A social-media-friend posted today that she wants to take a month off of comparing herself to other people. My instant thought was, “Wow. I can’t do what you are doing.” Which cracked me up. Someone else is trying to stop comparing themselves to people so I compare myself to them and feel like a loser. Like I do.

Right this minute I’m waiting for my meds to kick in. We were out of the house for ten hours and holy crap I could use extra apathy right about now. I don’t medicate when I’m driving (safety first!) and it makes my stomach hurt. It is really hard to eat as many calories as I need when my stomach hurts like this. So by the time I got home I was shaking.

During the road trip I think that I need to plan around being able to medicate by 1 or 2pm. I just don’t think it is smart for me to require myself to go longer than that without medication. It hurts my body. It means that by 6pm I’m not able to be patient with the kids and I end up having to apologize and I’m crying and it’s just… not something I can do steadily for five months. This hurts.

It was a good day. Two social calls and dinner/playtime at Ikea. We drove really far north and I stack those days pretty heavily because I’m not willing to drive more days.

Lately every social call feels fraught. Who am I going to drive away next? I don’t feel secure in my relationships. It was funny to talk with the folks at the first social call about insecurity and how it drives people away. Irony and all that.

And now my cat wants to crawl on my lap and I am gently but firmly telling her no. I cannot fucking pay attention to anything but me right this minute.

This insecurity feels tied in with the comparisons and with my wacky-ass perceptions of status. It should be said that my early understanding of “social status” came from the Clan of the Cave Bear books. Status decides that when the group goes for a walk you stand between (wo)man number 4 and (wo)man number 6. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually work that way in my real life. This means most of my early understandings are completely useless.

Noah tells me that someone else said (dinno who) that societies need to have a clear top and a clear bottom (of the social ladder) and it needs to be hard to tell where the rankings are in the middle. That seems plausible and all.

I read an article today that said it is better to not have “goals” and instead have “systems”. I agree and disagree. (For example: don’t have “run a marathon” as a goal; instead you should have the goal of running x miles on y days through the training period and that will allow you to run the marathon later.) I… Ok I’ll just say it: I think that is stupid. Well, not stupid exactly but missing some important steps.

If your goal is to write a book then you need to figure out a system to support that goal. If your only thing is, “I’ll start writing every day! Surely everything else will work out!”

I can tell you that it is perfectly possible to have a disciplined system where you write daily for years and never get around to writing the book. Sure, the system matters.. but without goals I think just setting up systems kind of burns out.

I don’t know many people who run enough to just do a marathon because they like maintaining that training schedule. I’m sure there must be people in the world but I feel confident saying they are rare. That means a whole lot of people (like me) do a marathon because they have a goal of doing a marathon and not because they want to Have The Long-Term System of Running.

Post-marathon I’m trying to figure out how running and exercise will work for me on a longer-term basis and that is systematized to some degree… but not just set a system and forget it. The system changes because my goals change over time. Sometimes I’m training for a marathon and sometimes I’m training for a 5k. There is not a system that will just cover both situations.

I’m quite certain there are writers who sit down and just babble daily and miraculously a book appears at the end. Most of the people I know who have written books have to start with the idea of what they want to write. They may not have every single line or plot-twist pre-planned, but they know they want to write a book. The goal isn’t just writing for the sake of writing.

Which brings me to: how do you evaluate your system or goals? How do they play into status? And then oh no do you compare yourself to other people to evaluate your progress?

At this moment in time I haven’t cut in over three years. I had one previous longer stretch in my life where I went longer without cutting, but at that time I was engaging in a myriad of other self-harm acts fairly intentionally. I wanted to hurt me. If I compare just to myself, am I doing well or not that well right now? It’s not my longest spree of non-self-harming because there are days when I have some alcohol and I know crystal clear that it hurts me to do so. Is having the occasional drink of alcohol better or worse than my previous tendency to go pick up very risky sex? I’m really not sure.

