Tag Archives: self-analysis

Awesome weekend + Group Identity

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Saturday I did Christmas shopping in the morning while Noah gamed then we had a chore filled afternoon and a mellow evening. It was really nice. Sunday I had a great morning with farmer’s market and dim sum. Then I went up to the city by myself. This was our first lengthy mommy-time-off. It worked out fantastically well in my opinion. 🙂 I got to go to the graduation of a wonderful friend from a program that has been very important to her. I was happy and proud to be a witness to her recognition. Yay!

This was from a leather organization and there were several speakers. Five total. The first was a guy I have known for a few years and it was about what I would expect. He’s a really cool guy and I know how important this program is for him. I’m really happy he is so successful. The second was a guy I have seen at cons variously. I wanna talk about him a little.

He (I’m preserving anonymity consciously) is one of the best speakers I have seen in or out of the leather community. Let me tell you–he can sell me any kool-aid he wants. I was ready to line up at the pitcher when he was done talking. He has a beautiful voice and a compelling personality. I believe that the reason he is so compelling for me (and maybe for other people too, it’s hard to judge this sort of thing) is that he is completely at peace with himself and the world. He is a Leather Man. It has helped him feel his place in the universe. He doesn’t judge anyone else for what they do or don’t do. He doesn’t seem to feel superior because he is a Leather Man, he just feels that he is being as true to himself as possible by walking that path. I admire the degree to which he is self-actualized. I admire him the way I admire many people of faith.

Two of the other speakers were exactly what I would expect from this sort of ceremony–friendly and loving towards the people they know but not otherwise extraordinary. Good, solid people with friendly advice. They made me smile. Then we got to the last speaker. He very much meant well and the affection towards him in the room was palpable. Unfortunately, he had exactly the sort of tone that bothers me. Whereas the other major speaker had specifically said that we (I surmised the leather community) shouldn’t have enemies, this person encouraged us/them thinking. He talked about how the graduates are joining the ranks of those who “get” leather. I believe that I understand what he was trying to do and if I were part of that group I would probably smile and nod. But I’m not. And I felt alienated. And when I feel that way about a group I no longer have any interest in joining. I don’t want to do the us/them thing.

I think that this sort of us/them thing exists to fill the same hole churches used to fill. People want a sense of identity with a group and that used to be religion. Honestly, I feel that these sorts of groups are religious in nature whether they mention God or not. There are many groups out there that fall into this category in my mind: Journeyman, AA, Landmark, HAI, Masons, Burning Man, hell even Weight Watchers.

You know what? I don’t want to belong. I don’t want to be a joiner. I don’t want to need a community to set my sense of self. I’m thrilled for my friends who are happier in these communities, but I don’t want to be one of them. It’s an interesting thing to think about.

Families

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Today we went to a graduation party for some of my kidlets. It was interesting for a variety of reasons. See, they are a couple and they have been dating for more than three years now but I can’t remember for sure exactly how long. So their family’s tend to combine forces and host stuff together as if they are already a long-term couple. They are given as much respect and support in their relationship choice as most adult couples I know and noticeably more than others. Their respective family’s were both extremely polite and friendly to Noah and I. They were curious who we were first, then enthusiastic because obviously I must be pretty amazing if the kids wanted me there. 😀

Watching them all interact was fascinating. They were nice to each other. There were obviously a few places where personalities are not a perfect match but people took a deep breath, looked at the sky, then shook their heads. That was the beginning and end of all the conflict. I don’t believe that they never have conflict at all… but my family has trouble passing up golden opportunities to fight. It was neat to be around. I liked that people made an effort to get along because that’s what you do with family. I liked that by and large everyone seemed to like everyone else.

And I liked finding out that the girl in question has decided to pursue a career in teaching due to my influence. I liked hearing both of the moms tell me how much I mattered to their kids. When I was getting ready to leave ST I commented to my fellow teachers that I was surprised by how many kids said they would keep in touch. I was told not to count on that because kids promise that all the time. Well, I certainly heard that promise from far more kids than have kept in touch; however, I feel like the ones I really want to keep in touch with are doing it.

