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*tap tap tap* Is this thing on?

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Hi there, whoever you are. I haven’t felt ok about writing here for quite some time now. I’ve had a lot of self doubt and anxiety going on. For a little while now I’ve been blogging elsewhere behind a fence but that’s not feeling appropriate anymore. I’ve been trying hard to be in the closet because it felt safer. It no longer feels safe. Now it feels like a risk.

If you are in the closet people can try to use information to threaten you. My best source of safety is having no secrets. It has been my approach for most of my life. Sometimes I am scared for a while and I shut down. When I feel under threat or if something happens, once again I bust wide open.

I can’t get into details but I am dealing with prosecuting a sexual assault. It means that things are going to come out about my life. People will look me up and I have not tried hard to hide my life. I am not enjoying the fact that I get to come out to folks whether I want to or not. Not that being in the closet has been awesome for my mental health. It isn’t.

I’ve been really depressed for a long while. A lot of the time I’ve been in Scotland. A year or so ago I started getting past the post-partum hump and I have had a renewed sex drive. That’s been complicated with the restrictions and limits of my life. Noah has been pretty awesome about trying to ramp back up after years of me not being up for almost anything.

I don’t want to rehash everything I’ve been writing else-net but a lot has been happening. Noah and I are doing a lot of renegotiating our sex/bdsm dynamic. If you happen to be new here, bdsm is an acronym that means bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism. Basically it is part of the human norm to like adventure during sex and this is the path that works for us. If it seems crazy, keep in mind that I went through what is essentially sexual torture as a small child. Yes I am weird and I have weird impulses, preferences, and needs around my sex life.

I’m feeling like I am drowning in shame. I am really hard into avoidance. The short version is I’m having a lot of PTSD symptoms. It’s been a minute since I have crashed this hard. I managed to get through the first couple of weeks post-assault just pushing through. In that process I did some good stuff and some stuff I feel really ashamed of and I feel gross and bad and like I deserve every bad thing that could ever happen to me. I feel like my reaction to the assault retroactively means it was fine because I am such a fucked up person.

I feel low key nauseous basically all the time. My stomach is hurting in a way it hasn’t in many many years. I’m having more nightmares. I’m having flashbacks. I feel trapped and helpless and like many many more bad things are coming. I’m sweaty a lot of the time from my level of anxiety. I am deep in hyperarousal. I’m irritable and cranky and I can’t sleep and I’m having memory problems. I am really emotionally struggling because of how bad my memory is right now. I am just not able to access a lot of memories stored in non-traumatised parts of my brain right now. I am deep in always/never and I just can’t access anything else.

I use the term “always/never” to refer to a really extreme version of state dependent memory. When I feel good I cannot remember how bad I feel sometimes. When I feel bad I cannot remember ever having any good feelings of any kind. My brain simply won’t acknowledge that the other side of the fence exists. This is not good.

It’s kind of funny that the standard wisdom for PTSD is that these symptoms appearing in the month after a trauma isn’t the end of the world, for most people this fades. It didn’t really get going for me until more than 4 weeks after this last assault. I was in “make everyone else ok” mode for the first 4 weeks. Then stuff started feeling completely out of my control. Now I’m freaking the fuck out. It’s been 6 weeks and it feels like the last week has been the start of a really shitty slide. I’m worried. I’m not ok. My desire to self harm or suicide is ridiculously high. I’m being careful and I’m not doing anything over the line. I’m careful to limit my drinking. I am no longer able to withstand the physical trauma of most of my long-ago preferred self harms. I can’t do anything that might create marks because that would be a cluster fuck of issues while I’m going through an assault trial.

I feel incredibly helpless and trapped and worthless and like there will never actually be an end to me being raped. I’m really fucking angry that I now have over 40 years of rape experience. I was really happy about only having 23 years of rape experience. Those 17 years where I didn’t get raped where pretty dang cool. I almost got to have a whole normal childhood span of time free of rape. It makes me feel really sick.

I had a hemorrhoidectomy and the recovery sucks. With all my health complications I’m supposed to not exercise for 8-10 weeks. Part of the reason I need to move back to blogging instead of using the other social media sites is that posting about my frustration about not being able to exercise leads to people pushing me to exercise. Yeah. That’s not ok.

The big change that is a greater deal of positive mixed in with the negative is Noah and I have restarted discussions oriented around polyamory. I have a boyfriend (whom I’ve never had sex with) and Noah is waiting a while because we have a lot to process. He will date. Hell, what I’m doing barely counts as dating. I’ll have sex with someone outside the marriage 8 months after we started negotiating. We are not rushing by any measure. The person I’m talking to is one of my oldest friends. We worked in theatre together right out of high school. We had a lot of interest in one another way back when and no skills for being able to have a relationship together. I still don’t know what’s going to happen or how this will all go but it is mostly a better experience than everything else this year so it’s the upside I get to have. I’m referring to him as my Travel Boyfriend.

I feel numb and empty. I feel like the only way for me to stop being in pain is to die. I mean, it’s true with my physical conditions. That doesn’t mean I get to die anytime soon. It just means I get to endure an unlimited and endless amount of pain for the rest of my life.

Today that is feeling very hard.

Understanding masculinity

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I have been thinking about social dynamics I’m seeing as I manage to be around real-live people in Scotland more often and as a weirdo autistic person a lot of how I figure out what I know and make it coherent in my brain is by writing it out. But that gets super socially tricky! So how can I check if my assumptions/understandings are even vaguely close to reality? Can’t ask people directly because they will lie ~75%* of the time. So I like a long ramble about stuff that is associated in my brain. Is it kink related? Sometimes and often in a challenging to perceive way without a great deal of context. It’s part of why I am so long-winded. In order to understand A you have to hear about B and C and in order to understand B you have to know about D and E and F and… I’m like a Star Trek language.

I moved a lot of times as a child and young person but I often reference the aunt and uncle who raised me. It gives the shape of the relationship a casual reference frame that other people will understand but it’s also misleading. They didn’t get to raise me, not really. Sometimes my mother and I lived with them and sometimes I lived there alone in between other housing. I rarely was in their house for longer than a few months and when I was my mom was there.

I think of them as the people who raised me in large part because they both had incredibly strong personalities and they were the most frequent cultural touchstones of my early life. Until I was in high school they were the people I had spent the most time with including school peers because I changed schools so often. I didn’t watch people go through phases and change and grow and develop.

I watched my auntie and my uncle. And the two of them are very interesting models for me as I go on through my life and I deal with other people. Before I describe them in more detail I am going to say that I love them very deeply. I know that they were often the only reason I was not in a violent or dangerous situation. When I describe them I will use words that are very blunt and will be read as denigrating and negatively judging them. I’m not trying to be hateful. I am talking about my people and where I come from. I am honest about what it was. I am reporting what I was told. I am repeating what I was told to believe. I am just not using the same words they used because people lie all the fucking time.