I evaluate some of these things by talking to other people who engage in self-harm. I compare my level of self-harm to theirs and I think about the sustainability of what I am doing.

At this stage of my life I feel comfortable saying that I am unlikely to accidentally kill myself with my self-harm. I am no longer doing things that could kill me accidentally. I’m still not good at taking care of myself, but I’m not courting death. That distinction matters to me.

When I say that I compare myself to other people that self-harm I don’t mean I decide that one or the other of us is “better” or “stronger” or “crazier” or … whatever. I mean I look at the range of self-harming behaviors and I try to figure out the potential lethality of what I’m doing. I try to determine if what I am doing something that I can keep up and sustain my life.

Cutting isn’t an option because it is modeling for my kids and they are both emotional enough that I am not going to be the god damn model for that behavior. Just no. I don’t pull my hairs out anymore because look at you fucking funny. I don’t pick up casual sex any more for a whole long list of reasons; very high on the list is that I don’t want to model such behavior for my children.

I know people who are able to be promiscuous AND good parents. I don’t think I am among their number. I’ve seen it happen–really and truly. There are some people who can compartmentalize their lives and engage in behavior when their kids aren’t around. My boundaries are shit. If I think something is ok sometimes I’m not good at saying no when I “should”. So I just don’t look around for prey anymore.

I’ve managed to alter some of my compulsive behaviors–I am working hard on my hypervigilance and I’m making progress. I am not managing to lessen my paranoia that everyone in the world is going to end up hating me because I am a disgusting human being, but I don’t think people will attack me randomly. That is progress.

Noah thinks I deserve to have a high opinion of myself because I have reached many of my life goals. He thinks I should think of myself as successful. I can’t figure out what would make me feel successful. Money isn’t doing it. School didn’t do it. Will parenting when I get to the far side? Somehow I doubt it.

I feel like I have spent my life trying very hard to walk next to the line of status without ever joining. Sure it means I will never be “high status” but it means that my position in society is ambiguous and people don’t know how to treat me. That’s better than people knowing they can treat you badly. Indecision is important. Privilege is important.

Sometimes people in my life say things like, “I don’t believe in privilege.” Invariably they are white. Usually they are men (but not always!). I believe in privilege. I’ve been much closer to the bottom of the social status ladder than the average white person from my current social class. If someone says they don’t believe in privilege my thought is, “Then why do white people commit more crimes and black people spend more time in prison?” It’s systematic. That doesn’t mean that individual white people never get a raw deal.

I went to parties over the past few months. It’s the holiday season–parties happen. Specifically I went back and visited a social group I used to spend a lot of time with and whom I haven’t spent much time since I had kids. It was weird. The whole time I was there I was shaking because I was convinced I would say something off-putting to someone and I would be told I had to leave. Even though the hosts are not that kind of people. I would have to physically assault someone for no reason in front of a crowd to be ejected. They don’t eject the rapists or the other awful people. My paranoia is kind of ridiculous. (Though to be fair I didn’t see a single rapist [that I know of] at this party–which was a great change. Every other time I’ve been in their house I’ve known of 1-3 rapists present.)

Sometimes folks ask me to tell them who the missing stairs are. Sometimes I can tell and sometimes I can’t because if I told it would be obvious who the victim is and I was sworn to secrecy. I’m not good at holding my own secrets. It is hard to hold them for other people. I think I have done so pretty well over the years. I talk about having the knowledge (because having the knowledge and sitting on it is fucking awful for me) because otherwise I will blurt. Talking around something is a way for me to avoid jumping up and down on it.

Sometimes, when I know about a missing stair and I hear from yet another victim I feel very guilty–like it is all my fault this additional person got raped.

These things all feel tied up to me. Status, comparisons, missing stairs, privilege, feeling successful, making goals.

I’m told regularly that I should only compare myself to myself. But what about when I’m backsliding. It totally happens. Then I feel like a shitty piece of shit who should die. But when I’m backsliding and I look around at other people who have comparable problems to mine I can find some compassion for myself. Most people with severe mental illness backslide. It isn’t because I am a failure. It is because I am a person with severe mental illness.

