Category Archives: adult-only

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Just a whiny night I guess.

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Having a lot of trouble sleeping tonight. I feel like my head will explode. I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a room and on every wall there is a different movie playing. I feel like I’ve been failing Noah a lot lately. As a result, of course, I cleaned the kitchen last night. Sometimes it feels like that’s the only thing I really have to give. I can clean up.

I feel really upset about the letter from my therapist. She wrote it so that I can bring it to the prescribing medical marijuana doctor. It is a clinical and accurate description of me. My life is shitty. Not all of it. I like the three people I live with now.

They have them thinking a lot about the various people I have lived with. Family members and non-. It is a lot easier for me to see what I have done wrong than what other people have done. It is a lot easier to blame myself.

A while back I had a conversation with my former owner I asked him if he ever thought about the past. He said there is no point in thinking about the past. To that I say “those who will not study the past are doomed to repeat it.” I would like to believe that even though I continue to make a ridiculous number of mistakes I am making different mistakes over time. Not sure if I’m lying to myself or not.

I have a lot of control issues and I do not deal with mess well. I grew up with the idea that promiscuity was linked to bad housekeeping and low status. The idea of this the slattern. You have a messy house because you keep yourself too busy with chasing sex to bother with such mundane burdens.

Let me tell you now that I keep a house clean I understand why there is a link between being very slutty and having a messy house. I have trouble having sex when I do this much work.

When I was 12 I lived in a place where they did year-round schooling. During my school vacations I stayed home by myself. I broke my arm one day and had to call my mom at work. She didn’t believe me and she was very angry with me. She did drive home and take me to the hospital but the entire drive she berated me and screamed and told me that if I was making it up she would make me sorry I was ever born.

I think that going to the doctors and having the doctor say “Oh I guess there’s nothing wrong with you” is a bone chilling experience. It means that I’m hypochondriac. It means I deserve to be beaten. It means I wasted resources. It means that I’m very bad. I am very afraid of talking to doctors.

I feel like there is nothing good that can come from seeing a doctor. Either you find out something terrible is wrong with you and you will probably die anyway or you will be told there is nothing wrong with you and then you are terrible person for having gone to the doctor at all. I don’t have a way to win.

I think a lot about the idea of setting people up to win or setting them up to fail. I think about this a lot because of my kids but also because of other relationships. Like I can’t expect things from people that they can’t deliver on. You have to understand people’s limitations. It’s just part of the process of life. If you look carefully at the people around you they all have different strengths and weaknesses. Basically everyone has some kind of value it just may not be value that does what you need.

I feel deeply ashamed of needing so many resources. Pretty much the only way that I kind of justify it to myself is to play all the movie reels of all the days of my life and recognize just how much of that could fill endless years of therapy and I was never allowed to talk about it. I wasn’t allowed to talk as a child. I kind of tried to talk to my former fiancé. My owner explicitly didn’t want to hear it. Not till Noah.

I have gone a long way towards wearing Noah out. And I still have this endless cavern of need. I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping. I feel very overwhelmed. It isn’t that I believe that no one loves me. I am not really that idiotic.

I keep thinking about my mom. On my next birthday I will turn the age she was when I was born. In some weird way it feels like I’m merging streams. I am now how old she was when I joined her life, well almost. It feels weird. I am now getting to the part of adulthood I have seen modeled. Before now I was making it up as I went. Now am I acting like my mother?

I feel like my constant need to process, because it is a need, is going to be the death of me. Sometimes I wonder if it has all of the unspoken words I feel choked down inside of me that cause me pain. Which is funny, because I talk so much. I talk and talk and talk but I never say the things I’m supposed to say the things that actually need to be said because as much as I need to say them no one else needs to hear them.

Saw nothing.

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I went in for a CT scan yesterday of my abdominal pain. Apparently it shows nothing out of the ordinary. Ok, I don’t have hernias. Excellent. So it just hurts. This means I can stop visiting doctors because all they will tell me to do is go see a psychiatrist so I can be put on more pills that will make my life hell.

I *have* tried psych meds. They make my life a living hell. I don’t sleep for weeks. I am so afraid that I cannot come out of my closet. I am so tired that I cannot follow conversations let alone learn anything or work. I … I went through med rounds already. More than once. Really I think I’ve gone through rounds of trying medications three or four times by now. It’s not like my problems are new.

I feel incredibly sad. Ok, it just hurts. I guess it is not cancer and it isn’t a hernia. Oh well. That’s just how life goes sometimes.

Must be said.

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I vent my feelings here because, in general, I can’t talk about my feelings out loud. Small pitchers have big ears and all that. I’m not trying to needle people or cause anyone to feel guilty.

When people need a break from me I am genuinely ok with that. Do I feel sad, yes. But I have a lot of respect for people learning how to say, “I can’t handle this right now.” I hope people come back after their breaks. I don’t chase people down and beg them to be my friend because I consider that a frightful waste of energy and I have enough shit to do.

But if someone decides they were mad enough to need a break but not mad enough to not want to know me… that’s really nice. That feels like maybe I have redeeming value. It feels like maybe I don’t deserve All The Awful.

Sometimes friends come back. I try hard not to uhm emote in a way that will additionally drive people away. I may have done ok this time. That’s good.

Cryptic shit is cryptic. Some people decided they weren’t mad enough to stop speaking to me permanently. That feels good. Good timing too. I have to be kind of a tornado of productivity starting in 4, 3, 2, 1…..

No right answer.

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I don’t know the right thing to do right now. It’s 8:40 in the morning. It is nearly late enough that it is civilized enough to go knock on doors. Back up. You don’t know what is going on.

Last week the kids played “driver”. They drained the battery in the van. Again. I have had a vague awareness of it but no need to go anywhere so I didn’t get around to dealing with it. Today we have a birthday party at 11 for one of the kids in the homeschool group. But it is, of course, a long drive from our house. So. All of a sudden it matters that I have a non-functional vehicle.

The kids arrived back from the Godmamas at 7:30. The screaming began almost instantly.

