Tag Archives: self-esteem

There is a void in my day.

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I’ve been talking to TB all day every day for four months now. It’s been really amazing. I have enjoyed climbing into his brain so much. Now I understand that doing so is going to block him from finding the future he wants and I have to stop. That’s hard. I feel like I am punishing myself.

I don’t say good morning and good night every day to anyone I don’t live with. That’s a lot of pressure for me. I’m a forgetful person. I have a lot of friends. I haven’t had a “we talk every day” friend since the Bonus Mama. I think I lost her in 2017? I feel absolutely allergic to the idea of having a friend I talk to that much ever again. I don’t trust the dynamic at all. If I talk to someone everyday for a couple of years then it is agonisingly painful when I am rejected because they don’t want to anymore or they found someone they want to talk to more. I don’t handle that detransition very well so I need to ensure that I don’t start that expectation within myself.

I have more abandonment issues than there are grains of sand in the Mojave. I maintain long-term friendships by making sure I never ask for or expect too much. I have to keep my needs to myself. I can share wants with friends easily, needs are harder. I have to be truly desperate before I will ask for help with a need. I would far rather do without or hurt myself doing it alone.

It’s why Noah works so hard at under promising and over delivering. He makes sure his actual promises to me are very conservative and easy to follow. He’s kind like that. He has learned how to be kind to me in this way.

I rarely worry about being too much for Noah. Today I was standing about 100m away from him; I was waiting for him and the kiddos to come in my vague direction. He ran over to me so that I didn’t have to stand alone. There was no reason to run. The kids were playing and having fun. He just wanted to. He didn’t want to be away from me for a second longer than he had to. He’s set the bar so high that other people can’t match it and maybe that’s ok. It sure makes the prospect of poly kind of weird. Someone has to treat me at least as well as Noah does or I am *choosing* to be less well treated every moment I spend with them.

I still believe with my entire soul that there was the potential for a life changing relationship with TB, it’s just not what he wants for his life. That’s ok. I really understand choosing hypothetical children over certain not quite enough. It’s a little funny because I don’t get told I’m the one who is not enough very often. It is fitting at its core though because I never pursued TB in the first place because I assumed I wouldn’t be good enough. Also, he’s nothing like Noah and I need Noah like I need oxygen and water.

TB fills needs I normally don’t even see in myself because they are so buried. I will go back to burying them because they are not things I can fill in my life with my current set up. It won’t kill me. These aren’t food and water and shelter kinds of needs. These are emotional needs around stability and being loved without being hurt. Noah is absolutely amazing and he loves me madly and deeply, but there’s a lot of hurt. I’m not complaining I am acknowledging.

I almost got to find out what it is like to be loved and cherished by a partner without having to endure pain to deserve it. I came really close but this is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades. It was weird seeing the possibility of finding out what that is like. It seemed alienating and impossible and improbable. Turns out I was right. That is not for me in this life.

It is breaking my heart. I wish I had never considered the possibility.

The fucking worst part is I had a hideous thought that makes me feel sick. “Since I am not a suitable partner on my own, maybe I should abort an accidental pregnancy.” I have never tied anyone to me through negligence and I will not start at this stage of my life. Elsenet I have recently done a copious amount of writing about how absolutely not ok I am with the possibility of aborting a child. Especially a fourth child. Especially an unwanted fourth child. I am the fourth unwanted child and I should have been aborted. I will be very careful and not get pregnant. I’m good at being slutty without accidental pregnancies. I feel bad inside myself about myself that I would have such a thought. I would never force someone to be with me. He’s made it clear that I am not enough. That would be true with an oops child in the picture. God that would be so unfair. This particular bit of calculus is why I’m going to have one sex filled trip with him and then not see him again. Apparently there is a hyperfertility uptick during perimenopause. My chance of getting pregnant is higher than it used to be.

Naw. Not playing with that fire a bunch over the next few years. That would be looking for pain.

Why one sex filled trip since this is not going to turn into what I wanted?