My uncle was basically a walking stereotype. He was a redneck with a bad temper and a giant entitlement complex. He never got enough to feel satisfied with his life. Not in his work life, not in his children, not in his marriage, not in his house, not in his hobbies, not in his electronics, not in the travel he did, not in the vehicles he bought.

Fuck, this is the best place for my favorite uncle story. So, he really liked camper vans and RVs. He is why I will never buy one. So, once he had a medium-sized camper van so I guess it was around 30′? He decided to buy… something I was unclear on what but he wanted to drive to go buy something and it wouldn’t fit in any of his current vehicles. It couldn’t be attached to the top/back and it wouldn’t fit inside.

So he used a fucking chainsaw to take off the top, sides, and back down to a level where it looked like a child’s crayon drawing of a “truck”.

I wish I had pictures.

Guess what he learned REALLY FUCKING QUICKLY? The right angles at the top angle of the RV are kinda important for the structural integrity of the entire awkward rolling box. Yeah. He held it together with rope. Rope. He tied the fucking thing closed. He managed to get whatever it was home. That RV sat off on a corner of the property until his next open heart surgery when his sons kidnapped it and took it to the dump. I can’t remember if that was the same time when it was a total of 16 giant dumpster truck loads to take away most of his hoard. There was still a lot of shit.

He had a whole bunch of heart surgeries. He tried every kind of heart implant. Single, double, triple, quadruple bypass surgeries. I think he went under the knife six times? They started taking loads away during the second surgery. This war went on for almost 40 years. I think the 16 truck load surgery was number four or five? He retaliated every time and acquired more stuff. He financed his shopping by repeatedly refinancing the house and taking out equity. They bought a $40,000 house in the 1960’s and the last time I spoke with them about their financial life auntie was working full time in her late 70’s because someone has to pay the mortgage and all three of her kids live with her and are disabled.

There was no such thing as enough for him. No one ever respected him enough. No one deferred to him the way he wanted. No one stopped what they were doing to give his words weight when he spoke. He wanted to be deeply respected and obeyed because his edicts were simply right. Because tradition says so. Because the Bible says so. He stopped using the Bible against me when I read the entire fucking thing when I was 13 so I could debate every.single.reference and explain to him why he was fucking wrong.

I was his favorite kid until my niece moved in with them because my sister is a fucking loser. My niece was three and much more susceptible to bribery and being bought so he put all his positive energy into her after that. He had a hierarchy of how he treated people.

1: Princess
2: Himself
3: Women he was flirting with and he wanted the positive attention
4: Men he thought of as high status and he was sucking up to them
5: Men he had no particular use for
6: His wife
7: Most girls
8: Women he had no particular use for
9: Men he actively disliked
10: Women he actively disliked
11: Girls he actively disliked
12: Boys

Let me tell you it was interesting gathering data for that set of understanding as a child. This is all I know of calculus.

That is to say once I was demoted from Princess we had a very different relationship and we showed one another a lot more sharp edges. He wasn’t mean to me most of the time and in terms of how he treated boys he was incredibly gentle and affectionate with me most of the time–definitely while I was Princess. I will absolutely admit that my draw to barrel chested men with a slightly Elvis twist in the front of their hair and strong side burns comes with the equally strong understanding that it is going to be an interaction stuffed full of conflict.

Is this where I am going to be called a man hater? Hey you can’t say I hate men… I married a man! Enh, see what I did there? Yeah. Uncle was absolutely full of ways to weasel out of labels. He wasn’t a racist! There is (name) down the road and he has never called him a (bad word). He really wished I would stop reading so damn many books.

I feel some regret that I didn’t get to thank him one last time for raising me right at the end, but I told him many times before that. He is one more brick in the wall of why I have intense feelings around displays of gratitude.

Relationships are not always simple. They are not “good” or “bad”. People are not “good” or “bad”. I think people do good things and shitty things and striking the balance is hard. I think that there are ways that men have a tough time in the world and I’ve watched some pieces of that pain right up close. I also have a carefully cultivated and culled group of men I am close with–people who have all done their therapy homework before I got there. People who understand their own damage and can figure out how to not be shitty at other people because of their own pain.

Yeah, that pain matters. That pain needs attention and care and support and you need to understand that the focus of attention has to move around a group and it won’t always be you. Not because of a statement about you being less worthy than other people. That’s not the point.

Life is hard all over. Sometimes I am not going to preen and serve the man in the room. Put your big kid panties on and deal with your problem for yourself.

I say this with more flow and force at this point in my life because I have bounced off this dynamic with an awful lot of men who I don’t happen to love deeply and feel enormous gratitude to them for saving my life. Yeah. Conflict. Because even with that deep well of gratitude and love I also said, “You have legs. Why are you asking a woman to go get you a drink? Have you become paralysed since I last stayed in the house?”

Yeah. I didn’t stay the Princess. I was thirteen when my niece moved in. I was not an easy person for a deeply ignorant, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, lazy hoarder person to love.

But holy shit can you see a whole string of hoarders in my friends circle for the rest of my life. I keep some of the traits and challenges. I just can’t handle the whole package anymore.

Cause it’s not about any of these one things. Cause any one of those labels diminishes the person he was very much. He showed up in emergencies and helped neighbors. He was giving and loving in his way. He was often fun. He got me to memorise the lyrics of every song he had on 8-track tapes. We had us some times. He snuck me treats and he cuddled me. He is the only man I have had a completely non-sexual highly tactile relationship with.

Like, that’s a weird thing for me every time I think of it. I have never had another non-sexual highly tactile relationship with a man. Outside of uncle men have fallen into four categories for me: sexual or just some serious flirting relationship of some sort, someone I am assuming is not interested in sex with me so I am tentative and awkward in my interactions and I almost never feel comfortable because I don’t even know what to say, someone I have to actively reject because they are assertive with their interest and I do not feel we are compatible, and rapists.

This is why I have traditionally slept with most of my friends. Now we are in a whole new life phase and I can’t do what worked in the past. I need to learn how to have a different set of categories because the primary way to be in a positive relationship with me historically is no longer available and that is going to be difficult. I know that Scottish men have a whole lot of major differences with the American men I have historically had big conflicts with but that’s ok we will just find slightly refined versions anyway. It’ll be close enough that a hand wave will explain the differences.

Sometimes there are platonic friendships with heavy flirting and there is a “dang can’t because x” exchange every so often and that much engagement lets me feel like I am in the “Ok I am not being problematic in this relationship.”

Uncle was the only person I ever brought my whole ass difficult personality to at the most extreme points in my development through a highly traumatic childhood who was a man who never sexualised me in any way.

