Category Archives: suicide

Problems and complications

J- you aren’t wrong that they are problems for me. I’m not disagreeing with you. But whether something is a “problem” or just a “complication” depends largely on your perspective, mind-set, and attitude. And all of those things fluctuate for me wildly and in difficult to predict ways.

Some days I feel like I have problems. On those days they are problems. I can’t surmount dealing with many situations. I don’t know how to work around something in particular that is happening. It’s not a complication–I can’t get past it; I have a problem.

Other days I wake up seeing the web of privilege I sit in and I think, “Not much can touch me that will seriously disrupt my day.”

My ongoing mental illness is much much much more of a problem than the dishwasher breaking. And yet there is only so much I can do about my mental illness and it is hellza easy to fix the dishwasher if you have money. Perspective.

I have problems. I’m not trying to argue with that. It would be obnoxious and annoying if I tried to say I have no problems. But it is hard for me to see the dishwasher or the car breaking as problems. I think that on some level having things like that break energizes me. I get to feel extra competent because HA HA! I CAN FIX THINGS!!!

I like complications. Complications make me feel alive and competent and like I have my shit together. Complications are “problems” that are easy to solve and they won’t actually hurt me. I will feel slightly annoyed by having less money to throw at my mortgage but not that annoyed.

I am even sitting pretty on the wildly swinging mood swings about my physical problems. This morning I had the loosest stool I’ve had in eight days and it is still well within my range of acceptable poop. My body is being really nice to me even though I’m having eggs and dairy (including cream!). I’m feeling weird about egg seeming to be sometimes a problem and sometimes not. But I hear that with IBS that will be true.

The more I read about the intersections of IBS and PTSD the more the PMDD makes sense and I worry about other comorbid issues. I’m never going to be able to medicate for my physical problems. That is more clear with every book I read. Diet, exercise, stress management. Those are my options. Massage, acupuncture, chiropractic are known to help manage the pain but I will not be able to find a medication that fixes me.

I feel a tremendous amount of relief in that acknowledgment. Some people feel a lot of pain. Life works like that. It’s hard, but it’s true. I can’t ignore it.

It means that my body stuff is less a “problem” and more an ongoing complication to be managed. If I want to not hate myself. Or I can think of me as a problem with no solution but death.

Somehow trying really hard to reframe it as not-a-problem seems important?

I’m glad I sat down and read three books on IBS this week. That was a good choice. It is helping me feel less frantic. It is helping me feel resigned to the life I’m going to have.

Frankly, in the world of IBS sufferers… I’m pretty mild from what I read. I don’t have overwhelming pain most of the time. I don’t feel like I’m being stabbed in the belly with knives a lot of the time. I’m a little abashed to read that having diarrhea with few other symptoms (the joint pain might be related but it might not–I have a lot of other conflicting things that could cause that) means I’m just about as lucky as someone with IBS can be. Oh. Ok. I should… not be so pissy.

It’s kind of like getting all self-righteous that you suffered THE MOST as a poor child in America and then finding out how it goes for poor people in third world countries. Oh. I… didn’t have it as bad as I thought. Oh shit I’m totally a self-absorbed asshole.

At least I already knew that fact.

J–you are being supportive and wonderful. I appreciate your validation and concern a lot.

I’m trying to figure out how to hack my brain.

This is part of that resiliency shit I read so much about. Reframing things from problems to complications is a big part of what allows people to thrive. I read these things. Implementing them in my life is harder. I get flashes of it.

This week it is really weird how having the dishwasher and car break has snapped me out of a depression streak. I was very focused for many weeks on the things I can’t fix and can’t make better. All of a sudden I’m seeing how many things I can fix and that’s huge.

And my arm hurts a lot less today. *phew*

Perspective decides how you feel about things. I’m afraid a lot of this post sounds like strident arguing and I don’t mean it that way. I mean, your response sent a clarion call through my brain and I’m trying really hard to figure it out.

I watch a lot of repetitive tv shows and movies and I read a range of books but a few repetitively nearly to the point of religion. When a new idea causes me to feel excited I have a lot of response partially because I have consciously created such a rut in the rest of my life.

Difference is striking.

I notice that when someone expresses support for me, my main response is an almost 1000 word post (and counting) defending why I don’t really have problems and I don’t deserve support, see I’ve got it all covered.

Does that mean if more people expressed support more often I would never write about the problems because I would be locked in a haze of trying to pretend there are no problems here. I don’t know. But it is interesting to me how much I want to not want support.

J, I do appreciate the support. You are right that I do have problems. I do have situations that need to be dealt with. I’m very good at tunnel thinking. If I don’t want to believe I need support this second I will be nearly rabid in my denial that I need support ever. I bite the hand that feeds me.

Well, is this biting a hand? I’m babbling about how I have money to pay to fix some problems so I shouldn’t complain. Is this biting a hand that feeds me? It makes it less likely people will express support in the future.

When I read about suicidality there are a few key categories of things that make people off them. When I go down the lists one of the things that jumps out at me the hardest is the need to be taken care of. I don’t really let people take care of me. When they express even mild support I will rant about how I don’t need it. I’m scared.

I don’t really know how to let people be support for me. This is an ongoing issue. At this point in time my early coping methods have become toxic. I think they were appropriate when I developed them. My life is different now. I do need to have friends who will confirm that I have problems. I need that validation as I try very hard to climb under a rock labeled D-E-N-I-A-L.

There are two kinds of problems in the world. The kinds money can solve and the kinds money can’t solve. I have a lot of problems money can’t solve. That is hard. My friends try to be kind to me as I deal with them. Then a problem that can be solved pops up and all of a sudden I have a burst of feeling-competent. (Which is pretty stupid because I have money because of Noah instead of because of competency on my part. Ok, fine I could fritter more away… but I don’t earn it.)

That feeling of competency makes me really want to white wash everything into being Just Fine, Damnit.

That makes it really hard to have perspective on what is a problem,what is a complication, and where is the dividing line of denial.

If I’m reacting this much to the words that someone says… I’m probably sitting on some denial. I am so ridiculous to deal with.

Today is less Zen. I feel a lot more anxious. A lot more like I’m letting “someone” (not sure who) down all the time. I can’t do anything right. I can’t even have the right feelings of gratitude when someone is nice to me. I am such a piece of shit.

I wrote thank you cards that were nearly apologies to Noah’s relatives yesterday. We are opening Christmas presents as they arrive this year. Waiting until Christmas morning has gone very badly every year so far. This year: few presents on Christmas morning. Just…….. can’t do the deluge. Overwhelming. Hysteria. Crying. No more.

I don’t want to be mad about the mess and them being unable/unwilling to pick up after their new stuff hitting all at once. They can’t sort out a huge new pile. They can find homes for one or two new things at once. They are that resourceful.

Yes, I could just write the cards now and hold them till after Christmas and mail them then and pretend we waited. I’m not really willing to present myself dishonestly to these people. They need to see what they are getting. Warts and all.

I feel like I am threatening people as I write on their Christmas cards “We are coming to your city next year….” I’m really scared about the reactions we will get. I need to not care.

Years ago I flew to New York City in large part because there was a guy I had flirted with/played with many times at large bdsm conferences and I wanted to have individual time with him. I wanted him to beat me so much I went across the fucking country to beg him to do it. I uhm, didn’t have an inspiring performance from him. He was tired and had a back injury and he wanted to sit still and have me “please him” and he didn’t want to do anything.

I’m not that kind of service bottom.

My traveling is a mixed bag. Sometimes the reception I get is stellar and sometimes it kinda sucks. (The guy in New York invited another woman over while I was there. For their first date. He played with her. He vigorously beat the shit out of her and fucked her wildly while I watched. But he “hurt too much” to play with me. Fucker.)

But I take enormous comfort from the fact that when I travel with my kids I travel with my own little reality distortion bubble. My kids are starting to sing at me, “Mom–you have to have a good attitude!” They learned it from one of the other home schooling families. I could wring that mom’s neck. (I’m totally kidding.) I get told it a lot. Pretty much any time we are on an out door adventure and I start getting grumpy they sing at me with a big cheesy smile. So I think grumbly thoughts at the mom who taught it to them. But I also close my lips on my complaints more often than not.

My kids are teaching me how to be. In some sense, my kids are showing me the difference between a problem and a complication.

J, you are right that the car being broken is a problem. It has to be routed around for many days. It will cause impact on our financial budget in ways I’ll have to deal with. This may cost thousands of dollars which kinda blows. I’m enormously grateful I have it to spend but that is kind of beside the point. It will have negative impact. You are right that it is a problem.

The dishwasher feels… more like a complication. Our dishwasher barely worked. It’s been actively, literally falling apart for years. You have to wash everything completely before the dishwasher can “wash” the dishes. And it is around $900. Given our budget… that seriously doesn’t feel like a problem.

It is hard to have perspective. It is hard to evaluate things for myself.

I need to just stop typing. Getting sore. So repetitive anyway. Yick.

Drips and drabs

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(The time references will be weird. This was written over multiple days.)

Yesterday morning my dishwasher broke. That sucker is D-E-D. And then last night the Prius died while I was driving on Alameda.

That was after a day of no-medication where I was shrieking and shaking and freaking out about making it to a dance recital on time. It was a festive start to the day. I don’t shriek or shake in front of people I don’t live with. I save that for the Gibbs.

But you know what? I can afford to fix these problems. They are very small problems in the scope of my life. Truly, these are problems that are tiny. I will barely notice the hit to my bank account.

We already bought a spiffy-as-heck dishwasher this morning. It will work better (not hard–ours was a piece of crap when it was new 15-18 years ago), be quieter, and use less water. A total win.

Tomorrow we have babysitting lined up that will make it easy to go back up to Alameda and figure out what the heck is wrong with the Prius. Noah will be slightly inconvenienced but it won’t be a big deal.

In the past two months I’ve had something like eight doctor/dentist visits. That’s a lot of driving. That involves going to Cupertino a few times and Pleasanton a bunch. That has massively cut into my spoons for driving.

One of my friends keeps prefacing comments with, “I’m sorry things are so hard right now” and I feel a little bewildered. On one hand, things certainly aren’t swimming along smoothly. On the other hand shit dude, do I even have problems?!

My belly isn’t being more cooperative than usual but it has calmed down from the serious trouble it was giving me. My ankle is feeling a lot better but I’m still not quite up for running/ice skating. (It twinges if I pull sideways at all–but I’m walking on it more.) I am now up to 7 straight days of pooping normally. I want to throw a party.

I fudged on egg in fried rice on Friday night. By Sunday night I’m still feeling good and pooping solid. I feel so confused by my food stuff. I think that eventually I will find patterns in “I can’t have more than x amount of y food” but right now it is still feeling tricky. At this stage I’m pretty darn sure I don’t have a real allergy. Real allergies are consistent instead of being about, “Well you can have 8 oz of z but not 10 oz.” I have irritation and sensitivity issues.

I’m reading yet more books on living with IBS. The doctors who specialize in it seem to be unsure if they feel hope or not. “You will never be cured. Stop looking for more medical tests to find out what is ‘really’ wrong with you. Learn what your body needs in terms of diet and then learn how to manage the pain. It will be part of you forever. The more you fight it the worse it hurts.”

Well shit, dude.

What I’m appreciating the most is how adamant the consensus is that there is no such thing as a standard treatment. Every individual with IBS has to figure out how it works in his/her body. Much like autism! If you know one person with autism you know one person with autism and you know nothing about the disorder. IBS seems to be somewhat similar.

I’ve got to just say that I felt super validated and supported by the specialists saying that IBS patients tend to be wicked sensitive to medication and are often unable to medicate for their problems because the medications are more problematic. That is a huge validation point.

I’ve already been on every medication they recommend. Can’t take them.

Why can’t I? Because as much familiarity as I have with diarrhea even I have limits. I need to be able to sleep. I need to not hate myself so much that I am incapable of thinking about anything but how much I should die. All the meds recommended for IBS treatment fuck me up. I live with enough suicidality. I don’t need a fucking antidepressant that makes me unable to function through the haze of wanting to die. No thanks. And oh man the insomnia. I went about two weeks without sleeping once in high school.

My longest span of sleeplessness during adulthood was eight days and that freaked my therapist out. I don’t need more meds that make it impossible for me to sleep.

And the drugs that completely kill the libido aren’t an option. I won’t be able to survive that. And my marriage won’t survive that. Just no.

They don’t improve my IBS symptoms so having all the extra shit dumped on my lap is self-hating to such a degree I won’t do it. I’m not going to do it just so I can make doctors feel better about having “managed” me.

The problem with IBS as a diagnosis is–they do have to check and make sure you don’t have other issues. But once they check you shouldn’t keep checking. That’s a hard balance. If you don’t check to start with you don’t know if you have IBS or something much worse. Tricky.

Ok, now it is another day. I’m only sorta still thinking about the things I wrote about above. And my arm hurts really badly. Like, can’t pick up a pitcher of water and pour it with one hand pain.

We spent many hours this morning trying to get the Prius fixed. The first shop couldn’t do it. The Toyota dealership in Oakland will fix it though. It may be expensive but …

I keep feeling these waves of excitement. When something breaks I can FIX IT. That’s… a weird feeling. It’s an awesome feeling. This is privilege. When I have a problem I can just find pay to fix it. No big deal. My bank account will barely blip. I doubt that our petty cash will drop below six figures. This blows my mind every single day. I’m not poor any more.

Holy fucking shit I’m not poor anymore. When my car breaks I can just fix it. When my dishwasher breaks I can just replace it. Hell, I could walk out and buy a new car today. (I don’t want to do so and I won’t…)

I feel like I don’t have a lot of room to complain about my life this minute. Yes, things go wrong. But I have resources and the ability to fix problems. I am so very lucky.

This morning I got a call from the remodeling company. I should have an email today or tomorrow with the proposed design. Things are moving along.

And I figured out who sent the mushroom kit! It was my friend in Oregon (who is one of my big encouragers for gardening stuff). So exciting! We are supposed to plant on Christmas Eve.

This sucks.

