The big kids are in school. Her Sweetness is napping on her dad. I rode my bike to the post office to send out business mail. Now I am sitting alone enjoying a cup of tea and reading a book about sexual response so I can change my approach to my love life.
I used to think being “sex positive” meant saying yes as much as physically possible. I am trying to change my thoughts. Maybe being sex positive means saying no unless I really really want to say yes.
16 days and 2 more international trips. First to Bangkok and then on to Inverness. Bangkok is because my partner has a business trip and we are going with him. Inverness is where we get to go home to.
Our visas all came through. We have the legal right to be in the UK for the next 5 years. If we stay in the country for enough days we will have the right to apply for leave to remain (basically a green card). If we stay in the country for enough days during leave to remain we have the right to apply for citizenship.
If Scottish independence succeeds… you bet your buttons that we are applying for citizenship. Hell yeah.
16 days till we get to go home to our big, beautiful house in the Highlands. I am so excited I can barely breathe. Our stuff is on a boat going over there now. (Thanks for the advice about how to label my boxes of porn.)
My wonderful lifelong best friend has been there for 10 years. She is setting aside furniture, dishes, linens, and as many other things as she can spare to help us adjust and find a place.
We are going to be Scottish. I am so excited.
And I have my own bedroom on a separate floor of the house from my kids so I have space for noisy sex. I have a room in the back yard that was sound proofed for a drum kit so I can scream all I want and no one will hear me.
I can’t wait!!
16 days. Just keep swimming. We are in Portland for five more days. I have plans with friends most of those days.
I will miss all the USians. Thank you for the influence you have been on my life. Thank you for your friendship and companionship. Thank you for your teaching and for your love.
Thank you for everything. I will think of you.
When you feel like you haven’t given enough this year remember that you have paid for three months of Airbnb’s that you didn’t use and the owners got to do repairs and maintenance without losing money. That counts as a gift.
Hello internet, stage one was completed and we are invited to complete stage two (the rubber stamp portion of the process) before we enter the country in three weeks with the intention to remain.
We are three weeks away from being immigrants.
We got the house we wanted in Scotland. The previous owners are thrilled about how we want to add art to the space. (They cancelled showings with other families to accept our offer.)
And there is a sound proof room at the back of the property. I will finally be able to scream at my house without bothering neighbors or my kids. (They built it for a drum set.)
I am really excited. Next: finishing the visa process. The solicitor we are working with says he has never seen a more likely easy acceptance. Noah’s work history really is staggeringly impressive.
I am meeting nice kinky people so that I have friends other than my life long vanilla best friend.
Before we land in Scotland permanently I am getting to be blessed by touching base with some of the people who have inspired me since I was a teenager. I am in such a fantastic and lucky phase of life.
Did I mention that there is a self contained apartment so people can come visit us and have their own bedroom/living room/kitchen? If I love you and you know it you are always welcome.
We will be in Portland for a while next week. We will need to make a trip to California in August to close accounts and ship our stuff.
This is happening.
I need to figure out how to have self dates stop feeling like punishment. That’s a consistent issue for me even though I literally require time to defrag my brain. I want all of my recharging to come from time with friends and that has not worked out and it is only going to get harder over the next couple of years.
I need to have a more consistent parenting plan in place. Currently I give until I crack then I get mean. That isn’t what anyone needs or wants.
I want to have better strategies for handling the fact that people routinely over promise and under deliver. This feels related to how I used to get apoplectic level angry about tardiness. I mellowed on that one. Can I learn to not take the casual “I will do x” that will never happen in a more calm way? I know it is related to my mom and that is part of why it is so triggering. (FUCK MAGIC MOUNTAIN.)
I want to stop liking myself only as much as my friends have expressed recently.
I want to have better ways of handling friends who don’t listen to my soft no’s without over the top screaming.
I want to stop pouring myself into friends who use me.
I want to stop trauma bonding all the damn time.
I woke up to a whole bunch of emails today. All of them make me feel a lot better. I hate how much contact with other people decides a lot of how I feel about myself. One of my neighbor said she started reading my blog. She said I don’t hold back. I tell it how it is. She says my words really get stuck in her head. I make her think. Wow, I hope that’s not a bad thing.
A different friend realized that my scheduling email had gotten stuck in their spam filter and we established contact so that we will be hanging out a little bit when I go up to the PNW.
