common/normal. I accept that she has this perspective. I wildly disagree. I used to know a woman who is part of a very specific culture. In her culture people with mental illness are to be entirely shunned so they don’t hurt the rest of the tribe. Guess what? That’s abuse.

If your community thinks it is ok for you to die because you aren’t good enough that’s abuse. Ableism is pretty standard in this country. It’s abusive. It’s normal for doctors to provide shittier health care to black women in this country. It’s abuse.

A great many traditional parenting practices are completely fucked up. I’m not going to get into them. Because shit I don’t want to argue. This is my opinion. You are allowed to have yours.

I need to create more space between me and my family so that I get to exist. Or I am not going to be able to be a healthy member of this family and that will mean that I have to go.

Ok. Time to create space.

The video game stuff. Ugh. Ok. So. When I say that video games are triggering what I mean is that when the topic comes up I am instantly full body flooded with adrenaline. I want to fight. I want to hit. I want to scream. I want you to get the fuck away from me before I hurt you. My early experiences with video games often revolved around people hurting me if I wanted to play. My body learned that this experience, this hobby, are not safe for me. Could I unlearn this reaction? Probably. With time, effort, and a lot of EMDR therapy.

Do you know what I don’t fucking care to pay for a bunch of therapy to fix?

My issues with video games. Therapy is expensive as shit. I can’t manage to fix everything.

When people are sitting around discussing their video games in a completely chill way I spend my time fantasizing about head butting them so that I can break their nose.

It’s not fun to be in my head through this process. Feeling this nasty, this angry, this much need to FIGHT hurts me. I feel sick.

It’s not fair for me to have to go up and down this roller coaster just because someone else wants to have fun. That’s not ok. So I finally said that I need that to be a boundary entirely. The kids are trying. EC asked me if she has done ok in the last few days and I told her yes.

My kids do want to be considerate. They just don’t always succeed. They are kids.

I need to teach them. And being a nasty bully isn’t the way.

And it also isn’t ok for me to have to beat myself in the head in order to accept what is happening me. That is also not ok.

Do you know what else sucks?

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If I am honest and I talk about the fact that I feel like I am out of healthy coping methods and I want to hurt myself…

someone is going to reach out to tell me that they can’t read my blog anymore because they just can’t with that bullshit.

It’s someone different every year.

Dude. You never have to read this. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. eVar.

You also don’t have to tell me that you are out of patience with me not having the spoons to cope in ways you want to read about.

Bitchy bitchy bitchy observation.

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Today at the party there were two men I’ve had *cough* relations with. One of them was super attentive to his child and helping with food and just generally being an awesome community member and upstanding person. I have nothing but positive memories of our brief interlude.

The other dad kept telling his kid to go ask her mother for help. He sat around and didn’t help. I remember things not being much fun when we tried to get it on.

This is amusing to me.

God, you are still one of the nicest people I ever slept with. I’m so glad there are men like you in the world. You give me hope.

Distress

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I was talking to someone about judging how other people parent. That’s a tricky thing. Here’s my basic position:

I don’t care what choices you make. I don’t care if you breastfeed or formula feed. I don’t care if you cosleep or if everyone is in their own room. I don’t care if you home school or public school or private school.

Are your children showing signs of distress?

That’s the only metric I care about. People need different things. There are families who are doing great with every possible set of choices. There is not One Twue Way. But if your kid is freaking the fuck out… you are doing it wrong.

Not because you should be doing it like me… my way might be totally wrong for your kid.

You need to look at the child you have when you make decisions. I came into parenting with some assumptions and some of them have proven correct (I have kids who have extreme needs with regard to attachment) and others have been proven incorrect (I thought they would be able to handle sleeping in a separate room by now… they can’t handle it).

Do what is right for your household. Not what is perceived as “right”.

Home. And Petty.

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I’ve spent most of the last week grateful I didn’t have a computer. I would have written some incredibly unkind things. I wanted to stoop to a level of petty that would be darn near epic. Why?

Because people get all twisted up in my head. I’m never responding to one thing at a time.

I’ve spent the last few years in therapy doing a tremendous amount of work around the fact that the Bonus Mama triggered all of my “like my sister” buttons, minus the sexual assaults. She has quite a few of the same problems and in my ridiculous codependency I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix her problems.

It is a gift from the universe that I am now done with that set of behaviors. I never need go clean her house again. I never need try and help her children emotionally cope with neglect. I never need try and pretend that I am unaffected by the physical violence in her marriage again.

I am free.

I think this is a positive step in my life. I need to stop trying to cover for broken people. It’s a real problem I have.

I need to stop investing my life into trying to make up for people who won’t even admit that I’m doing a back breaking amount of work for them. It’s stupid. It’s self defeating. I have spent a lot of time and energy and money over the past few years trying to do something for the ephemeral child self I still have. Other people helped me so I helped her kids.

But I’ve given what I can and it’s time to move on.