So for the people who have told me that I am wasting my education by staying home–no I’m not. I did wonderful things with my education. Now I’m doing a different wonderful thing with my education.

Not all hormones

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Today has been hard for me in a couple of different ways. The day started out so well. Angela showed up and made breakfast and that was awesome. Then we were all highly productive for a couple of hours. Then stuff started going down hill triggering a lot of trust issues for me. Punctuality issues. Frustration with people. I spent a lot of the later part of today being alternately very angry and very sad. Couple of times I started crying and couldn’t sit down for a good long cry for various reasons. I’m sure it was partially hormonal, but it really wasn’t all about being pregnant. It was about disconnect between how I see the world and obligations and how other people see the world and obligations.

Noah said something today that is making me think: “You treat manners/etiquette as a second rate way of enforcing boundaries.” He’s right. I treat things as being about basic manners when they are really about my personal boundaries. I did something risky for me this weekend and it went really badly in general. I’m not going to take that risk again anytime soon. The potential payoff isn’t worth the consequences of things not going well. Not 100% badly, but bad enough that I am going to remember this for a long time.

I guess learning is an important part of living and all.

Trust (apparently part two because I’ve used this subject recently)

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Every so often Noah goes through and rereads my archive. I think this is a bit frightening as I know how much I have written. When I notice that he is doing this I tend to copycat. Honestly, I shouldn’t. I should simply smile and nod and let him read because he gets something out of it. I don’t get good things out of it. I get weird and insecure. I find things he said years ago and I want to point at them and say, “See! You said that! That’s why I get upset!” But that is an awful thing to do. Noah is allowed to change his mind and grow as a person and do different things now. I don’t need to take previous statements about “poly is non-negotiable” (dude has actually said it. I could point at dates.) and treat them as currently true. Because it isn’t currently true. Noah doesn’t feel that way at this point. Given how his life worked then I can see why it wasn’t negotiable then, but a lot has changed. I need to trust him.

Not quite two years ago Noah and I went through a rough patch. I was really awful to him. I did some things I’m not very proud of. If a good friend of mine came to me and said they were being treated the way I was treating Noah I would tell them to run, not walk, to get out of the relationship. But he trusted me and he let me try to change things. He trusted that I loved him enough to work through what I was doing and stop hurting him. I hope his trust was well placed, I have certainly worked very hard at stopping that behavior. He trusts me.

Trust is hard and scary. In a relationship it’s so multilayered. I have to trust him and he has to trust me and we both have to be able to trust ourselves. Noah has certainly done everything possible to earn my trust. I don’t know that I have done as much to earn his trust, but he gives it anyway. I think the hardest part is trusting myself. Part of being able to trust myself has to come from knowing myself well. Right now in order to behave in the way that Noah deserves I’m going to stop reading his old lj stuff. There is nothing wrong with anything he wrote and I’m glad that record of his life exists. But I internalize things that are not about me and then create problems around that. That is something that *I* do that is not his fault or really about anything he has said. I’m not going to do it this time. I’m going to trust that I made the right decision in having a relationship with him and that he is completely telling me the truth because that is what he does. He tells me the truth when it will make me angry, when it hurts me, and when I would really rather he lie. So I have every reason to trust him and to trust my faith in him.

I picked a good man. I picked a man who is willing to work through just about any level of hardness to stay with me. It doesn’t matter what was said five years ago or three years ago. What matters is what he has said consistently since the day we got married. He has lived up to his promises. Ok. Breathe. And no being a buggy weird bitch when he gets home.

{insecurity} Non-monogamy

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Attention! This is my shit! I’m not blaming this on anyone else! That said…

I showed up in the bdsm community almost 9 years ago. In that time I have been mostly monogamous (I still think that “girls don’t count” is not the same thing as monogamy), monogamous for a brief period under duress, polyamorous, and slutty. Even during the monogamous period play with other people was never completely forbidden. It was limited, but it happened anyway. Throughout basically all of this period knowing that my partner wanted to have sex and/or play with other people has been really really awful for me. If I added up all the time I have spent crying and feeling like I am not enough I would probably be able to point at months and months of my life that I can’t get back. Why? Why do I keep doing this?

