I walked to the farmers market with Eldest Child. It was a wonderful trip. We both really enjoyed the time alone.

That’s why I insist on dates. Because they build a relationship.

We talked and talked and talked. Only a few times did I start crying and getting overly emotional. When I started mumbling to myself because I couldn’t keep the “I’m sorry” chanting in my head silent I told her to just ignore me when I’m like this.

She said, “Mom. You are in pain. I’m not going to ignore you when you are in pain.”

I almost collapsed right there sobbing.

I told her, “Well… ok I am in pain. But I’m mostly in pain from very old things that don’t bother me so much when I’m medicated properly. Today is hard.”

“I know that. But if today is a hard day, maybe I shouldn’t ignore you.”

That was really intense. I feel horribly guilty that my children are aware of my problems but trying to hide them would be worse. I couldn’t hide the impact of my issues. I could just lie about the structure of it.

I don’t know if I am helping them build strength or weakness. I don’t know if being aware of other peoples feelings like this will overall be a win or a problem in their lives. Are they going to spend their time chasing broken people because they want to save them?

That scares me.

It’s a little over three miles round trip to the farmers market. I can’t tell if I’m just that sick, or if I’m out of shape or what. Maybe it is the not eating a days worth of calories in the 24 hours around puking?

The walk hurt. It hurt really a lot. My hips hate me and would like to poke me with sharp pointy things.

The walk back with 20+ lbs of groceries was kinda brutal. We had to stop and rest several times.

To be fair: when we used to do this walk… we pulled a wagon and did not carry the groceries. So maybe that is part of why the walk was so brutal. I may want another damn wagon. Our old one broke, much to my sadness.

I’m scared of the balance between weakness and strength. I’m scared that I am too weak. I am scared that being strong is a myth. I’m afraid that being strong means wanting to be… I don’t know… bigger, meaner, more awful.

I do want to drive people away from me if they are around me just to be nasty. I absolutely do. I’m ok with that strength.

But at the same time, there are an awful lot of people in this world I want to connect with. I don’t want to drive everyone away. If you present yourself wrong… that happens.

I’m scared.

My emotions are everywhere this morning. I feel grateful that the jumping beans didn’t get going till 6 am. I got a reasonable amount of sleep. Thank you Lorazepam–you’re my only hope. (These are the last 2 pills from a prescription I got last spring. I use these suckers sloooooowly because they are far more habit forming and harmful than pot.)

So now I’m on my own for a few days. Cue sobbing soundtrack.

I have all the feelings this morning. Noah calls pot my apathy enhancement drug and he’s not wrong. A lot of my problem in life is that I just care too much about everything and everyone. I’m not… I’m not good at being in neutral. I LOVE or I hate. There isn’t that much in the middle for me. It is rare for me to kinda like or kinda dislike something. I’m brutal. I’m all the way.

Part of the reason I went on the road trip was because I wanted to pull taut the strings in my life and see which ones held.

I’m seeing.

It hurts.

I thought… I thought I would keep some of the people who have wandered off. If I sent a whole stack of postcards and presents and letters to people and I still haven’t heard from them… they are done with me.

So today I have this feeling that I wasted so much time and energy on people who didn’t actually love me at all and that hurts.

I’ll get over it. A shit ton faster than I’ve gotten over my family. I don’t still cry about all the losses of friendships in my life. I’d never stop crying.

I don’t even cry over Brittney anymore. She was my best friend for thirty years.

In the end I wasn’t someone she wanted in her life. I don’t act right. I don’t leave skeletons in the closet. I don’t deny who is a cheating bastard. I call it like I see it. That means you lose friends when their life depends on their ability to “not see” bad things that are happening near by.

I’m not big on “slow fades” but we’ve been home long enough and I’ve sent enough feelers out that I think it is time for me to recognize that a whole bunch of people I thought I was close with… no not so much. I’ve been home for almost two months. I contacted them. I invited them to things.

I need to let go. I just removed people from the google group if they haven’t acknowledged me in 9+ months.