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I have had so much diarrhea in the last 24 hours that it is kind of horrifying. It burns and burns and burns and burns. Based on the color of things coming out of me, the blue jello went through me in under an hour. I would guess that the extreme burning is stomach acid coming through with the poop.

Noah and I had a very unfun conversation about “support” and medical procedures. Namely: that begging on my blog for a friend to come with me is how I get support during medical procedures and I’m not all that happy about that. He agreed that it kind of sucks. That said, we both think DSH may be slightly more useful in managing Kaiser anyway.

Basically I said, “Remember me begging for you to be more involved in Calli’s pregnancy and you remember how you didn’t do it? Yeah. At this point begging other people for help seems more productive so I don’t waste my breath asking you any more.” That can’t be fun to hear.

When my family sat down to a lovely dinner I wanted to go in the bathroom and cut. I didn’t, but that was all I could think about. Not being able to eat is becoming a real problem for me. Psychologically this is getting really bad.

Yes, I know that I was going to have nasty diarrhea right now by design. They made me take a fucking laxative (as if I need help causing diarrhea) and I’ve had no fiber in four days, going on five. Apparently no fiber also causes me major diarrhea. So I’m going to have diarrhea right now. This is for a medical procedure.

But my poop book is an exercise in crying and feeling bad. I have a few days in a row that are ok then I’m back to diarrhea and I haven’t cheated on wheat or dairy in a while. And I still have wicked diarrhea all the time. Somehow I am finding it hard to believe that wheat and dairy are the problem when I’m up to day 55 and I still mostly have diarrhea. Yes, I did cheat a few days so I suppose there are going to be people who tell me it is all my fault I haven’t really cleared my system so I can’t truly be sure. But give me a fucking break.

I’ve had wheat on five or six days out of the last 55. I don’t think wheat is the current problem. I really don’t. Yes, I understand that a lot of the current problem is stress (when I’m not preparing for a medical exam) and I don’t know how to get that out of my life.

Part of the problem is, if you start telling me how anxiety causes my diarrhea you spike my anxiety… and my diarrhea… and you convince me that the only solution is dying. It is my fault I suffer. The only way out is death.

Now, after several mugs of broth I know I just couldn’t do the GAPS diet. If I tried drinking straight broth daily I would throw up after a few days. Just like I can’t consistently take multi-vitamins or I projectile vomit them. Festive!

I’m scared that I am going to get to the end of this procedure and have the same diagnosis I have now–IBS. The thing about IBS, they don’t know what causes it and other than managing stress and trying to figure out which foods trigger you the worst… nothing can be done. And the foods that trigger you aren’t true allergies. You just have to play with food forever and someday something will give you wicked diarrhea and sometimes not. (Some people get constipation. The internet makes me think that I am starting to alternate constipation and diarrhea because that would explain the massive uptick in gas pain. Since starting this elimination diet the pain in my belly is 4 or 5 times as bad as it was. I *never* got abdominal pain like this from gas before the elimination diet. Sometimes I double over in pain and have to breath for a while.

Sometimes I think the gas pain is worse than labor. I think it is funny that I am developing this list of things that have happened to me that actually hurt worse than labor. Given that I had a 9 day unmedicated labor at home followed by a hemorrhage that left me unable to walk for two weeks… that really is kind of saying something.

Right now it is 3am. I woke up at 2am to drink as much as I can. Only clear fluids at this point. No liquid past 4am. Not till after lunchtime. Seemed important to tank up now. And quite frankly: when you have this much diarrhea, getting dehydrated hurts. Yay Sprite! I am drinking Sprite! Even though it has carbonation. Fuck the universe. I already hurt. I need calories. If I have more apple juice I will puke. (I’m also drinking home made stock. Which, at the bottom of the cup, makes me totally fucking gag. It’s great in soup. By itself… not my thing.)

I’m going to drink a minimum of four cups of liquid. Maybe I’ll try to force six cups into me. Phew. Now the broth is gone. Bleh. Yuck. Ew. Cover the taste with SUGAR!

We had a great interview with a babysitter last week and she no-showed last night. I looked at her profile again last night and I’m the fourth one star review saying she interviews great then never shows up to work. At least it isn’t personal? A different babysitter no-showed an interview yesterday.

I’m kind of amazed by how many people will email me telling me they want a job and they they either don’t show up to interview or they interview and don’t show up for work. It is just about impossible to find people who want to show up consistently and earn money. They want money but they think that an exchange of their labor for the money is ridiculous. Given that I pay right in the middle of the babysitting scale for my area it isn’t that I’m under paying.

My shrink keeps telling me that I have to find another babysitter. Given that I can spend 10-20 hours a week on hunting for a babysitter only to end up with no babysitter (there have been a minimum of six weeks that I’ve tried this since Shanna was like two) I’m starting to question the point of the search. I could find a daycare to drop them off at, no problem. I can’t find people who want to consistently come to my house to babysit. That’s just… onerous. (Thank goodness for the homeschooled teenager three doors down. But her parents are looking for a house in Modesto. I’m going to cry a lot.)

In positive news: we got a Christmas tree yesterday. I put up the lights and garland and I let the girls decorate the rest. So we have kind of a hilarious band of ornaments. It actually makes me feel very happy. This is the range of their current competence, neatly illustrated. so cute.

In general I feel the kids deserve medals for how patient they are being with me lately. When I start crying when I’m eating (because man my food doesn’t taste good anymore) Shanna comes and pets my shoulder and tells me, “Mom I know this elimination diet is really tough. But it’s not forever. You can get through this. We will figure out how to make you hurt less. Then we’ll figure out how to make it taste good.”

I feel so guilty for my suicidal thoughts. How could anyone want to get away from someone as wonderful as Shanna? Or Calli. Oh man Calli has been the biggest love bug lately.

I feel grateful all the time that I get to be with my kids instead of people who wouldn’t appreciate them as much. Sometimes my friends tell me they would “shut Shanna up” and I think “That’s why I’m so glad she’s my daughter and not yours. I don’t want to shut her up.”

Calli has been trying to figure out volume stuff lately. She’s experimenting with whispering voices and how close to someones head you have to be for what volumes. I think it is wonderful.

Once in a while Shanna asks me what’s wrong. I suppose at those times I don’t have a great facial expression. I tell her, “Something isn’t going right with my body or I would be smiling. You are enough reason to smile all day every day. But my body isn’t.”

Recently a woman I know was talking about her experience moving through the world with what she described as “resting bitch face”. I don’t think I have that. Of all the ways I trigger people to be more hostile to me, I at least skip one magnetic pull for hostility. I’m a smiler. Big time. Safety decision. A very long time ago I figured out that doing something other than smiling was kind of dangerous.

I feel weird about what I’m teaching my daughters. Don’t be quiet. Smiling is safer. Take up space in the world. People will protect you more if they have more of an emotional bond with you and the way to create that bond is to seem personable and friendly no matter how you feel. Your feelings don’t matter; the feelings you cause other people to have matter.

I’m glad my kids are getting to the point where they will rattle off that clothes don’t make you pretty; your behavior, or not, makes you pretty.

It has taken many many many times of saying, “I’m not going to tell you that you are pretty because you changed your clothes. I’m going to tell you that you are pretty if your behavior is awesome.” Earn it or you don’t get it.

I’ve had many people tell me over the past 15 years that I’m not one to give idle praise and that is part of why people trust my praise. I won’t say you are awesome until you are and then I will say it thousands of times.

If you believe suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems then I want to live with you for 15 years and cause you as many emotional and physical problems as I have before we have a conversation. And fuck you while we are at it.

I want to stay. I want to see my kids grow up. More than anything I want to find out what Shanna is like as a 35 year old woman. Whoa. What will Calli do with her life? I can’t guess. She doesn’t even have any “When I grow up” beliefs yet. Other than wanting to be near me.

There is no doubt in my mind that if I had not had children I would be dead. Sometimes it seems like cheating that having kids is not only as good as I hoped it would be, it is better. I could never have imagined all of the life I have now. I didn’t have the imagination. And I’m going to do some intensely cool things in the future. Even if I do have diarrhea.

My shrink tried to tell me that if I get a “real diagnosis” that means I’m likely to have diarrhea forever that will be the end of travel. I laughed. I told her that I have a travel toilet. I’m going.

My kids are going to see this country. And many others. My kids are going to find out what a range of humans exist here. My kids have so much privilege that sometimes it kind of breaks me. My kids are growing up being told that with great privilege comes great responsibility. I say things like, “There are a lot of people in this world who are so hungry they are not able to think of solutions to the larger problems. It is the responsibility of people who have enough and more to solve these problems because you have the ability to think. If you waste what you have, that is terrible. That is hurtful. You are damaging the people who cannot do what you are doing just out of… what? Not wanting to? Not wanting to deal with making mistakes and having to learn from them? You are going to fuck up in ways big and small. Try to change things. The world needs changing.”

A former student told me that Outrunning Suicide is the book she wishes she had read when she was twelve. She said she cried because of all the mistakes she made during her teen years that could have been avoided if she had read this book. I need to find the time and motivation to submit this for publication. Man it takes spoons. She described it as “It’s like The American Girl Body Book but grown up…”

She says I’m very good at presenting facts and options and not telling people what to do. *phew*

I don’t want to tell you what to do. I don’t know what you should do.

H’okay. 90 minutes since I’ve been in the bathroom and 5 cups of liquid later time to leave the garage. Have a good day, y’all.

This week is crazy.

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Monday was one of my slowest days. 9:30 doctor appointment. Babysitting from 8-12. Went to grocery store and bank on the way home from doctor. Came home and did chores and chores and chores.

Tuesday (today): must run 6 miles, 9:30 therapy session which means a three hour trip out of the house. No park. The kids want to stay home with Noah and play Minecraft. Shanna has just finally started playing instead of watching endless tutorials so I’m not actually cranky. I feel kind of weird about being happy that she is finally learning to *do* something with the game.

Wednesday is insane. Run 5 miles. Babysitting from 8-12. Doctor appointment at 9:30. I have to pick food up from the co-op right after 12. 12:30-3 I plan to sit on the couch and read to the kids. At 3 Pam shows up. I run out the door immediately for a 4pm dentist appointment. Noah won’t be home until after bedtime because he’s teaching.

Thursday I plan to hide in my room. Also: the kids and I need to go on a bike ride.

Friday at 5:30 in the morning I leave the house to head towards the airport and Hawaii.

It is a very full week.

I wonder if I can stay busy enough to not feel lonely. I doubt it. I wish I felt emotionally more stable. I really don’t. I feel like I should hide and not talk to anyone because I am such a raging asshole and I hurt everyone. I feel sad. I feel like I am disgusting and bad. If only I didn’t take everything so seriously, so personally maybe I would deserve friends. Maybe if I were less self absorbed.

Thing is, if I become less self absorbed I will probably die. I’m not very good at taking care of myself. I put off my needs as long as possible until picking up the pieces is a frantic, almost unattainable goal. I monitor this process so I can get as close as possible to the edge. If I didn’t monitor it… I’d just not be able to recover. I wouldn’t leave myself that extra inch I NEED.

I’m scared. I feel like the things I need are too much trouble for people so I should just die. I should stop being such a god damned inconvenience.

It really sucks that seeking treatment for suicidal ideation results in all kinds of bad shit happening. We are not a country that wants people to feel better.

My heart hurts. I slept 7 hours (my sleep schedule is getting wacky again–7:30pm through 2:30am) so I’m not underslept but I feel like shit. I feel flattened and unimportant.

A while back Pam observed that I expect too much from my BFFs. She would know as she’s watched my behavior for a long time. I expect my BFFs to fill a lot of the hole in my heart left from my mother and my sister. But that isn’t fair. No one can do that. So I flail and my BFFs flail and then we pull back. Then I notice that months or years have gone by and we aren’t really close friends any more. I was drowning them in my need and that means we just aren’t really friends now.

I’m sorry.

I’m in this hard place where asking for anything feels so completely unreasonable I just can’t do it. I’d rather sit here and cry. Everything I need feels so complicated and I can’t explain it and I feel so much frustration that I put people off by expressing that frustration where they can hear me and then I don’t have friends any more.

I have nothing to give. It’s going to be hard with the kids for a few days. They are a bottomless pit of need too. And they need me to give and give. I feel so empty. Probably good that it is a therapy day.

Whatever. It’s another day. Get the fuck up and do your work, bitch. No one is going to do it for you.

So many big feelings.

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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.

Clarification

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I know that I have to be specific about what I want in order to get it. But when you end up feeling intensely suicidal as one of the result options, you aren’t supposed to tell people that. If the situation is, “Don’t make jokes about me because I will spend days haunting my house like a ghost and wanting to kill myself because it doesn’t sound like a joke it just sounds like a continuation of my life story” then you are being manipulative.

You aren’t allowed to tell people “If you do x I will want to kill myself.” You aren’t allowed to do that. Even if it is true. It is “mean”. It is considered abusive to tell people that.

I don’t know how to get out of this double bind. I never have known how. Many things cause me to feel intensely suicidal and lose days of my life to crying and weeping and hiding in my house. Talking about them is “wrong”. Not talking about them means I have to cut people out of my life because I can’t deal with being triggered.

I don’t know what the solution is.

Circle of Women

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I haven’t had many times in my life where I felt close to a group of women. I feel I am overwhelmingly blessed by the one to one connections I have with women in my life, but group stuff is really challenging for me. I don’t adapt well to different expectations existing at once.

One of the most shining examples of this working in my life was Jenny’s wedding in Scotland. That is a bright, shiny memory that inspires me on bad days. (Jenny sent me a bunch of wedding pictures for my birthday, because she loves me.) The wedding was a few years ago, but I still feel so much joy when I see the pictures. That wedding was one of the brightest days of my life. I had so much fun. I felt like I belonged. It was one of the nicest social engagements of my whole life.

Part of it was the feeling of connection to the women in the bridal party. The three bridesmaids plus bride have all been at least aware of one another for more than ten years. Many years ago I had social conflict with one of the women. Thankfully time healed that wound. I spent a lot of time in the group during the whole wedding weekend. I felt like I mattered. I felt listened to. I felt like I was an actual integral part of their lives. I don’t manage that feeling very often.

