Gosh I’m struggling with my feelings. I slept a lot last night (for me) and I feel like I overdid the amount of work I did yesterday cleaning. I haven’t been difficult with anyone else. I’m just quietly swimming through my feelings.

Somehow I feel like the dry heaving this morning was strangely spiritual. There’s stuff I need to get up.

I don’t know how some people can be aware of what they are feeling without writing it down. I genuinely don’t know what is going on with me until I read the words my fingers are typing without much conscious thought. Typing is the only way my feelings know how to coherently manifest in a way I know how to understand.

People periodically tell me that I have incredibly high self esteem. I always wonder what they mean when they say that because I spend so much time thinking about what a worthless, mean piece of shit I am. But I think that I’m starting to understand.

I do not react well to people treating me in a way I don’t like. I make my needs and preferences VIVIDLY CLEAR and I expect you to respect my limits or I’m going to walk away. I’m not loyal to people who treat me badly. I will never tolerate abuse again.

And the thing is, it isn’t even just abuse. I’ll never fucking tolerate people treating me in a way I just don’t like again. There are too many fish in the sea and I don’t need to be loyal to someone who isn’t going to respect me the way I want to be respected.

And you know what? My social calendar doesn’t let up. Because lots of people respect me the way I need to be respected. People who have known me for many years and who have concrete reasons they respect me.

I’m good. If you want to demonstrate that you don’t want to be part of my life I can accommodate that.

The door’s that’a’way.

Because as much as I love you and I think you are great… I don’t need you.

If I needed anyone too much I’d be in a lot of trouble. People let you down. They don’t mean to. They do it anyway.

Are there severances that I will mourn every day for the rest of my life? Yes. Absolutely. I think I really should build a grief altar. I think about a lot of stories that ended. Life is made up of stories that bend and grow together and apart. There is no telling who I will know in 20 years.

I hope I will know my Jenny.  I hope I will know my Sarah. I hope I will know my Pam. Those three women are a bedrock of my mental health and happiness in a way that… I would really struggle without them. They are my family, each in their own way.

I hope I will still know pretty much all the rest of you too. But y’all are comets. I love you for the brightness you add to the sky, but I cannot depend on you constantly. That’s not an insult. I treasure your presence in my life. I learn from you and I value you so much.

But I can’t need you.

I’d better fucking be married in 20 years because god damn if I haven’t poured everything I have into this relationship. Fuck.

I expect my kids will have some period in their early 20’s of not talking to me much. I hope that by 29 my daughter will be talking to me again and be thrilled to vacation with me every year. I don’t get to demand that. I hope I will earn it. My kid will be about 27. Hopefully they will want to come too. I would think that was really fun. Next kid… will be right in the middle of being done with me for a bit. That’ll be reasonable.

I wrote a letter to my niece. Now I need to get my sorry ass to the post office to buy stamps. Sigh. So many steps. I’m going to buy like 50 stamps to the UK this time. Last time I bought three. That was not smart of me.

If I have 50 stamps staring me in the face I’m waaaaaaay more likely to get better about sending letters frequently. Via Skype I’m seeing that my niece is in a great developmental window to be receptive to letters/stories. That way we can build a relationship despite the distance. I need to get my happy-butt in gear. That way next time we see her… we won’t scare the shit out of her and maybe we will even be so fun we earn hugs. Ahem. We are just so overwhelming compared to her household…

We are loud.

I’m having feelings about my marriage. I don’t want it to change. I want to learn to appreciate it more.

I really am doing what I want to do. I picked this. I asked for it. Noah has… delivered in ways I frankly wouldn’t have believed possible. He is the correct, perfect, exactly right husband for me. Other folks have different needs and that’s all cool.

Noah and I both have this vast chasm inside us where we neeeeeeeed to figure out how to have a happy family. Not to have pictures of a pretending family–fuck that shit. We need to figure out how to be happy, how to hold space for other people to be happy, and how to teach our children to search out their own joy.

We both have that as a fairly driving goal in our life. Our friends are wonderful and lovely and we love them and we want to hang out with them and do things and see them when it is convenient…

But we neeeeeeeeeeeed to find out what it is like to have people of our blood not treat us with contempt. We need to find out what it is like to just no longer deal with people who treat you disrespectfully.