Noah and I tried to jump the van using the Prius. It didn’t work. We spent a lot of energy trying because we both got frustrated and were irritated and keeping the kids from sparking themselves took work and ugh.

All through this my youngest has been intermittently screaming at me I WANT TO GO TO THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Yes, well you bloody well drained the battery. It isn’t my bloody fault. Only you can’t say that.

At one point I sent Calli to her room for screaming at me then I went in my room and shut the door and just slid to the floor and cried.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been crying since 5am.

I am not having a great self esteem day. At this point getting the car in functional order will require some jumping through of hoops. No, I don’t have AAA. I could knock on doors until I find someone who is home who will come jump start me. (Not as bad of an option as it sounds–I like my neighbors and a lot of them are home during the day.) I could take the wagon to the auto parts store and get my own damn charger. I could just punt on deciding and figure that I will see my next door neighbor some time soon and then I will grab him. Until then my kids just have to suck it the fuck up that they broke the car. (This isn’t the first time and I keep asking them to leave that switch alone.)

Is this where natural consequences come in? Am I punishing them overly by not wanting to jump through a bunch of hoops to fix a problem they created?

I feel very tired and sad. Today is my brother’s birthday. The one who is still alive. He is turning 39, I believe. I hope he has a good day. I hope that he has found some joy in life.

I feel thin and weak and lethargic. I feel ghostly and ghastly. I feel stupid and irrational.

So. Fucking. Irrational.

Stop feeling you stupid bitch. Just get up and work. There are things to do. You should be arranging for other people to get what they want.

I want to hide in my room between the bed and the wall and cry. I don’t want to move very much. I just want to hide. I want to cut. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. My angry mouth is hard to live with. Noah is finally showing some wear on dealing with my ambient anger. I really need to be more quiet.

The best way I know to be quiet is to cut. Because then all day when I feel tempted to speak I just put my thumb on the wound and push. Then my brain is flooded with chemicals and I don’t want to talk any more. Cutting allows me to feel cocooned in a world of my own little chemicals. The idea of connecting with another person is so foreign and alien and distant. Why would I do that? I need to stay over here. See, I have blood. Don’t touch me. Blood is a contaminent. No one should touch me.

It is weird thinking that being a cutter is a perfectly reasonable choice. I just don’t want to be the one who models it for my kids. Maybe if I knew how to have more body privacy I would just start again, but I’m naked in front of my kids too much. We aren’t really a modest house.

I feel obligated to show up at the party. People would like us there. My kids would like to be there. But my kids keep doing things to make my life much harder. Sometimes the energy of making it over an extra hump just isn’t worth it. Could I fix this problem? Oh sure. But it takes work. And right now I don’t feel like I want to do that work.

I need to make ricotta cheese and lasagna and cheese enchiladas. I *have* a bunch of work to do today. If going to the birthday party just took the number of hours it takes for the birthday party (roughly four hours with driving) it would already be a lot of work for one day. I have already put an hour of the day into trying to jump start the car. If I spend another one to two hours on that and then spend four hours at the party and then have to take Shanna to ballet and then have to make dinner (I suppose I could put off the ricotta and lasagna making but the milk will go bad if I don’t use it and we are scheduled to be out of the house for the next several days in a row and…)

Are my needs important or not? Does it matter or not that this could become a 6-8 hour affair in order to go to this party? I’m not up for that right now. I feel bad. I feel like I “Just don’t care” about people but that isn’t it. I have actual work to do. The alternative is paying money to other people so they can do my work for me. So that I can go to a party. At some point that circular privilege logic has to have an end.

I’m staying home. We’ll miss people but at this point in time I wouldn’t have fun at the party. I would be angry with my children and I’d be nasty the whole time. I’m already tired and sad.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my feelings about groups. If a group existed before me and will exist after me with no change whether or not I am there… I don’t want to be part of the group. There is no space for me. I am not needed. Noah says it is a very non-Chinese thought. I don’t want to be just the second daughter. I don’t want to be just the person who is currently doing some thing but it doesn’t matter because someone else will be there soon.

Apparently I would rather stay home and cry. Ok, that isn’t what I will actually do all day. It’s just what I did all morning. I will work. I will get things done.

I like house work. It is real work and it is in my home and only I care or don’t care if it is done so I am not really trying for anyone else’s approval. I want to make fucking cheese. Yes, I could buy it in a store. In fact, yesterday in the store Noah asked me if I wanted to buy it. I said no. I want to fucking make it. I’ve never made cheese before. I want to make it. I want to understand how. I want to have done it. If I don’t do it today, then when? Why do I have to wait? Because you would rather be idly amused by my presence?

But I’m not very amusing. I’m sad and withdrawn. I feel like anything I might say will be wrong.

Noah does a lot of playing devil’s advocate. I understand why he does it. Some times I even concede that he is right. (The new New York law that raises annoying police officers to a felony includes that someone must *know* that the person is a police officer and *touch* the officer. Ok, that’s more reasonable than my original hysteria indicated. He made me read the text instead of the spin.) Sometimes it hits wrong. Sometimes it feels like the only thing he ever does is pick every side but mine. Because I have to always be wrong. Because I am stupid and irrational. I don’t think Noah believes I am stupid. I do think he believes I am irrational and he is sometimes not very nice about expressing it.

I think I have spent my entire life praying for someone who would be on my side. Noah seems to think that it means mindlessly agreeing with me no matter what I say. I don’t think that is true. I wouldn’t pick the friends I pick if I just wanted people to yes ma’am me. Noah rarely feels on my side. Most of the time he feels like an apathetic observer who isn’t interested in being on a side but he is sure going to tell me how stupid my side is even though the other side isn’t better.

I miss cutting. I was much better at keeping my stupid mouth shut when I was cutting. Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I was told that a lot as a kid.

I’ve been thinking about how often through my life I have been told to be quiet. When I was little my cousins had friends who would trade off who had to pay me to be quiet. They couldn’t stand me talking and couldn’t find another way of shutting me up. There has always been the canonical “Go to your room.” When we had twelve people sharing a five bedroom house I had my own room because no one was interested in hearing me speak.