I have always felt that if you are going to be part of “the scene” then that entails certain behaviors: namely, that you aren’t really actually completely monogamous. I’m not sure I have ever known a couple who really and truly had no contact with other people. Maybe my memory is being fuzzy. I know a lot of “mostly monogamous” or “polyplayful” people, but that is still allowing a lot of fuzzy borders. The fuzzy borders are really hard for me.

At this point I have reached the conclusion that I continue to play with other people and engage in that kind of contact because that is one of the primary ways I get people to like me. I kind of wonder if part of the reason I have “phased out” as a bottom in the view of most of the community is because I’m not an easy bottom to play with so I assume people don’t want to bother with me and I don’t ask. It’s really easy to stay popular and liked if you are a good top though, and I am. I feel like I do a lot of it because I want people to like me. That may actually be why I’m ok telling guys that I don’t want to top them and not girls. I’m more confident that guys will like me anyway without me having to do as much for them but girls seem like I have to earn their liking me.

I’ve always liked fantasizing about doing things with lots of people. It’s a mainstay of my masturbatory life (ha! There’s TMI for you.) but when I actually do it I don’t tend to get as much out of it. When I am single and playing with lots of people I believe that I end up with a mostly neutral reaction after playing–it’s fun, but there isn’t much that impacts me positively or negatively long-term. When I’m in a relationship I feel massive guilt and ambivalence for a while to come. Opening up my relationship with Tom to include sex with other people was really hard for me. At that point I think the increased amount of sex was something that was a beneficial thing because I desperately needed that chemical fix, but I felt guilty. I felt like I was betraying him. I think the fact that we had frankly discussed before that point that the relationship wasn’t likely to be “forever” was the only reason I could do it. I was already starting to pull away from him and from the relationship. I still don’t know if that was really a good thing to do or not, but I really wasn’t ready to just walk away that early. Seeing as the last six months were actually pretty good overall I feel like I didn’t do anything too awful. I don’t know if he agrees or not and he probably won’t tell me. 🙂

But anyway. So I like to think about doing things with other people–that doesn’t lead to guilt or feeling bad. But when I actually follow through I tend to feel varying degrees of bad. I played with two different women at TNGcon. One of them did a little bit of decorative bondage on me–that wasn’t too bad for lingering guilt. It was mellow and emotionally distant so I didn’t internalize much. With the other chica I tied her to a chair and was fully intending on just punching/hitting her but she made it very clear she wanted sexual play. So I ended up fisting her. I’ve had a hard time with that. I’m not angry with her or blaming her or saying anything bad about her. I’ve had a hard time with knowing that I did that. I’ve struggled with whether it counts as sex given that I didn’t really want to have sex with her. I did it because she wanted me to and not really because that was something I was jonesing for doing.

But I came home and bragged about it. I know. On one hand I was glad that I got to feel like someone wanted me and I really like the feeling that someone wants me. I don’t get that same kind of “oooooh he/she likes me!” from a steady partner. But I also have felt pretty uncomfortable with having done it. Longer term I’ve realized it was a bad decision. I have tried so hard for so long to maintain my identity of being a sexual outlaw that I think I do things just to maintain that identity that I don’t actually want to do. It is important to me to be the kind of person who does outrageous things so I don’t pay attention to how I feel when I do them. Cause you know what–I tend to feel like crap. I don’t talk about that part much though. I rarely even do a good job of identifying to myself what I’m feeling. But it’s there.

Then we get to my partners playing with other people. I can’t count the number of nights I have sobbed through when Tom or Noah have been out with other people. Hell, there were a few dates where I was off with Erik for the weekend and Noah was on a date when I would sneak off to the bathroom and cry because Noah was on a date and that made me feel awful. How is that for lame? (This isn’t to say that my relationship with Erik wasn’t good–it was. I’m glad I dated him. I’m even more glad we are friends now. He’s a great guy.) But I massively do that “primary” bonding thing. I have never really been able to split loyalties well. Whoever I’m ‘with’ as my primary is the one I am focused on. I have tried pretty hard to split that and I suck at it. I feel bad. I feel like I am hurting everyone involved even when they are all pretty cheerful about the split. (I don’t think it would have been possible to date two guys at once who are more mellow than Noah and Erik and have them still have a pulse.) Does this mean that I have never loved more than one person at a time? No. I certainly have, but I don’t split focus well without feeling horrible and terrible about it. There is at least one person out there in the cosmos who I love pretty madly but I’ve never really been able to make a relationship work there and I’ve given up trying. It’s ok. The friendship is still good.