I have a lot of urges to go do stupid/bad choices for all kinds of reasons. Just about every part of my body rejects the urge to settle down and be happy. That seems like a dangerous and toxic thing.

I think a lot of the reason I constantly search for new, new, new, new, new is to be constantly adding new threads to the story so that when basically every thread that is present now goes away I won’t be alone.

I don’t trust that any of you will be with me in 20 years. Not my Jenny nor my Sarah nor my Pam let alone anyone else. I think there is low probability that Noah will leave because he grew up watching a shitty bad marriage and would put his head down and take it if it happened to him.

I don’t want to be that monster, though. It’s an option, sure. Not one I would feel good about.

Future Middle Child and I keep talking about pausing before you speak. Think about what you are going to say. Are you going to be proud in the future that you said that? When you look back, are you going to think “Yes, I was acting the way I thought was right?”

No one else’s evaluation of your behavior matters. Because maybe they won’t be around in the future to care who you turn out to be. You will look at you every day in the mirror for your whole life. What are you going to do to make sure you like who you see?

Do I think I am better than other people? I have made monstrous decisions. I have hurt people. I’m not in a good position to judge. I think I can look at a specific decision sometimes and be kind of a pompous asshole thinking, “Well at least I wouldn’t do that.” Yeah. I’m that kind of fucker. But that doesn’t mean I’m smarter or better or… It means I have a different set of knowledge/experience/resources.

Mostly folks do the best they can with what they have.

But wisdom comes from making bad decisions. And I’ve made a fuck ton of bad decisions. So once in a while I get to feel like I have a little wisdom.

Is that the same thing as better?

It really isn’t.

Why am I so obsessed with this whole “I’m not better” thing. Well, it’s probably partially because my shrink gave me shit about being “obsessed with being unique” and that’s… true. But that doesn’t mean better. It just means I have a lot of unusual/odd reactions that don’t fit well with peoples expectations and I need to be able to dictate my variance really quickly to people or I have problems.

And being able to advocate for yourself like that makes people think you think you are better than them.

Sigh.

I’m not better. I’m just weird as fuck and I need what I need or I don’t do well.

I would really to do well. Hm. Maybe that is a piece. Other people want to do well too and most human beings, even if they advocated for themselves, would not get what they need by asking for it because they only have the same small pool of people to ask. I uhhh change pools of resources. My friends are disparate. I don’t wear out a social group. I don’t frustrate a circle of people. Hm.

I only do as well as I do at getting what I need because I’m willing to keep walking and ask just about a perfect stranger if everyone I know says no.

So I keep asking. Because it works. But it doesn’t work for other people because the circumstances are different… they don’t want to keep walking.

I think I’m understanding this?

I’m real good at telling my kids, “That is a topic you need to find a different person to support you in. I’m not the right person for this.” Asking and receiving a no is fine. You just need to go try and find other people to ask next.

But if you live in a small place and there aren’t very many options…

Yeah. I can’t even wrap my head around how to cope with that.

Hey K-I got your email. I’m thinking. I have feedback but I need to chew over it in my head first. Thanks for thinking of me. I definitely have opinions to share…

Before I go back to bed, I’ve gotta say that seriously tracking IPs is a wonderful thing. I get to look at the hits on my blog and see that folks I haven’t talked to in a while are checking up on me. It’s pretty easy to recognize the identifying features of many of my friends. I know exactly one person in X city in Y state.

It reminds me that I need to reach out. Because as much as y’all like hearing about me… I like hearing about you. And you aren’t as pushy about putting yourself out there in the universe so I need to come knock on your door and say, “Oh wonderful person, please tell me about yourself.”

Like, Beautiful came over yesterday to tell me stories about her family. Her family is seriously #goalz for me. She’s going on her mom’s 50th birthday trip because she wants to. Because hanging out with her mom is fun for her.

I want that so much. I want to have children who like being around me.

My friends inspire me so much.

I slept for seven hours. This should not feel like a Herculean task.