You don’t want to be in my life. That’s ok. I need to stop looking for you. I need to stop hoping for you and that is so hard.

I live my life in this state of hope. Surely I will find more people to love and some of them will love me. Sometimes I think that is the thing that has kept me alive through so much horror. I have this deep part of my soul that cannot be convinced I am out of love to give.

I don’t know why I love you all so much. Even the people I am really angry with. Even the people I want to scream, “Go away!” I say that because I don’t like how you are treating me. No because I don’t want to love you.

I… I’m not in a place where people can treat me however they like to treat people and that’s good enough. I’m brittle and fragile and oh so specific. It is hard to learn how to be around me without hurting me.

It’s part of that whole ‘trigger warnings’ thing that bugs me so much. It is excruciatingly hard and it takes years for someone to learn how to not trigger me. Noah is still struggling to learn. I have so many triggers. So many things flip a switch in my head so that I feel like there are emergency sirens screaming, “Die you worthless whore. Die. Die. Die. Die.”

I know that frequently I am the problem. The only way out of being the problem I have ever been able to devise is either disappearing or dying. I can’t disappear any more.

I can’t password lock my journal. Why? Because then I won’t be able to find the other incest survivors. I need to be able to find them. That is what I am going to do with my life.

Once I finish growing up.

That means I need to stand in a place where bullies can see me. I don’t like standing here. I’ve kinda been a target enough in my life. But if I want to find the incest survivors… I’m going to need to be a target. It scares me something fierce.

So many people are going to want to hurt me. I know I’m being overly paranoid about the troll witches. They aren’t actually hurting me. I “know” I am reacting out of proportion to what is happening right now.

I’m reacting like this is part of everything that has happened and everything that will happen. I’m acting like it isn’t an isolated event because for me it isn’t. It is… kinda normal.

Why do I respond with such hostility? Because I have learned that the low level bullies retreat when I do that and I need to have that much of a buffer. Does it make me easy to deal with? No. But sometimes being easy isn’t my goal. Sometimes striving for easy just means you are easier to hurt.

I was interrupted for breakfast. Now it’s time to walk to the farmers market.

I’d like to write a whole long thing about how awesome married sex is, but I don’t have time.

I know I didn’t actually win here. I know that all of the folks who have been streaming in are still capable of getting here. If they are smart enough to figure out the work around. (I sincerely hope they are smart enough for that. If they aren’t I weep for the future of my country.) But it means I don’t have to see direct links from facebook, the troll site, or donotlink ever again.

That feels wonderful. Ahhhhh. I’m tired of watching those specific sites clime to hundreds of direct hits. Y’all don’t deserve a direct hit. You haven’t worked hard enough for it.

The best best best part is Noah said something like, “Well there are blockers…” and I jumped out of bed to look one up, download, and install it within a few minutes. By myself. Because I’m a competent motherfucker.

I am fully aware people can get here any way. Just not from those asshole locations.

I did discover that apparently in 2014 a sex worker shared one of my pro sex work posts on facebook. That was nice of her. Now she can’t direct link any more. Because of whoever the hell you are from yesterday.

There is always collateral damage, yeah?

Yesterday was rough. Noah told me that I don’t have grumpy days like that very often. I sure hope he wasn’t blowing sunshine up my skirt.

This is how bad I felt On the 80% bad days on the trip. I had a few days that felt worse but not many. It is physical, emotional, and spiritual. Pot does a lot for me and I have such mixed feelings about that.

When I have a few months of being a truly consistent daily user (it’s hard to manage that because if I’m going to drive in a day I don’t medicate till bed. So I have a lot of unmedicated days.) I get to this point of trying to talk myself into believing that the pot was a crutch and now I’ve learned the skills to manage my body and I’m ready to stop. Then I take two or threes off. My stomach hurts so bad I can barely eat. My head hurts all the time. I’m mean. I cry a lot. I am grumpier than fuck. It suuuuuuuuuuucks.