I feel like I will think about this and decide over and over and over for a long time. All the way till January. 18 weeks and 2 days. As long as we courted. As long I poured energy to trying to figure out if we could be good for each other as more than friends. That’s a good thing. That gives me time to get over feeling butthurt and go back to being excited.

I get to bang someone I have wanted to bang for 25 fucking years. That’s awesome. I’m looking forward to it. I think it is still going to be tender and sweet and loving. He is my very dear friend and we have both nursed a simmering crush all this time. Being incompatible isn’t something that either of us have done to the other. We are still good people having a good friendship with deep admiration and respect on both sides. It just so happens that I also like having sex with friends. At least I used to a long time ago in another life. I’m not so big on it here in Scotland. I am freaked out by the idea and I can’t consider it.

I feel scared about the amount of fall out that is going to be the result of this failed courtship. I would still like to do some fun travel things with him as just a friend. Maybe I am hoping that the sex is unimpressive so I can get over wanting him. That is the result after sex with quite a lot of people. Most people are not that skilled at sex and sometimes I am not up for the amount of work involved with ensuring I have good sex with someone who isn’t all that good at sex. I can do it. I can push just about anyone through having sex with me in a way that will get me off acceptably; I am both easy to get off and very skilled at directing sex.

I have very strong feelings at this point about the trip. I am not ok with “let’s see what happens”. I am going to direct this very much. I am going to go in knowing what I am trying to get out of each separate encounter. I feel bad, but I’m basically setting up how I can ensure a just and equitable transaction of emotional and physical energy. I’m not going to give more than I get. Oh fuck that.

Nope. That ship sailed away on de Nile and it ain’t ever coming back. I can’t get back on that river again. I will not put pennies in a piggy bank I will never be able to withdraw from. I’m a selfish cunt and I am not running at a surplus in my life. I now need to be a lot more fucking honest with myself about the cost I pay compared to what I am getting back. Is it enough? What do I need to do to make sure that I’m not bleeding out? I can’t have any fucking holes in my bucket and pouring energy into someone who is that actively encouraging me to invest, while planning to walk away suddenly at any point, would put a giant hole into my bucket.

The amount of hurt I feel today is 1/1,000 of what I would feel in two years. I might have started to trust that I was going to be kept come what may. I would never try to keep TB from finding a different primary if keeping me as a comet/distant secondary was a priority. It isn’t a priority for him. I can’t invest more emotionally in someone who will drop me like a hot potato for monogamy. That’s acting like it’s ok to treat me like a resource to use until something better pops up. I will not let my friend treat me so shabbily because then he would have to carry the shame for doing so.

I think at some point along the way this sounded more ok to me? I think there have been too many statements about “for the rest of your/my life”. I can no longer put any trust in the words that are being said. They are not at all reflective of reality. They are things you sorta hope might come true but it’s not a serious priority or demand upon any future partners.

Maybe if I didn’t have that Mojave Desert sand depth of abandonment issues. I’m not securely attached enough in my own self to withstand the level of pain I would feel at being discarded later. That would totally fuck up my ability to parent/teach well. I can’t set my life up for that crashing pain to come down on my kids. That’s fucked up and unfair. I can’t compartmentalise well enough for them to be totally unaffected by my mental state. I have to take steps to increase stability, not make choices that make instability more likely.

“You can depend on me. I will always be there for you.”

Those two sentences really should get me running in the opposite direction as fast as I can run. Usually when someone says that I stop hearing from them soon after and then I never speak to them again. It’s a fucking death curse for my relationships. No, I can’t depend on people. No one will always be there for me. Not even Noah. Not because Noah is shitty or because he doesn’t try hard; life is fucking brutal, dude.

I had very large problems before I ever met Noah. They haven’t all completely gone away despite all the work that we’ve done. Some of these are chronic and permanent. I don’t have a choice. I am always going to fucking struggle. I do stuff for myself long past the point when someone else would complacently accept help. I will fucking cry the whole time I hold a fork but I will not allow myself to be fed. I will eat the food like a fucking dog before I will allow someone to feed me when my hands aren’t working.