I’m not blaming anyone else for my lack of bonding abilities. I’m just talking about the shape of them.

So my shrink is harping on me to take some kind of real break. So she says I should get a job. I think she is… well, I don’t have nice words to say so I’ll just say I disagree with her assumptions about my levels of stress with regard to work. I am not other people. I do not show up at my job for the number of hours and walk away with little stress. Doesn’t matter if I work retail or teach or work in theatre, I work myself ragged. I don’t know how else to work. I’m not good at pacing. So I think the “get a job” angle is kind of the opposite of “take a break”.

But she’s right that I need a break.

So I emailed two of my closest girlfriends. Two of the ones who know one another and we have enough of a previous group identity that I am very confident we can make a weekend together really fun.

I’m not that good at putting together groups. I’m not always good at predicting who will get along with whom or why. But I know these ladies have had a lot of previous time spent with one another. I’m not creating a group connection out of thin air.

Often I find that I know two women (or more), and I know they are close but I don’t know how to be part of a group with them. I’m really shitty at group identity. I feel alienated. It doesn’t mean anyone is doing anything, but I really have a hard time feeling like I belong and I am allowed to be present in a group. It is hard to not believe that I am being allowed to come along because of geek social fallacies that say no one should be uninvited.

I almost never feel actually wanted.

But I’ve had lots of years with these two. They want me. They have gone through great effort to show up year after year. Sometimes some years aren’t as visit-tastic because of distance but life is like that.

Now we are negotiating. Just the fact that they both responded, “Yes, yes, YES!” is already kind of euphoric.

Part of how I convince myself to not die today is by always having lots of things to look forward to. It is part of why I schedule so many things so far in advance. I can’t die yet. I want to go on a Disney Cruise with my kids and friends in 2016. Can’t die yet.

It’s shallow. Only it isn’t. I use the resources available to me to make me feel like I have incentive to keep trying even when things are hard for me. That isn’t shallow, it is smart.

But sometimes I have trouble with only having awesome things be years (or even many months) away. That slog can feel very oppressive. So next month I will slip away for a weekend. I will get to go visit with two women who make me feel powerful, competent, and like I have a lot to offer the world. They really want me here.

I love you all very much and the pictures on the walls help a lot. It’s a big deal to feel like people I respect and love a lot are paying attention to me. I feel like an asshole because people reading my blog is paying attention to me but it doesn’t feel like it. It has basically no effect on my mood or feelings of safety. But seeing people does matter.

I also scheduled the cookie exchange and holiday open house. Because when I’ve been feeling suicidal that’s a good time to make sure I have reasons to feel like I can’t kill myself this festive holiday season. If you did not receive invitations to those events and you feel like you should, let me know. This whole “using a google group” thing is a work in progress.

I feel like I was reminded recently that people will only put up with a mentally ill person if that person is seen as “doing enough” to help themselves. It makes it really hard to figure out which portions are ok to reach out to other people. I could really use a weekend of feeling like a grown up and having adventures (especially adventures that aren’t tied up in sex). But I feel like if I am not “managing” well enough I don’t deserve to ask anyone to spend time with me. I should stay home and keep my stupidity locked behind my teeth.

I also feel like this is part of the reason why I consciously try not to get that attached to people any more. I’m too hard on my closest friends. So I shouldn’t have any. I can have friends who are held out a bit. People I don’t see very often. I should ensure that I watch my fucking mouth and I don’t say anything inappropriate.

I’m scared. I want this and I feel guilty and ashamed at the same time. Hell, I feel guilty that I didn’t invite some other women I know. But I don’t have any kind of group established elsewhere. These two are the main ones with whom I have managed cohesive group stuff repeatedly for years. It’s nearly miraculous.

I think it is a little funny that my kids are going to be really bitter that they don’t get to go hang out with the daughters of the ladies I asked to run away with me. Well, funny may not be the word. I find it delightful that my children love their children so much. I’m kind of an asshole about enjoying the feeling of, “Ha ha. Sometimes my preferences matter over yours.” I am not a very top-down parent. My will does prevail on a regular basis, but usually to such a degree that I get to decide that it is time to leave the park after five hours. I am not allowed to decide such a thing after three hours.

Not sure yet if we are camping or going to a big city. I think it is going to be fun either way. I’m more interested in a city. I’m going to camp a lot next year. We’ll see.

Don’t like my mood? Hold your breath.

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So Wednesday and today (Thursday) have been smooth sailing, easy days. The kids and I are getting along. Everyone is cooperating (even me) with the requests of the people around them. (Sometimes I’m kind of an asshole–let’s be clear.)

I wouldn’t say I “feel better” but I haven’t had a suicidal impulse in more than 24 hours. I’ll take it. (If you want to feel good about yourself, Pam, go ahead. You really are a great friend.)

Days like today are why I want to home school so badly. We’ve had a really great day. And we wouldn’t have these if they went to school. Not like this.

This is exactly what I’ve always wanted. Yes, there are hard days. I don’t think I’ll get away from that part of life no matter what I’m doing.

Not good.

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I got yelled at yesterday by a stranger. I probably deserved it. The kids and I spent the day going from store to store because they wanted to spend their allowance money on toys. We went to one last store, on the way home from the park, so I could get knee braces. I let them play in the toy aisle while I checked out and then I couldn’t get them to come with me short of dragging them out of the store. They wanted to stay and play. Given that I had already spent four hours facilitating them playing in stores I was tired and I wanted to go home.

I wasn’t all that nice as I ranted on the way to the car. So a dyke yelled at me that I should pick on someone my own size. (And yes, with that hair cut, with those clothes, in that Jeep, with that bike on the rack… she’s a dyke.) I find myself noting these details about her personhood because I would not be so upset by a mom yelling at me. I wanted to turn around and scream that as long as she is opting out of breeding, she doesn’t really understand how hard it is. I didn’t. I said, “That’s probably a fair point” and I got in my car and left. She followed me home. That really bothered me.

And I want to die. Not really because of her. I was feeling this way before I got yelled at. But it is harder after that. Sit very still. Don’t make any decisions. Don’t do anything. Just… sit.

I am not always a nice person. And it is hard to believe that anyone else could have done enough bad things to deserve having to be near me. Not cutting right now takes pretty much all the self control I possess.

How do I live with being suicidal? How do I live with my self-harm urges? I sit very still. I try not to move. I try not to make decisions. Maybe if I just don’t do anything the feeling will go away.

How many years so far? It hasn’t gone away yet. But nothing else I have tried works better.

I asked Shanna when we got home how bad I was being. She said, “Well, it wasn’t great. But it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t appreciate it but I didn’t feel like my feelings were hurt.”

If I thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that killing myself would result in them getting a mother who could actually be nice to them I would be dead in ten minutes. I know how the world works though. People get good mothers by luck of the draw. My kids are stuck with me. Stepmothers… rarely turn out to be better than your mother. Sometimes. Not much. (I actually had a great step-mother. I was very sad when she died.) And I know what it does to someone to grow up knowing that your parent killed themself rather than know you.

I can’t do that to them.

So I’ll sit very still.

I know I write about this. I have to, or I’ll crack. I probably won’t speak about this. Maybe with my shrink, probably not. Maybe with Noah, probably not. Speaking out loud isn’t really an option I have. Not about these things. There is too much potential punishment involved.

I can’t really tell my shrink because if I tell her about the really bad days she might feel legally obligated to 5150 me. I can’t ever go through that again. If I believed that an ambulance was on the way to my house to pick me up for that I would take my keys and never be seen again.

I can’t go through that again. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I cannot. I can’t. I’m not sure I would be able to pull it together to pretend to be sane enough to ever be let out. I wouldn’t be able to respond the way they want and I would cry and cry and cry and cry and… they don’t let people like that out.

I can’t go back to the hospital. I just can’t.

So much happens

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When I’m not posting. I still haven’t successfully found additional baby-sitting. I’m trying. I either helped out our nice handyman or I got screwed by a con artist. I’ll find out next week. The wait as I find out is excruciating.

Shanna is now in size 7 and Calli is wearing size 6. Holy toledo. Calli turns 4 in another week and a half. Shanna is 6 1/4. I think Calli will be taller in the long run.

Stuff brewing with my shrink. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to keep seeing her. Festivity. This isn’t *about me* but it involves me and there might be fall out and fuss. It’s not my fault there are sometimes consequences for talking about clients in ways you shouldn’t. Not my story to tell.

We went to a party for one of Noah’s oldest friends last night. Ran into his ex who has become a good friend. (That lot went to college together.) I feel kind of funny that I still identify this nice lady as Noah’s ex-girlfriend. She’s married and has three kids. Why is that relationship from her past so important? Because it still defines how she came into my life. She is someone who can understand why Noah (the most important grown up in my life) is so lovable. That makes her different. She is going to share some of my innate biases, surely. There must be a kinship there. Ok, so she decided she didn’t want to marry him–that’s great for me! But there is still an ability to appreciate that not everyone has. Noah, much like me, is not always an easy person to like. People who are capable of liking us more than average are to be treasured.

Now everyone in the crowd has kids. Lots of kids. Our kids were the oldest in the pack and the current youngest is 4 months old with a pregnant woman due in December and several parents of onlies talking about when to start trying for new babies. Whoa. The crowd switched from non-breeders to ALL PARENTS ALL THE TIME really fast. We talked a lot about sleep deprivation. (Including the very hot guy I almost nailed right before we shut things down for the breeding period. Deep sigh. He’s still very cute. He seems kind of overwhelmed by parenthood. Heh. He’ll adjust.)

In some crowds I’m the only home schooler and that’s weird and people are kind of rude. In other crowds I’m the only home schooler and that’s interesting and they would love to hear why I make such choices. They aren’t necessarily going to be moved to change their own decisions, but it is interesting to hear about other peoples lives. Guess which kind of crowd I like hanging out with more? Last night was definitely of the, “I don’t understand but I’m curious” blend. It felt so nice. I’ve been feeling really defensive.

I DON’T THINK EVERYONE IN THE WORLD SHOULD HOME SCHOOL. IT WOULD NOT BE APPROPRIATE. When I talk about home schooling I am NOT TRYING TO RECRUIT. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT HOW YOU RAISE YOUR KIDS. (I mean, if you live within five miles of me I might half-heartedly hint that it would be cool if you home schooled because, hey–resources! Otherwise I truly don’t care because I won’t be driving to your house to hang out a lot anyway.)

I don’t think home schooling is THE BEST or THE ONLY way of raising kids. It is just the way that works best for my family for a lot of reasons that don’t necessarily apply to other people.

Tell me about this preschool your kid is in. You seem to be excited about the process. Lots of it sounds fun. I’m totally enthusiastic about you doing this. Put your kid in preschool and work. That’s important. Truly. I’m not criticizing.

I think my daughters need to see that women work too. Not all women live like me. Their Godmama is starting medical school right now. The kids are looking at the pictures and thinking, “Yeah. I could do that. I can be like Aunt Kitten.” Their lives aren’t going to look like mine. (Not because mine is shitty–they have different interests.) My kids will probably be working parents if they have kids. I’m really grateful we know so many kick ass women who are modeling how to make that work.

Even if my kids argue when they are visiting, they still speak well of all the working moms in our lives. “Why can’t you be a nice mom like _____?” “Because you were not blessed in this lifetime. Let’s move on.”

Oh man. Since I borrowed my friend’s stick shift I have been itching to drive again. I hate automatics. I don’t feel like I’m driving. I’m steering at best. I want to drive. Oh man she had a fun car. I keep finding my hand going to the stick shift. Then I sigh and let my hand drop. Nothing to do in my stupid boring mini van. Deep sigh. The memory of a fun, zippy blue car keeps me smiling.

I am not being good about training for the 10k. I wonder if I will get more serious as I get closer to the half marathon or full marathon. (Next half marathon: 14 weeks. Next full marathon: 7 months.)

Sometimes I’m supposed to run 3 miles on two consecutive days. Some weeks I’m in a mood so I run 6 miles one day and nothing the other day. I’m not sure how useful that is. I feel like a sick, sick puppy because I’m really looking forward to the long training runs again.

I still remember the first time I ran 18 miles. The marathon was hard and shitty and I felt like crap. The first time I ran 18 miles I felt like a God. I felt so strong and capable and competent. I strutted when I walked for days. I CAN RUN EIGHTEEN FUCKING MILES MOTHERFUCKER! 26 was brutal in comparison. I’d like to get to the point of 26 miles feeling how 18 miles felt. An extra 8 miles is really rough. I don’t want it to be so rough.

My “goals”: 10k in 75 minutes. I’m running with a friend who is still working up. (She’s doing great!) Half marathon in 2:40. Full marathon better than 6 hours. That’s 46 minutes faster than my first marathon. It shaves almost 2 minutes off each mile meaning I will have to maintain faster than 15 min/mile. Doesn’t sound that hard. Ha. Piss off. You do it if it isn’t that hard. It’ll be hard. Very hard. But I can do it.

Lately my short runs are 13:30 minutes/mile or faster. I really want my short runs to be faster than 12 min/mile. I can’t shake this feeling that at some point in my life it will be necessary for me to run or I will die. It’s a horrible feeling but it puts some pep in my step.

I have already been a hunted animal. I do not have so much hubris as to believe it will never happen again.

I want to travel. I am white and a woman. There are going to be people who don’t like me on sight. Then you combine that with the fact that I rarely shut my fucking mouth. It doesn’t seem like paranoia. It seems like basic caution.

I am now officially in the database of potential speakers for RAINN (rape and incest national network), which I have mixed feelings about. But I’ll put my hat in the ring anyway. If they get a request for my area I will hear about it.

I still haven’t turned up a picture of me alone from within the last two years I can send in for the interview. Whinge.

I am making progress on back-stage stuff for the blog. I not show you now. Neiner. (That grammar error was on purpose.)

Sometimes I feel overwhelming anxiety because I’m redesigning my website. The number of things I teach myself to do is kind of crazy. Yes, lots of other people have already taught themselves this skill. I’ve been a serious asshole about resisting picking up computer skills over more than a decade.

I use word and a web browser and not much else! Damnit!! Only now it is becoming handy to know all this back end stuff. Shoot me now.

