Today some of the home schooling folks came over. We painted my house. Nine kids between the ages of 2 and 11 and two moms (including me–we did clean up not major painting) produced some pretty fun stuff. I particularly like that the butterfly/rainbow are right at eye level when I sit at the table to eat. And just off my line of sight it says “Love You”. I’m glad I did this.
Yesterday I found out that some folks I love are struggling with domestic violence. That scares me pretty bad. I was aware that I wouldn’t sleep for fretting about them so I called them up and asked if I could drive up to their house after dinner for a meddlesome conversation. They consented. I’m so glad.
The whole drive up to their house I chanted a variety of phrases. “I will be kind. I will be thoughtful. I will be helpful. I will be useful. I will be considerate. I will say only necessary things. I will say kind things. I will be helpful. I will only be compassionate. I will be calm. I will be loving. I will be a friend to their marriage. I will be supportive. I will be kind.” etc. I chanted it over and over as I drove.
I fetched ice cream as part of the preparation for the conversation. We sat down and talked about why things are hard. Life is really hard sometimes. Some of us have very good reasons for the way we panic and over react and freak out.
One of the folks in this couple is like me. There were very serious childhood issues. Well, they both had hard childhoods. One of them clearly doesn’t have PTSD and one clearly does.
I talked about the amygdala. I talked about self-control. I talked about how if your brain was damaged in these ways approximately 50% of people cannot change their behavior without conscious professional help–read that as therapy. I am not qualified to be anyones guide. I do not have specific training on how to help other people heal from PTSD. I am just not adequate. I can love you and support you and help you find the help you need but I am not capable of giving it. That’s over my head.
I talked about how the only way to still be married in twenty years is to deal with these emotional issues. If y’all continue to be unable to keep your hands to yourselves you will not be married in twenty years. You will flee an abusive relationship and spend the rest of your life bitter and angry. Is that really what you want?
Changing your behavior is hard. I no longer hit people. I hit people a lot–basically constantly–for about twenty years. I understand how hard it is to stop hitting. I really do. When your brain was damaged by being severely abused and neglected as a child you have to consciously work at changing your behavior to be more appropriate. You have to go out and learn what is appropriate and how to get there from where you are. It has to be a conscious journey and you need professional help. This isn’t optional for us.
50% of people who have PTSD cannot get better without help. That is not because we are weak or because we failed. Anyone who implies that I struggle because I am stupid or because I lack willpower is welcome to sit on this greased fire hydrant I have over here. I am not lacking in willpower. Not all things can be changed through willpower.
I don’t want anyone to get in jail. I don’t want CPS invading the lives of my friends. I don’t want my friends divorcing because they are both sad and angry because of things that happened long ago and they are unable to truly understand what is going on right now because everything is still seen through the lens of “must survive.”
I meddled. I pushed. I interfered. It isn’t my place and yet if I don’t do it who the fuck will? Who will show up and say, “Let me explain the results these behaviors will have on your children. This is very well studied. I can tell you each of the different patterns your kids might follow. There aren’t many options.”
I love you all. I do not want any of you to be hurt. I do not believe any of you deserve more pain. I think you have been through enough pain and that you desperately need a reduction in pain. We really really really need to figure out how to reduce your pain. You can’t live with this much pain.
I feel wildly resentful that no one ever tried to help me. I cannot do that to children I love. I have to talk to their parents about things that happen. I have to. I did not lose this friendship over my meddling. Instead therapy appointments are being made. It’s not that I am “right”. It’s that everyone needs help. Everyone needs help on their path. Please oh please find the help you need so you can help your children. You cannot teach them how to be a functional adult if you are only quasi-functional yourself. You cannot teach what you do not know.
Hands are not for hitting. (Ok, unless you negotiate a bdsm scene. Different.) Love one another. Listen for why the misunderstandings are happening. Respect boundaries. Set them earlier and more firmly.
This life business is hard. I want all of us to have the support we need. Sometimes that is having someone who loves you say, “I can see the road you are on and I don’t see it going somewhere you want to go. Would you like to diverge onto a different path?” It’s not that I have a crystal ball. It’s not that I know everything. For the love of Christ I want to be wrong about my predictions.
Let’s make me wrong. Let’s sit next to one another holding hands at your childrens’ high school graduations. Let’s still know one another in twenty years. Let us choose who we want to be instead of ending up like our parents.
We are better than them.
Sometimes talking to people makes my heart stop.
If your partner knocks you down that is domestic violence. That is something (s)he can go to jail for. If you do not know this already: please learn it from me. Your partner is not allowed to knock you down. Your partner is not allowed to knock you down. Your partner is not allowed to knock you down.
If you have a partner who has done so then you need to find a coffee can and dig a hole in the yard. You need to start hiding money in that coffee can because there is the very real and escalating possibility you will have to leave in the middle of the night or you will be killed.
I wish this was hyperbole. This is statistical fact. There are very distinct patterns to domestic abuse.
Does every single person who knocks his/her partner down once kill them? No. Of course not. And one is allowed to forgive such a thing happening once. We are human beings and we fuck up. We are allowed to forgive fuck ups. You can maybe even forgive the second time.
By the third time you need to have an exit plan. You need to have a diary where you record every incident of violence along with the date and time and description of what was going on before and after the incident. You very seriously need to find a way to hide cash. I’m not fucking kidding. If you are financially dependent on someone else you need to have as much cash physically hidden as you can. Multiple thousands of dollars if you can. If you can’t put that much in a can to hide then take $20 out of every paycheque.
You deserve to be safe. You deserve to not be hit in your home. Your children deserve to never see their parent get hit.
If your partner hits you and you need a place to go in the middle of the night, call me. If you have my phone number then you are welcome to show up in the middle of the night during an emergency. I swear to god.
Everyone should feel safe in their home.
I’m reading from Resurrection After Rape it is available online for free.
“But in addition to the physiological and chemical basis for triggers, there is another way to look at them. Your rapist, through his act of violence and invasion, has tried to create a “map” for you of what your life is. His actions are his efforts to define you to himself, to yourself, and to others. You are naturally trying your very best to resist his map of your life, but triggers are those occasional moments when something seems to confirm his view rather than yours. The reason they cause so much panic and distress is that for a flicker of a moment, something around you seems to suggest that his world, not yours, is the real one.”
I consciously tell people that I am white trash because I will explode with anger when people do things in front of me that I don’t approve of. If I set the bar of expectation low for my behavior then I am at least in character. Seriously–what else did you expect from white trash?
The more I read about the amygdala and primitive reactions the more I feel like my understanding of white trash is inexplicably linked with this idea of being unable to move forward with modern ideas. Unable to join the less violent modern era.
I formed most of my early understandings of social hierarchy from reading The Clan of the Cave Bear. Even if status is not explicitly stated in terms of a numerical hierarchy I feel like I can see the imprint of such importance in every gathering.
I believe that the only reason people are ever lower status than me is because they are younger than me and we live in a place where children are always below adults but as soon as they grow up they will be better than me.
Ok, I don’t rationally believe that. But in the pit of my stomach that is true. That is my self belief. That is what I was raised to believe. Someone has to be on the bottom. It might as well be me.
In some way there is an element of wanting to protect other people. I can take more pain than other people so if I deliberately stay on the bottom I can protect people who could not take the strain of being in this position–they would die. It happens.
I think I am just flat triggered by men. I think I am angry with them for existing. I am angry with them for allowing women to wait on them. (Note I did not say forcing women to wait on them.) I am angry with them for not seeing the work they create by existing.
But none of them have to give a shit that I am feeling that way. I have a partner who treats me how I want to be treated. Why do I give a fuck if other people have different relationship styles?
I think this is part of why I left the bdsm community. I couldn’t handle watching relationships that felt like train wrecks in slow motion. I watched people do horrible emotional damage to themselves over and over. Not everyone but the people like me. The people who really didn’t have a lot of self esteem. The people who believed they deserved to be treated like a piece of shit.
I have learned a lot about geek culture since I got married. I finally have a mole in that camp. None of my ex’s were proper moles. They treated me like the enemy. Noah isn’t in a camp other than his own but he likes to go spy sometimes. We are so freakishly well suited.
I have a lot of empathy for people who feel like me. That’s normal and natural for my species. I treat everyone who is different from me like they are sub human and a potential threat. Men feel different–scarier, more powerful, inherently threatening. Men never seem to understand the amount of power differential I see between us. Men never seem to understand why I feel scared by them just assuming someone else should have to do everything for them.
I have to get control over this. I don’t think Noah would appreciate it if I ran off and joined a lesbian separatist group. So I have to stop feeling scared and mean and combative around men.
Oh good fucking luck.
After I go on my little tirades about things I tend to feel very guilty for days. Who the fuck am I to decide who is and is not a good father? What right do I have? How the fuck do I know? How do I know how people treat their children and families when I am not around?
I don’t.
So how dare I judge?
I’m not sure I can help it. I judge. I evaluate. I think about everything I hear and see and I think about how it fits into my world and value system. Ok, “everything” is hyperbole. But I think about a really fucking lot of things.
It’s kind of a modern joke that moms go read a bunch of baby books when they get pregnant. It’s a trope. It is something to mock. I started out preparing to be a parent when I started the credential program. I went and learned how to work with children. When I got pregnant I started reading childhood development books which are a very different category than “parenting” books. I want to know what researchers have found.
I have spent thousands of hours reading medical/behavioral research. I mean real stuff in medical journals. I mean like reading the vaccine studies. If I lived in a small town in the middle of the country with a low immigrant population and I never traveled I wouldn’t vaccinate. I would be a selfish asshole and decide the risk outweighed the benefit for my kid. They are vaccinated because I did a fucking thorough evaluation of the risks and benefits. Given where we live and how we live vaccines are not optional.
I read about child development because I have never seen a healthy childhood before. I have seen a few minutes or a few hours of someone else having healthy childhood in brief spurts. I need to learn how to take care of my children. I do not want to fail them.
I want to be a good parent because I want to find out how that works. No one is perfect. But I want my children to grow up in a house where their mother is respected and not taken for granted. I want my children to grow up in a house where no one is inherently better than anyone else. I want my children to grow up in a house where everyone must share the work of living. There are no free lunches.
I’m like everyone else. As I walk through the world I am continually surprised that people aren’t like me. They don’t sit down and think, “I want my children to have ____ experience” and then prepare a course of attaining it. And even the people who do think about it generally don’t share my values. Like, at all.
I’ve read so much research that I feel confused when I see people making choices that are uhm outside how I interpret research. But that just makes me as big of an asshole as everyone else. Other people can’t understand why I reach the conclusions I reach. It was a process. A long one. Same for you. I need to stop getting angry with people for being different from me. It’s not fair. People are going to stop putting up with me. It’s not only a realistic possibility it is what people should do if I am lashing out at them constantly. No one should tolerate that from me.
There are reasons that it was initially useful and helpful for me to have that “This is bad” reaction. It is no longer as useful. Once upon a time lack of nuance may have saved my life. It will, at this point, destroy my life.
I have been watching the Bill Gates top 13 recommended TED Talks. Things like “This is the least violent period in all of human history. Yes, even with these bombings.” It makes sense that my physiological response is violence and anger and hatred–those things would have enabled me to kill people who seemed a threat to me or mine. We live in an unprecedented era where our mouths and our ability to persuade are uniquely necessary. Violence is no longer the answer. The rage that I learned how to feel no longer has any advantage in my life. This is fucking inconvenient and my ancestors would not have handled this better than me.
