Category Archives: mood tracking

That was it. That was exactly it.

Sarah asked me what I wanted from her. I couldn’t put it into words. I just wrung my hands and felt stupid and rejected. Today I got it.

I wanted to feel like you loved me like family and you would deliberately seek out my company instead of rejecting me for people who are better than me.

In no way shape or form am I ever going to take up a majority of Jenny’s life. She’s married. She has kids. She lives in a different country. But when she gets the chance to be in my company she turns and faces me fully and wants to hear me talk and she wants to tell me about herself. She doesn’t go in her room with her partner after agreeing to see me and then shut the door.

There are people in this world who not only love me, they act like they love me. That’s what I wanted. I wanted Sarah to act like she loved me instead of acting like I was a path to a highly subsidized trip to Disneyland.

In the future when people treat me like I am an atm I need to stop acting like that is a reflection of me not working hard enough to earn their love.

Maybe they aren’t worth the effort.

What an ending.

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We had such a fun dinner. I spent the evening talking mostly in Spanish to two glorious women who have lived in Japan for 30+ years. Well, three women but one was working and wasn’t a big part of the conversation. We talked about our children and work. One teaches Flamenco dance and the other is a graphic designer (and obviously the third runs a restaurant). What a privilege. I felt so happy. The ladies had a great time playing with Her Sweetness and they were glad the big kids were trying to talk to them. Keep studying they said.

This is the kind of thing you get from travel. Magical nights spent going between three languages as everyone says how great the other people are.

The other ladies had 0, 1, and 2 kids. They were impressed I want to do the work of having 3. Ha. It is a lot of work.

But I was very unhappy without them. Even though my anxiety isn’t gone, even though my depression isn’t gone… this is what I want to be doing. I am grateful for my life even as I bitch about not getting a break. I get to belong. I get to have four people who think that spending time with me is amazing and they want to do it every day.

I know how lucky I am.

I had a great time here. I never wanted to come to Japan. I thought I would be miserable. I wasn’t miserable. There was some stress and extra work… but it was tranquil and peaceful and beautiful in a way I have never experienced. I feel blessed that I got to feel this in my bones. I leave feeling like this is a wonderful country and I hope I get to come back some day. Thank you, Noah.

I feel stupid for needing to write so much about what I am thinking. But it does help me. Thank you for not being mad at me writing to you in my blog and Twitter and Slack and IMs and Discord.

Thank you for liking me.

If you are here cause you are a hate follower my life is cooler than yours so go ahead and hate me.

If you are not a hate follower: my life is not cooler than yours. Your life is awesome in ways mine is not and I deeply envy you. I can’t be you. I can’t have what you have. But I think you getting to have it is glorious. You get to have family ties I don’t. You get to have an established life I do not get to have. You get to have a career I do not get to have. You get to have a partner I do not get to have (ok, Noah is the perfect partner for me… but your partner is probably really fucking cool too). You get to have a mom and a dad who love you; that is not my story.

It’s ok that we get to be different. I like you a lot how you are. I am grateful you share your time and your thoughts with me.

I wish everyone had diarrhea of the mouth blogs so I could know how they process every day. But folks don’t feel comfortable. Sometimes I wish I didn’t feel so damn comfortable blabbing all this shit. I kind of wish I were more private. But I don’t do well when I try that. I make bad choices. I hurt myself. I don’t want to hurt myself anymore. I want to feel joy and contentment and relief because of the excellent life I get to have.

I am having a really fucking cool life.

I started out trash. I started out expendable and unwanted and rejected.

And here I am. Tomorrow I get on a plane to Scotland to see one of my very favorite people in the entire fucking world. I am blessed. I am lucky. In June I get to go to an area that has at least a dozen people I love tremendously. In September I get to go somewhere with the best food and cheap massage in the world. In December I get to go see one of my very favorite people in the whole world in her home with her glorious family that has been so nice to me even though I’m a weird ass white person.

I am bringing presents for Pam’s parents, you bet your ass. I should write Pam’s sister and tell her I hope she comes in December too. Getting to see that whole family at once would be quite a Christmas present. Thank you for allowing me to stand near your beautiful family. I don’t feel worthy. I don’t feel deserving. But that’s not my call. You do.