I have quite a few things I’m working on right now. I’m trying to put together a book of pictures of our house. I’m trying to figure out how to organize them. We are going to visit a lot of relatives who will never make it to our house. I’m a vain bastard and I like my house a lot. I want to be able to show the great grandmother what I’m doing and she will never travel again due to age.

I didn’t ever anticipate growing up to be an artist. I was pretty spiteful and nasty about the whole concept of art for most of my life. (That is what comes of having art teachers tell you that you are stupid for many years for not following their directions more carefully.) I’m big on shooting myself in the foot.

Hardly anyone gets to grow up how my kids do. They live in a weird little house where they get to ask for paintings on the wall (they help more by the year). Just about everything they can reach is kid friendly and they are allowed to grab at will. (They are tall so now there are a few things they just have to respectfully not touch.) They get to decide how they want to spend their time. They have only a few outside schedule impositions.

I’m pretty jealous of my kids. I didn’t have anything like this. But I get it now. I try to let that be enough. I think I’m nice to them even though I feel jealousy. I’m glad they are here as an excuse so I can live this way. I have to be grateful for that. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to do all this without kids. I’m really happy I get to live here doing this. I’m having a lot of fun.

I won’t know for decades if I did the right thing or not. That’s rather annoying. (And that is why no one should write parenting books while their kids are under five. I’m JUST SAYIN’.)

I think it is funny how my mental picture of my reading audience changes over time. I see how many page hits I get. I can tell when a new/random person shows up. (A lot of reading old entries, maybe following a tag for several entries.) Over time people volunteer “I haven’t been reading lately” or “Your blog is too much for me” or “Wow. You write a lot. It’s…. something. To read. Ahem.”

Hi. Thanks for slogging? I know it is random. Thus my desire to somewhat split the blog out pouring into more manageable for other people chunks. Maybe it will get easier. We’ll see!

I wonder too much about what other people think of me. I hope that I surprise people. I hope that they had dire predictions and then… I just… do better than they expected. I’ve been told over and over that people thought I would crash and burn. When I keep turning up at parties people are surprised. “You aren’t dead!” Not yet. More and more I hope I make it to a “natural” death. (i.e. one not caused by me.) My kids asked me to promise that I would never leave them on purpose. That’s a big promise.

I have held my right to end my pain as one of my most sacred rights. And now they want me to give it up. Just because they need me.

As I stay up late at night composing mental letters I wish I could send to my mommy I think… maybe their need is real. They aren’t pretending this love. They are too young to be able to maintain a charade.

Things are always changing rapidly here in Wonderland. Lots to do. Lots of stuff to learn. I feel so inadequate for the list of jobs in front of me. But I won’t get more adequate if I sit on my ass doing nothing. So I run towards each new difficult opportunity.

If you want to make sure we visit you on our cross country road trip you should probably email me pretty soon. I’m making reservations for some places starting in another month. I’m firming up a lot of plans. Yes, some people like to do things fly-by-night making it up as they go. I like going places that you have to reserve a year in advance or ha ha go somewhere else. That means making firm plans.

If we go the northern route then we won’t see friends in Utah. That would be a huge bummer. There is also a stop I’d like to make in Missouri. (Err, not because of the recent issues in Ferguson. Those are terrible and sad. I don’t intend to be a tourist next year to see the carnage. I know someone.)

So I’m making some decisions. If you are sure you want on the route, speak up soon or you may get skipped. That’s how life goes.

That was an informative dinner.

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Last night we got to have dinner with Noah’s baby sister. Oh man. She’s happy to tell All The Stories about the family. And she has a night and day different impression of Noah’s parents than Noah has.

Apparently mom has been going to therapy and making great strides. Dad has uhm gotten crazier. I’m not sure it is healthy for people to live off in the woods not talking to people much because they have enough money to shun society.

I am going to be picking up the baby sister and she is coming back to the house with me to tell me stories later in the week. I’m looking forward to this so much.

She sat there and said, “And I can tell you everything. I’m a bastard so they all hate me and treat me like a non-entity so I have some interesting perspectives.” I’m going to fucking love this girl.

Apparently my mother in law feels very guilty for how things went when I visited Texas. (Ya know, how she refused to leave the house to have dinner with us once and when I went to the property she nodded then left the room.) Apparently she makes as many clothes as she does for the kids because she feels guilty for how she treated me and I respond so positively about the clothes in letters.

Not a dynamic I pictured coming up with my mother in law, I’ll tell you. This really makes the trip next year seem like it could be different than I previously expected. Some of the things she described Noah’s dad doing…

I have had a number of people respond about seeing us on the road trip. The respondents have been on a spectrum from, “PLEASE come sleep in my house” to “I would like to see you but you can’t sleep here.” I’m sorta thinking it will be better for the kids and I if we just know we are sleeping in the van. We will need to have our routine.

And it will give me a great reason to say, “Traveling this long is pretty hard, we need to have some consistent routines so thank you for dinner but we need to head outside now.” I won’t have to deal with anything in the middle of the night. If someone did to me what he is doing to them in the middle of the night I would get in a fist fight.

Oh man. Trading one crazy family for another. At least this crazy isn’t sexual abuse. *phew* I can handle just about anything else. Boundaries are my friends. I may get in a fist fight over crazy, but I won’t feel like I am too unsafe to live. I just can’t be around the sexual predators anymore. Just can’t.

My poor children. They stand such a high chance of being bat shit crazy. I sure hope that environment matters as much as genetics and my kids have a pretty nice life.

I don’t mean that they are financially secure. I mean that no one is allowed to hit them. They can clearly tell you WHY their body belongs to them alone and no one has the right to touch them without permission. They believe that someone who calls them a mean name is clearly having a bad day and they need to go deal with their feelings somewhere else.

They do not internalize negative messages. They have been so inundated with positive messages that they do not feel that negative statements apply to them.

Yet they will tell you in detail that everyone makes mistakes–if you don’t make mistakes you won’t learn. They will tell you (while sighing and rolling their eyes) that everyone is frustrating and obnoxious sometimes.

It’s ok. We love you anyway.

When I am grumpy they think *I* am grumpy. They don’t think they made me grumpy. My kids have a really nice life.

Noah said that I was teaching them noblesse oblige. I told him that I sort of am but mostly I’m not. I don’t think they are “better” than anyone around them. I think they were born lucky. I think they are one of the fortunate ones who was born having more than you need.

It is closer to “be your brother’s keeper”. If your brother needs something, you probably don’t make him go work a shitty ass job for years before you help him. He’s your brother. He’ll help you later. If you have extra, you share. Heck, even when you don’t have extra–share. Your needs are met. Over and over. Emotional, physical, maybe even spiritual. If for this one meal you aren’t full to complete satiation–don’t worry you will at the next one. Share with your brother.

Or sister, we are pretty equal opportunity here. And we have no brothers in the house. So I don’t actually call it brother’s keeper in the house. But that’s the traditional phrasing.

It is closer to the Christian belief that you cannot be saved through faith alone–you must do good works. (I know that most Protestants hate the idea of having to work for heaven. Whatever. Christian sects vary dramatically. It is all still under the umbrella.)

My children have such blessings in their lives. For all my insecurity and emotional volatility… I have a lot of consistent people in my life. Despite the fact that I hysterically move in and out of feeling attachment to people… I don’t actually cut most of the apron strings. I worry about any separations.

If I don’t talk to someone for a month I can grieve for them as hard as if I haven’t seen them in ten years. My hormonal cycle is really a bitch to live with. I have these periods of tunnel vision when I’m not capable of perceiving that people like me. I’m scared that some day in the midst of one of those days I’ll kill myself because I can’t see a way out.

So far there has always been a way out. And things have improved steadily over the last ten years. So I try to have patience with myself on those days. I’m still frantic-feeling. But my conscious self-talk has changed.

“These are feelings. I know you are scared. This will pass. It will be ok soon. Not everyone hates you. You don’t have to die today.”

That’s a lot of improvement. I’m pretty proud of getting to that point. When I am rocking and crying and I feel like a steaming pile of dog shit at least I don’t chant about what a worthless whore I am any more. I’ll take progress wherever I can.

It is very hard to have perspective on your own story. My shrink spends a lot of time being amazed at how many people have been in my life consistently for long periods of time.

Dude, my best friend from middle school made a big point of stopping at my house when he visited the state. Apparently I don’t make everyone run away in terror. Jenny is another middle school friend. I have plans with a friend from high school next week. I spent the 4th of July at a party that was a combination high school reunion for me and college reunion for Noah.

Clearly I *am* connected to people.

Dude, Sarah and I are tentatively trying to figure out what we can have as a relationship. That’s fucking huge. We learned some valuable lessons about not living together. But we had a seven year relationship before that. Not living together is a reasonable boundary. What else can exist there?

I don’t know. But I love her a lot. I have for ten years now.

Life is very complicated. I don’t lose everyone. Sometimes they move away. That doesn’t mean I really lose them. I may hurt and grieve and have terrible luck feeling attached. But then they show up again. And it’s bumpy for the first few hours (I have adjustment periods with almost everyone) but then I pull my head out of my ass and things are wonderful again. I remember what I love so very much about you. I remember how very glad I am that you are in this world.

I remember that you love me.

(Err, I don’t only like people who love me. But it is nice when it is a circle.)

Sometimes I feel like I must be very very stupid. I am not capable of maintaining the learning process. I have to have the same fucking epiphany millions of times. Wait–you like me?

I continue to struggle with the dichotomy between having a “friends group” and having friends. I have friends. I have many individual people I have pulled out of diverse communities. They don’t meld though. They are strangers to one another.

That seems to be a big problem for me and I’m not exactly sure why. It’s like I want to have the individual members of my extended web be connected to one another because that is a better net for me to fall into.

If all of my friendships are straight lines going out, that’s not exactly a net.

It isn’t like I don’t do group events. The home school group is becoming quite the hub of group events. Why doesn’t that “count”? Why am I discounting that? Why do I brush off what I have and decide it is valueless?

Well, I hope I don’t do that. There is some magic percentage of knowing people in a group I have never hit.

I have never had the experience of being surrounded by people and feeling very sure that they all knew me and liked me. Even when I did fucking MDMA at MY birthday party. I sat on the couch and had anxiety attack after anxiety attack about how I didn’t know how to perform for such a wide audience of people I didn’t know all that well.

That’s pretty fucking annoying. Let me tell you.

It isn’t anyone else’s fault that I am searching for this feeling I don’t know how to get.

There is something about a depth of relationship combined with a certain mass of people. I don’t know what it feels like to be known and actually liked by a group of people. And that’s a problem for me.

But at least if I am narrowing down the problem it looks more tractable.

I do group events. I am “part of” groups. I was part of the theatre community in high school. The problem was that a large percentage of the people there spent a lot of time talking very loudly about how much they disliked me and wanted me to go away. It wasn’t even half the group who did that, but the people were loud enough that I never felt safe or wanted.

When I go to parties at my friends houses I rarely know many people. Usually the host plus one or two people.

When I invite people to my house I do a lot of drag net fishing (as Noah describes it). I invite a lot of people I want to get to know. I don’t only invite people I already know well. So there is this feeling of tension. They like me enough to show up. Is that because of the free food and loneliness or is that because they want to develop a relationship?

As an adult it is hard to know what a relationship means.

Oh shit. I still haven’t emailed Tay about 2015 planning. And our next visit up north. *bang head*

H’okay. Took a half hour break to schedule with him through all of 2015. My life is kind of insane. If I don’t book him in the next couple of weeks… we won’t get him at all. He is so busy.

Anyway. Back to what I was bitching about. I don’t feel like a nice person for looking at the lovely friendships and relationships I am offered and saying, “But there aren’t enough of you standing in one place at one time so it doesn’t count.”

I think, in my head, that is kind of the ‘wedding’ thing. I think that is tied together. Most of my parties contain a low percentage of old-friends. Mostly my events have one or two long-term friends and a large number of people I am just getting to know. For some reason I think I have the belief that your wedding (or these group trips I imagine in my head) are full of a kind of depth of knowing that I don’t experience at events.

I can have this feeling one on one. I can occasionally have it two-on-one. I don’t know what it is like to feel known and seen by lots of people at once.

I babble about this because if I can figure out the shape of the problem, maybe I can design a solution. Because if the problem is that I haven’t had enough density… that’s tractable. That is a problem that can be solved. As the years go by I have fewer newbie friends. I don’t have much space for them. But I have deepened and extended a lot of older shallow relationships.

If the problem is that I have always moved too often so I never hit the density of knowing people in one location…. that’s a problem I can fix.

I love my neighborhood.

It’s not like I think that having the experience for one glorious day would wipe out my panic disorder, but it might be a novel change.

drowning in my own bile

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I feel like I’m drowning in my own bile. I don’t even know what is going on. The last few days have been really emotionally tumultuous. Noah asked me what I thought triggered it.

I think that part of my problem is that my perceived expectation of my value is different than my perceived lived experiences of my value. Does that make sense?

I know I am dripping with financial privilege. I always thought that having more money would mean feeling more secure. I always thought that being able to buy any food I wanted would be the same thing as happiness.

Many of the women I spend time with have been discussing the same theme lately: are people in your life friendly or friends? I didn’t even bring it up so I feel a bit better about that. I’m not the only insecure one.

For example of drowning in ones own bile: I managed to run into a woman at the water park I like a great deal. I got to know her during swim lessons for the kids because we overlapped for a long time. I don’t know why but I’m totally drawn to her. I have been since I met her. Her personality makes me feel more calm and assured. She just has that competent “I know what I’m fucking doing so move out of my way” sort of vibe. God I love self-assured people.

She just got back from Hawaii. They went with friends. 14 people. They go together on a big trip every other year.

I told her, “The funny thing is, that’s why I bought a time share. And I don’t have enough friends to fill a trip so instead I go alone.”

This is choking in my own bile. I have weird pull out pieces of privilege. I want to share that so fucking bad because having privilege that you get to enjoy only while alone doesn’t really feel like privilege after a while. It disgustingly feels kind of like a punishment. Which makes me feel ungrateful and guilty and terrible. I am such a shitty person.

