Category Archives: living with disability

Two realities

Yesterday the cookie exchange was rad. I had a great time. Only two families showed up so I got to have lots of real talking time with the moms. Yay! And they accidentally staggered arrival so I got one hour alone with each family. That was really nice too.

Something that is still sticking in my head is about the conversation where one mom (a blog reader) expressed that has a hard time seeing me interact with people in person sometimes because I seem to be lying. I will type for hours about how depressed and shitty I’m doing and then come to the park and say everything is “great”. This dichotomy seems like lying to her. (Very reasonable association.)

I told her it isn’t lying. It is accurately representing the two parallel realities I live in. It is kind of confusing sometimes. There is the simple and literal reality I live with: I have mental illness and often I will be able to say that my life is really shitty and I don’t feel even remotely “ok”. But there is the parallel reality that right now people are nicer to me than they’ve ever been. I’m more stable than I’ve ever been. I’m more loved than I have ever experienced. I am doing great.

Sometimes it is hard for me to live with this dichotomy. I am doing shitty and great at the same time. Neither is lying. Neither negates the other reality.

But if I spent a lot more time verbally telling people about the shitty parts I would rapidly find that my life went back to how it used to be. People would want to talk to me less. I would not have as firm of support.

If I told strange moms at the park all about my mental illness there would be backlash. Period. If people wade through the blog, then they are almost certainly capable of being supportive. They have already invested a lot of time in my stories and they are more likely to give me slack. People who have no patience for the blog in general have no patience for me. I know that if I want them to be nice/polite to me I have to maintain a front they can handle interacting with. That means “everything is great”. Whether it is or isn’t.

Paul Graham’s essay on “Mean People Fail” (not linking to it because I did yesterday and his writing isn’t that good) kind of relates. I have to maintain a front that people want to interact with or I will fail.

If I talk about my problems without respecting the fact that most people don’t care then I will be seen as mean. I will fail socially and it will be “all my fault” because I don’t have “appropriate boundaries”.

Sometimes I think that the best thing that happened to me was going to 25 schools so I could test a lot of social approaches without truly having to bear the long-term consequences of being shunned. I’ve been shunned in a lot of places. Whatever. I’ll move on. There are freaks somewhere who like me. I don’t think I would be capable of being as resilient as I am if I hadn’t had to learn.

I try to talk to my kids about this and it is hard to find the words. I can be having a basically good day and feel happy about it and have this simultaneous terrible day where I am angry and hateful and I want to go break a big pile of dishes. Living with both contradictory emotions is just my life. I don’t have many unmixed feelings.

“I’m not acting snippy or angry because of you. I’m really sorry that will slip out. That’s about other chemicals in my brain being wacky and I will try as hard as I can to sit on it. If I sound nasty, feel free to tell me and I’ll try to soften. You don’t deserve a single nasty syllable and I’m sorry they live in me.”

I cancelled the woo doctor for this week. All of my downtime lately has been driving around to doctors so I can feel worse. I need a baby-sitting session where I’m not frantically cleaning or going to a doctor to feel worse. I will be seeing Mockingjay 1 at the 9:30 showing. I read the trilogy this week. I’m very interested in seeing the first part of the third movie.

I think it is funny that my adult friendships have been kind of rocky lately but my relationships with former students are blossoming. Several of them have done their occasional “pop out of the woodwork” thing. See, two realities. I feel continually shocked by how many students think it is worth their effort to hunt me down to talk to me. They miss me when they don’t talk to me for a while.

I shouldn’t even say all of my adult relationships are rocky, only a few. I’ve had two long-term friends tell me that they have very specifically kept me in their life because I make them want to be a better person. That blows me away. Funnily enough, both of the two who said that happen to live in Tennessee right now. Maybe I’m easier to bear with a lot of distance? One is a friend from middle school. I don’t drive everyone away.

Thank you. I keep trying because of the people in my life. The people who show me day after day who I want to be and how I want to live.

A very wise woman once told me, “Friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime and you won’t find out until you die who is in which category.”

When I am across the board doing well, I can sit lightly on my paranoia about everyone leaving–about everyone ceasing their love for me. Sometimes I’m capable of mostly merging the two realities and telling myself that the people who leave (now) are doing so for complex reasons and they usually aren’t about me. People who leave my life now aren’t usually rejecting me. They are losing focus on me because they are entrenched with what is right in front of them.

I don’t go put myself right in front of people much. They have to come looking for me. That means I’m going to lose a lot of people. That has to be ok or I have to change my approach.

I feel like part of what I have learned is how to step back and not force people to deal with me. I have become a much better wallflower. As a woman, the older I get the more I will be relegated to such a role anyway. I’m no longer hunting so there isn’t much reason to talk to me for lots of people. Not everyone.

I’m kind of shocked by how many people are happy with platonic relationships, actually. When I was younger I didn’t believe it. I probably actually alienated a lot of people by pushing sexuality on relationships where it wasn’t actually wanted.

Ok, time to go update the poop book. Ugh.

Just another morning.

Leave a reply

This morning in Ferguson no one gives a shit about my intestinal issues. So I sit here and wonder how important, really, are my problems? Well, they are important to me.

But the world is so big. And so much is going wrong that is much bigger than me. I sit here in my highly privileged life. I hide in my nice safe home. I hide in my now-safe life from the ills of the world. Not my dog I say.

I think I will get off my ass and take the kids to the park today. Park day is just under thirteen miles away. That’s not exactly in town but that’s throwing me a bone considering many of the parks are more than twenty five miles away. I’ll consider it a gift. I don’t need to prepare much for dinner tonight now; we’ll scrounge leftovers and make room in the fridge for Thanksgiving foods.

I am arranging interviews with potential baby-sitters. Maybe I’ll find someone who will follow through. If I do then Noah and I will enjoy more date time. We will also get a night to work without tag-teaming the kids. Instead of tag team parenting we’ll abandon them at the same time like normal parents.

If this works out (ha ha ha–how often do things work out?) I’ll have 16-20 hours of kid care a week over four days. I balk at paying for it, but I suspect it will be healthy for all concerned.

Right this minute Calli has the iPad, Shanna is on Noah’s computer (playing Minecraft) and I am typing. I find this… weird. Noah is, of course, on his other computer.

I don’t have the spoons right now. I need a way to create more spoons for me. I feel selfish and guilty for paying for child care when I don’t earn money but I need help. The downside of Noah earning buckets of money is he works a lot of hours. I don’t complain (much. anymore.) but it is hard sometimes. The kids are very extroverted. Being in school for those hours wouldn’t be fun for them. Being with a baby sitter who plays with them is rad. I’m trying to find a solution that works for all of us.

I’m getting pickier about baby sitters. No screen time with baby sitters. Do projects. Make shit. All those things I’m lukewarm about. I am best at teaching the underpinning layers of work associated with life and I’m good at some artistic endeavors but my range is limited. Baby sitters have different skills. Perfect.

Oh! Shanna got most of the way through making a pillow yesterday. She stitched together a whole bunch of scraps of fabric. We haven’t stuffed it yet because I think she should add another layer of seems a little closer together, but Shanna made a pillow. Completely of her own initiation and design. It’s pretty rad.

I like that my kids think, “I want to make ___” and then they do it. They don’t create elaborate fantasies about how they would do it if they did it… they do it. Bam.

I tell my kids not to expect everyone in the world to be as interested in them as I am, but if you ever feel like you need to have someone tell you that you are wonderful you know the way home.

I can pick you apart into little pieces and make you squirm when I talk about the shitty things you do. I can also tell you in exquisite detail why you make the world a better place and why I’m proud of you and why I love you so very much that it is worth living through any amount of pain just to get to look at you for another day.

You are going to piss me off because that’s how it goes. People annoy me. It isn’t personal. What is personal is that I would do anything for you and your sister. You are special.

I am listening to Shanna complain about the terrible winter. As it is a bright sunny day in California. Apparently there has been a lot of snow and ice in the game. I am going to find it funny living with so many gamers. It is going to be a serious act of will to stop reacting to all game references with hostility.

My earliest memories of video games were of my brothers hitting me when I asked for turns. They called me names and told me that I was too stupid to play. I’ve managed to learn to be ok with some games but not many. Most cause a visceral repulsion.

It is weird living with so many gamers in a gamer culture. The plain truth is I kind of hate gamers in that kind of anonymous “I hate group even though I can say I don’t hate a, or b, or c who are members of that group.” My uncle was a terrible racist. But he got along fine with the individual members of other races he knew. Funny man. I’m pretty sure I’ve moved my intolerance onto another group but kept the venom and idiocy.

Well this wandered. I do that.

Sometimes I sort of feel like that awful Meatloaf song. I would do anything for love, but I won’t be nice.

Good grief. I should get up. If only I knew where I left my willpower. But I have to get ready for the park. We should leave in two hours. Blergh and blick.

Today is a loss.

4 Replies

My doctors appointment didn’t happen and otherwise I’ve mostly been reading. When I stop reading I get cranky and pissy and my tone of voice sucks and I sound like a bitch. I feel guilty that when I apologize for my tone (which I’m doing every 2.4 minutes) Shanna says, “Mom you are only grumpy because your body doesn’t feel good. Soon you will get through the elimination diet and you will feel better. It’s ok.”

I don’t feel deserving of their patience or love. Never the less, Shanna has oceans of love and patience to give.

I feel confused and out of sorts and anxious. I feel like I don’t know what to do or when to do it.

For this week my plans are getting cancelled. I will choose to not get upset because I’m all out of fucks to give. We are supposed to show up to help decorate the Christmas tree at Christmas in the park Wednesday after my dentist appointment. I suspect that I will bail on the park tomorrow and I may bail on the Friday evening event (seeing Christmas in the park get all lit up). If I stay home for those two events then I have way more down time this week. I feel like I’ve been mostly having down time lately. Some day I will be less sick.

In the mean time, I’m prepared to say that I’m not allergic to milk nor wheat. I’ve eaten some of both over the past week. A fair bit. And chocolate. I had a lot of milk and chocolate yesterday. I’ve pooped normally for 4 out of the previous 5 days. I choose to believe that milk and wheat are cleared now. THANK GOD.

This is good and bad. I’ve been cutting wheat, dairy, fatty meats, corn, garlic/onion, sometimes nightshades (mostly not), eggs, and anything else gluten contaminated.

At this point I’ve tested everything but corn. I don’t suspect an allergy to corn. I’ve had normal poop after wheat, dairy, fatty meat, eggs, garlic/onion, and nightshades.

So where in the fuck does this leave me? I’m clearing up the diarrhea and I’m slowly adding things back in and…. I still don’t know if it is all in my head. It is really looking like I don’t have an allergy I have too much anxiety. Which is something I was terrified of finding out from the beginning. Because if all of my diarrhea is caused by anxiety and not food… that’s quite a circle to get into. Then the diarrhea is all my fault because I have anxiety. I’m sure someone more rational could find a way out of that cycle that doesn’t sound like, “Then I guess I should die” but I’m not that person.

I’m really god damn struggling with suicidal ideation. I’m struggling with how much I’m bouncing up and down emotionally. It is hard to hurt this much. It doesn’t help that I feel like a whiny baby. My life isn’t hard. It really isn’t. I don’t have the right to complain so much.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Fucking whine. Whine. WHINE!

I can’t even go for a run because my MOTHERFUCKING ANKLE HURTS. (Really I shouldn’t run until my weight stabilizes. One of my friends [one of the few who frequently sees me naked] commented that my weight loss is becoming really apparent. Not with the additional exercise.)

I haven’t cut myself. I haven’t had alcohol. I did medicate more severely than I have in a while. Whoa. Right now it feels like self-care.

I don’t know why I’m pooping normally right now and I don’t usually. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

I find this all very frustrating. I feel terrible. BUT I CAN POOP!

The lucky ones, Miss Piggy, and taking turns.

1 Reply

I drove to therapy this morning alone. Alone time in the car is pretty fun these days. One of the songs was Taylor Swift’s The Lucky Ones and I spent a bunch of time thinking about it. In order to be one of “the lucky ones” you have to be compared to other people, who are less lucky by comparison. Noah spends a lot of time telling me that people aren’t happy or sad on an absolute scale they are happy or sad compared to the people near them.

I’m kind of a miserable son of a bitch. I spend a lot of time feeling shitty and miserable and like my life is shit. Which is demonstrably not true. I know a fair number of single people (of both genders or no particular gender at all) who haven’t found anyone in the world who validates them the way that Noah and my kids validate me.

I *am* one of the lucky ones. I have two children who are perfectly suited to my desires from children. They are plucky, ambitious, cheerful, talkative, and very affectionate. Pretty much what I would have designed if I had been able to sit down with paper and decide what kind of kids I would have.

And then there is Noah. I feel like a serious schmuck sometimes because of how unworthy I feel about Noah. Noah is a good partner. Like, whoa good. He is cheerful and encouraging and loving and so ridiculously sweet to me. I feel so much gratitude that there is someone on this planet who loves me so much. I don’t see many people with a similar level of unconditional love and support. I truly am one of the lucky ones.

It is hard changing my self perception. It was accurate that the first 25 years of my life weren’t great. I didn’t have the worst early life in history. I didn’t have anything near one of the best early lives. It was a life. It was hard. So when I think of my life being shitty, it is entirely past tense. My life isn’t shitty any more.

That leads me to this idea of finding hope. My life isn’t shitty any more and it probably will never reach the point of being that shitty again. I am going to have bad days. I am going to have bad experience. I may even experience more trauma (the world is like that) but forever and ever amen I am not in the position I was in. I am always going to be one of the lucky ones. That is weird.

I feel really weird because so much of it feels like a gift Noah bestowed on me. I’m his rescue project. Ew, ick, yuck. (For the record he doesn’t seem to appear to think of me this way. You can tell who thinks of you as being “lower” socially or in need of “rescue”. Noah doesn’t talk to me like that.)

Even when I’m being incredibly irrational, Noah treats it like one state of being. It is one way I act. It isn’t the only way I act. Sometimes I am even highly rational. He treats those times as being more important.

I was thinking recently how unfair it is that Noah has to be supportive of me so much of the time in comparison to how much support I give him. It occurred to me, while watching The Muppet Christmas Carol, that I am uhm, kind of Miss Piggy like with my affection for Noah. It has to be all ME ME ME ME ME ME until I notice that he has an issue and then I flatten him with my desire to be “supportive”. This was not a flattering self-understanding.

Noah has told me that I want him to be obsessed with me. I’m willing to bet that is true. I do. I want him to care and care and care and be interested and fascinated and I want him to not get bored with me even though I’m repetitive.