I’m having a run of good doctors. This is… emotionally fucking with me. I don’t trust doctors and they scare the shit out of me. They have too much power. I haven’t yet met the OB I’m going to be working with but I talked to the lady I already like in the department. She says I have to agree to only two things to deliver with them: IV placement (just in case) but I don’t have to have an active IV bag the whole time, just a line in my body in case of emergency. I won’t give a shit about that. I’m not that needle phobic. The other part I need to agree to is periodic monitoring–at least every two hours. Given that I spent my last labor upset that my midwife was pissy about me asking her to monitor me (she wanted to ignore me and focus on her kids and let nature take its course) that sounds great.

Everything else is negotiable. The nice lady recommended that I try out the dude in the practice. He is the most chill, mellow, experienced person available. I think I shocked the nice lady when I said, “Yeah so many dudes have been around my crotch I don’t care about the gender of a doctor. Whatever.”

I talked about my marijuana usage. She asked why I use it. I started listing diagnoses. She nodded and said, “That seems fine.”

I got to see the one, single kidney bean growing inside me. Turns out I labeled the calendar exactly correctly for my week progression. I counted from the correct sex act according to the date scan. *pat self on back*

So, do you think I should tell Eldest Child that we conceived on her birthday or should I keep that a secret? Ha.

Eldest Child was conceived on our first anniversary. Future Middle Child was conceived when I got back from a rough trip to Portland immediately following a miscarriage. I didn’t have an empty cycle. Lightning was conceived on Eldest Child’s 9th birthday. Easy to remember timing.

SEVEN HOURS OF SLEEP. You don’t know how happy I am. Today we have a whole bunch of kids coming over. That sleep is going to help my mood a lot. It is going to be fun to see the mixed age of kids trying to figure out an RPG. This is Noah’s show and I’m going to be entertained.

I’m really grateful for how involved and interested Noah is in his kids. We have a weird, insular life and if we didn’t pay attention to each other it could be incredibly isolating and problematic. Instead we are all really happy and we have a tremendous amount of fun together. I feel so lucky. I know that there are pieces of this picture that I hold together… but Noah does so much. He gives so much.

I love Noah for being a good father. For taking it seriously that this phase of his life is about helping other people be ok. There are many ways to do that, but I like the way Noah does it.

As much as I once in a while wish Noah would watch a movie or a show with me, I’m really glad that mostly he reads to us and we explore the world of books together with our kids. We are going through Madeleine L’Engle books right now and it’s so fun to share them with the kids.

I like that Noah and I don’t put up a lot of walls between ourselves and the kids. Not emotionally and not in terms of time. Noah has a job and we work to protect his mental space while he’s performing it. But Noah doesn’t have a lot of separate hobbies. He shares what he does freely with the kids. He includes them and invites them. He would do the same with me if I didn’t have such a negative attitude.

For some reason I woke up this morning to dry heaves. It had been over 12 hours since I ate my cucumber sandwich so there wasn’t anything to come up. That was a weird feeling.

If you are ashamed to admit you do something, maybe you should change what you are doing. I’m not ashamed to talk about what I do or with whom.

I’m… going back to bed.

It sure would be nice to get this sleep business under control. Pregnancy is kind of a nightmare. Pregnancy is such a nightmare that Noah keeps telling me that even if I happen to be pregnant with twins he is strongly of the opinion that I will want another pregnancy when this one is over. Because I’m that kind of masochist.

Oh sweet cheese.

What information do you need to have before you respond to people?

What information ought to be offered or it is a betrayal? What can you forgive not being told?

I think it is easier for me to deal with someone telling me something I don’t love hearing than to not be told something I really need to know. Really really really need to know.

On what do we base our trust?

I miss Puff. I keep wanting to wander around the house looking for her. I miss her every single one of the 9,321 times I go to the bathroom in a day. She has been sitting on my feet while I use the toilet for a long time. And now she is gone.

I’m really happy she is no longer crying from pain. That was unfair. But I miss her so much.

I’ve never had a cat who lived longer than three years before her. This feels like a huge chunk of my life is ending.