I have friends. What I don’t have is a friends group. I have lots of friends who are super busy doing their own things. It isn’t even that my friends can’t afford to join me on my adventures (though that is true) mostly it is that they already have the friends-group they are going to have. And I’m never really part of groups.

I feel like a fucking asshole. I know that this isn’t other peoples fault or problem or anything. I know that I am just a selfish asshole. I don’t like myself for being what I am very much.

I’m reading a horrible, terrible, no-good book. It’s about health in marriages. It is horrible because it spends a lot of time talking about emotional needs and how people should try to be vulnerable and bring their needs. It’s about attachment between adults the same way I’ve studied attachment with children. I’m so fucked.

No, I can’t bring all my cavernous needs to Noah. I can’t bring them to anyone. They are my fucking problems. They are problems inside of me and they aren’t anyone else’s problem.

And that makes me want to die. Noah says he wants to make my life so good that I never want to leave it. The problem is, the money really isn’t what matters. And he can’t give me a depth of relationship that covers all the holes inside me. Not because he doesn’t care, but because what I need doesn’t come from a person. It comes from a whole interconnected tribe and I don’t have one. I’ve never had one.

And so I drown in my own bile.

I feel so sad that I see people 4-7 days a week and it doesn’t help me feel like people see me or give a shit about me. I feel so sad that when I look at my life and interactions I can’t understand why anyone would miss me as anything other than a work horse.

I had a panic attack yesterday while driving. I really didn’t want to go socialize with people with whom I am friendly instead of friends. But I had pre-existing plans. And I don’t like to cancel. So when I got lost on the way to somewhere I have been dozens of times I started crying and hyperventilating and screaming and I had to pull off the road to calm down so I didn’t cause an accident. It’s been a while since I had a panic attack. I will choose to be happy about the gap in time instead of hating myself for having another. I’ll have more. Many more. That’s just how my body works.

I want group identity so badly that I drift through the feeling that I will die without it every so often. It has come up again and again in my life.

For a while I will have the energy to pursue someone for a closer relationship. The feeling of needing to die from lack of connection fades. Then I run out of energy for forcing a relationship and things kind of fade and I want to die. I want to die so much. My body hurts. My heart hurts.

It isn’t fair to my children. They should count now. They should be enough for group identity. I’m a fucking Gibbs girl now.

Only I know that if I stand next to anyone else named Gibbs, other than the ones who live in this house, I’m very much not part of the family.

I wish that my kids felt like more of a relationship. It feels so much like a job. A draining, hard job. I do get love back, but mixed in with a lot of hitting, screaming, and my needs being entirely unimportant.

Noah is so tired. I feel guilty for asking him for anything. He doesn’t have any more attention to give.

I hate myself for being such a whiny, needy baby. I want my mommy so bad.

Instead I will sit here and watch The West Wing and I’ll eat a cheese stick. I’ll cry.

Really, it’s for the best that I don’t have more of a friends group who wants to try group activities sorta under my umbrella. My group trips rarely go well. It’s usually my fault. I have a hard time with people shirking work. In most group trips there are people who work and people who don’t and I get into conflict with the non-workers. Most of the other worker-bees don’t complain and thus I’m a problem.

I know.

I’m selfish and entitled. I don’t like myself very much for it.

I’ve certainly been on group trips to things. They work out when I am barely known to everyone there and I don’t talk much.

I’m sorry that I am such an asshole. It has been so necessary on so many levels that I don’t really see that part of my personality going away.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m a sorry sack of shit.

Today is another day. Hanging out with the mothers’ helpers. Ice skating. Noah’s sister is in town and we are having dinner with her and her boyfriends’ family. Because she came to California to see her boyfriend, not her brother. We are going to Los Gatos. I will endeavor to pretend I am a first time visitor to the town because man that smoothes things over. No, “I have a diploma from your high school” because then it spirals into Stories. I know better than to tell Stories tonight.

Tomorrow is so busy. Birthday party. Other party.

I know so many people. Why do I feel so lonely? It’s the difference between being friends or being friendly. I’m very friendly with people. Mostly, lots of people like me. That’s because I keep my fat, stupid mouth shut about almost everything I think. My feelings don’t fucking matter and I know it. Yeah, I’m a whiny bitch. I know. I’m very sorry that I’m hurting. I’m very sorry that sometimes that is obnoxious to be around. I try my best to not make it anyones problem.

And I want to die. It is so pathetic. There isn’t anything going on right now that justifies my feelings. Nothing bad has happened. I feel lonely. I alternate between having pathetically low expectations and having expectations that are so high that only a blessed few ever see anything like that.

I want a family. I want grown ups who spend time with me and who are just there. I have a hard time with how much Noah works. I support it. I don’t bitch, well… I don’t let him work overtime.

We have discussed how my behavior would be a serious problem for him if he was in a less-impacted profession. My insistence that he work for 40 hours flat would cause career problems in almost any other career. Yeah. I’m a selfish piece of shit. Lots of women have it much harder than me and they aren’t whiny bitches.

I want to die. Because clearly there is someone more worthy waiting in the wings who would better appreciate the ridiculous privilege I have. Only there isn’t someone waiting in the wings. That isn’t how life works. I would fuck my children up for a very long time.

Missing my family is like a wound filled with gangrene. No good will come of this. It poisons every part of my life.

I know it is my responsibility to be pleasant to people. It is not their fault that I hurt. It would be a lot easier if I was still allowed to cut. I don’t blow up as much. It is like venting steam out to prevent an explosion.

What triggers it? I have some suspicions but I can’t write about it. Even I recognize some limits. The only reason I haven’t had a good session of head banging already is because I would have to admit that I did it and I would have to reset the clock on talking about my self harm.

I’ve been pretty good for a couple of years. Almost three years. I don’t want to slip now. I don’t want to have to tell anyone how broken and stupid and pathetic I am. And I won’t lie. That compulsive telling is probably why I am alive.

It feels like a betrayal of how hard Noah works to be this sad. He works hard to earn money and he works hard to be emotionally supportive. He does his very best. And I am an ungrateful piece of shit.

Some days are like that.

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I’m in a bad mood. So I’m out here to medicate and write and hope I can cheer myself up.

My arms hurt. That doesn’t help. It also means that writing is questionable.

Noah and I have been bickering. We don’t get all the way to fighting. Neither of us allow that. We walk away before it escalates. But there is a lot of tension right now. Noah looks at almost any problem as if you have to have a problem-proof solution before you can change things. I think that favors the people already in power (like him) and I think sometimes you blow shit up without knowing how things will work out. Might get better, might get worse.

Given how well his life is going for him I see why he doesn’t appreciate assholes like me. For the life of me I don’t understand why he wants to be married to me.

I’m feeling my feelings. I told him this morning that sometimes I wonder how long we will be married. It isn’t Noah’s fault that sometimes I look at him and see the enemy. I’m not the most rational person on my best days. I wonder if I will be able to get over myself. It isn’t that I think Noah is actually doing anything so bad. But he has a lot of opinions I’m openly contemptuous towards. That’s really hard on a marriage. He tries to be patient with me, but it is very hard to be nice to someone who is contemptuous.

Would I respect him more if he built houses or fixed cars instead of building video games? I clearly didn’t go marry someone in one of those professions. There isn’t a lot of ambition in most construction workers or mechanics. They solve the problem in front of them and that is good enough for today. I really like and admire ambition. How come it had to come packaged with video games? Because that is how it works for my generation. I like Noah. I like how his brain works. I do kind of wish that someone as smart and talented and basically competent did… I don’t know.

He wants to work with computers. I married someone who has been obsessed with computers since he was seven. He doesn’t want to work for the government and he does want to make money. That means you go to the highest bidding company and frequently those are places like… video games.

Just because I don’t play them doesn’t mean they have no financial value to someone.

I feel existentially bothered by video games and I don’t know how much of that is tied to my brothers beating me up when I asked to use their consoles.

I really am a fucking asshole.

This is compounded and escalated by feelings I’m having about friendships. I thought of someone it would be nice to see. I added her to a Google group. Well, I sent her an invite. She told me since she would never come to my events she wouldn’t bother to join the group. But I could come visit her some time if I wanted.

I know a lot about her life and surrounding circumstances. I get it. She has experienced rapid physical decline over the last few years. She is barely getting her job done and her social life has evaporated. It’s not about me. It is not personal at all.

But I have a lot of disabled recluses in my life. If I went from friend to friend every day I would only see a couple of people twice in a month. People who have their own disabilities tend to have more patience with my deficiencies. I have periods where I don’t go anywhere or see anyone for a long time and my friends wait them out.

But I know a lot of people. I can’t carry the weight of going from house to house visiting my friends. Even if I want to. Even if I put them on a rotation and only see 1-3 in a month it is hard.

I wish I had more spoons but I don’t. I have just over fourteen more years where parenting needs to get basically all of my patience and “give” to anyone other than myself.

I don’t feel like a very good friend. This person in particular has been very frank with me that the hourglass is running out on her life. She will not live with the kind of pain she has right now for much longer. I have a lot of respect for that. I think people get to decide for themselves when they hurt too much and they need it to stop. Even if that means suicide.

So I feel like a giant asshole for not wanting to prioritize a lot of visits to her house. I will only have the privilege of her presence for a few more years, at most. How dare I waste even one minute of that time?

But if I prioritize her pain over my own and over making sure I have a network of people who are good for my kids I will be doing the most important job I will ever have badly.

Some people in the Leather community are shitty about boundaries with children. I don’t take my kids around them much even if I love them a lot and think they offer great value to the world.

My kids don’t need to grow up in Leather. No thanks. They don’t need to know it is a culture. They don’t need to talk about being from a multi-generational kink family. (I met a cousin at a national bdsm conference. He says his father and grandfather are openly involved. Seriously. My brother and I have had conversations. My family is so fucked up.)

It is kind of hard to make mercenary choices about who I let my kids spend their time with. I feel really guilty and mean. But I’m going to do it anyway and live with the guilt.

It is hard to make real conscious choices about how my kids are spending their time. It is hard to step back and objectively evaluate “What kinds of relationships do they have and how are these relationships serving them?” My kids are treated very much like clients if I were a case manager. “What kind of care are they getting?”

It is hard to evaluate myself. Much harder than evaluating other people. I can’t see me objectively and my evaluations match my overall self-esteem which means I have more days where I think I am doing badly than days I feel like a good parent. But I persevere because I have a lot of external validators in place telling me to keep on keeping on because I’m doing ok.

I can’t evaluate myself. So I try to make sure my evaluators are people whose opinion is worth listening to. They need to have enough experience in doing what I’m doing that I will listen to them. I like older women a lot. I am a serious asshole about discounting the opinions of people who have never done what I am doing.

Meh. How can you judge. How do you know? When it’s not like everyone who has done stay at home parenting (or even home schooling) is really fit to judge anyway. I’m inconsistent. And an asshole.

I tried to get a bunch of yard work projects done this week. I entirely failed and I feel bad about myself. Part of the problem is lack of upper body strength. Part of the problem is that many of these projects are two person projects because you require three or four hands at times and…

I can’t ask the kids yet. I get too impatient and grumpy and it isn’t fair. I can’t ask.

So my lack of productivity (even though I kept up with house chores and nearly a full time job of socializing) means I feel really shitty about myself. Cause I’m like that.

“If you didn’t let blame take up so much space in your mind….”

Oh fuck you. Did you sit down with a catalogue and pick how your brain works? No? Then shut the fuck up.

I only hear such commentary from people who are highly successful in repressive regimes. By those standards the most success I have had under such a system was marrying well. I really think it’s kind of idiotic to think I am otherwise going to be like people who grew up to be successful in such a regime. I haven’t done so hot on my own.

I’m not financially secure because I’m good at the system. I had some lucky horrible luck. That’s uhh, not the same thing as being good in the system.

I had an extended runway in the form of an accident settlement. It’s not that I’m that good. How would anyone else do if they were given $250,000 slowly between 18 and 32?

I’m not that special. I’m not someone who has risen in this system. Expecting me to be supportive of the system and expecting me to think well of the system is… kind of dubious.

I’m aware that the rug can be yanked out from under me at any point. I’m not secure. My status is not my own. It’s borrowed at best. I’m not going to be real loyal to borrowed status. I don’t care that much if it is lost.

I wonder how long my marriage will last. I’m afraid I’m not going to be capable of being as nice as Noah deserves. I won’t stay and abuse him. If I get too bad I will just go. No one deserves to be punished for all the broken in me. And I’m not sure I can be nice forever to someone who is so supportive of the status quo.

Today I feel very scared and very sad.

Today I feel very sure that I can ruin any good thing and make it bad. It’s just a talent. I can drive anyone away. Just give me some time. And if I can’t drive them away I’ll run away. One way or another I am going to find a way to prove that I don’t deserve to be loved. I am too bad.

I should probably stop writing and stop crying. We need to leave for Hindi class in 15 minutes.

Shooting.

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I think I should get off the internet for a bit. I should probably also stop talking to anyone with a penis about issues of violence. I find that after most of these conversations I believe that the only thing I can do is kill myself.

And I don’t even think any of them would care that much. Ok, Noah would care. But I’m feeling really bitter and pissy and nasty today about why he would care. So I should stop typing.

I can’t protect anyone. Not even myself. Sometimes I understand the mothers who kill their kids and then themselves. (Not that I want to kill my kids.)

But I feel very sorry that I brought them into this world. I’m sorry babies. I can’t make it better. I can’t keep you safe.

I’m so sorry.

Money, money, money by the pound.

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I’m scared and insecure. Let’s talk about money. I won’t feel as bad about myself. That can’t be healthy, can it? I feel insecure about some parts of my life. Let me wander over and assure myself that my social problems are not going to derail me getting to do whatever the fuck I want to do. Maybe that isn’t unhealthy.

I have decided that I can’t buy an RV for the road trip until I have maxed out on saving for the road trip and I have maxed our emergency fund. That seems S-M-R-T.

This month’s salary + bonus (the bonus Noah is whiny enough to say isn’t high enough) will almost entirely go off for credit cards, mortgage, etc. Luckily I can now say that the second business I helped fund has been so successful I have been bought out. The check is on its way to me. I’m a god damn entrepreneur. Go me.