I don’t know how to not feel terrible about my partners playing with other people. This has been an issue with Tom, Noah, James, and Puppy. Much less of an issue with James or Puppy–but there were still bad spells with them. This play can be but doesn’t have to be sexual. I mean, Tom usually tied people up with all their clothes on and never even kissed them–I still felt awful. He wasn’t doing anything threatening to our relationship in the slightest and he was certainly not breaking rules. Noah has done everything possible to earn my trust and I still feel like him going off with other people for platonic bondage practice is hugely invalidating to me and our relationship. (This is complicated by my own body limitations and issues at the moment.) I’ve given him permission to do it though. I encouraged it. I even suggested it. Why? Because that is “what I should do.” I’m big on doing what I should do even when I hate it and it makes me feel like shit.

Despite the fact that I am “not a real masochist” I think I like doing the things I “should do” that will make me feel terrible. The fact that I feel so bad about doing the things I think I should do validates my overall shitty opinion of myself. I shouldn’t be so upset. I shouldn’t feel possessive. I shouldn’t feel jealous. But I am. And I do. And I do. So I sit and I cry. And I don’t place many limits on my partners even though I would kind of like to. I feel like if I issue an ultimatum then I deserve to lose. If my partners wanted me enough, if I were enough, then they just wouldn’t want to go play with other people. Then I wouldn’t have to place limits. But I’m not enough and I have to accept that. And part of how I accept that is pretending that it’s all fine and I want to go play with other people too.

But I think I should stop. Other than in the realm of fantasy I don’t really want to play with other people. I feel bad about myself when I do. It’s time to be nicer to me and stop pushing me to do this.

Noah, after listening to me talk about some of this came to the conclusion that he should stop playing with other people. The problem is, now I feel like he is doing it under some sort of duress. I feel like he would really like to still do it. He’s pretty clear that being with me is much more important than any amount of play with other people, but I still don’t believe it. I’m scared. I’m scared to trust him that he is doing what he wants. I’m scared that if I do start to trust this and believe in it then down the road he will change his mind and that will hurt so much. If I hold on to the distrust now then I won’t be hurt as much later if he decides he does want it. Then I will get to be proven right that I should have shitty self-esteem because see–I’m not enough.

I don’t know how to win on this one.

Yay productive and House Guest Information

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Today I have done a bunch of reading. For the record: Northrop Frye may have one or two points that are interesting, but in the main he is a twat. The other critics I read today bothered me far less. I have also folded the laundry, made the bed (Arbus–I don’t know why you like making the bed, I hate it), cleaned up the kitchen after a weekend of use, and did a bunch of random picking up to allow the house to once again look “staged”–aka, boring. I’m all proud of me.

I have also been thinking about how I want to do more actual cleaning this week, partially in preparation for the open houses next weekend and partially because we will have a fabulous house guest. Very excited about hosting Brehen. 🙂

Which brings me to my point about house guests. I have had a number of people (it’s got to be close to 20 at this point) mention coming to visit us in Pittsburgh. This is awesome, wonderful, thrilling news for me to hear–but it also freaks me out and terrifies me. I’ll explain why. I am massively territorial about my space. I want things to be set exactly so, cleaned exactly so, and I want to feel like *I* have more history in my space than anyone else. This leads to all kinds of weird things about guests in my house in general. It’s part of the reason that I freak out about hosting events. I have slowly been coming to understand the depth and breadth of my neurosis on this topic as time goes by and more people want me to host parties/weekend stays/etc. I am not complaining about people wanting to visit me or stay with me or what have you. Really, I’m not. What I am saying is that in order for me to feel fully comfortable with that I need to be respectful of my own needs for boundaries.