I have a lot of big feelings about the increasing disability I am experiencing. I wonder if part of my freak out about TB is I’m well aware I’m going to have slim pickings for folks who want to date me as I get older and more disabled and a lot less rich. Given the reading requirement involved in dating me I might be deciding that I am theoretically poly but I never get around to it. I am fucking difficult. Lowering the admission bar would not improve the success rate, it would make it worse.

95% chance of flaming out before 6 months. I’ve got statistics based on a significant enough sample size that I can use percentages. Yup.

I am difficult and demanding and exacting and way happier being alone over putting up with bullshit. I also have a husband who acts like I hung the fucking moon. I am not in any way deficient in sexual attention.

I spent four months helping a friend learn how to have a variety of adult relationship conversations that he otherwise would have had difficulty with down the line. I can’t call it mentoring because I sure as shit did it with the plan to fuck him. I made sure this vanilla monogamous person was going to be making a well informed decision with regard to the risk involved in being in a relationship with me. There are lot of implications to joining my life. It exists in a lot of layers and either you are in it or you are someone I talk to sometimes.

I’m not being mean. I have to keep walking. No matter what I feel or what happens to me I have to keep walking until I can’t walk anymore and then I will fucking crawl. I will fucking horrify the NHS because I’m not going to ask for help until it’s pretty ridiculous. They will scold me for not calling them in sooner to help. After all I am entitled.

I don’t really believe I am entitled to much in this life. I have acquired much. I am doing what I can to make this house into a place that will survive for a generation after me before needing more significant repair work. Sure, someone will probably paint over my art. I know. Deep sigh. My kids will have a secure home from which to figure out their lives. I’m not promising to make them rich enough to not need jobs but they will be able to survive without assistance from the government and without needing a job like Noah’s. I am planning as hard as I can for a future where we don’t need that kind of money anymore to be ok. I have been paying Future Us hand over fist in a variety of ways that will outlast me.

I think our days of regular, unplanned, expensive travel are over. I don’t think we can come to the weddings. If Noah hadn’t lost the last big tech job, sure we could have done all of them without a problem. We would have been on track even with the bulge of unexpected financial loss. Now he hasn’t worked in six months and it looks like his next job will be pretty much exactly how much we need to live on and we will no longer be contributing towards retirement. Awesome. That’s with a lot of cutting out expenses in terms of “what we need to live on”. I’ll need to cut expenses by 50%. I’m going to be fixing less on the house and at a much slower rate. Good thing I already got most of the biggest ones done.

Was I so intrigued by TB because I am an asshole and I wanted help fixing my house? It’s not a 0% chance. That takes the air out of my balloon in terms of being indignant about him not wanting me. Am I mad about the benefits I won’t get? Don’t get all self righteous here, Krissy. Sure he wants to keep getting the emotional support benefits without the commitment. Are my motives actually only pure and altruistic or some bullshit like that?

Probably not. I’m a selfish cunt. Yo, brutal honesty dictates I say that I was frankly concerned about the mismatch in physical size for intimate matters. That was going to be a difficult thing for me. Combining that mismatch with the other disparities in sexual preferences I wouldn’t be getting so much out of the sex that it would fill up my end of need for emotional support.

I have a high opinion of the value of the support I offer as a partner. Demanding high return support in exchange has historically resulted in my life steadily improving and me having increasingly healthy and positive relationships.

I feel weird about that kind of a statement right now. It feels like a pie crust promise. It feels like a big claim without evidence. I don’t jump into bed with everyone I want to be friends with because it’s the primary way I know to get people to like me. It’s been more than 8 years since I’ve had sex with a friend. Holy moly it is the longest stretch of monogamy in my life. I think twice as long as previous stints? Why do I want it to end so much?