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Part of what this relationship came into my life to teach me is that when my children say, “I don’t want to associate with this person because she is mean” I need to never overrule them again. I need to never ignore such a signal again. I feel deeply ashamed of myself for telling my children to cope with behavior that made them feel diminished because I wanted weekend babysitting. That was wrong of me. My behavior was selfish and disgusting.

I was wrong.

I will never deliberately send my children to the home of someone who speaks to them with contempt again. I. Was. Wrong.

Hopefully I have learned the lesson I needed to learn and in the future when someone triggers my “like my sister” buttons I will run like my tampon string is on fire.

No more hoarders. No more people who refuse to acknowledge that they are literally physically, emotionally, and mentally unequipped to take care of their children while they brag about how great they are. No more people who are in a marriage that involves domestic violence, gaslighting, stone walling, and screaming matches that the children can hear only to turn around and tell me that if the marriage is destroyed it’ll be my fault. Sure. Because y’all had none of these problems the day I arrived. Right. Who is the one with the convenient memory? I write down all my bad shit so I can’t claim it didn’t happen. Remember how I’ve begged you to document your DV for 7 years because shit like this comes to a head and you always said, “But I don’t want to remember.”

Sure. If your marriage is destroyed it’ll be my fault. Yup. Right. Because I’m the one sitting there filled with contempt. Yup. That’s me.

Take your guilt trip to someone who is stupid enough to be buying. I’m fresh out of money for such bullshit.

I am free.

Do you know when I freaked out and started demanding that your kids be put in school the fuck away from you? When you took them to Moana and came home crying because you believe your children are incapable of understanding and appreciating the story. Guess what? Your kids are capable of understanding. You are incapable of teaching and your children need to spend time with competent teachers who can teach them. Stop fucking over your children because you are fucking broken and you want your children to be as limited as you are so you feel comfortable. Your children have more potential than you do. Let them go be taught by someone with actual ability to teach and they’ll be ok.

The worst thing that ever happened to you was someone telling you that your IQ is high. You use that number as an excuse for why you are better than people as you cannot fulfill basic life functions. It’s sad and pathetic and your fucking children need to be educated by people who have the humility to say, “I don’t know everything so I’d better study.” You think that if you buy all the books and don’t read them it’s just as good.

Your children deserve better than to be locked in your company all the time.

And after this I need to never ever write about your family again.

I’m done.

An interaction

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Holy tomatoes on toast I hurt. So this’ll be brief.

I had an interesting interaction with a dude today. So I found a guy through my massage therapist who specializes in personal training to help people with injuries/problems. I figure that if I can’t get a doctor to prescribe honest to fucking god physical therapy for me so that I can heal some of my injuries… I can hunt on the outskirts of the system. I can find someone who doesn’t really mesh with the gate kept, abusive system.

Sure, I can try this out.

Thing is, he’s a white guy. You know how I am about getting my hackles up with white guys. Especially athletic white guys. I am hostile until I have a reason not to be.

But I desperately need someone who can do what this guy advertises. So I gotta put my personal shit in a box and shove it in a closet and see if I can handle dealing with him.

Sigh. Fuck being a grown up.

So I gotta say, he has an aura. He’s pretty clearly an orphan. The loss of all family came up several times in the conversation. He’s got that… edge of “I have to be cheerfully polite in order to earn money to survive because there’s not a person in the world who values me enough to support me but I’m so sad.”

I mean, he seemed genuinely sweet and caring. I’m not denigrating that at all. He seems incredibly sincere. He wants to help. And he wears grief like a mantle. He advertises his loss openly on his skin. He is reminded all day every day. Grief, even if you smile, leaves tracks on your face.

But he did something that crossed a boundary and it was interesting. I didn’t call it out. I didn’t assert the boundary so in one sense… he didn’t cross a boundary he nonverbally negotiated a boundary change and I didn’t rebuff it to indicate where my boundary actually was.

To be more clear: he asked me about my arm tattoo. I explained it and started tearing up, like I do sometimes. Suicide is sad, yo. And… he leaned in and gave me an incredibly respectful, incredibly gentle, incredibly touching hug. It was the hug of someone who works with bodies and knows how to make touch 100% NON SEXUAL, OKAY?!?!?!

He reminds me just a tad of Taylor. One of the few men I trust almost as much as Noah.

It was absolutely incredible to realize that in a moment of indecision of “should I panic and fight or should I accept this as connection?” in my head my brain wrapped around a man who has loved me as a friend for a long time.

I didn’t feel scared.

I felt uncertain. I felt like I needed to make a decision. I felt like I had a chance to… figure out how this is going to go. Is he allowed to touch me?

I desperately want this man to help me learn how to hold my body in ways that will hurt me less. I need to trust him. I need to trust that he is going to touch me in appropriate ways or this just isn’t going to work.

This, now that I think about it, is scary as shit.