My nearly five year old keeps asking “Where did the first people come from before there were parents?”
“Well, there are a lot of different theories. I’ve told you what a theory is–right? A theory is when someone takes all the clues they have about a problem and they try to guess the answer. Some theories have more evidence than others. Some people believe that everything started in a big explosion of gas in space and we slowly evolved into being humans. We are kind of related to apes. Some people believe that a magic invisible sky friend decided to make the world and all the animals and people–they think he did this in a week. Some people believe we are descended of a giant rainbow serpent. I could go on for a long time. There are a lot of theories. But the plain truth is we don’t know. No one does. It’s a mystery. People tend to pick the theory that suits them the best.”
I have this basic physiological problem. My brain says, “It is ok for people to be different from me. That does not challenge my safety. Everyone is allowed to coexist.” Then the rest of my brain gets a big club and whacks that part of my brain for a while screaming, “SHUT UP SHUT UP THEY WILL KILL US ALLLLLLLLLL.” It’s kind of melodramatic. And while this is happening I have to stand very still with a neutral or positive expression on my face or there may be consequences.
I dislike the fact that I work on being “nice” because I don’t like dealing with the social consequences of being not nice. I don’t want to be shunned. I don’t want to be rejected. If I didn’t give a shit what people thought about me I would be so much more hostile I would not be recognizable as the same person. Seriously.
I feel like part of the reason I scream at the people I do (because I don’t scream at everyone) is because they fall into this weird cross section of feeling safe to get mad at, like someone I want to influence, and someone who feels similar enough to me that I have a prayer of influencing them. But only if I stop fucking screaming because no one listens to a screaming banshee.
My behavior is not serving my goals. I want community so bad I stay up late and wake up early crying and crying and crying because I don’t feel connected to people. I feel like people secretly hate me and tolerate me for…. I really don’t understand the reasons. It just feels that way. It’s not exactly rational.
Part of what I like so much about hanging out with my kids is they walk through the world wrapped in a blanket of security. They believe they deserve to be loved and wanted and that they are wonderful people. Shanna can absolutely spout off, “Even if someone gets mad at you that has nothing to do with whether or not they love you. Everyone gets mad sometimes. You shouldn’t be mean to people you love though. That’s not cool.”
She in fact rattled that off nearly verbatim yesterday when I screamed at her. I think her wording was closer to, “Even though you are mad at me you are not allowed to scream. You have to use a polite voice.”
Sometimes I feel like the top of my head will explode. But when she says that I stop mid-shriek and say, “You are right. I will leave the room until I calm down and then we can talk about it.”
Her saying that to me gives me this psychological permission to say and believe the same thing. Shanna is allowed to have boundaries and so am I. So are my friends. My friends do not need to put up with me screaming at them no matter how dysregulated I feel. That is my problem and not theirs.
I feel like I keep having these weird flashes into peoples lives. As I was being mean to my friend’s husband the other day I felt like I couldn’t stop the rude words from coming out of my mouth but as I was speaking I saw this whole full-length movie in my head of what I know of his life. He is behaving entirely appropriately given what he has known and experienced. My nastiness seems totally irrelevant and inappropriate. I wish the movie had started playing like three minutes earlier so I could have buttoned my lips shut. Or said something appropriate.
If instead of being pissed off at him I had said, “Well, we’ll see if things change or not. Babies have their own agenda” then maybe I would have had a prayer of opening his mind. Yelling at him… not so much.
If I want to influence people I need to think about how my behavior, tone of voice, and attitude affect how I am perceived. If I want to be influential in positive ways I have to make conscious choices. Otherwise I will still be influential but I sure as fuck won’t be a force for good in the world.
More self-control. That is pretty much the beginning, middle, and end of that conversation. But no one has endless self-control. I could choose to just avoid the people I blow up at. Honestly that is usually my first choice. If I find myself blowing up at someone over and over I start avoiding them because they don’t deserve to deal with my ill temper. I consciously don’t want to do that any more. I’m tired of walking away from relationships because I can’t control my temper tantrums. It’s really lonely.
The thing I am getting the most strongly from the survivor books I’ve been reading is: you have to figure out a way to have the worst things that happened to you become sources of strength. You have to have a sense of humor and perspective.
It was very useful at one point in time that my brain developed the ability to categorize behavior as Good/Bad but that doesn’t serve the same purpose any more. I’m still looking for my Faith in Gray. Just because something would be bad for me does not mean it is bad for someone else and I need to not freak out. Seriously.
Speak less. There is no shortage of words in the world. Consider what I will say before I say it. Play that fucking video of peoples lives in my head before I start being a condescending bitch. It is truly not my place.
No one is trying to make me be like them any more. Why do I turn around and tell people to be like me? Because that’s a species level attitude. I have to find a work around.
Progress, not perfection–right? I feel sad because it feels like when I fuck up that I have to abandon all the work I have done on that relationship so far because I am no longer worthy of that persons company. If I can’t control myself I should not inflict my asshole behavior on other people. I have no way of knowing if that is actually the best choice or not. It’s the only way I can figure out to ensure that I am not nasty to people.
It feels very lonely sometimes. Even though I have no right to claim loneliness. I’m really over-scheduled right now.
But if I have to be careful and never really just speak to people then it doesn’t change how lonely I feel. If I have to weigh every word because I know that I am not really appropriate and I don’t really belong in such an environment I feel terrible the whole time. I know I am a fraud. I know I am not really connecting. I am a card board cut out of a person standing where a person should be. A person would be genuinely kind and loving. I have to pretend.
And then I think about some of my male friends. Holy shit do they not care about being kind and loving. And they are real people. I feel like I am caught in the trap of being female. It is just too dangerous for me to fuck with my herd status. I will die. It’s not really true any more–we no longer live in that world. My brain doesn’t know that.
I can’t help but feel that there is no way to make progress on rape culture without finding a way out of this anger. This anger is paralyzing.
This is disjointed and out of order. I’m cut’n’pasting from else’net where someone asked me to explain rape and power and hitting people to them. It is a little disjointed because I took out personally identifying information.
Rape happens because someone who has power, either conferred through age or social status or physical strength or emotional intensity, pushes through to sex with someone who is not an appropriate partner. That is kind of the “full” explanation. It’s not that rape is “about power” per se. It is that it must involve a power imbalance.
The sexual drive is really intense, lack of control over it is dangerous. Most people contain it most of the time–we are socialized to. People can either deal with their sex drive in a positive way or a negative way. Having sex can be positive or negative. Not having sex can be positive or negative. None of these things are imbued with a rightness inherently. Just like prostitution does not always involved victimized people–sometimes people make conscious choices to have a career doing something they like.
I know people in the bdsm community who do the most extreme things you can imagine. I’ve watched them do a lot of it. I have done many of the things on the safety “no-no” list. The difference between bdsm and rape is consent. That is the only difference. In my opinion bdsm *is* abusive actions that have been placed in a permissible setting. Actions are not inherently good or bad. Hitting someone is not automatically evil. There are levels to hitting people. Why you are hitting someone matters. If you hit them because it arouses them and you both think that is fun and they consented… it’s not evil.
I know a lot of people who have no trauma history who genuinely get off on the strong sensation involved in bdsm. I have spent enough years watching this and thinking about it. This is a genuine thing. It’s kind of weird, but ok.
Hitting is one of those things where you don’t have the right to do it just because you want to. If someone is a professional boxer they are not allowed to go around punching people in the grocery store. There is a time and place and a consent process. Some people consent to acts. Some people consent to processes.
So like yesterday when I post something ranty about other people I then have this huge rush of shame and guilt. Who the fuck am I to judge other people? Why in the god damn hell does my fucking judgment matter? Who the hell wants to hear it anyway.
It’s weird writing about what I see in the world. Because a lot of the writing process for me is narrowing down who I want to be. I get the impression that other people can do this narrowing down without being a judgmental asshole out loud.
I don’t think I am better than anyone else. I do think I have a strangely functional marriage–I take very little credit. Noah is amazing and flexible and supportive. That isn’t about me. That’s luck. I found someone who is worried enough about his own future that he will defer a lot of short-term satisfaction in favor of future success. That’s not about me.
No one has to change their behavior to make me happy. No one has to alter the course of their life for me. I am aware of this. I don’t think people need to change because of me. I write because these are the things in my head and if I don’t write them down I feel like I have these fifteen different television stations all playing loudly in my head simultaneously. I can’t hear what I am supposed to be doing over the cacophony.
I hope like hell that I don’t hurt peoples feelings by saying stupid self-absorbed things. I’m afraid I do sometimes. I’m really sorry. I am not trying to hurt anyone.
I want there to be room for me to exist and room for other people to exist. I want it to be ok that I have my opinions (even if my opinion is negative about someone’s behavior) and it isn’t something that people have to take personally.
I don’t think you (generic you) need to give a shit about whether or not I judge you harshly. I truly don’t. I know that I am not the judge nor the jury. If I make you angry I’m sorry.
I want to be allowed to have strong opinions and be a judgmental asshole without actually being an asshole. I really want my writing to be the place where I get to be as loud and offensive as I want.
I promise I will try harder to reign in my mouth when I am in other peoples houses. You did not invite me over to hear my asshole opinions. I hate it when I fail at the basics of civility. It feels like proof that I am a worthless white trash asshole. I am not capable of being nice to decent people.
I swear to god that I walk into some houses and I feel like, “Oh my god these are decent people” and I feel my hackles go up. It isn’t their fault. It is not anyone else’s fault that I walk into their house and feel like I am a lower class than them. It is not their fault that feeling lower class makes me hostile and nasty. I know I have to “get over” this. I really do. I’m better than I used to be. I know that isn’t adequate. I can’t take my class issues out on people and have friends.
I have learned to stop picking on Noah because I developed some enlightened self-interest in that department. I need to understand how other people fit into this. I feel like a complete failure because I am not yet good at understanding in the pit of my stomach how important each different piece of the puzzle is. I still don’t value the contributions that other people give sufficiently. I need to learn how to do that. I need to learn how to stop judging everyone for their ability to meet *my* needs. My needs are not the only important needs in the world.
I’m sorry I am such an asshole. Thank you for tolerating me. I’m really sorry it takes such effort.
Before you speak evaluate if what you want to say is: true, necessary, kind. If it isn’t all three it had better god damn need to be said. It has to be really fucking necessary if it isn’t kind. Mostly saying unkind things is just a way of kicking people. I have to stop kicking people verbally. I have stopped hitting people with my hands. I need to stop kicking them with my words.
Mostly I understand that everyone has different things they want from a partner. When I tell a man that he should expect to help his pregnant wife with diapers, dishes, etc the most common reaction is, “Yeah right”. My husband is better than that. My husband has no desire to sneer at helping me. I try not to judge husbands out loud because they all have different strengths (and it isn’t like Noah is a saint) but man I judge this.
The idea of standing on the precipice of parenthood and thinking, “I’m not going to help” makes me want to spontaneously vomit on the floor. What is wrong with you that you begrudge your partner and your child this help? I fucking guarantee you that it is in your long-term interests to help. To be accommodating. To do way the hell more than you have ever done before.
It strikes me as “That’s your job” thinking and that means these people believe they are responsible for only certain things. If Noah needed my assistance in making money I would do so–I couldn’t make as much as him but I would do it. I wouldn’t be pissy and whiny about how it is supposed to be his job to earn money so whyyyyyyyy do I have to do it too? It wouldn’t occur to me.