I have a narrow window. For one week I will have a travel boyfriend that I will have a lot of fun with. I have negotiated it painstakingly with my husband so that I can be as respectful as possible of his feelings through this whole experience. I think Noah will fall in love again some day. I think he will have friends he wants to have sex with. I have some hope about my ability to send him off for adventures with a big smile on my face. It will be a lot easier to do when I am not feeling constant anxiety about when TB will be dumping me. Noah and I will keep negotiating and talking. We will make friends slowly and not go out hunting for strangers/near-strangers here.

I have a husband who will give the full measure of devotion in service to my safety, health, and longevity. I don’t get to feel actual bitterness about not being so sparkly and shiny that I get to have another serious partner who is nearly so devoted. That’s a big fucking ego you have there, Krissy. Really think a lot of yourself, do you?

I guess I do. I think I need to be honest with myself and with anyone who ever tries to date me that I don’t accept inconsistency. Do not make pie crust promises while asking me to trust you. That’s not something I can work with. Know your own mind. Think about your shit. Figure out what you want. If it isn’t me then don’t waste my fucking time. I have a short life. Trying to prevent me from spending my time in ways that will build towards my long-term future is absofuckinglutely disrespectful. As I will try hard not to waste your time. It’s about respect.

I’m disabled. What I can get done in a day is distinctly finite. I have bursts of time where I overextend on a project and get an unhealthy amount done. I always pay in big and small ways.

What I do with my time is a big McFlippin Deal. Time is my most scarce resource in this life. I will be spending the vast majority of my time with my family. If a person does not particularly have any desire to integrate with that unit then they need to be a person I talk to sometimes.

I don’t have enough self to give to be doling out big chunks to a bunch of off-stage people who are not actually part of my life. It’s just math. It’s pragmatism. It’s reality. I need to treat people as not good matches for me when they are happy to use a lot of my time with no regard to the effect that has on my ability to live the life I want to lead. If someone does not notice or care about the holistic reality of my life then I need to keep them in a small box away from my life where I limit how far down the rabbit hole I go.

I need to believe that I deserve a good match. There is a void in my day right now because I want to be poking TB. I don’t want to though. I want to be poking in the direction of a fantasy I had, which isn’t at all the same thing as poking him. I want to be poking at a partner who is doing work to making themself better actively like I am to remind one another that there is fun in trade for the hard and the boring. “Hey asshole, poke your husband.”

I do. I poke and prod and talk to him all day long. I have a lot of RAM in my brain. Once he gets a job I won’t be able to take up all his time like I have been doing. Holy cheese I’m looking forward to retirement. I could keep more people busy. God I am a bottomless pit of need. I don’t want to do it for someone where I don’t get the long run benefit of nipping at their heels to get them to run just a little faster. It’s a lot of fucking energy.

The trade value for my time as a girlfriend experience is quite high. It’s not your soul but it’s pretty close.That is probably a highly inappropriate amount of hubris. Oh well. The down side is less time spent with people who don’t want to put much energy into me. That doesn’t sound like a down side when I say it like that. It kind of sounds like healthy self regard.

I don’t have a lot of unrequited loves left to come knocking. I think the ties of the past are finally fraying. I think that going forward it’s going to be a very weird process. Good thing I am primarily interested in making friends. That is a worthy endeavour and I strive to not have a lot of standards and demands for friends. Friends are free to be whatever kinds of fuck offs they want to be. It doesn’t impact my life too badly because of boundaries. I keep people in small boxes.

My standards for Noah are shockingly high at this point in a lot of ways. Very low in other ways. I don’t ever get to expect my birthday to be a good day for me. The most peaceful birthdays I spend alone. I don’t have expectations of anyone that way. I don’t have to take care of anyone. I don’t have to carefully monitor my tone to ensure that I am being respectful even when I feel shitty. My birthday is not a day that is good for me. TB has long since proposed me spending my birthdays with him.

He offered to be the one who made sure my birthdays are special while planning to dump me if someone better comes along.