Then Noah looks at me sheepishly and says something about how maybe the medicine isn’t all bad?

It’s gotta be like living with a schizophrenic who likes to go off their meds. I get erratic and scary.

Sometimes I wonder if I actually have a higher than usual potential for violence. I’m not sure. As a species we are god damn scary. Given the life I’ve lead I don’t think I am particularly violent at this point. I need severe provocation. Like someone grabbing me and saying they won’t let go till they “give me what I want”. Under those circumstances I’m happy to pull all the stops. I’ll hurt you till *I* feel like stopping.

Folks are arguing with great vigor on the PTSD site about how it isn’t fair that people assume that those with PTSD will be violent. I’m all… not fair? But many of us are violent. So you’re saying to spare the feelings of the non-violent folks with PTSD we should pretend that no one with PTSD is violent? That means folks won’t be able to defend themselves against clear and present danger because they were told people with PTSD aren’t dangerous.

Guess what honey, everyone can be dangerous. PTSD isn’t really what makes us dangerous. Our core personalities do that. PTSD is a problem where we can’t always 100% accurately react to just what is happening in the room with us right now because our brains are stuck in a loop with something terrifying and horrifying and possibly life threatening. So we act out because we feel like animals caught in a trap. That can be violent.

Usually it isn’t. Usually people with PTSD are more likely to hurt themselves than others. So I get why the stigma feels scary and hard and unfair.

But there are people with PTSD who are violent and saying they aren’t is…

I can’t get behind that. I’m still standing here fucking up your plan. Sorry.

I am most inconvenient.

Noah and I kinda had it out last night. Being off meds means things that I can usually brush off… I just can’t. So we had some strong words. I think that is the closest to a fight we’ve had in a very long time. It wasn’t so much a fight as me saying, “Lately you have been doing x, y, and z and it hurts my feelings!” “Oh. I have been. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll work on that.”

So not really much of a fight. But I was really emotional. Then he snuggled me to sleep rubbing my head.

Deep breaths Krissy. I’m feeling very interested in hurting myself. I’m sitting here thinking, “I’m never good enough for anything.” I know it isn’t “TRUE” but today is going to be rough. I think today I’m going to have a lot of suicidal ideation. It’s starting already. I will be gentle with myself. Often my first impulse upon feeling suicidal is to dissociate as much as possible so I’m not conscious of what is happening to my body. I always hurt myself a lot that way. I bang into things. I drop things onto my foot. I have… very little ability to be present in my body while wanting to kill it.

I’m going to try today though. I only have to seriously interact with other grown ups for half an hour. Otherwise it’s hanging at home with my family. The babysitter is coming in the morning and Noah is around in the afternoon.

God I love the babysitter. She makes my life 500% better.

Her mom told me the other night, “It was really smart of you to keep paying her enough for her phone when you were gone. She wasn’t tempted to get a job.”

THAT WAS THE IDEA! I wanted her to spend 6 months underemployed so I could snatch her right up the minute we came back. Of course I’m going to keep paying her basic expenses in the mean time! If I don’t she will get a real job and not be available to me and that would suuuuuuuuuuuuck.

You can’t get better than a religiously home schooled teenager who lives three doors away. That is the absolutely ideal baby sitter in my opinion.

Why? She believes in boundaries and modeling and showing by example. She’s a good role model. She’s a great person. I sincerely like her and I’m grateful my kids get to grow up knowing people like her. AND she’s available during the day. We are so lucky.

Money is power. I learn that more deeply with every passing year.

Later today I will have a book review of Slack. It’s… got high points and down points. I continue to have my raging flood of hatred for corporate/tech people looking down on “non-knowledge jobs”. Just because someone works with their hands does not make them essentially replaceable with any and all people who work with their hands. A plumber probably doesn’t make the best carpenter.