A long time ago we agreed that we would take turns having bad days. We each believe that it is our responsibility to carry 100% of the relationship. That way when someone falls down it doesn’t feel like they aren’t doing their share. I like to believe I provide a little of this experience for Noah. I know it is a fucking lie–I don’t support him like he supports me. I’m really sensitive to this whole “being a dependent” thing. But he doesn’t expect me to do much and I treat him doing things around the house like a gift.

The secret to happiness is low expectations. If Noah expects me to do just about nothing and instead I do more like 45% of the work–I don’t seem as bad! In comparison, on weeks when Noah does no cooking nor any cleaning… I can’t find it in my heart to be mad at him. He does so much work that I have to smile and say, “That’s ok. I’ll do it this time.”

I believe in setting people up for being successful. We have carefully created a life where we are each likely to seem successful to the person we are standing nearest–partially because we carefully set up what it means to be “successful”. We are both big on giving direction, “I would really love it if you _______”. I appreciate that he has worked really hard on being able to say things to me–even when it is hard and he knows I won’t like it. He prefaces with, “I’ve been trying hard to think of a good way to say this and I haven’t come up with one. I hope that I can say it in a bad way and you can hear what I really mean without getting upset about my bad phrasing.”

I love this man so much I feel like I will explode some days. He acts like me reacting to bad phrasing is a reasonable thing to have happen. He hopes I won’t get mad this time because he really means well. But if I do get mad, well it will make sense and that’s ok.

I don’t get a lot of that kind of accommodation in the world. Mostly people act like it isn’t ok to ever react badly to their words. If you do then you are the meanie. But! BUT! BUT!

Noah acts like I am a person with a long and convoluted history and he wants to be kind to me. That means handling my little points of prickliness without treating me like an imposition. I feel so loved in my house. I feel like I matter.

I have a lot of friends. My friends love me very much. I am very grateful for their presence in my life. Noah is in a whole different category. Noah validates me.

Noah tells me frankly that he lived before he met me and he would carry on without me if I died but he would be forever less. Noah makes me feel like if I died, the world would be less bright. There would be less reason to keep trying hard things.

I’ve got some feelings about this boy of mine. I feel very lucky. I hope I never take him for granted. I hope I always appreciate him this much. When I struggle to see what I’ve got going for me, and I feel like I should die…

I don’t want to miss out on one day of Noah’s company. I don’t believe in an afterlife. I think this life is all I’ve got. Take it and make with it what you will. I want more time with Noah. I want more time with Shanna and Calli. Surely feeling like you have good reason to get up every day is enough reason to consider yourself one of the lucky ones?

Am I ever going to stop feeling like I was put in a movie of someone else’s life?

Hoops, self-care, and being mercenary.

2 Replies

Today was the kind of day where I walk out of therapy saying, “That’s why I pay for therapy.” It doesn’t happen every time. I’ve spent the last two weeks wondering why I pay for therapy. Then I get reminded. Because I’m not good at framing things.

Today my therapist and I spent a lot of time talking about my friendships with women. She asked me if I have noticed that I like to pick (for my closest relationships) women who are not good at taking care of themselves, let alone anyone else. I reflected for a few minutes and said yeah, I’ve noticed. My “besties” have pretty much been universally people who can’t feed themselves regularly and appropriately, most of them can’t finish school or work or clean their own houses. They don’t exercise. Many of them have trouble with hygiene (and I have low standards).

I don’t say that to be mean, I say it because it is true. I pick a lot of people like that. I could go down a list. They are all functional in some ways at some times. But not consistently and not across the board. They are all people who struggle with the basics of their own self-care.

Then I enter into a relationship and turn my neeeeeeeeeeediness towards them and.. guess what? They let me down. Because they can’t take care of themselves or their actual dependents… let alone me. It isn’t a reasonable expectation of them. I don’t go pick people with a whole drawer full of spoons. Then when they can’t take care of me I feel like it is a statement of my worth as a human. I decide that since they can’t/won’t care for me in the ways I need/want I should die.

This has been a consistent pattern of mine for decades.

I get into relationships with people who can’t take care of themselves and then when they can’t care for me it feels like they don’t love me enough. Very much like my mom. It feels like no one will ever love me enough.

But Noah does. He can’t meet all of my needs, but he does love me enough. Getting one of those people in a lifetime is a lucky break not attained by most people. I shouldn’t complain. I shouldn’t be so greedy.

My therapist suggested that I need to stop thinking about these people as sources of support. The trouble is, I tend to treat people like they are on the inside or the outside. Either I can ask them for things or I can’t. So if I have to pull back from expecting things from someone, I push them all the way outside the box. I don’t know how to have a middle ground.

I’m struggling with this with Sarah. (Former housemate Sarah–remember her?) We are trying to find our way back to friendship. But she got shoved outside the box. How do I let someone in a little but not all the way? (To be fair, she’s gotta be in a similar position because I was more volatile and problematic when we had problems. I am inherently scarier.) It was nice taking the Impact class with her. When I started crying and feeling scared there was someone in the room who understood why I was crying. I didn’t have to explain anything. She just knows. She’s already put in all the hours and hours of time listening to the stories so she understands. Whatever difficulty we have in dealing with one another’s needs… we understand one anothers’ history. So in the class I could turn to her for physical comfort when I generally won’t let anyone touch me.

I feel like there needs to be an in between slot. Not in the box not outside the box. Part of the frame of the box. There and accepted and loved but… not to be depended upon.

I can’t expect people to know how to treat me even after many years of telling them. People don’t listen. I know that. They don’t actually care that much. They may “care” but they don’t care enough to adapt their style of interacting with people. (No shaming here, I am similarly entrenched in being who I am.) I don’t gentle-down very well for people. I struggled like hell to behave appropriately around Jenny and my niece when they visited. I am not good at adapting to other peoples needs. I don’t think that other people have trouble adapting to me because they are terrible, unloving people. I’m hard.

I know that I am hard. Sometimes Noah starts rattling off all the ways I need to be accommodated: all the things he has to pay attention to, all the topics he has to avoid, the body language he has had to carefully learn. I feel pretty bad for him, actually. I don’t entirely understand why it is worth his effort. But it is.

Why do I manage to ignore the fact that Noah thinks it is worth jumping through hundreds of hoops but I dwell on the fact that other people can’t clear some.

It isn’t that my friends do nothing for me. It isn’t that they don’t adapt in any ways. It isn’t that they don’t care. It isn’t that they aren’t trying. I am hard. That isn’t their fault and it isn’t appropriate to get mad at them for doing their best.

Ok, then what do I do? When I can’t get mad at other people because they are doing their best, that is when I tend to decide that I should die because I am so terrible for asking for my needs. Over reaction much?

My shrink suggests pulling back. She said that I put too much energy into wanting friendships because I don’t have anything else to distract me, like a job. I told her that it isn’t that I need a job. I don’t have much of a family and my friends get all the energy that I would put towards my family complete with all the broken that resulted from my actual relationships with my family.

I do have a family now. One complete with no abuse. I am the most potentially problematic person in the house and I actually manage to keep a pretty tight rein on my crazy with my kids. (Noah gets more backlash.) I’m not perfect, but I have it on good authority that perfect parents raise incredibly fucked up kids. I’m better off not trying for perfect.

My shrink then clarified that by “distraction” she meant interactions with adults. I pointed out that when I worked, I was a teacher and I had the same problem I have now. Clearly a job isn’t the solution.

What is the solution? It occurs to me that the highest possible payoff for my energy is to really focus on being appropriate with my kids and home schooling them so that in 20-30 years maybe they will be the relationships I have wanted my whole life. That really is my best shot.

It isn’t really worth putting that much energy into most friendships. I will know them for a few years, maybe a decade or so, and they will wander off to their Next Thing. I do the same thing. I’m not being judgmental. It is ok that people do that.

My shrink suggests that I should stop deciding that people are my friends and thus anything they do is ok. Instead I should look at their behavior and decide if someone is acting like my friend and when they aren’t I should create distance. Not because I’m being mean, because I am taking care of myself.

Recently I went off on poor Pam about hoops I don’t want to jump through. I was bitching and whining in context of home schooling. I want x kind of event but I only want it y distance from my house with z frame work and other people want me to do something else! What the heck! I don’t want to jump through their hoops! For example, today park day is 27 miles from my house. No, I don’t fucking want to drive that far to sit at a park. Not because I have a problem with anyone there (I actually feel like this group is remarkably delightful) but more because I have to drive past almost 100 parks to get to the one that is close to the house of the organizer and uhm… yeah no. Yes, they move around. But they generally stay closer to the house of the organizer. Cause she’s smart like that. She’s been doing this many years and she’s not going to drive all over the place because she’s gotten burned a lot with people not showing up. I get it. I’m not cranky with her. I’m sad that we don’t live closer to one another but I’m not angry and I don’t feel betrayed and she sure as shit doesn’t owe me anything. She comes to stuff at my house when it fits into her schedule.

Hoops are funny things. I use that word to mean a wide variety of things. It has been my experience that people in SF/Oakland act like the freeway only goes in one direction. I have to drive to them. (Not universally–there are some people who drive here from those places and I rarely go to them so I get that I’m a hypocrite here.)

With home schoolers, we all mean very different things when we say we home school our kids. Some use prepackaged curriculum and sit down to do school every day. Some people are Unschoolers Out In The World and they are almost never in their home. Most people are some kind of hybrid and things shift from year to year. I’m selfish and self absorbed so I want other home schoolers to live near me and mostly do things how I do them. When I want to socialize with other people I have to accommodate to their preferences (cause inviting people to just come hang out with me and the kids isn’t working very well lately).

I’d be thrilled if people would just come visit me more often. But, many of the home schoolers seem very uninterested in that and I’ve mostly stopped asking. I’ll try again at some point. Maybe. We’ll see.

Some days I think I would be better off if I actually lived more rurally so I would let myself stay home and not feel the constant anxiety that I am somehow “not doing what I should do” by not going to museums and zoos and and and and every fucking day.

I am not real big on entertaining my kids. I seriously expect them to learn how to entertain themselves. I really expect them to learn from any environment and I have stuffed my house full of good learning opportunities. I don’t need to take them to a museum every day for “stimulation”. They haven’t read every book in the house yet. We’re stimulated.

There are tons of science stuff I want to do with the kids, but most of it takes a lot of set up and clean up and I’m not willing to do it when I have only an hour or two in between other things I have to do. They would love to do bigger art projects. (Although man we already do big art projects.) There are hundreds of things we could do in our house. But I can’t do them in an hour or two. I really need whole days home and I just… don’t seem to be getting them. Even the days we are “home” we are invited to the park and I don’t want to say no because I’m scared shitless that I am going to isolate my kids. So instead we drift through socializing and don’t do a lot of the really interesting things I think of. We just don’t make the time.

My shrink told me to stop putting energy towards people who aren’t acting like my friends. Given that I’ve had to pause this typing multiple times because one of my former students is negotiating to come for a visit because she loves me a lot and she misses me… it is kind of a fascinating dichotomy.

Why do I chase people so hard when they don’t seem to like me that much when there are plenty of people who like me just fine? Because I feel more comfortable with people who will speak to me with contempt. Because that is how I feel about myself.

I need to stop feeling like I’m “doing everything wrong” when I don’t want to do the same thing as someone else. I’ve been pretty sure about the home schooling path I wanted to take for more than 16 years. Why do I let myself spend so much time feeling bad because I don’t do the exact same thing as other people? There isn’t a rule book. There isn’t a One Twue Way to homeschool. I don’t feel guilty when I stand next to traditional schoolers. I’m absolutely sure that isn’t the path for me. Why do I feel so bad about home schoolers who make different choices?

Because ours is a species of conformity. That shame feeling is biological.

I love my friends very much. Even when they aren’t very good at caring for themselves. I have similar issues and I don’t feel like I belong on a holier-than-thou-high-horse. I’m just a broken girl trying to put myself back together. Trying to make a coherent whole out of the broken pieces of my psyche.

If other people don’t love me enough, that just means I need to love myself more. I need to try harder to take care of me. Self-care is a radical act. It may mean I step back from situations because I need to care for myself. That’s ok. I’m permitted. Caring for me is hard. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by how hard it is. Asking for help isn’t the most effective way of dealing with my issues. Not really. Staying home and taking care of me is much more effective.

And in the process, maybe I will teach my kids how to take care of themselves and they won’t have to learn it in their 30’s. I was not mothered appropriately. I can’t change that now. But I can change what I pass on. That is the only part I have control over. I can’t fix other adults just like they can’t fix me. It is self-hating to try.

I shouldn’t take them pulling back as a signal of my lack-of-worth. Instead maybe it is a sign that they are making healthier choices and I should be supportive. We aren’t teenagers any more. We can’t live in one another’s back pockets. We have very busy lives. Very full lives.

Friends show up when they can. They give what they have to spare. Family is on tap to give until it hurts… not friends. It is sad that I don’t have an adult family to depend on, but life works that way. Instead I have some of the best friends anyone has ever had. I should not take their best and bludgeon them with it. That’s not exactly gracious. That’s not a way to get more love from them in the future. I do want more love. Even if they have none to spare today.

That isn’t about me.

My worth is separate and distinct from the behavior of everyone in the world. That is hard to remember sometimes.

And then I come home from therapy and my wonderful daughters cuddle me and “read” me stories and tell me “funny” jokes. (I made a video today of Calli’s knock-knock jokes. They are “funny” and wonderful.)

I am financially stable. I have at least three people who love me intensely. I have a lot more people who love me at least a little. That’s more love than many people get. I haven’t been raped in eight years. I haven’t moved in over eight years. I exercise more than I ever have. I hate this elimination diet, but I’m making real progress on something that has been painful and exhausting my whole life.

Today’s run was nice. I like coming down the big hill and seeing the sun rising over the valley. I like where I live. I like my life. I’m whiny and I have trouble seeing the good parts on many days, but I don’t want to be any where else. I don’t want to do anything else. How many people can say that with a straight face?

Ok sure, I do want a vacation. Hawaii will be awesome. But I will come back. I will come back to Wonderland and the best family I’ve ever had.

How many people get to be so lucky?

So many big feelings.

2 Replies

Over the past few days I’ve had this niggling little thing in the back of my mind. I feel very upset by someone joking that they “don’t love me enough” to do something. But I’ve been turning it over and turning it over and turning it over and as I’ve gone through a variety of adrenalized states I’ve had access to a lot of memories that are normally kind of buried because I don’t know about you but my memory is a funny place. I remember best the things that happened when I was in the same emotional state I am in right now. So I’ve had a lot of interesting memories surfacing.

I have totally made that joke. Not once. Not to one person. Many, many times. I’m pretty sure I went through a phase where I was saying it to a bunch of people with great regularity. When I think super duper duper hard… I may have said it to that person before.

Well shit. That means I have to get off my fucking high horse.

I really hate it when that happens.