In 8 hours I have my first groino appointment of this pregnancy. I won’t be meeting the person who will deliver me. I will be meeting with someone who can help me figure out who I can stand to work with. I’m looking forward to it. I am absolutely terrified of disclosing my marijuana usage but the pain doctor said I have to. He’s afraid if I don’t and they randomly screen me I’ll get in trouble. The hospital I plan to deliver at only screens “If someone is a walk in or if they have a reason”. I called and asked.

But he wants me to talk to my groino person because in his medical opinion marijuana is the single best medication I can be on for my constellation of problems. This is the first doctor who has been really certain and I can’t express how that feels.

I’ve got a real fucking problem with needing validation from someone with a god damn set of letters after their name before I believe the experiences I’m having in my body. It doesn’t help that most people with letters after their name tell me I’m doing everything wrong.

Hey, there was a recent study overseas showing that CBD helps bones knit better after a break. Because marijuana is magic.

In five hours I have a phone call appointment with the charter school. Sounds like the kids did make it in. Phew.

I just… want… slightly less responsibility this year.

Today Beautiful is coming over for tea. I feel so lucky.

Tomorrow we are hosting a kid RPG event. I suspect it will go well because Noah has put rather a lot of planning into this and he plans well. The age range could be substantial. I think we go down to four and we might get a teenager. He’s been braced that he will be helping the youngest ones learn the mechanics of gaming. But he thinks it sounds like a fun way to spend a few hours. Before he decides he needs to see if he will sleep through the event–because, teenager.

I get it. Totally cool.

If I could sleep through a day I WOULD WITH NO GOD DAMN APOLOGIES. YOU ROCK RIGHT THE FUCK ON.

For years I’ve been saying that exhaustion is a lifestyle choice for me. Now that I’m essentially being told I have adrenal fatigue that’s… a bad fucking idea. I have to stop. How? This is going to be hard.

My calendar is filling up. With medical appointments. Therapy and other medical support. I have to go back to the pain doctor three times in the next four weeks because going through these test results takes so fucking long they won’t try to give you that much information in one go. Your brain will drop too many important details. So they break it up. Sigh.

I told my physical trainer about what is going on. “At this stage it looks like exercise recommendations are gentle walking and stretching. I don’t know where you fit in.” First: HE DOESN’T THINK STRETCHING IS A THING AND HE NEVER DOES IT. That blew my forking mind. Whu? You are a physical trainer who doesn’t believe in stretching? How does that work. He thinks rolling out with a foam roller is totes enough. Second: with a combination of pregnancy and the need to stop raising my heart rate… where does strength training come in? That’s complicated as shit.

So we paused until I talk to the pain doctor more. We’ll do the last two sessions after we figure out what I should be doing. He’s going to talk to folks he knows in the physical training world because surely they know how to handle this problem. I worry.

Based on the research I’m doing… there’s a big difference between someone who has had these issues for a few months or under five years and… my whole damn life. The pain doctor strongly hinted that he doesn’t know if it is even possible to rewire my system after 30 years of this shit.

If only I had sought medical care sooner.

That sound is my heart breaking.

I’m FINALLY getting a sleep study. I’ve been asking for years.

In my head I keep coming back to “He doesn’t think a better medication exists for me.” On repeat. That has been the conclusion I have operated under for a long time based on my experience of living in my body. I don’t think a better medication exists. Finally I’m not being told that I just haven’t tortured my body enough–surely there is a more “approved” medication I can tolerate without wanting to die. Because it is not ok that I feel good so a medication that makes it feel good to live in my body must be bad.

It is hard living in a body that hates you as much as mine does. And then I keep getting pregnant because I’m fucking serious about my masochism.

I got 2 hours and 40 minutes of sleep.

fuck my life

I need to schedule an appointment to renew my medical card. Bah. One more appointment. Well, at least I’m already driving to forking San Jose a bunch. Sigh.

I got to have breakfast and dinner with friends yesterday. It was a lot of driving. I’m so happy I don’t leave my town today.

We have scheduled Sunday as a bed day. The kids say they would be happy to trade food delivery services for free screen time for a day.

I’m super thinking about it.

Noah and I haven’t had a bed day in…. years.