I’m really really really really really tired of this fucking elitism. I have heard it all my life and all it makes me feel is raging hatred towards the “elite”. You motherfuckers act like you are so fucking smart and important and irreplaceable but you couldn’t do the job of 99% of people who work with their hands. So why in the fuck do you feel so superior you fucking piece of shit?

I believe that knowledge workers are not inherently superior to gardeners. There isn’t a thing in this world that will convince me they are superior.

I think we need everyone. Top to bottom. I think every level is as important as the others. I think people need to do what they want to do with their bodies whether that be work with your hands or your brain and there should be no shame.

And fucking CEOs should not be allowed to make so much money. Period. They don’t earn that money. They steal it from people who produce actual value for the company.

I will get around to saying good things about Slack… later…

After I hate on the elitists again. (I am increasingly one of these elitists. Maybe I hate them more because I now fall under the umbrella and it is my self hate reaching out to everyone like me?)

Today is intentionally easy. Let’s see if I rest, eh? My stomach hurts so bad. I had this stomach pain for most of my life. It went away when I started using pot. I miss pot today. Sometimes I wonder if I have “punished” myself by denying food so many times because I sorta knew that eating doesn’t improve the stomach pain and sometimes makes it worse. It depends on how recently I’ve eaten.

If I eat every hour to two hours, mostly carbs and sugar, I can sorta not feel pain in my stomach. Then I get horrible horrible diarrhea cause that’s not food. If I try to eat things that are more complex to digest (like vegetables or fruit) I have horrible grinding stomach pain that can make me cry. Usually followed by horrible diarrhea cause my body is so angry I put that inside me. So I try to eat a lot of meat. Meat is the most comfortable food I can put in my body. I pray that it is nature’s little multi-vitamin and I’m benefiting from all that the animals ate. Please let that be enough.

So was I denying myself out of punishment or out of desire to not have diarrhea? Hard to tell.

Little of Column A, Little of Column B.

I missed my December massage because the three of us were sick. (Me, Noah, and the massage therapist.) We aren’t scheduled till the weekend of Valentines day. My neck hurts. Noah does help, but post-motorcycle days his hands wear out.

I’m totally going to support him being a motorcycle rider again someday. I reallllllllllllllllllllly liked how strong his hands were. *swoon*

We want youngest child to be at least a teenager. So probably 9+ years to go. We will survive. We’ve already been married that long. Surely we can do that time again.

It makes me feel very safe that when I get upset about something Noah is doing and I tell him so (not in the nicest words) he says, “Yes. I did that. I shouldn’t have.”

I feel so safe. I feel like my version of reality is treated like it accords with everyone else’s.

Whoa.

I mean, I have things that are part of my reality that isn’t part of theirs–I have a lot of anger issues. But when I’m angry about something from the past I say it is from the past and I’m sorry I’m bringing it forward. When I’m angry about something right now people act like I’m not crazy. I’m telling the truth about a problem.

That’s very healing. I am pretty sure that I would never have been able to manage the degree of healing I have managed under any other circumstances. I have never before in my life had consistent dealings with a man who will treat me the way Noah treats me.

I hit the jackpot.

It is so easy to forgive someone who rarely needs to say, “I’m sorry” but who does so whole heartedly when it comes up. That is trust building, right there.

I think I’m mixing up a few lines from different books, but I’ve had this thing in my head for a few days, “In perfect love and perfect trust you must create a vessel of the self where the self is not.” I’m not sure if that is pulled straight from a Kushiel book but it might be. I have to look up the line to see if I’m stealing it straight or mixing it with other elements.

I think about that a lot with regards to the incest research I want to do. I have to make myself into a vessel for so much pain it is going to almost drown me. But I am going to have to make sure the real me is not there. I feel like I need to build two things inside of me. A bottomless well and a house right next to it. There will be roses and hydrangeas in the yard. (I’m so upset my hydrangea died–that’s my favorite plant.) The house will be where I put me. Where I keep myself safe from all the hard. All the horrible. All the pain. I can come out of the house to talk to people. I can walk them over to the pool and invite them to cry until they run out of tears. Don’t worry. The pool can hold them all.