Part of the trouble is, I have a lot of sympathy for all the circumstantial reasons behind it coming up last week. I didn’t expect her to jump up and abruptly change her day for me. That wasn’t on my agenda. I wasn’t gunning for that. She was responding to feeling overwhelmed and the things in front of her were things she couldn’t drop. So she joked. Ok, I hated the joke and it made me feel bad… but she didn’t say it because she consciously wanted to hurt me.

I didn’t actually want to hurt people when I used to say, “You are really awesome and all but I don’t love you enough to drive to Davis for a relationship.”

I said that a lot.

Man I’m such a hypocritical asshole.

It doesn’t help that the last two things I’ve tried to schedule at the house flopped. I “understand” that it was scheduling issues. That totally happens. But in both cases I started out with a whole bunch of enthusiastic people and then they all… kinda flaked. It happens. But it feels bad when large groups of people all do it together. I tried having an event in September and I tried in October. Both just failed. I’m not angry at anyone–but I feel wounded and like if I hadn’t already stupidly announced the holiday open house I would cheerfully hide alone in my house till spring.

I don’t feel very loved. So having one of my closest friends joke that she doesn’t love me… it was stepping on my broken toe. I “get” that it was a “joke”.

But I don’t feel very loved so it doesn’t feel like a joke it feels like just telling me the truth. One of the hardest parts of having big gaps in between people is I hold on to the bad feelings of being rejected and and unloved for a long time. Seeing different people doesn’t help that much. Maybe it is a distraction and maybe not.

It isn’t Noah or the kids fault that I don’t feel loved. It isn’t the fault of this joke. I’m just in that kind of cycle. I’m sure the elimination diet isn’t helping. I’m also trying hormonal birth control for the first time in many years and it is NOT REGULATING MY EMOTIONS. I’ve been trying to take vitamins which is resulting in spontaneous vomiting in the morning. The class over the last two weekends was physically and emotionally draining in the extreme. In that 24 hour class I put out more energy and force than I normally do in over a month. My body hurts everywhere. I have some truly impressive bruises.

I’m having trouble feeling loved. Even with the kids. It doesn’t feel like love, it feels like momentary manipulation so I will do what you want. I recognize this as a problem in my perception and not a change in how my children treat me. Their actual attempts to manipulate are far less subtle and nuanced. They are quite charming, really—it’s different than when they are being loving. But I just can’t see it. I feel very empty and hollow.

I’m a weird introvert/extrovert blend. I need alone time and I NEED people time. I need the right kinds of people time to fill me up or I get emptier and emptier. I haven’t been getting “the right kind” of people time much lately. I get most of it with Noah or Pam and I get very little actual attention from either of them because the kids are always in our faces demanding all of the attention. I’m scared of Pam going to Taiwan soon. I am going to miss her.

Over the past few years we’ve had a series of wonderful people who come over once a week for dinner for long periods of time. Sometimes we have two wonderful people at once who come by weekly. It has been just Pam for a while. I really like Pam, unfortunately so do my children. The kids vocally and clearly negotiate how much time they have to share with me because they want all of Pam’s attention. It’s funny.

People stop coming for a variety of reason. My favorite reason to ascribe it to is because I’m an asshole.

A stopped coming because after I drew him extensive graphs and charts to describe how tired I was and I said I needed help he continued to expect me to wait on him hand and foot like I have since I was 19. I stopped inviting him over because I can’t be the god damn service submissive forever and either you help or I can’t do this.

P had health issues. It wasn’t personal.

C I specifically uninvited because I got to the point of feeling actually unsafe in his presence. That’s a good enough reason to uninvite people in my opinion.

It’s a mixed bag that in my youth I went out looking for perverts and people who felt dangerous. It means I look at my friends in new lights when it comes to sharing my children with them.

Pam is the only person currently on a steady roster. Even the home schoolers who supposedly are supposed to have a set day of fun stuff… we skip it more than we go. We see home schoolers every week, but which day and where move around a lot. I am very very certain that my kids need to have friends of their own. I make it happen. I take them to places where they can socialize and see the same kids and get to know people. It is a specific goal. You can’t home school your kids and keep them from having friends. That will fuck them up for life. Finding friends can be hard but I consider that one of my job duties.

I think it is funny that I do not prioritize teaching from a curriculum–I prioritize learning how social interactions work. I think that early life should be about learning how to manage people. You will have plenty of time for book learning later. I am trying to teach emotional regulation (which is a hilarious thing for me to teach) and boundaries. Those are the biggest and most important skills we work on with conscious intent.

Yesterday I was an asshole to Shanna. They like to reach through their toy bookshelf and grab all the jars of jam and bring them to their side and play with them. I mostly object because these are glass items and I already clean up a lot of broken glass and I don’t want to clean up broken glass plus sticky. I’ve asked them four or five times not to do this. So this time I screamed. I screamed, “It is not ok to play with my stuff. You have your own stuff. STOP USING MINE. IT BREAKS. I AM REALLY CRANKY ABOUT CLEANING UP ALL THE GLASS. JUST STOP IT.” So I’m an asshole but I’m not an asshole who will be picked up by CPS. Just a garden variety asshole.

Later in the day I was reading the internet and I saw one of those pithy quote things and it said, “In our house we only yell if there is a fire.” I felt floored. Oh man. How can I ask my kids not to yell if I am such a yeller.

So I read the quote to Shanna. She gave me a side eye rule and said, “I wouldn’t mind if that became a rule for our house.”

I looked at her for a few minutes. She didn’t quite meet my eye. I asked her how scared she felt that morning. She said, “Well, I knew you wouldn’t hit me or anything so I wasn’t *that* scared, but it makes my tummy feel really bad.” I nodded. I apologized. She apologized for playing with the jam jars again. We hugged.

I feel beyond blessed in my children. I feel I got unusually empathetic children and I get down on my knees thanking anyone who will listen daily. I am so grateful for the specific children I have. They really work for me. I don’t dislike other peoples children (well… sometimes I do but not mostly) but my kids are so well suited to me. Occasionally I witness family interactions where the parents and the kids aren’t well suited and I feel this surge of anxiety mixed with gratitude. That would be so hard. I’m so grateful I don’t have that specific issue.

Not that my kids are easy 100% of the time–ha.ha.ha. But we are annoying in compatible ways. It’s important.

A while back Pam told me I was too hard on my BFFs. I expect too much from them. She then let me know how much time she spends with her BFF and it isn’t much.

I feel like maybe I need to pull into myself for a while. Looking outside me for validation isn’t going well. Other people have the audacity to have bad days and they aren’t just sitting around waiting to have positive interactions with me. WTF.

On one hand I feel like what I would like to do is stay home and do projects and invite people over. On the other hand inviting people over doesn’t usually work and then I feel rejected so I think that I should just work by myself.

I’m feeling really sad. I have to forgive people for hurting me because they really didn’t mean to. And I’ve said basically the same thing so I can’t have more harsh boundaries.

But I don’t feel very loved lately. I’m not *blaming* anyone. I don’t think this feeling is the result of the actions of A, B, C, D, or E people. That’s not my point. I cycle through feelings. It happens. Right now I feel very alienated and alone. I have a Noah and a Shanna and a Calli who love me and never actually let me be alone so this feeling isn’t about “reality”.

But my relationship with my kids is only kind of about me. I have to very carefully always partition of the parts of me that would be problematic or dangerous. It is very hard to constantly censor everything I say so that I am only appropriate for my kids.

If you knew me before kids–did you think I would be physically capable of minding my mouth enough to be appropriate for children? Probably not.

But it comes at a cost. It comes at the cost of feeling like *I* am not important, just that there is someone standing here who is willing to work. If I could find a suitable replacement it would be better for everyone if I died. Then I would stop hurting people. No one would have to listen to my whining about how neeeeeeeedy I feel.

On Saturday during the Impact class we got to do a “custom fight”. You have the choice of battling an inner critic, an event from your past, or something you are afraid might happen. You can choose to have the battle be verbal or physical.

I went first because I knew I wouldn’t have the courage to say what I said after I heard what everyone else wanted to fight. I knew mine was going to seem “crazy” and “intense” compared to everything else.

I told them it was a combination of inner critic and past events. I told them I grew up in a family who had generations of alcoholism and drug addiction and incest. With all the beatings such a description implies. I told them that I knew all my life that I was the child of rape and no one had wanted me from the minute I was born. I told them about my family members telling me that I am a worthless whore–I should die and stop wasting the resources that should be spent on someone worthy.

My fight was super fucking intense. It went on and on. The suited instructor was really verbally awful. By the end I was crying and screaming “I am not your whore anymore” as I was viciously kicking him in the head.

If that had been a real fight with an unsuited person there would have been major hospital time. I’m happy about that.

I keep wondering what will happen if I ever run into my sister again. The funny thing is, I have about a 1% fear of getting randomly mugged or assaulted. I just don’t live in fear of that. I know people who have had it happen to them–I shouldn’t feel so shielded from that assault. But it is way outside my realm of experience and I have enough to be afraid of so I’ve just never spent brain cycles on worrying about it.

I’m scared I will run into my sister again. I strongly suspect that will turn into a fist fight. Given that she wanted to start one when I was 6 months pregnant I doubt her wrath has cooled. She has hated me all my life. “It is your fault that son of a bitch had three more years to rape me. Mom was ready to leave when you fucking came along.” Well, go ahead and hate me Sissy, but it wasn’t my fault I was born.

For all the bloody noses and bruises and wounds my sister gave me… I could cheerfully put her in the hospital. And I know her knee has already blown out more than once. The fight wouldn’t even have to last long.

It was funny at the end of the class. At my turn to reflect the instructors verbally noted that I came in with fighting skills and I was willing to adapt them. I said, “Well most of my other fights have ended in a trip to ER to deal with my injuries so I’m grateful to learn techniques that might prevent that.” As soon as the bruising goes down I am going to spend a lot of time with my punching bag practicing. But first the bruising needs to go down. My elbow fucking hurts.

Maybe it is just best to stay home alone for a few months. I’m needy and sad and I can’t hear what people say the way they mean it. I can only hear more reason to hurt. That isn’t about everyone standing near me–that comes from me.

Today is the Halloween parade at park day. I’m supposed to bring a pot luck contribution. Fuck if I know what to bring. A tray of carrot and cucumber sticks? I can bring you a fuck ton of bok choy. Want some plain rice? fuck my life.

Just to add a little bonus gross to this entry: I’m weirded out that since I bought the bell peppers my poop looks like it is sprinkled with little red confetti. I really don’t digest food much.

I need to get back on the horse with half marathon training. I semi-slacked in the week between the Impact classes because I felt so dead. Today is a five mile run. I feel continually shocked that five miles is no big deal. I’m debating between running in the dark before Noah goes to work (I would have to leave in about half an hour) or taking the kids to the gym so I can run on a treadmill. I mostly prefer running outside. But I’m not sure I have it in me to run in the dark today. I feel wobbly. In the dark, when I’m wobbly–I trip. And it hurts. So I’m kind of loathe to go do that on my already injured body. Even my ankle is feeling twingy and sore. Treadmill it is.

I’m at the point on the elimination diet where I’m 14 days in and I haven’t seen much change. This is all fairly normal poop to me. That makes me think I should take out nightshades next. This thought makes me want to cry. I won’t until I finish eating the current cooked nightshades, because I’m not so big on throwing food away, but I probably should.

I feel so bad. The really sad/scary thing about taking the nightshades out: it removes almost all of the GF “bread” stuff I could eat. No more pancakes. I’m going to be eating rice at every meal. (I’m vaguely aware that there are products like millet and couscous in the world but I have essentially never eaten them and switching to them on an elimination diet seems… kind of weird. Should I really be randomly switching to food I’ve never eaten?” If I have to long-term follow these restrictions it makes sense to introduce them after a while… but not during the elimination diet, right? I don’t fucking know.

A friend offered to make a meal plan. I don’t want one. This is a moving target. This is hard. I am so frustrated. What I can handle putting in my mouth shifts from moment to moment and day to day. I feel so much hatred and anger all wrapped up in food. Nothing good comes from food. Unless it has lots of wheat, dairy and sugar. Then the food carries love.

Noah isn’t even cooking much for me. Which is another sad thing. This stupid elimination diet is taking away one of the most common things someone does to express love for me. No wonder I don’t feel very loved lately.

This moment isn’t forever. But it is shitty. And I feel sad. I don’t want to go pretend to be happy and festive and part of a group today. I want to wedge myself between the wall and the bed and cry.

The main thing I can think of that would make today easier is if I went into the bathroom and locked the door and lighted my candles and got out the scalpel blade that is secretly hiding in a drawer in my room (I no longer have a handle, but I somehow missed a blade when I cleared out the house a while ago) and cut for a long time. I want that feeling so bad. I am not calm and I could be. I care too much about feeling unlovable and I could shut that off. It would just take a few cuts. Then I would be calm and sure that I’m not loved and that is just how it is. I wouldn’t feel frantic and sad. Just resigned. This is how things work.

I feel so sad. Not cutting at this point feels like not caring enough about me to take care of me. Instead I just force myself to feel as shitty as possible for as long as possible. Just so other people can feel better. It’s a reminder of how little I matter.

If I could find a suitable replacement I would go. I am tired of flailing and hurting. I’m so tired.

I want my mommy.

I want to stay home.

1 Reply

I don’t want to go to the class today. I want to stay home and cry. Lots of reasons and no reason. I had several uncomfortable interactions yesterday. Some of which confirm my suspicion that I am an asshole who should be kept away from decent people so I don’t hurt them.

I don’t like me very much. I fell asleep crying and I woke up crying. I want to cut. I want to beat my head. I feel really bad. I feel very unlovable.

I think I am going to stop extending invitations for a while. I’m not handling the responses very well and that is my problem. Just stay home. Just shut up. Just shut up.

Emotional/psychological abuse and control

1 Reply

A friend linked to a scholarly article that was talking about how psychological abuse often causes as great or greater problems than physical or sexual abuse. Of course that means I have to stop and spend a lot of time wondering if I abuse people in this way.

I am a bossy motherfucker. I like telling people my opinions. I FUCKING LOVE telling people “what I would do in your situation” and I get funny feelings in my tummy when they ignore me. But I try hard not to explode or follow up with asshole comments like, “I told you that wouldn’t work.”

I think I was probably emotionally abusive towards Anna. I made her feel really bad. I didn’t do it on purpose. I wasn’t trying to hurt her, but I did. I had no right to tell her to get a new dream. That was none of my fucking business and I hurt her very badly. Just because she had been trying for five years running to get into medical school with constantly worsening health problems that made it so she could barely stand up and she had very little cognitive functioning left… I should have shut the hell up. I have no idea if she ever made it into medical school because she got fucking done with hearing my bitchy-ass comments. From the small amount of google-stalking I have done… I don’t think she made it. That doesn’t make me feel good about myself. Predicting that someone will not be able to live out their dream doesn’t make you a good person.