One of my buddies on the far side of the country sent me his address because he’d love to get postcards in here for me. He wrote back to tell me about his life.
Several people have been emailing me in response to postcards. I get to hear about their joy. It feels really nice. I am glad they are finding joy. They really need it.
But most intensely was an email from Pam where she detailed all of the stuff she respects about me. She wrote about what circumstances I am in my best. It is nice to be reminded that I do have a best. I spend so much time feeling like I suck at everything. I don’t see the good parts about me very well. I see how much I fail.
There were a lot of good parts and good people to the bay. I do acknowledge that. But driving to see them was going to kill me.
Japan continues to be up-and-down for us as a family. If Eldest Child’s knee was doing better we would be having a much better time. Being housebound while she heals is really hard. For comparison, the two apartments that we are renting here in Fukuoka are about the size combined as our dining room and living room in Fremont. That’s all the space. And the space here is partitioned into four separate rooms. We are decidedly cramped.
Middle Child really needs to be taken out for long walks every day and we’re not being good about doing that. He is so much happier when he’s exercising. He is starting to really notice and that’s cool. I love seeing them develop awareness of their bodies. Eldest Child talks a lot about how eating more fruits and vegetables makes her feel better. Middle Child notices exercising increases his happiness level substantially. I didn’t notice that sort of thing as a kid and I feel so proud of them.
I continue to struggle with how much parenting requires me to put myself aside and focus on them. We are together so much that it means I don’t pay attention to me. It means I feel like I’m actively harming myself because I really don’t know or care how I’m even doing.
We didn’t do hypnosis before bed. So I had nightmares all night long. I had a few different ones last night. I could tell when one was ending and another was starting. That’s so annoying.
I miss pot. I really do need the help elevating my mood. I am miserable without it. I hate how much I blame myself for my depressed mood. “Just get over it already.”
I hate that I feel like Sarah telling me she wants to take a little break would have ended when she wanted to have access to financial resources again. I hate that I feel paranoid about money. I hate that I feel like people want me around so they can use me. It’s not always true. None of the people who have contacted me since I left want anything from me other than to spend a little bit of time with me. I know that. I mean, they may want me to help them find something on the Internet or talk to me about how to fix a problem in their life. But nobody’s asking me for money. Nobody’s asking me to come over and fix anything.
Compartmentalizing feelings about this many people is challenging.
I feel like my Discord group is becoming less useful to me. I feel like I’m spending a lot of time arguing about things that I don’t need to be arguing about. Things like, do you mothers have the right to get happy about people lecturing them about safety stuff. The non-breeder in the group had the point of you that mothers should just stop assuming that people have negative intentions and accept all advice as being kind hearted. But in my experience folks get rabid and nasty if you don’t follow their advice. And the advice from my first child to my last child took a 180. Should I have followed the safety advice in the first set of advice? Should I follow the completely opposite advice that I got the last time around? My pediatrician looked really sheepish when she was telling me the guidelines for my third kid. She said that science has found that all of the advice she gave me for my first two kids was really bad. And people wonder why I don’t instantaneously comply with new safety guidelines.
I don’t need to get into a cheerful, pleasant conversation about safety guidelines with everybody who wants to have them with me. Many of those people turn around and tell you how stupid you are if you don’t immediately comply. I just say fuck off at this point; I don’t wanna have this conversation. It would be a tremendous waste of my time if I were willing to comply with each of those conversations. She couldn’t see the parallel to street harassment. I see it quite clearly. She said that people are just trying to help. Well, maybe they are, but I’ve been doing this long enough that I understand that their advice is on a timer until it is debunked. I don’t need to spend a lot of time politely listening.
Yeah I am a bitch because I don’t carefully listen to each safety evangelical. Ok.
Why do I feel like these conversations devolve into shaming? Maybe because I’ve been doing this for over 11 years. People start lecturing you about safety the moment you know you’re pregnant and let anybody else know.
I haven’t had any other experience that parallels the level of forceful advice giving that parents receive. And I have a bunch of chronic health complaints where people like to give me stupid advice. Parenting is much more prone to prompt every idiot to tell you their opinion of how you are doing it wrong. I would get whiplash if I cared and tried to comply.
I very carefully pick who is allowed to give me advice about parenting. And unless I have come to you and specifically asked for your advice, you probably are not on the list.