My Owner went to work to avoid me. Puppy screamed at me to shut up because I sound just like his bitch mother. My ex-fiance would just mutter under his breath.

Sometimes I feel so uncomfortable I want to use a potato peeler to take my skin off. Surely things would be better without this shell. It doesn’t fit.

I try hard to not talk around the kids about “inappropriate” things. Basically anything I care about or that causes me strong emotion. Like prostitutes being shot in Texas. That’s ok there. I don’t talk to my children about that. I shouldn’t talk to Noah either. He doesn’t really want to hear about it.

There is a lot of bad in the world. People filter out however much of it they have to in order to keep moving. The only way I know to filter it out is to get off the internet and be away from pretty much any grown ups.

I don’t filter out the same things as Noah. He feels untouched by a lot of bad that feels very personal to me. He wants it filtered out. He’s not interested. It isn’t his problem. This is why I feel like I could have wandered off to do the lesbian separatist thing. I know there are women who are unwilling to discuss womens issues. They don’t go off and join lesbian separatist groups. He feels like not-my-culture, not-my-tribe in ways that are very hard and scary sometimes. I feel so very alone. I am not his tribe. I’m not a geek. Not really. I don’t ascribe to their values.

I think he has the right to live in an environment that does not include ambient anger that makes him uncomfortable. I just don’t know how to deal with the fact that it seems like the answer is either making sure I am not in the environment or I am not speaking.

I haven’t cried in the last twenty minutes. Maybe I can handle going into the kitchen and getting started on work. The day is a wasting. I can’t tell if I should water the yard or not. We had just a smattering of rain.

I forking love this time share.

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I feel very lucky and very privileged at this point in life. I appreciate the fact that I get to share my privilege with other people.

I just booked a week at Disneyland for an online friend from New Zealand. I have known her since MDC. I have watched her pine for years. Now she gets to go. And stay in the fancy hotel. She is very exciting.

A different friend will get a week in Hawaii next year for her tenth anniversary.

Being able to give these gifts makes me feel rich in a way I can’t explain. I have so much goodness and fun in my life I can give it away. How cool is that?

Can, can can you can?

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Today I canned peaches in light syrup, peach flavored simple syrup (whoops, made too much simple syrup), pluot jam, and strawberry/raspberry jam.

Tomorrow I will make ricotta cheese and cheese enchiladas. I will not be putting the ricotta into the enchiladas. It is mere coincidence that has them happening on the same day. I will probably make the lasagna for later in the week while I’m at it.

It is interesting to start thinking about, “What foods do I want to have in my pantry this winter?” My life feels different. So very different.

Missing

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I write Noah’s mother long letters about my kids because I wish I could tell my mother these things. It isn’t the same. She doesn’t even like me.

I sent a follow up message about the cat scan that should be ordered. Let’s see what happens. I feel so sad.

This morning during our morning snuggle Calli said, “Everyone needs love!” and hugged me tight. Shanna said, “You weren’t loved when you were a little girl, were you?” I said no. I wasn’t. She said she would love me enough to make up for it.

I hope so. I’m not sure how this works. I try so hard to hide my need. It isn’t anyones problem but mine.

One of the random moms I don’t know well from the home schooling group happened to be in the lobby when I walked out of the surgeons office crying. She wanted to comfort me. I couldn’t even talk to her. I’m not sure I was civil.

I want people to like me and be nice to me and care about me but I don’t seem to be able to behave in a way that will let me deserve it. Noah likes me. Shanna likes me. Calli likes me. That has to be enough.

I hate talking to doctors. I hate them so much for, “Why don’t you go see psychiatry? You don’t have to feel this way.” Fuck you and your fucking magic pills. They don’t work. They won’t make me “feel better”. They never have before. I have fucking tried.

It doesn’t matter. Just shut up and get used to hurting. That’s just life. Sometimes it works that way.

I’m not going to stop feeling disposable until people stop disposing of me. Trying to convince me that I should change this is flat stupid. If I started expecting people to stick around then I would experience much more extreme grief when they leave me. I can’t believe that people will stay. They never do.

It feels very bizarre every day that Noah isn’t gone yet. What is he waiting for?

I lay in bed half the night thinking about cutting. I couldn’t sleep. It was too late for a sleeping pill. I traced with my fingers the lines I wanted to make. I wish this wasn’t the resting place for my brain too. I wish there were more tracks.

This morning I commented to Noah how intense it is that the kids like to cuddle with me for literally hours a day. I wonder how children handle not being able to cuddle as much as they need to? I learned to offer sex or cut myself. Those are the kinds of touch I know how to go get for myself when I feel bad. I couldn’t wake Noah up. I wasn’t interested in sex and he hadn’t slept enough. He can’t be up all night with my stupid hysterics.

I don’t know how to be someone different. Someone better. Someone who isn’t bad.

My therapist keeps telling me that I need to work on letting people touch me. This cuddling with the kids is a good mid-level step but they sit on me. It is kind of different. I don’t seem to be able to let adults touch me in a comforting, non-sexual way. I can’t allow it. If I allow it I might find out I like it and then I may never get it again. I don’t want to find out how good something is that only other people get.

Stop whining Kristine. Go work. The only value any human has is what they do for other people. It really doesn’t matter what happens to you. It isn’t like bad things are happening any more. Other people have genuinely bad experiences happening to them today. Shut the fuck up already you whining, pathetic, stupid loser.

No, I wouldn’t talk to anyone else this way.

I’m scared. My body hurts. I tried to ask for help. That rarely goes well. See, this is why I think I am better off just staying home and hoping it kills me. Then I won’t waste anyones time with them having to tell me that pain just happens when you are crazy. If I weren’t so crazy my problems would go away. See, just stop being crazy and it will all be fine. It is my fault things happen. If I weren’t so damn crazy…

Can’t be all bad.

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I don’t seem to be good at maintaining intense long-term relationships. But I do have relationships.

Yesterday we had lunch with two lovely ladies from our community. They are both grandmothers who do not have local grand babies and they have a lot of love and energy to spare. I feel grateful to know them. I have known one for about six years now and the other is newer to our lives.