Which brings me to the blunt part. I don’t want to host anyone for an entire weekend for the first six months we live in Pittsburgh. I may make an exception if there is some kind of emergency situation–but it would take something pretty damn extreme. I know that sounds like a long time, but it probably won’t feel that way to me. I want to settle in to my house slowly and feel like there is no pressure around needing to entertain anyone. I will also be settling into seeing how things work with the Lizard because if things go according to plan, the end of the six month period will mean the Lizard is only about eight months old. After that six month period I will probably be missing people like mad and I will be begging people to come stay with me. It’s just very important to me that I have it. I’ve told a number of people this individually, but I think that a couple of people felt like it was a personal rejection and it really isn’t. If I don’t want *you* to come stay with me ever I’ll bloody well tell you that. 🙂

So if you tell me “I want to come visit you” anytime soon I may cringe and say “Not until spring.”

Oh… unless you mean coming to stay at the Disaster House. Feel free to ask for that. I have all kinds of feelings about this house that mean I am not real attached to who stays here. 🙂

Body image and sex and societal programming, Oh my!

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Recently one of my beloved g-bloggers brought up how she is going through changes in her body image/self-image post-baby and I didn’t comment at the time because I had too many thoughts to be able to make sense of them at the time. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then though and I think I am more able to be coherent.
(Nope, not sure I was more coherent. WAY long-winded and rambly. Ah well. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. 🙂

Continue reading →

I miss g-blog

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I miss g-blog because it was a rather random community. I only started off knowing a few people but then I was the catalyst for pulling some people into blogging there. That was neato. Indirectly there are a lot of people who are now on lj because of g-blog and the circle of people I influenced. The funny thing is–I no longer really talk to the main person who I pulled onto g-blog who pulled a bunch of other people. Evolution is an odd thing.

But I miss feeling free to talk about just about anything in public. The fact that people here know me more or at least, feel like they know me more, changes the audience. On g-blog I didn’t really feel like people were judging me even though at times they probably were. It felt more like the people didn’t know me and didn’t try to claim they did. There were many things I didn’t hesitate to say there, even with it being totally public, that I censor here down to a very small filter. Why? Who am I afraid of? Why do I care how people will judge me? I no longer have a job to hide behind. I have never worried about my family finding this. Sure, now I have a few minors reading this–but oh well. I probably did on g-blog too. It didn’t stop me from posting extremely detailed stories about my sex life.

I liked feeling like I had nothing to hide. I liked feeling like I was being honest with everyone. Lately I have usually been hiding anything serious behind a small filter because I don’t like feeling judged, but oh bloody well if people judge me. If people think I am too crazy/obnoxious/rude/inappropriate then they don’t have to read.

I guess it’s time to stop being friends-only.

Monogamy

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One year ago today I had sex with someone other than Noah. There has been absolutely no sexual contact with anyone but him since that. In thinking about my history I realize that previous to this I had a period of “girls don’t count” monogamy with Tom that lasted three years, but as a few women reading this can attest… I certainly had sex with people other than Tom during that period. This is the longest period of my life I have actually been completely and totally monogamous. It’s kind of funny that I describe my relationship history as being “basically monogamous” but when I’m honest I notice that I’m not actually good at real and true complete monogamy. So this is interesting to me. There are a wide variety of reasons for this stretch of one-on-one attention and I’m not unhappy about it. I am very likely to continue this trend for quite some time to come. I’m curious how long this will last for me.

Noah’s history is not that different from mine. He has had longer stretches of monogamy than I have had, but it looks like he won’t beat his previous record with me. I’ve never had a partner break monogamy before just because they wanted to. In the four years I was with Tom he had sex with someone else exactly one time when I pushed it. Neither Stephen nor Phil would have broken monogamy. It’s weird having a partner who is as voracious, maybe more so, about sex.

I wonder what monogamy/non-monogamy is going to look like for us throughout our lives. I wonder if I will be monogamous during the whole breeding period. I am pretty certain he won’t be. It’s weird to think about being the monogamous one.

{my shit} Interesting feelings observations.

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In the interests of fair warning: if you offer unsolicited advice that I don’t want to hear I may simply delete the comment, I may take you off this filter, or I may unfriend you entirely. Sharing similar experiences doesn’t generally feel the same way to me but weigh carefully in your mind how you think I might feel about receiving the comment given that I am getting a really large amount of unsolicited feedback. It isn’t that I despise any all feedback/comments it is just that I don’t need any more messages telling me what to do right now.