I love you so much.

In 2020 I want us to find an immersion Spanish school that will take my whole family. I want us to stay there for a while. I want us to leave pretty close to fluent. Speaking Spanish makes my heart soar. I feel more human, more warm, more joy. I love the language. It feels like love. It feels like happiness. I want more.

Even if we don’t end up in a Spanish speaking country permanently, I want this in my brain. It brings me so much contentment and joy.

I feel so grateful to have this life. Fuck yes. Let’s do this.

Glowing

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Today I started off in a terrible mood. So I decided that I would go to an art museum. I took the two younger kids. In all I walked .09 short of 9 miles today. The museum was nice. It was a very baby-centric visit; I didn’t get to see most of the exhibits. But it cost a whopping $1.80 so I really don’t feel bad. Mostly she got to color and crawl around in a space that wasn’t our apartment. I did get to see some art though. I was not able to take notes about the artists so I can’t cite some of the geniuses I saw today.

One of the painters was very reminiscent (to me) of John Pringle, my favorite painter (a Glaswegian I saw at the Kelvingrove) and both of these fantastic painters make me want to buy some oil paints and go to town. TEXTURE. ALL THE TEXTURE. I WANTS IT.

Some day I think we will have an art studio and it will be really awesome. I think everyone in my family will use it and that… makes my heart soar.

When did this become my life? When did this become what Noah and I are going to share with our kids? I don’t know. But we all do a lot of art stuff. We draw, paint, sometimes sculpt (not much), I love my mosaics… we all love to create. We don’t watch tv. We make shit.

The walk was truly wonderful. Middle Child and I had a really fun conversation. It just went on and on. We talked about books we love to read; we talked about what living in a multi-cultural society means (both positive and negative aspects). We talked about equilibrium and disequilibrium and who we want to be.

He told me that he would really like it if I could learn from this experience in Japan and yell less in the future. He is really appreciating how calm I am here.

That’s both fair and a really cool observation.

And now Noah is reading a silly comic book to the kids and everyone is feeling pretty good.

We even started the day with sex. And Noah had a good work day to prepare for his conference Thurs-Sat. (He presents on Friday.)

Eldest Child’s knee is feeling better, but still not quite up for a lot of walking. She wants to make sure she doesn’t re-injure herself before we have to go through the airport. She’s being conservative, and frankly wise.

Her Sweetness had a really fun day and it was neat to watch her have so much fun. She’s getting really clear about communicating about food and that’s really excellent.

Today was so nice.

We got a (larger than truly planned) bouquet of flowers for our host here. We also got a bag of fruits and veggies that we used to grow in California. I wrote a thank you note telling them about the food; I said that growing and eating it brought us a lot of happiness and health and I hope it brings the same to them.

Today was a good day.

Not dreaming, chores, screens and friends

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Apparently the way my brain decided to handle “I am sick of fucking nightmares” is “I am not going to let you get into REM sleep because I am going to wake up every half hour.” It was a rough night for me.

Yesterday was mixed. It was mostly good with some frustration in the middle around fucking screen time. I hate computers. (Yes, I recognize the irony that I am typing on one and typing is basically my inside voice.) Yesterday Middle Child and I got up early and got on a bus to go downtown to rent a car. On the bus we worked on homework and snuggled and it was fun. It was frustrating on the way back because Google Fi has decided that I get phone service everywhere…. and data when I am on a wifi network and that’s it. Noah’s phone has data all over the island. Urgh. So I had to call Noah and have him talk me through getting on the freeway. Luckily he is a patient man.

Middle Child and I stopped on the way home and had a snack. Eating together on dates is like a thing.

I dropped him off, picked up the baby and the laundry and headed to the laundromat for two hours. Woo. It took so long because only one washer was available while I was there. That’s ok.

When I got back… it got frustrating. With the recent introduction of Parental Controls… a lot of websites aren’t working anymore. Netflix isn’t working because it is tracked in so many ways that Parental Controls blocks it. (I am sorta unhappy about Google and Facebook tracking my Netflix usage anyway now that I know it is happening. Fuck Google. Fuck Facebook. Evil motherfuckers.) I started getting loud and Noah told me this wasn’t worth yelling about. He was right.