Please do not come at me for how clearly I don’t love this man because I am so intolerant. Love is a complicated emotion. Feeling it does not mean that you agree with or share the same views as another person. Loving someone does not mean you have to act like them or justify their behavior. I mean, I could tell you about uncle’s hurts but frankly that’s not the point.

The point is the pattern. The point is the template. The point is the broad strokes. The point is caricature.

I feel like this might turn into a series because it is not as if uncle is the only man who lives larger than life in my brain. Understanding these people is how I have understood masculinity in my life. I am not saying that any one of them represent that whole of mankind or that they have had life trajectories like every other man. I am saying I knew this man. This is what I knew about him. This is how I saw him. This is what I heard from him. This is what I took away from the culmination of our conversations over multiple decades. I put in the time. I did listen.

I don’t even remember which bullshit thing he told me I had to do “because the Bible” that overlapped with my one brief overture into the 7th Day Adventist Church that happened not long after I was demoted from Princess. I took it hard. I tried to find a rule book that would agree with some of his weird extremist views and this was the option I had to immediate hand.

I really did not come out of that year and a half in the church with the set of beliefs that they all wanted me to have. And that was when I completely lost my shit and I tried to kill myself. Uncle did not come when the family visited me in the hospital. He didn’t even look at me for several months after it happened.

He was my one good man I didn’t have to have sex with. And to him I was now a ghost. Yeah. That was tied in with why we moved down to Bakersfield then my dad propositioned me again and I prosecuted and we ended up back in uncle’s house.

He barely spoke to me for the rest of my life. I mean, let’s be clear there were a few little girls and all boys that he was actively more hostile and nasty towards than he was with me because he was a petty, pathetic, loser. I scared him more. I would argue him down about absolutely every stupid thing he said to me so he just stopped talking.

I did love him. I tried to talk to him about neutral things. I would bring up songs. He would derail into his conspiracy theory. I would refuse to listen to the topic and ask him to talk about something else. It would turn into a racist rant. I would opt out of that one too. It went into a misogynistic screed about how I act like this because the feminists ruined me.

Yeah. It was awkward.

I mean, he was never my primary financial provider. My aunt earned more money the whole time I lived there. That’s how she got to over rule him and say that when someone needed a place to go she would always take them in. Because she was the one paying the mortgage. She bought the food.

So he refinanced the house and the hoard grew.

I am not saying I have a definitive view of masculinity but when I think of toxic masculinity I think of uncle. I think of the rage and frustration that was twisted into really toxic places because he didn’t get what he felt entitled to get in life. He was promised more. Who promised? This was not a conversation that ended well any time I pushed. I suspect I would do better now at getting him to admit out loud that he is sad because it turns out life was a trick and he never got rich. He was Willy Fucking Loman. And I lived in his house. And he always snuck me ice cream and treats even when he wasn’t speaking to me.

That’s the thing about the last few years. Our relationship changed. We were no longer able to have conversations but we did spend time in the same room. There would be these eye contact interactions that felt intensely emotional and bonding. One time around when I got married but before I had kids when I was over at the house for a visit. We had one of these moments where I was sitting on the couch as far away from him as I could get because we both didn’t know what to say. Sitting in that spot means you get blasted at top volume because you are right next to the tv. It means we can’t hear each other very well so we can pretend that is the reason we aren’t speaking. We looked at each other for 10-15 minutes while some stupid show played loudly in my ear. He crooked his finger at me like he has done since I was a very little girl. I came over and sat across the arms of his lazy boy like I have done since I was a teenager and I got heavy enough that he couldn’t really handle the pressure on his legs.

He pulled me in and he leaned his head on my shoulder and he put a hand on my back and he gave me a pat. I had this intense full body sob rock through me. I didn’t keep crying. Then he patted me on the back more intensely and nodded his head a few times. He said, “Yeah. I know.” I’m not sure we said more than hello or goodbye after that.

Moving is super fucking weird. When you move around an area you shift your web of people but you don’t entirely destroy it and rebuild from scratch. Changing countries has been a complete rebuild. Under different constraints and with different rules for the whole experience from start to finish.

Lately I have been noticing how hard it is to actively interact some days because my understanding of people and patterns and behaviour expectations are all based on a life lived under circumstances that would seem pretty alien to folks here in many ways. I don’t know the scripts. Learning is a slow and laborious process and it’s intimidating knowing that I have as many mistakes ahead of me as I have behind me and I have absolutely mere remnents and shadows of my history in my head as I try to figure out how I should be acting now.

Sometimes when someone says a thing or makes a hand movement like uncle with the same physical build it feels like I’m looking at a grainy 1980’s Polaroid. But that’s not what is happening. This is a different person and a different time. This person has completely different experiences and views of the world. Maybe? I don’t know. It always feels so difficult to find out. I don’t get the upside anymore. It’s harder to put in the work.

On I trudge. One more day. One more navel gazing.

  • Number made up out of thin air. I have no fucking idea what the percentage is but it’s a very tricky dynamic and will often create massive problems.

I never have to worry again about looking for that.

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One of the things that I have always found myself doing is latching onto a certain song and repeating it in my head for weeks. Sometimes it is surprising that I casually catch just a phrase from a song and then I am completely obsessed. Right now it is Taylor Swift’s [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpKc3C9V3w](The Archer). My maiden name was Archer so that adds a layer to me, but I only started listening to this song in the past couple of weeks even though the album came out a few years ago.

I’ve been thinking about jaye saying he doesn’t like the capitalist association with “success” when it comes to evaluating the value of a life. It has really lodged in my mind. My story arc is sometimes hard for me to keep perspective on. So like, when I was a kid I played with household budgeting as a hobby. I knew I was going to get an accident settlement monthly starting when I turned 18 and I’d have it till I was 30 to get done what I could. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to not live with my family. I wanted to not need to have anyone say that I owed them for the support they gave me.

I wrote out millions of possible life plans. How I was going to get a teaching degree and buy a house and by the time I hit 65 I would have a paid off house and $250,000 in investments outside my teaching pension. That was my plan. That was what “success” was going to look like for me financially. Well, that and I had to have kids by the time I was 30 or I wasn’t going to bother with the rest of the story arc. My life was rather unpleasant by any measure and if I didn’t find a way to completely change the focus and mandate that I have no choice but to stay so I’d better learn how to be a stable provider.

I know that a lot of people who deal with wanting to die do not manage to make deals with themselves that allow them to stay. I’m not judging that. Everyone writes their own deals with themselves. I could not live up to the deals that other people make–I don’t have their internal resources. I’m different.

I knew what I wanted my arc to look like very young. It was find a way to be part of a family or quit.