I have noticed that lately I am experiencing far more shame reactions to things. I suspect that a lot of these are springing from indoctrinations about who/what I “should” be as a parent and as a person. Even the fact that lj comments are sometimes bothering me and I don’t know how to handle them is causing some serioius shame reactions. I think mainly because I have been getting angry about a lot of things, often even things that normally wouldn’t set me off. Given that I have a lower than average bar for becoming irritated this is pretty noticeable and significant. Almost every time I get angry I mentally (and often verbally depending on who is around) go through all of the things that my sadistic/mean-spirited mind would really like to say/do in response to whatever stimulus is currently getting to me. I rehearse it and visualize it several times until I feel almost like I *have* done whatever mean thing and then I feel guilty then ashamed that I am the kind of person who does that sort of thing… even though I didn’t actually do it. Even thinking harsh things is enough to set me into a spiral where I am convinced that I am an awful person who deserves every bad thing in the world. This is intensified significantly if I share those mean-spirited vents with someone I think of as close and they tell me they don’t approve or that they express that what I am thinking is awful. Then it just seems to be confirmation that I am indeed a disgusting awful person who deserves whatever thing set me off in the first place.

Example: recently someone IM’ed me to tell me, “OMG you are HUGE” after seeing me at Dickens and being unable to actually talk to me. What I actually said to this person was, “I’m going to do you a favor and explain to you that pregnant chicks don’t like hearing that any more than non-pregnant chicks. You should rethink that comment.” We went on to have a conversation about how he didn’t know I was pregnant and felt excited and wanted to kind of comment on the experience and we worked through a better way of expressing that. This conversation took a while as he was multi-tasking and slow at responding. My immediate mental response started going through various catty ways of responding to this and being that I am big on chatting with several people at once I IM’ed a couple of people and talked through possible responses to this that were far less constructive and my favorite was “So are you. I’m pregnant, what is your excuse?” (Note: person in question isn’t actually huge or particularly fat.) But I had a moment of sadistic glee wanting to be more defensive than I actually was. I shared this mean potential response with a friend who did not find it funny and said that I might cause mental damage to someone if I said this and then proceeded to long-windedly tell me all the ways that I “should” respond. Me being me, I first got pissy because I don’t like being told what I “should” do in a judgmental sort of way. Second I felt upset that this person thought I would actually say that. Third I felt like there was a judgment that I was a bad person for even *thinking* a response like that. This all cycled down really fast. This was a few days ago and I still feel shitty thinking about it.

That’s a really good example of the kind of situation that is leading to feelings of being disgusting/bad/awful/terrible/mean/etc. My reaction is out of proportion. I’m aware that my reaction is out of proportion yet I can’t seem to stop it. Interestingly my therapist thinks that saying something like that when I get those sorts of comments is just fine because I have no need to be polite to someone who was not polite to me. (I picked a great therapist for my personality type.) We also talked about how people are telling me I shouldn’t smack the hands of the belly-touchers and she offered to print up cards saying, “If you touch me my therapist says I get to hit you” and put her business card on the back so I can hand them out as explanation *after* hitting people who touch me. (Have I mentioned I love my therapist?) On one hand I feel like it is entirely justifiable that I want to smack the hands of people who reach out to touch me (and geezus-fucking-christ people it isn’t like I am slapping anyone in the face) because words are too fucking slow. On the other hand I feel the weight of society’s messages telling me that if I were “nice” I wouldn’t do those things and I feel wave after wave of crushing guilt that: Look! One More Example of why I am a horrible bitch and no one should like me.