I decided it was better to make the kids go outside for a while. Noah and I looked at the controls again, decided that because the kids get 4 hours and that’s long enough to whine about not getting everything I will let them have 1 hour a day on weekdays (it will mostly be used for school time) and 2 hours on weekends, which will let them play a game or two but not long enough they will demand movies.

Because I am god damn sick of fighting over their computers.

I waited until I chilled out. Then I went outside and talked to each kid separately about why they lost unfettered access. At the end of these conversations they both hung their heads and said they agreed with the restriction because they have not been polite at all about their computers. (They were supposed to set their own timers and limit their screen time. Never happened. They were supposed to do school stuff…. that was mixed.) They both agree that they have not been responsible and I need to take that responsibility away from them. They also understand that me standing over them to monitor them while they are on adult accounts isn’t fair either. So here we are.

I mixed in talking about things I was frustrated about in other areas (each kid got very different feedback because they are frustrating in such different ways) and how I am off my medication and I will be for the foreseeable future and let’s talk about how that is going to impact my body and my mood. Phrased that way they both said, “I’d rather be limited and deal with that frustration myself than keep making you track my screen time. That will go poorly.” Yup. It will.

After that Noah was done with work for the day and we drove up to explore the western edge of the end of the highway on Oahu. We played there for about an hour then drove down to Pokai Bay so Noah and the three kids could play in the water while I talked on the phone to one of my friends. (No data= no video chat. Dangit.)

I don’t have consent to talk about her in detail so I won’t. I will say that we have been friends since the 7th grade. When I talk about how Noah’s friends are rich and mine are poor…. she’s on my mind. She is someone who I think about a lot. I don’t write about her for lots of reasons around her privacy and people being judgmental pieces of shit. But it’s really nice talking to her. She asked why I don’t call more often. I said, “well… I do this thing where I find people who are really crazy like me and I try to enmesh with them and then I get really anxious about bothering my less crazy friends and I withdraw.” She said, “Well I’m a little bit crazy so you should call a little bit more often.” Then she laughed. It was nice. She has a tremendous amount of experience with kids and I learn a lot from her. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever known. Her kid has had some interesting life experiences and she has told me she was really glad she’s always known me because she learned about a lot of things from me and when it came up with her kid she felt calm and collected about going with the flow.

I am grateful for her perspective and time. I will try to call more often.

I need to schedule a call with my other buddy in Salt Lake. He completes the trio of my middle school friends I’m still in touch with. His mother in law hates me and he finds that delightful. Ha.

And I get to see Jenny soon. I am trying as hard as I can to put my intensity in a box because I can’t explode all over Jenny and her family. They are all very reserved people. It is overwhelmingly important to me that I create a healthy connection with her kids and they are sensitive souls. I have to meet them where they are. I am the adult. That feels like a lot of pressure. It’s self imposed! Mostly? I want this meeting with my namesake to go better than the first one. I feel pathetic about it, but I want her to like me. I was too assertive the first time and she was like “Fuck you stranger lady” and that was fair… (She was under 2. The fuck you was entirely body language.)

I earn people pushing me away when I am too intense. But I am really fucking intense. That’s just a fact. How much can I put that intensity in a box and still be an authentic piece of me? I struggle with that balance.

You know, like how can I diplomatically talk about my feelings so I order my brain versus how much do I get to the point of screaming “Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. Who’s next?”

Sigh. Balance. I continue to lurch towards it.

Last night I had a chat with Middle Child about his allowance savings. He said he feels like he doesn’t deserve to have it because we are walking past so many people who have nothing. I talked about how sometimes he uses his allowance to pay for things he breaks, sometimes for things he wants and I will not buy, sometimes just for splurges and if he gives all the money away he won’t be able to meet any of those needs he has for autonomy.

I talked about trying to find the middle way. (Thank you Buddhism. I am not a true follower, but every faith/religion/cultural path has some value for me to learn from. That’s what California Woo means to me.) I talked to him about trying to find the balance between saving up for yourself so you can meet your needs versus sharing what you have extra. I asked him what would happen to our family if I gave away 80% of his father’s income every month because I don’t feel like I deserve it. His eyes got big as he processed what that would mean in terms of housing, food, medical care, everything changes. So instead I share 10%.