Yesterday my friend came to dinner. He is a good friend. He is a complicated friend. I’ve known him for thirteen years. We have been lovers and play partners. I have hurt him and he has hurt me. We have been vulnerable together. We have created magick together. Now we have an entirely vanilla platonic relationship and he is great with my kids.

Pam is having anxiety and I stepped in it so she is avoiding me along with the paper she doesn’t want to write. I hope she comes back. I think she will. She has been my good friend for fourteen? fifteen? something like that years. She knows my gentle pokes about finishing this stage are only about love. Her culture uses a lot more pressure than I do. I’m pretty sure this one isn’t on the final knell.

But every time there is a lapse or a pause or anything I have to be prepared. I have to harden my heart every time. Because I don’t know when will be the last time I speak to her again. If I allow myself to worry too much about her loving me then I will cease to function. Our relationship is too distant and occasional. I cannot need her. If I have need for her it will go unmet and I will just have to suck it the fuck up.

I am allowed to feel attached to people who are in a space with me and behaving in a positive manner towards me. If someone is not with me then I need to make the assumption that (s)he will behave in the manner that is suitable to them and there may be little overlap with what would be positive for me. That has to just be ok. I am not in every space. Every space does not have to conform to me.

I can’t feel like I need to have influence over things I am not a part of. It has to be none of my business. But that way madness lies. I am deeply concerned about people and things around me.

Shanna has been asking me “how do you know if a question is rude?” Ha. You don’t know until you have stepped in it. Life sucks that way. Some people will try and tell you that there are hard and fast rules but they are wrong. There are *no* hard and fast rules for what is polite or not.

People can ask me “rude” questions that I don’t find rude at all. I would rather be asked the questions that bother other people than the questions that make other people feel comfortable.

People differ.

I can’t be all bad. For all my existential angst I am having a bloody hard time carving out alone time because people want to see me. (I’m not complaining. I have to say no to some invitations and that’s something I have to learn. Please keep inviting me to things. It is good.)

I don’t know how to have boundaries around my energy very well. Sometimes going out is a massive drain of energy. Sometimes it is a source of energy. I also have “Don’t fail in public” energy reserves I keep around. I’m very worried about saving face. Because I know that fucking up in public is dangerous.

That tendency scares the shit out of me. I don’t like secrets. I don’t like feeling like I am skulking off to do terrible things out of the sight of other people.

That’s why I pretty much instantly confess my sins to you, oh internet. I’m not alone. I have terabytes of company.

I have two kids who want me to pull them out of the sticker puddle. Gotta go.

Yup, hernia

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The doctor says there is one clear hernia, a probable second one, and a possible third one they may not be able to find until they open me up. Given my symptoms I will probably have surgery. I have an appointment in an hour to find out about surgery.

didn’t sleep

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Instead I went to look at Mint. We have a lot of expensive life goals. Are we moving towards them or am I fucking it all up? Noah is more than doing his share.

I spend around $900/month on my mental health. How is that for privilege? My insurance does not pay for any of what I do for my mental health so it is all out of pocket. And none is eligible for reimbursement from an HSA. Ha.

As long as I am suicidal I should be in therapy. It is obviously a band-aid on a severed limb but it is all I have. Is it perfect? Obviously not. But I’m not dead yet.

I feel very ashamed of myself for needing such a large amount of money in order to be relatively cheerful and functional. Without spending that much money I cry and cry and cry and scream. I don’t stay calm very well. I feel very ashamed of myself for being broken in this way. Why can’t I just “fix it”?

Why can’t I just stop caring. Why can’t I stop bringing up old shit?

Because I am still sitting here. And I am still me. And bodies have limits of stress. I’m trying to figure out how to lower my stress levels. I’m trying. I’m trying.

The worse I feel about my lack of progress the slower my progress. Rinse. Repeat.

I’m absolutely terrified that the doctor is going to be dismissive and tell me that my abdominal pain is just stress related. It isn’t. It isn’t all in my head. It is physical. I feel so pathetic. I keep crying. Please. Please believe me.

It is hard feeling out of control of my body. It is a reminder that I am never in control. Not of anything. There is the possibility that my body could be helped by western medicine.

But I’m outside the norm. I have had doctors tell me to my face that they will not treat me until I fall into line and stop being outside the norm. Doctors have told me that it is no big deal when sex is intensely painful for me–I’m just doing it for the man any way. I’ve been told it is my fault that procedures hurt because I am “anticipating the pain” and creating it.

I don’t like doctors very much. They tend to think of themselves as all-knowing. Just because you read something in a fucking book doesn’t make you all-knowing. You fucking asshole.

 

ack kid up

Run, you fools.

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I am watching The Lord of the Rings because Noah is reading me the books. I’m interested in the differences. Thus the title.

I’m awake. I woke up at 3:30. My stomach hurts and I want to cry. I have a doctors appointment at 8:30. Before I bug Noah in the middle of the night with my stupid anxiety crap (which is way more frequent than he thinks) I check the history on his computer to see when he went to bed. 1am. I can’t bother him. Shit. He has to sleep. When he goes to bed at a reasonable hour I will sometimes wake him up because he can stroke my hair and talk to me until my body stops being afraid and I can sleep again. Sometimes I have to put my big girl panties on and just deal by myself.

I had to put my big girl panties on yesterday any way. Shanna said, “I would like to see _____ because she hasn’t come to dinner in a while. Can you invite her over?” I didn’t respond in the moment. I waited until I asked a friend for advice. Then I waited until Noah was home because I want a witness because I am afraid of saying the wrong thing and if he is there he will correct me if I slip. “She doesn’t want to come over and visit us any more. No, I don’t know why exactly. Sometimes people decide they don’t really want to visit any more. I know it is hard. I miss her too.” I hate being the bearer of bad news.

What I want to tell her is, “I’m very sorry you were born to me so that you have to deal with the backlash of standing near me. I’m so sorry you don’t have a better mother. You deserve one. None of this is your fault. I am so sorry.”

I didn’t say that. A different friend said that wouldn’t be appropriate. Ahem.