I’m 10 days out from my birthday. I am glad I am downgrading my expectations in my mind from “boyfriend” to “friend with benefits”. That means I can stringently avoid getting myself into a situation where yet another person makes my birthdays feel full of memories of not being wanted or good enough. Fuck. That really fucking hurts. That’s not a small thing to offer. I refused it instantly. No. I couldn’t do that to Noah or the kids. They would take that very personally. I can go away with Aunt Jenny and everyone wishes me well with a smile.

If I am going to get back to interviews then I need to get my sleep schedule under better control. Good night.

Good thing to notice

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I’ve been going to yoga classes for a little bit now–a couple of months? Something that I notice when I’m there is that I talk to/about my body differently than I used to. I’m not sure when it changed because I don’t write this kind of thing much anymore. It’s noticeable to me because of what the instructors say. They tell you to check in with your body then pause and then tell you to get past the negative vocies.

These days when I check in with my body it’s gratitude. Thank you for being so strong. Thank you for carrying me so far. I am so proud of what you can do. Yeah, you hurt but isn’t it nice that you hurt so much less than you used to? I’m proud of us for learning how to take care of you better. I can feel the expression of love over time in my bones. I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am. I’m happy that I’ve had this kind of support and time.

I suspect that the combination of meds that I’m on at this point is helping. Amitriptyline is both for pain and it increases serotonin so it’s an antidepressant at the same time. The lisdexamfetamine feels like what I wish i could have had since I was a teenager. I genuinely believe I would have made fewer risky/bad choices if I had been on it.

I really wish I could have been properly assessed for ADHD and ASD as a teenager. It would have changed my life. I wonder if I would have accomplished as much? I wonder if I would have accomplished less? Ah well. It is what it is and all I can do is move forward.

It’s a lot better painting on this med combo. I don’t feel the urge to paint all night long “just to get through it”. I know it will make me feel like trash later and that’s not very tempting/alluring. I’ve been painting for a few weeks in a row now. My one short night of sleep (I got over 6 hours… so not a California short night) was when I was trying to clean up after painting. It took 15 hours to put things back in place and clean up the house enough for the cleaners to be able to come in and do actual cleaning instead of just walking around piles. My average for the last four weeks of sleep is about 8 and a half hours. That’s… kind of shocking for me being in a heavy work cycle. That’s just about healthy. Whoa. Balance.

I am finding a bit of appetite suppression from the amfetamine. I am eating smaller portions at meals (2 tacos instead of 3, 2 pancakes instead of 4, 1 bowl of soup instead of 2) and I feel less desire to have a late night dessert. Sometimes I skip lunch because I’m not that hungry but I eat a lot more dinner to make up for it and I think I eat about the same amount of food. I am drinking waaaay less alcohol (I’m probably taking 3-6 units a week down from 10-15) mostly because the amfetamine means you feel the alcohol less so I don’t feel as much desire to consume it. It still tastes good so I have some. And some of the wine I like is multiple units/serving in the glass I use so there you go. I’m flirting around 200. I haven’t seen lower than 203 since I arrived in Scotland and I’ve usually been in the 210’s and 220’s over the past 2 years so I am losing some weight. With the amount I exercise it has felt kind of weird that I keep as much extra padding as I have been. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s this much exercise would have kept me down in the 160’s.

Something that I think I am feeling in my body is I have dramatically fewer spikes of cortisol with this med combo. I really don’t feel anxious. Over the past two years I have noticed that in Scotland I feel dramatically less anxiety than I did in California as a baseline… even with the help that cannabis provided. I don’t have as much hypervigilance here. Prior to trying this med combo I was still feeling anxiety though in that way that I think is about my body being programmed to worry about everything as the natural state of being. That feels like it is stopping now. In California I had to be careful with my cannabis usage because I couldn’t/wouldn’t take it when I had to drive so I had a lot of up and down effect in terms of my experience in my body. I think there was enough break in cortisol production that my body could process food normally and not turn it all into emergency fat rations for later tragedy.