Noah has responsibilities with our children. He does a lot of work. He’s part of a family–he is not the lord of some fucking fief.
Marriage is about each person giving absolutely to the maximum of their ability in order to allow both of you to maximize your potential and happiness in life. That is what my marriage is like at least. Kinda socialist because I steal his money and I still make him do work.
I have the general sense that I could have talked a few former partners into kids with me–they wanted kids in general or were on the fence when I knew them. I didn’t want to just have kids with someone. I either wanted a partner or I was going to do it alone.
Yesterday I had a first visit with a new dental hygienist. She has been seeing Noah for almost ten years. She made a crack about how I have “three children” and I almost bit her head off. Don’t you fucking talk about Noah that way. (I didn’t curse at her.) I was adamant that I do not have three children. I have two children and a partner who blows my mind with how enthusiastic he is about participating in my life.
I know dads who work two and three jobs in a day and come home and wash the dishes. That’s a man right there. If you sit on your ass all day doing a computer job and then you whine about how when you come home you need time to go play your video games because you’re tiiiiiiiired then you aren’t a man. We are all tired. That’s the parent condition. Yes, parents need down time. But the dishes also need to be washed and unless you have god damn fairies visiting your house (send them to my house when they are done with you–ok?) by saying that it isn’t your problem you are dumping it all on your partner.
The families I know where the husband stays home and the wife works all seem to involve the wife coming home and helping. Why do husbands resist? Oh yes, women’s work and all that crap.
This is why I hold no desire in my heart to “have it all” in terms of a serious career and doing the domestic shit. There is so little value or respect given to domestic work and yet it must be done. If a woman takes on a job it doesn’t seem to lessen her share of domestic work in most cases and gosh that sounds like she is getting screwed to me.
I like my feminist husband who looks at how many hours we each have to “work” during the day and divides tasks with me and values what I do. My work makes his life better. He is happy about that. So he’s grateful and helpful.
Noah’s work makes my life better. I am ridiculously privileged and lucky. I happened to find someone who has the ability to make a lot of money. I don’t think my expectations of him are less because he makes a lot of money. I treat him like he gets forty hours to go do his job and then he needs to be at home with his family doing his share of the work to raise our kids–you fucking wanted the kids and you want a relationship with them when they are adults. That means bonding and labor while they are children.
Children bond most strongly with the people who meet their needs as opposed to their wants. Weekend-entertainment-daddies aren’t respected and loved the way dads are who are serious caretakers. You can’t trust a weekend-daddy the way you can trust someone who has protected you and cared for you and kissed away your owies.
I looked at my slave contract and realized that was what I was doing with my Owner. I was creating the structure of artificial exchange of needs on a predictable schedule so that I could learn to trust him. I’m glad I did that when I did it. I’m glad I’m not still clinging to the idea of slavery.
I have decided that a life lived as a support source and that is all is not a life I want. I don’t want to be an invisible support leg holding up someone else’s life. I want to matter. I want to be irreplaceable.
If someone is just a paycheque then they are easily replaceable. I am increasingly certain that no one else could ever feel good enough after Noah. I don’t think anyone else will ever do so much to take care of me and make me feel important. No one else will ever have a window into my needs. This breeding period is a uniquely vulnerable time. I have needed help and my husband came through over and over instead of saying it wasn’t his problem. I didn’t think I would ever deserve that.
Marriage is not a proposition where you should each contribute your “half” of the labor. Each of you should act like you have to keep the ship afloat and you are responsible for noticing when things start sliding. You can have frequent role assignments but they are not set in stone.
If Noah walks in the door from work and it looks like a bomb exploded he gives us each hugs and starts working. I don’t think there are any words in the English language to adequately describe what that means to me. What that feels like. I feel honored and seen and loved and respected and acknowledged and appreciated and like he believes that my work is important. Validated may be the closest.
On days when he walks in and everything is nice and tidy and cleaned up and dinner is ready and he gets to just sit around and rest he beams at me all night. He’s thrilled with what I accomplished. He is grateful and flattering and appreciative. He comments and notices me.
I don’t want it to sound like Noah spends allllll his non-work hours slaving around after me. He gets time off. Up to ten hours in a week that he can use for video gaming if he wants to. For someone with as many irons in the fire as he has that still isn’t enough time but this is the rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul part of our life. We aren’t doing it financially, thank goodness, but we do it with energy stores and finishing projects.
I don’t hate guys who do less than Noah. I’m just deeply grateful I will never have to live with any of them. I would rather live on the streets and openly deal with the fact that other people do not care about my needs than live with someone who will put on a pretense and abandon me when I am desperate. I feel that strongly about it.
I like knowing people who are different from me. They tolerate different things. They like different things. They seek out different things. It isn’t that other people have bad marriages–they have a marriage they are willing to be in. They are happy. That makes it a totally acceptable marriage. But it lets me know how I need to phrase things with Noah. It gives me kind of a shadow edge around our relationship to remind me where I need to encourage and discourage Noah.
Oh my god I appreciate Noah. Knowing that I get to come home to Noah makes any trip out feel ok. I can be brave and go to places even though I am scared. I worry about stupid things like falling in the parking lot. I fell yesterday and hurt my ankle. I had this overwhelming rush of terror and I sat on the curb having a panic attack because I believe so strongly that if I was desperate people would ignore me. If I had fallen and hit my head and been unable to call for help, would people pass by and leave me? I do not trust my fellow humans much.
Sometimes when I am out I have to sit down and reread the note Noah gave me. I asked him to give me permission to be places. He wrote it down. I carry it in my wallet. When I am scared and I feel overwhelmed with how lonely and isolated and estranged I feel while standing near people I excuse myself to the bathroom and I take out the note and I read it. I remind myself that I can come home and deal with my needs later. I won’t be alone. Noah gave me a pass. He wrote down on a piece of paper that I am allowed to be here. Whichever here I happen to be at right now. He signed it. It’s official. So I’m allowed to go out and I am allowed to be places.
I don’t believe that other people are responsible for my needs but I feel sad that I don’t matter to them. When any partner finds out that his/her partner is about to have increased needs and they respond by saying it isn’t their problem… It isn’t that I think everyone “has” to care. There aren’t rules like that. I just feel this wild grief. I feel like weeping and throwing myself to the floor because there is such a vacuum of love in this world. Everyone is so miserly with their love. I could help but that is icki so I won’t help. I know fathers who have never changed a diaper and they have multiple children over five. That turns my stomach. I know fathers who have never put their child to bed. I know fathers who have never prepared a meal for their child.
I’m glad those children have a mother who is perfectly able to meet their needs full time. I could not do that. I am not competent enough. I would crack. I would be mean. I would get vindictive and nasty. I’m not nice enough to do that. I don’t have enough to give. If I had done single parenting I would have had to work and the kids would have been in daycare. I could not have done the 24/7 available thing.
I have needed help in order to not be abusive. I have needed help in order to be a good mother. I’m very grateful that my partner is invested in his children enough to care about them getting a high level of quality of care. That means he sees me as a person who has needs. If my needs aren’t met the children will suffer. Letting me suffer is not really in his long-term self interests. He has a lot more to lose by being selfish than he has to gain.
I believe it helps enormously that we have a time limit on this all-in period. We would both like it if he was independently employed and did not need a 40 hours/week commitment. In order to get to that point he is going to have to take a big scary leap and pull all his energy away from things he is currently spending energy on and focus on this stuff I can only sort of help with. All of a sudden my support will have to come from elsewhere.
This is what enlightened self-interest looks like. I want a fairly specific life. I’m working like a dog to get there. So is my partner. We have drawn up a list of goals together. We have things we want for both of us. Noah specifically came and asked me to marry him because he wanted to have children and I wanted to have children and he thought I would be a good mother. I was right in thinking he would be a good father. Folks who didn’t see him as I did–well jokes on you. (The hygienist really kind of irritated me. I hate the “all men are immature children” trope. Yes, I bloody well argue with it when I hear it.)
I feel so lucky that I found someone who looks at me and sees my potential. Who sees what I have to give and says, “That would make my life better” and who sees that I am a weak and frail creature. I need help. I am not weak and frail because I am a woman I am weak and frail because I am animal. All animals can only handle a limited amount of work if they are going to perform at a high level. Noah gives unstinting support; that means that I have to do the same.
Gratitude on my part usually translates to sex. You can see where this is going. Enlightened self-interest.
Noah gets up and makes breakfast for us five or six days a week. He says, “I want to make sure that life without me would be so unpleasant that you never ever want to leave. Ha! You would have to make your own breakfast!” And he has over time adjusted his recipes to my taste. Insert swoon here.
Not everyone wants the things I want and not everyone has the needs I have. I can see why people end up partnered with the people they do–they balance one another differently. Their relationship works for them. I am still a judgmental asshole. I can’t understand an attitude of not wanting to help. I don’t think it is good. I judge it. I’m an asshole. Ok fine. I can live with that. I’m trying to be less rude about it in other peoples houses and I failed yesterday thus my outpouring of whining on the internet.
Do other people get to vent about me in the ways that I vent about people? They have to be able to or I have to shut up. That’s only fair.
Sometimes I feel a little weird on park days. I make a conscious effort to always trudge out and rough house with the boys. Ok, I do miss some days when I’m being whiny and want to talk to grown ups. But I try to do at least a little rough housing every week.
I talk to all the little boys. They are getting used to me. I’m pretty different from their moms–that’s cool. We wrestle. Some new ones got brave yesterday and joined in. We had to negotiate. I talked about how breasts are really sensitive so be careful not to whack them and never grab a woman or girls breasts without permission. That’s a private area. But I did it with a smile on my face and a gentle voice and I went right back to wrestling and rolling around like puppies.
I think this is what really influences character. I feel like a lot of the rape culture ranting that yells at adult men about how terrible they are for the patriarchy is missing the point. I don’t want all of the adult men in my life to feel terrible and guilty for having a penis. That’s not what I’m interested in. That won’t make anyones life better.
One of my buddies in the home school group told me that she likes talking to me because I am very opinionated and very different from her but I’m not trying to convert her–I have no interest in having her be like me. So she gets to listen to things that are totally outside her experience and think about them without feeling pressured to change. I feel like that means I am doing exactly the right thing and I am tuning my message appropriately. Good.
I want to exist loudly in front of people. I want people to understand just how different from them the people around them actually are. I want it to be ok that I exist. I don’t need a whole bunch of mini-me’s running around. I’m not trying to become the dominant culture–I’m trying to be allowed to exist. I’m trying to stop feeling like I should die.
Playing with the little boys is part of this. I hug them. I will even kiss the top of their heads when they are being very affectionate (Err, this has only happened with boys I have known multiple years or who were under one year old I’m not incredibly creepy or anything.) I don’t kiss their faces. I don’t get into long embraces and I talk about body autonomy all the god damn time. I am very conspicuous about asking for hugs before I touch them. I model how I want to be treated. How else can they learn?
I have been seeing a lot of things on the internet advising parents to work on boundaries with their own kids–I agree with that message whole-heartedly. I just think it doesn’t go far enough. I don’t have responsibility just to and for my children. I need to talk to the kids at the park. I need to talk to talk to the kids in our neighborhood. I need to talk to all of the children who could be the ones my kids will sneak off and play sex games with.