With that bump I will have $21,000 (rounded, obviously) out of the $25,000 I want in the checking account before I travel and $25,000 out of $40,000 in an emergency fund. That means I want to save an additional $19,000 before I buy an RV. And it means that I will be blowing a huge hole in my emergency fund that I will have to recoup. So uhm. Erf. But I think I can do that in the next few years. Seriously, he makes obscene amounts of money. If I can’t do that then I’m a fucking loser. Technically I have been saving at a rate to make the goal on the emergency fund in four years and some. I want that as back up before we go over seas.

Yeah yeah yeah I have an IRA, 401k, two 529s, and additional investment stuff going on. Don’t tell me, “Oh gosh if you have that much cash you should invest!”

I like having a cushion. I invest, but I like my cushion. Shit happens. I like having many options. I like knowing that I will be able to do what I want to do.

Noah has already earned $15,000 out of the $60,000 I think we will need for the around the world trip. His ability to earn money continues to blow my mind. That is kept in a third account.

My real “back up” in case Noah loses his job is the fact that we have $60,000 in cash distributed between accounts nominally in the name of other more shallow goals. Of course all such frippery could be tossed to the side in case of a catastrophe. I’ve got back up plans for my back up plans.

I… don’t earn money. But I manage it very well. He wouldn’t have this much if he had to manage it himself. That isn’t his strength. That’s my strength. I’m not so good at earning.

A friend was mentioning how her partner needs to hire a professional organizer and I said, “I’m close to putting out my shingle. I’d charge $30/hour.” She yelled at me for a while. She thinks my starting rate should be $50/hour with the possibility of a sliding scale if I’m feeling fucking generous.

I am going to potentially have four whole hours tomorrow to edit the book. Maybe someday it will earn money. Probably when I’m dead. That’s usually how it works for writers. Luckily I have children who will get the income. It won’t just go to a publishing house. Ha.

I feel pretty weird about having this much money. But looking at it does help calm me down.

My mom spent my whole childhood crying over money. All the time. Almost every day. My mom has experienced poverty in a way I will never really understand. Children don’t get it. Kids don’t understand being poor vs. rich. It is too complex. Now I feel like all I can do is try to imagine my mother’s experience.

I’m so grateful I don’t have to endure what she went through. She has no money sense. Even when she has enough in her pocket to cover all her expenses this month she can’t do it. I don’t know what broke her or when.

Even if things in my life were to go badly they can never ever ever go as badly as they have gone for my mom. I have a college education and a history of helping to start businesses. I have a rich and varied work history and a lot of people who would vouch for me. I could find work at a reasonable salary. My mom never could.

The head of my union told me that if I ever want to go back into teaching it doesn’t matter if they are hiring or not they will hire me. I can teach gang kids. I can form personal relationships and help them understand the benefits to them of literacy.

That’s a god damn marketable skill.

I feel really bad for my mom. She is becoming a Dickensian character in my mind. She never had my options. She never had the same privileges I had.

I went to Los Gatos High School. Maybe only for my sophomore year but I got to learn about the standards of college and a rigorous set of expectations as a teenager. My mom graduated from Bakersfield High School pregnant with absolutely no expectation that she would need to learn anything more complicated than cooking, baking, and sewing.

For the record, she’s great at all three. Better than me.

It is harder and harder for me to be angry with her as the years pass. I feel really sorry for her. But I can’t let her hurt my kids.

My children have absolutely no exposure to toxic, bitter people. None. The last few years have been the nicest of my life. I have felt suicidal less often then ever before. Pretty frequently I find myself consciously making choices that work to extend my life because I’m not ready to die yet.

I never felt this good about myself when I knew my mother. Having pity for her is fine. I can pity rabid animals too. I shouldn’t pick them up.

It’s all mixed up. My mom. Money. Feeling scared. Feeling attacked. That asshole “funny” unschooling dad. The mom who keeps making cracks about me. Scheduling difficulties and feeling unimportant. Other people have their own shit and aren’t just my support units. It all feels the same. The same unworthy, stupid, bad. Talking about it feels manipulative, but I don’t want anyone to change what they are doing.

I feel this way right now. I don’t always feel this way. I write it down partially so I can prove to myself, “See–it changes. It goes up. It goes down. You have weak boundaries right now. That isn’t anyone else’s fault. It’s ok. They will come back up again soon.”

Soon I won’t feel like everyone hates me and I should go eat worms.

I wonder how much it is tied to Shanna’s current defiance. She’s getting very close to being the age I was when I caused the fight with Tommy that involved Uncle Bob burning Tommy with the hot coffee.

The punishment for that was moving to Texas and my brother got hit by a car. I will have a hard time handling this defiance streak. “Abreact.” That’s my therapists favorite word. Reliving trauma. Supposed to be in a therapeutic session but welcome to my life. Flashbacks?

I’m not having flashbacks. But I am reliving some of the terror I felt when I was disobedient. When she turns around and flips out at me I feel like it is all my fault and I am about to be punished and then I over react.

It’s going to be a rocky few months. Holy shit on Crisco. But we will get through it and we will develop new coping methods for handling triggering situations without abuse. Like you do. If you want to know your kids in thirty years.

I tell my kids that I’m sorry for my mistakes a lot. I hurt Calli yesterday. We were playing and dancing and I twisted her arm a little wrong. I’ve done exactly that dance move with her hundreds of times. But she gained weight recently and it pushed her past a threshold. Oops. I’m really sorry. We spent a while cuddling with an ice pack. She’s fine now. But she was really freaked out and she kept yelling that I hurt her.

Yes. I did. I’m really sorry. It didn’t hurt the last time I did it. I won’t do it any more. You are too big now and I didn’t notice because I wish you were going to be my tiny baby forever. As you grow up I will sometimes hurt you because I misunderstand how your boundaries are shifting. I’m so sorry. I can’t be perfect. There is no such thing. I will make many more mistakes. I’m so sorry.

By the end we were petting the cat and each others faces and she told me she forgives me and we went on with the day.

It doesn’t really matter if some woman who will never be my friend makes jokes about my lack of value. But I miss my mama. And I wish that my mama had thought I was valuable. My mama didn’t miss me when I was gone for a month either. No one really misses me if I’m gone. I know.

Some days it hurts more than others.

I’m not “funny”. Instead people “can’t tell the difference between my whining and my talking”.

I am a whiny baby and I don’t like being picked on.

It’s really not fair that I have to continue having involvement with this group for the sake of my children when I would rather just not go back. That’s how I handle these things. I can’t have a fight. I can’t make drama. If I don’t like how I’m treated, I leave. But I can’t leave.

I can make sure I stop talking to this woman. She thinks she is “funny”. I think it’s not funny to tell someone who has been suicidal for most of their life that no one would miss them.

Happy fucking Mothers Day

I’m almost done with the third quartet from Tamora Pierce. I’ll go back to reading about people who are allowed to start fist fights with bullies. Sometimes I wish my life were that simple still. I am going to read every book she has ever written. I even have the add-odd short story collections. I’m really glad she is out there writing.

Violence

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Last night we had a hard conversation. I think we were both basically polite to one another but it was a hard conversation. It was about threatening behavior, violence, and gender. I get the distinct impression that Noah is tired of the idea that women are allowed to publicly threaten and be violent and men have to be under more control than that. I’m sorry you (dear husband) are upset about this situation. I don’t see it changing on a societal level soon.

Specifically we were walking through a parking lot and I saw a bumper sticker: “I still miss my ex but my aim is improving.” I don’t remember what I said but Noah described it as full of bravado. I’m not going to dicker with that characterization. I said something to the effect of those kinds of stickers being more acceptable from a woman than from a man. Not that they are great. Not that you are a nice person if you have one on your car.

If you put a bumper sticker on your car that implies you would like to shoot people you are, by definition, not a nice person.

But those kinds of being a not-nice person is inherently more threatening from men because the vast majority of actual violence is perpetrated by men. I didn’t make up the world. This is the reality we live in. Women can get away with saying things like this “as a joke” and men can’t.

Is that fair? No. But I think that it is a very common attitude. I have heard it a lot.

In particular I got the impression Noah wanted me to be contrite for essentially threatening my ex.

This was right after I left my high school sweetie/fiancé Steve. He was incredibly upset by the bumper sticker for very good reasons. Steve had every right in the world to take that as a threat. I was physically abusive to him during our relationship.

Noah pointed out that a statement like that from me should be considered as threatening or more threatening than it is from the average man because I am an extremely violent person with fire arms training. I pointed out that ALL of the fire arm training happened after the bumper sticker came off so that point is… a little mixed.

I wouldn’t put the sticker on my car now. I am not in a social position for that kind of asshole move. I would suffer consequences I don’t want to suffer. I’m not stupid.

When I was 18 and I was just discovering the bdsm community there were a long list of reasons I was doing my best to become as intimidating as possible as fast as possible. Yes, I absolutely consciously cultivated being scary.

By the time I put this sticker on my car and consciously tried to become scarier I had been raped by nine people. I wanted it to stop.

I had men who were 20+ years older than me harassing me at munches. Ms. L.Q.–most of the problematic people had moved away by the time you showed up at the Wednesday munch. It was two-to-four guys who were buddies and dirt bags. They did things like try to take my clothes off in public (at the fucking munch!). They hit me in ways that were clearly non-negotiated and then laughed at my indignation. They were “just trying to teach me what subs were for.”

So I got increasingly violent until they backed off. No, I don’t feel a single fucking ounce of regret.

Was putting the bumper sticker on my car nice? No. It wasn’t intended to be. It was a raging asshole move. Like I’m a raging asshole. Haven’t I said this enough times? Why don’t people believe me?

It took a long time and a lot of beatings and humiliation and degradation before I turned into what I am. Should I apologize for the process?

This is sounding a lot like how I should apologize for vomiting. Fuck off.

Is it defensible as an action? (Putting a bumper sticker on a car in order to broadcast being scary.)

Well… I don’t know. If a man did it there might be more social punishment. Yup, that’s just true. Is it “fair” that I got away with it? Probably not.

Life isn’t fair. Haven’t you noticed? I get away with anything and everything I can and feel like I want to get away with… just like everyone else. It just so happens that what I can get away with isn’t exactly the same as other people. Life is complicated.

I don’t feel bad for doing it. I felt bad at the time for threatening Steve. He and I had a long conversation (at the time) and I apologized up one side and down the other. I only took the sticker off my car when I had to before my public teaching career started. I took all the nasty, graphic, swearing, violent bumper stickers then. I had dozens. Apparently a hair dryer is *awesome* for removing bumper stickers. Didn’t even fuck up the paint.

I’m not trying to make excuses. I know it is a shitty thing to do. I have done a lot of shitty things. But sometimes a shitty thing is the best option in front of me. What should I do then?

Be careful to not be aggressive? Would you like me to rattle off my history for you?

From 18-23 I had freedom from being raped. That was the period of my life when I was the most openly hostile and aggressive and intimidating of my entire life. I was dealing with a lot of people who would very happily beat me until I lay on the floor sobbing and begging for mercy. I don’t think I over stepped. I really don’t. I don’t feel bad.

At 23 I had enough people screaming at me that I was too aggressive, too nasty, too bitchy (public humiliation for being too firm in rejecting sexual advances from random men) so I tried to mellow out.

I was raped by two “friends” within a short period of time.

I don’t feel bad about how nasty I was in between or since. Maybe other people know how to avoid being raped without being nasty. I don’t. The way I avoid it these days is I am never alone with men.

This isn’t actually better. It feels really depressing and scary and pathetic. What am I going to do when my kids get older? Am I going to cut all my male friends out of my life because my children will no longer be present as chaperones? There is a non-zero possibility.

I really hope I get much more ugly really soon. Age faster, damnit. Be an ugly, mean, nasty old crone so everyone leaves you the fuck alone.

I’m really scared.

People tell me that I should just not be alone with men who aren’t trustworthy.

I’m going to kill myself now. That’s the end of that line of conversation for me.

Not true! I’m alone with Noah all the time. Even though he’s no saint. He has a history that should make a girl like me run. But I don’t. Because mostly he is so nice to me that I can’t believe it.

But how am I supposed to judge who is safe and who isn’t? My whole life is full of rapists. I’ve read all the victim blamey-everything. I know it is my fault I was raped because I picked bad people to be near. Yup, I know.

But…

How do you people who aren’t raped repeatedly find people to talk to? I seem to have a very narrow and specific type of man who wants to know me. I don’t know what to do about it.

Other than be really scary and convince them it’s a bad idea to fuck with me. That is relatively successful compared to everything else I’ve tried.

But then I’m a raging asshole who pisses off all the poor men who think it is unfair that I can be ragingly threatening without arrest and they can’t.

You know… if we could trade privilege loads we could talk. Yes, there are advantages to being a woman. I think I am more frank about that than the majority of people who talk about privilege. I think there is some specific tremendous freedom in being a woman compared to being a man.

And yet…

There is no “win” here. No one has it all good and no one has it all bad.

I have been told and told and told and told that I should learn how to reject people nicely. So they don’t get mad at me.

Twelve rapists later I’m kind out of out the ability to assume that people mean me no harm so I should do them no harm. Fuck you. I assume you could hurt me if you wanted to and it is my responsibility to defend myself or just me will have to live with the consequences.

Am I an asshole? Absolutely. I am what I was made to be through careful shaping in life. Could I choose to react differently? Probably.

I don’t think I fucking owe anyone a reaction to trauma that they like more. I acknowledge the pitfalls of my approach. I seem violent and scary. Yup. That isn’t nice. True that. It isn’t fair that women can do it and men can’t. So true I have no more words for you.

Only I have more words for you.

We are all doing our best. Maybe my best isn’t good enough for you. Maybe my best is something you find disgusting and inappropriate. Would you really like for me to sit in judgment of how you handle everything in your life? Have you really got it all together?

I’m a mixed bag. I do some things well and everything else not very well. I am violent and intimidating because the lack of both of those qualities caused me many problems throughout my lifetime. If you don’t like that I developed the ability to be psychotically evil, well, you can join the line of people who don’t want to know me. It’s ok. That is how they need things to work. I can’t argue.