When I’m really honest I know that at least part of the crushing guilt is coming from the low overall rate of support I’m getting from people I talk to. Most people who bother to comment to me at all about these topics are telling me that my instinctive defensive reactions are inappropriate and people are going to fairly great lengths to convince me that I am wrong. Even Noah is neutral/apathetic about these topics and so doesn’t qualify as much support. So I feel like I am fighting an uphill battle against all the people who think I am horrible and if so many people think I am horrible I must be. (Like Rebecca’s fucking horse analogy.) It doesn’t help that I am having more contact with my family (strangely neutral to positive) which makes me feel more vulnerable to all of the old “you are bad” tapes anyway. I wish that I could actually see my therapist every single week because most of the time it feels like she is the only real consistent serious cheerleader I have in my life but things keep happening that necessitate canceling appointments. I’m feeling very alone and unwilling to talk to people more because when I do talk to people they tend to tell me what I am doing wrong and what I should be doing instead. Thanks, I can sit at home basically silently by myself and feel like shit without any help from anyone else. The internet tells me often enough that I am a bad person–traveling for the privilege seems dumb.

Thoughts on having kids

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I talked to someone I have known for a long time last night about me having kids. Ironically, said person is not on this filter by her own request. I’m not really trying to talk about her behind her back but including her seems somehow disrespectful when she stated that she doesn’t want to hear it. First she doesn’t think me having kids is ok because the planet is overpopulated. Fair enough. But she said she also thinks that someone with my history of mental health issues shouldn’t be having children. To say the least this was hard to hear. I managed to keep myself from bursting into tears with effort.

My mental health stuff is something that I have agonized about for years. I have also felt paranoid that people felt this way and weren’t telling me. I guess now it no longer counts as paranoia. I feel somewhat hurt that she said it, but it isn’t as if we have ever been particularly close friends anyway. Given how little she is in my life I doubt this will affect our relationship much at all. But that’s not the point.

I have a pretty serious history of mental health issues. I have been diagnosed with a wide array of disorders (sometimes contradictory) throughout my life. I don’t try to hide this or down play it. I just deal with it. I deal with feeling depressed. I deal with the excessive responses (mania). I deal with my compulsions. I deal with my mood swings. I’m not the easiest person to live with but I believe I am far from the hardest. I feel like telling me that I shouldn’t have children because of my mental health issues is tantamount to telling someone who has a physical disability that they shouldn’t have children. And if you are going to go down that path, where does the line get drawn? Should someone with diabetes have children? Should remarkably ugly people have children? (Ok, that part is being sarcastic.) Where is the line drawn? Who gets to decide who is appropriate for breeding. Because as soon as you start talking about how people with defects shouldn’t have children you are talking about breeding.

Yes, my children are potentially at risk of being severely depressed during their lifetimes. My children are also very likely to be incredibly intelligent (such traits are strongly genetically linked). My children are also very likely to be creative and interesting. If you go through history many of the most brilliant and influential people have had various mental health issues. Does depression make life harder? Yes. I think it is worth dealing with anyway. If I didn’t I would have off-ed myself years ago. I also believe that my kids are going to have the fairly unusual situation of living with someone who actively deals with their shit rather than blaming or denying or hiding from life. I have survived some pretty intense things and I believe that I can help my kids be strong and independent people as well or I wouldn’t have them.

I know I know… I don’t need to justify my decision. But I do need to think about it.

{my shit} Note about filter, unpretty, unworthy, hating myself

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Uhm, a note about this filter. I’ve taken people off of it because I am going through one of those major control freak periods where unsolicited comments I don’t like are really really bothering me. So I’ve cut back most of the people who make comments I don’t want to hear. Maybe that is petty, but this is my bloody journal and if I don’t get to write what I want here without being responded to in ways I don’t like I should just forget the whole thing. I label this filter pretty religiously so you know in advance that it’s the heavier shit.

Most of the time I don’t say too much about people commenting on stuff. I ignore stuff I don’t want to respond to or I take someone off a filter and that’s about the end of it. On this filter I’m going to ask everyone to think before you comment. I’m not saying that anyone has to sycophantically agree with me or suck up, just think pretty hard before you comment. If your comment is tangential or not really about what is being brought up, please don’t comment. This filter is where I write about a lot of the stuff that is the hardest for me. I let people read it because many people have expressed that they really want to see what is happening for me as I work through this stuff. But as people stop feeling safe for me to process in front of they are simply removed. It isn’t up for discussion or negotiation. If you feel like you no longer want to be on this filter, please let me know. I am happy to take you off.