I’ve been gardening a lot. It’s a good way to kind of hide. I don’t need to go places. I have a yard to weed.

I had a really neat set of moments over the weekend. We were at our local breakfast restaurant and I now have a French tutor coming over on Wednesday. She’s connected to the restaurant in a weird way–she is a French woman trying to get into university here. She is young and likes little kids and thinks the idea of coming to my house to play in the garden and teach us French sounds great.

Then I noticed that one of the two primary servers (the dude who isn’t my buddy) kind of rolled his eyes in that “See them asking an incompetent person for help when I am STANDING RIGHT HERE AND I AM WAY MORE COMPETENT” sort of way. I know that eye roll. I can spot it from thirty feet away. So I sidled over and said, “So! When am I going to start Spanish lessons with you? Yo hablo un poco de espñol pero no mucho.” He looked at me totally dead pan and said, “I speak five languages fluently. I can speak Portuguese, French, Arabic, English, and Spanish. I know how to break down the grammar of each language into adverbs, adjectives, gerunds, and everything.” I got pretty excited. We had a nice conversation. He will be starting to poke us for language stuff while we are there. He told me a lot about his life and why he knows those languages. It was a great conversation. Now I feel like I have been wasting years of not getting to know him. He has had a fascinating life.

See what I get for being an asshole? Ok I was never an asshole to him. Thus he is still willing to talk to me. But I wasn’t out to be his buddy. I kind of regret not trying harder earlier. C’est la vie.

I’m learning gardening as fast as I physically can. I’m learning Hindi. (We practice every day.) I’m learning French. I can’t forking believe I’m learning French. After all of these decades of being a really big asshole. It’s kind of ironic.

Shanna has two new “swear” phrases that I am adopting whole heartedly: “What in the hay is going on in here?!” and “What in the wide world of Equestria happened here?!” I didn’t believe I would stop swearing in front of my kids. I thought I would do it no matter what. Now I believe that swearing in front of my kids does them a disservice. I don’t want that to be the primary language they learn. Children learn what they hear a lot. I censor way more than I thought I would. It’s pretty hilarious. Mocking me on this is totally reasonable.

It is hard to really remember that it is ok for one person or even a lot of people to dislike you. It has to be ok. People are allowed to not want to be my friend. That isn’t supposed to be a good enough reason to stop walking.

Tragedy and insult are grown up words. I need to care about my effect on my kids. My kids like me. My kids think I am very nice to them (because I am). Three people like me. I’m good enough for them. For now.

I lose so much sleep worrying about the future it isn’t funny. I do a lot of practicing rehearsing to the full range of “options” Shanna may pursue in terms of later work and schooling. I need to react enthusiastically and supportively no matter what direction she heads in. My bias needs to be mostly invisible. If she wants to be a scientist–great. If she wants to be a hairdresser–great. She often tells me she will buy the house two doors down because she wants to stay near me but she wants her own garden.

I’ve been running. Holy tomato I’m slow lately. I can rarely average better than 13 minutes/mile. Sometimes I wonder if part of the reason my body resists going quickly is because if I ran faster then I might feel more like I could join some of the runners I know in their endeavors. As it is I consciously don’t do much running with people because I feel ashamed of how slow I am. I’ve tried to start doing things with the home schooling group but that hasn’t worked out well and I’m about done trying. (On this exact topic. I’m not done with the home schooling group. I just accept that I won’t be running with them.)

I will be re-upping my Ativan prescription since I am going to Kaiser any way. I haven’t gotten a refill yet this year. I got the original scrip in January. I feel like that is a fairly good thing. My pot consumption is pretty high lately. I got edibles because the vaporizer isn’t a lot less expensive than edibles and it is way less consistent. So I’m stoned on a regular basis. It’s awesome. And the horrible coughing and lung nastiness has subsided. Whee! Being stoned and gardening is just flat awesome. This is probably my favorite hobby this lifetime. Get stoned and garden. It feels really nice. I feel peaceful and happy and calm while I’m doing it. That’s unusual in my life.

Plants are forgiving yet picky little creatures. You can mess up in some ways and they don’t care and if you mess up in other ways it’s all over. You have to figure out what kind of fucking up you can do with a specific plant. Rather like people. Only people are harder to figure out.

I like staying home. When I stay home I don’t feel as bitter. I don’t feel as worthless and rejected and unwanted. I hate that being around people feels so bad. I am so jealous and mean spirited. Other people get to just casually say, “Oh I was talking to my mom and…” It is my own fucking fault I don’t have a relationship with my mother. I rejected her–right? I hate how it feels like I am the bad one. I am the one who did terrible things and harmed our relationship.

I pretty much always feel like the bad one. If someone is hurt it must be my fault. I just don’t know how to treat people right. If I could stop being such an asshole everything would be fine.

Just stop being such an asshole, Krissy.

A friend pointed out that most of the ways in which I am rejected for being an asshole are things that are tolerated in men. I somewhat agree with her but I think I get credit for other kinds of being an asshole that would result in much stiffer penalties for a man. I don’t think I am rejected because of misogyny, exactly. I’m rejected because I make people uncomfortable.

I don’t know how to make other people feel comfortable given that I feel wildly uncomfortable basically all the time. I think I am even selfish enough to not care about trying that hard as long as I am literally unable to feel comfortable.

I genuinely like people. I like being around them. I like hearing their stories. I need to stop feeling like people are mine. It is way easier to listen to stories and not feel shitty when I am rejected if I never feel any actual attachment to anyone. The trouble is, that carries over. I’m not good at being attached to my kids and Noah and no one else. I’m finding that it is more on/off than that. I feel a lot of wavelengths of lovey feelings towards people who are associated with my kids. People who bond with my kids cause a lot of positive feelings.

Then they don’t like me any more and I have to tell my kids why. This is so fucking shitty. Well, no I don’t have to tell my kids why. I don’t even really understand why. All I understand is some amorphous “I am bad so people don’t like me.” That’s not even really completely true. It’s an evasion of some kind but I don’t know what I am evading. It’s not like the people who dump me are particularly honest with me about why.