Noah and I were talking the other day in our morbid way about the various signs of our mortality that pop up. We’ve had this conversation in an ongoing way for the last 18 years. Oh, and he has this browser extension that shows him the current expected lifespan left for a man who has lived to his current age in a countdown. So every fucking time he opens a new tab he sees that number. We really focus on time.

We have spoken for years about what we would do if we lost one another sometime soon, meaning in five-ish years or less. Obviously it changes as time goes by, as we have different experiences and levels of development together. Do you know why he got his first vasectomy? Because he decided that he was done creating children and I said flat out that if he died in the next five years I would probably see if I could find a different partner and have one more child.

The funny thing is, by the time he had the vasectomy reversal I would not have been willing to add a third child with a different partner at that point. I was too old. I wouldn’t have wanted that kind of gap with a half-sibling. The reality of dating as a single parent is step-kids would probably have been part of the story and I didn’t want yours-mine-ours. I would not want to make anyone feel “left” for a “new family”.

And one of my very deepest core kinks is forced impregnation. So him changing his mind and deciding to have a third kid once I had already accepted it as an impossibility and I’d mostly moved my life onward… he put a choke chain on me. And that’s fucking hot. I could be five years away from being an independent adult instead of taking care of children. Instead it’s thirteen years.

It changes a lot of my story arc going forward. I am grateful for his decision. It deepened our bond in a way I can’t fully express. Combine that with the fact that he has put in thousands of hours asking me deep, probing questions about every facet of my life mean that he has seen me go through deep and massive changes. He has pushed me to grow and change and he has not accepted half-hearted attempts. We are fairly brutal with each other in our gentle way.

So this week we were talking about a mutual friend and how things are going in their life. They are going through a breakup and they are sad about feeling like they have to start over again trying to find someone to be their person. Noah nodded when I was telling him. He said that given that neither of us are likely to die anytime soon and there is absolutely no sign of us wanting to split… and even if we did split up… we have that person. If one of us dies that will not change the fact that in this story of our lives we found that person already. It’s not that we would be celibate for the rest of our lives but they would be temporary companions. We would be kind to them. We would probably love them. But it would be different.

I get to be part of a family. I get to live in a house I own. I have more than $250,000 in the bank. I earned my credential and I taught. I live two miles from my best friend from childhood. I regularly speak to dozens of other friends who have known me for well over 20 years.

Where to go for future success?

Oh, there we come back to all that insecurity and the knowledge that good friendships come out of missteps and corrections and second and third and fourth and fifth chances. But I’m so old and tired and I am really out of fucks. I’m listening to this fucking song over and over and I’m thinking about how many relationships have to have tension and sideways nudges as you figure out how to settle in next to each other on the friend-bench.

Something I’ve learned is that people really like it when they get to do you a favor. But I’ve reached such a place in life where accepting favors feels mixed and complicated and bad. I don’t feel like I deserve help. I have money to hire somebody and I should just be fine with that being good enough. But that’s not how you make friends.

Making friends with new people as an adult with children is hard. Mostly it means leaving the kids at home and going out alone. That feels so exhausting and pointless because 80-90% of the effort won’t lead to a friend. That’s just how the numbers work for me. I’ve played this game a long time. Although the pool is smaller here. I might get a much different percentage since I can’t fuck anyone. It’s a very low percentage of my old friend group that I haven’t fucked. Mostly the straight women and gay men.

It’s not that easy learning how to make friends without using sex. I’ve been doing it since I was a small child. Yes, I realize that it was unhealthy and problematic. I’ve had all the therapy on that topic, thanks for your concern. I’ve had a few years to practice making friends without sex through parenting but that’s a mixed bag. I don’t want all of my friends to be the parents of people my kids hang out with.

So when I say that I know that 80-90% of the effort that goes into making friends is waste its because I have always been someone who earns a fair bit of negative feedback. I don’t always agree with the group consensus and I put forth my view and I am more willing to walk away than compromise a whole lot of the time. I know how I create my own problems. But the thing is: I have limited spoons in my drawer. The biggest thing I can’t get back is time. Time I could have been putting into the projects that are closer to my own heart and my own self-actualisation efforts. I’m a vain asshole. I don’t have to earn money so I build the space that I want to live in. Before I die there won’t be a thing on the house that will need replacing in the next 30 years. I listen Sam Vines and I’m careful about what boots I buy.

I don’t remember if I mentioned this here. But I’m planning to have a 60th birthday party. It will be my first party since 30. Some of my friends will be in their 90’s. I hope that there will be a sizeable number of people from around town who want to come. But I have to earn that. I have to figure out how to create relationships with people such that they are interested in coming and meeting the wonderful cast and characters from all of the stories I’ve told. They will be able to say, “So what happened after that?” I want to have relationships with people that are deep enough for them to care about backstory for one another. I want to meet their families and friends too. I will go first!

Because when I introduce the two of you at the party I want to be able to say, “You two are going to get along like a house on fire. Person A you need to tell how ‘x’ happened and Person B you need to tell how ‘y’ happened. You’ll figure it out from there.” In order to get to know people you have to spend time. Knowing that the vast majority of it will turn into a loose, distant tie, or even an enemy–not a friend.

It’s not all bad. Studies say that we get the best referrals from our loose tie network.

It matters to put the time and energy in. It matters to create the opportunities and follow through. That is the absolute bedrock of friendship.

Dude, I slept 11 hours last night. Then this morning I burst into tears because I could not figure out what I could eat fast enough because my brain was moving so slowly. So today I am recognising that I restarted exercise a little fast after the last two weeks of illness. I am resting because otherwise I’ll just bloody hurt myself again and then I’ll fuck up the trip.

Getting older has helped me see these kinds of consequences coming before they punch me in the face.

Life likes to remind me that the countdown is always happening. I don’t know anyone else with my full constellation of physical problems who can be as active as I can. It is a very delicate dance of pushing myself very consistently but with a lot of respect paid to rest.

I have far more than 10 days of reasonable working hours for chores to get done in 5 days. Where do I get this chore list?

Part of it comes from seeing in my mind what I want to look out my windows and doors and see in exactly 18 years, 5 months, and 1 day. I know how long it will take to get a lot of those pieces to look how I want them to look. It is better if I get the manure and compost and munch spread now so I can get back and immediately put out all the seeds right as we hit the average last frost date.

I am not interested in spending a ton of money to have a shiny penny new “thing I bought” to show off. Is it stupid? Sure. Is it not what other people care about? Oh absolutely. I have a whole bunch of other goals tied up with it. Including finding ways to make my not very private garden into a place where kinky motherfuckers can go do fun things outside so long as they are quiet. I will have extra gags if you forgot to bring one.