I hope I learned from that. I hope I am… less forceful now. Even if I was right I was severely unkind. I could have supported her better by helping her see related careers that were more attainable without being a raging asshole who yelled that she was never going to make it to medical school and she needs to stop killing herself trying. That was not my place.

To the best of my knowledge, after Anna the next person I have been most abusive towards has been Sarah. I take responsibility for my inappropriate responses. I feel it was reasonable for me to be triggered by many of the things that happened.. but I did not have the right to shout at her nor make her feel scared. And I did. I did not have the right to make her feel less competent or like she was “failing” at meeting my expectations.

Whereas sometimes I am an asshole… I don’t know if I have hurt my kids. I don’t know if I have perpetrated things that feel like abuse to them. It is very hard for children to be able to even evaluate such things. All I know is that my kids seem like the perfect picture of psychological health. I can’t judge by anything else. They have ups and downs like normal people but overall they are very happy with life.

Abuse is about making other people feel small or bad. It is about trying to control them in ways you have no right to control them. You may not mean to perpetrate it but that doesn’t change the fact that you do it sometimes. Usually between grown ups you look for patterns not isolated incidents. With children a couple of isolated incidents can have serious long-term damage.

It is hard for me to look at my relationships and tell if I am making other people feel small or bad. It is almost as hard for me to tell that someone else’s behavior consistently makes me feel bad.

Recently a long-term very close friend said, “In the past year more than 50% of your feeling upset (that I’ve heard about) has been related to a particular person.”

What do I do with that? I don’t know.

I stay in relationships with people who insult me and make me feel bad because mostly I feel comfortable with those people. Mostly I am comfortable with people who feel free to speak disrespectfully towards me because I am very used to people… feeling disrespectful towards me. I’m used to it. I’m not sure that makes it good.

Someone said online today that people who “offer help” are usually doing it to make themselves feel good, not the person they are giving help to. I can say that is 99% true when it comes to me cleaning for people. The list of people I have cleaned for is long and not-that-distinguished. I feel comfortable in such a role. I feel like it gives me an excuse/reason to stay in peoples lives. I’m worth something. There is something I can do. There is something I have to offer.

People I like and respect tell me I am a good person. I think lots of people are good people. They still hurt me. I hurt people.

Lately I’ve been thinking that we do ourselves and our society a disservice by acting like hurtful actions are the result of “monsters”. Very few people qualify as monsters. Very very very very very very few statistically. My father was a monster. Not many other people have raped lots and lots of children.

Good people can hurt others very easily. Sometimes through inattention, sometimes through lack of caring enough to consider what you are saying/doing before you do it, sometimes through being so self-absorbed they just don’t notice.

How do you protect yourself from the good people who will hurt you? How do you decide how good is good enough?

People tell me frequently that I’m a good person and I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I am aware of how far I have come and I not interested in backsliding. I want to be better than I am. I don’t think the way I treat people is good enough.

When I talk to people I want them to feel built up and competent. I want them to feel like even if they can’t do something right now they can build up the ability over time and practice.

Right this minute I can’t play a single musical instrument. I have the sneaky suspicion that some decade I will learn. Even though I have it in my head that if you don’t learn as a child it is too late. Some day I will have time and energy and money going spare and I’ll learn. It is never too late.

I need to feel like the people in my life are building me up and not tearing me down. It isn’t ok to make jokes at my expense, no matter how many little “Oh I said it because of x and y” you include. It’s not ok to do that to me.

I understand that a lot of people are deeply comfortable with “little jokes” that are mean and cutting. I am Not. Ok. With. Them.

Once in a while people will comment to me that it is kind of weird that Noah never mocks me. I usually give a death glare to those people and say, “That is because he doesn’t want to become one of the many people I cut out of my life.”

I am prickly, sensitive, and overly conscious of my dignity. It is so easy to poke fun at me. I know. Hundreds of people have done so before you. I didn’t think they were very fucking funny either.

As much as I am growing to believe that the moving I did all the time as a child was overall a positive force in my life it means that I have gotten to go through a lot of different environments. People aren’t that different. If you have the misfortune to be at the bottom of the social ladder… you fucking stay there in place after place. When I say that hundreds of people have made fun of me I’m not kidding. I went to 25 schools before I dropped out at 16. That means I only needed 8 people at each school to get to 200 people being nasty to me. Most schools had 20-30 people who had a serious problem with me. And that’s not even getting into all of the adult situations where I bother people.

It isn’t hyperbole to say that people putting me down is a major trend in my life. People who are mentally ill are treated badly. They are bullied at 2-3 times the normal rate in the US. We are “weird” and that makes us targets. (It is also true that people with mental health issues are also more frequently the bullies. It’s a double whammy of awesome.)

I am not a special-more-hurt-than-anyone-else snowflake. I don’t think I am a professional victim. I think it would be a far stretch to say that anything that has happened to me in the past… almost eight years counts as “victimization”. I still struggle with the long-term results of trauma. Yes, I’m over-fucking-sensitive.

That happens when you are hit in the same spot hundreds of times.

“Oh just ignore it.” Oh man. Psychological studies prove that you are a giant asshole. Just so you know.

I don’t believe that I am exempt from examination of abuser tactics just because I was abused. If anything else I believe that the fact that I have an abusive background means that I must be Much More Vigilant in examining my behavior and being willing to change when someone else has a problem with something I’m doing.

I don’t hit any more. That is huge. I used to be really mean verbally. I was happy to verbally vivisect someone. I don’t do that any more. I no longer join arguments for the sole purpose of making someone who is “wrong” cry. It has been a very long time since such shenanigans have appealed to me.

But I don’t deny that I’ve done it. Honesty is key here.

I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. I don’t know if I’m “good”. Other people say so… but whatever. I can ignore that (as I can’t ignore people saying I’m bad… life is funny). But I’m trying. I am steadily trying to insult people less and be less hurtful. I am trying to devote less of my energy to making other people feel bad… even on accident. I am not sure if I am succeeding or not.

These things are very hard to judge. It’s a process. I will never “arrive” at my ideal good person state. It will always be a work in progress. I will always fuck up. I will always make mistakes and say something that sucks sometimes.

How do you also include forgiveness if not everyone who does bad things is a monster? Where do you put up boundaries if “good people” do things that accidentally hurt you?

My kids keep asking when an uncle is coming over to dinner. An uncle I have uninvited from my house because things he said and did made me feel like he was unsafe to have around my house and my children. Is he a bad person? I don’t think so. He has opinions that make him dangerous in my opinion. Why don’t I “get over it” and invite him back over.. he didn’t directly hurt me… Because I am responsible for my children. Because I am responsible for showing them adults and saying, “This is how you be a grown up” and when I show them that behavior and act like it is ok I am harming them. I am encouraging them to accept broken, toxic attitudes as “normal” and “acceptable”. No. It isn’t ok to think that shooting people who bully you is an acceptable choice. And you don’t get to tell my kids it is a solution.

There are lines in the sand that are really clear. If you tell my kids they can shoot people who hurt their feelings… that’s clearly on one side of the line and it’s a side I don’t want to stand near. Just no. Smaller issues…. they are more complicated.

I really don’t know what the solutions are.

Define yourself.

3 Replies

I have been having a lot of thoughts lately about identity and what I do and who I am and what makes different choices matter so much. I’m doing too much “Well I’m not _____.”

I need to not define myself in comparison to anyone else. I need to not define myself as what I’m not.

What am I? Who am I?

Well… I’m kind of a pain in the ass. I’m picky. I’m sensitive. I have a lot of very detailed preferences in life from temperature to fabric choices to food choices to how close to me someone is allowed to stand. I have a very large personal space bubble and I’ve really organized all my issues inside it. I have lots of issues. I know that. I am very emotional–to the point where it causes me social problems and difficulties because I react to things that other people consider “no big deal”.

I’m intelligent. I read a lot and study a lot of things and constantly challenge myself to do things that are hard for me. I’m proud of that. I learn new things. I learn hard things just because I feel like it.

I am an intensely physical person. I used to be sedentary. It was very bad for me. I have a lot of emotional issues tied up in how sedentary my childhood was. I’m deeply grateful that I am now in a position to be physically fit and I’m additionally grateful that I can bring my kids along with me. I’m fucking thrilled that my kids think a 5k is no big deal. That is our standard Sunday morning walk. I have worked so hard on this. None of this physicality came naturally to me. I had to want it and go make it happen.

I am a parent. I’m not sure if I’m a good parent or not. My kids like me, my husband thinks I’m doing a good job, and beyond that I just have to pray it all comes out ok in the end. Shanna says, “Even though sometimes you can be a pain in the neck, you are a really good mom and I’m glad I get to have you.” I tell her I feel exactly the same way with the word mom taken out and daughter slipped in. Calli continues to want to be physically attached to me 5+ hours out of the day so I’m pretty sure she is doing ok with me. And she thinks that I must sleep with her every night. So really she thinks we should be touching for 18+ hours a day.

I’m a wife. I’m not a great wife. I’m ok. I’m needy and kind of annoying sometimes but I put out a lot and I do a lot of chores to make up for being difficult to live with. Noah says he is happy with the trade he is getting in life.

I’m not the best friend in the world. I am demanding and difficult and I get upset about things and withdraw and that hurts people. I wish I was better able to support my friends but I’m really a pretty shitty friend right now. I feel that I used to be slightly better at being support for other people. Right now I am so mired in my own bottomless need pit that I don’t have a lot to offer anyone. I’m sorry. I just have no spoons. I have nothing to give. I have no more support or understanding or anything to give anyone. I am so tired.

My body is a mixed bag. I struggle with various kinds of pain and I do my best to keep my whining to a minimum. I know I’m not very good at keeping my whining to a minimum because people feel the need to comment on how whiny I am. So I know I’m really bad at keeping my mouth shut. If people only knew how many complaints I sit on they wouldn’t think I was as big of a whiner. But, whatever. I am a whiner. I’m not denying it. I’m just saying it isn’t as bad as people make me sound sometimes.

My shrink asked me why I sign on to do events with people. I told her that I generally sign on for events with people because I want to guarantee that for x hours that person will be near me and interacting with me. If that isn’t my goal then I don’t sign on to do an event with someone. This was really mixed and conflicting for the last 10k that I flaked out on. I signed on for the race thinking we would train together and then race together. Her life blew up (not her fault and I am not mad) and that didn’t happen and by the race I felt like, “Well I’m training past this for the half marathon and we didn’t actually spend all the time together so maybe I have to take care of my body.” So I was selfish in how I talked to her in the week before the event and I hurt her feelings a lot. I did not handle it well.

A friend said, “Going to Dickens Fair is so much more fun with a group” (Dickens Fair is a historical reenactment like a Renaissance Faire but set in the Victorian period around the novels of Charles Dickens.) and I practically choked. I don’t have fun at Dickens with a group. Most of the times I have tried to go with people it has blown up and I have left crying.

If I want to do an event for myself I generally don’t sign up to do it with anyone else. People don’t follow through very often. I know it isn’t “personal” but it really bothers me. I don’t recover very much when someone flakes on a commitment to something that is important to me. I take it too personally. I feel shitty. It takes days or weeks or months for me to stop freaking out about how people always let me down. (It isn’t true that people “always” let me down but FEELINGS have their own measuring system.) It is so hard for me to trust people to show up when I really care about something.

A few years ago, the first time I ran a major race some friends said they would come watch because the course was right next to their house. Turns out they didn’t feel like getting out of the house so they didn’t show. I cried the whole way home.

If I’m doing something *for me* then I’m really sensitive to people showing support or not. If they do show support then I feel validated as a person. If I don’t get what I nebulously want then I feel like I should walk off an overpass into the pathway of a semi-truck. So I try to do those things alone.

I don’t express how important these things are to people because then I am being “manipulative”. It’s not ok to tell people that if they agree to something and then flake that I will spend days struggling to not kill myself. But that is the reality I live with. And I have to carefully keep it off screen and not talk about it too much because then I’m “inappropriate.”

I rarely write about how upset I am with people not following through. Often the person reads my blog and I don’t want them to feel guilty because of me. I don’t want other people to feel like I’m hurting them by having my feelings. I don’t want to be accused of being a drama queen. Better to shut the fuck up. Just shut up you crazy bitch.

If you can’t clearly ask for what you want from people you can’t expect to get it. If what you want from people is too complicated you can’t expect to get it. If you ask in a way that someone else doesn’t like you can’t expect to get it. But if I clearly talk about most of my mental health issues then I am being manipulative or I am traumatizing people. I can’t fucking win.

Something positive since this is yet another round of “what is wrong with Krissy”–everyone’s favorite game.

I’m very creative. I have a lot of ideas and lots of energy to follow through on my ideas. I like that about me. I have so many things I want to do. I can’t do it all immediately but I have a lot of neat ideas I work on.

I like my writing ability. Even though I should stop. Right. Now. Because my arms hurt like hell.

I love you internet. Thank you for being there for me.

Moody as hell.

Leave a reply

The last three days have been quite a roller coaster. I have minutes or even hours where I feel great. I feel happy. I feel like I can overcome any difficulty because I have people who love me who help me and history has proven that all you need is a small group of dedicated people to change everything.

Then I’m raging and so angry that I feel like I want to break many bones. I want to make people bleed. I haven’t screamed even once, but the surges of emotion are so intense I feel like I am choking.

Then I’m sad and depressed and I feel like of course I’m not going to figure out anything with this stupid diet. I’m torturing myself and Noah for nothing because it won’t work. Nothing has ever worked. I’m a fucking failure and I should die.

Then all of a sudden I am pumped and anxious and I want people to PROVE THEY LOVE ME GOD DAMNIT. HERE ARE SOME HOOPS. PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE.

And then the cycle starts all over again. It’s not really a cycle. It’s jumping around very unpredictably. The triggers are small and stupid and really not worth the degree of emotion I experience afterwards.

I’m not talking much. I am reading a lot and trying not to express my range of emotions where other people have to live with them while I’m living with them.

My feelings are real. They are happening. But everyone doesn’t have to be on the roller coaster with me.

Yesterday a brace of birds came and sat on my neighbors roof and looked at me through the window. I hadn’t filled the bird seed container in a few days. So I gave them more food. Then all of the trees within a block of my house exploded in song once they could see my head over the roof.

These small moments feel like magic.

I have the most patient husband. My kids are so kind to me. I’m sorry that my emotions are all over the place. I can’t control them. I’m doing everything I know to do. I’m doing my best.

I’m sorry.

Next day, still on food.

4 Replies

I’m not mad today. That feels better. I’m not sure I could carry mad with how much excitement I feel about Hawaii.