Since moving and being off cannabis entirely (the weight gain started right when I left California–I could tell in how my clothes fit) there has been a slow but gradual ballooning effect. Exercise and eating a balanced diet wasn’t having any impact at all. Despite the comments of ignorant people… I eat a fairly ridiculously healthy diet compared to the average person in the western world. We eat very little that is processed. We cook from scratch for something like 12-15 meals a week. (A lot of the other meals are leftovers.) We eat 4-9 servings of fruit and veg a day. I have cut a lot of the dairy and meat from my diet. (My family eats more than I do but I’m trying to limit inflammation.) My weight creeping up is not about eating too much and moving too little. Yeah yeah it’s anecdata but I have lived in this body for 40 years now and I’ve seen it through a lot of cycles. Cortisol/stress/anxiety.

It’s really dramatic having medications that lower the level of cortisol in my body on a 24/7 basis. I am consistent with the meds. I haven’t skipped many doses since I started so this is a really level sort of experience.

But my blood pressure has creeped up. I’m hoping that losing some weight will have an effect on that so that I can keep the meds. I really like how my brain feels. I have also halved the amitriptyline dosage on the advice of my GP to see if I can keep the positive effects with a lower dosage. She is mildly skeptical because my former dosage was already the “grandma dose” (her words) and she wonders if my body will be able to feel anything with half that. I’m trying it for a few weeks to see. I think it is worth trying. I really don’t want to lose the lisdexamfetamine. I feel like this is doing so much.

It feels like such a blessing that when I quiet down and look inward what I see is liking myself.

The thing about sand castles… you can’t live in them.

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This is the chapter I couldn’t write in November for Part 2 for the kids.

Occasionally people will ask me why I am so focused on friendships. Why do I pursue them with such vigor and to the point of my detriment. Because I am both trying to replace and replicate family relationships. Because without my friendships, for many years, I felt like I had nothing. As much as my romantic partnerships have tried to form “family” feelings with me… I’ve always been deeply aware that they could end at any time. I am tremendously aware that I am lacking in many ways and even with Noah I am always kind of holding my breath waiting for someone to leave me. But my friendships lasted through so many romantic relationships. They had more staying power. What was the price?

I spent many years talking about the tripod of women who supported me and made me feel like I could keep going through anything. In order to do that I had to be in an awful lot of denial. I had to do a lot of pretending problems weren’t happening.

All of those relationships are in a state of collapse. It is hard for me to wrestle with how much of it is “my fault”, how much of it was ever in my control, and how much it was inevitable if I ever developed a higher level of self love.

Sarah I’ve been writing about for quite some time. Sarah used the shit out of me and made big promises and didn’t live up to them. When I got angry she would tell me that I have a personality disorder. She had almost ten years of using me to partially fund her vacations. She literally took money from me (intended as food money for the household) and used it to go visit her sister. She said she would be there to do the hard work of raising children. She lied up one side and down the other. Instead she took from me until she wrung me dry and then I was the problem because why did I have these outrageous expectations of her–it wasn’t her job to support me. No. It wasn’t your job. But you told me you would do it because I did so much to support you.

Pam has always been in my life in flighty hit-or-miss ways. I spent over a decade dropping anything I was doing (at work, at school, with friends, with people I was dating…) when she wanted attention because “she only had a few minutes to spare in between her exciting life.” I always felt honored she wanted to know me. I was the only person in her life who was supportive of some aspects of her behavior and she wanted access to that support 100% on her own timeline. The couple of years when she consistently came over to our house in Fremont? That happened because she was otherwise an around the clock care giver for her elderly grandmother and she wanted a break and no one else had that kind of time available to spend with her. I loved seeing her! Don’t get me wrong! I appreciated all of the time she chose to share with me. But I can no longer pretend it was ever about my needs–I was there for her when she wanted me to be. We were supposed to go see her in December. We didn’t go because the flights were going to be over $5,000 and right now I just don’t have that going spare. After the fact she said, “It was a good thing you didn’t come to Taiwan because it turns out I wouldn’t have been able to spend any time with you.” I feel utterly gutted. I am glad she sees that she wouldn’t have spent time with me, at least she is that self aware. I am glad that I now know that I will never ever prioritize going to see her like that because if I try to ask for time on my own schedule I can go fuck myself.