I need for everyone to be playing by the same rules. No one but me is standing up to loudly announce the rules so I’m happy to do it. I go to the park and I don’t care if I know the kids or not I referee. I don’t micromanage or anything–I stay out of 80% of the arguing. But I intervene when they can’t share. I intervene when hitting starts. I intervene when someone is on the side-lines crying because they are too young to understand how to join the game.
I don’t favor my kids–Shanna is pretty bitter about that–because I care a lot about being neutral. I don’t pick sides. I model how to work things with words. I give lots of examples, “So you could say____ or ____ or ____ what feels closest to what you are actually feeling? Or something else entirely! I could be wrong.”
I tell them over and over that they own their body and they have the right to dictate how people treat it. I say that the other kids they are playing with are in the same spot. You can’t touch someone without consent. You have to ask. Don’t assume just because you are “friends” that it is ok to touch someone.
(My kid is not picking this up fast. Oy. Touchy thing.)
I’m trying very hard to create the idea that everyone has preferences and you must follow peoples preferences–which means asking questions.
One of the boys was playing with my belly jiggle yesterday. He said, “You have fat.” He was smiling and laughing and delighted by life. Clearly he didn’t see this as a problem. I bet his mom has done exactly the same thing to his belly.
I laughed and said, “I do! I do have fat! I looooooove fat. Mmmm tasty delicious fat! Fat! Fat! Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!” Then I grabbed him and rolled around on the ground with him. Other boys jumped on the pile, also laughing and started offering up types of fat:
“Like bacon?”
“Yes! Like bacon! And ice cream! MMMMMM”
Everyone was overjoyed.
A few minutes later after the crowd had dispersed one of the boys lingered and said, “I don’t think it was very nice of him to call you fat.”
My response was something close to: “Well he didn’t call me fat. He said I had fat and that is true. If he had said,” I deliberately made my voice all sneering and nasty, “‘Ewww you’re fat’ then I probably would have hurt feelings. Because he would be trying to make me feel bad about myself. But he wasn’t. He was just commenting on me. It’s like saying I have brown hair. I’m ok with him saying things that are true.”
He looked so confused. I’m sure he and his mom talk about me outside of actual interactions. Ha.
The reason going to the park is so “high spoons” for me is I believe with every fiber of my being that I am obliged to be nice to the kids. They are just learning and if I can seem positive and loving while I am giving instruction they will remember it and imprint on it more deeply. I am consciously didactically teaching children basically every time I am near them. It’s exhausting.
I think that’s what home schooling community is about. I think we are agreeing to teach one another’s kids. I realize not everyone feels the same way so I try not to say it too loudly. Ha. I’m not forcing them to memorize times tables or anything neurotic like that but I use group social outings as time to consciously work on the rules of society.
What the hell else are such times for? And if kids have to learn every rule completely on their own without adult help things turn all Lord of the Flies. Judicious adult intervention while mostly letting the kids direct and handle things is the optimal learning environment.
Studies god damn prove this.
It made me really happy when I commented to some of the moms that I was talking to their sons about boundaries and touching stuff she said that I’m going to teach sex ed when the kids are a little older. YES! Please! I’ve been training all my life. Ha. *beat head on wall*
The thing they don’t understand is I won’t be starting when the kids are older. I’m starting now. I’m starting when they are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, ,9, 10, and 11 because that is how old the kids are in our group. I’m talking to all of them about touching and consent. There are slightly different explanation levels–I don’t talk to the three year olds about nerve endings. I say sensitive.
Sex is part of life because touching is part of life. If you want your kids to grow up to be healthy adults who are good at sex then they have to be good at touching–that is how things work. I understand that most parents feel kind of nauseated at the idea of their kids growing up to have sex but I have my eye on the end goal.
I want healthy adult children.
I have to teach my children and their peers about healthy touch if I want that to be the norm for their world. That means I have to be didactic. I have to choose to send on a message. I can’t just ignore things and let them slide or I don’t get to be upset when the culture isn’t what I want it to be.
Am I changing the world? If my little cohort of kids manages to grow up together and everyone gets a fresh healthy launch together to go out and feel like they are allowed to have the sex they want within the boundaries they choose then maybe I will have done something.
You don’t know what someone wants by looking at them. You only know what they want if you ask. If you have never asked what they want then you have no business having your hands on them.
If people believed that in the core of their being–how would the world be different?
NSFW.
A long time ago in a life I used to have I hit girls a lot. I don’t mean that I gave them playful slaps on the arms. I mean that I liked to make them scream and cry and beg me to stop. That’s kind of my thing. I don’t care how hard or how soft I have to hit you–we will be doing so until you beg me to stop.
That sounds pretty bad, right? I negotiate up front. I tell people what they are in for. I like to punch and slap and pinch and kick. I don’t like using instruments. I want to be in as much pain at the end of the scene as the person I am playing with. Ok, maybe not quite as much.
There was this one time. I was in the middle of my Cheers-period of attending the local fetish club. I went every Wednesday. I had been involved in the bdsm community for five or so years at that point. I had been broken up with my Owner for a while. I was hunting. I went out a lot.
So there was this one time I was there and a friend came. She was someone I had known for many years. We had been slaves together. We were both no longer with our former Owners. That’s complicated shit, yo. She had even been married to her Owner which is even more brutal.
One of the thing about the serialist nature of relationships in the bdsm community is there doesn’t look to be much room for depending on being interesting if for any reason you need to develop lots of limits. People with limits aren’t interesting. Newbies–fresh meat–are interesting because they say they want to try everything.
So when I saw this friend on that night we had a conversation. She and I had played a fair bit back and forth. I’m not sure that we ever crossed to what the vanilla’s would deem lesbian sex but I beat her, she beat me, her Daddy beat us both, my Owner tied us together (clothed because he’s into clothes) and “made us” kiss and wiggle for their entertainment. That sort of thing. We were friends, after all and isn’t that how friends behave?
She and I had a similar problem. We don’t safeword very well. Safewords are generally thought to be the way you signal “I’ve had too much and I need to stop.” We have both incurred physical damage because of play that has gotten too intense and we both have differently troubled psych histories. So we bond and all that. And when you bond and like someone you want to make them feel good. We were taught that the way we were supposed to make people feel good is through a mixture of pain and pleasure.
Culture is complicated.
So I don’t even know how things got started on that exact night. We didn’t play every time we saw one another–it was more sporadic than that. She mentioned that she was having trouble with her ongoing inability to safeword or something like that.
“Well… have you ever actually said “red” during a scene where that was a prearranged conditioned? Wait–no. Let’s back up. Have you ever said “no” to someone who was beating you?” (I have the background knowledge of knowing that she plays with the biggest, baddest, nastiest people in the community. Sure they are teddy bears on the inside and all that but they fuck people up.)
“Uhm… no.”
“Ok, we’ll start there. That’s what we are doing tonight. I am going to hit you until you tell me to stop.” Then I smiled and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her roughly into the play area. That was a very short negotiation. Usually I go on and on but I’ve played with her a lot and we had a history of experience to build on. I wouldn’t do that with her now. Even if it were permitted within the boundaries of my marriage I haven’t played with her in more than seven years. I don’t have the right any more. It worked then.
I slammed her really hard against the St. Andrew’s cross. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her forward then repeatedly slammed her back again and again.
She kind of gasped and made thumping noises. Intermittently she giggled. We like to have us a good time.
I started in with light punches on her upper chest. I thought long and hard for maybe a minute about whether or not I should properly warm her up.
If you want to be nice to a masochist you start out with a series of light blows and you slowly wake the skin up and get their endorphins running. These hits don’t hurt. It’s just patting the skin. It’s a very kind gesture and all.
If you don’t want to be nice to a masochist (or if you want to be very nice to a masochist) you don’t bother and you hit them beyond their ability to read something as “strong sensation” and well into the realm of “holyfuckingshit that hurts” pretty much instantly. I may have even given ninety seconds of consideration before I started slapping her hard enough to leave large hand prints.
Upper arms, sides of hips, upper thighs inside and out/front and back, chest and breasts. Not as hard on the breasts. Cysts are bad things. Be gentle with breasts.
I didn’t even bother to take her clothes off. I wasn’t here to get her off–I’d do that somewhere other than a bar with random lookieloo’s. I was here to teach her a lesson. We all have to learn how to say no. There is a god damn first time for everything.
If you are cautious and want to extend the length of a scene then you give people time to breathe in between blows. You let them “process” the pain. Folks who are being hit usually appreciate a bit of time in between strikes. I didn’t really do that.
I beat her hard and fast. I switched off between slaps and punches. Sometimes I would pinch a section of muscle in my hand and pull her forward before slamming her back.
I could see her panic response rise.
The whole time I was doing it I was leaning in and yelling (the music was loud) as softly as I could into her face so no one nearby could hear (ha) what I wanted from her. I took her on a journey.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, then I’ll switch things up.” I do know what she likes after all. “Uhm, so are you still enjoying it?”
“Not so much ma’am, not so much.”
“Then we are finally getting somewhere!”
All of this probably only took about five minutes of hitting. I’m really mean when I want to be. In between taunting her I like to try and build her up. We had a lot of the conversation go more like:
“I think you are beautiful and I love you.” (She cries harder.)
“I think you are worth protecting. When you stop wanting this I want you to tell me to stop.” (She cries harder.)
“Please, please tell me to stop when you don’t want it any more. I don’t want to hurt you. I love you. I only want to do things to you that you want. Please please tell me when to stop. I love you. I love you.” (I beat her harder and she cries harder.)
At some point I have to back off because she is hyperventilating–I don’t want to kill her after all–and I just stand there holding her hands while she gets her breath settled down. Then she nods at me again and says the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever heard:
“I want more.”
I beat on her until my fists were bruised and mangled. The beating lasted something like forty five minutes. When I was done we were both sweaty sobbing balls on the floor.
I could see it coming. I wasn’t allowed to cry till the finish and I could feel my composure slipping and I could see her finally see that.
“Stop! Stop! Please stop.”
I grabbed her and hugged her and we fell to the floor and rocked each other and cried and cried. She thanked me and I thanked her.
When you are in a bar you can’t sit on the floor very long and “process” after your scene so we moved over to a booth. We didn’t talk we just held each other. There aren’t words sometimes.
When I think about missing bdsm what I think about is that feeling of transformation. Before that moment she had never said no. After that moment she had. If she does it once she can do it again.
I’ve learned how to say no. I have boundaries that I previously didn’t believe I was allowed to have. My life has changed.
Nothing is set in stone until you are dead. And even then the bastards keep re-writing history.
I often feel really guilty about the way my brain works. I feel very guilty for being so broken. I don’t even mean the flashes of anger and rage. I had a good day yesterday. I was scared of the reaction from the book club (outing yourself as a big freak is a big no-no in mommy-groups) but I sent out a tentative “Please confirm you don’t hate me” (worded differently…) and got positive feedback.
I don’t feel good about asking for it. I should just let other people have whatever feelings they have and not care. But I do care. I’m scared of not being liked. I’m scared of actually feeling safe because whenever I’m stupid enough to feel comfortable and I actually share my thoughts with people they don’t stick around too long. Goodbye Brittney, Anna, Sarah. 30 years, 11 years and 8 years of trust. I understand that it is my fault.
I’ve been reading a lot of survival skill books. Who are the survivors? Apparently people who accept responsibility are more likely to live. I didn’t know that. I have a (perhaps unhealthy) strong internal locus of control. I believe I am responsible for what happens to me. It happens because of my actions.