I’m not sure most of them can be honest about why they are dumping me beyond “You make me feel uncomfortable. You are an asshole.”

Ok. I make you feel uncomfortable and I am an asshole. That has suddenly changed in the last week? What about all the previous years? Why was I fine then and all of a sudden I am not fine? SOMETHING triggered you and I don’t understand what and you probably don’t understand what and you don’t care that much. You feel uncomfortable and it is my fault so I am bad. Ok. Yeah, I get it.

Maybe I am terrible. But I have kids to take care of. I’m having lunch with friends at the tea shop. I’m seeing a doctor, finally. If I died soon my garden would be tragically undone forever. No one else will look at this crappy dirt and imagine it being beautiful.

My house is no more perfect than I am. Perfection doesn’t really exist. We just pick the fucked up we can tolerate.

Oh, and if you think I am angsting about you then you might be right. But the last five years have involved me getting loudly dumped by at least four people and a number of others quietly withdrawing. I may not be thinking about you.

This rejection business is part of why I make people come to me now. If people decide to stop visiting it hurts but it doesn’t cause a major break in my routine. I still have to have the same basic shape-of-day that I had before. When I go to someone and I get into the habit of driving to them then it feels much worse to be rejected. And every time I drive near their house I feel keening grief. Much better to make people come to me.

I often feel reminded that the world doesn’t care about any one. It isn’t that I am unique or anything. You have to go out and do something in order to matter. You have to create. You have to change things in order to matter. You won’t matter unless you create something good and then you have to stay alive in order to maintain it. Until that point the planet kind of looks at you as a waste of resources.

This isn’t personal. It isn’t that I am unlovable. It is that I have not yet earned love. I have not jumped through the right hoops. I have not done whatever it was that I was supposed to do.

Maybe I can sleep for a bit.

Planting record

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We’ve been planting. We have added these seeds:

  • Antique French Pumpkins Cinderella’s Carriage
  • Pumpkin: Howden
  • Pumpkin: Big Max
  • Pumpkin: Jack O’ Lantern
  • Pumpkin: Little October
  • Bush Beans: Golden Wax
  • Cucumber: Vert De Massey Earth Gems
  • Cucumber: National Pickling
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Italian Summer Squash: Climbing Trombocino
  • Baby Leaf Spinach: Catalina
  • French Baby Carrots: Babette
  • Baby Leaf Lettuce: Heirloom Cutting Mix
  • Heirloom Runner Bean: Painted Lady
  • Cypress Vine: Funny Valentine
  • Climbing Nasturtiums: Amazon Jewel
  • Climbing Nasturtiums: Moonlight
  • Climbing Nasturtiums: Spitfire
  • Scented Nicotiana: Jasmine Alata
  • Gourd: Luffa Sponge
  • Impatiens: Kaleidoscope Blend
  • Shirley Poppy
  • Red Alpine Strawberries (the ones you hand harvested, K)
  • Strawberry: Alpine Alexandria
  • Long Harvest Broccoli: All season blend

We also put starts in the ground.

  • On the playhouse: MandeVino:Sangria
  • pansies
  • snapdragons
  • lantera
  • and one really pretty one that the kids have already lost the name stick for. Oh well.

I haven’t weeded in a bit. I should probably do more. After lunch. I’m hungry.

 

Make art.

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-In the next month I will be painting a fence belonging to a fairly random neighbor.

-I asked my daughters swim school if I could bring in sketches for a mural in their space and they are enthusiastic.

-I am working on a logo for the new Hayward Hackspace because I was asked to make it.

-I want to repaint my kitchen. It is bugging me. I have a weird thing on my ceiling post-light replacement so I need to fix it. I will probably redo the whole kitchen because it was never finished last time. I have a lot of ideas.

And to think about five years ago I would have sworn up and down that I am not creative.

For the record

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My abdominal pain has remained pretty static over the last few months. I took up running again this week. (I desperately need some kind of stress relief that doesn’t involve mutilating my body. Running sucks but it is *something*.) All of a sudden my abdominal pain has jumped to spikey and sharp and it takes my breath away and I have to stop and focus in order to process.

I made an appointment with my doctor. I spent pretty much my entire last therapy appointment talking about how convenient it would be if I could just die of some disease. Then I won’t have to traumatize everyone by killing myself. It would be great. It’s probably time to see a doctor and stop fucking around.

Harm Reduction means actively eliminating harm when you understand it. The pain is getting worse. I can’t keep ignoring it forever.

more questions

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From Resurrection After Rape: 

How often do you think about your rape, and do you ever feel like you have thoughts about it that you can’t stop?

It varies a lot over time. I can make myself busy enough that I don’t think about rape for weeks or even months at a time. But there is a physical price tag to staying busy enough. Usually after such a stretch I get ill and have a lot more flashbacks than usual for a while.

Mostly as I go through life I have a few days a week where I can’t stop thinking about rape. It is in some corner of my mind churning and churning. Why? What is all this “rape is about power” bullshit about? I think about Noah raping. I think about what that means a lot. I think about that kid Jeremy. The 17 year old who sodomized me. That seems more clearly about power. With my dad I think it is safe to say it was about power. With my brother Tommy it was very much about power.

I think about poor Michael. He didn’t want to have sex with me. He did it because he would suffer if he didn’t. Was his cousin really the rapist? Why don’t I think of his cousin as a rapist? He fucked my mouth until he came. I think that qualifies as rape when the female involved is a crying seven year old.

Yeah, I think about this a lot. Being around children constantly makes me think, “When I was your age I was ______”; “When I was your size someone _______.”

Tonight I had a conversation with my shaman. We talked about whether or not children should be afraid of their mothers. I told him that I believe that mothers have a moral imperative to consciously try to be not scary to their children. Mothers certainly are able to scare their children but they should consciously choose the opposite. Unless there is a damn good reason then go full bore and scare the ever loving shit out of them. No half measures. Don’t dick around at the edges. Have a god damn good reason for what you do.