More on food stuff: I find it funny that I get more comments about poop than anything else.

I don’t think a single solitary person has ever tried to hurt me with food. I do not believe that in following their preferences/needs/restrictions a single person has had malice in my direction. I hope I didn’t actually make it sound like I thought people were cackling with glee as they deliberately inflict diarrhea on me. That’s not it.

I suspect that part of my feelings of rage is how helpless I feel to fix this problem. I have tried. I’ve tried lots of things over many years and things are a lot better than they used to be but they still aren’t great.

I suspect that part of my feelings of rage is how much I consciously try to accommodate other people and I don’t feel like other people do the same to me. (I ask people over and over about food restrictions/allergies/etc. Things change.) It is important to note that people DO ask me if I have any allergies and I tell them no. So people are trying. I don’t know what to tell them to make the question useful and that is really hard for me. It is NOT someone else’s fault I don’t know what to tell them. It isn’t anyone else’s fault that people ask if I have allergies and I say no. No one is to blame. I’m not mad AT anyone.

I think that part of me feels like… maybe other people had help figuring out what was broken in their body and I don’t have help and I don’t know how to figure it out. I know that isn’t accurate. I know that I perceive other people as getting more help and love than they actually do. I know this is jealousy talking as much as anything else. I’m jealous of having people who take care of you who help you figure out what is going on with you.

I want a mommy who will handle the food diary and elimination diet and tell me what I can and can’t have. I would meekly go along. But doing it for myself is so hard. I know it is way harder than it should be.

In order to do an elimination diet I will have to cut back on what we do. We will have to stay home basically every day because I depend a lot on eating out to bridge the gap between my spoons and our requirements for food. If I’m doing an elimination diet I can’t eat out.

And I have a lot of food issues. So many issues. If I eat the same thing day after day I feel rage and I feel violent and I feel like I deeply need to go do physical damage to other people to punish them for having this horrible taste in my mouth. Eating repetitively is really hard for me. I feel like a petty bitch, but I have finally managed to figure this out enough to work around it and not make other people miserable.

But if I want to figure out what is making me sick I have to drop my coping methods.

I feel like my whole life right now is “All of your coping methods are shit. Stop it. Do something else.” With no ramp up, no support, no idea of what else to do other than things that are super hard and require education, time, and support I don’t have.

If I live on white rice and plain meat for weeks I am not going to be a very nice person. It’s just a fact. And I won’t be able to go out much and I won’t be able to do many projects because I will have zero patience and I will lose my temper and scream at the slightest provocation. I will spend a lot of time thinking that cutting myself is way the fuck more interesting as a means of controlling my behavior than punishing myself with terrible food for months.

Ok, it is in service of the goal of having my body hurt less. I’ve tried a lot of things in the name of that goal. Not much works out. Instead I get to the end of months of horrible trying to help myself and utterly fail. So I’ve tortured myself for nothing. And then people turn around and say, “Well I guess you just aren’t trying hard enough.”

I would like to die. I would like to stop trying. I can’t try hard enough to get my body to stop hurting and I don’t really want to live like this for more and more and more decades.

I would like to have my asshole not hurt for a whole week straight.

I’m scared. I feel helpless to help myself. I feel like no one else cares. (I’m not saying that is true or accurate or part of reality.) I know it is bullshit that no one else cares. There are lots of people in my life who have offered advice, support, they would make me food within the restrictions that tasted better than stuff I am capable of cooking for myself…

I feel so bad that I can’t see that. I “know” it. But it doesn’t feel real. It feels like a lie. It feels like taking the risk of trying so I can be let down again is so so so so so stupid.

The thing about trying a lot of things and trying really hard to have relationships with lots of people is… it doesn’t always work out. That has to be ok when you are using the shotgun approach to everything. (Do you know the shotgun approach? Shotguns don’t use the same kind of bullet as a hand gun. There are lots of tiny little pieces in a larger cartridge. When you shoot something some parts of the bullet may hit the target and some may miss but you figure it is close enough because it did get hit. But you know going in that lots of your effort is going to fail.)

It’s like how I used to hunt for sexual partners. If you ask enough people… someone will say yes. You just have to learn how to not let the “no’s” bother you.

I am really struggling to over come the failures on trying to eliminate the pain my body feels. Every new try requires more and more and more energy to get over the opening hurdles.

I know that the next step is a food diary and elimination diet. I am not looking forward to this. Just the idea makes me cry and feel helpless and angry.

I sure as shit won’t be going over to dinner at anyone’s house for months. I don’t want to talk about the fucking steps. It will be shitty and horrible and I will hate just about every fucking thing I eat the whole fucking time even if I normally am ok with eating something. Just the fact that it is part of this process will breed so much resentment.

I’m afraid that my hatred and rage for this process will make it less than effective.

Pressure

4 Replies

I’m going to try and explain this better. We’ll see how spectacularly I fail.

I appreciate that people call/text to check on me. I do genuinely appreciate it. I appreciate that people notice me enough to care about my presence. That doesn’t change the fact that it can feel like pressure. Pressure is not always a bad thing. I have pretty severe mental illness. I have to work very consciously on not staying home and hiding from life. Knowing that people like me enough to reach out to me when I am bailing on social events is a positive thing.

That doesn’t change the fact that self-care is very hard for me. I tend to think that just about anyone else’s needs are more important than mine. If people want to see me it is incredibly rare for me to say no. I need to have people need me. I need to have people like me. That is part of being part of a community and I want that so badly.

But when four people message me in an hour saying, “Why aren’t you coming?” it can feel like pressure. Pressure isn’t always bad. Noticing that it feels like pressure is important for me in particular.

Subtle small pressures build on me and I end up screaming and freaking out. I have to manage my emotional/physical load and that’s complicated.

For example, my ladies and I are negotiating for a trip (sounds like Hawaii is the current front runner on places to go) and we were giggling about the possibility of a bikini clad babes on the beach picture. I said I might be willing to buy a bikini and wear it for the picture and then I was putting my Islamic bathing suit back on. My friend… more or less tactfully expressed confusion as to why I feel the need to wear a modest suit.

I explained that it really isn’t about the modesty. I don’t like sun block. Putting sun block on my skin causes me emotional problems. I can feel it the whole time and I feel angry and frustrated. If irritation is on a scale of 1-10 and I start out the day feeling a 2 if I put sun block on I will instantly be at an 8. I will feel violent and angry and hostile. Nail polish makes me feel the same way. Having my pores feel clogged is just….. I’m not ok. I have sensory issues and I just cannot cope with having things on my skin. So I dress like a nice Islamic lady when I’m going to the pool.

She could understand that perspective. But it has to be explained or it really isn’t obvious why I care so much about the modest swimsuit thing. I’m not actually what you might call “modest”. If I’m going to places with hot springs I’m cranky if I must wear a bathing suit. I prefer being in water nekkid. But I don’t stay in hot springs that long and when I get out I get fully dressed so I don’t have to put sun block on. I’m kind of weird.

I’m perfectly happy to wear a skimpy bathing suit in front of people. I’m not ashamed. I like my body. (I actually do. My body has been very good to me.) But I have sensitivity issues and I’m trying my best to learn to cope with them in a way that makes me more socially appropriate.

It is a little odd socially that I wear modest swimsuits. People ask me questions about it a lot. It is clearly “weird”. (I don’t cover my hair so I am obviously not doing it for religious reasons so… why?) If I wanted to “fit in” better I should wear a more “normal” swim suit. Then people wouldn’t look at me funny and ask me “why do you want to do that?” But I am capable of being a nice person if I just accommodate my weird sensory issues. So you have to pick some kinds of weird in order to fit in with other metrics.

I need to be part of a community. I feel deeply grateful that the home schoolers have so cheerfully embraced me. Other communities have tried and I was more resistant. The pressure I feel from the home schoolers feels positive and life affirming. They want me to be part of their lives. They want my kids to be friends with their kids. They want me to not feel invisible. They want me to know that I am a noticeable part of their life–my absence is notable. That’s good. I’m not writing about it because I want to make people feel bad.

But I need to figure out how to balance the fact that sometimes I need to stay home with the fact that people like me and want to see me. That doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything wrong. It means I’m still working on my social skills and boundaries.

I consciously put similar pressure on people in my life. Especially those who suffer from mental illness. I try to make sure I reach out every so often and remind them that they still matter to me. I think it is important. I think it is positive. I don’t think people should withdraw such pressure. I think that loving people involves some pressure sometimes. Having relationships involves feeling the weight of the presence of the people in your life. That’s not bad.

But I am not particularly tactful in my process of learning to be. Having relationships is complicated and hard. Skills learned with a particular person may or may not be transferable to the next person. That is hard. You have to just keep trying things.

Alone.

3 Replies

Sometimes I am reminded that people with mental illness are not always good for people to be around. Sometimes it seems like being alone is really the only option if we want to stop the pain. Our pain, the pain we cause other people just by existing.

I have spent a lot of my life literally alone. I have spent years sitting alone in rooms. Yet I contrast that with the wonderful people in my life. I have friends. I am unusually blessed.

But I feel alone. Because it isn’t ok to make anyone else’s life all about my pain and I don’t know how to get past my pain to focus on connection with people. Some days I can kind of get there, I haven’t been doing so well lately.

I absolutely understand the feeling I do everything wrong anyway–the world would be better if I was dead. But I’m not supposed to say that out loud. It is manipulative. It is hurtful. It damages people if you scream at them that you want to die. It isn’t ok to take ones pain out on the people around one.

But there is so much pain. I saw a sign today, advertising a suicide prevention walk. I stood and stared at the sign for a while. I thought about a conversation I had this weekend with two women who expressed how hard it is to deal with suicidal people. Those who want to be supportive of the suicidal person can be absolutely wrung dry. That isn’t fair either.

We (the mentally ill or “crazy” as I think of myself) are told over and over that we should ask for help. Those of us with extreme trauma in our background are also told over and over and over and over again in therapy that it isn’t appropriate for us to talk about our experiences in front of “normal” people because we will hurt them just by admitting that people like us exist.

Shut up. And it is your own fault that you are crazy. And it is your fault if the pain is too much and you die. Why didn’t you get help? And while I’m at it, shut up.

I’m having a hard time with the kids. My shrink is encouraging me to consider getting a job so I can pay for private school because I need a break from my kids. I’m not entirely sure how adding a job to all of my current work would make my life easier. It isn’t like work stress is less impactful than kid stress. And the main job I have prepared to do is teach children. If I went back to doing that all day long I would not be a very nice person to my children. All of my patience would go to my job and by the time I got home I would be screaming and nearly psychotic.

It was funny how at first my shrink tried to talk me into just putting them in public school. She works with the school across the street from my house. It took me staring her down for a while before she admitted that the school is entirely substandard academically and it probably wouldn’t all “work out just fine”.

If my interactions with my kids all of a sudden had to go from just me enforcing about an hour a day of chores to me having to enforce an hour of chores AND force them to do homework that I know to be ineffective and damaging during the 3-4 hours a day I see them… I don’t see how we would get along better. Yes, I may feel less stress. Maybe. I haven’t at any other point in my life when my work situation has been different, but what the hell.

I don’t think sending my kids to a shitty school for babysitting is a good option. I don’t think that is in anyone’s best long-term interests. Would I do it if I HAD TO, yes. No one would die. It isn’t the end of the world. But no, it is not ideal. That is not for the best.

Is home schooling? Mostly we get along. We’ve had a hard few weeks. That happens every so often. I’m not sure we would get along better if our relationship involved me having to force them to get ready for school every day. I am not good at that.

I feel like a failure. I feel like I should die. But I don’t want to leave my kids. I don’t want to hurt them like that. I don’t know how to stop feeling like I am poison to everyone around me. I hurt people so much.

Maybe it would be better if I …… I don’t know.

Being alone is a weird thing. I don’t spend that much physical alone time these days. But I feel very alone emotionally. Is it because I can’t physically talk about almost any of what goes on in my head? I don’t know. I know that when I get together with other people there is usually a very clear dynamic that I am there to listen to them and be supportive of their issues. I need to not overwhelm people or bother them. I need to not be boring with this constant I want to die I want to die I want to die.

My throat hurts. My head hurts. My belly hurts. I want to puke. I want to beat my head so bad that I have to sit very still to not do it. I’ve been thinking about cutting all day. I want to bleed and bleed and bleed and bleed.

I don’t like me very much and it feels very much like I haven’t been punished adequately lately for being a piece of shit.

I can’t burden people with these thoughts. That’s not fair.

In the store, Calli was having a hard time. Calli said something–I forget what–and Shanna responded with some nonsense syllables and Noah, Shanna and I laughed. Calli sobbed. It felt like we were laughing at her and being mean. I pulled her into my arms and I carried her for the next half hour and I talked to her quietly. I apologized over and over. We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We were laughing at the silly sounds. I’m so sorry we hurt you. Clearly we did.

Then Calli asked me if it was right that she hurt herself. I felt utterly crushed. Did I teach you this? I try so hard not to talk about it. I don’t know if I have slipped or not. I may have. I told her that it was not right for her to hurt herself on purpose. I told her that her body is her constant companion–her body will be the only thing with her every minute of her life. She needs to be kind and loving to her body so that it can be strong and do all the things she wants to do in this life. We talked about how being kind to your body means eating healthy foods (we had a long chat about why Ho-Ho’s don’t count as “healthy food”) and drinking good water and exercising and sleeping and relaxing. We talked about balance. I told her that if she hurts herself, she won’t be as strong. I told her that if she hurts herself, she is hurting something that has only done kindness to her–her body has carried her through everything that has happened to her.

By the end she said it made sense and she said she would be careful and loving with her body.

Why can’t I talk me into feeling compassion for my body? I barely ate today. I just… couldn’t. Even though I rode 8 miles on my bike and ran just under 5 miles. I ate one piece of bread pudding and about 1/3 of a package of ramen. I don’t feel physically able to eat more. I feel sick and weak and nauseous and disgusting.

And yet I feel like there are pieces of my life pulling at me from every direction telling me that I have failed. I am not managing to make time for my friends in the ways they want me to. It’s very annoying that I get up so fucking early and I am not available to suit their needs. I am having trouble with home school social stuff. Not because anyone is doing anything. Because I feel like a feral animal in a trap and my stomach hurts all the time and I feel like I just can’t be around good, kind people. I will hurt them.

The world would be a better place if people like me didn’t exist.

More than once this weekend I felt crushing guilt. Some of the kids in the group are *gasp* normal kids and they push boundaries. Any time I enforced a boundary I felt like I should die. (To be fair, none of their parents objected and the kids aren’t upset with me to the best of my knowledge.) I’m not saying this is rational. I am more saying the opposite. None of this is rational.

I don’t know if that “alone” feeling can go away.