We can meet our needs with 90% and we don’t have to stockpile the last 10%. We can share it and help other people have lighter loads. I can’t really give away more because I have a lot of medical expenses that are going to go up as I age. I have to prepare for that or I am deciding that I need to die early.

But it’s not about giving it away because you don’t deserve it. It’s about recognizing that our life is really good and we have the ability to share…. so we should.

He’s working on writing up his feelings about the values in a book called Islamic Values for Children. (DUDE! It’s online! Oh that’s awesome!) It’s neat helping him process what he agrees with and disagrees with in this book. Like, he said that we need to pursue (I’m paraphrasing slightly) understanding creation because if we don’t we make bad decisions and we hurt ourselves and the people around us: like killing off 80% of bugs in the world. Humans have used pesticides for a long time and now we face the possible extinction of our species because food is going to have a hard time growing.

I love hearing where his values differ from mine. But he has been raised hardcore in an environment where “Enlightened Self Interest” is a big deal. Being selfish isn’t wrong, but you need to be selfish in the concept of helping yourself be ok loooooooooong in the future.

It’s neat seeing how that plays out for him.

One of the hard things about Noah’s job is that he always feels like he isn’t quite doing enough to earn all those buckets of cash and all the conference invites so he works… constantly. Today and tomorrow he is taking off work! We get to go play on the island. I’m happy about that. I don’t have a plan for what we will do. I want to take the kids all the way around the island because then the kids get into these intense chats about how the plant life and rocks change. They are observant in ways I never was as a kid. Yesterday Eldest Child was talking about what the rock formations mean in terms of lava because she learned about it in one of her books. That’s so awesome.

“Hey, the plants aren’t so brown. That means this side gets more rain. Hm, I wonder why this is the line where that changes?”

This kind of thing didn’t occur to me as a kid and I love standing near this. I like them so much.

But first… we should pack 90% of our stuff this morning. In 48 hours we go to the airport.

I need to spend most of my time focusing on my family because I need to feel what that means. But I won’t forget my friends.

Oh, by the way: the place in Longview fell through. The AirBnB host said that we couldn’t have the independent apartment that long but we could rent two bedrooms in her house and share her kitchen and living room for the same price! Uhhh… no. That’s not a good deal for us. My kids are essentially nudists. They need to be able to have their own space where they can unwind without having to perform certain behaviors for a host. So I found a place closer to downtown Portland that is actually about $600 cheaper for the whole stay. It is in a much more crowded neighborhood, which will be mixed. Less ability to just “GO OUTSIDE” and more ability to walk to grocery stores. That’s a balance I will cope with. The house is sparsely decorated and one floor. That was shockingly hard to find in the region. The houses on AirBnB available for a long stay are mostly multi-story or decorated to within an inch of their lives. Yeah, I’m not dealing with that shit with a nearly-walking-baby.

Last night we had pho for the third time since reaching the island. We are really on a kick. I ordered the spiciest one on the menu then added three heaping spoonfuls of chili because it just wasn’t spicy enough. I wanted my lips and tongue to burn. It was awesome. Afterwards we had our first dessert since reaching the island: shaved ice with ice cream on the bottom. I added mochi balls to mine. We all had very different flavor profiles and it was funny how much the differences really are indicative of our personalities. EC had caramel ice cream with mango shaved ice, MC had coffee ice cream with cherry shaved ice, Noah had gosh I can’t remember his ice cream but he had guava and passion fruit shaved ice (with coconut sauce). I had cookies and cream ice cream with vanilla/pineapple/pina colada. The other three of us had mochi balls instead of sauce.

The baby went nuts trying everyone’s. She thought it was the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time. She is starting to understand “We look at a menu, then people go away and bring us good things to eat.” It’s fun to watch. She does a lot of intently looking at the menu then pointing at pictures. We often order what she points at. She is certain that the world is working as it should. Ha.

D–you didn’t do something terrible when you left that comment. The timing and the phrasing were not my ideal. But that happens in relationships. I am almost done being an exploding asshole. I am so sorry you got swept into all the upset about other things and other people.