It goes back to when I was really small. I remember conversations about this with my mother’s second husband he was gone before I was six. If things don’t work out the way I want it is all my fault that I didn’t work hard enough to make it happen and I have no one to blame but myself. Ok, so he was blaming me for not getting done the things he wanted done but that’s not the point.
I was taught that things were my fault. In fucked up and inappropriate ways but it has served me so well.
I need to not take it so personally that I offend people. There will always be people who decide they don’t want to be my friend.
Why PTSD morning? Because when I wake up with a little bit of anxious like this it manifests as rapid heart rate, sweating, I see time after time of people rejecting me and telling me I am disgusting playing in my head like a news reel. I see the dangers and problems of being alone. I start to cry. I want to wake up and cancel every RSVP I have and not talk to anyone ever again. Even the ones who have never shown signs of being mad at me because it is inevitable that they will and I don’t want to experience it. I wake up wanting to hurt myself.
But I had a fucking good day yesterday. It isn’t fair to have this kind of bounce. I should not be down right now. No, I will never be prom queen or anything like that. I understand the shape and limits of my community. I’m not sure I will ever try for having a best friend again. I talk to K the most but I expect that to change as the years go by and I’m just grateful I have it right now.
I have to not expect that anyone will be in my life in twenty years. I can’t plan around anyone but me. Maybe Noah.
Someone on my PTSD forum said that he was jealous because when I told someone in person about my trauma I got to be comforted. I got to be held and I got to cry. I didn’t laugh in writing but I laughed as I read it. No, actually when I told Noah about my traumas I made him go to the mall and we walked. I didn’t want him to be looking at my face and for the love of all that is holy I did not want to see his face. I didn’t let him touch me. He didn’t see me cry for years of marriage. I’ve only let him hold me while I cry a few times recently. It’s very scary and overwhelming.
I feel guilty because I start out the day smoking pot. But my options are to skip smoking and continue to feel anxiety and like I should set fire to every relationship in my life just so that I don’t have to sit around waiting to be dumped… or I can smoke and have a nice day. Today is the day to clean the bathroom and the floors. And gardening. The kids and I will laugh and have fun. We will go snag the big huge crate I saw out running and the little girls will each get their own raised bed to do whatever they want with. I’m pretty excited.
It’s going to be a day full of only the things I want in my life. A local homeschooling buddy SMSed me last night to ask if they could come over and weed with me for an hour or so in the afternoon.
I’m obviously not a leper. I feel like a bragging piece of shit when I talk about my social life because I am extremely busy. Why do I feel so hated? That’s mental illness, folks. I catalog what I do and who I see to remind myself that it isn’t possible that I am as disgusting and bad as my family told me. If so I wouldn’t go to a fair in San Jose and see several people who squee and rush at me to hug me.
But then I think about the fact that I skip parties at friends’ houses sometimes because I can’t handle being in the room with their rapist friends. Maybe I am tolerated in the same kind of defective zone in society. I’m afraid that is true.
I yell at kids because I honestly believe it is good for them. Right now there is a whole wave of parenting that kind of thinks I am from the devil. I say, “Your kids have to go live in the world. How in the hell do you think they will handle people like me once they are grown?” I’m really not that extreme out in the big bad world. And after I yell I explain why and what needs to change in the future and I don’t carry a grudge and I generally hand out food right afterwards as a bonding thing.
No really, kids need to hit a brick wall. They need to be told that what they are doing isn’t acceptable. Then it needs to be made clear that you have a problem with their behavior, not their personhood and you believe in zillions of chances. Just don’t do that one again, m’kay?
I wish with all my heart that someone would have cared when I was a kid. I wish someone had told me that my misbehavior was very dangerous and they didn’t want me to be hurt. I was kind of told that half-heartedly by people who never followed up and with whom I had no bonding experiences.
I need to be told things I don’t like. I’m blessed with having people who look at me hard enough that I trust their feedback. That feels good.
No person, no personality, no path is completely set in stone until you are dead. People can change and change and change again up until that point. There aren’t really any rules.
Once upon a time our species had very little impetus to figure out how things like PTSD worked. People died in their 30’s or 40’s and it just wasn’t a big deal. You deal with it then you die. I’m going to live post-trauma with symptoms for decades and decades and decades. That’s pretty fucking daunting. That’s motivating. If I don’t think really hard about how to handle this then I might have a miserable life.
If I just drifted through accepting what happens to my body without question I would have an unpleasant life. If I want to change what is happening in my body I have to do it. No doctor and no pill can fix it for me. I have to map a path through doing this.
Neurobiology, brain imaging scans, and psychology are sort of trying to solve this for me only they really don’t understand what is happening to me and that makes them rather impotent.
I would give just about anything to be part of a study that does brain scans of me every five years as I try to change my PTSD symptoms. I want to know what is happening with the grey matter. I wonder if I can change the brain damage. I want to know where it is and the shape of it and the extent of it so I can put my energy specifically towards what I need. Right now I am throwing darts in the dark. I’m not even sure I am hitting the wall.
The thing that I am most convinced of as I grow up is that humans really do have the ability to do magical things–you just have to want something bad enough. “I’ll find a way or make a way.” People survive things that simply can’t be survived. People heal from incredible injuries and diseases–because they want to sooooo much.
The more I read about combat PTSD the more it scares me. The big difference between me and them is I was taught to be a prostitute. They were taught to kill people. I think that is a different scope of anger issues. I’m at risk of maybe giving someone a bruise if I really lost it and whacked. I don’t think that’s ok so I work on my anger issues.
I live in a culture that does not permit violence. Adapting to it is very complicated. I did not grow up in that kind of culture. I grew up in a culture that thrives on violence, encourages it, and consciously teaches it. After I kind of hinted to my big brother that I was having trouble with boys he taught me how to grab someones pinky and do serious damage to them and control their whole body. I have never done it in earnest because I am too afraid of it failing and what the consequences would be.
I think I partially got into the bdsm community because I was abused a lot as a child but I wasn’t hit very often. I was shamed continually because I wasn’t beaten enough. When I was four or five years old someone in my family (I don’t even remember who) snapped that they were going to beat me and I said, “If you do I will call 1-800-FOR-A-CHILD and report you for abuse.” I didn’t get hit. That wasn’t my mom. Like a cousin or Uncle Bob. A man in that house.
So I grew up and proved that I could be beaten. That I wasn’t weak. That I could take it–I just wasn’t going to fucking take it from them.
I tell Shanna that yes, she needs to be prepared to defend herself with violence if necessary but it should rarely be your first step. If you hit people as your first step you won’t have any friends because people will think (correctly) that you are an asshole. You use your words so that you can still have friends. If you want to be allowed to exist near people you have to be a certain level of civil. This extends to yelling in public places, etc.
My kid is going to get in trouble some day for correctly saying someone is an asshole. Ha. I’m trying to model that you don’t need to tell people your evaluations of them. I have a visceral problem with the word “bad”. I don’t want to tell my kids to not be “bad”. Many of those “bad” behaviors are things that could save their lives. I want them to understand that it isn’t about being good or bad it is about figuring out the correct behavior for the place you are in and following that.
I actually got into that with the book club yesterday too. Other folks are far on the other end of the spectrum wanting their kids to have uniform behavior. Not in this house.
I simply do not identify with the idea of one behavioral code. I behave differently in the park (where I run and climb trees and shout and keep cussing to a minimum and Do Not Get Into My Shit) compared to a bar hosting a munch. Mostly: less running.
I want my children to have a bone deep ability to sense when and how to change to deal with the people around them. That means exposing them to an extremely wide array of people and SUPERVISING the contact and helping them understand it later.
I don’t intervene. I don’t guide during most interactions other than small manners coaxing. I learned how to do all of that in sign language so that I could do so unobtrusively. They do need scaffolding still.
What I am doing is giving them what I needed. Which may not actually be what they need. As they get a bit older it will become more obvious if I am just a narcissist or if this is working for them. So far they seem to be doing well.
My goal in this parenting business is to prepare them for how to be an adult. “People who cannot care for themselves are always dependent and that is a shitty place to be in life. Get up and learn how to do this for yourself.” And they do. They want to model off of their mom because your mom is the best person in the world–right? I mean, dad’s cool too… I guess… but but… MOM. Geez.
I can’t really recall feeling that way about my mother. I wrote up budgets for her when I was seven. I didn’t want to be like her. Only I did. Only I didn’t. Only I did. Oh god.
I wanted to be her with upgrades. I kind of sort of am. I’m a housewife. But I’m not like her. I don’t have the same priorities. I’m not trying to impress anyone. Well that’s a big fat lie. I’m not trying to impress people by having fancier things than them. My mother was big on collecting crystal. She wanted to “look” rich. I want to be rich and I understand financial planning enough that combined with Noah’s salary making efforts–I will get there. I can work with the hand I was given and multiply it. I’m good like that. My mom… not so much.
My dad had to babysit her. He had to handle all of the finances or she would have fucked them over badly. When she was a little girl her mom took in a lot of foster children and neglected her. She was totally trying to make up for the lack of love in her life with things. I feel bad for her. I understand that she had a very hard life.
I can’t be selfish like she is. The funny thing is–in order to not be selfish like she is I have to be selfish in ways she is not. If my mom is flush she is quick to lend money to anyone and everyone. She doesn’t pay back the people she owes… but that’s just the deal, right? Money should always flow downwards in “earning potential” no matter how many times one is told one will be paid back.
If you could have stopped lying to me about that one we might have had a chance.
I live in a world where there are consequences to financial mistakes. I need to act like I’m working without a net. I don’t have a Bank of Mom & Dad. I have an extended clan of disabled (being lifelong drug addicts hasn’t helped–both legal and non-legal drugs) and dysfunctional people. They don’t know how to change themselves. They are producing more little legacy welfare babies.
That’s why I have been a registered Libertarian for over ten years. I grew up knowing that the welfare system was exploited by people like my family. I watched my sister commit outright fraud. It horrified me.
It took almost ten years for me to understand what a statistical anomaly my family is. I had to get to know a lot more people. MDC gave me that. I’m glad for the experience.
My heart rate is lower. I’m going to need to do a lot of stretching today. I had a wonderful massage on Saturday (thank you again, Tay) and the running and now typing = oh boy. But I feel less scared. I don’t feel as much like if I am stupid enough to look up I will see the sword of Damocles.
I smoke because I don’t want to yell at my children because I am terrified of phantoms in my head. I don’t want to be short-tempered because I am spending my spoons on not crying in front of everyone. I don’t want to be short-tempered because I am spending my spoons on trying to block out my perception of the evil reel going in my head. I don’t want to be mean.
So I won’t be. Thanks medical card.
Here’s to hoping that the stunned expressions at book club were not from shock or horror. I will find out soon if I am excommunicated. Ha. I’m really not good at being in the closet any more.
The topic of hitting came up. I clarified some of my positions. Like: I don’t hit my kids and in my culture I have no plans to ever hit my kids. I think there is the distinct possibility that at some point in time we will be in a different enough culture where I will believe that hitting a kid in order to make them be quiet and safe until we have the ability to go aside privately and talk about the problem is ok. Does that mean that I think that I will automatically hit my kids when we travel? Of course not. Shanna has been to four foreign countries and nary a slap to her credit.