Today I was talking with a friend who has much more severe physical issues than I do. Never the less we could talk about comparable childhood issues and she was able to give me some useful ways to talk about my sensitivity issues.

I had not ever really thought about the fact that I write so poorly partially because holding a pen/pencil hurts my hand. Anything that requires tight movements of my fingers. Know how I freak the fuck out when it comes to having to do fine work I have to pinch my fingers to do? It hurts. It always has. I have to talk to someone with a diagnosable hyper-flexibility disorder in order to find someone with comparable problems. Talking to her means that I got to be told, “Hyperflexibility problems happen on a spectrum. It is possible to have one or two hyperflexible joints that will cause you major life problems.”

Oh. Yeah, I’ve always had several joints that were hyperflexible. My hands hurt like a motherfucker when I try to write. My knees hyperextend like a motherfucker. They always have. I have to be careful how I hold my legs or they hurt really badly.

I don’t recognize that these things are problems unless I compare myself to other people. For me they are just how my body works. I can compare how my body changes over time, but even that is hard to do because memory is imperfect. I can watch how my behavior changes over time… sorta… mostly I assume that my behavior is shit because I’m a shitty person.

Sometimes I cry and apologize to my kids for being so mean and they look at me very confused and say, “I didn’t hear anything mean.” I am not a good judge of whether or not my behavior is acceptable.

Partially because “acceptable” changes from person to person and I know a rather freakishly diverse group of people. I fucking love my friends. They are so awesome. I’m grateful you spend time with me and show me what it is like to be a person like you.

Noah sometimes tells me he thinks I should feel more successful because of how I handle money. I don’t know how to really make him understand that I don’t feel like having money is a sign of success. It’s mostly a sign that nothing bad has happened recently. That doesn’t mean I’m so good or anything like that.

One of my friends was talking about her money situation with regards to having two special needs kids. I listened and thought, “I’m a fucking piece of shit for complaining about my life. Compared to this I have such a fucking cake walk.” At this stage my problems are mostly self-imposed to the degree that mental illness can be self-imposed.

I do not feel that someone else having a hard time means that I am successful and judging your success or not by how much money you have seems to necessitate thinking that people who have less money are less successful. Oh barf. Fuck you with a fucking chain saw.

I don’t envy money. I envy people who have emotionally-close families. I envy people who have a life-long group of very close friends. Most of the people I’ve met who have noticeably more money than me… I don’t envy a god damn thing about their life. I wouldn’t trade my life for theirs for anything. Once in a while I meet the rare rich person who also has a ridiculously tight family unit… ok, I envy them. That seems god damn unfair.

It has been a weird life. Seeing my boss last week was fascinating. He knew me when I was very poor. He gave me work so I didn’t have to live on ramen any more. He semi-regularly bought me food because otherwise I wouldn’t be eating during work shifts. Now I can take him out to lunch. Does that make me feel “successful”? Not really. Mostly I felt very sad that life has been so hard to him over the past decade that he needs to have people buy him food. He looks like a scarecrow. He’s lost almost 30 pounds and he was always a slender man.

I went to the park with one of my former students. I listened to her life woes. She talked about longing for a $2 ball of string for crochet and having to put that desire off for months or years because she doesn’t have an extra $2. I said, “When is your birthday?” “Two weeks ago.” “Here is money. Happy Birthday. I love you very much and I think it is not ok that there is a universe where I have extra money and you can’t have a $2 ball of string. Don’t tell your husband I gave you the money.” (Long story there I’m not sharing on the internet.)

Do I feel “successful” because I rarely pass a homeless person without giving them food or money? No.

Having more “things”, having more money than other people does not make me feel better about myself at all. It feels orthogonal to my search for self-worth.

What has made me feel successful? Having strangers on the internet tell me that my book made their life better. I made them feel less alone and less bad about themselves. That feels like success. Mostly my life doesn’t involve a lot of people telling me how I’ve made their lives better. Life doesn’t really go that way by and large. It’s ok. It is what it is.