Then when they are ready to keep walking I will go back inside my house. Where I am safe. Where I am me. Where the pain gets to be left outside because not all pain is mine to carry. Sometimes it is like being a midwife. I am just here to help you get that thing out. I don’t do the work. You do it. I just stand nearby and make comforting noises and occasionally hand you useful tools.

I love you. I want you to be here. Sometimes you need to purge in order to really blossom into who you could be.

I understand.

I pulled one five gallon bucket of weeds yesterday. Did a few loads of laundry. Did dishes. Read a whole bunch. Stretched. Practiced my Spanish. (3% fluent? Who in the hell is duolingo kidding!?) Took the kids to Rockin Jump and sat on my ass. I typed more than I should but not crazy excessively. Filled the bird feeders.

That was most of my work, I think. That is a light load.

For reasons passing my understanding I prefer to do like 80% of my stretching/yoga on the floor. I’m always afraid of getting dizzy and falling down. Which means I think I’m lacking core stability and strength. I need to find a way to work on this.

Eventually.

With all the other shit I’m supposed to do. Sigh.

I keep thinking, “When am I going to start working on the books!” Then I think, “Not today.”

A friend invited me to a womens retreat this year. That might take the place of the writing conference. I don’t think I want to be gone alone for four weekends this year. Also, the womens thing is in July and otherwise all my outings are over by May.

I *am* going to Sobonfu’s thing this year. I am looking forward to having this experience outside the university setting. I had a hard time with the fact that most of the people at the previous grief rituals were students doing it for a grade so they often didn’t take it seriously. This will be more a retreat for folks who just really want to be there. That sounds way better.

Printed out the registration form yesterday. I’m mailing it in. And I paid for an Impact class the last weekend in January.

I’m trying to fix my brain and my body. That’s complicated. There are so many things to fix. I have experienced serious, noticeable growth because of the grief rituals I have been to. I always walk away feeling like I learned a lot of things I desperately need to learn. Sobonfu doesn’t have biological children. She often treats her clients like they are hers to mother. I’m ok with that.

The Impact class was wonderful. My goal this time: more control and less force. Last time I took an Impact class I proved to my own satisfaction (and to the poor suited instructors) that I hit hard enough. That’s not what I need to keep working on. Accuracy and control. I’d like to graduate onto the advanced classes where you deal with multiple assailants and weapons. They don’t let you do that till you have a lot more control than I demonstrated in my first class. Plenty of force!

Do you know how good it feels to hit a 6′ tall man in the face and watch him go flying many feet backwards?

Oh god that’s a good feeling.

I mean, yes the suited instructors do learn to fall and fall hard so they don’t get hurt. But they weren’t flying like that from the other ladies. I hit hard.

(A few lucky punches from other people had similar effects. I’m not the toughest bitch out there or anything. I just…. can’t tone it down so almost every hit was that hard from me.)

I want to be capable of delivering overwhelming force. I want to have such control over it that it never slips out on accident. That’s kind of a tough combo.

Ok, kids are up. I should stop.

Well last night was super fun. We danced, we played, we talked. That was great. I even got to waltz with my favorite dance partner.

This is the same man who told me that learning to be sexually dominant with me is like learning to ride a motor cycle by being tossed on the back of a Harley. Ha.

Sometimes people let me know that dealing with me is effort… but they are ok with that.

For the life of me I don’t understand why it is worthwhile for them. But they come back year after year. For over a decade now. This came up in my head partially because yesterday Eldest Child asked me if I still know any of my ex’s. I laughed and said, “You know your friends’ dad who is coming over here tonight? Yeah he brought me to this house as his date. That’s how I got here.” Her mouth dropped. It was hilarious.

Then she asked if we still know any Noah’s ex’s. I said, “You know ____?” “But she is _____ and ______ and _______’s mom!” Well she wasn’t a long time ago. A long time ago she was your dad’s girlfriend.

Whoa. Like… whoa.