I wasn’t scared in that moment. I just felt it as a moment of choice, “Am I going to surrender to this process or not?”

I used to lash out at dance teachers who wanted to correct my form. I wasn’t there to look perfect I was there to have a chance to talk to people for 2-4 minutes while I did something more healthy than be a slug staring at my god damn computer.

This is different. I know what my goals are here. I need this process.

I need to figure out how to be in less pain.

So maybe he didn’t cross a boundary. But maybe he and I will have a funny conversation about how I normally react to people in a few weeks and we will laugh. He will probably apologize and feel embarrassed. He strikes me as that sort.

It felt like Joey. The 7th Day Adventist boy who was best friends with my brother Tommy and with whom I later lived. (We were both boarders in a house owned by someone at the church–it wasn’t like we were romantic or anything. I was 13.)  He was the one who took me to church and taught me to sing about Jesus loving me no matter what.

I know I have a lot of issues with hating white men because some of them have been complete motherfucking pieces of shit.

But some of them genuinely don’t suck. #Notallmen and all that.

I really hope I’m not making a mistake. But here I am documenting it so that in the future I will have to remember: I made a choice.

I’m trying to surrender to a process.

Please, if any deity exists, let this not be an awful thing.

I’ve stacked the deck in my favor by receiving this personal training with my kids in the room and my husband in the house.

I know how the patriarchy works.

Fuck.

Do you understand how much of my childhood people denied? Something huge and dramatic would happen and folks flat denied it. I need to make sure I can never rewrite history.

I did what I did. Here, I wrote it down.

Wrong again

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It’s one of those times when my anxiety is on hyperdrive. I’m doing everything wrong, right? Every interaction I have with people seems to be fraught.

One problem is that I’m struggling with how much control and influence and power I have. There are times and places when I don’t agree with how something is being handled and I shut up because there’s nothing I can do. Then there are times and places where I feel like I am a bad person if I shut up because someone is being harmed and if I ignore that… I’m part of the problem.

I’m part of the problem. If I see people being harmed by others in their life and I do nothing… I’m saying I basically agree.

What if I don’t agree that something is being handled right?

Good luck with those feelings.

Because I don’t get to decide. And I’m afraid that by talking about what I see I am going to become the problem and then I won’t be able to help in any way because I was stupid enough to talk about the problem.

Not everyone can do everything. We all have limits. We all have things we can’t do. I can’t teach fussy, fiddly little activities that involve a high amount of fine motor control. Even if I can do it (under protest) I can’t teach it because I get frustrated and angry and explosive. So I outsource that shit. I can’t teach everything. My kids take classes because I can’t teach everything. I am not that cool. That’s why as they get older they will spend more and more time away from me. Because they will have mostly learned what I have to teach.

I don’t think there is one Twue Way that parenting or schooling should happen. Some people like home schooling and it works well for their family. Some people need to have their kids in school. Some people need to have their kids in school and after school care every day for any one of millions of potential reasons.

None of these choices are wrong if they work well for the child and the family. It’s when the solution is clearly not working for either the parent or the child that you need to look at making changes.

It is easy for me to sit on my high horse and see the problems in other peoples systems. I’m afraid I am failing to see the problems in mine. I was honestly hoping for more criticism from Stanford because other than “Do more academics” which was the plan anyway and which we have already caught up on…. What do I change now?

I have no feedback to help direct me. Just… do something. What you are doing seems to work ok.

THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Everyone fucks up. Everyone has things they don’t do well and things they do very well. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!

I shout more than I should. But professional evaluators tell me I don’t shout as much as other people and it isn’t that big of a deal.

So what does should mean anyway?

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

So anxious. So worried that I’m going to hurt everyone and wreck their lives and make it so they are not ok later.

This is eating me alive. It has been for a couple of days now? Turbo anxiety. How am I hurting everyone?

I want to run away. I want to disappear. I want to go somewhere that no one knows me. (Good luck, motherfucker. Name a continent (other than Antarctica) and I will name countries I need to avoid if I want to make sure I don’t see anyone I know. I run into people I know most times I travel internationally. I know too many fucking people.)

I love you all. It’s just hard to run away from you.

I want to run away from my own self perception. Because I’m afraid I’m doing everything wrong. I’m afraid I’m hurting people. I’m afraid I’m a giant let down. I’m afraid that by trying to help I am going to make things worse. I’m afraid that by trying to help I am going to be hated so much that hating me becomes the problem instead of fixing the problem.

Fuck.

I think I’m going to take a week or so off from reaching out. I feel like I am hurting people by existing. Maybe if I hide in my house and keep my crazy to myself that will feel less true. Don’t interfere with other peoples lives. Even if there are problems.

It isn’t my place.

Boundaries and race.

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Recently I’ve noticed that I have different boundaries for different people based on their race. One prominent example I still won’t write about. But yesterday on the train I had an experience.