I am not as actively violent any more. Instead I hide. Instead I just refrain from “risky” situations. My life is smaller and more limited and I am genuinely afraid of what will happen when my children get older. Maybe I will just give up on doing anything.

I’m told over and over how bad I am for being violent. When being violent is the only thing that has ever had a modicum of success in keeping me safe.

It really feels like I should just die. That is the only thing I can do to satisfy the conflicting demands. I don’t have a way of protecting myself that is nicey-nice to everyone around me.

Why does that always have to be the priority? Oh yeah. Because I don’t matter. Got it.

It is not hyperbole for me to say that when I am experiencing severe difficulty no one wants to help me.

Is it uniformly always completely true? No, of course not. At this stage I have more help than I’ve ever had. I attribute a lot of that to the writing. Without the writing people just didn’t get to know me. I am not good at just making friends and allies. I am, but I’m not. I alienate people. Without the violence. Without trying.

Things are common speech for me that are completely taboo for other people. I freak people out without understanding why or trying to do it. I trigger the fuck out of people and that is hard for them. Totally reasonable.

Really, once a dozen people have raped you shouldn’t you be given a free pass to defend your body? Isn’t it ok for me to do? Oh. Only if I can do it in a way that doesn’t bother anyone or make any men feel like I am doing something they aren’t allowed to do.

Right. I forgot.

If you can’t have it as a tool then it “isn’t fair” that anyone else gets it and we have to stop. Because obviously the status quo is fair. We musn’t give anyone the ability to use tactics and tools unavailable to white men. That Wouldn’t Be Fair.

Sometimes it blows my mind that I live in a world where it is totally acceptable to tell someone who has been on the receiving end of as much violence as I have that they shouldn’t do things that are aggressive or defensive.

Just die already.

Drips, drabs, ups, and downs.

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We went up to San Pablo yesterday to see some friends. This is after that specific friend coming to my house monthly for ohhh four years now? I am starting to try and do some trips up there in exchange for all the trips to my house. The distance between us is not shorter just because he is a guy with no kids. I can do effort too.

And when I drive up there I get to spend time with his lovely wife. I find the visits to be highly educational in diverse arenas. For one thing: she knows way the fuck more about gardening than I do and she’s happy to talk about plants. Lately getting near someone with lots of plant knowledge who does not eschew my children is somewhat tricky. I’ve tried to sign up for gardening classes THAT ARE BEING ADVERTISED ON AN UNSCHOOLING MAILING LIST and I was told I would have to get babysitting. Stop fucking advertising in this space if my fucking kids aren’t welcome you fucking fuckers. I didn’t say fuck to the people in question. I just dropped it.

Beyond the gardening stuff, I am having a bit of trouble with Callidora. Well, phrasing it that way sounds more extreme than it is. Many of my parenting approaches work really well for Shanna and don’t work at all with Calli. Luckily my friends’ wife seems to identify really strongly with Calli. They are very similar temperamentally and she is giving me a lot of feedback for how to tweak our interactions so they work better.

I feel so much gratitude I don’t have words. Someone is willing to look at me and look at my daughter and look at our relationship and say, “You are doing ok, but you both might be happier if you did……”

Err, in defense of my hubris more than once I have said, “I’m afraid I am going to have to do ____” and her response was “Yes. That is exactly what you have to do.” So she isn’t entirely telling me new information. But she is very good at skimming out the bullshit and getting to the heart of the matter. “This is failing because of x.”

I don’t trust many people to give me feedback. I’m not sure why I trust her feedback as much as I do. For one thing she doesn’t use the word “should” and I’m not sure if that has become a specific trigger. Maybe I explode at people for that word rather than because I am completely unwilling to accept advice? It’s hard to tease out.

Also, she tends to say “Calli seems to be a lot like me. When I was a kid I had x and y and z experiences and this is how it went well and this is how it went badly. If Calli is as much like me as she seems right now, you are going to have to deal with a and b and c. It’s not a good idea to do d.”

I guess there is an implied “should” in that but she doesn’t say it.

It also occurs to me that I push Calli in a way I have never pushed Shanna. When Shanna was three I had a one year old. We did not spend a lot of time pushing the absolute physical limits of what she could accomplish until she collapsed in frustrated tears.

I’m having a hard time understanding fully that Calli wants to be able to do things she isn’t ready to do yet and I need to find a tactful way of bailing her out even as I push Shanna to try. Differentiated instruction is a bitch.

(Err, the bicycle riding project is coming along. We’ve hit a few hiccups. As my wise new running mate commented, “Dude. You’ve been out with them four times? Relax and do more low pressured practice.”

Yeah yeah. You may have a point. But we bought the bikes because we want to ride to the park. I need to decide in my adult brain that even if that is the eventual goal… we sure as shit can’t start by doing that. I should probably not try to leave our housing development again until June. We need more low-stakes practice than we have had. Hours and hours and hours and hours.

It is not just a form of transportation. It is about entertainment. It has to be about entertainment at first or they won’t gain enough proficiency to use it as transportation later. The transportation part doesn’t have to be worked out at three, instantly. Relax you bitch.

Medication has been spotty this week. I (re?)noticed a pattern. Whenever I get to the point of using sufficient medication that I actually feel good instead of having just the edge of the pain taken away I punish myself for days with under medicating so I feel a lot more pain. I’m not supposed to be using pot like a pot head. I’m not supposed to be trying to get high. I’m supposed to be just managing the pain.

I think I am too much of a Puritan. My sister told me I had ancestors on the Mayflower (Not her–different fathers.). Maybe it is too deeply buried within my DNA? I can’t stop believing that I must suffer. Anything that feels good MUST BE BAD.

I have been very consistent lately about giving up my morning “off time” to wake up with the kids. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. On one hand I’m more frazzled and I’m not taking a compensatory amount of time later. On the other hand… we are getting along better. When the kids open their eyes in the morning to me in their bed smiling at them… the whole day is easier. The first thing they hear every day is, “Good morning. I’m so glad to see you again. I’m looking forward to our wonderful day together.”

They smile back and say, “Me too!” then grab my neck and pull me close. Then I get a sleepy “Good morning.”

Sometimes it feels weird knowing that I do this as a parenting gesture in large part to make up for the hole in my heart. No one was ever happy to see me during my childhood. I was a terrible, unwanted burden.

I completely support mothers who need to abort children born of rape. I wish my mother hadn’t allowed her religion to force her to keep me. I was not wanted. And they made my life hell.

Now I have something different. It is so very nice. But it’s a lot of emotional and mental and physical work. And I get really tired.

When I’m tired it is harder to be consistent. When I’m scared I start screaming. That’s consistent.

Calli has asked me to stop raising my voice at her when I’m repeating orders/requests/whatever you want to call them. Demands? She told me (while making eye contact so this is serious as a fucking heart attack) “I will be able to listen to you better if you get close to me and whisper in my ear that it is important.”

If a three year old can so clearly ask for the kind of interaction she needs then I am a fucking asshole if I ignore the request. This is how I teach them ownership of their body and consent and boundaries.

I’ve been working on it. I kind of feel that I should create some accountability tool for myself. Maybe another sheet of paper on the wall. I can ask Calli to help me decide whether I approached her correctly or not and we can decide if I get a mark in the “right behavior” column or the “not so right” column. It will also help her clarify which aspects of the raised voice stuff are a problem for her.

My kids are not going to grow up thinking adults are perfect and kids need to bend to the adults around them. Ha. Ha. Ha. No. We want to live together. We need to adapt to one another.

I’m happy about the upcoming social stuff. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed that people are agreeing so delightedly to come to my events. My RSVPs fill up fast. (Err, RSVP for Easter if you are coming… not many spaces left.)

I have had something like six people in the last two weeks get really excited when I confirm that I’m hosting Easter again. “OH! You throw the best parties!”

I do?

Oh.

Well that’s awesome. How do I do that? What makes them “the best” for you? Because I spend my parties in kind of an anxious hell hoping I don’t offend everyone and run them off such that they never want to come back.

And yet I keep hosting. Irony.

I don’t seem to be running people off. I mean… I do… but I don’t. I run some people off.

I feel very guilty when I admit to myself that I run off people who need things from me that I can’t give. My anxiety and shame around not being able to meet their needs makes me angry and cruel. It isn’t my fault I can’t meet their needs. It isn’t their fault I can’t meet their needs. It isn’t their fault they have needs. I have needs they can’t meet either. But I get mean. This is a major character flaw of mine.

I don’t do this with people who have small needs I can easily meet. If people need something from me that is going to be an up to five hour commitment one time… I love doing that. That helps me feel like I am part of a community and I’m useful and all kinds of good feelings. When someone starts to need 3-10 hours of work from me every fucking week in order to have a relationship with them…

I get mean. I am awful. I am not a nice person. I don’t know how to have healthy limits without being an asshole. I’m not making excuses or justifying my behavior. It’s wrong.

I have been talking to a friend a lot about how different it is in America versus other more crowded countries. Americans apologize for bumping into someone. In China you would never say any word other than “sorry”. So they don’t bother.

I spend a lot of time apologizing for taking up space. I spend a lot of time apologizing for being inconvenient. I spend a lot of time apologizing for not being able to do/be what someone else wants/needs.

I am sorry I am so inadequate. I clearly see that I am.

Right now I’m having anxiety attacks because some folks are mad at me. Folks I don’t really need to “care” about per se. They aren’t my friends. They are the close friends of one of my friends. They are mad at me because my vomiting on Friday caused them some inconvenience. I have apologized profusely for inconveniencing them. I’m sorry they were brought into the situation by our mutual friend. But yeah. I’m the bitch.

And I feel consumed with shame and I have for days. I inconvenienced them. I stole hours of their life and made them about me when they already kind of hate me. I’m really sorry. I did apologize. I have not been acknowledged and that is what I assumed would happen.

I get into these situations. I’m sorry I inconvenienced you. I have very little control over when I vomit. I’m just glad I didn’t make a mess on my floor.

But it impacted your life. And you wish I didn’t impact your life. So you are angry with me because I popped up and existed in a way you couldn’t tune out.

I’m really sorry.

This is more or less why I avoid that whole segment of the “community”. I don’t really like feeling like I am doing something wrong by breathing in a way they can hear.

So yeah. I don’t think I will teach with my friend again. There is a bunch of stress in the lead up and if I get sick there is lots of acrimony, blame, and anger. Not from my friend. He was mellow about the situation. But he didn’t feel qualified to handle the class alone and those are the other people he has in his life to turn to for support.

Yeah well, me hanging around near them feels like an abusive family reunion where they all wish I would drop dead. The sooner the better.

More one of them than the other but… well that’s not a story I’ll write down yet. Maybe a few more decades. It being thirteen years ago still isn’t long enough. Some day.

It’s not all her fault. I was a bitch. But man. Oh man. Ok. Shiny change of topic.

I’ve been having a lot of feelings all week over that. I was doing great last week until I started vomiting on Friday.

I associate vomiting with letting people down and being a bad and weak person. When I get sick my association is that I will also be in trouble for some reason. I am inconvenient when I’m sick.

Noah is working hard to change some of these patterns. He’s nice when I’m sick. He does a lot of telling me that it isn’t my fault and I didn’t do anything bad. I feel really pathetic for needing it. But I do. And he does it. I am so grateful for him as a partner.

I like teaching though. I will look for more opportunities to teach. Just no co-teaching in a situation potentially wrapped in shame-inducing trauma. When I had to cancel a class as a professional teacher… no one made me write a formal apology. I’d like to go back to that kind of treatment. Thanks.

My running mate wants me to stop thinking of writing as a hobby and start thinking of it as a business. I’ve sold enough forking copies of my book that I can stop pretending I’m not a real writer. I shouldn’t have to pay for my book editing and publishing stuff out of my “fun money”. It’s not my hobby. Noah doesn’t take his business expenses out of his fun money. It’s a separate category in the budget. It’s not very healthy for me to demean myself in this fashion.

I will severely limit my career as a writer if I can’t employ an editor until I save up enough fun money by denying myself everything. Denial as a full-time lifestyle in a household that otherwise has a lot of privilege… that’s kinda self-hating. It’s being weird. It’s unhealthy.

Why do women do this to themselves? My writing “doesn’t count”. It’s just… something I do. Like the laundry. And when there are expenses for it, well, they are “mine”, right?

I developed a lot of habits over the years of having the annuities and living with men. What I could have was very strictly limited to what I had in that $1200 every month. I didn’t over extend. And now I have no real personal income and… I’m flailing. The $100/month of fun money is… not enough. Not for me to feel like I can track all of “my” spending separately from household stuff.

We just have a clothes budget. It is for all four of us. If someone gets something then the other three have to wait a while. *shrug* But it changes how I think of things. Although… when I bought the pretty clothes in Portland I took a big chunk out of my personal money. I spent more than $500 on two items of clothing. It didn’t seem fair to make my family give up that large a share of the clothes budget on me getting two items. So more than $300 came out of my fun money. That seemed fair to me.

When the kids really get a big clothes splurge… it goes in the “kid” section even though mostly they come out of the main category.

The kids have a big section of the budget that is amorphously used for classes, home school supplies. books, toys, gear of whatever kind (was baby carriers and diapers now it has moved on to bikes), and rarely clothes.

A long time ago I consciously went out and started spending time with older men. They could talk to me about money. How they got it. What they did with it. I made my own judgments about who lived in which kind of house and who had how much money. I’ve always been tactless as fuck. I would point blank ask them how much cash they had in the bank and whether or not they had investments.

I didn’t understand most of what they told me. But I remembered it. It’s kind of funny to have little memories float up now and again as I’m trying new things with investing.

Be sure you are right, then go ahead. I will, Davey. I will research and research and research and I’ll figure out what I think is right. Of course I know I could always be wrong. Some minute change in my life might make all of my careful risk calculations moot and irrelevant.

I have no way of predicting that. So I have to just act and hope for the best.

Save.

Debt is evil.

Make your money work for you.

Pay yourself first.