I feel a lot of guilt for not doing the 10k this week. But things just kind of fell apart. My running partner and I are both having feelings. We are both having stuff happen in our life and the race just didn’t quite happen for us. I feel like I let her down. I feel like I am a shitty piece of shit who should be run over by a Mac truck.

I can’t do everything. I can’t be every where. I can’t …. I just can’t. Yes, my failures suck. I know.

Yesterday I commented to Noah that I am feeling the lack of Godmama break. My shrink today commented, “It sounds like you really need a break.” Finding other options just isn’t happening. I don’t have the spoons to deal with trying to find babysitting. It is fucking hard. And people lie to me. And people steal money. And people don’t answer their phones. And… Yes, I need some kind of break from my kids. My time off is mostly the 8 hours/week I pay the neighbor but I work like a dog the whole time she is here. It is not rest time. It is “do things that I can’t do with my kids jumping on top of me” time.

I feel weary. I don’t think getting a job is actually the answer. For a hundred reasons. Yes, there would be good aspects. Right now, all I can think is, “What would I start failing on?” I have absolutely no extra spoons. I’m really far into spoon deficit.

Mostly I just pray that I don’t fuck up my kids too badly and I hope we can all make it through the next decade while still liking one another.

You know, me having a “really hard time” with my kids is about on par with the most stable, best parts of my childhood. That’s hard to wrap my head around. I feel so much guilt and so much shame for being a yeller. I don’t call my kids names.

I would have given anything to have my mom say that she was mad at what I did. Instead she told me that she was mad because I was a stupid bitch.

I yell things like, “I am not your fucking maid. Pick up your own shit.” That is what I say when I *lose it*. When I am really harsh. When I am so mean.

I wish my mama was that nice to me. I wish. I wish. I wish. I wish. That doesn’t excuse me being this way with my kids. I want to do better. Because I believe they deserve better.

I don’t scream all day long. I don’t scream every day. I scream too much. And I am really struggling with how to stop. I don’t think that adding the stress of a job would somehow magically make it easier for me to have patience. Maybe if I got to be a rural librarian who dealt with very few patrons on a day and who got to sit in a calm, orderly environment all day long. But I don’t actually have that option. I trained to do something high stress.

The idea that I would be less stressed if I went back to dealing with 150 teenagers a day is hilarious. At this point, with how teachers are getting screwed, I’d probably be up to 170 teenagers.

I told my shrink point blank that I want my next career to be in incest research and I cannot start on that path while I have little children. She countered with telling me about women who are public about intense issues getting killed. She had to agree that I should wait at least ten years before seriously starting the incest research for the safety of my children.

Yeah, I’m overly invested in the idea of home schooling. I have wanted to home school my kids since I was 17. I’m pretty devoted to this idea and I’m willing to try pretty hard to make it work out. Yes, putting my kids in school would be a failure. I have been preparing for home schooling for almost 16 years now. Yes, putting my kids in school would be a failure.

I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I really don’t. I don’t know what the future will bring. I’m very afraid that none of it will work out and I will end up alone and bitter and hateful.

I would much, much rather die. Life is such a risk. I feel like such a failure each and every day. Ok, there are days I don’t feel like a complete loser. It hasn’t been a good month so far.

I barely talked to the kids today. I was gone five hours for therapy. I can’t do that again. Two hours of exercise/transportation between bart and destinations. One hour of therapy. Two hours of train. I really need to find an incest specialist closer to my city. Why aren’t there tons of psychologists who specialize in incest sitting in my city?! Geez. Very inconvenient. Then I came home and went in my room and cried. Because it is that kind of day.

Noah is home. I did snuggle the kids before and after. We have talked. We have interacted, but not that much more than if they were in school all day.

I can’t talk without saying things I shouldn’t. So I’m not talking. Some days are like that.

And right there, right that minute, that is when the medication hit. Now I’m hungry. Now the pain in my head is mostly muddy noise I can ignore except for the throbbing spot. I still feel sick. But I feel like maybe I will be able to eat dinner.

Calli came into my room this afternoon and asked why I was crying. I said that in my head I was hearing mean things about me and they make me feel very sad. She said, “Like what?” I smiled and told her that she doesn’t need to hear those words come out of my mouth. I don’t need to be the one who teaches her to apply those words to me, or to herself.

I worry about both of my kids, but I worry more about Calli. On one hand I feel like the worst possible mother for her. She clearly has tendencies that I could uhh encourage. In bad ways. On the other hand, how many other people can talk to her about the problems of hurting yourself?

Baby I can’t make you like you any more than I can make me like me. But know that I like you. I love you all the time even when I don’t like something you have done. I am glad for you every minute of the day. I am grateful I get to see you again. You are a good girl who is trying to learn about a complicated world and no one can learn without making mistakes.

I don’t think I am good enough to be their mom. Unfortunately I don’t know who else to nominate for the role.

Also: my kids and I had a long chat about swear words because they are both becoming quite proficient at using shit, fuck, damn, hell, and crap. We talked about the penalties they might experience for using these words. I told them about all the ways I have been punished for talking this way. Shanna asked why I still use the words if so many people have hurt me to try and make me stop. I told her that when people try to force me to do things that is a guarantee I will do the opposite–even if I’m kind of hurting myself in the process. It isn’t smart, but it is how I operate.

Now my kids have decided that since language is all about modeling I have to stop swearing because I am teaching them the words too often. I am not happy about having my kids police my language this much. I’m really not happy about it. But I’m trying to go with it. I think Shanna is being proactive in an overall healthy way.

For the first time in my life I feel like the person who is telling me to stop swearing is doing so because she loves me and she wants more people to be nice to me.

It is very hard being aware that much of what my mother did was not out of love for me, was not out of desire to make me a better person, was not in the service of my best-self.

I look at my kids and I think of the awesome, overwhelming obligation they represent.

I am not sure I’m up for this, but there’s no way out but through.

Mirrors

1 Reply

I feel grateful every day for my family. My children give me reason to see myself in different ways.

I snapped at Calli last night. It was a stupid situation. I wanted chocolate milk and Noah made me a nice cup of water with whey powder stuff in it. Not the same. He meant well. He was being lovely. But Noah asked why I looked so disappointed when I saw the glass (oh this stuff makes me gag) and I told him what I wanted instead and he looked kind of crestfallen (I feel so bad when his efforts to be sweet don’t land how he means them) and Calli piped up that she wanted chocolate added to her cup. I said if I didn’t get any she sure wasn’t getting any.

She covered her face with her hands. I felt really guilty. I told her it wasn’t nice of me to say that just because I was disappointed. I told her that it was not loving of me to be sharp with her when she was just asking.

The look on her face.

“It wasn’t all my fault?”

No baby. It wasn’t your fault I was mad. I was already having those feelings before you said a word. I’m really sorry I took it out on you.

“So it was ok for me to ask? It is alright to ask for things?”

Yes. You can ask. I’m sorry that sometimes I’m a jerk when you ask. That’s my fault and not yours. I’m really sorry that I’m like that sometimes.

She told me that she would forgive me. She said she understands feeling frustrated.

I pray that I give them even a fraction of the forgiveness they have offered me. Shanna has repeatedly said over the past two days, “I would like to argue with you about doing my chores. But I’m grounded. So I’m not going to argue. I’d like to argue though. Just so you know.”

I smile and tell her I appreciate her forbearance. They are so kind to me.

I watched a movie this week called Call Me Crazy. One of the five short segments in the movie was about a girl growing up with a bipolar mother. As guilty as I feel about my issues, I’m functioning. I don’t actually hide for days any more. I hide for up to an hour each day–that’s all I allow myself. I don’t feel guilty about forcing the kids to have an hour alone daily. Ok, I feel guilty but I do it anyway.

I don’t risk my kids health or safety. I don’t actually have anything that resembles clinical manic episodes–I have hypomania issues, but they aren’t the same. Sometimes I am glad to feel reminded that I’m not actually as bad as I want to believe about myself.

I find it funny that the kids being grounded means we are spending more time on the couch reading together than usual. If I’m not careful they might start thinking that grounding is something to shoot for. At this point they are certainly very happy about how it has gone.

Noah says I didn’t step over the line this time. I’m glad about that. (The kids went out back and dug up a raised bed and cut the lines to a swing.) I told them to go to bed early and I told them that they need to do their chores for a week without arguing with me and they don’t get the iPad. I told them they need to suck up because it wasn’t cool to wreck a bunch of plants.

I never know if what I am doing is right or wrong. I comfort myself with the chant, “I have never hit them.” I don’t think it is adequate though. I yell so much. I know that yelling can cause as many long-term problems as judicious spanking. I’ve read the research. So comforting myself with my lack of hitting seems… dubious at best.

I yell a lot. But my kids show no sign of deleterious effects. I check over and over to see what the effects are of verbal abuse. Are my kids showing signs of damage? Am I fucking up? Am I making “normal human mistakes” or am I actually a monster?

Mostly they show no signs. They have very high self-esteem. They feel very secure and loved and like the world is on their side. They are highly social and adaptive. My kids show no sign of feeling like a scapegoat. They are both quick to explain, “Sometimes my mom yells too much because things in her brain are kind of wonky and she has trouble controlling it–it isn’t my fault. She’s always been like this.” I feel… weird when they bust out this phrasing. It’s true. But it feels weird to have 4/5/6 year olds say this.

It’s true, but it doesn’t feel like a good excuse.

My kids don’t walk on egg shells with me (that I can detect–maybe I’m wrong). I don’t know yet if they will have long-term issues with anxiety or depression. Even if I did manage to be “perfect” somehow their gene pool has anxiety, depression, and a variety of other mental illness issues from every branch. It wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with my actions.

But I’m not modeling the kind of behavior I want them to be able to have. I see it so clearly when Shanna can get her shit together better than I can. I struggle with how small and ashamed I feel when I watch her social acumen. That kid has charisma and polish and charm I lack. She is much better at dealing with minor frustrations. She reroutes around problems and doesn’t take them seriously or personally. I envy her detachment sometimes.

They show me what I want to be. I pray I show them what they need to see.

I’m looking forward to passing this anniversary. I hope that soon I can get through this cycle of self-hatred and suicidal ideation quickly. Just fucking end already. But the more I rage about wanting the cycle to end, the longer it drags on. I’ve tried that route before.

There is no getting over this. There is just getting through it.

I have a lot of days where I want to die. Today has mostly been a good day other than those niggling little voices telling me that I don’t deserve to breathe the same air as good people. My kids have been really nice to me.

I don’t think I talk about being suicidal (out loud, with my voice) much at all. My kids are in a phase where they tell me frequently that losing me would be the worst thing ever and absolutely ANYTHING would be better than that. I don’t know what to make of it. I know it is a normal phase and all. I try to just respond in the moment with reassurance.

I feel like a liar. No, I feel like a fraud. I carefully don’t lie explicitly. I will stay with you as long as I can. I will stay with you until you are a grown up and you can take care of yourself. I love you.

That part is true. I love you. I love you so much. You are the reason I wake up every single day and feel glad I’m not dead yet. I’m not lying when I tell you every morning that I am so glad to see you. I am glad. I am so glad.

Slow day

Leave a reply

I had high hopes for accomplishing a lot today. Nope. Today I am swimming uphill through molasses.

I get a little done then I sit and stare off into space. Thankfully the babysitter was here for the morning. The kids got to run and play.

Space

Leave a reply

I agonize about how to emotionally handle people needing space (and I worry about the logistics too) because I don’t have good models. I don’t know what being appropriate for that person in the future means. I don’t know how I will change or improve to be less of a problem.

I don’t think that someone needing space from me is a sign of deficiency or badness on their part. I don’t think I could put up with me if I weren’t me. But I don’t know what to do. I want people to feel safe. And I manifestly cannot create such a feeling in all people.

The run today was such a good idea. It helped my mood tremendously. I started out with my knees feeling like water. I felt like there was no way I could run up that hill. But I ran up the hill any way. By the end I felt a lot better.

In the past, I did genuinely hurt people in ways that required them to need space. At this point in my life I am challenging for people who have a lot going on in their own lives. I require a lot of energy to put up with. But I’m not hurting people (to the best of my knowledge). I’m causing them to have more emotions than they can handle. That happens. I do tend to stir up emotions in people.

That doesn’t mean I’m a piece of shit. It doesn’t mean I do everything wrong. It means sometimes I am hard for people and they need space. Sometimes I have to take space from people. I try to come back.

Even if I’m awkward and stilted and unnatural because I’m afraid of doing something wrong again. I try to come back. And people let me. That has to be good enough. That is all there is.

This morning Calli yelled at me that she wished I wasn’t her mother. I cried and cried and cried. On the heels of a friend standing us up last night (it was an accident–they feel bad) and a friend saying she needs space (totally makes sense–her life is exploding) it just sucked.

When I kind of surfaced Calli came to me and said, “Mom, I’m really sorry I hurt your feelings. You have to know that when I say things like that I’m just mad. I don’t really mean it. I love you very much and I want you.”

How can she be only four?

I don’t want to bang my head because someone asked for space. I want to bang my head because it is the week before my period and that happens to me. It is important for me to remember that. The circumstances are just standing near the inevitable.

Like it goes.

Leave a reply

Yesterday was a banner day. One friend said she isn’t going to be able to see me for a while. That whole I’m too intense thing. It’s appropriate, fair, and the right thing to do if someone needs space. Other friends stood us up for dinner.

Mostly it wasn’t a bad day. I spent time with home schoolers. (I managed to spend a lot of the time discussing house organizing strategies–that was fun.) Sometimes I think it is very important that I not spend too much time around the home schoolers. I don’t want them to have to tell me to go away too. That would hurt my kids. So I have to very carefully divvy out how much time I spend there so my kids don’t get told to go away too.

One mom is not real happy because apparently Shanna and the boy she has had a crush on for over a year ran out to the field and kissed. There’s a milestone for you. The other mother expressed displeasure and said that wasn’t to be happening.

My point of view is so skewed. Someone else is really upset because a six year old and an eight year old had a chaste peck. I know that by that age I had given blowjobs to…..at least five or six boys and girls (That I have strong memory of and I get the impression more was happening in my first neighborhood than I remember because we moved when I was three). Perspective is important. Not that I’m saying it would be ok for Shanna to upgrade her sexual activity because I did. That is NOT my point. My point is that a chaste peck is… not alarming to me.

I told Shanna that it is very sweet that she loves him so much, but for a few more years she should limit herself to hugs because kisses are for grown ups. She looked at me like I was a big fat liar. Fair enough. She was more willing to admit that if the boy’s mother is upset about it then it shouldn’t happen again. She doesn’t want to get him in trouble. I feel kind of sad that I am already teaching my daughters to be careful with their sexuality because people around them will punish either them or their partners if they do it in a way that isn’t “approved”.