Some of my grief is legitimate and real and totally deserved. That doesn’t mean I should lash out at everyone. Sometimes I do though and that is really fucking shitty. I try as hard as I can to limit my explosions to being here. I love you and I appreciate that you have tried to share what you have spare over the years. That wasn’t a lot and that’s ok. I don’t get to demand more from anyone who doesn’t have it going spare. Really I don’t get to demand more from anyone.

My black hole is not your job to fill. It really isn’t. I know that. It’s why I try to retreat when I am being inappropriate. Sometimes that retreat involves inappropriate yelling in my space. I imagine that is not easy. You don’t want to feel like you are hurting me. You don’t want to feel like you did something wrong.

I try to withdraw when all you have to do to be wrong is be near enough to hear me as I am screaming about being in pain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

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

And I wonder why I feel depressed?

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

I can change how this story ends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that’s the petty shit.

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

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

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

But my kids have never had stories like this before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I had so many foster families treat me like that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You know what… fuck people.

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

I am more than capable.

I. do. not. need. you.

This is why I used to get called bipolar

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I go in cycles. After 34 years in therapy my clinicians do not think I have bipolar disorder. But I do get into hyper-intense work states (now they are saying it is because of ADHD + Autism) and then I wear my body out (thank you HPA axis dysfunction + CFS) causing me intense pain (EDS + Arthritis+Fibromyalgia) + when I can’t work I feel like all of my value as a meat creature goes away (PTSD+GAD+Depression) and I have a hard time letting myself rest enough so that I restore vitality.

And when I get back on my monthly cycle I have hormonal dips 10 days before every period (PMDD) where I am suicidal and I hate myself.

So I’m not bipolar. That happens on its own cycle and I don’t seem to react to that.

I have trauma anniversaries that trigger depression, but not manic responses. But those are getting better over time. Not standing in one place waiting to feel like shit that I can’t repair things with my family helps.

I got into a terrible work cycle with my kids. Then I had another baby. I am exhausted to the marrow of my bones. The people who told me they would help me lied (as usual) causing all kinds of emotional damage on top of the physical damage I did to myself by giving long past the point when I should have let my kids sit in a room and cry if they need to while I fucking sleep.

But the past is the past. No more infants.

How do I learn how to build sustainable work instead of sprinting? What are these vaunted ADHD Life Skillz I’m supposed to already have so I can teach them to my daughter?

Oh fuck me.

Choices.

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

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

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

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

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

It’s all negative.

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I can’t hear feedback as positive today. Or yesterday. Everything sounds in my brain like confirmation of what a complete piece of shit I am. I will never be able to solve any of these problems because I am stupid and worthless. I was born worthless I will die worthless. Why am I burning so much energy to try?

I am so tired. I feel so sad. I feel like I will never ever deserve to feel better than this because I am so pathetic.

And I feel like my inability to hear anything as positive is part of why I am so bad and I deserve to suffer.

Trying to find the right mirrors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I feel accepted.

This is how all fucking Christians should fucking act.

Growing pains and mistakes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a process.

But I need to stop screaming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe that isn’t entirely my battle to fight.

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

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

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

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

Why. What am I teaching them?

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

Why.

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

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

This is stupid.

Mixed feelings

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It may have been the best school day of this school year. Apparently kneeling on rice is a fabulous inducement?

I have so many mixed feelings.

By “best” I mean that we worked together without fussing or yelling or being nasty about anything. Nobody had to be glared at. “Ok, it’s x’o’clock and you haven’t finished, time for 15 minutes of work on rice.” Then all of a sudden they finished SUPER FAST and they weren’t upset and I wasn’t upset and the work got done…

Being mean is being nice. Being nice is being mean.

Parenting is so confusing.

I feel physically better than I have in a while. I didn’t yell today. My body is very happy about that. I am really embarrassed and ashamed of how much I have been yelling. I have been very out of control.

If I tell the truth and set boundaries people will leave me.

Maybe only the people who need to be gone from my life anyway. Even if that hurts. Maybe hurting and setting boundaries is good. How many times do I have to learn this fucking lesson.

Maybe less hysterical, we’ll see.

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This year… the kids don’t want to do academics. But they have lofty goals. If my kids told me they wanted to grow up and be a hair dresser and a mechanic I would not be so obnoxious with them about academics. They want to be engineers and politicians according to their stated goals and that means you fucking have to do academics.