All that whining and the hotel found the diaper bag
Well, adventures are adventurous. Our flight left late from Honolulu and there was a major head wind so we missed our connection. The airline acted way more upset than us. They put us up in hotel rooms, with a free shuttle and dinner. Not terrible.
But we lost track of the diaper bag and that is hard on a few levels. Now we don’t have enough diapers for today and we lost a packet of wipes but I don’t care about that part. Two of our favorite baby books (First Sushi and Hello, Jalapeño along with Her Sweetness’ cuddle toy were in there. All of our bibs (we barely remember to use them) 1/4 of the jammies we have, a cute summer outfit, extra trash bags, butt ointment, my little first aid kit, a lightweight sweater, and pens. We still have 50+ pens so whatever.
Mostly it cuts like a knife because it was from Sarah. I am going to slowly lose the things from her (because that’s life) and it feels like extra stabbing wounds. A lot of how she showed me she loved me was by giving me stuff when she no longer needed it. My mom was a gifts = love person so Sarah’s tendency’s felt so much like trying to help me even though she didn’t have more time to give me.
So I will sit here in the dark and have a good cry and then I need to get the fuck over it. Nothing essential to life was lost. It’s an inconvenience not a tragedy. I don’t know if I will ever stop missing her like a bleeding open wound. I hope distance and time help.
Konichiwa and Arrigato are my two big words here. Doesn’t matter much how I sound them out and spell them in English. Ha. I think I am saying them close enough. And Hai. (It doesn’t sound like hi.)
Every time I leave the country I start speaking Spanish and that feels like a subconscious hint. Whyyyyy am I going to Asia and not South America? Tech conferences.
I barely slept. I should have tried the baby cot. The beds are narrow enough that my subconscious was worried about Her Sweetness flopping off so I kept an arm over her, much to her irritation. She nursed or fussed almost all of the hours I was in the bed. When I got up she finally went to sleep. Figures.
But I showered and my hair is braided and I am dressed. Yay flannel lined jeans.
In the long run I am not going to blame Sarah for the breakup. My inappropriate expectations were poison. Did she play a part? Sure. But if I had accepted her, flakiness and all I could have just appreciated a few minutes a year. Oh well. She wanted to be more than that without really having it to give. Life is full of disappointment.
It is ok to feel sad. But I need to get up and keep moving. Just keep swimming.
We want to be on the shuttle in one hour and 40 minutes. How early do I want to wake folks up?
I did buy 4 diapers at the store downstairs. Let me look up 9 kg in pounds… 19.8 lbs! Ok these diapers are fine. They are pull-ups labeled size 4; in the US we buy size 3 so I ignorantly thought these might be too big. I am excited to be wrong. Yay hotel store! I guess it works out that my kids are huge. Ha.
I opened the curtains. Oh wow the trees. We are on the edge of one of the biggest cities in the world and it feels super rural. That’s amazing. I will let the sun wake up my kids. Now I get to nurse more.
Instead of being upset about the inconvenience of losing the diaper bag I need to be grateful I had a spare diaper in another pack to handle the major poopy diaper last night before I went to the store. I am prepared for many events. That’s good.
Other great point: we showed up with enough yen to manage our needs for a couple of days. That’s brilliant. Well done, Noah, on bringing this much home last time.
Watching the sun rise here is breath taking.
I think we will all sleep hard tonight and pretty much wake up adjusted to the time zone. I am continually surprised by how adaptable my children are.
One of my friends sent me an info graphic on rejection sensitivity. It was kind of her. But way to call me out! Ha. Yeah… maybe that applies…
The kids did their work. Finally. After months of crying on my part. So they get to see friends. That’s good. I wish I didn’t feel so bad.
I miss pot. I am doing better at being nice to the kids but a lot worse at being nice to me. I am really struggling with advocating for myself. I am really struggling with feeling like I have to work until I break myself because I don’t matter. I wasn’t in pain for multiple days. It was really nice. Then today… I hurt again. I hurt because I forgot the stroller. And then I didn’t phrase the request to rent a stroller or wagon clearly enough so we didn’t. So I walked around for hours with close to 20% of my bodyweight on me. I wasn’t wearing the right shoes for that. And then the food really sucked and I was so angry about it. How can you fuck up a buffet that much?
I really liked the Polynesian cultural Center when I went when I was 21. Now it bothered me. The layers of whiteness inserted into cultures is a lot more obvious now. Now it feels really grotesque the way the Mormon church is trying to make money off of these people.