I don’t know how to stop the thoughts about rape. A lot of them are not thoughts so much as random spasms of pain. It isn’t real pain it’s a weird phantom pain. It is the memory of pain. All of a sudden some stupid little neuron in my brain misfires and I feel suddenly as if I am being raped again and it hurts. It really fucking hurts. But it doesn’t really hurt. I’m just crazy.

I think a lot about being almost seven years rape free. I say it to myself a lot. More than six years. Almost seven years. This is a good trend. I want this to continue. No more rape. How do you stop being raped? Have I really stopped? Did I just lengthen the time between rapes? Oh god.

I’m scared of the travel I want to do in the future. So scared I sometimes have brief ideas of killing myself rather than facing the danger. Not really. That sounds way the hell worse than I mean it.

This whole depersonalization thing is hard to explain. I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m not really fully alive. The idea of dying is very comforting and easing and like it would be a positive step. Relief. When I am really scared I know that the only way to stop being afraid is to die. I will be afraid until I die. I believe that and weep with the knowledge.

I don’t kill myself every time I am afraid though. I think about it. I see it in my head. I watch movies about how it would happen. The rape is very much tied up in this. The physical somatic sensations generally trigger a whole bloodbath in my head.

And I can’t talk about this. I don’t talk about this. Pretty impressive, eh? Only I slip sometimes. Then I’m reminded that I’m BAD BAD BAD. I have traumatized someone! I am abusive! What a fucking monster. I should be… whatever. Moving on.

What kinds of nightmares or memories do you have about your rape?

Whoa. Not a good question to ask me. That’s a flood. I have a lot of memories. Thanks to THC I don’t dream any more and I haven’t in a long time. I consider that a blessing. I used to have terrible nightmares. I have a variety of different memories about the rapes. Some of them I have what I think of as a “movie” in my head. I watch those experiences from a very third person point of view. I was older and better able to dissociate at will. I don’t have very many physical memories of those experiences but I can tell you uncanny details about the physical spaces.

I have a lot of physical memories of the early rapes–the stuff with my dad. I feel like there isn’t enough steel wool on the whole god damn planet to wipe the feel of his touch off of me.

Michael is one of the most real to me of all the rapes. That was a transitional one. I was seven. That was the first vaginal rape with a penis. I had a serious crush on him and I had been following him around for a couple of months. I wanted him to like me so much. I have a lot of very intense memories of the entire relationship. It’s vivid as pictures and sounds and smells and I can feel him in a way I can’t with almost any other rape. I’m not sure why that one imprinted so much more than anything else. It’s not like I can remember every aspect of being seven that clearly.

That one is coming up more as the kids in the home schooling group are all heading for that age range. I have a lot of troubling thoughts when I see them. I keep my mouth shut. I keep my fucking mouth shut.

How does thinking about rape make you feel and why?

Scared. Angry. Those are my two main emotions. Scared because I genuinely feel like my life experiences are such that it is stupid to believe I am actually post-rape. I feel like there is a very low chance I will never be raped again in my life. I feel with every fiber of my being that the only way I can ensure I am never raped again is to be dead. That makes me very angry and makes me feel very scared.

How hard is it for you to talk about your rape?

Well I can write all night long. I don’t speak about it well. My throat closes. Or I go emotionally flat lined and I can say anything shocking I want. I won’t get emotionally invested because I know that I have to be monitoring the people in the room and pull back on my commentary any second now or I will get in a lot of trouble for being bad.

I don’t actually get in a lot of trouble any more. Well, I lose a high number of friendships. I suppose that counts.

What, if anything, makes you afraid to talk about rape?

I’m afraid of being abandoned more. I’m afraid of being told that I am boring. I am afraid of being told that I say the same thing over and over and no one gives a shit. I’m afraid of being told that I am stupid and it was all my fault.

Who have you told about your rape and why did you tell them?

Err, everyone on the internet. Why: because we like you! Err, because I feel like my head will explode from how much it hurts to have all of these things in my head and not be allowed to talk about them. I am not allowed to talk about them. If I talk about them I will be abusing people. I just have to shut up shut up shut up shut up. But I can’t seem to still my fingers. It is one of those weeks. I was on good behavior last week. It has a toll.

What did they say or do about it?

Err, not much. I mean, some people have been more or less supportive in conversations. But what is anyone going to do about it? (Besides go leave a review for my book. Seriously people.)

How did your rape make you feel about yourself as a person?

That I’m a worthless white trash whore and I had better fucking get used to it.

How is your rape affecting you as a person right now?

Well I have serious worries about the stress load on my internal organs. Being inside my body is not fun.

What thoughts do you sometimes have about yourself because of the rape?

Well if I had never been raped the likelihood of decades of suicidal ideation was lower.

What do you wish people knew or understood about the rape so they could help you now?

This one really is the kicker, isn’t it? What do I want from people? What do I want them to understand about being assaulted? Well, I want to be allowed to exist as a really damaged person without being shamed. I want to be worthy of consideration. What help can people give me now? I honestly don’t know. The folks who visit are really awesome.

What is the scariest part of writing about the rape?

I have never received a death threat due to my writing. I sometimes wonder if it is only a matter of time.

 

There are a bunch more but I’m tired. Goodnight.

Suicidal ideation

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My therapist asked me to think about what things make me not want to kill myself. She’s kind of worried about this fifteen years of bought time thing.

I don’t know. What made me get through the first twenty five years? I suppose that I just didn’t want to die bad enough to overcome the hurdles. It can be harder than you think.

I don’t know why I stay alive. I don’t believe in anything. I want to do things. I put off dying until after I do ____ because I just kind of want to see it. They are all selfish things.

I don’t know why the suicidal urges hit so hard during otherwise good and sunny periods. I mean, I do. Because my brain thinks that for me to feel good is a problem. That means something is wrong. I have to fix it. I have to stop feeling that way. That isn’t for me.

It is hard to tell people that you spend a lot of time thinking about killing yourself. It breaks the social contract. You aren’t as invested in them as you should be. It means they can’t depend on you–which is true. I can’t be depended on.

My therapist is being pushy about dealing with the abdominal pain stuff. She is trying to get me to understand the scope of damage it does to young children to lose a beloved parent early. She wants me to take my health seriously.