I was sitting there minding my own nevermind when I looked out the window and noticed a reflection of a guy looking at me and… gesticulating with his hand. I… thought “Surely he isn’t doing what I think he’s doing.” But I turned my head and yup, there was his cock out.

I sat there for a few minutes and thought about what I wanted to do. I didn’t feel like I was going to be accosted, there were at least five or six other people in the same train car and I always sit in the car closest to the driver of the train. I never ever sit farther back in a train.

So I decided to look at him kind of fiercely and flounce to a seat where I was facing him and looking none-too-pleased. My back was now directly to the train operator. If dude had continued I could have reached my hand back to tap on the window. Instead he got off the train at the next stop while carefully not making eye contact.

This was remarkable to me specifically because… he was black. I had a whole thought process around, “He’s got bigger problems than some white woman objecting to seeing his cock.”

If it had been a white man I would have been banging on the driver window and calling BART police. Because my experience with white men is that if they cross some boundaries they will cross more.

I feel very weird about the fact that I will not willingly bring a person of color to the attention of authorities… but I won’t. I’ll throw a white person under the bus, sure. They’ll get a “fair hearing”. Statistics strongly indicate that a person of color won’t.

Life isn’t fair. But I get to decide how I’m going to interact with that. Did he hurt me? No. Did he scare me? Not really. Did he irritate me? Yes. Do I want to see that? Nope.

But me not wanting to see something doesn’t mean I should work to ruin his life. That’s an over reaction. Being caught for flashing means a permanent record of being a sex offender. It means impact on jobs, housing…

You know what? I’ve had sex in public. I’ve totally done things that could make me a permanent sex offender and I just wasn’t caught.

I can’t turn a black man in for something that minor. I just can’t. Even though I feel weird about ignoring it. I know I wouldn’t for a white man. Why? Because I’m a judgmental as fuck asshole who is fucking sick of white men treating me like a piece of meat.

I can honestly say to the best of my knowledge this is the most boundary crossing a black man has ever done towards me.

Why am I willing to give non-white people a pass? Because the whole system is set up to fuck them and if I turn them in I’m part of the system of oppression.

Why am I so willing to throw white men/women under the bus? Because the system is set up to judge you as fairly as possible. So take your medicine. You did what you did. Suck it the fuck up if there are consequences.

In my experience and in my understanding of the world… the consequences for people of color are never fair.

So even though I had an experience that was maybe “not fair”… I’m not hurt. It’s ok for me to suck this up and move on with my life. I don’t need to end his life over this.

I’m not that important. What he did is not that important.

Context matters.

What does “dating” mean anyway.

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I kinda had this epiphany yesterday.

“Hey Noah. Have you passed up chances to play with Beautiful?”

“Not really.”

“Meaning you take them any time they come up.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s been happening for eight years. Yeah. You’re dating.”

But not dating in a way that scares the shit out of me and causes me to have panic attacks and freak out. Because it’s very low key.

It was just funny to think about. Because if I’m dating my submissive… I have only had like two more dates with him than Noah has had with Beautiful and I’m definitely dating him.

WHY DO WE HAVE TO USE THESE WORDS. FUCK ALL THE EVERYTHING.

But I don’t think this idea that Noah isn’t going to date is tenable. It’s a nice idea. But yeah. It’s not going to be uhhh accurate. Right now the person he is dating is comfortable with it being at the whim of my mental health (thank you, thank you, thank you) but that’s a messy thing. I don’t want to be the weather vane controlling everyone’s lives as I go up and down the roller coaster.

Oh fuck everything.

The more honest with ourselves we are about what we are doing the less likely it is to blow up.

WE AREN’T DATING WE ARE JUST VERY GOOD FRIENDS WHO HAVE VERY INTIMATE CONTACT. FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS.

Yeah. You just tell yourself whatever the fuck you need to say to get through today. The truth will still be sitting there.

Dating.

What does dating mean anyway? I used to get so mad at my Owner when he would say he hadn’t dated someone. I was all, “You had a three month period where they were at your house three nights a week. You dated for a brief period.” “Oh but it wasn’t serious dating so it’s not dating.” That conversation made me want to break glass.

Thing is, Beautiful is mostly happy with group dates where they just split off to play for a while and otherwise we are together. I like that. I like that a lot and I’d like to see if anyone could fit into a similar sort of role in my life. If these people want to come hang out with us when I am pregnant and miserable or in the babymoon year…

I wouldn’t be alone this time.

I mean, I’m not going to be alone this time. I have the big kids and Noah works from home. It is going to be different from top to bottom. But the kids aren’t company and… Noah still has to ignore me for a large chunk of the day. That’s fine. I miss talking to more people.

Ironically one of our children said, “We should name the child (Beautiful’s real name) because that is a beautiful name.” I think this person is in our life. Ya’know…

I loved working retail. I was good at connecting with people all day long one right after another. Being home is…. hard.