I understand that sometimes parents hit their kids as a way of showing extreme boundaries. “I do this so you learn from this experience and don’t die.”
In the book Outlander there is a scene where the 18th century guy tells the 20th century chick not to wander off or he will beat her. She wanders off and incurs major risk and badness for lots of people. Her husband beat her. After it was over they negotiated that it won’t happen again.
But I get why it happened. I don’t feel upset with him for living according to the rules of the culture he was raised with. She risked lives. She needs to feel how god damn serious that is.
If we were in an Islamic country and one of my daughters wanted to mouth off I would silence her. I do not know how much risk we are taking by different behaviors. I don’t know what will result in my daughter getting seriously harmed by people who disapprove of her existing. I know that there is actual serious risk involved. (Much like Jaime did in the book I would warn my kids about the consequence in advance–we are traveling and the rules are different. This is how and this is why.)
In the process of discussing it someone asked me about how I can process something like that quickly. How can I read books as fast as I do–don’t I have to stop and think about them?
Specifically I was asked how I could just take in a man beating his wife and not have to stop and think about it.
It was in context so I weighed the consequences for like twenty seconds (obviously I am ready to be ostracized if it is going to happen) and said that I don’t particularly have to stop and think about him beating her all that much. I just accept it as the story and keep going. I don’t get hung up on things like that partially because when I became an adult I went straight into the bdsm community and spent two years as a 24/7 slave. The idea of being hit just isn’t something I have to think about much. It happens. Ok.
We didn’t stay on the book much. We wandered into a lot of third world travel situations and how crossing cultures works. We talked about internal vs. external locus of control. I don’t even remember all of what we talked about. I had fun.
The fantasy faire was great; I look forward to it next year. They had a *wonderful* game section with a wide variety of board games and good games for small children. Calli and I spent a lot of time tossing stuffed frogs into a bowl. It was more fun than it sounds. They got their faces painted (unicorns) and I got a bodice so that I can go to Ren Faire again someday. The one I had before today is from a friend and she has much wider shoulders than me so it just didn’t fit. The rest of the garb is more flexible and easy to make work. A bodice must fit.
I’m glad today went well. I feel like we all needed that. I feel really good about my interactions with the kids today. Boundaries are good. Not yelling is good. Talking about responsibility is good.
I’m glad I got to spend today with my children. I’m very lucky to know them.
I need to leave in forty-five minutes. Book club. We read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Woo! One of my favorites. I’m excited.
Then I will come home and get the girls and go to a fantasy faire. So like a Renaissance Faire (has anyone ever told these people that the Renaissance mostly took place in Italy?) but even more obviously based on people just liking the clothes. Fairy tales and princesses and pirates. It’ll be fun.
I ran. 5.85 miles in 80 minutes. I will be more enthusiastic at the race because I will be trying not to hold my friend back so I think it will be fine. *cross fingers*
My inadequacy is trying to drown me lately. Every playful jab feels like a slap in the face and a refresher of the idea that people don’t like me. People aren’t trying to hurt my feelings. I’m just over sensitive don’tyouknow? I don’t feel likable. I feel like the cracks about, “Wow. You’ve got some issues to work out” just don’t really seem necessary. I want to turn around and snap, “What’s your fucking point? Just because you don’t want to work hard that doesn’t mean you should fucking mock me for doing so.” (Err, we were weeding at an apple tree orchard. It was an off-hand comment. No one meant any harm. I shut my mouth and put my head down. I didn’t say a word.)
No one ever seems to mean their harm. So if you are harmed shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up.
I can see myself hiding in a lot of corners. I am worried about people being behind me. I feel unsafe. I feel like people are going to talk badly about me. I hate feeling like walking into a room is going to result in a rush of whispering as people talk shit about me. I understand that at this stage of life a lot of this is paranoia. But it isn’t all paranoia. I piss people off.
And they don’t ever have the fucking balls to talk to me about it. I hear about it through back channels and gossip. It insults the fucking shit out of me. It makes me feel much less happy about seeing people at all.
If everyone expects me to yell at them all the time I feel like there isn’t really a point in showing up. Obviously my company can’t be much of a pleasure. I’ll stay home and not inflict my unpleasant nature on anyone.
I’m sorry I exist.
I know I’m too loud. I know I’m too harsh. Why do you think I consciously identify as white trash? I’m explaining to you that I do not share your middle class values. I do not think I should be quiet. I do not think my household should be quiet as people tiptoe around trying to “not bother” anyone.
If someone is fucking bothered they either need to god damn deal with it or not snidely fucking imply that I should fucking share their culture. I don’t. I don’t know your fucking culture and I couldn’t fucking conform to it if I wanted to. I don’t have the instincts. I will never have the instincts. I don’t want them.
I don’t want to be like you.
It’s not because I think there is something in particular wrong with you. You are fine and all. But I can’t be you. If I tried to be like you I would have to sit down and consciously think all the time about how I had to behave. I would have to work really hard for months or years on learning to modulate my voice–all activities you did in your culture in the first five years or so of your life.
I learned that I had to yell or I would be hurt really badly. I learned that I had to make some fucking noise. I have to be obnoxious and pushy and difficult and demanding. I have to or I will die. That is what I learned.
It’s interesting as I study child development and as I watch my kids and as I think about my own life.
I won’t ever be like you–whoever you are. I can’t. I don’t have your culture. That has to be ok. It has to be. I can’t change it.
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs.
I kind of hate people who write better than me. I’m just saying. It sucks not being funny.
I called to schedule physical therapy two days after the rec expired. I’m so slick. I emailed my doctor. I sent out at least ten other scheduling emails. I’m booked until June unless people want to come visit while I do yard work. Or come to dinner. That’s ok. But I think I have my leaving-the-house-plans.
I don’t believe I deserve a community. But it seems to me like people look around and see that they could form community with me or have less community so maybe I’m tolerable. I’ll take it.
I know I’m volatile. I try to keep most of it online. (Except for when I show up at the park and someones kid is on top of my car in under two minutes. Then I yell.)
I have been talking to Shanna about the locking food up issue. I am having intense internal conflict around this. I haven’t installed the locks yet. In a basic moral way it offends me. But I’m afraid that if I don’t put locks on the cabinet I am going to lose it and slap her in the face one of these times. That seems like a non-acceptable possibility. Locks seem so much better compared to that. My control is not perfect and is not endless.
I know they’ll grow up. This stage has ups and downs. They all do. The locks aren’t permanent. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
What I know about my father is: he was tall, 6’7″. He liked to read science fiction books. (If you want the real reason I avoided sci fi for most of my life… knowing he liked them was enough.) He liked taking baths. He was a printer. He was from Pasadena. He was mean. He liked to rape his children.
I was reading about Buddhist meditation retreats. I’m not sure how I would handle having to sit around and just be still. I would spend a lot of time thinking about my dad. Watching my husband with our kids is like the bitter mixed with the sweet. I feel over and over every day, why didn’t I deserve to be loved? I keep wondering when people are going to realize they should stop. I don’t deserve any positive emotions from anyone. It has always been true.
I feel like a fucking asshole because I got angry about not being loved and I ripped the whole fucking house down. I prosecuted my father and I divorced my mother after loudly and publicly humiliating and shaming her.
Don’t fuck with me.
Ok, I don’t do that to everyone. I haven’t been quite so hostile with all of the people who have hurt me and not loved me. Usually I just put my head down, accept it as the natural order of things, and start walking.
It is very scary trying to be emotionally attached to my children. Every part of me screams not to. Don’t invest. They will just leave you and hurt you. Families are bullshit. No one really gives a shit about anyone but themselves.
I care. I take care of them because I love them. Not because they do anything for me. Well, they hug me. That’s nice.
Apparently my father pestered my mother for a threesome for many years. I wonder if she had given in to that would he have left her daughters alone? There is no way of knowing and no sense in blaming. I doubt he would have left us alone.
My experience of men who rape and men who hurt little children is that they are deeply wounded. They feel small and weak. They do not know that they are so strong they can crush the person with one hand. In their minds that transformation never happened. They believe they are still weak like I believe I do not deserve love. Most of them believe they do not deserve love either. Most of them understand that they should shut their mouths and look down and never expect anyone to love them but everyone gets sick of doing that.
So when someone shows signs of love it is hard to stop. It is hard to keep from pushing harder and harder in your excitement. Oh my goodness this person loves me. If the recipient decides to say “no” and pull away… that’s dangerous and bad. No. They are just kidding. They want to love me. See, they do. They are still here. They want me to be happy. This is what will make me happy.
One of the hardest parts of all day every day is balancing all of the needs in my head. I have to be important–I can’t be a martyr. But I have to look really hard at the people around me and meet their needs. Often when they can’t express the need on their own.
It is hard to not be selfish. It is hard to not take. It is hard to not be self-centered. But I can’t be. That’s what fucks kids up. I have to fucking care about my children and their needs. No one else will unless I do. If I don’t treat them like people of status it is unlikely someone else will.
People get the treatment they expect. People get the treatment they accept.
I don’t know how to defend myself without being angry. I don’t know how to take up space and be allowed to be without setting fire to earth and eliminating every one and every thing near me. That’s not a useful skill right now in my life. It is kind of the opposite of useful, really.
If you don’t like the paths you know go find a new one. What would it be like to not be angry? I haven’t had very many days in the past twenty years when I haven’t felt simmering rage. It kind of blows my mind.
What I know about my father is that he was angry and entitled. I worry about myself. I don’t want to act entitled. I’m not. I worry about the men I know who rape. They are angry and entitled.
You can’t persuade someone to change by yelling at them. Not really. You can cause them to cower and lie and cover up. But that’s not what I want. I want people to understand how big and strong and powerful they are… and to consciously choose to not hurt people. I don’t think that is something I am going to be able to do by being nasty.
I’m really scared of not being angry any more. I know that has to be part of the next step. But I’m afraid that without it I will die. I’m afraid that anger will kill me. (Yes, that was a contradiction.) Being angry is a tremendous load on the body. It is slow suicide. Being this angry allthefuckingtime is a way of killing yourself. But being angry is what motivates me to defend myself.
What is the point of living in preparation for death? Death is part of every life. I’m not sure that anyone should focus on that being the whole point of every day.
I have a lot to do today. I’m feeling overwhelmed already. Weeding, make lunch, park day (there seems to be more and more drama-I think I will do a lot of Shiny Change of Topic), reply to about ten emails with scheduling foo, make phone calls (I am going to schedule physical therapy. I am going to schedule physical therapy. I am going to schedule physical therapy. soyouknowhowmydoctortoldmetodothisinJanuary?YeahI’mbroken.
Make dinner. I’m already in progress on (yet more fucking) laundry. I’ll be happy when younger daughter outgrows the four-outfits-a-day stage. Older daughter has. But then again they have different body temperatures. Younger daughter changes her many layers of clothing as often as I do. We’re in trouble.
When I think about why I am doing things (cleaning the house, weeding, whatever) I think that I want my children to say, “My mom likes to work.” That’s a description I will have to fucking earn. It will be harder given that I don’t have a tidy outside job to at which to point. Lots of people claim to work hard while doing less in a day than I do in most hours. It’s kind of perplexing to me. I could not handle a job where I sat around kind of waiting for something to happen. Not even the kind of waiting/work firefighters do. I have to work more than that. Nervous energy.