I just keep coming back to thinking that it will fuck them up less to lose me to a disease than to lose me to suicide once they are adults. That would feel like a slap in the face. Dying while they were little would get to just be a tragedy instead of an insult.

Stop crying stop crying stop crying.

I don’t die because I have obligations to fulfill and I am not selfish enough to abandon those obligations. I try really hard not to break my word.

I do break my word though. I break promises big and small. I don’t perfectly follow through on the things I wish I could do. I despise my frailty as much as anyone.

I think, sometimes, about the Mad Woman In The Attic. It’s a literary trope. It’s a way of handling them there women folk. Was the woman mad before she was put in the attic? Did being in the attic make her mad? It’s never all that clear. I don’t have an attic. Can I still be mad?

I feel like I am going eighty miles an hour and there is a brick wall right in front of me. My stomach feels like it is in my throat. Things get hazy sometimes. Everything is seen at a distance and it is difficult to touch. I feel kind of how Frodo does when he puts on the ring. I’m not really in this world.

I know I am not the only person who feels these things. Depersonalization, derealization, dissociation. These are studied and all. I go through all of them in various degrees. These are my good days. These are the days when I don’t end up crying or freaking out or yelling at anyone.

I understand that no one gives a shit what is going on inside my brain and I have an obligation to be polite to people at all times. I get the social construct. I just can’t always opt in to it.

Why do I not kill myself? How did I make it this far? Sometimes, a lot of times, by doing a lot of damage to myself physically so that I can feel “ok” again. I really do need to feel pain in order to feel ok.

Feeling good is scary. Feeling good feels wrong. It feels like I am about to be punished. I am about to get in trouble. I am about to have it all taken away again. I should not get used to a good living place or people around me or food or anything. I am stupid if I get used to it. If I believe that just because someone has been consistently involved with me for a while they will continue to do so. That’s not how it works. I’m an asshole so people leave. That’s how it works.

People create their own reality. That’s what they tell me. I believe that I am safest when I don’t have needs. Asking people for help is stupid. It just gives them a reason to reject me or tell me no.

I know that I should just “stop thinking about myself” and go “care about something other than myself”. I don’t think I will stay alive very long that way. I don’t think that is an option for me. I have a lot of unconscious responses to things that will prevent that from working out. Whether they are unconscious or not they will still be my fault.

Mostly I just try to ignore my symptoms. I try to pretend I am normal. Fake it till you make it! Or something.

How do you not die? You give away your scalpels so you don’t slip on accident while cutting. You stop driving alone at night after therapy while sobbing hysterically. You don’t do drugs and drive. You be careful how you have sex even if you do it with a lot of people.

Mitigate the risks. Lower them. Really that’s enough. That will get you through not-dying for a long time. You can risk it all you want and still miss it.

I’m not dead because I haven’t put my mind to it. I’m scared that some day I will. I’m scared that this little friend sitting on my shoulder will always be my dearest and closest companion. This self that is not myself that hates me so much. That knows that the only right way for me to be an object in this world is to be an object on the floor with blood spilling out of me.

I wish I could get a brain transplant.

I love my children and I love my husband. Why can’t they be enough? Because I am an object. An object that isn’t particularly valued and needs to be thrown in the garbage one of these days. That is just how it goes.

Sometimes I think I will kill myself just because that is the only way to shut me up. I’m tired of listening to the whining as much or more than anyone else is.

writing prompt

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From “Resurrection After Rape”–you are supposed to be writing a letter to yourself the day before the rape.

Dear Krissy,

Tomorrow something will happen to you that will change your life. What I want you to know about it is…

It won’t be one tomorrow. It will be many tomorrows. You won’t be raped once. You will be raped a lot. You will have a hard time learning how to stop being raped. I want you to know that you were taught. At some point it becomes your fault if something happens to you–at some point you must recognize your role in it. You did finally learn how to make it stop.

I want you to know that none of the men who raped you were actually very powerful in the scope of the world. It really sucks that they had enough power to do that to you.

I want you to know that maybe with some of them fighting would have helped but it wouldn’t have with all of them. With some of them if you had fought you would have been hurt badly. You had no way of guessing who was whom at the time. You made the right choice. You are still alive.

I need you to understand that being alone is often the safest way to be. It is hard, I know. I know how much you hate being alone. You really need to learn how to embrace it. The only safe way of not making someone angry with you is to be alone. It’s ok to be alone a lot.

I want you to know that you will always feel weird. When people say “trigger” they probably don’t understand what that means for you. Be patient with them. They mean “feel uncomfortable” you mean “full body flashback of being raped”. It’s ok to be self absorbed. You have to deal with your physical experience of being in the world even if you are irritating to other people. Even if they wish you would just shut the fuck up already.

See, that’s why the alone thing is so nice. You can care for your needs without being bad for having them.

Within every person there is an ageless essence. It is there on your first day and is the same on your last. There is part of your personality and core self that stays the same. That part of you can not be touched by anything that any one says or does to you. It is yours. You may spend your whole life crying because you don’t believe you can make up for being bad but that part of you isn’t bad. That part is ok. That part that makes you you isn’t bad. Really.

Even good days will often involve crying. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel ashamed of yourself. It just is. You didn’t pick this body you were put into–it’s just walking meat. It cries. So what? It has been through a lot.

Run earlier. It is, apparently, good for you. Try harder to drink water. It is also, apparently, good for you.

Keep reading. People will compliment you on your prodigious vocabulary for the rest of your life.

Love, me.

Opting out is awesome.

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Today my neighbors told me that despite having come to the blog they will not be coming back. It’s too intense for them. But they followed that with multiple attempts to arrange more in-person time.

I think that is totally appropriate and good. If my writing is upsetting, don’t read it. Truly. If what I say is upsetting, don’t talk to me. Truly.

I’m glad when people take care of themselves. It gives me more belief that it is ok for me to do the same.

I will say that it is very funny to me how often people apologize to me for having boundaries with me. It’s ok. I swear. I don’t actually explode at people and scream at them without significant provocation. Probably more provocation than I endure from anyone I am not related to.