I live along a public walking path and I am not supposed to build a taller fence but I can grow whatever the fork I want. My neighbors said they wouldn’t mind bamboo (I asked because apparently a lot of lawsuits come up when people plant bamboo and I am a scaredy cat) and I have a bunch of trees already starting that are going to be the perfect height to block view into the garden. I really enjoy playing outside in a bower of flowers. My kids had better fucking move out someday.

I want to have a good spot for 1st of May outdoor fucking even if there is snow on the ground. I want to have completely deniable furniture that can be used for restraining people and times of year when they cannot be seen unless someone comes quite close inside the garden. I have plans.

But it will also be set up so someone can just sit there and find actual quiet away from the steady noise. I want enough of a noise buffer in the physical environment to make it feel actually secluded. This kind of thing takes planning. I will have even more neighbors by then. If I want quiet I have to create it.

If I want relationships I have to create them. I have to spend time. And that’s when I hear FUCKING TAYLOR SWIFT SING “WHO COULD STAY? I’M READY FOR COMBAT” AND JUST UGHGHEW;HADSFK;HSADF;KJSDF;HLDFSjkln;

Kids for 13 years, only 18 years till the party. If I want friends, like people I have an actual deep and complex relationship with, realistically I should be putting in the most effort in the next 8 years. Because to really get to friends it takes 2-5 years of doing things with someone frequently. In my experience.

Time is ticking away. If I don’t need someone to be My Person that is a very specific freeing point. I want to know people. I want to be able to see through them. I want them to be able to see through me. I want shenanigans. I want silliness and doing things.

Did I mention that I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open? Walking around feels like I am wearing a weighted body suit. I usually spend 3 days of my period hanging out horizontally as much as possible because I’m wiped out. I skipped what should have been day one of that. So today on day two I am drowsy and weary and I want to talk to myself. Because I should not try hard to work on reading right now. I love to learn, but if I want to see right through me and do what I want to do in this life it takes having the strength to do it. If I fuck up my body worse I won’t hit my goals and I will hate myself.

Success is walking the tightrope that is my ability to be a fit and active human. If I were willing to spend 40% of my waking hours resting doctors would be happy with me. They have been telling me to for years. Instead I push and I work when I can barely open my eyes. Sometimes I crawl when I’m doing chores because I do not have the ability to walk.

Does it even fucking matter? Probably not most of it. But some of it does and almost all of it is related to me being able to say what I have done in and with my life and I know I did it to my absolute limit as long as I could. Is it petty and stupid? I don’t know. I hear “Who could stay” and she means who could stay in her life because she is always fighting with everyone.

I need to be able to hold my head up high and say that no matter where I started or what has happened to me, this is what I have done. I did it no matter how many people told me I couldn’t or I shouldn’t or they didn’t agree or they thought I was stupid. I did it because I said I would and I keep my word. It doesn’t matter how I feel while I do it, it matters what I do.

When you are trying to make friends you don’t tell all the stories right up front. You need to leave just a smattering, leaving bread crumbs for the next one but not telling it this time. You can’t do all the talking or you don’t get to know them and it’s not a friendship, it’s a performance. There are all these fucking rules. I’ll figure them out. But probably not today. I think it is time to go to bed. Even though I’ve only been up for eight hours. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

I need to fertilise the soil so the trees can grow up so I can have privacy fucking out there. It’s a need to activity.

The gurus

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They don’t all call themselves gurus, some use teacher, Owner, shaman, tantrika, daka, coach, guide, and memorably one just went by Dragon. That is outside the not-short list of Daddies I have acquired through my time as an adult. They were all men who were absolutely convinced that they knew what I should do to be happier/healthier/sluttier/less slutty/more attractive/more intelligent/less emotional/less crazy… in short what they all had in common was viewing me as a piece of clay that could be molded into their ideal woman.

If I’m at all honest I totally fucking have a type and it definitely extends to people who like having a massive reality distortion bubble around them that intrudes into other people’s sense of self so they could direct the people.

For the purpose of this writing I am going to assume that the controlling person is primarily male, mostly because I have yet to have an enby try to establish this sort of dynamic with me (not saying they never do at all) and very few women try to influence me in the same manner. I have a number of women I look to for advice and guidance and they are all people with extremely strong opinions (FUCKING HAWT 😍) who will tell me what they think then drop the topic and move on. I will listen or not and that isn’t their problem.

The men come back to check if I am obeying. They chastise me. They tell me “you have to ____”. They tell me that if I keep doing x that I will never (whatever they want me to do). They threaten dire outcomes if I don’t fall in line with their direction.

Before you try to go all “Oh look, just another feminist bitch hating on men” I need to point out that I married one of these dudes and many are still in my extended harem (the people I am deeply emotionally attached to who I have fucked or played with in the past), and I even talked to one about how to write this post. Clearly I don’t just hate all these men. I signed on for sucking one of their cocks for the rest of my days. He has no problem at all with my harem of much loved and adored friends. My husband knows that he has a biological family he may not adore but who would show up to rescue him with money and resources if something went sideways in his life. I have my harem, my triad of best friends, and the loose ties I have extending through communities in cities in many countries. He does not begrudge me the only safety net I have in this life. Mommy boards say that I have a lot of emotional affairs. I’m ok with that description.

So when I talk about the feelings I have about my relationships with men who share this personality trait it is not a purely negative topic. When I say that I would not be who I am without these men I’m really not kidding. I’ve done a lot of hypnosis, NLP, conditioning training, improvement plans, slave contracts, affirmation work, and even a fair bit of strait up corporal punishment when I failed to do as I was ordered.

Every time someone gushes about how confident I am about myself I mentally see that meme of an autistic woman accepting her Oscar for how well she masks.

I have a great deal of self doubt, well less than I used to. I have a great deal of suspicion about my own motives and why I am taking the actions that I am taking. I believe that the self I have constructed amongst my friends, mainly through the writing I have done for decades (it all went private when I moved to the UK but once I have citizenship locked down, finger guns I’m sure it will revive) is a binding contract. Old friends tell me that when they are doing things in their life they stop and consciously think about the delineated way I think through why to act the way I want to act when they are evaluating what they need to do in a situation. I feel kind of stunned when they say this. Then I laugh because immediately after they almost 100% feel the need to follow up with “I know what you would do and it would be ____ (sometimes they are right in that guess and sometimes not) but I am just using the PROCESS and I have different values so what I decided was ____.” There is usually this little bit of a funny energy about this exchange that is now emerging with my kids as they get older.

I do the teacher shit fucking hard too. I’m not just dissing on people who like to influence other people.

When you model how to think through a problem without giving a strong “the right answer will always be ‘x'” people can generalise from that into many cases you never considered initially and often there seems to be this little almost foot stamping response of, “Just because you are right about one part of this process that doesn’t make you right about everything! So THERE!“

I think this is pretty subconscious for folks most of the time but when I see it over and over and over and over it gets a little hard to keep the smirk off my face. After this many years of parenting, I am getting particularly obnoxious about keeping a serious, slightly concerned face and leaning in a little to say, “So you are saying I win?”