I walked out of my college graduation feeling like a fraud and a piece of shit. It is pretty remarkable (and pathetic) how I can turn things that *should* make me feel good about myself into reasons to hate me.

I have many pictures on my walls. Well over 150 pictures. More will come. Some are studio pictures, many are candid shots. They span many many decades. I have the one picture of my grandparents that I have on the wall. I see the faces of my sister and brother and many many friends who are no longer in my life.

I think I consciously don’t want to cull the pictures of the people who are no longer actively in my life because I know how important they are to me, even though I don’t see them any more.

If my sister showed up at my door tomorrow crying and apologizing… I’m pretty sure I couldn’t shut the door on her. If she showed up yelling I could slam the door in her face. If my brother ever decides to try to mend fences I will probably bend over backwards. If my mother ever has the courage to approach me I will probably fall to my knees apologizing for being such a bad daughter.

It is hard for me to have boundaries. Even with people who hurt me very much.

Sometimes I feel like I am “not attached” to people because I can walk away from so many relationships. Last year I ended a 15 year relationship. That hurts. I did not feel the person could be safe for my kids and that’s just a non-starter. Sorry, you aren’t more important to me than my kids. My kids are my responsibility in a way that no friend ever could be.

My favorite shirt now has nine holes in it. (To completely jump topics.) I’m very sad about this. The biggest holes are the size of a quarter. It’s time for this shirt to go. (I’ve already sewn up holes several times and it is starting to look like shit.) Money is convenient and awesome to use for trading for goods and services. Money can be used to trade for things that other people perceive as social status whether I agree with their evaluations or not.

I had the fucking ladies who worked in Tiffany’s oohing and awwwing over my wedding ring. I believe the whisper was, “Oooooh. That’s real.” Which… how the fuck they can tell is beyond me. Frankly that seemed weird to me. The rings that other women wear are imaginary? What the fuck?

It was a fucking outrageously expensive ring that I still feel guilty about buying. I could have paid down my fucking mortgage more.

The thing is, I’ve had several occasions as an adult (since getting married) where I needed to manipulate the fuck out of people to get them on my side. (Police officers, lawyers, and judges top the list!) The fact that rich people look at me and know my jewelry is real means that I get less pushback than I would get if I were more visibly poor.

I watched how my mother was treated. It was really bad.

Rich white people look at me and think, “Ahh. On My Side.” Knowing that rich white people look at me and think that makes me want to puke. But I’ll exploit it when I have to. Because that’s how the world works.

I deeply admire my friend who is trying to find self-worth without comparing herself to other people. I think that is healthy and admirable. I also think I’m not capable of doing it. Maybe never, definitely not right now. (Not that she said nor implied that I should copy her. Err, I am just having my feels over here.)

I don’t like me very much, but my kids do. My kids pick hanging out with me over options that frankly sound more fun to me. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are entirely sincere about the depths of their devotion. They prove it over and over again. They pick hanging out with me over other people. Blows me the fuck away. When we talk about our favorite part of the day at dinner, more than half the time one or both of my kids tell me that their favorite thing was snuggling with me or spending time with me.

I know this will change and I need to let it change. I tell the kids, “I’m really happy you feel this way about me right now. It will be ok if I am not your FAVORITE PERSON forever. I will adjust and learn to live with whoever supplants me in your affections.” When I say that Shanna looks at me intently and says, “Moooom.” She has an adorable glare that goes with it.

I really don’t know how the future will go. And I’m scared. But I’m really grateful I get to face the future with Noah and Shanna and Calli. And my friends. I have great friends even if I don’t trust that will still like me in the future. I’m sorry I don’t have more trust. I have a lot of good reasons to think people aren’t going to like me long term. It’s not just paranoia.

But I recognize that I’m pretty paranoid and that isn’t useful or necessary.