Rest. Oh glorious rest. And the Sunday afterward… the only thing scheduled is the kids coming back from Aunt Sarah’s. I don’t plan to do much of anything. See, I am resting more than usual for me.

I think I’m going to need to have a rule that I am back in my house by 6pm every day. I can’t go out to dinner with folks any more. By 7pm I need to be brushing my teeth and climbing into pajamas. I just have to. I can read… not on the screen… after that until 8 or 9. I’m not going to enjoy this. But I have to do it if I want to stop being in horrible pain All The Time.

So if you want me to come to your sex party, it needs to end by 5pm, mkay?

I can’t make exceptions any more. I can’t burn the candle at both ends. That candle is out of wax.

I keep seeing references to the idea that recovery from this is awful because when people feel the slightest surge of returning energy they want to “go back to normal” then they fuck themselves up extra. Yeah, that sounds like me. Ahem. Which is to say… even after I start feeling way better I have to keep acting like I still feel like shit.

Next week I only have one medical appointment. It feels like a miracle. There are five the week after. Four the week after that. I’m tired. This week had six. Not all of these are for me (thank goodness) but still.

Being disabled is a fucking job. And I’m barely disabled in the scheme of things.

I told the new shrink I’m working with to be careful reading my book. Do it in chunks and make sure you have emotional support when you finish a section. They said, “Wow. You are worried about me and you are checking my boundaries.” I said, “I don’t really want to be responsible for traumatizing you. It’s a hard book.” They thanked me and said they will read with caution, but they want to read so they can help me more. Sounds like a good approach.

I’ve tried to go back and reread No Shame, No Secrets, No Silence and I can’t because it feels so fucking upsetting. And it’s my life. Yeah, read it with caution and support.

It’s worth knowing that such things happen to human beings. But it hurts.

Privilege is such a funny thing. If you read that terrible, sad, horrifying book it’s kind of hard to say that I’m a person with a lot of privilege. Only I completely am. Even when I was a kid I had a lot of privilege. But bad things happen to people regardless of privilege. It’s orthogonal.

I deleted the birth board forum app from my phone. My hands hurt and I need to stop. I will just have to cope with not getting that kind of interaction. It’s a drama fest.

It’s not like I have a shortage of real life interactions with humans. And if you include Skype I’m deepening relationships with fantastic people who know me who live far away. So I’m not really in a position to truly need the online forum stuff. I feel like I was way more isolated during Eldest Child’s pregnancy. At this point I have so many friends that scheduling with everyone is practically impossible. I’m… in a good place. Now if only I could convince my brain of that.

Shit. This week I’ve had six friend dates and we are having a gathering at our house. I’m not fucking isolated.

I have five social engagements next week too. I’m not hurting for seeing friends. (Have I told y’all enough lately how much I appreciate that you show up when you say you will and you are honest about what you have to offer? I’m so fucking lucky.)

None of this happened by accident. I built and culled a network until I have a rock steady group of people who carry me when I can’t carry myself. I don’t have the biggest network of people inviting me to raucous parties… but I can’t be that person ever again any way. I’m in a solid place.

I’m going to stop for just a minute and think about the fact that *I* built this. It didn’t happen by accident. I was not born into a place and position. I don’t know these people because it was inevitable and mandatory. I know these people because I picked them and pursued them and they reciprocated.

Sobonfu told me I would have to build my own community because I would never fit into anyone else’s. She was right.

My friends are older than me and younger than me. They are a wide range of nationalities and ethnicities. They span the socioeconomic spectrum from filthy rich to barely surviving. My friends are incredibly diverse. My friends inspire me to think that I could be different, because look at the fantastic variety of life they represent. I have so many beautiful models of how to be happy or healthy in my life. They all do it differently.

I never imagined that I would get to this place. I don’t feel this was a slam dunk. This was not inevitable. It’s a fucking miracle.

And now I need to figure out how to internalize that this network really exists. I need to figure out how to calm my body down so I can just enjoy the hard work I’ve done.

I am so very lucky. And in 32ish more weeks, I get to meet Lightning. What do I have to complain about?