I’ve now said this to a few friends in situ and they are people who have known me long enough to throw their heads back howling in laughter. Just like last night my coach said at the end of the conversation “So you are telling me that after this conversation you feel a lot more comfortable about the fact that you are clear in your purpose and you don’t think there is underlying inappropriate feelings driving your actions? Now you figured out what you are going to do going forward? So what you are really saying is, I win?“

But do you know what I am honest with myself about? An awful lot of these men are uhm not people I can wholeheartedly endorse as upstanding gentlemen. Many of them have pushed far too hard and have raped women who did not use a firm enough “no”. I have supported communities in enacting blacklists that blocked these men from attending. I have spoken to the men in question and told them point blank that I was going to reach out to people in the community they just moved to and I am going to tell those people about your history. They usually sigh very deeply and nod. They know that it is not worth a single minute of their time to try and talk me out of it.

Someone recently mentioned the concept of being in an accountability circle with someone. I spent a little bit of time on DuckDuckGo and thought about that concept more specifically. Ok, that’s my husband and my triad and harem and my sisters and mothers in leather. Those are the people who keep me on the path I want to be on. They tell me when I’m an asshole. They tell me when I fucked up. They help me figure out how to fuck up less. Harm Reduction is the goal. They see me clearly in all of my layers of machinations and mixed feelings and need to learn what “healthy” responses are and they are really good at asking me the right questions.

Over and over I say that the purpose of working with a therapist is so that you can have access to someone who will ask you the questions you need to think about in order to figure out the answer. Therapists aren’t magicians and they aren’t priests: they don’t have all the answers. You have the answers for you and I have the answers for me.

I rode out most of the first couple years of the pandemic not talking much with most of my harem, my triad mostly went silent, and most of my sisters and mothers in leather were far too overwhelmed to have much ability to interact regularly. I did make more tentative connections with new people here in Scotland but frankly it is still early days. Bailey taught me that friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime and you don’t know who is who until the end.

Over the past year there has been a slow wave building in my life, the ocean is just starting to send the tide in. The people who are still in my life and who reach out daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or just when they happen to see something that makes them think of me remind me of just how far the road has been. I have not sat still with just a couple of people, needing them to fill all of my needs. I have been privileged to be a comet in a great many lives.

It’s not that I still know everyone I have slept or played with. Many threads have frayed.

Do you know who stayed? The fucking gurus.

But not even all of them. I have kicked a few out of the harem. People who consistently showed me that they did not understand the agreement between us about which parts of my life and selfhood were up for attack.

I mean, I did marry the grand motherfucking prize winner of the game “What is wrong with Krissy.” I’m not opposed to being attacked on a great many fronts. These people I am speaking about get to stay because they have been able to shift their understanding of me over time with great nuance. They understand that the opening gambit of our relationship was not to be indicative of how we would get along forever. They can usually understand that they have crossed a line just by seeing me narrow my eyes.

I might be into providing service, I may be an absolute workaholic if I am given a project that will please someone in that group of people, I might be fully willing to be an owned possession who has limits about what they are allowed to do in big parts of my life, I might fucking live for the opportunity worship people and grovel as I appreciate the opportunity to please them…

That is always within a strong framework of you have to learn my idiosyncratic, difficult to track, highly specific to my life boundaries and not encroach on them. There are limits. I will comment when you have crossed them. I will retreat from you rapidly if you respond inappropriately. There are lots of kinds of inappropriate.

The only real appropriate response is, “I just said something that was not good. May I ask how that went wrong?” I train my people like I train my plants. To be clear I do not expect the appropriate response from anyone early in a relationship. Casual acquaintances and folks I know randomly/socially are absolutely going to 100% of the time have an inappropriate response. That’s totally fine. I get that. I am not mad. But whatever inappropriate response results in some level of gentle correction. I evaluate how gentle to be on a case by case basis.

If you laugh at my correction you are now out of the running for ever making it past “yeah I know that guy”. And you know what? I’m not mad about that. Really, it’s ok. I may feel lonely in a lot of ways because I have a lot of touch hunger for the specific people who have the right to touch my body because we are deep enough and close enough in our relationship. The people who have survived hundreds or thousands of little course corrections after inappropriate responses.

When I get word of them having fucked up in their community I figure out what went wrong and I proceed to talk to them about where and how that went off the rails. I am not gentle or kind but I am forgiving. I am just as fucked up as they are and they forgive me too.

I have gotten much better with practice about understanding when and how someone can be my prey.

I am pretty wordy about figuring it out though. Typing is my native language and I have been sitting on everything I’ve thought over the last few years. Necessary time to hibernate and slow down. You have to close some doors in order to open other doors.

When someone tells me that they are desperately holding on to a person in their life because they feel like they are afraid of the pain of the loss I can’t help but think of all the times when creating an empty space in my life lead to me being able to create a different connection that nurtured me deeply but wouldn’t ultimately be as all consuming. Sometimes the person I thought completely lost turns out to be a comet who can show up for chats every few years. Every time I have that happen I say a blessing for Past Me having the wisdom to smile brightly and wish my friend joy as they severed the tie to run off and grow somewhere else.

It’s funny how much this all feels more and more like a cross between gardening metaphors. Oy. That’s yet another detour.

The point, and the reason I haven’t hurried off the dang computer yet is that I know that if I am writing a contract in my head around my behavior and what I should be doing to continue the arc I have been on for quite some time I might have to say pieces of that out loud again. I can’t get to backstory yet but I will. This stretch of writing is a long time coming and most everyone has even told me it is fine if I just use their names. A few asked for pseudonyms and I go with that.

They are each of them a whole fabulous thread of interactions and course corrections and fucking opportunities for growth. Other people don’t need to care about any of this at all. I write it down simply because that is how I learn what I need to learn. I ask myself the question and then I write until I figure out the answer. I’ve made many of my closest friends through writing. We have arguments and debates and always come again and again to the same end result: we each have our own different right answer and it won’t be the same. This is part of how they taught me to think and I miss it deeply.

I miss letting them in.

Finding space for that writing is hard with running and gardening. There’s this whole web to weave. I don’t know how much of it will end up here, probably just most of the slutty or kinky stuff. But I have to start writing again. I am getting off course. As I was told several times yesterday: I am always at my finest when I am saying what I am thinking so that I don’t get cocky or shitty because I would have to admit that too.

I think fuck ups should be very publicly discussed and analysed. I’m not just saying “boundary crossings” or assaults or anything extreme. I find out who is going to end up closer in or farther out on the extended web with every time I talk about them doing something I don’t like.