It was really funny. YOU PEOPLE HAD LIVES BEFORE ME?! WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?!

Bwahahahahaa

And our lives carry on. Sometimes still touching the lives of people we have known in ways that are surprising but still a great blessing.

I know I sound quite scathing when I discuss my ex’s sometimes. But I’m grateful for the experiences I had with each of you individually. I may have big feelings about my collective experience… but I don’t really hold each of you individually accountable. I do. But I don’t. You are part of a system that created people with personality traits I struggle to deal with. Is it your fault? Is it my fault I’m crazy?

Is it my fault I was raped? Maybe someone wants to break it down and I don’t deserve being raped by my dad (clearly) and maybe I didn’t deserve the first few rapes before puberty. But later surely it was all my fault, right? I knew better and I didn’t lock myself into a bathroom for the rest of my life for safety. So it’s my fault, right?

Fault fault fault fault fault fault fault fault fault fault fault fault fault.

Noah says I shouldn’t care so much about fault.

But if something isn’t your fault, how can you change it? Maybe I desperately want to believe that I am to blame for being raped in the past because that is the only way I deserve any credit for keeping myself safe for the past few years.

But what if I am god damn lying to myself and none of it is my fault. I have gotten lucky since marrying Noah not because I got better at defending myself but because I moved into a god damn protected class.

None of it is about what I did or didn’t do. It is about the perception of me that other people have. It is about what society tells the people around me that they can get away with doing to me.

At this stage…. not many people are stupid enough to fuck with me. Not like in the past. It’s not really because of me and if someone who didn’t have my “position in life” tried to copy my behavior in order to be more safe they would come up against a world of hurt.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Life is too complicated for me.

Happy New Year.

I’ve been thinking really hard about why I’m so dyregulated this week. Other than, “Yup still a crazy bitch” because this is kinda weird. The bouncing is extreme even for me. I’m going way down and way up.

Part of it is I feel like the trip let me see in sharp relief how wonderful my life is now. I got home and have looked around at my life, pointed at people and said, “You do this. You over there, do that.” Folks have responded with good cheer and vigor. It’s intense. I came home to a serious increase in delegation ability.

Traditionally speaking delegating is an area where I have been weak. In order to delegate you have to trust that other people can follow through on your wishes. I’m not really the trusting sort. So delegating has been hard. Then the trip happened and I didn’t have much of a choice. The kids did their absolute best to help. The help wasn’t as good as what I could have done if I had the spoons to do the work. It had to be good enough. I had to not complain. I had to just accept and say thank you and show gratitude for the help I got. Otherwise the kids wouldn’t have had the oomph to do so much work.

You can’t work that hard if you are being beat down at the same time. I needed serious work out of them. That means building them up. That means telling them they are awesome. That means telling them they are capable even when they are only half-ass doing something because this is where they are today.

I hate that shit. That’s what I fucking can’t give to adult white men.

It was probably “good for me”. What fucking ever.

I miss my mom. It is hard figuring out what it means to be a good mom. Is it love? Is it being skillful at helping your unique child figure out how to access the support structures in the world that are best suited to them? Is it being able to help your child conform to what will be expected later? Is it teaching empathy or compassion or frugality?

For reasons passing my understanding most of my immediate family has blocked Noah’s account on facebook (ok that I get) but my mother hasn’t. My mom’s facebook page is still open.

Of course I’m a periodic stalker. Duh. But my stalking goes as far as loading the page, missing her, and closing the page. I’m pretty sure that is legally allowed.

I feel like I’m at a point of integration. I’m trying to heal my body, which means looking into old sources of pain. Which means somatic memories. Which means shitty. I’m trying to integrate the knowledge I gained on the trip and that happened on so many levels I’m not capable of perceiving them all yet. I’m trying to “be present” because I’m told that “being in the moment” is oh so important in life.

Do you know how fucking hard it is to be “in the moment” when you have survived your life by future tripping and you are trying to heal a whole bunch of past shit that lives in your body?!?!