It is hard hearing about people’s connection to the land and feeling a lot of pride in who they are. My ancestors were shit. And I don’t belong anywhere. There isn’t anywhere that is strongly my home.
I don’t care if it is a ship instead of a boat. It was an interesting cruise. The highlight was the acupuncturist. She is hands-down the most effective acupuncturist I have ever worked with. I am pretty sure she is the most effective medical provider I have ever worked with. I’m not in pain. I have a few places where I feel a little bit stiff and a little sore, but not pain. I usually have to do fantastically heavy drugs in order to feel this good. I’m really pleased with her work. And she wasn’t expensive for what she did.
I spent a lot of the trip processing stuff with Sarah. There is a lot I have not been willing to admit to myself about how bad that relationship was for a lot of years. I am really struggling with dealing with that emotionally. She used me.
I think this is going to negatively impact my ability to trust people for a long time. I have been very willfully not seeing the problems because I didn’t want to lose her.
I am feeling a little bit nervous about this perpetual travel thing. I have not been as nice to the kids as I should have been. I am struggling. For a long time I used Sarah loving me as proof that I was worthy of love and that allowed me to feel gentle and like I had some love to give. I feel like the bottom opened up beneath me. I feel unworthy of love and like I am bad. And it makes me feel mean and vicious. I don’t like me very much. That’s never good for my behavior.
I wish people wouldn’t tell me that I am inspiring. I talked to a few people on the boat about life and stuff. There was one guy in particular who was born and raised in San Francisco. He had a lot of questions about what being homeless was like. He had a lot of questions about why I hate the rich the way I do. He could not understand why I believe that billionaires are evil. After I talked long enough, he got it. It took some talking though.
I have a sore in the middle of my forehead from the acupuncture needle. It’s kind of funny, the acupuncturist constantly smacked me in the center of the forehead. She told me she was waking up my third eye so that I could accept the blessings of the universe. It’s funny that I am walking away with a scab there. It’s like my third eye really doesn’t want to open.
San Francisco is so cold. We were warm just a few days ago. And we will be warm tomorrow. I used to think that I like the cold more than the heat. But my bones ache.
Time to leave the country for a bit. Ahhhhh
A couple of weeks ago when I had a late night and I was awake while everyone slept I went into the bathroom to talk to my phone. This is less convenient now that three members of my family are sleeping in the room that shares the wall with the bathroom. We do strongly prefer being close to one another. It’s a little bizarre how much we like being close to one another. I don’t remember seeing anything like that when I was a kid. I didn’t know other families who are as cuddly as we are. I’m still not sure I know people who spend as much time just touching each other as we do. It’s completely non-sexual. Which occasionally feels weird, but healthy.
Noah and I are struggling to figure out where our sex life fits in around the needs of our kids. We are definitely placing our kids needs as more important than our sex needs at this stage of our marriage. They need us. It’s interesting to me how the American custom is that kids should be away from their parents at night as soon as possible. My 10-year-old is very happy sleeping in a different room. She wants that space now. She is ready. My eight-year-old is not ready. He gets upset with being alone in a room all night. I don’t see a point in shunning him.
I have a different background than most, I guess. I was bed sharing with my mother when I was 17 because I didn’t want to be alone. Also because I’ve had back problems since my age was in the single digits and if I didn’t want to sleep with my mother the option was sleeping on the floor.
Sometimes it is surprising to me that my son rolls off his bed and sleeps on the floor on purpose. By the time I was his age my body was already broken and that hurt too much.
My daughter bought a tube top and a mid drift bearing shirt because she’s always hot. She is not seeking attention. It is hard not to be afraid for her. She doesn’t even understand the vulnerability that she has. She can’t really imagine being assaulted.
They surprise me in millions of ways.
Ack, nursing time.
Eldest child keeps waking up in the morning really sad. She’s crying a lot and she can’t figure out why. She’s complaining about some parts of her body hurting in symbolic ways. I think puberty is hitting us like a freight train. This is going to be entertaining. I keep telling her that it’s OK that her emotions feel so big and out of control. It’s not her fault. She’s not doing something wrong. This is a normal process. It just really sucks and is hard for everyone. I hope I get to see what it is like for a kid to go through puberty without hating themselves.
“I do this partly because it makes me feel better than other people.”