I don’t want to put my mood tracking stuff in any posts marked kid-friendly. To me that is part of the dividing line. Which means 500 words is about as many as I can manage in a row before I’m like “Yeah that’s how kid-friendly I can be.” Good grief.

Today is very different from yesterday. Today I’m not angry. I don’t feel any rage. Instead it is anxiety. The fact that I get angry like I did yesterday is fully reason enough for me to deserve terrible punishment and for everyone to stop talking to me forever. Even if I didn’t say anything to anyone. Even if I didn’t do anything… I could and that’s enough for me to deserve PERMANENT SHUNNING.

And even that sounds more intense than I really feel right this minute. If my anxiety runs up and down from 0-10 I’m probably only at like 6 or 7. I feel a little bit of self-assurance that I didn’t blow up a relationship yesterday even though I was a bad person having feeeeeeeeeeeelings but I could have and that’s enough to deserve punishment. I’m going to take a moment to lovingly rub the insides of my cheeks with my tongue where they are currently macerated and tell myself thank Gawd it isn’t a 10 Anxiety Day.

Our second baby-sitter quit already. Well, more accurately she called and said she could no longer work during the week at all (stuff with her kids) and she has no-showed more than 50% of the weekend hours she was supposed to work. So I told her that I will look for someone else. Half quitting half getting fired? It was a nice dream while it lasted. I liked her. She was nice and she worked really well with the kids but if someone is only available on the weekends and they only show up half the time on the weekends… that doesn’t work for me. And she was the only person who would interview. Ha.

I have emailed my former student who is listen on the baby-sitting site. Technically the hours I want are outside the window she lists on her profile and that is why I didn’t ask her first. But the hours I want only extend one hour outside her preferred window so I sent her an email today asking if it is horribly rude to inquire about hours outside what she advertised. We’ll see what she says. I would actually be really excited to work with her. She was one of the ones who hung out with me a lot during breaks and after school. I like her a lot. AND she’s super physically active and might be better than me at teaching Shanna how to ride a bike. I’d be super thrilled with that bonus. She is one of the students who taught for me when I had substitutes.

When I was a teacher I had a very firm policy: my classes should run like a clock. The students need to have the routine so ingrained that they can do it whether I am there or not. So when I knew I had to be absent in advance I would select one student from each period and have them come in during lunch before my absence. We would go over the lesson plan and I would answer all the questions they had. Then each period had their own fellow-student-teacher-of-the-day. Subs loved me. They all would give me their personal phone numbers and beg that I call them first when I had to be out because my classes were so easy.

I miss teaching. I was good at it and that is a validating feeling.

I haven’t been good about getting to homeschool events lately. I was sick then it was the holidays. I think I need to figure out pieces of my attitude about the home schooling community. I’m having a hard time figuring out where I fit. I haven’t ever felt like I fit anywhere. This is not a problem based on the people in the group. I could find things to complain about (and in person I do…) but really I think this group of people is really awesome. I feel very lucky to have found this home schooling community. It doesn’t exist everywhere.

Some times I have big feelings in the direction of the group organizer. It happens. She does not exist solely to fill my needs and I have feelings about that. Sheesh. How dare she. But she has kept a group going for a very long time. I respect that. I respect what it takes to put your head down and keep plugging along even though it is hard and people come and go and you never know what you can depend on. I have deep appreciation for her hard work. I couldn’t do it. I’m grateful that she is there providing the background structure that I’m allowed to drop-in and join when I can and there isn’t a lot of guilt about me not showing up when I can’t.

So the fact that she doesn’t live and exist to meet my needs is something I can forgive and all. I have my feelings and they aren’t her fault or problem. But I need to figure out how to interact with someone who is that steady and there and in charge. That is a kind of figurehead I have had a lot of trouble with historically.

She must have a plan that moves on forward without me. I’m not dependable. I have deep respect for that. But that means that sometimes I have a hard time seeing how I fit into the group. That’s not her fault. I’m not blaming her.

Fuck talking about this stuff is hard.