And begging friends for play dates is hard work. Mostly everyone is too busy. Or they only want to get together under some narrow parameters outside the house because they don’t want me in their house so they feel uncomfortable coming to my house. Sigh. I’m totally ok with always hosting. I don’t feel imposed upon. I feel catered to.

I feel really really guilty asking people to drive to me all the time. The road goes both ways and I should offer to reciprocate. But I really don’t want to. So I’m asking people less. Because I’m feeling bad about asking.

What is dating? Dating is an extra layer of “It is ok to inconvenience me as you ask me for something.”

Why do I think things with Beautiful aren’t just casual play partners? Cause when I ask if things will escalate when I’m pregnant and not interested he does that head duck thing where he doesn’t want to admit I’m right.

I guess it is good I haven’t managed to chase off every woman who was interested in Noah. Sigh. I swear I wasn’t trying.

I wonder if ADD meds would help with my urge to self harm. A quick search says it is inconclusive. I’d be happy to give it a go.

I don’t know if I want to continue Abilify. I still am not convinced it is doing enough positive. An inch of improvement isn’t worth it. And the kids say I’m getting crankier.

Ok, here’s some blatant honesty. One reason I have always harshly rejected the label of poly is because I have known some extraordinarily bad parents who happened to be poly. It is more important to me that I nail being a good parent than that I nail any other role. If I’m a bad wife, girlfriend, friend, whatever. I can live with that.

I don’t think I could live with myself if I really believed I was a bad mother. I’m a harsh critic. I work really hard on my behavior for my kids.

I’ve seen people do poly really wrong. I’ve seen it hurt kids a lot. I’m scared of that. I’m really really really scared of that.

I like nonmonogamy. It means that our lives aren’t just sexually exclusive. It doesn’t really make any promises about the size or shape or definition of what anything inside of that means. It can mean a lot of different things and a lot of different levels of friendship and love.

What does love mean anyway?

It means I want Noah to be happy and not depressed. That means that when my body goes completely to shit when I’m pregnant… either I encourage him to see Beautiful more (he slept with a different friend during other pregnancies) or I deal with him getting increasingly depressed. These are the options. We’ve been through this dance. I know what the choices are.

But what about the absolute freaking out I do when he comes home? Meh. Even that is muted when I’m pregnant. I don’t give a shit about much other than how much pain I’m in. Bitch come here and rub my back. And my arms. And my feet. Just don’t stop rubbing till tomorrow, ok?

My shrink said she didn’t know if I could get over my fear of Noah dating in this lifetime. But if it has already been kinda happening for eight years… (I actually have a specific brain hack plan in place for how to deal with moving through some of this fear and we have a phone called scheduled on Friday to find out if we will be able to do it.)

Where is the threat?

What is the threat?

What is there to be afraid of. Other than that he will be too god damn enthusiastic when biting my neck.

OW

When I come out of feeling asleep from the breeding period, I wake up with a vengeance. Noah doesn’t do that. If he falls asleep again… waking up would be hard. He’s going to get very habituated to his depressed habits and that doesn’t suit my lifetime goals.

Where is my enlightened self interest here?

I woke up after 6 hours of sleep, and ended up painting by candle light starting at 3am. I’m tired. But I think well in this kind of tired. I read that is an ADD thing too. Deliberately exhausting yourself before you can focus. If this is a lot of what the problem is… I’m going to be so bitter it hasn’t come up before now.

I’m almost 35 fucking years old. I had problems all the way through school because I was a disruptive little snot. Why didn’t anyone ever suggest this?

Ugh. Anyway.

I’m going to add to the data form for the Stanford folk that I think Eldest Child has it. Both she and I only skip one to two markers per person. Different markers. We both kinda scream it. If you sit and read books about case studies that is. That whole super high needs baby thing? Yeah.

Eldest Child doesn’t look like me but she has a lot of my personality and physical weirdness. A lot of extreme sensitivities and fussiness about needing things to be just so. She gets overwhelmed, but I manage her overwhelm so well that it is practically invisible at this point. I would not want her on medication. She is learning to cope with her body and she’s doing great for the life she has now.

But I bet I could learn some tricks to help both of us.

And you know what? Adding people into our lives will be adding people who might know more about this disorder than I do. People who can help me so that I don’t have to be the expert on everything.

I’d be ok deferring expert status on a whole lot of shit. I don’t need to know everything in the world. Ain’t my job. I have enough jobs. I’m tired.

I’m told it isn’t my job to meet everyone’s needs. Believe me I know. But I still feel like what I have to offer is so very inadequate. I am so high maintenance. What do I offer that is worthy of such effort?

Inclinations

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I’m running into a problem in my sex life. I’m closer to a vanilla bottom a lot of the time and that’s some serious mixed signals in my little world. I like sex. I don’t need it to be that harsh. I don’t need to be hit all the time. I really totally don’t fucking need to get pinched a bunch. My body lives in a lot of pain a lot of the time. I spend a lot of time trying to manage my pain levels. Getting hit is complicated.