I’m not talking about a big deal. I’m talking about noticing “Hey, x thing sucks and it isn’t cool”. There is a lot to be learned when people react to that. A whole lot of people will pick up their football and go home and will speak about me with scathing words. Cool. I’m used to that.

But the people who stay all wiggle into the right place for them. It takes time. Seasonal changes sometimes make waves in that group of folks who are around for reasons that might not be so needed anymore. And some of them fade out except for the occasional fond smile or grimace depending on why they faded out.

But the ones who stay. Well, chef’s kiss they are my kind of predators and I am very happy to recognise that my loving them means that I am choosing to do whatever is in my power to help them only go after prey instead of finding victims. I hope not in a codependent way? I really don’t have time for that much involvement with fucking anyone’s life outside of people I live with. Good grief.

I can only ask questions and hope they are the right ones. I can only tell them where they are fucking up and how. I can ask them to consider why they want to do a thing. I absofuckinglutely will do something to deplatform them as much as possible. Fine. Learn how to be a member of a community who is known as someone to keep an eye on. You don’t get to be the leader. You know how you are wanting to go do x, y, and z? How about if instead of you doing that you look around at who could be doing that even better than you can but they need some kind of support to make that happen. Don’t take the stage.

Cause with these specific predators we have agreements between us. I will call you what you are. You will never in your whole life have to worry if I am just sucking up to you. I will tell you what I think without reservation or softening my tone in any way. You get to find out what the inside of my brain instinctively produces in response to you doing that. And we will talk about this until you motherfucking understand how and why you done wrong and how you are fucking going to make amends.

Maybe not in that same city because you fucked up so bad you have to leave. (Ironic that I say that here. To the best of my knowledge I did not leave the bay area because I fucked up and was driven out of any communities. If anyone disagrees with my assessment feel free to comment below.) So maybe my level of intervention is going to be a bit messy and ridiculous. But I know what you are. I know what you have done. And you can have a redemption arc–that’s great. It will require you not doing the same ol’ same ol’. You have to choose to change. You have to figure out what your answers are. Where is the enlightened self interest in your need to change? What should you change to get what you are currently fucking yourself out of in your impulsive dipshit move?

The people who stay are messy and complicated and I hold no illusions about them. As a deeply flawed person I want to be seen and accepted for the totality of myself. And that has involved a lot of agreements about what had to change.

How in the fuck would someone new just know all that bullshit? For fucks sake. That’s ridiculous and unfair.

I know.

I can never really write it all down but it moves the conversation along by so much when I at least try.

So yeah. I suppose this is my personal ad. This is how I have always hunted. My prey is different for so many reasons but if you are patient with me I will be as explicit as I can. You don’t have to come for the whole ride. You are welcome to come in and out whenever you need.

Cause I’m a wordy bitch.

Foibles

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I feel deeply grateful for the reminder that everyone can do their very best and still fail to communicate clearly. Everyone can mean super well and only have love in their hearts and still sometimes folks feel wounded. Relationships form over a long time and over many different exposures to one another. If you deeply desire community with people who have strong personalities and who act decisively and firmly then there will be times when there will be misunderstandings.

Bumps in the road are not cement walls.

Community is formed through apologies and forgiveness and trying again. If this exact one specific thing doesn’t work out then you keep going. If you care enough to push for it there will be more opportunities.

Tonight I walked up to the top of my road because I had a lot of big feelings in my body and breathing really deeply as I huffed my way up that big hill was good for my body. Some folks, including me, believe that we store grief in our lungs so doing things to force yourself to breathe very deeply when you are working through deep feelings allows you to let the feelings go. When I got to the top I looked out over the city and the firth and I reminded myself that we picked this city out of all the cities in the world. We decided that this was where we are going to put down roots and build community and find a place for ourselves.

Hell, I’ve already planted 15 trees. I’m staying here till I die. I am going to eat that produce, damnit.

I am in this for the long haul. I am not always an easy person and sometimes I fail to figure out how to communicate clearly in the timing that would be best. The good part is that I don’t do a lot of holding grudges. When I can see very clearly that everyone is doing their absolute best in a given moment there is no anger to hold on to. Even if there is disappointment, that will fade.

As I say in my house over and over every day: you learn a lot more from mistakes than you do from getting something right the first time. What did you learn from this mistake? How can you build on this learning moving forward? As long as you are still alive you haven’t run out of chances yet.

I am grateful when I learn how I have failed to communicate clearly. There are lessons to be had in that; every day is a school day.

Expectations from slavery x-post

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Sometimes I see what other people want from a slave relationship. From the bottom side it is mostly sex. I didn’t have that much sex as a slave. Really that was part of the problem, I was always sexually frustrated. Instead what I did was clean and cook (I was not very good at cooking then–we are talking tater tots and chicken nuggets) and iron his clothes and lay them out. I cut his hair and finger nails and toe nails. I washed him in the shower. This was not all that sexy cause he wanted in and out. I handled his private life like a personal assistant. I answered emails and planned his social calendar based on how much work I knew he was doing. Most of my job was to be as invisible as possible. He took pictures of me in fetish wear so he could masturbate looking at the pictures. That was his preference for sexual release.

Yeah. It wasn’t the easiest relationship I’ve been in but I absolutely felt secure. It was the first time I really knew what someone else was expecting of me. In many ways it was almost certainly the best relationship I could have had in that phase of growing up. He was 13 years older than me and we met when I was 18. He kept me from doing a lot of very stupid things. I am actually pretty lucky. I mean, sure he broke a bone in my hand and gave me two forms of cancer but no one is perfect.

I see what other people want from slavery and I cock my head to the side a little. If you think what you want is just crazy, wild sex all the time then that is not a relationship with much longevity. Doing that stuff takes a lot out of a person. Those scenes are exhausting and draining. If I had to do all my normal stuff for myself but someone wanted that from me I’d be able to do it once or twice a year because I am fucking tired.

If I had a slave my house would be spotless. I would never wash a dish again. I wouldn’t have to carry all of my own bags of compost and dig my own holes. They would go with me to the bulk hippy store and carry a lot of weight on their bike so I didn’t have to do it all. My laundry would be washed to my preference and folded how I like. (Hey I’ve learned 6 different peoples exacting laundry preference. Laundry is no joke.) I would cook when I felt like it and otherwise food that is to my taste would appear like magic.

If all that happened I would probably have the energy to hurt someone very much 5 or 6 times a year.

Slavery (in my experience of consensual M/s relationship) isn’t something that is about the slave getting to have fun and be sexually serviced all the time. But when people want slavery that’s often most of what they think of.

Instead of being focused on what you want to get out of it, what are you going to give?