It is really frustrating and hard sometimes that I know so many really busy people. If you don’t happen to have a perfect scheduling line up you get bupkis. I really struggle with not taking it personally.

I know it isn’t personal. Other people are centering their lives around them and that is right and appropriate.

It is really hard seeing where I fit. I’m so hard. I’m so picky. I have so many stupid nit-picky things that I will completely fly off the handle about and… gawd I’m not fair.

I get so angry. Does my anger make me unsafe? Or just uncomfortable to be around? Is it ok for me to make people uncomfortable? Is making people uncomfortable the same thing as bullying or abuse?

It is very hard to see how there might be a space for me in a community unless the community is looking for a new bully.

I am so defensive that I am on offensive enough that I am scared I’m a problem. I don’t know how to evaluate this.

Relatively high anxiety day.

And now… it’s time for the babysitter to go home. I should stop typing. Whoa anxiety. Shaking. Stupid body.

I’m trying not to cry so I’m keeping busy. The camping trailer is entirely together except for the board that will be cut to fit on Friday. Yay! I put the tent up. It is spacious and wonderful. My bossy neighbor (I appreciate the advice so much) came by and said “Scotchguard. Get you some.” So I will do that soon.

Today during babysitting time I will finish backing the pallets in the yard. Then I will get dirt from the nursery. Then I can fill in my new planter boxes that have been sitting there just kinda hanging out for months. They were finished before the elimination diet. I have not felt physically well enough to do anything about them since. Now that I’m eating pretty much anything and I’m exercising again (my ankle finally feels better after falling in October) I feel physically up for doing things again. It is like magic.

(On the poop front. A few days ago I felt like I had to go really a lot so I went into the bathroom. I tried to relax and not “force” things out but not much was moving. I encouraged a bit and was rewarded with bile and a touch of slippery, mucosy blood. Haven’t seen any blood since. I stopped trying to go that day. Since I stopped tracking I’ve seen a variety of consistencies. I am (at this point) mostly respecting FODMAPS only I’m back on wheat and dairy… mostly. Sorta. If I *really* want something with wheat I have it. FODMAPS technically isn’t a gluten free diet (depending on which source you read) it is a wheat-free diet. So I’ve been skipping wheat stuff as much as possible and having some wheat now and then without getting upset. My poop isn’t as awesomely solid as it was, but I’m also having lots of Big Feelings and that upsets my digestion.)

I have to get the planter boxes finished because I have to start planting the mushroom kit we got from Ms. Bladerunner (technically I only have 35ish days left!) and I need to move some plants from the front yard to make room for the incoming bathroom expansion. We have an appointment with them tomorrow night to talk about the next stage. Blueprints are done. We are going to go over them, ask for modifications, and hopefully get a start date for work. I’m crossing my fingers. I’m feeling really yicky about breathing black mold.

I have started preparing for the trip in terms of medication. I talked to my nice delivery driver. “I swear on a stack of bibles I’m not reselling, but you are going to see some very large purchases from me early this year and then I’ll disappear for a few months. I’m not stocking up before losing my card. I just won’t be able to buy on the road.” He was very nice about it. We spent a while talking about his impending fatherhood and how it changes life. He advised me to pack the medication separate from everything else and put a copy of my medical recommendation on top of the container so if anyone opens it, that’s the first thing they see. He’s a smart guy. I’ll use that tip.

Do you know what just fucking occurred to me. I really shouldn’t go through Canada. The international border is probably the most dangerous spot for me with two children and a lot of quasi-legal medication. (It’s legal in some states sorta but illegal for the federal government.)

Well… I’m sure glad I thought of that now.

Damnit. I really wanted to go through BC.