But I’m a masochist. I really am. Sometimes it is the best thing ever.

I’m not that much of a sadist either. I have times when I get really super duper in that mood and when I’m in that mood absolutely nothing else will do…

But if you look at the last 15 years… I’m not a serious sadist. Lots of years involve no sadism and only a little bit of missing it.

And I’m heading back into another breeding period. My masochism and my sadism went on walkabout last time. I still like sex. And I want kissing like I want air. I want lots of gentle touch because my whole body is going to fucking hurt for nine months. I am not an easy pregnant person.

I’m even more weepy and sad and isolated feeling. I want my mother and I can’t have her and that hole in my heart eats at me so badly when I’m pregnant.

It has been hard for me my whole life that when I feel worst I am the most isolated. It happens over and over. If I’m sick… I’m usually alone.

I’m looking forward to a pregnancy with a work-at-home partner and older children. I hope it won’t feel so sad. I’m kinda hoping that we can find a way to have people come over that isn’t a problem.

I don’t know what the future will hold and I’m feeling like a huge selfish asshole. I’m worrying about my needs and I’m being really ungracious and fussy about other peoples needs. I’m not being generous or loving. I’m such a fucking asshole.

Part of the problem is I have a very long list of people who want me to consider their needs and feelings. They conflict–I promise you. I have to kinda prioritize and then where in the hell do I fit in?

I don’t know. But I’m sharp and difficult when I say no because I hate saying no. I feel like such an asshole. “Hey you are being brave and wonderful and asking me for this thing that is really important to you. OH MY GOD DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKING TIRED I AM!?”

I can’t remember the last time I got more than six hours of sleep in a night. It’s been a bit. I’m dealing with 2-4 hours a lot of nights. What can be done about it? Well I see a whole bunch of doctors and I try what they tell me to try and…. here I am.

My shrink wants me tested for ADD because in her opinion it is not fucking normal to go on 2-4 hours of sleep a night, hold together (mostly) my normal life and have sex for an hour or more most days of the week. She says that is an excessive amount of energy. Really outside the range of normal.

I wouldn’t fucking know.

I am not as toppy during sex as some folks would like.

The other night with Sweet Boy he really wanted me to top all the sex. I could for a few minutes then I untied him and said, “No I can’t do this anymore.”

I don’t like running the fuck very much. I really don’t like it much past the first or second time of having sex together. I get it the first time… I’m weird to fuck. Past that, I’m seriously a bottom when it comes to sex. And that passivity goes on turbo when I’m pregnant. I’m receptive but initiating feels so awful.

And if I have to tell you what to do and how to do it? Shit. I’d rather pick my nose.

No offense. It’s not about you. It’s about me.

When I quit my job when I was pregnant with Eldest Child I had severe nausea (I was puking multiple times a day) and I was falling asleep at work, in traffic… everywhere. I could not stay awake. A friend who was a nurse asked me what job I would go get instead because “gestating isn’t a job.”

Many other friends were… happy to share with me their opinion that pregnancy isn’t a disability and I should buck up.

You know what, motherfuckers? If you don’t live in my body…. shuddup. I god damn start out disabled. Pregnancy is a nightmare.

Pregnancy is horrible. And I’m looking at it again. I was kinda thrilled by the idea of never being pregnant again.

But baby.

I want the baby. I want the baby of my body. But I hate pregnancy. I am so sick when I’m pregnant. I am in so much pain. It is such a difficult process. According to natural selection I should already be dead from this.

But fuck natural selection. Science.

When I started looking for people to date I wanted play partners. For very sadomasochistic sex. Then Noah changed his mind about a baby.

That’s seeming like a dumb thing to hunt for at this point. I can’t live up to that. I… will really not be able to live up to that starting in a few months and it will probably be years before I’m back up to speed again. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I feel like I’m jerking people around and being a terrible person.

I went and had lunch with Daddy James. I wanted to touch base with him in a I’m-not-just-in-your-life-to-use-you-for-sex way. He told me it was ok to keep changing what I’m negotiating for because life keeps changing what I have to offer. Thank you Daddy. He also told me it is ok that I am difficult to put up with. People get other things in trade and it is worthwhile for them.

I don’t see how what I have for trade that could possibly be enough to justify putting up with me.

Especially as I’m about to revoke a lot of what makes me a fun toy. I’m not so fun when I’m not up for play. I’m… a lot more boring. Hey, let’s garden or watch Netflix. woo.

Noah wants me to take a month and date as much as I want so that he can experience the full terror and find out just how bad it is going to be. The kids are asking for us to be home 4-5 days/week with no visitors.

How the fuck do I balance that? I’ve got easily dozens of people I’d like to see who’d like to see me. Some of the activities they want to see me for are high energy and some are low energy and I’m kinda flipping out about both kinds equally. “Hey drive to my house and sit around” is just as intimidating as “Let’s do x super high intensity activity.”