Why am I freaked out all of the time? Because I’m never doing one thing. I’m taking care of a nursing baby (which is a lot of fucking work), cleaning up, helping with homework, being a travel agent, and I’m supposedly disabled and I should be doing many hours a day of body maintenance. Do you know what I haven’t done in a week? Any of my fucking exercises because there is fucking always three things more important. Dealing with rental cars and shopping. More baby care. Big kids refusing to do academics unless I stand over them and scream. I am back up to 121 emails (like half of them are requests for me to review every stupid company I touch. They don’t want my reviews. Y’all suck.)

I feel like I am always a day late and a dollar short.

Like a month ago we negotiated with the kids to slash their workload massively. Much lower daily goals for work. What happened when we negotiated that? They stopped doing absolutely anything and are now three weeks behind again and I want to put my head through a window.

So they don’t get to see their babysitter until they get their shit together. They have already blown 7 possible days with her and they may not bother to work today and miss more days. We are here for 27 days.

I can’t make them care. If they don’t get it in gear by the time we are in Japan, we will have to shorten the trip to Scotland and come back to the US. Our traveling adventures can’t happen if they refuse to make any forward progress. I’m not asking for up to grade level. I’m not asking for a normal “school” work load. But you must do something. If you refuse to do anything productive at all, we are not fucking doing this. We will move somewhere cheap because I am not going to enjoy anywhere we move and it might as well not cost a lot of money. Which means the schools are going to be rough. I’m sure my kids will get the crap beat out of them for being weirdos as is the standard American experience.

Oh well. I can’t save you from you getting consequences and I am tired of trying.

I’ve been talking to a buddy who is a horse trainer. She tells me their lives are too comfortable and I need to start making it very uncomfortable to not comply. Don’t hit them. Don’t abuse them. But… they have a lot of comforts and they don’t need any of them.

She’s not wrong.

I don’t think they need to get so much choice and freedom for a while. They currently think they are the bosses of me and I don’t fucking think so.

If this shit continues I am absolutely going to kick them out at 18 and say “I don’t talk to people who treat me like shit.” And that would suck all the way around. Maybe some soap in the mouth so they realize that dressing me down all day long isn’t ok is the lesser evil.

So yesterday we talked to the kids about how things are going. The kids know they aren’t doing what they say they will do. Like EC didn’t do 1 day of work out of the 10 days we were on the boat despite spending 6+ hours a day “working on homework”. I am infuriated because this shit fucking sucks. Being stuck in the room doesn’t bother her. She has a lot of fun. My buddy suggested kneeling on rice for 15 minutes to keep her from doodling and having fun the whole time.

Today her math is done by 9:45am because I told her at 10 we would start 15 minutes of rice to help her not be distracted.

I don’t want to enact negative consequences. I want them to just want to do the thing. But they don’t. They set up long term goals, and they ask me to help them reach those goals. Then I have to be the heavy being a butthead to drag them kicking and screaming towards their stated goals. This is not fun for me.

I think we should figure out an online math tutor. Maybe if she had outside accountability and someone else saying they are disappointed in her…. she would care more?

MC has been treating me really badly. When the old babysitter arrived for dinner (I barely let the kids talk to her, she was here to visit me not you) she commented on how shocked she is that their behavior has gone down hill so much. They are incredibly rude to me and it’s not ok. The other day I was eating lunch and grading MCs homework and he sat in a chair in front of me and just started kicking me. For entertainment. This shit is his norm right now and I am about to explode and beat him.

Maybe soap in the mouth isn’t so bad.

He says he wants to be respectful, but currently he is not managing that at all. He is too comfortable in his established routines. Something needs to change.

I desperately hope these negative consequences are not going to be long term strategies. I desperately hope we can do this for a few weeks or months and change our patterns of interacting.

We’ll see. If things aren’t different in 6 weeks I’m picking some town in Oregon or Idaho or Washington and we are just moving there. Not into a fun forever home. Into somewhere cheap so they can attend public school for a year and we’ll spend that year figuring out what to do next.

We wanted to spend 2 years traveling so we could find a forever home that feels good. Maybe we can’t get our poop in a group and we don’t get to do that.

Life is complicated.