I told my shrink we are starting to meditate before bed. She misheard me and thought I said medicate. As in my sentence was, “We are starting to meditate before bed with the kids.” She heard that wrong. It took at least a full minute before I stopped laughing so hard I couldn’t explain. When I calmed down I said, “You are really worried that at any given moment I’m going to go around the bend and be completely inappropriate, aren’t you?” She said, “It isn’t just you! It’s everyone!”

I don’t think I could be a therapist. My heart couldn’t hold that.

She then tried to justify her mishearing (it was funny and fine) by saying she has friends from Mendocino who totally do that! I said me too. I told her about a woman I know who has been smoking pot with her mom since she was 9. That was how the family managed her severe car sickness. Get in the car and light up the pipe.

Then my shrink carefully asked me if I thought that was a good idea.

Oh good god no.

I mean… if I had a kid who had really severe car sickness I might change my tune. But I don’t have that problem with my children. My kids also don’t have epilepsy or cancer–two reasons I’d absolutely give them pot. But there aren’t many reasons.

Cannabis is a medication I take. Do diabetics freely share their insulin? Not so much. This pot is mine. Thanks.

It is hilarious to me how often my answer to parenting philosophy questions is “NO!” then I have this internal reaction of, “Ok my no is so strong because it would be the wrong choice for me and I recognize that instantly. However under this long list of exceptions I can see how it would be a perfectly reasonable choice and I do not judge other people who need to make this choice. Everyone walks a different path.”

My no’s are so strong because that is what it takes for me to get past my internal, “Not allowed to say ‘no’ filter” and I’m sorry it is broken in this way. It is not a reflection of you or my opinion of you or your choices.

It is about me and my body.

I am so fierce about boundaries partially because my family of origin did not have boundaries. I over compensate because that is how pendulums tend to swing.

That’s a lot of why I’m bouncing this week. If I am patient or compassionate with myself I’m doing very well at a time when I often do very badly. Yes, I’m bouncing. I’m bouncing because I’m trying to change core parts of my identity and life experience.

That causes turbulation. When you change things there is often a consequence. When you are trying to change your behavior and your body…. there will be emotional consequences. I’m happy to face them, don’t get me wrong. But it takes time. I have to actually do it. Ok, I’m not happy to do it. It fucking sucks and I’m tired of this and I’d like to be done with this stage now okthanksbye.

But I persevere. Cause I’m like that. Just keep swimming swimming swimming.

Kid up.

I am trying an experiment. I know Dragon doesn’t work very well with the kids yelling in the other room I’m not sure how well Dragon will work with traffic passing.

Talked to my shrink this morning. It was a good phone call. She clearly expected that I would have had a harder time at Christmas than I actually did. Is that good? Is doing better than expected good or bad? I suppose it partially depends on just how badly you are expected to do.

It was weird telling her that I am both doing very well and having a hard time at the same time. I am waking up first thing in the morning with a racing heart and horrible thoughts. I miss my mother. I miss my mom so much I feel like I’m going to explode. I feel guilty. I feel ashamed. I feel sad.

Then the day goes on and I notice that my life is really good. I notice over and over how nice people are to me. My kids are children so they are annoying, like all children are supposed to be, but they are really kind to me. They try to be considerate. They don’t always do a good job but when they fail it’s because they are literally incapable of seeing what they could not already know. I am so impressed with them. If mere children can work that hard I have no excuse for not showing up and doing the work. It doesn’t matter how much hurts.

My shrink says she expected me to be doing worse at this time of year considering all things. She is happy to hear my upset is mostly being contained to early morning emotions. It is okay that I have feelings; it is even okay that these feelings are often bad. I do not have to have a happy feeling every moment of the day; I do not owe that to anyone else. It is a consideration about whether or not you do it ( it being perform happy emotions) because you genuinely feel that or if you want other people to feel like you feel them.

it also doesn’t help that my arms are burning like fire and Dragon sucks and I just want to god damn type.