OH MY GOD I CAN’T RIGHT NOW.

I want to I want to I want to but I haven’t got it to give.

What I have to give is very narrow and particular and time limited. Like, why in the fuck am I up at this time of night? Because three hours of sleep is enough, apparently. Fuck.

I feel so sad that I am so inadequate to meet the needs of the people I love.

I am inadequate. It’s funny how nonmonogamy is just a chance for me to feel inadequate with more people. Wheeeeeee

I can’t do/be what Noah wants and I can’t for anyone else either. I’m feeling really sad about that right now. I can’t ever be good enough. I can’t ever do enough. I will never be able to satisfy people or make them happy. I will never be enough.

I feel like I’m in a weird transition. I thought I was transitioning out of intensive parenting into more independence and abruptly… I’m in reverse going back into the most restrictive part of this job and lengthening my time of indentured service. What the fuck am I thinking signing up for thirty god damn years of home schooling.

Twenty years sounded awful enough.

Holy shit.

I was really enjoying the expanded freedom of the Bonus Family. That’s not really a thing for a few years again. I hope I will still get my Bonus Kids sometimes. I hope that maybe the older kids can go for a night or two a month still just a way of having “their” time and space away from being in baby-land. But I won’t want or need a couple of weekends. I’m sitting here with a baby anyway. I’d rather have all my babies around more.

Fuck. This is a huge change. This is a massive upheaval. Why are we doing this?

Because I can deal with transitioning back into the world in ten more years. If the IDB (incest data base) takes me a little longer… oh fucking well.

I want this baby. And Noah keeps saying, “Two?” I don’t know. I can’t commit to that till I get through a third pregnancy. But more than likely if Noah asks me in two years if I want another baby he won’t be able to keep me off of him.

Because yeah. I get quiverful. I get wanting more babies. I get it. I get it. I get it.

I’ve already had one person who is not-breeding say it’s ok if I replace them in the population. Anyone else want to volunteer as well to justify my second kid?

I’m not even joking very much.

Parenting is the one thing I genuinely feel like I am excelling at doing. I’m far from perfect but I adapt and I grow quickly. I see problems and I address them.

I think I could handle four kids just fine. I think it would be wonderful. No Pam, I don’t want to hear your negative Nancy shit. I’m aware that you are now a voice of dissent. Ok. Heard. Now don’t bring it up again.

I feel like such an asshole for being mixed when a friend told me she wanted a fourth baby years ago. Fuck. See, the ways in which I am an asshole always come back to bite me in the ass.

I should have said, “I support you.” I’m sorry. I did that wrong.

I know there will be problems. There will be problems with or without another baby. I asked the magic 8 ball and it is never wrong.

There will be problems with or without two more babies. That fucker was consistent in its answers.

Yes.

“Will there be problems if we have a baby?” Yes.

“Will there be problems if we don’t have a baby?” Yes.

“Will there be problems if we have two babies?” Yes.

I’m telling you. The magic 8 ball knows.

I don’t feel confident in the choices I’m making. A lot of what I can see is that each of my choices hurt other people for a cascading list of reasons. I’m not going to be available for what they want…. and I don’t even know how to say what I need.

I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know how any of this will balance out. Between the kids, Noah, me, and all the god damn people I care about how is this going to balance?

WHY DO SO MANY OF YOU BASTARDS KEEP LATE HOURS. THIS WOULD BE EASIER IF Y’ALL WERE AVAILABLE AT MORE LIKE 7-10AM!

Ahem.

Why isn’t everything all about me? Because it isn’t and it shouldn’t be. Even if I am the main character in my story… I’m not the center of anyone else’s story. Not even Noah’s. Not really. I’m his wife. That’s an accessory to his life and story not the point of the story.

I gotta be honest with y’all. When I think of what I’d like it’s not that much one on one date time. I’d like more people around and carefully managing people one to one… is a job. Especially within the framework of 4-5 days/week are just not options I wish that there were a bunch of people who said, “X day works for me. Are you free?” And it’s ok for me to say yes to three or four people because… quite frankly… that means that there is a lot of kinds of attention to give and get all at the same time.

That feels like Auntie’s house when I was a kid. Only no one checked if it was ok to come over in advance. They called and said, “You home?” then they came over. Auntie knew a lot of people. I loved my Auntie and of the people in my family she’s the only one I’d want to be even a little bit like.

She’s honorable. She takes care of people. She gets shit done.

She’s enabling as fuck and that’s something I struggle with emulating too much.

I’d like to have open houses on Friday’s. Some people can bring their kids with laptops and sleeping bags and the kids can have a LAN party before going to sleep. The adults can talk or play games. I’d like to not have to be careful about managing invites or treating it like a “party”.

I like to keep the house company-ready just as a matter of course so that having people over isn’t extra work. Then it is less stressful. Cleaning up for people feels bad.