I can’t help but feel like part of this is fall out from the fact that if I had tried to hold boundaries with Sarah I would have lost her years earlier. I had to accept whatever shitty treatment she felt like giving me or I would have lost what minimal support she gave and that was too painful.

I don’t feel good about myself. But. Time to do more work.

Before 11 months is over….

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She is standing for short periods by herself without holding anything. She consistently says “mama” for me and “dada” for Noah. Nigh-nigh is solidly for sleep. Nom nom is I’m hungry. She signs milk.

When Noah is holding her and I come close up she lurches towards me to have me hold her then she wants both of us to lean on Noah’s chest. It’s really sweet and cute and oh goodness I am so glad she is here.

She plays a lot. She’s super into her toys and she’s starting to kiss on her dolls.

She wants to practice walking up and down the hallway for long stretches of time.

She sleeps easily. Night weaning is going fairly well. She rarely fusses at night any more and it only takes a few minutes to convince her to go back to sleep.

She eats so much food. She eats and eats and eats until I feel like certainly she will pop. But then at other meals it is two bites and she’s done. She is learning her needs.

We are solidly on disposable diapers and her skin is now clear and healthy looking. She needs them.

She has her 1 year check up next week for more vaccinations.

I continue feeling like this family is really awesome for me.

Eldest Child continues to lurch towards finding balance. This is hard! Middle Child is struggling with feeling too big and too small for everything. Being in between is hard too.

Life is hard.

Nobody likes it when I cry all the time. It’s been a rough few weeks. But we keep moving. And we hug each other. We talk about our feelings and try to make space for people to be less than perfect.

I hope.

I feel like I’m going to stop breathing

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Aunties”. Fuck it.

I am so bitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because I’m stupid.

Because I don’t value myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BUT FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

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

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

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

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

And they aren’t worth it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I just because an ATM to you.

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

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

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

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

Never make someone your priority when you are their option.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am having a rough day.

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But the peak shittiness so far was kicking a clothing hamper and kicking a box. The kids were not in the room and nothing was damaged.

Yes, I have medicated.

I don’t know why I am this angry. I feel like I want to scrape my skin off. I hurt. I want to be in the bath and I can’t.

I’m cranky because my ability to take care of myself is hemmed in on all sides. I’m really not coping today.

What a day

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

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

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

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

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

For the record her mother beat children.

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

We hurt each other so much.

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

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

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

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

I can’t.

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

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

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

Neither is ok.

Fuck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s what I grew up with.

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

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

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

It’s time to go.

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

I don’t do well with disappointment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intensity balancing

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There is this thing where I am super intense. I wear people out. So I try hard to limit how much people have to put up with me. I carve out chunks of time or small slices of topics that I think are “acceptable” to share with a given person. Something I am noticing more as I get older though… if I very carefully limit what I share with someone… they don’t reserve space for me. Then when I come back to try and get more…

The spot I used to fill in their time/life has been filled and there isn’t really room for my intensity anymore.

Oh, shit.

So it’s like I shoot myself in the foot.

My kids did stupid shit yesterday and risked getting killed. I’m still trying to regulate my body from that. I took two sleeping pills (7 hours apart) last night because I couldn’t stop crying and shaking.

The first thing I want to do is turn to my friends. That’s complicated.

No Pam, you are right, my friends can’t love me enough to make up for me not loving myself. Because my friends are off finding partners (good for all of you) and my friends have big families they are involved with (I’m so fucking glad) and my friends have jobs/vocations (this is mandatory for survival!) and I don’t begrudge anyone any of that. People do think of me.

It’s true.

Ok. I am no longer talking behind anyone’s back if I process this because I have expressed it to the people in question.

I plan things with people because I want to soak in people. Because I want to crawl around in their brains and talk to them for hours and hours and hours. Like Disneyland. I spent… I don’t know how many months planning that. More than six. I wanted Sarah’s juicy brain. She wanted to feel special at the center of all of her people (totally valid!) and that means… there wasn’t much time for me. And the other friend who came said out loud that she wasn’t there for me she was there for Sarah and to read a book.