And I have not been writing about Jenny. That’s been very much on purpose. If I look back in time… I have chased Jenny from the beginning. When we met I basically begged her to be my friend. I always called her. I asked to come over. I offered her a chance to go swimming in my pool. (It wasn’t my pool, but I lived in a house that had a pool and she was a competitive swimmer.) She thought I was super rude because I thought she was judgmental but she described me as being a stupid slut and she thought that was totally ok. Through high school I chased her. Through college I chased her. After college I chased her into hobbies and blogging and social groups.

I have been chasing Jenny and begging her to be my friend for most of my life. She was the person I went to when my dad and my brother both killed themselves. I thought that meant she was there for me. I never wanted to look at what that meant I had to put up with.

I wrote about her when I first arrived here in Scotland. I said she was a ride or die friend who was doing so much for me. All of the stuff she so thoughtfully provided to ease our transition? Was stuff she didn’t want anymore but she didn’t want to deal with doing the work to donate it without owning a car. Most of it was broken or has broken since. She was here when one of the glasses finished shattering. She said, “It’s ok I won’t be mad at you.”

She said that my children are retarded. She said that anyone who is home schooled is going to end up retarded–she doesn’t mean that in “the mean way” she means it in “the medical way”. So she constantly tells me that I have to make my kids go to school so that I can stop fucking them up.

She has almost zero Scottish friends. Her friends here are all American Ex-pats but she constantly tells me all of the things I am doing wrong and why I have to change in order to assimilate. SHE HASN’T ASSIMILATED. But she is right and I am wrong and I need to stop being like me. You know how chatty and sociable and outgoing I am? That’s wrong and I need to stop it. Whatever I am doing that gets people to open up to me is wrong and I need to stop it.

I don’t think Jenny actually likes me very much. Hanging out with her makes me feel terrible about myself. I leave visits with her and feel like I want to cry and cut myself. I am just so fucking wrong. Nothing about me is ok or admirable.

Oh, but can I make a cake for her daughter’s birthday? Thanks.

Pam has literally talked to me a couple of times since I got here. I still send her emails. Why do I chase these fucking women? Pam only wants to talk to me if by chance I happen to stumble upon a topic that is part of her hobbies.

In general my anxiety and depression have been better since I got here. I only see Jenny about once a month and I think that is going to end. I called child protective services on her. That’s a story. She came over for a visit and she was telling me about how her seven year old was having a tantrum (it sounded like an anxiety attack) and she didn’t want to deal with it so she spanked the kid. That’s literally illegal in this country.

I was talking to a buddy about this (I do have some people I am still talking to a fair bit–I really like the Marco Polo app) and she told me that she thinks it is really weird the way white people are so anti-spanking. She’s from China and in her experience parents are considered abusive if they don’t spank their kids. You are neglecting your responsibility to shape their character. I told her that in my opinion there is a difference in result for kids who are spanked in a society where freaking everyone gets spanked and it is the norm and a place where spanking is not acceptable and you now have to hide your parent’s secret. I think that the secrecy and the shame of “I am so bad that my parents are forced to break the law to deal with me” is as big or a bigger problem than the spanking. The fact that Jenny doubled down and defended it because “There was nothing else she could do to stop the behavior and it had to stop right now” when the behavior wasn’t hurting anyone else it was just annoying and inconvenient really put up a whole passel of red flags. So now her kid’s doctor and school and everyone is on notice that the family isn’t coping.

I think I may have just burned that bridge to the ground and I don’t feel bad. I didn’t make the call because I wanted to nuke the relationship. But I was not going to live in Jenny’s fantasy world where she is “always right” and she can do whatever she wants to her kids because they belong to her. Fuck that. The kid has rights. It’s not ok to spank a child just because you don’t like them having a tantrum. Gain some new god damn skills.