It’s interesting reading this book on ADD my shrink gave me. Driven to Distraction. Reading it is making me cry because it sounds so much like me. Bits and pieces and here and there. But… it would make a lot of sense. My list of flame outs is long and inglorious. My self esteem is shit (at least in part) because I spent my whole life being told I was bad for the ways I deviated from normal.

My shrink is calling my psych to say, “Instead of an SSRI (which has a proven problem history) how about trying a stimulant?”

I’m excited to have someone case managing me like this. She’s known me for years and her feedback feels very useful when dealing with a prescribing person. I’ve always wanted a case manager.

Really I’ve always wanted a knowledgable pushy mother. Kinda like I am. Deep sigh.

Go be what you want to see in the world.

This biology shit is hard core. I want to be a parent. It’s the most important thing I do. I learn the most from it. I grow the most because of it. I have to or I will be a shitty parent.

I don’t want to be one more shitty parent.

I owe them more than that. Because I made them out of pure selfishness. I owe them every ounce of work I can put into being a good parent.

And I have a lot of work in me. How do I focus it more? What do I want to focus it on? My kids. For a lot of years to come they get the lion’s share. They deserve more than I have to give. That’s a lot of why I want to add other adults.

Beautiful tells me she will feel more free to invite herself over. Fuck yes.

I guess I did something right for once.

The Quiet One is an increasing factor. I don’t know what the fuck. But not saying anything here at all feels like lying because this is part of how I keep accountable with Noah. Fuck. I feel like this miraculous available during the week day, local, oriented towards care taking of children person just fell out of the clear blue sky and I don’t know what the fuck.

I really don’t. Because he has some boundaries that are going to make him tricky as heck to negotiate with in particular ways. It is none of the internet’s business because he’s going to be one who doesn’t want to be written about in the same way as a lot of other people I see. Some folks ask for more explicit reports. Some folks believe they deserve privacy. But there is a balance for me.

I don’t want to be a liar about what I’m doing. For good or for bad.

That road is straight to hell.

Kisses. More kisses. More kisses.

I go through waves of needing to not be hit because I need to not think I deserve to be hit. It’s complicated.

If you couldn’t hurt me I wouldn’t be interested. Danger. Danger. Danger.

Very briefly

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Today I wake up feeling happier than I have in a bit. From a mood tracking point of view this is significant.

I was feeling some feelings of potential rejection and I processed them with a nice friend who was all, “Let’s talk context” and then I got full circle to “Shit. I’m acting like a spoiled baby who isn’t being aware of the limitations of the people I like a lot. Knock that crap off.”

Thank you for your patience with my selfishness and self-absorption.

I worry a lot about whether or not I am using my time in the most useful or effective or fun ways.

Sometimes life isn’t about that. Sometimes life is about being with someone when neither of you feel exciting. Sometimes life isn’t about maximizing “Make me have fun today or I’m kicking you to the curb.”

Sometimes life is just sitting together and having dinner and being tired. Because that is where you are. That has to be ok too.

If you like someone, you have to like them all the time. Even when they are tired and don’t have a lot to give. Or you are an asshole.

Ok, I know I’m an asshole… but I try hard to not be that flavor of asshole.

As I sit here mooning over the Sweet Boy Noah is making fun of the fact that I’m not really ready to stop expanding the roster.

But I want to spend the time everyone on the roster already deserves and time is limited. Sometimes the right kind of time to be spent isn’t what you think you want, and it is bonding anyway.

What is the difference between being someone’s friend and using them for sex/play?

I want to be your friend. I like you. I’ve liked you for such a long time.

Ok, but next time it is a date can I ask for at least more kissing and hugging? I’m ok with no sex and play. We are all human animals and we get tired. But I feel like, for me, to call it a date I’d like at least some more kissing and hugging.

I want to be your friend too. But I also want to mack on you because yeah, that’s totally why I’m there. Because I want to be your friend who macks on you. It’s a thing.

The funniest part of chasing so many people right now is how insecure every person is. None of us feel worthy of being liked this much. None of us feel like forsooth someone will like us.

But I like you and you and you and you and you. Near as I can tell you like me back.

How can we work on some of this mythical “self esteem” bullshit I hear so much about? How can your love for me help me love myself and how can my love for you help you love yourself? Can we help one another feel worthy? I don’t know. I want to find out.

It helps with Noah. It really does. Being with Noah has changed me. As much as it hurts my fucking finger, wearing the rock he gave me (err, that I picked out and bought for myself on his dime) has changed how I feel about myself in the world. Because it changes how I’m treated by random people.

Do you know how weird it is for a dirty street kid to have people genuflect because you must be important to be wearing a rock like that? Blows my fucking mind.

Worth is all about games of perception.

I think I’m going to try to have a week off pot. I’m just going to have Abilify in the morning and Klonopin at night.

Wish me luck.