It is weird trying to appreciate the difference between mental and physical labor. They are both serious effort. Many people are capable of one but not the other. I’m trying as hard as I can to walk down the middle of the aisle. I want to learn things today that I did not know yesterday. I want that to be true every day. I want to have moved my body around and improved the nature of something pretty much every day. (Ok, I understand that some people don’t consider cleaning to be improving the nature of things and yet those people seem to get pissy about not being able to find things.)
I like resetting the space. In our home there is a place for everything and I can get everything in its place. It all comes down just about every day because living is like that. But I can reset. I can get to baseline. I don’t do it over and over all day. Ok, I skip days of cleaning my kitchen when I am enmeshed in projects elsewhere. It gets gross.
But as long as it is in disorder I can physically feel it and it bothers me. So I don’t leave things messy for long. The idea of going out and buying nail clippers over and over because you can never find them turns my stomach. I have no idea why but that is a little microcosm of first world consumptive waste for me. No. I just can’t be part of it. Clean up your fucking house and you will be able to keep track of your belongings. If you can’t keep track of your belongings clearly you have too many.
I think this makes me a “minimalist”. But I don’t even feel like a minimalist. I have too much shit for that.
Wow this got rambly. This is all connected for me. This is what I fear facing in meditation. I only face this flow of thoughts for a few hours of writing a day. It’s kind of intimidating to think of going at this speed for a day.
The retreat center spoke of accessing your wisdom. To me that clearly means “people shouldn’t come until they are over fifty”. The internet tells me: “Wisdom is the judicious study and application of knowledge. It is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgments and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one’s emotional reactions (the “passions“) so that universal principles, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one’s actions. Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true coupled with optimum judgment as to action. Synonyms include: sagacity, discernment, or insight.”
I’m in that needing control stage. Shit. I hate this part.
Woke up at 4am. For the first few hours I wasn’t real productive. I read. I blabbed on the ptsd support site. Then was breakfast. Then I made dinner (yay crockpot). Then I started laundry. Then I did the first round of dishes. I watered the front and back yards.
After that I scooped the cat box and gave her new food and water. Then I took out the garbage and recycling. After that I got to settle in for two hours of weeding.
Lots of kid drama and screaming. I feel like a big asshole but I also feel like OH MY FUCKING GOD DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS EVERY DAY?!
Then I rotated laundry. Then I made lunch. Lots of bitching at me over lunch.
Then we slowly cleaned up the living room and got the kids redressed (Calli was on her fourth g-d outfit) and switched laundry again.
Then we walked to Home Depot for hasps so that I can lock the fucking food cabinets. (There are foods you can eat all you want of and there are foods you need to eat in moderation. Any time Shanna is out of sight of an adult she is sneaking into foods she knows she isn’t supposed to free-feed. I can’t take the screaming and she shows no sign of being interested in stopping.)
Then we walked to dance class. This walk was three miles to get from our house to this point. Calli and I hung out during class and did ok. After class we got to walk another 1.7 miles home (up the big darn hill). Then I got to finish making dinner.
After dinner I folded three loads of laundry, brushed/flossed Shanna, did thirty minutes of kitchen cleanup (more fucking dishes). I made new soda water bottles for tomorrow.
It’s weird how I feel like I do a lot yet feel like I don’t do anything. I don’t feel useful. It’s going to take at least another one hundred hours before the yard is properly weeded. I’m about eight hours in. I want to cry. Instead I will work. Before and after engagements for the next couple of weeks. I would like to get some seeds in the ground (I’d really like corn this year) so I need to get my ass in gear. I need everything in the ground and ready to go before we go camping or I will miss the growing season. So that’s three weeks. Good thing the girls go to visit their Godmamas this week. I may spend the entire time weeding.
I’m tired.
I can’t help thinking that the best part of my day comes in the middle of the night. Post-kids I have to wake up for the bathroom multiple times a night. When I come back to bed Noah grabs me like I am his security blanket and makes soothing sounds and starts massaging me basically in his sleep. I feel wanted and loved and secure. I feel so lucky to be married to him.
I’m very excited to report that my evil mood didn’t last twelve hours. I “ran” six miles (no that wasn’t the “schedule” but I did it anyway) but I was slower than a turtle. I’m nervous about the 10k coming up. I haven’t really been training. I’ll get through it but I believe I will hold my partner back and I feel guilty about that. I’m not honoring her commitment.
I’m not working on a book and I feel guilty about that. I haven’t emailed off No Secrets to the friend who will edit.
I haven’t weeded much. My garden is over run. I feel discouraged by losing sixty starts. I’m having a hard time motivating myself to work even though I will be grateful in the long run.
I haven’t been working on Spanish or French or ASL in the past month or so. The very idea makes me want to cry.
I have been a tremendous flaky asshole with the home schooling group lately. I’m not showing up. I am not feeling competent. It isn’t about anyone but me.
I haven’t been cooking much. I just don’t want to. I feel angry and trapped and frustrated instantly at the very idea.
Luckily the kids go to visit their Godmamas this week. I have every intention of hiding in my house for a few days and not talking to anyone. It sounds divine. Maybe I can catch up on my chores and stop hating the universe for not allowing me to get through my list of tasks.
So yesterday when I decided to go for a run first I had to find socks. That required digging through laundry. On the trip to get stuff out of the dryer I discovered that the kids (in that charming way they have every time I’m in a bad mood) dumped several dozen crackers on the floor and crunched them. Mess ~ 4′ wide by 4′ wide. Cue fury. They got put in time out. And I screeched (it wasn’t pretty) THIS IS THE LAST TIME. IF THIS EVER HAPPENS AGAIN I AM PUTTING PADLOCKS ON EVERY CUPBOARD IN THE KITCHEN AND YOU WILL GET BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER AND YOU NO LONGER GET SNACKS.
Then I got out to the garage only to discover that the cat needed food and water and and… it just kept going.
When I start out wanting to go for a run and it turns into having to do a bunch of laundry and care for the cat and the kids make a huge mess (Noah actually cleaned up the crackers–God bless him) I lose my shit.
What does losing my shit mean? It means I want to hurt someone. I’m not too particular. My favorite target is, of course, myself. Yesterday I wanted to beat my head so badly I couldn’t think of much else. I wanted to drown out all of the other sounds. If I beat my head hard enough I am not capable of thinking about all of the things that I am “supposed” to be doing. It drowns out all of the noise in my brain.
It doesn’t help that both of my kids TALK NONSTOP AT THE TOP OF THEIR VOICES ALL GOD DAMN DAY EVERY GOD DAMN DAY. Sometimes it feels like my ears will fall off. Silence. Goodness I miss silence.
The thing that is hardest for me lately is: when I am angry it is about things inside me. It is not reasonable to expect other people to conform to my moods.
I can’t expect people to cater to my moods. But man I am looking forward to my kids being older. I’m looking forward to being able to say, “I am in an evil mood. It’s not your fault. I’m going to put my headset on and please pretend I’m not here.” Right now my sweet babies just can’t handle that. It’s hard on all of us.
Time passes. Things will change. I’m glad that evil moods don’t come as often as they used to. I didn’t kick a hole in the wall. I didn’t do irreparable damage to any relationships. I didn’t break anything. I cried while I was running. I was just so mad. I feel impatient, frustrated, trapped, inconsequential.
No biblical hell could ever be worse than a state of perpetual inconsequence.
I’m having trouble with scale. Right now is marathon-style terrible preparation work. Where is my instant gratification? But I’m so bogged down with marathon-scale prep work that I cannot even vaguely imagine taking a break for instant gratification. I would fall into an exhausted ball on the floor and cry. Just can’t. Not right now.
This is where I used to go pick someone up. That’s instant gratification. I bet that’s why I went to the bar. But I can’t pick someone up. Sex with Noah just… isn’t the same kind of thing. I feel bad about that. He would like it if it was the same. I love him. Sex with him is different.
Most recently I was reading about sexual dysfunction for PTSD and looking at how the brain operates with arousal/numbness. Ah. That’s why I like one night stands and people who beat the shit out of me. That’s why the nice bunny sex in the dark is not so orgasmic. I’m safe. Safe=not aroused.
The problem is, most of my brain arousal manifests as anger. I can’t use it as fuel for finding sex partners. Fuck, fight or flee. I can’t really do any of the above. Sex with Noah isn’t really fucking lately. I’m happy about that. If he tried I might smack him in the face. I don’t have patience for that from him right now. What we are doing is ok.
This is new. Well, I suppose other people have been managing not having these options for most of their lives. Ha. That must be very frustrating. But I see the value in learning it during childhood so that your mistakes have less lasting impact. Err, not that I’m going to let my children learn during childhood. Wait, all the modifiers in this paragraph are confusing.
The whole fuck/fight/flee thing is instinctual for everyone. Most people are not really permitted to follow these urges during childhood. They have to suppress them. I didn’t learn most of the normal coping methods. It’s weird feeling so immature. The ridiculous impulsivity. But I can learn it. Everyone else learned it. Other people make mistakes like cheating on their spouses as adults. Ha.
Ack. Breakfast.
I’m in a mood. I want to be aggressive and nasty and mean. I hate asking for something and being told no. And I’ve had multiple people (who have all been pestering me for social engagements) all cancel/say no already today. (The events weren’t all for today.) They have lives. Things come up. I’m not supposed to have feelings about them canceling. It’s like rude or something.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the people who actually show up. Where. When. Why? Oh god why. I don’t think I could properly evaluate them if I sat down and said: “This person has a 75% flake rate. This person has a 95% flake rate. This person has a 15% flake rate.” I’d be wrong. I misjudge people all the time.
I’m really surprised by who shows up. I’m a flaky bastard so I’m not throwing stones. Flaking is a way of saying, “My needs are the only ones I need to consider and your experience/feelings/whatever are your problem.” Yup, I’m flaky. Sometimes I can’t give a shit about someone else wanting to see me.
I’m feeling defensive. And like I need to work harder on building my citadel. This is my space. People will rarely be invited into it unless I know I can trust you and you won’t treat me like I don’t matter. We have to find a way of bonding before I will make plans with you. If I’m not at least somewhat bonded I will ensure I never become bonded if you flake on me.
I think my last big experience with that was enough for this lifetime. If you can’t make agreements and keep them then I can’t need you. I have to ensure that my needs (emotional safety and predictability are high on this list) are met and I just can’t be someone who meets your needs. Reciprocation is weird. I don’t have a reciprocal relationship with my kids. It isn’t supposed to be reciprocal. Friendships are. Often all that is reciprocated is time spent and respect. I don’t need money, help cleaning my house, or even babysitting. I’ll make it through. Would my life be easier if I had more support? Maybe.
Near as I can tell “support” isn’t worth the cost. In order to get thirty minutes of support I need to trade four hours of effort. That’s a losing situation.
You aren’t supposed to think about your friends like this. It makes you an asshole.
The best thing about having moved over and over in my life is I don’t really have much of a sense of responsibility towards anyone. If you are upset it isn’t my problem. You have to deal with it. Can I feel empathy and sometimes want to help? Sure. But it’s on my schedule and as my energy allows. I’m not on fucking tap.
I need to stop bitching about specific social situations in my life. It’s not perfect but I choose it. Venting isn’t going to make anything better and I have no better options available. So I need to suck it and just deal. It’s ok that people don’t do what I do. Really.
Man I have judgment. As long as it stays in my head no one needs to be hurt or give a shit.
I really and truly don’t think other people “should” be like me. I don’t think it would be especially healthy for most people. I still struggle with watching people make decisions that have AN OBVIOUS FUCKING END POINT. They have to walk that road alone.