Damn. I envy that kind of self assurance. It’s beautiful and sparkly and intense. I think that is one of the gifts I give the people I love. I am rock solid in my belief that I can bestow specialness on other people but I can’t seem to do it for myself.
I spent the plane ride from Kuala Lumpur to Manila having a wonderful conversation with a Pakistani man. We talked about our kids and travel and religion and why people retreat into hate. He had some judgements I don’t share and I argued with him strenuously but with love. For example, he somehow had the impression that the average Mexican is violent and dangerous! Au contraire! No! Yes there are some people who happen to be Mexican who are violent but in general they are a peaceful and loving people. He said he was afraid to go there. I told him it is peaceful and friendly and he should give it a shot.
In turn he told me I should come to Pakistan where no one will think or say that I have too many children; everyone around me will know that children are a blessing and I am lucky to have them. He was astonished that anyone could think three kids are too many. He has seven and he hopes for more. I play acted horror and said “Oh I couldn’t handle the laundry.” I was glad it made him laugh because I was shooting for funny.
We talked a lot about politics and hate and religion. I said I was overwhelmed by how friendly and wonderful Malaysia was because I expected to be disliked. He stressed that Muslim people will welcome me everywhere. We talked about the fact that there are evil, violent people in every country and it is terrible when they take over as Trump has.
He listed a bunch of countries that he thinks we should visit. Then a bunch of neat grandmothers asked how long we were staying in Manila and they were bummed we were just connecting through. They asked when we are coming back and I said “invite my husband to a conference!” So they asked what he does and wrote down his contact information and said they would get on it.
Every assumption I had about Asia was wrong. I want to come back and find out more about how wrong I am.
I don’t want to go home. I am not sure I have ever felt so strongly that California is not where I want to be. I really do bring my home with me when I bring these people.
Going through the Manila airport was awful and it was 100% the fault of the US and the fucking TSA. We had to go through layers of extra security and not have easy access to food or drinks or restrooms. I mean, we could go get those things but we had to be searched over and over. It is dehumanizing and pointless and stupid.
“Humility is stupid. Stop that.” I don’t have a simple explanation for my life and I feel insecure about it. That’s why I feel awkward when someone with a job title asks me if all I do is take care of my children. I don’t perceive value in most of what I do.
My life is small and selfish and I feel kinda like a narcissist because I mostly write about myself. And my kids are asking me to write about them less. Fudge.
I garden and make art. I feel useless. Soon I will leave behind the evidence of the last ten years.
What do I do? A lot of laundry.
Just post.
5-7 miles was not enough training. I needed 8-10 miles. I hurt. I am going to hurt for a while.
No more group trips with shared food. When it works out it is wonderful and I feel loved and important and like I have family. Then there is reality and it not working out. I need to stop looking for any family outside of the people who share my roof.
I know I should have learned that lesson a long time ago. I am stupid about hope.
I am going to get home and reduce stuff in the permanent packing pile. I think less will still be enough. Traveling with kids is complicated.
I always wish we had a bigger frying pan at Disneyland.
And I think the kids finally believe me about overly heavy backpacks.
Second tooth is coming through and she is waving and clapping.
It’s time.
I moved to the bay area for the first time when I was 6. I moved in and out over the next ten years. I have lived here consistently since I was 16. Now I’m 36.
We are leaving.
It’s time to taste different air and absorb different sights. It’s time to find out what is next.
I will miss you all. Maybe I will finally be able to write about you when I have the perspective of distance. I hope I will be able to do you justice.
We are opening the house Labor Day weekend for a good bye party . If you are interested in coming, send me a message and I’ll give you my address.
We are going to be permanently gone from the bay area starting in November. Where are we going? We are going to be nomadic for a few years. My partner can work anywhere with an internet connection. We will follow him from conference to conference in various countries all over the world.
Malaysia, Japan, England, possibly Austria, India… we don’t know where all.
We want to try South America: Ecuador, Uruguay.
We want to try Central America: Costa Rica
We will hopefully spend some time in New Zealand and Australia. Definitely Scotland because my long time bestie is there.
I will keep writing and sharing about my life because I do that. If you are curious, just ask for a link.
I hope life treats you kindly and you find joy and happiness. I will miss you. I hope I will get to visit and see you again some day.
We are loosely tied here for a couple more years with medical stuff. But that will mean showing up for a few weeks here and there through the year. If you are interested in knowing when those visits happen, my blog will probably be the most reliable broadcast medium I’ll maintain.