I feel sad and empty. I feel like I am stupid for reorganizing my life because I want to facilitate relationships with people only to have them tell me that they can’t.

I want to beat my head right now. I feel so stupid.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been thinking that I should finish the letter to Noah’s parents. And I’ve been thinking about the letter I wrote to my mother that I haven’t had the guts to send. The feelings about those two letters could fill thousands of words by themselves.

So I feel shitty with a pile of crap on top. Thinking about how much I wish my mommy loved me will pretty inevitably make me want to hurt myself.

At 3am Calli came and found me. She said, “I’m alone in my bed.”

“…..ok.”

“Shanna is in her bed.”

“….. ok.”

“I don’t want to be alone in my bed.”

“Ahh, now we come to the crux of the matter. You want me to come to bed with you.”

“Yes. And I want you to cuddle me and I want you to sleep with me all night long.”

“Well, I can’t promise all night long. But I will snuggle you back to sleep.”

I had to leave the room when I couldn’t control my crying any more and I didn’t want to wake her up.

Mama mama mama. Every time my kids say it I think of how many millions of times I said it only to not get my mother. I’m torn between feeling like I am “healing my inner child” by facilitating this for my kids and feeling so jealous of them I can barely breathe.

I remind myself over and over that I have three people who love me. That is three more people than a lot of people get. Don’t be greedy.

But today I’d like to beat my head. I think it is kind of interesting how head beating wasn’t much of a thing for me as a kid. When I was a kid I was more focused on cutting, burning myself, biting myself (to the point of blood), and hitting myself with large blunt objects.

Now those activities are less appealing. Now I just want to kneel on concrete and beat until I am not capable of thinking any more. I don’t know if this is a step up or down.

I don’t think the birth control pills are helping very much so far. I can technically understand that I have this dip monthly. These feelings aren’t “real”. But they are.

I am struggling with how to deal with the people who ask me for space. This is not just one person. There are a lot of people in this camp. More than a dozen. I overwhelm people. This is a known issue.

Once people ask for space I try to turn and walk away. They will ask me to come back if they want me to. Only people don’t really. So usually I wait a year or so and I ask again. Then I’m told I’m too intense again. Then I wait a year.

Am I ever going to get to the point where I just walk away? I don’t know. It is so hard for me to walk away from people. I don’t want to feel more alone and unloved than I already do. So I maintain tenuous contact with people who may or may not actually like me but who definitely can’t really handle me. Is that fair to me or them? I don’t know.

I feel tremendous guilt when I ask any of these people to spend time with me a year later. Like I am inflicting an unwanted burden on someone who has already told me they don’t want it. There are always mixed signals. I’m always told that they just need a little break. And then they wait for me to initiate contact and I get kind of passive aggressive comments in public later if I don’t keep pursuing them for a relationship even though they told me to go away.

I don’t feel like I am capable of doing much right. I feel like I hurt people just by existing and that isn’t very nice of me. I should shut my stupid piece of shit mouth because no one wants to fucking hear it.

I told the home schoolers I wouldn’t stay for the whole camping trip. So I can go running with someone who doesn’t really want to see me any more. Yup. That’s how things go for me. This is the second time I have planned far in advance for a race with someone only to have them need space from me. I have had successful races with friends if we decide to do it together at the last minute. Planning to do things with me enforces more time spent and then I become a problem.

I’ll run the six mile loop today again. I still want to run a marathon in March. I’m pretty sure I will plan to do it alone. That seems like the best idea even if someone says, “Oh I will do it with you.” It’s just not a good idea. I’m too hard to deal with.

I feel so guilty for wanting people to be my friend. I am toxic waste and I should stop hurting people.

I am looking forward to my birthday this year probably more than I ever have in my life. I am going to be alone. I am leaving my house the day before. I am not bringing my phone or any other screen. I am going to spend the day of my birthday alone. I am not going to speak to anyone.

That way I will feel no disappointment about anything all day. I can have a day with no expectations from anyone else in the world. It doesn’t matter if no one else wants to talk to me or be nice to me.

Last year on my birthday I spent a week in advance telling the kids, “I want to do x, y, and z. Because it’s my birthday.” They yelled and screamed the whole time and made x, y, and z entirely unpleasant and terrible. I cried through the afternoon and evening because I wasn’t even allowed to eat the french fries I wanted to eat without getting berated.

I want to beat my head on concrete. I wonder how much this change in impulse has to do with a chance in circumstance. I only have privacy in the garage. There is no way in hell I would cut in the garage. Too messy. I only cut in the bath tub. I no longer have private access to a bath tub. I am old enough and wise enough that I am not going to burn myself in the house again (fire damage is real, yo). And frankly, after my brother burning himself alive… burning myself is less appealing. That habit mostly went away after Tommy died. It wasn’t a game any more.

Just like I don’t understand the appeal of video games where you shoot people and kill people. I’ve had a gun held to my head. It’s not a fucking game.

If you hit yourself with hammers or the like you get marks you can’t hide. Beating my head on concrete doesn’t leave appreciable external bruising. Perfect!

Because I haven’t beat my head on concrete in a while, instead I have developed a habit of sometimes sneaking out to the garage and eating a handful of chocolate chips. Mmm secret binge eating. That’s the ticket.

I am having huge feelings about the fact that I have concluded that I have to stop drinking alcohol. I can’t have the occasional glass of something. It makes me sick. Literally, physically sick. I am not physically well for days. That means I have to stop drinking. I am having huge feelings around this. I am anti-12 step programs. Yes, they work for some people. Ok, saying I am “anti” them is too strong. I have never wanted to participate. I think that is ok. I am not going to turn my authority over to a higher power. Nope. Not this lifetime.

So I’m having weird feelings around not drinking. It feels like the end of fun. Which is weird because… I’ve never been much of a drinker. I have always enjoyed feeling like I had it as an option even if I frequently didn’t take it. Now that I’m telling myself I “can’t” have it I feel rebellious and angry and like I want to sit down and drink a bottle of wine by myself.

My contrariness is a real problem. Well, and my self-harm urges are strong, If I truly crystalize that drinking is self-harm then of course it is suddenly more appealing. These fucking fuckers keep telling me I shouldn’t beat my head because I already have enough brain damage. Drinking it is!

Only I can’t beat my head and I can’t drink. I can’t keep increasing my stroke risk just because I want to. I can’t keep doing massive damage to my internal organs just because I don’t like myself very much.

Sometimes I wish that it was socially acceptable for me to sew my mouth shut and just go through life that way. People would like me so much more.

Shanna and Calli and Noah like me. That is three more people than a lot of people have. I shouldn’t be so greedy.

My kids are nice to me.

3 Replies

Yesterday I didn’t talk very much. I had headphones on for a lot of the day. I was in an evil, hateful mood and it was so clear to me that it wasn’t the fault of anyone I was standing near. (Sorry, Pam.) So the birth control pills haven’t leveled out my mood yet. But I’ve only been on them a week and I started mid-cycle so who knows. Next month will be more of a test. I haven’t felt suicidal so far, just homicidal. See, this is why I don’t own big weapons. Mood swings are bad.

I feel so much guilt when I unfriend, unfollow, unsubscribe anything/anyone. Like I owe these people my attention. I really don’t. I don’t have enough time in the day to pay attention to everyone who is on the internet. I just don’t. I’ve cut my reading back substantially. If the people in my daily life wrote blogs I would follow them religiously. (You turkeys are not providing me with nearly enough voyeuristic delight.)

But I’m really tired of following people I don’t really know and I won’t know them better. Some people aren’t interested in me and that’s cool. I can be annoying.

I’ll just leave you alone. You can spend time with the people you actually like and I’ll be over here. Doing something else. Maybe alone and maybe not. Who knows. I don’t mind being alone as much as I used to.

Although the more alone at home time I have, the more lonely I feel. To this effect I’ve been back on Mothering.com. Mostly hitting up the unschooling board to talk about philosophies with people who aren’t going to send periodic reminders that if you aren’t TOTALLY AN UNSCHOOLER you should go somewhere else. My local list is not very inviting. There is some kind of metric of purity I don’t understand. If you say something too homeschooley that isn’t unschooley enough (No one is able to tell me an actual difference) the mods get really upset and tell you to take it elsewhere. They remind us extensively that there are other homeschooling-not-unschooling groups where we should be instead.

I’m getting really upset about feeling shoved out of a club I am clearly in. There are very few people on this planet who get to assign me hoops to jump to prove something. These women? Not so fucking much.

I would really like to know more unschoolers. Not because I want to ditch the school-at-home friend or because I want to fill up the time so we can’t see traditional schoolers.

There is a huge difference between talking to other unschoolers about school-related-anxiety than talking to someone who schools. Schooling parents (whether at home or brick and mortar) have different anxieties about learning or not. For me, is my child experiencing holes in her learning because I was really stupid and I missed something really important? I am responsible. And I’m not following a road map. That is scary sometimes. If you follow a curriculum… you have a road map. Your kid will vary, sure…. but you at least have the fucking map.

Someone drove me out in the middle of the desert, blindfolded, gave me a water bottle and a compass and said, “See you later, sucker!”

Other unschoolers have more of the same experience. Unschoolers make some stupid choices. We reinvent the wheel every fucking time. “Hey, there’s this great way to teach this subject you just buy this curriculum and…” “Oh no! NOT US!!!! WE WANT TO MAKE UP OUR OWN PATH.” Not so smart, I think.

Ok, I could defend it at great length. There are reasons I make the much harder choice of reinventing the wheel (twice–my kids have dramatically different education needs and not just because of the age gap) but it’s hard. I want advice. And if you don’t unschool… it’s conjecture.

I listen to conjecture with way more grace than I used to. Let us give me credit for that.

I think my social circle is probably pretty much set for the next ten years. But I’d like to find 2-5 more unschooling families. Preferably within five miles of my house. (Since I’m writing a wish list.)

I already know three home schooling families who live within a four mile radius of us. If you include further afield in Fremont, but still “local” we know four or five other families but we don’t see them as much.

If I got to write my future (not that I think I will necessarily get to do this, but this is my fantasy here) I would find two additional families to the ones I’m already really tight with. Eventually my cat will die (I feel so guilty every time I think of this) and the one family will be able to come over again. (My cat is causing them breathing problems and that is just Not Ok. I support them not coming over indefinitely until circumstances change. We meet at the park instead.)

Anyway back to what I want. I would love to have five families within a 6 mile-8 mile diameter circle so the kids would be able to ride back and forth to one anothers houses within a few years. What I would *love* is to have periods of time where we do co-op type learning. Mondays are at house A. Tuesdays are at house B. Wednesdays are at house C. Thursdays are at house D. Fridays are at house E (or alternatively–Friday could be “at home” day for everyone–maybe I just want one more family–ha).

Different people are good at teaching different things. I don’t mean English/Math/Science/History (although as the kids get closer to middle school that could be hella fun). I mean, I would love to really teach the kids about painting and building and gardening stuff. These are skills I like teaching to children. While they are small is a great time to learn it so they just have it in their back pocket for later. I am *not* the best mama to teach most cooking stuff. I mean, I can. But it’s not my passion. Other people want to do that crafty ~~shit~~ I mean wonderful stuff. (I can’t sit down and work with my hands. So I’m kind of a jerk sometimes. I’m sorry.)

It’s a process.

I think I want this because I read about something similar in an off-beat parenting book. I think My Mother Wears Combat Boots but I might be wrong. She had lots of neat details about unschooling her kid.

I don’t necessarily mean spending 6-8 at the various houses. 3-4 hours might be plenty. Partially I would love to let Shanna have the experience of seeing *the same group of people* that many times a week. Mostly my kids have to be ok with the fact that people in their life are all on very long rotations. I just can’t handle driving more.

Noah and I have been having some pretty fierce debates about feminism and gaming and how when you support the system that helps the rapists (sure–you can have a great excuse but what about political dissidents?!) then… well. I was a dickhead. I said, “When the Nazi’s were killing Jews there were people who put the Jews on the train. And there were people who stood there and watched and said, ‘There’s nothing I can do.'”

So I lost that argument according to Godwin. I can live with that. For the record I’m not calling Noah a fascist. Nor a Satanist (which he shouted at me yesterday because he was using a straw man because he didn’t want to directly argue with my main point.) No, you aren’t a fascist nor a Satanist. But sometimes you are a rape apologist. Sometimes you think it is way more important to protect 10,000 guilty men rather than risk 1 innocent man and fuck how many women are thrown under the bus in the process.

No, I don’t think you are a Nazi. Nor a Satanist. I’m more realistic than that. You don’t do anything bad. You just stand there and say, “There’s nothing I can do.” That will always be hard for me. That will always feel like complicity. I know it isn’t *Noah’s* fault any of this happens. I know he isn’t the one out there harassing women.

But the men who do aren’t going to listen to women like me. They are going to listen to men. Only men are allowed to change male culture. Not me. And I’m really tired of being told that I should somehow come up with a way to fix something that exists before me, outside of me, and almost entirely out of my sight. I am not welcome in any of the circles where it could be fixed.

It isn’t my fight. Not really. I can fight defensively from my side. (Which means offense, but I’m learning to be more careful with that.) I can’t change that side. That is literally Not Within My Power.

I don’t think Noah is God or anything. I already gave that handle away. (And now God has a kid! The universe is really interesting sometimes. No, they didn’t name the kid Jesus. I did not pronounce that like Jesus Christ and more like Jesus who picks your veggies.)

My expectations are too high and thus I will be disappointed. I know that. I know it isn’t Noah’s fault. I don’t actually expect him to get on his white steed and run off to save all the womens. That’s not really a role I would assign him.

What do I even want him to do? Not defend the behavior that protects rapists. Reddit and 4chan are wrong for covering up the identities of people who steal pictures of women and putting them on the internet.

That’s not free speech. That’s permission to commit as many crimes as you want. Different.

Stealing and displaying something isn’t free speech. It isn’t. It isn’t. It isn’t.

(If you live in more than a bubble than I do–some asshole on 4chan hacked into Apple’s icloud storage and stole some naked pictures of celebrities from the database. Some have been claimed as true and some have been denied as fakes. I haven’t seen any and I don’t intend to. They were Not Made For Me.)

I am pro pornography. If you want good pornography I can ask you some genre questions and probably refer you to one of my friends who works in that genre so I can give you high assurances they aren’t being exploited and in fact they love their job.

I am going to submit my book to two publishing houses on Monday. Like, put it in the mail. I have almost all the stuff together.

I have a handful of early readers (no comments yet) so that is… nerve wracking. I’m pretty sure that me and the editor are the only ones to read it cover to cover yet.

The planter boxes are coming along. I’ve painted the pallets on top and one of the bases is about 85% done. The kids did it by themselves. They just missed a few small spots. No biggie. Easy to fix.