Good thing I stop and consider my actions in advance. Ha. (sometimes)

Want to know what’s awesome? Once I catch up on the planter boxes and finish the trailer on Friday… I don’t have any big projects hanging over me. I have just the ongoing daily life stuff. The remodel will impact my life but I’m not doing the work. I don’t think I should start another big project until next year. Wait! I know what I’m going to do. Once I have the yard a bit more settled after the remodel, my nice yard guy and I will be putting in a drip watering system on a timer so my plants don’t die in the six months I’m gone. I have limited trust in my husband’s ability to keep my garden alive. Not because he’s a bad person or anything. He’s just…. not so much an “out door guy”. He has many wonderful talents. Including being able to pay the nice yard guy to put in a drip system. Everyone wins! Yay!

Talk and not talk. What makes someone safe for me to be around? I don’t know. I know that I have big triggers of things that will cause me to blow up. If someone knows that I have these triggers and doesn’t care to modify their speech then I need to take steps to insure that I don’t blow up. That’s the grown up response.

I’ve been reading a lot about existential loneliness. I think in my youth, ignorance, and self absorption I had no idea how much of a truly universal phenomena this is. I hit some point in my early 20’s where I told a friend, “I’ve figured out that “being grown up” has to be the same thing as being ok being alone.” I was never ok being alone as a child. I was alone… but it wasn’t ok. I wasn’t ok. Now I have found my way to alone being ok.

The older I get the more I appreciate my own company. No one yells at me for crying when I’m alone. No one tells me that I’m letting people down by not projecting the kind of joy they want to see. I’m not being held to an impossible metric I can’t meet. No one insults me and calls it a “joke” when I’m alone. I’m really easy to insult. Yes, I’m “over-sensitive”. Being alone is awesome. No one will tell me that the way I exist is wrong.

I spotted another PTSD support group. Since people keep telling me I should find a support group. No aspect of trauma can be discussed at all to prevent retraumatizing people–all discussion will be in the moment positive steps you are taking.

Snicker. Not a group for me.

I would rather be alone than be in a “support group” where I have to carefully sterilize everything I say in order to only be a positive influence on people around me. That’s too much pressure. I can’t do that. I sure as fuck don’t expect anyone to provide that for me. I think that providing support is sticky and messy.

For one thing, in the kind of group where we are only allowed to talk about current things… I’m a rich bitch. I should have no problems and let me tell you in a support group I would be god damn reminded that I have it easier than everyone else so shut the fuck up about your problems. I’ve seen it happen to whoever is sitting highest on the hog in most support groups I’ve ever been in. Someone has to be told they have it better so that other people can say they aren’t doing as well because of x, y, and z privileges. That’s been my experience through I have no idea how many support groups.

I’ve been in support groups for families of brain injuries, incest, PTSD, sexual assault recovery, and for post-mental-hospital-commitment-support. Many of those topics I’ve been in several different support groups over time. The patterns are really consistent.

I am predictable. If I’m told I am not allowed to discuss my trauma at some point I will compulsively blurt something and get in trouble. I’m really bad with being told I’m not allowed to talk about what is hurting me. I don’t follow those rules. It feels like those rules exist to punish me for not being comfortable for other people. So I get asked to leave the group.

I’m kinda done with that at this stage. I’ve had enough therapists tell me to my face that I’m never going to be a good fit for group therapy combined with failing at it a bunch of times that I’m done.

And 12-step groups have their own issues. Combined with me not being an abstinence only believer.

What would “better” look like for me? What am I working towards?

It is hard to create a metric mid-stream. I have periods where I cry a lot and periods where I don’t cry for weeks. I have periods when I have specific interpersonal stress and I’m angry a lot for a while but mostly I’m not angry.

I’ve been upset since October because of a specific incident and then I had other things snowball on top of that to max out my stress response and that’s been festive. To prevent screaming periods I have flatlined what I expect of myself in terms of projects and I reduced social contact and mostly I’ve gotten through this period.

I’m afraid that 10 days before my period I may always want to die. This is a known, common chemical problem. That isn’t about me “doing something wrong”. The only thing they can tell me to do is go on an SSRI and I’ve tried them and they don’t work well with my body. That is a medically proven phenomena–the drugs react very badly for some people. I feel like writing about it and crying on the day I feel like that are reasonable responses. I haven’t cut. I’m not drinking alcohol on those days to “block the pain” or anything stupid. On the days when I feel really bad I don’t ask too much of myself beyond survival and I sit and cry. Then the day ends and I go back to my life.