Continue reading →

{my shit} More general stuff

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I’ve been on a serious roller coaster ride emotionally lately and I don’t know why. No, I’m not pregnant; I checked. I’m crying at the drop of a hat. Everything bothers me in some way, either it makes me angry or it makes me sad or it makes me withdraw. I wish I could point at something in particular and say “That! That’s why I’m upset!” but I can’t.

Uhm, it’s longer than I expected. Continue reading →

tired and strangely cranky

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I have the best husband ever. He dotes on me and loves me and treats me very well. That said…

I have a hard time not liking people. When I dislike someone or feel angry at them I tend to feel intense, overwhelming guilt so strong it sometimes almost chokes me. I don’t feel like it is ok for me to dislike or, worse yet, hate anyone. There are people in this world who have given me good reason to dislike/hate them and yet… when I experience those emotions I generally end up crying and feeling like I am a terrible person for feeling that way. What is interesting is that I know I have wronged people in my life–I’m no ones idea of perfect–but the people I have the strongest negative reactions to aren’t people I have seriously wronged. It seems as though the people who have given me the most reason to dislike them are people I have never done anything to or at least I don’t feel that I have done anything to them. There are always people who feel I have wronged them merely by existing. I’m never entirely sure what to do about that. Would they really feel better if I killed myself? It isn’t really an option at this point since I promised Noah I wouldn’t during a particularly bad spell a while ago.

Yet there are still these feelings. It would be easier if I could just excise these people from my life entirely, but I can’t. So here I am left with my frustration and anger and sadness that I am such a bad person that I hate other people. These negative feelings sort of seep out into other parts of my life in sucky ways. Whenever I have cause to think about the people I particularly dislike I tend to feel like I am just a terrible, awful person for hours if not days. But I can’t really make them go away. And I can’t avoid the people unless I just drop some of the people I want to have in my life.

So… yeah. Something was triggery earlier today and I haven’t been able to ditch the funk. Despite just being back from vacation with my wonderful husband where we had lots of fun and saw many friends. Despite hiding from the heat in Chevy’s with margarita’s and then watching *two* movies in one day. Sometimes I hate my brain.

{my shit} Oh, look! I have a navel!

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I’ve been trying to figure out why I am so bothered by the kid calling me an asshole and the resulting fuss. It isn’t that I think I should be more respected because I AM THE AUTHORITY. No, just no–that isn’t my deal. I feel like when kids react to me that way that I am being told that I am bad. I wish I could just strike that word from my conscious. When kids aren’t doing what they should be doing and are failing I feel like they are doing so because *I* have failed. But I haven’t. I managed to push, pull, and drag over a hundred kids through a very successful year of English. Why do I feel like a failure because about 20 kids don’t care about school? That isn’t about me. And really–the number is only about 20 who have fallen through the cracks.

And stuff has been rocky with Noah all week for a variety of reasons. I’ve been thinking and thinking on why. It’s both awesome and frustrating that I can never say, “We are having problems because he is an asshole.” And even going so far as to say that we are having problems feels like an overstatement. I’m being confused and unhappy and grumpy in his direction; he is being quiet and patient and understanding. I really have the best husband in the whole wide world (for me). Today when I realized that I was upset about the kids because I feel like I am failing and bad I started to put two and two together that I am upset about the Noah stuff for the same reason. (Yes, this may be obvious to those of you watching at home–I’m slow.)

Talking about his family (or my family) sucks for me because I feel like any and all issues have to be because I am just terrible. So when there are problems I assume all blame internally even when I am saying out loud that it isn’t my fault. So I’m arguing with myself in my head about blame and I feel like shit. Then I lash out because it hurts and the only way I really know to deal with hurt is to hurt back, even if that just means myself. It’s quite the vicious cycle.

I got to talk to a neato chick yesterday about issues in our lives and issues we each had with Noah (SEE! I don’t hate all of his ex’s!!) and it was interesting getting the comraderie. So that lead to some more interesting talking with Noah. I started thinking about why I feel upset about some of it. Oh wait, I feel compared–which means I have to lose, cause I’m bad.

I really hate this word. I need to find a way to get it out of my head.