I know that other people view monsters in a solely negative light but I’ve never been good at doing that. Monsters are always creatures with a different point of view. A friend pointed out that perhaps “alien” might be an easier word to use, but I feel like alien and monster are interchangeable. A monster is a creature who is different from you who seems scary. Many monsters don’t hurt anyone at all… but they are scary anyway.
I can’t begin to count how many people have told me that I am scary.
I am amused to read that it is a common thing for autistic people to feel like they “come from a different planet” which fits more in with the word alien than the word monster. (I mention this because I have been diagnosed as autistic not because I am trying to talk about “those people”. I’m reflecting on the similar language used by folks who have the same diagnosis as me.) Only I’ve seen every Aliens movie and I can tell you with authority that those things are monsters.
Are they evil? I don’t think so. They are creatures who are trying to survive and we look like food. That’s not more evil than the bacon I had in my soup tonight.
Before you tell me I should be vegan let me tell you that many health professionals have told me that I absolutely need meat for optimal health given my constellations of issues. Veganism may work great for lots of folks… but not everyone.
Anyway.
So I’ve reached a point in the evolution of my brain where I just can’t see monsters as inherently evil. I see them as creatures with too much strength and too much ability to hurt other creatures without necessarily intending to.
Intent doesn’t matter.
I wrote yesterday that I haven’t done a major boundary violation in many years. By that I mean that I haven’t had someone say “Don’t do x to me” and then I do it. I have broken rules. I have broken agreements about what I might go do with other people. I have hurt people by accidentally doing something that would have been a boundary if we had negotiated. (I’m a clumsy bastard and I absolutely do things unintentionally sometimes.)
If intent doesn’t matter, how do I justify calling some things mistakes and other things violations?
We are all hypocritical bastards.
What I mean is that when I was young I had a few times when someone told me “Don’t do x” and I went and did x as fast as possible. I stopped doing that. It helps me sleep better at night.
But I struggle with whether I ever have the right to decide that my “softer” fuck ups are mistakes instead of monstrous violations that are evidence that I should be shunned from society for the good of people.
I look around the bdsm community and I see a lot of people who have been perceived as dangerous/bad/evil/worthy of shunning. Many of these people are monsters.
Are they worse than me? Are they better than me? What metrics are being used to judge? Why are we being judged–what’s the end goal?
The only part that matters to me in the long run is whether I find a self that is worthy to be a model for my children.
I really don’t give a shit if you like or approve of me. And yet you are my community and I love and value you so much. Many of you have contributed words of wisdom to my inside voice that I replay on a regular basis. So many of you have taught me that just because I’m a monster that doesn’t mean I have to damage people on accident. I can learn to have my damage be inflicted rarely and only with great purpose.
This community is a lot of where I learned to value the darkest and hardest parts of myself. It’s ok that I want to cut people open and lick their blood. There are folks who think that is hotter than the sun. It’s ok that I want to hit people and make them cry. There are folks who have something deep inside them made whole by such a process.
It’s not wrong to be a monster.
But can a monster be good? Do I have to be good to teach my children to do good? Do I want to teach them that they must be good?
Oh bdsm community. Do we want our teachers to be a certain level of good? What is that level? What level of goodness is demanded/expected/required of “community leaders” or educators or presenters?
We talk a lot about consent here. But how much information must be given in advance to qualify as informed consent and how much responsibility do we all bear for our fuck ups?
It’s kind of funny that in the long run of my life, the bdsm fuck ups where someone blatantly hurt me or violated my consent are not the things that weigh me down. (I say this from the hubris of having my biggest injury as a bottom be a broken bone. Broken bones heal.) I worry more about when I damaged someone else. Being a victim is not as big of a driving force to change my behavior as knowing that I have used my strength to do someone else damage.
How do we learn to be powerful and strong and monstrous and good enough?
I know I shouldn’t let the word good be taken away by assholes who want to define it as passive… but this shit is complicated.
Would it really be so bad to be a monster if one can do it without shame and without hurting people extra? Hurting people sometimes is life. But maybe just hold back on the extra?
How much hurting people is tolerable? How much is abuse?
I don’t think you have the answers either. I’m thinking that I’m still at the stage where asking the question is all I can do. The answers will come long after I need them. Like all the most important parts of life.