Noah, I think you are a saint for putting up with me. I’m really pretty harsh with you. You tell me that my level of happiness is directly tied my expectations and you are right.

And yet… I am a controlling person. I like having influence. Over the ten years you have known me, you have changed a lot. I wish my methods had been more gentle. I appreciate that when I hit something you are unwilling to change you are very clear so I can move on. I don’t like wasting my effort. I put a lot of effort into you. I want it to be useful instead of wasted.

I love you. I know I am not easy to live with. I know I move things around all the time and you have trouble figuring things out. I get the impression you grew up in a static environment. I’m sorry I can’t give you one. This is the least dynamic my living environment has been. I am practically static. All I do is shift my organizing stuff as the proportions change. Not that much real change. But sometimes the canned foods are in the kitchen and sometimes the garage. It sorta depends on how many we have.

I’m trying to figure out how to fit. I’ve never fit anywhere ever in my life. This is really hard. I don’t know what it even means.

I was on NextDoor last night (my shrink recommended it) and I sorta went off on the people who were being nasty about how poor people maintain their homes. “Don’t they have any pride?”

There were many years of my life when my food money per month was less than these women consider “just part of life” to spend on a gardner. And yet at this point, I do have a gardner. Whom I overpay because he doesn’t actually do almost anything. But I’m happy about it. He does whatever I want, he’s always super nice and he’s got a kid in UC Davis. I can overpay him a little.

I said that I spend a lot of time walking in our neighborhood and I talk to anyone who will put up with my chattiness. Many of the untended yards are due to poverty or disability or maybe both. Are these really people who need to be shamed because they do not have the resources to keep up with the Joneses?

I’m probably not going to be popular. I can tell.

I’m never going to be quiet again. I have all the privilege I could ever want and more. I am secure. It would be pretty hard to threaten me. Once someone starts threatening my life I will start practicing more with the cross bow I was kindly given and I’ll carry around my baseball bat.

You aren’t going to chase me out of my home. So I feel pretty fucking secure. Maybe it is hubris–if people with guns started hating me I could die. But there isn’t much I could do to protect myself from such men anyway. (Could be women but statistics say it is unlikely.)

Who am I? What am I?

Don’t know. But I’m going to be loud about it.

Transition stuff.

2 Replies

H’okay. I’m going to need to stop posting for a bit because I need to force myself to get some work done. I’m making checklists. I only have so many hours a day on the computer and I’m going to do shit that intimidates me for a while. Work on the web page.

I can work on a web page. I have a web page. Whoa. I still find this daunting. It’s not like it is hard. Only it seemed so hard for so many years.

I’m going to be splitting my blog stuff. There needs to be a kid-friendly space here. One that can be accessed from the front page or from a direct link. Once you go to the kid-friendly page it should be somewhat challenging to go to the rest of the website. Not sure how I’m going to set that up yet, I’ll be talking to Noah about my options. It is frightfully convenient living with him.

I do want to be able to talk about homeschool stuff more explicitly. I want to be able to talk about traveling with kids. I don’t want to toss it into the middle of my verbal diarrhea of self-hate.

It kind of weirds people out.

Boundaries, right?

And I have found the resolve within myself to take a good long hard look at our life and schedule. The road trip is ten months away. I am going to need to have a huge drawer full of spoons when I leave. I can’t be running a deficit before I even leave. Or I am going to end up calling Pam hysterically halfway through the trip and begging her to fly out to wherever the fuck I am to help me drive home. Like I did with Jenny in Arizona.

Thank you Jenny. I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life. If you ever need me I know for a fact I can be there in 72 hours. I’ve checked lots of options. There aren’t that many people I would drop everything and fly halfway around the world for but you are the top of the list.

(Err, when I was pregnant with Calli I went to Arizona to help a friend. I started having lots of contractions and they wouldn’t stop and it was mid-way through my pregnancy. I had two miscarriages in between having my children so early contractions were a serious concern. I couldn’t drive Shanna and myself home while contracting like that. So Jenny flew out and drove us home. I am so blessed in my relationships it isn’t funny.)

You know what? I know I have at least half a dozen people I could call at any time of the night or day. If I were truly desperate I could put the net out wider and probably come up with dozens of people who were willing and able to help me. Because I am truly blessed. (And because I could buy the plane ticket for someone. Having my own money means that the amount of help I need from someone else is very tractable. Thank you, Noah.)

It is weird living in this space where I feel like a lodestone for both victimization and for amazingly giving people. I have good friends. I am so lucky. I understand that not everyone is so lucky.

I’m going to start enforcing the rule that I don’t drive outside of Fremont more than two days a week. And we are going to stay home until at least 11am four weekday mornings. I have to stop having days where we are out of the house socializing/driving for eleven hours. This is killing me. We are out of the house for 8+ hours at least twice a week sometimes four times a week right now.

I want to know people so much that it is hurting me. Boundaries are good, right?

I need to save up my spoons. And I need to get work done. And I need to have lots of patient-at-home-time when I have the energy to help the kids with their projects. They can’t read. I can’t tell them they have to just do all the stuff by themselves. They needs help with directions. And uhm, I’m home schooling them not leaving them to school themselves. So I need to be more patient. And at home at least occasionally.

I’m not thrilled about this stupid insomnia tonight.

I should probably figure out how/when I am going to transition to travel screen time limits. I think I need to do it in advance so I don’t go through withdrawal during the first weeks of the trip. I’m going to be difficult to deal with as I go off my drugs. (Picture me tapping my arm like a heroin addict.) The internet is my friend. I am sad when I don’t have CONSTANT ACCESS. Not just sad… anxious. I use the internet to hide from real life and I know it.

I need to alter our schedule such that I am truly spending the amount of focused alone time I will have with the kids. I won’t have a garage to hide in for peace on the trip. I need to figure out how to transition towards creating the boundaries I need in different ways.

Although I am not canceling baby-sitting. That would be stupid.

I have to set myself up to succeed or I am going to fail. That is just how it works. It’s not personal.

Oh, and I started bleeding two days ago. How much of my shaking with need to self-harm was PMS? I really hate my body and my body hates meeeeeeee.

Maybe it is time to talk to a gynecologist about the mood swings around my period? Joint pain sometimes. Googling makes it sound like I incline in the direction of PMDD (Premenstrual dysphoric disorder). Here’s what Google tells me:

“The symptoms of PMDD are similar to those of PMS. However, they are generally more severe and debilitating and include a least one mood-related symptom. Symptoms occur during the week just before menstrual bleeding and usually improve within a few days after the period starts.

Five or more of the following symptoms must be present to diagnose PMDD, including one mood-related symptom:

No interest in daily activities and relationships
Fatigue or low energy
Feeling of sadness or hopelessness, possible suicidal thoughts
Feelings of tension or anxiety
Feeling out of control
Food cravings or binge eating
Mood swings with periods of crying
Panic attacks
Irritability or anger that affects other people
Physical symptoms, such as bloating, breast tenderness, headaches, and joint or muscle pain
Problems sleeping
Trouble concentrating”

I hate my body and my body hates meeeeeeeeeeeee! I feel very mixed about all the advice to treat things with nutritional supplements. The other big option is an SSRI, which… I don’t want for Reasons Of Misery. (btdt got the t-shirt and I want my $ back.)

Here’s an article on PTSD and PMDD. Maybe I should talk to a groino about Propranolol. Or Prozac. Would I be willing to try it again? Probably not given this line from the article “The fact that data have shown a 40% nonresponse rate to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in PMDD”…means I should take the fact that I’ve already had no luck with Prozac as a sign. But Propranolol seems to be slightly more effective on the population with PTSD. Would I take a beta-blocker? Could it be used sporadically as needed or is it a daily pill? If I was going to take a daily pill–should I just go on birth control? That’s hilarious given that my husband has had a vasectomy.

I should go talk to my groino. I feel that I have been really clear about this massive spike in horrible symptoms right before my period for a long time now. My suicidal thoughts and self-harm urges go through the roof. There have to be options I haven’t tried yet. I have an appointment. Monday the 25th during babysitting time. I gave myself a nice window so I can ride my bike there and back. The internet is magic.

Lots of transitions. Lots to do. So little time. I need more spoons. The only way to get them is to cut things out. Just because you don’t like the choices sitting in front of you doesn’t mean you don’t have choices. You are always making a choice. Even if it is to follow the status quo.

I can’t be super close friends with everyone in the world. I don’t have the spoons. I’m not slamming doors, but I’m going to stay home more. I need to. We have stuff to do.

Thank goodness for good days.

Leave a reply

Given that I started off the day crying and shaking and gritting my teeth I decided to not pressure myself to work hard all day. I puttered. I got my chores done but it took about four hours longer than normal. I went to the dispensary because I was down to three days of medication (yay babysitter) and discovered that San Jose no longer permits the sale of edibles. Only bud. That sucks. Yes, I have a vaporizer (technically two). It takes a lot of pot to get as stoned with a vape.

I think that today was good because I dropped so much from my work list. I got to feel like I did enough.

Also I called K. I have not been talking to her regularly lately and I’m struggling with that on a few different levels. Talking with her today was nice.

I ran three miles and did a yoga class.

I sorta wonder if part of the reason today was better was because I smoked instead of having edibles. I’ve been kinda wondering if the increased panic is somehow related to the edibles because it feels like it is really high lately. But I am never sure because the panic has come and gone for many years before I touched pot.

So the picnic on Saturday. It was nice. It was well done. The people there were very friendly. If only I could stop feeling like I am a disgusting asshole who should be screamed at to get OUT OUT OUT.

I don’t think other people are doing anything inappropriate to me lately. I think people have been fine. I feel really ashamed of myself.

I am having big feelings about everyone. Lots of feelings about why they should shun me and be disgusted by me. And when I think that really hard for a while I get angry. It is so hard to be nice to people when I feel like I already hate them for rejecting me. It isn’t fair at all.

I don’t feel very worthy of relationships.

Today with the kids was relatively good. There were bumps and several stints in time out for hitting (I wasn’t doing the hitting–for kids who have never been hit I’m continually shocked by how much hitting my kids do on each other) but mostly it was a really loving day.

At bedtime the kids asked me and Noah to sit on the couch and they took turns “reading” us stories. It was really sweet and loving and tender and wonderful.

I did something I’m pretty ashamed of. I haven’t even told Noah yet, though mostly for logistical reasons. I don’t want to talk about it in front of the kids.

I fucked up with the kids. At the party on Sunday. The one where I was losing control and crying a lot.

At some point the kids both got really defiant at once. I didn’t freak out but I asked them to go to the bathroom with me. (They were also sticky so I had a good cover.) When we got to the bathroom I kind of collapsed to the floor and started crying. I told them that I wasn’t having a very good time and I wanted to go home. I told them that if they wanted me to stay so they could enjoy the party they would have to change their attitude right now and stop arguing with me or we would have to leave.

They both looked rather taken aback. They said, “Oh. Uhm, ok.”

Then I washed my face with cold water because we needed to back to the party. They asked me why I was doing that. This is the part I’m ashamed of. I said, “Because people don’t actually want to know when you are crying and cold water helps your face look less puffy so you can hide it more easily. That way people can have an easier time pretending they don’t notice.”

I shouldn’t have said that. And this isn’t the kind of fuck up I can apologize for. If I apologize for this one I will cement the lesson. I need to just not repeat it.

I don’t want my kids to believe that no one gives a shit if they are crying and they should try to hide it. That isn’t the kind of people I want them to be. I want them to be ok with the fact that they matter to people.

Just because I alternate between hot and cold and feeling distant that doesn’t mean I should teach them to believe like me.

I’m sorry I said it.

Do I “really” believe that no one cares? No. The lovely party host followed me out to the side yard to tell me that she could see that I was upset and she wanted to know if there was anything she could do.

It isn’t other peoples fault that I am like this. Not any more. Whatever blame existed has expired. I’m just like this.

I’m sorry.

What did I mean when I alluded to being miserable at Disney next year? I meant that I’m this rich bitch who is going to go to Disneyland twice and Disney World for almost a month out of a calendar year and I am probably going to spend a lot of time crying while I’m there because I feel lonely. I think that is kind of pathetic and stupid. I think I’m pretty much a loser. What is the point of an ungrateful bitch like me getting to have these things?

There is no deserve. There is no fair. There is no right.

I think I’m a fucking idiot for spending so much time on crying and feeling lonely when I have a life that many people would desperately want to have. I am such an ungrateful bitch.

I’m not ungrateful though. I do appreciate what I have. I appreciate it very much. And I can’t stop crying even though I do.

There are these stories they tell you when you are growing up. Just do this thing. Get to this place. Have this relationship and you will be… happy.

I don’t know how to feel happy. Even though I have what I want. Even though I’m doing what I want.

I just want to crawl under my desk and cry for my mommy and I think that’s pretty fucking pathetic.

I want to take my mommy to Disney. She’s so much fun there. She likes to just sit on a bench with me and watch people go by. We would talk about the different dynamics we saw.

I miss my mommy so much. But I have missed her like this my whole life. Contact and attachment were always sporadic and random and hard to predict.

I feel kind of like a loser for posting on the internet about my self-harming urges. But it does help. When I talk about the fact that I want to and I am afraid of slipping then I create a situation where I would have to go back and admit in public that I screwed up. So I’m less likely to slip. It is embarrassing.

I want to beat my head really a lot. I don’t like me very much. I’m not real clear on why I feel I need punishment so bad right now.

It is very hard trying to learn to step back and be objective from my reality and try to convince myself that it isn’t real. These are just lies. I am not a disgusting piece of shit and I don’t need to die. I don’t need to be hurt.

But right now it feels so very true.

Sometimes I feel very sad because I understand why people believe that someone as fucked up as me shouldn’t have kids. I don’t really deserve anything good.

They are so good. Ok, so they can be assholes sometimes–that is part of life. They are good. They are empathetic and loving and considerate to a degree the development books tell me I just can’t expect from kids. But my kids are like this.

I feel so bad that they have to grow up with me. I try to remind myself that at this point without me is far worse in every way. Too late for take backs.

I should go to bed. At least I see my shrink tomorrow. See, this is why I still see a shrink. Cause here I fucking go year after year after year.

I feel pretty disgusted with me. I do well then I do shitty. I’m fucking tired of fucking bouncing.

You just keep going

Do the best you can

Category Archives: living with disability

Two realities

Just another morning.

Today is a loss.

The lucky ones, Miss Piggy, and taking turns.

Hoops, self-care, and being mercenary.

So many big feelings.

I want to stay home.

Emotional/psychological abuse and control

Define yourself.

Moody as hell.

Next day, still on food.

Pressure

Alone.

Mirrors

Slow day

Space

Like it goes.

My kids are nice to me.

Transition stuff.

Thank goodness for good days.