So… I’m feeling kinda ashamed of a thing I’m doing. But I’m not sure if it’s bad. During this pregnancy I’m thinking a lot about Future Middle Child as AFAB. (Assigned Female At Birth) I’m doing this because the physical sensation of my current pregnancy is so different from my previous pregnancies and I’m sorta obsessed with wondering if it increased testosterone.

So I care about the chemical soup I am floating in during pregnancy when a set of genital configurations were present.

I know that it doesn’t tell me what my kids gender will be and I know that they may or may not grow up and keep whatever set of junk they are born with. That’s all totally cool.

But when I’m pregnant and trying to figure out my place in my story… the AFAB part seems relevant because if this currently growing child is AMAB that means this pregnancy probably is partially different because of that part of chemical soup and that’s interesting for my future medical treatment.

But I feel like I’m reinforcing a binary view of my kid. I don’t believe they will always be as femme of center as they are right this minute. I think they are going to have a complicated life. And I’m on board.

I’m just… thinking about the chemical soup I swim in while I’m incubating.

I wish that didn’t make me feel like I was erasing my child’s identity. I know you are nonbinary. I will help you in whatever way you need on that journey. But there were these few months where we shared a blood stream and you were my me-not-me and you changed me and I’m trying to understand how that works in the larger scale of my chemical soup.

I’m wondering if testosterone supplementation is something I should consider after I finish having kids. I’ve flat been offered it by one doctor in the past. It would mean a drive to San Francisco but… I could take bart. And visit Sarah.

I don’t think I am trans even slightly. But I think that testosterone might be something I could use a wee bit more of.

How do I talk about this without talking about this. The CPS call is really… intense. The specific phrasing that came up “Kids explore. Kids try games. Kids make choices we really wish they would’t make because they have to learn.”

I’m trying very hard to turn this into a reparenting moment for myself. I did stuff that was worse than what my kids have done. I was also younger and acting upon the explicit directions of my parent.

This feels like one of those life moments where I really need to forgive myself. I was five when I raped a little boy. I didn’t know what rape was. I didn’t know what consent was. I thought I was supposed to do that to everyone. Kids explore. Kids try games. Kids make choices we really wish they wouldn’t make.

A lot of my friends have spent over a decade trying to talk me into believing that I’m not a terrible, horrible person because I fucked up so completely when I was five. I have not been interested in nor able to absorb their words.

Am I more ready now? CPS didn’t come down like a ton of bricks. There was no blanket condemnation. There was a resigned sadness to the fact that kids do shit and it doesn’t make them beyond redemption it just means they need concentrated extra lessons on why they can’t do it again.

I was up half the night thinking about my father. I genuinely don’t know how to feel about him. I was also thinking about my mom.

I’ve spent most of the past couple of years feeling guilty and ashamed for breaking contact with my mom. I owe her.

But even though my mom only beat me a few times and even though my mom was “unaware” of the sexual assaults… My mom told me to my face that marriage meant becoming someone’s whore and never having a choice about sex again in your life. I was young. I was what, 12? 13?

That’s fucking up my marriage in some complicated ways. Growing up to believe that sex is supposed to be painful and my enjoyment is… not the point anyway… I’m a hole to be filled.

That fucks up a marriage.

Because I want to change it. I sure as shit don’t want to model that horror to my children. So what does that mean? I no longer want to believe that being married means I’m a whore who owes sex in exchange for the roof over my head and the food in my belly. This is hurting me so much.

I’m not saying this came from Noah. I walked into this marriage with the belief it would be that way. Noah didn’t object to the idea that it would be ok for him to have sex when he wanted regardless of how it felt to me.

That became a problem. Which isn’t his fault but seriously alters our relationship anyway. Because if that is all I am in this relationship then I need to go have other relationships where I am not this because I cannot bear the mental load of deserving to be fucked painfully for my whole life as just what I deserve.

If what I am in this house is a whore who owes service for my food and board then I need to have relationships where that is not what I am. Because I need to be something different. I need to not just be a worthless whore for my whole life.

Yeah, I blame my father for this. It seems legit.

I need to “get over” so much. I need to get over feeling haunted by the fact that I was brought into this world because a rapist wanted to hurt a woman he viewed as a whore who was getting too uppity. My existence is a punishment.