So I spent a lot of the trip feeling like dog shit. I spent that much time and energy planning to be with people I love very much and uhm…

Yeah. I got to wave at the people I love. I got to have a few meals with them where I could barely fucking understand the conversation because my hearing ability in loud restaurants is so shitty. We had few meals in the room together and I felt awkward and uncomfortable during them because I felt like I was forcing my presence on people who just wanted to use an apartment and not be bothered.

That came hard on the heals of having to surprise go to Texas and deal with the fact that one of my brother in laws is dying and my mother in law was a cunt and I did two weeks of work in one week so I was exhausted and….

I can’t keep pushing myself this hard hoping that I will get jolts of energy from my friends. I won’t. I won’t get these glorious long conversations where I feel good about myself and good about my journey and good about my relationships. Because people are busy and people have filled up the intensity spots in their life. I am someone to stand near sometimes and… yeah.

It was kind of like when I went to Alaska and my friend’s partner refused to let my friend pay attention to me.

My friend’s partner had the right to insist on her husband focusing on her. That’s right and just and appropriate and I don’t get to complain about it. But I can feel sad.

Sarah should focus a lot on her boyfriend. (There were some complicating details there that meant he did need some extra attention and I support that.)

But I can feel sad.

I feel very very sad that I waited all year for this and now my chance is gone and I’m not going to get it back. I need to just keep moving with this hole in my heart.

I feel selfish and horrible. I feel like I am so very very very very bad that I want so much from people and I don’t deserve to get it and I should stop fucking asking for it. Because other people are being just fine. I am the problem.

I am always the fucking problem.

I am so overwhelmed with feelings. I am tired and frustrated and sad and sad and sad and sad. There are so many reasons I’m overwhelmed. Those reasons are valid and it’s ok that I’m having giant feelings.

I can’t keep being unmedicated. This is so brutal. Where can I travel with pot.

Canada is sounding better. Uruguay. Ecuador. Portugal. I could find it in Australia but it is supposed to only be for medical patients. Switzerland. Estonia. Germany at some point.

I am scared right this minute. It is hard to shake the abject terror I feel right now. I showed up here having big feelings about a lot of people and then I feel like I watched my kids risk their lives and I am a volcano of feelings.

I love my friends so much. I feel so bad about wanting them because I feel like I put inappropriate pressure on them. How dare I be so selfish and want so much of their attention. They are sharing with me what they want to share with me and I am an ungrateful piece of shit.

Then I withdraw and ask for less and I hurt more. And then when I do see them the pit of need is even bigger and the amount they have to share with me feels so much smaller in comparison to the void I have in me.

I understand, Pam, why you are afraid to call me. I am sorry that I am like this. I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry.

I feel like I am doing absolutely everything wrong.

A good day

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We went to Disneyland. By “we” I mean Sarah, her boyfriend, her brother, the baby and me. We were there for 5+ hours. We went on 5 rides. I think it is funny that my pace doesn’t move faster with an all adult crew.

I had moments of irritation that I did my best to stomp on because no one was ever doing a thing wrong. We are all humans and we all need to be waited on sometimes. Folks were patient with me.

I had fun. People were super nice and considerate and it was just fun. Folks handed the baby around and I got to go on rides–so that’s awesome.

I wish I didn’t get so irritated.

The baby girl was wonderful as usual.

I have walked 7 miles today. I’m tired. Sarah and her crew might go back to the park after dinner. I may be done. Not sure.

I had a glass of plum wine. Let’s see if I puke.

I am tired. I am sore. I wish that weren’t mixed. I wish I didn’t always have to have all the feelings. Why can’t I have just good feelings sometimes? I couldn’t ask for things to go better than this. It was all good.

I kind of wanted some kind of pastry and didn’t get one. But that’s not so bad.

I’ve gotta say: Sarah’s brother makes Disneyland about 38% cooler than it is possible to be without him. He’s so fun.

You just keep going

Do the best you can

Category Archives: mood tracking

That was it. That was exactly it.

What an ending.

Glowing

Not dreaming, chores, screens and friends

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

I can change how this story ends.

This is why I used to get called bipolar

Choices.

It’s all negative.

Trying to find the right mirrors.

Growing pains and mistakes

Mixed feelings

Maybe less hysterical, we’ll see.

Before 11 months is over….

I feel like I’m going to stop breathing

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

I am having a rough day.

What a day

Intensity balancing

A good day