I’m not always right. My predictions work out a large percentage of the time, but not always. Free will and that shit.
Be alone. Be content with being alone. That’s a lot of where I am right now. Wanting to be with other people means having to conform to all of their little petty wants and needs and I’m busy with my own petty wants and needs.
I think I’m partially feeling emotionally volatile because I’ve read a lot of incest stuff this week. Two memoirs in book form(I need to record), a clinical book, and a bunch of websites and online abstracts from studies.
It feels really hard emotionally to sit still with how unbiased I will have to be in order to gather the data I want to gather about incest. I will have to be able to be compassionate towards perpetrators. I will have to be nonjudgmental. I will have to be neutral. I will have to act like my story is just one story and this picture is bigger than me and I can’t judge people through my lens.
It is a kind of being invisible again. Not mattering. The plural of anecdote is not data.
Only it is if you are serious enough. I need to start deciding the form and shape of the data I want to gather. I think those notes will have to be long-hand. What questions do I want answers to?
I’m feeling insecure and like I don’t have the right to talk about this subject because I am not “officially/formally trained”. No one with Actual Authority is giving me their Stamp of Approval. I’m going to have to just do it because I want it. That’s scary.
I’m feeling massively overwhelmed by how much I want to get done in this lifetime. I feel like I am instead spending time on things and people that don’t matter. I’m wasting what time I have.
What value does “being entertained” have? Everyone needs to rest–sure. And I’m primarily homeschooling for the next decade or so. How should time be spent?
Priorities. Time to look at ye olde priority list again. I’m not finding self-discipline. I’m not finding drive. I just feel scared and paralyzed.
I got into a nasty argument on my ptsd forum. The rabid AA-sobriety-is-the-only-path people are telling me that if I hold anything other than an abstinence-only policy it will be my fault people die from alcohol/drug problems. I had no idea I was so powerful. I CONTROL ALLLLLLL THE PEOPLE.
Or something.
Are there addicts who must be 100% sober in order to not die young and miserable and weighing 74 pounds after subsisting on only rot-gut whiskey? Probably. Is that absolutely standard and true for every person who can fall under the label of “addict”? No. Absolutely unequivocally no. Give me a fucking break.
I really hate all humans some days. Not in a personal way. Like, I won’t be nasty to Noah or the kids. But I don’t like humanity some days. I’m frustrated.
Get over it, Krissy. You don’t actually want to be alone. People will frustrate you. People will do things you don’t like. Staple your fucking mouth shut and keep walking. You don’t hate everything they do. Heck, you don’t even hate a large percentage of what they do. You are just in a bad mood. Don’t fuck anything up today.
Tomorrow will be a different day. Tomorrow you will miss people and think, “Oh well… even if they have a 95% flake rate… I still get them 5% of the time! That’s better than being alone 100% of the time!”
My tolerance depends on how needy I feel. Today I don’t feel needy. I will again. Don’t blow anything up. Damnit.
When I really think about it the fact that multiple friends have already been sexually assaulted this year isn’t helping my mood either. I’m glad they can talk to me about it. There is so much pain in this world. Sometimes I feel buried.
I went out. To a munch at a bar. It was made clear to me that I could have gone home with at least three people. Apparently folks missed me. I was offered beatings and cuddles and kisses and bondage. I could really have an ego if I wanted one. It’s kind of mind boggling how I maintain such low self esteem.
I’ve been having a rabid argument on my ptsd support site today. Can someone “heal” while using drugs or must they be completely sober before the journey can begin. Discuss. I have strong views. I am not on AAs side.
I have been reading a lot more about men hating women. You know, stuff written by men. It’s like visiting crazy town. I think I understand a bit more about why they don’t like me though.
I’ve been reading about consensual incest because it occurs to me that if I am going to try and collect real stories and serious data I will have to be completely accepting of whatever I get. And people are going to have a very serious range of backgrounds.
Tonight, at the munch, as I was on my way out a woman asked me for advice on how to handle advances from men. How do you deflect attention you don’t want? What things do you say? How do you deal with them? I told her I have a nasty history of sexual assault so I’m not sure my advice is the best. And then I told the story about being humiliated on the beach.
So, years ago I was brought into an extended part of the Burning Man community. I participated in a particular local burn every month. I never went out to the playa–I’m not a dusty girl. The one year I bought a ticket I gave it to my friend Mo and ran off to marry Noah instead. That was the right choice.
Long before I married Noah, right after I left my Owner (I literally moved my stuff from my Owner’s house on a Thursday and left on Friday for my first camp out with the group) I went on my first date with someone and spent the weekend doing ecstasy and nitrous for the first time and drinking a rather lot of alcohol. In the first weekend I fucked six people. I liked that group a lot.
After I had been part of that group for a year or so there started to be increasing problems with men being overly aggressive with women. The burns had gotten more popular and it was held at a nude beach so things got heated. This was in the height of the tribe.net days. Oh I miss tribe. It was decided that there would be a workshop on how to deal with sexual advances.
The woman who ran it pulled me out in front of the group and identified me by name. In the next few minutes she said explicitly that it was possible to have boundaries without being a bitch like me.
So tonight when I was asked for advice on how to handle unwanted advances I had feelings. Mostly how I handle them now is by holding up my big shiny ring and saying, “Monogamous!”
But before that. What did I do?
First, think about it from the male point of view. He is experiencing chemistry with you. He is in an at least mildly heightened arousal. And men are socialized to know that if they don’t push aggressively for sex they probably won’t get any. Any sign of equivocation or hesitation is a signal that you are just hoping that he’ll try harder.
So you need to be very clear. Never apologize. Acknowledge and be polite. “I’m not hunting. I’m really not looking for anything but friends.” You don’t need to feel responsible if he gets butt-hurt. That’s part of his growing process. Everyone gets rejected sometimes. I have kind of a ridiculous success rate (err, historically) and I get rejected tons.
It’s ok for guys to ask. It’s ok to not be interested and just say no. Don’t apologize. Never apologize for not wanting to have sex with someone. It is not their right. It is not something they have a basic set of permissions to access.
It was hard tonight to figure out the right mix of behavior. I flirted. I flirted with people I have a very long history with (my wonderful Daddy was there or I wouldn’t have gone) and I felt safe. I felt pretty and fun. I don’t feel fun very often. Usually I feel boring or bad. I kind of alternate between them.
I feel like my stories are all sad and full of woe. I feel like I am pathetic and uninteresting. When people ask me what I have been up to I know they only want the highlights so I go with: “Gardening and home schooling my kids and painting murals in my house.” That certainly isn’t lying. I don’t mention the book much. That’s a downer. WHICH IS WHY IT DOESN’T SELL. Silly girl. Ack.
But it was nice going out to the munch. It reminded me that there is a critical lack of mentor-like people who are without agendas in my community. My community is primarily a place where people go to hunt and hunt hard. There are monogamous people but they are kind of weird.
I think we are good for the community. I think it is good to understand that you can have boundaries and closeness. You don’t have to fuck everyone you love.
That’s kind of a weirdly intense thing for me. You don’t have to fuck everyone you love. I was supposed to fuck my brother. I was supposed to fuck my dad. But you don’t have to fuck everyone you love.
It’s ok to leave doors closed. I know this shouldn’t be epiphany territory. Maybe you aren’t compulsively sexual.
And also:
Yeah, that’s me.
Part of the reason that I “rape easy” is because I have a lot of compassion specifically for men who are very frustrated by sexual rejection. I find the sex addicts. I understand why they feel like someone like me should exist. It was really intense for me when I read the Kushiel series. I have felt like I was required to take in the pain of other people since I was a small child. For a long time I felt like it was more or less my duty to make their lives better.
It doesn’t hurt me to have sex with lonely, frustrated men. And it makes them so happy. Don’t I owe them that happiness since it is so easy for me to give and they want it so badly?
It feels weird when people ask me for advice on how to handle men. What the fuck do I know? How to get raped over and over. Because I am stupid and I keep standing near dangerous people. I stand near them because they understand the game and for most of my life I needed to have someone acknowledge to me that the game existed. (I don’t mean you lost the game. That’s different.)
Life presents you with teachers in the right times and in the right places. I have learned from prostitutes and drag queens. I have learned from old leather fags and rednecks. I have learned from WASPs and the projects.
One of the most important bits is stay away from anyone who makes you nervous. That’s where I get hosed. The ones who make me nervous intrigue me. I’m stupid. Let me tell you the rapes were uninventive enough that I mourn for their other partners. They wouldn’t be fun to stand next to for long.
But I feel bad for them. Because they so obviously feel pain. I want to help. Codependent dumbass. I want to be liked. That was what was on offer.
It is nice knowing that I don’t have to hope anyone else will like me every again. I get to just exist. But how am I going to deal with advances? You don’t have to be a perfect ten in my community in order to be considered interesting–it’s an awesome community.
It is all so complicated. How does one develop an actual clear way of managing oneself? I can’t pretend I’m not hot (I totally am) just because not every person on the whole planet wants to have sex with me. But I have self esteem issues. (Not body issues exactly.)
I will say that it was kind of weird having people plot porn out on the table in front of me. Other than my recent foray into tumblr I don’t look at a lot of visual porn anymore. I stopped that when I stopped having partners who were aggressively interested in porn. I presume that Noah looks at porn occasionally but I know for a fact he doesn’t have time to do much of it.
I was reminded what world I was in. I was repulsed and comforted simultaneously. I will note that the people in the pictures represented a fabulous array of sizes, shapes, and skin tones.
Oh yeah. I forgot. People are really beautiful. I haven’t looked at them like this in a long time.
I think I will go out wearing red lipstick again. I liked the reaction. It was really nice not feeling invisible. And it was nice being with friends. And, let’s be honest, it was nice feeling like I could crook my little finger and disappear with any number of people.
Ok. I think my libido is starting to reappear. This life business is going to be interesting. Monogamy is a conscious choice for me. It is a decision I make over and over and over like I make the decision to stay married and I make the decision to not run away from home and take my kids and start over somewhere new. Not because Noah has done anything wrong–I’m just crazy.
Being in love is, in my opinion, largely a choice. I could choose to nurture resentment. Instead I choose to be grateful that I have an exceptionally giving partner and I know I won’t find better. Sure, I could find someone to fuck me or hit me… Noah loves me. Noah loves me enough to give me his name and his babies and all of his spare time and mountains of money and all of the property he didn’t have to share because it was from an inheritance.
Should money matter? Enh, it’s not the money. If I left I would leave with little more than the clothes on my back and I would laugh at his attempts to give me money. I wouldn’t starve my kids but I’d get independent real fast and I’d stop cashing checks. I’m like that.
It’s the trust. It’s the commitment to making me safe. It’s the commitment for seriously investing in me.
Whoa. Holy fucking shit. How did I inspire that? I know that people get married all the time. I’ve spent enough time on the internet reading about dysfunctional relationships to understand how good I have it. Noah is probably glad that I no longer troll single parenting forums obsessively reading threads like “What do you wish you had known before you negotiated for custody?”
Ok, I think the caffeine has worn off. I wanted to make sure I could drive home safely. Woof. Tomorrow will be interesting.
Usually when I get this little sleep it isn’t because I was having fun. I think I will be able to smile tomorrow. I will remember watching the very pretty women doing terrible things to one another and I’ll smile. No one will need to know why.