I was not brought into this world in love or joy or desire. I was born from hate and malicious intention. I was born because my father wanted another whore to rape.

It is incredibly hard to feel like that isn’t my burden to carry. It is hard to feel like it isn’t my fault. I am evil. I was brought into the world to be a weapon and a victim.

My mother wanted to abort me and she couldn’t for religious reasons.

Just about 36 years later that shouldn’t matter so much. But I’m still crying.

I’m tired of being told that I am rude and disgusting for asking my friends for help when help should only come from family. If I asked for more help from my children that would start crossing lines. It would be getting close to emotional incest and no that’s not an acceptable trade for “not being rude” to my friends. I’m needy and I’m pathetic and my friends are willing to put up with that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the folks who broke off friendships with me in the last year. I love them very much. I’ve put 7 and around 12 years of effort into those women. But the thing is I’d say the rude, judgmental shit I said again. I don’t think I was wrong. Even with the consequences. So I get to feel sad about the fact that there are consequences for actions and I don’t think there is another way for this to work out. Life is like that.

I was talking to a friend about the people I have problems with in the bdsm community. The funny thing is… if I did get along with the people I actively avoid… I would know for sure that I wasn’t a good person. I would know for sure that I was scummy and low.

I don’t want to know that for sure about myself. So I’m ok with having large conflicts with some people.

I don’t believe it is ethical to “mentor” an 18/19 year old and line up your nasty old men friends and tell the young person now they have to fuck all these people “in order to learn”. I don’t need to get along with people who will act that way. That’s disgusting.

I don’t have that many conflicts with people. Not considering how many people and communities I know. I feel like I mostly have conflicts for good reasons.

The thing is, my friends don’t hesitate to tell me when I’m fucking up because they want me to be healthy. My friends call me on it when I’m too harsh with my kids. They tell me to be nice to my husband. They tell me to be nicer to myself. They judge my choices and tell me that some of them have a poor chance of working out.

I want that from my friends. I wouldn’t want friends who watched me set my life on fire and they sit around “minding their own business”. That’s not a fucking friend.

If you hate me because I say in front of you and your child that hitting children is wrong and indicates that an adult is out of control and the ADULT needs to be removed before they cause damage…

I can live with that. I don’t feel bad even a little.

Even though you hate me for “shoving my culture down your throat”. I will cheerfully shove the culture of “don’t beat your children” down EVERYONE’S THROAT AND I WON’T FEEL BAD.

I feel bad that I exist because I am a weapon and I’m intended to be a victim. I don’t feel bad about most of what I do with my agency while I happen to be alive. Despite my extreme dysregulation… I think I make a lot of good choices. Not alllll of my choices are good, that’s so true. Which is why I’m glad I have friends who watch me and say, “Krissy you are fucking up. Stop it.”

I have a really hard time with the fact that most of my life, most of my measurable “success” at anything in this life is going to be my motherhood.

I really wanted to be bigger than that. But I’m not really.

I’m not a real sex educator. I organized education for a convention that people flew to from all over the country, but whatever.

I’m not a real teacher because I hide at home and educate my children but my efforts aren’t any more substantial than “all mothers think constantly about their children” so what I’m doing is just… nothing.

I feel worthless and pointless and I’m in so much fucking pain.

Pregnancy is really shitty. And this is my easiest pregnancy ever.

None of the reading I do matters. None of the work I do matters.

I don’t matter.

Even if my fuck up when I was five was kind of understandable. Even if I can forgive myself for that action (which I really don’t know if I can do it or not at this point) I don’t know that I can forgive myself for being born. I shouldn’t be here.

It’s interesting talking to the kids’ therapists about ancestral trauma. That’s a real thing. My kids carry within them the weight of all that happened to me and all that happened to my mother and my father and my grandparents. Some truly horrendous shit has happened to my family. And my kids carry that in them.

How can I help them feel like they are not a weapon and a victim?

Getting off Twitter and being off facebook means that I’ve been… hanging out in parenting forums. Where are my pregnant people at?