It is inconvenient. It isn’t my favorite thing about myself, but it is fairly predictable and I can schedule around it to a large degree given the constraints of my life.  Mental illness isn’t ever convenient, near as I can see.

What is “better”? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But my kids are awake. My navel gazing time has ended.

My kids continue to inspire the feeling that I do actually need to be alive. Not just because they “need me” (they are less dependent by the day) but because I can feel how much I need and want and love my mother. If there is the slightest chance they will feel that way about me, I want to be here for it.

I don’t want to be like my mother–three out of her four children have worked very hard to get her out of our lives. One killed himself. Two divorced her. I’m sure it hurts very much. If my children rejected me the way my mother has been rejected… I would not sit through decades of that. I’m sure that is why my mom can’t repudiate my sister even though my sister is a child-rapist.

If it is take a bad person or have no one… I don’t know.

Life is complicated. I have no answers. What is “better”? I really don’t know.

I know that I have worked really hard on my hypervigilance this year. I no longer count exits in public places. I consciously chose to alter that behavior. I think that is a big deal. I consciously chose to feel safe enough to believe that in an emergency I will be able to follow a crowd and get out. I don’t always need to be prepared for a bolt-hole. That is a huge adjustment in how I spent my attention when I’m out in public.

Doesn’t that count as “getting better”?

I’m feeling very flattened by my shrink. I’m not looking forward to talking to her tomorrow. I feel so sad. It isn’t just that she is fallible–that happens. (She gave bad advice for court, in my opinion and in the opinion of my lawyer–but she isn’t a lawyer.) I don’t even know. I’m just… blurgh. Yuck. My stomach hurts.

We have started training for the 5k at the end of January. Really we could do it cold, but it will be easier and more fun if we are in the kind of shape where we could run a 5k instead of slowly trudging it. We probably won’t be running, we plan to do it with friends, but it is nice to have options instead of hoping you can make it through the distance. It’s one of the color runs. The kids run for free and friends asked us to do it with them. We’ll see how that goes. If it doesn’t work out I think I’m not going to sign up for a race with friends again. That isn’t going very well for me. Apparently running is going to be a solitary hobby for me and I just need to accept that. Not the end of the world. Scheduling is just too hard.

I am learning about myself that I only have so much oomph for chasing a given person in my life. I can pour energy into a relationship and at some point I have to get a bunch of energy back or I run out. Once I run out I have nothing left to give. I will have to go off somewhere by myself and slowly build up my reserves and eventually I’ll meet someone else I hope will give some energy back and I’ll try again and I’ll give until I run out and then… the cycle continues.

This is why people on a long rotation last a lot longer. I don’t empty the bucket I have for them very quickly–it takes years and years. When I pour a lot of energy into someone in a relatively brief period of time and they take the energy and they don’t give me any back…. I hit a wall. I hit empty. I hit done. I don’t have enough people in my life pouring energy into me. I don’t have enough to just give it away.

I need to feel like people pay attention to me. I’ve noticed that I’ve just about entirely lost the feeling of being the main character of my life. This isn’t working for me. I don’t need to be the main character around which everyone’s life revolves (ha-fucking-ha) but I need *my* life to revolve around me. Lately I’ve been feeling like I only exist to be a supporting character.

I mean, I stayed home and did the elimination diet and that involved not really talking to people much. It wasn’t really a time period that invited people to focus on me. Heh. I don’t need people to care that much about my bowels. (Though it would be nice if I could get a doctor to care a little.) I’m treating my body like it is important. That should solve a lot of the main character issues. Hell, friends even tried hard to accommodate my food ups and downs. Why isn’t that the same thing?

I don’t know. I’m trying to figure it out.

Noah just scared the shit out of me. I still startle easily. The day should begin.