Sometimes I think I turn to these mantras as the only way I have of blocking out all the voices in my head who want me to think I am stupid and a bitch and I should just stop inconveniencing them by breathing.

I’ve been really stunned by the intensity of my suicidal ideation this week.

I also haven’t been doing my daily check in calls with my friend. She’s really busy on a project. She’ll be back in a week or so. I support and respect her participation in this event and that means she has no time to think about me. I am a big girl and I’ll keep my big girl panties on.

It is interesting how suicidal ideation is not always about depression. I don’t feel like I am feeling depression symptoms. This is more on the anxious/overwhelmed side. Manic is a word people like. But I’m not… doing anything manic.

Just out of the blue driving on the freeway I see a weird opening where it would be possible to turn and be hit by a semi-truck and I want to do it more than I want anything in the world. I want in that moment to feel a lot of pain and then die. I want it as much as my heart wants to beat. It is immediate and visceral and all encompassing.

I have to breathe very lightly and lift my hands so I have a very light guiding pressure on the steering wheel. Sometimes I get off the freeway to breathe and stretch my neck and remind myself, “Not today.”

The reasons I don’t like driving are varied and complicated and… I’m willing to bet that someday I will not be able to drive any more. It is part of the reason I am as strongly motivated to make friends near my house as I am. Walking will always be a good idea. Forever. For my health.

Thanks, Pam, for letting me write this morning.

My head feels better. I feel a lot less shame. Writing it down helps.

I don’t need to feel shame because other people would prefer that their world didn’t overlap with mine. I could reject our mutual friend so that they never have to hear about me again, but given that he values his relationship with me that seems kind of awful.

But I think I should have different boundaries. Still working on where those need to be. Boundaries are tricky things. You only find out you have them when they are transgressed. Ha. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CLASS. And what I got out of it is: I need to make sure I never have to deal with your extended friends again. Awesome.

That’s a lesson I can learn.

They aren’t going to like me. No matter what. Ever. I need to not care about that. They are allowed to have their experience of the world where I am… something. I don’t know what. I shouldn’t speculate. I would surely overstate my importance. I certainly don’t suspect that either of them while away hours just hating me. I’m not that important.

So I don’t need to feel shame because they are feeling irritation. That’s not something I need to take on. I gave an apology. I offered restitution to the best of my ability. That’s what I’ve got. Move on. I didn’t vomit on purpose.

And when I feel shame for my social behavior I rush home to assure myself that I am managing my money properly. No one is going to be able to force me to move. I’m allowed to stay here. I’m jumping through all the hoops that actually matter for my life. I don’t have to care that they dislike me. There won’t be any consequences.

And then I can stop thinking about it.

Thank you internet. That’s the end of my confession for today. I have some dirt to play with and a fence to sand. Tomorrow a bunch of little kids are going to come paint a few sections. We are adding more year by year. Drips and drabs. It’s really fun.

Saturday is the Girl Genius Volume 1 read aloud. Email me for details if you want to come hear Noah do all the hilarious voices.

The best things in life are free.

5 Replies

Noah and I were talking about my feeling that I don’t contribute enough. He disagrees, of course. He was fine with rattling off all the things I do to “contribute”. Yes my dear Mrs. Lincoln but how was the play?

If I can make our investments grow by even 5% a year I will eventually outpace Noah at earning money. Even though I feel he is so much “smarter” than me. I think he is more marketable. He has a much better memory. My memory comes and goes and surprises me. I can’t just memorize long blocks of text the way he does.

I know things he doesn’t, though. Things that do have value in the world even if they do not directly translate into me receiving a salary.

I should pay more attention to the investments because a)I have time b)I have motivation and c)having access to this kind of money is a gift, luxury, and privilege. With great privilege comes great responsibility.

The thing is, there is this balance I’m dealing with. The earlier I put money into investing the faster it will grow and the larger it will get. I could significantly out earn the benefit I get from over paying my mortgage. But having the house paid off is such a psychological thing for me that.. No. I’m not going to reduce my mortgage so I can “play” with investing faster. That’s not for me.

But I keep seeing the phrase “Even $100 a month can multiply to…”. I’m investing more than $100/month. Maxing out Noah’s 401k, maxing out an IRA in my name, $100/month to Shanna’s 529 and $350 to Calli’s account, and now $100 into a brokerage account that I’m picking. Gulp. We’ll see, right?

It is hard having this series of revelations, is that what being an adult means? You realize in layers oh shit–I’m also responsible for this other stuff that I never even knew existed.

I think that the plants help. Responsibility is seeming different now that I perceive it in terms of other living things will die if I don’t pay attention. It changes the perspective. My cat is also much more loving now that I take better care of her. Now that I am less neglectful.

I don’t think my self worth should come from what I do. But I believe that a lot of my life long safety will depend on my ability to create that safety for myself. I don’t have a fall back. I have the security that Noah and I build together.

It is no better or worse than anyone else has in the end. Families have problems. “Support” comes and goes. Your parents die. Medical problems come up.

What does taking care of yourself mean? What does providing for the future mean? Holy shit. How am I going to make sure I have a place to hang out when I’m old and not up for doing a lot of work? How will I eat?

Will I get old? Will I get cancer? Will I kill myself?

I’d really like to see what this house will look like when I’m sixty. It’s a deeply selfish wish. I have to not die even if I have no use to anyone else if I want to see it.

I noticed yesterday that I haven’t made progress on any of the suicide books since I was last experiencing ideation. It’s been a nice break.

I want to relate the change to being more fully medicated but that isn’t it. I have periods where I am suicidal even with medicating. The cycles are different. I think obsessing about money is a better distraction from feeling suicidal than most other tactics I’ve tried.

Tommy’s birthday didn’t trigger me this year. It was a decent day. I kind of talked to him all day long. I told him about my kids. I felt a little sad but ok.

Sissy’s birthday in January was harder but I still didn’t feel worthless.

This is such a deep puddle. Splash splash. Go eat breakfast.

Suicidal ideation

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Suicidal ideation is what happens when your brain experiences too much pain and doesn’t know how to cope any more. In many ways it is the “lazy” way out. The more suicides happen close to a given individual the more likely that person is to see suicide as a reasonable response to a given set of circumstances.

My grandmother, father, and brother all committed suicide. Overdose on prescription meds, carbon monoxide poisoning, and self-immolation being their respective choices.

When I was going through my laundry list of traumas on top of the fairly severe neglect I experienced during crucial developmental stages I was not allowed to cry about what happened to me. I was required to be stoic. If I cried or exhibited obvious signs of sadness I was beaten. “To give me something to cry about” because clearly what had already happened to me wasn’t enough to deserve tears.

I regret that this set of life experiences led me to the point where as an adult it is very hard for me to cope with psychological distress without suicidal ideation.

I know it “isn’t an option” at this stage of my life. But luckily I have a husband who understands that there is a very high likelihood that when this phase is over that ban will not be in effect any more. It means a lot to me that there is at least one person who understands and says he won’t be mad at me. He will be sad, of course. But if some day I do that at least I won’t have the karmic debt of betraying him.

Fifteen more years.

Yesterday while we were walking Shanna made a comment about how it was her fault that I was mean sometimes. That led to a long and intense conversation where I said over and over again that *I* am the only one responsible for my behavior. Not anyone else. It is never EVER a kid’s fault if a grown up does things that a grown up shouldn’t do. She said, “But the chemicals in your brain make it harder for you and then I’m not nice so it is my fault.” NO NO NO. Yes, the chemicals in my brain do make it harder for me. That’s true. But it is still my responsibility to work as hard as I need to work in order to be nice to my kids. If I slip and do something mean it is ALL MY FAULT. It is never a child’s fault when an adult does something mean. Never. Never. Never.

I told her it is like when Calli bites her and she doesn’t bite back because she wants to show Calli how to be a good sister. Sometimes Calli makes a mistake. Being a good big sister means that you tell her it was a mistake and you try to show her how she should be acting, not that you turn around and do the same mean thing.

I told Shanna that it goes double and more for grown ups. Grown ups don’t get to blame bad behavior on children. If a grown up blames a kid for their behavior the grown up is doing something wrong and immature and inappropriate. We can all only be responsible for our own behavior.

Just like if Shanna or Calli do something I don’t like it isn’t all my fault. They made a choice. I don’t have to like it.

I was raised in a world where shit rolls downhill and it is always the fault of the youngest person in the room when something happens. My children will not grow up in such a world.

I’ve been having a pill a day for a few days now. That is smoothing out a lot of the rough edges, but I’m not stoned and controlling my behavior and ideation is really hard. In order to just get rid of the pervasive negative thoughts I have to be pretty stoned.

I don’t know how I am going to find balance on this. I think there is the non-zero possibility that I will find a way to earn money of my own over the next few years and eventually just be ok with being extremely stoned for most of the rest of my life. That may be the way I avoid killing myself. I’m trying to feel ok about that but I’m not there yet. I still feel disgusting and like I should be shunned and punished for being so dirty.

A woman I don’t know posts a lot of porn on her tumblr page. I’m cool with that. A lot of it is really hot. Yesterday she posted a picture that was one of those animated gif things. (I find them kind of creepy.) When I looked at the picture I could tell that other people would be fixated on what was happening with the genitals. I looked at the woman’s face, like I do. Her lips appear to be saying, “Please stop” over and over and over with that frenetic animation that gif’s have.

I am extremely supportive of adults wanting to do consensual rape play. Many healthy and whole human beings have the desire to role play rape and I think that is normal and acceptable.

But rape play done as pornography where people can end up with a singular shot from the scene that looks… entirely like rape instead of like rape play makes me feel very sad.

I feel very sad about how rape is normalized in the world. It’s just a valid way for guys to get off. But thanks to not being very stoned in weeks I get to wake up to horrible dreams of being raped. Now in my dreams I like to cut the throats of rapists. It doesn’t actually improve my mood when I wake up that I am now just as much of a monster as any of them in my head.

I feel small, selfish, and bad.

Suicidal ideation is very selfish. It is about looking for a way to stop hurting.

I used to do bdsm as a way of looking for catharsis. When someone is beating me I’m allowed to scream and cry and process some of what I store in my body. (I’m a big fan of Babette Rothchild’s work on trauma–The Body Remembers.) I have a lot of physical and emotional pain stored in my body that I have never been allowed to cry about. I have never been allowed to deal with the physical reality of all the things that happened to me.

After a while I stopped thinking that bdsm was a valid way of attaining the catharsis I need. Too many DMs stop my scenes because they don’t like the screaming. Public play spaces are for people who are doing light, fluffy sexy things. Not for people who want to genuinely experience awful things and scream about their pain.

I mean, I have been crying for years but I haven’t been crying for decades yet. I didn’t start really crying about these things until Uncle Bob died. Before that I would have bursts of crying randomly that weren’t very soothing or cathartic. They were the smallest increments of blowing off steam I could manage in order to not kill myself that day. I have always cried from stress. My sister spent my entire childhood being nasty to me for crying out of frustration. It wasn’t very cathartic.

After Uncle Bob died I finally had a time and a space where I was *allowed* to cry and cry and cry and cry for hours upon hours for days. Thanks to my friends showing up to take care of my kids for a week. Even when I went to Jenny after my father and brother died I cried a little, but not like I’ve been crying for the past few years. Not in a looking for catharsis way.

Suicide is about being overwhelmed with pain that you can’t handle. I’m scared about how much pain I carry around. I put a brave face on it, mostly. Most of the people who know me will see anger more than they will see sadness or pain. I do that on purpose.

Being vulnerable is scary. Most of the people I have ever tried to be vulnerable with are… gone. It’s my fault and I know it. If only I hadn’t been so intense maybe they might have wanted to keep knowing me. But I’m too much of an asshole. I have no one to blame but myself.

That doesn’t really leave me feeling like there is a lot I can do other than die if I want to stop hurting people. No one else is to blame for my reactions or emotions or behavior. It’s my fault. If I am scary or violent it is my fault.

It doesn’t matter how much people lie to me. They are “doing their best” and it isn’t ok for me to react with anger. I am allowed to withdraw and that’s it. And if I withdraw it is my fault I don’t get to have relationships with people. I chose to back out because I couldn’t handle the trade. That is about my failure, not anyone else’s.

I would rather be disappointed by the truth than lied to. The truth is that no one other than Noah is ever going to show up and want to be supportive of me with all my conflicting, complicated, layered issues. I’m a lot of work to know. It isn’t worth the trade for anyone else. Even Noah has distinct limits about what he can and can’t do or handle. I have to respect those limits. If I have more needs than he can handle that is my problem and not his.

People who get support are people who were born into a support network I don’t have. It’s not their fault they get it. It’s just luck. Do you know who “gets over” PTSD? People who have a large support network to help them process their grief and trauma and pain. People who validate them and tell them that it is absolutely right for them to have the feelings they have. Do you know who doesn’t get over it? People who are told to get over it.

Life is pain, Highness. But the way you process it and move on is by acknowledging it and thinking that it is pain and you need to process it.

Maybe if I had more support to give I would be able to find people who would be able to give me more support. But I’m empty.

I will raise my kids. They will hopefully internalize my many lectures about how other peoples behavior is not their fault. They are not my support units even though they are starting to do more chores. That’s pretty cool.

I need to find a way to be enough for myself. That may mean giving absolutely nothing to anyone outside of my house. I have a lot of need. It isn’t anyone’s fault any more it just is. I have to bear that whether I like it or not. It just is.

Less than six hours to a doctor appointment. I hope this will result in less pain in my body. I hope that less pain in my body will result in less suicidal ideation.

Hope springs eternal.

irony.

1 Reply

I don’t miss the irony in my feeling suicidal as a reaction to worrying that my children have no where to go if I die. It’s a coping method that developed a long time ago. Changing it is very hard.

You just keep going

Do the best you can

Category Archives: suicide

Problems and complications

Drips and drabs

This sucks.

This week is crazy.

So many big feelings.

Clarification

Circle of Women

Don’t like my mood? Hold your breath.

Not good.

So much happens

That was an informative dinner.

drowning in my own bile

Some days are like that.

Shooting.

Money, money, money by the pound.

Violence

The best things in life are free.

Suicidal ideation

irony.