I hate pregnancy forums. Very full of “If you need to ask for help you are an incompetent, rude loser who shouldn’t have had kids.” But those same assholes usually have a mother who comes over and offers help and that isn’t rude at all.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

“If you don’t have someone in your life who perceives your needs and who volunteers spontaneously to meet them you are an incompetent loser who does not deserve anything.”

READING THIS SHIT IS SUCH A BAD IDEA.

I’m mentioning disability issues (mental and physical) and limits of not-having family. You fuckers don’t get to win this topic without a god damn argument.

I need a better hobby.

But I feel really lonely. I can direct my kids through work. Or I can listen to Noah talk about his work. Or anyone in the house will tell me more than I ever wanted to hear about video games and comics.

I feel really lonely.

I know I’m talking to friends on Skype more and that does help. But I still feel lonely. This is such a big feeling.  Really I’m back to seeing people a fair bit. I see a whooooooole bunch of people… a little.

I can’t ever look for the enmeshed thing with a friend again and that is what hurts. Bonus Mama was my last try this lifetime.

People can handle me for a few hours a year. Sometimes a few hours a month. Almost no one wants to spend multiple hours with me in a week unless they live with me full time. I’m too annoying.

I spend all of my time with people consciously trying to not be too much. Don’t say too much. Don’t ask for too much. Don’t be too much.

Pam and Sarah and Noah can handle full unbridled Krissy. But Pam needs huge breaks. Sarah needs huge breaks. Noah’s fortitude is shocking. Noah can handle me, but Noah isn’t interested in the vast majority of things that interest me. He will tolerate me having huge thoughts and feelings… but he isn’t… there with me if that makes sense. He’s an observer.

I feel like almost everyone else starts pulling away from overwhelm after a few hours. It’s visible.

I’m not mad at anyone. This is my fault. But it’s hard. I feel so bad that I am like this. That I can’t be someone that makes people feel comfortable and at ease and like being around me is soothing.

Instead I am dysregulated and I make other people feel dysregulated and they need to get away from that. I’m not angry at people for it. That’s a good choice. But I feel sad. I feel lonely. I feel like *I* am wrong.

Why do I want to stay in the bay area? For my social life? Oh that’s so messy.

The bay area is littered with social groups where I feel like I don’t belong and I shouldn’t show up because I offend people. There can be one person in the group I had a slightly rude look from 15 years ago and I won’t come back. Avoidance is strong with this one. Or so many reasons.

I’ll never work Dickens again because I don’t want to run into my rapist. I avoid a lot of dance stuff for a lot of reasons. There are chunks of the bdsm community that are closed to me because they cater to rapists or racists.

I feel inferior. I feel like I don’t belong. I feel like other people are better than me and I shouldn’t inflict my presence on people. I feel like the only place I belong is my house and the best thing to do would be to collapse the fucker on my head.

I am struggling with having people “In Authoreteh” give me pats on the head saying I’m doing things “right”. Stanford, CPS, and multiple therapists are all on deck telling me that I’m handling problems as well as they can be handled. I AM doing the hard work. I am saying the things that need to be said. And I still feel like they all just misunderstand and I’m an incompetent loser who is ruining everything and I’m bad and I’m bad and I’m bad.

There is no possible chance on this fucking earth that I am doing the right things as a mother.

I am too globally wrong to be doing anything right.

I think it’s funny that I have to find stupid judgmental strangers on the internet to validate that I’m entirely wrong and bad because I can’t find people who know me or who have professional experience evaluating families to tell me I’m wrong and bad. I really am ridiculous.

If I were perfect I wouldn’t spend so much time crying because I’m a piece of shit.

I got 5.5 hours of sleep last night. It’s funny how it hurts. My body says, “YES! LIKE THAT!! MORE!!” but how much you want to bet I’ll get 3 hours the next night?

Apparently it is the height of being rude to ask people for help after you have a baby. If people offer you should mostly turn them down because if you choose to have a baby YOU DESERVE TO DO EVERYTHING FOR YOURSELF OR YOU ARE BAD AND LAZY. The internet is happy to validate that I suck. Cause I ask for help.

Krissy. You need a healthier hobby.