Ok, full disclosure time: I spanked Middle Child once. She spent months beating on Eldest Child to the point where EC was bleeding. We tried a lot of things. She was in therapy. We tried a variety of interventions. We did a whole bunch of fucking things. I talked to her therapist about it. I finally told MC “If you do this again, I am going to have to spank you because apparently nothing else I do is going to convince you that being hit sucks. You don’t get to beat on your sister every time you have a bad mood.” She beat on EC again. We separated. We all went to different spaces to calm down so that nothing was done in the heat of the moment or as a rage reaction. When I was fully calm I went back in and asked her what happened and why. I asked if she understood what was going to happen now. Over her clothes with my bare hand I swatted her.

She has since said that it didn’t hurt physically almost at all but she felt emotionally devastated. She continues to fight with her sister verbally and in normal snotty kid ways like throwing things, but she hasn’t made her sister bleed again. I’m glad. I don’t ever want to do that again.

You can’t beat your sibling until they bleed forever without consequences. If I allow that I am neglecting my other child and I can’t do that.

Is that different than spanking a kid because you don’t like their temper tantrum and buying their cooperation didn’t work this time? I don’t know. I don’t sleep easy at night knowing I did this. I don’t feel good about myself. I sure as shit am not going to stand up and say that I did the right thing. I know that we worked on it for months. I don’t really feel like I have moral superiority. I did it in a place where it was a legal parenting practice for me to do. Does that make it more ok?

I don’t know.

But the only things Jenny has tried are offering toys, candy, and money as bribes and when that doesn’t work she said “Ok fine then I have to hit you”. She won’t set boundaries because that’s “too mean and she is supposed to be their safe place where anything is ok.”

My kids have thrown a lot of tantrums. I have never decided in the moment to hit them to make it stop. I don’t know that it is morally superior, but I have a fuck ton of tools in my tool belt for handling misbehavior without having to hit a kid. I ran out of tools when it came to making other people bleed on a regular basis. That was my failure. Has every parenting tool I have ever tried been good? Oh hell no.

When my kids tell me that a thing we are trying makes them feel bad we don’t do it again. I apologize for failing. I don’t act like it is their fault for failing to comply in a way that is easy for me. I am failing to figure out how to meet your need in whatever manner it is coming up right now. I am sorry that I fail so much. It isn’t your fault. Sometimes my best is genuinely not good enough.

That is the part that never feels reciprocated in my friendships. Not Sarah, not Jenny, not Pam can admit that sometimes the best they can put into the relationship is not good enough and they are failing and doing wrong. I am the problem if I am not willing to describe whatever they offer as the best.

That’s the part that is toxic as fuck. They are right and I am wrong. I know that I am fucked up and I often create that dynamic in my head without help but a number of people have heard me describe these relationships over many decades and in general that is feedback that other people give me. “Why are you always wrong and that person is always right? I don’t think that is true.”

Sarah would absolutely act that way. Jenny literally has it as part of her internet presence that she is “always right” and she moves through the world that way. Pam would never ever admit out loud that she uses me.

I’m the one with the fucked up expectations. It’s totally reasonable to expect your friends to just be happy funding your lifestyle or to have to drop whatever they are doing if you want attention or to accept being told how stupid and damaging to my children I am.

I am the one who isn’t ok. Duh.

I circle back and back and back to these women.

I think it is time to let the waves knock these sand castles down.

Blatant (and perhaps childish) request for ego stroking

25 Replies

I’m having one of those “I don’t much like me” days and I am about to start doing something I really don’t want to do. So as I am heading in to this I would like to request that, if you feel motivated to do so–don’t worry about it if you don’t–please tell me something I have actually done that you respect and/or love me for. None of this nebulous, “You’re great!” stuff. I know people mean well… but really it always feels so non committal as to mean nothing.

Thank you for listening. 🙂