I would give someone a sense of purpose and words of affirmation and attention towards the details of their life that were outside my purview. I would push someone to make progress in their studies/work/outside social life. I would help them set targets for meeting people and figure out what kinds of social environments would help them have a well rounded life. I would happily teach them how to cook and clean (but it better not take too many lessons or it is not worth my time). I would teach them about soil biology and why I do what I do in my garden.

I would do my best to build a person up so that at some point they didn’t need me anymore and they could rise up on their wings and fly off to the next stage of their life more confident and happy. But I doubt it would ever turn into me sexually ravishing you for hours and hours every week. That sounds so exhausting and I am already tired.

Monogamy != Monoamorous? x-post

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I have spent a rather excessive amount of time over the past 15 years on parenting websites. Every parenting website likes to give relationship advice as well and I find it pretty fascinating learning what other people think relationships require. It’s worth mentioning that for the simple majority of that time I have been sexually monogamous (not all of it, but we are on our longest monogamy stretch at this point). I was told with great fervor that regardless of who I was or wasn’t fucking I wasn’t actually a good wife.

Let me explain.

My lovers and partners are still massively important to me. They are my friends before any of the other shenanigans are considered. I will do quite a bit for these people. I have former lovers I speak with nearly every day. We talk each other through the challenging parts of being regulated in our lives. We talk about parenting practices and experiences with our respective off-spring. I ask them for advice and they ask me for advice in our primary partnerships. I trust these people to have my best interests at heart. They are equally as likely to say, “Ah Krissy, you are fucking up. You can’t do ____.” as “Noah shouldn’t have done that. How are you going to talk to him to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

If you stop fucking someone but otherwise your relationship changes very little… did you break up? Does that count as monogamy or is it an emotional affair!?!?! Then picture a horror movie scream/gasp and clutching of pearls. (This is where the parenting boards think I am a horrible wife.)

I find it fucking appalling that Straightlandia thinks you need to cut off all contact with former partners in order to prove loyalty to your current partner. That’s not proof of loyalty, that’s weird and fucked up and controlling in a bad way.

I think it is part of weird pussy ownership stuff. There are weird hang ups on the pussy owners side that strike me as being very similar to internalised homophobia/misogyny. Quite a few dick-owners out there really like to believe that they are the only one who is allowed to even think about using a given pussy. Uhh, naw dude. I carry my history with me from now until the end of time. No one owns my pussy but me. I will not cut off the people I have known biblically, regardless of their genitals, just because I am fucking someone else right now.

I’m not doing a full Black Mirror style graphic reliving in my head all of the amazing play and sex I’ve had with other people while I’m with my husband. I think that would be kind of weird. Strangely enough we do far more talking about my rape experiences/my really bad sex experiences during our sex life because pushing those buttons is hot. (are hot? is hot? That sentence just kinda sucks.) When I am falling asleep sometimes I do go through my mental rolodex and think about all of the reasons I love you, and you, and you, and you. Sometimes these memories do involve scenes or sexual encounters but I don’t masturbate thinking about them. I just allow myself to re-feel the oxytocin of that moment. I love you and you love me. Not all love is the “I want to marry you and make babies with you” kind. I have shared connection with many people. I don’t see most of them very often or at all any more. Even so, that connection is still present in my heart and I want you to feel joy and connection and happiness and an overflowing of love in your life.

I am someone who falls in love very easily. People are my religion. I am overawed by how people manage to change the reality they live in and cooperate to change whole societies. I find that awe inspiring and very easy to worship and adore and love. In order to stop me from falling in love with people you would have to perform trepanation or maybe a full frontal lobotomy. I don’t think you would have an easy time drugging it out of me. It’s easy to give me drugs that make me not want to have sex. I have never experienced a drug that stops me from feeling love for people.

Straightlandia tries to place some sort of boundary between “friend” and “person I have had sex with” as if once the boundary is crossed the person cannot be a friend later. That’s kind of silly. Why would I want to say that someone cannot be my friend if they love me in many, myriad, complex ways? It’s supposed to be a simple, basic, uncomplicated love between friends? I don’t think I know how to do that. My feelings are always complex and multi-layered and intense. Even if I had to only talk to people I have not had sex with… you think I wouldn’t develop that emotional relationship with deep complexity again? Only if you put a muzzle on my mouth and duct tape my fingers so I can’t type anymore.

I am going to fall in love no matter what. It doesn’t matter if I am sexually monogamous or not. I am going to have deep, complicated, messy relationships. Just because I haven’t fucked you yet doesn’t mean there is a lack of tension and allure there. Given the right circumstances there aren’t very many people I would be completely unwilling to have sex with. I am not wired to be very picky about who I find sexually attractive.

I am, however, a grown ass woman who understands that I need to be careful about the agreements I have made. Once upon a time in my marriage our agreement was, “We will be monogamous for a while and then we won’t be again.” It turns out that was a poor agreement for us to have. And we had other issues blow up all at the same time. So we did break our sexual monogamy in the marriage. The result of that difficult period is that I don’t ever get to ask to break sexual monogamy again. Every relationship has agreements and some are more strict than others.

My husband is not stupid though. He knows that asking me to control when and who I have sex with is not even on the same planet as asking me to stop being in love with people or to stop carrying on the relationships I have with former partners. He knows that trying to isolate me from the connections I have built would do a lot to wreck my mental health and he does not want that for me. He knows that a lot of the reason I have a full bucket and enough to give to him and our children is because of the love that freely passes back and forth between me and my constellation of friends and former lovers. My relationships are deep and intense and long-lasting.

He loves that about me. He says it helps him feel secure that I am very unlikely to ever stop loving him. I can clearly carry love for a very long time even through a connection that has winnowed down to a tiny spider thread.

I am a fervent and devout follower of my faith. I love all of you, even those I don’t.

What is it about me?

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Recently someone who, about two decades ago, asked to be my Leather mom tried to friend me on facebook. I actually unfriended her about six months ago because I was weak when she came around a year or so ago when I filled out my facebook profile more and included California people. I unfriended her because when I see her posts about how terribly she misses her daughter and how the lockdown was traumatizing to her because she can’t see her baby it cuts like a knife. It jumps up and down on my old buttons about how other people deserve to be loved and I don’t. So instead of being an asshole I just unfriended her.

I uhm was not as nice this time around. Instead of ghosting her I let her know (with a fair few words) just how much she hurt me and that continuing to stand near her at this point makes me think about killing myself and I just can’t do that anymore. She responded with ethos and just how broken she is now and an attempt to gain sympathy and support from my end. I am not going to respond. Because if I did it would be something hostile about how she fucking dumped me years before her partner died so if she is broken in the aftermath of his loss I don’t fucking care anymore.

This is like my mother expecting me to start handling all of her financial needs when I was 18 and I got the accident settlement. She didn’t really raise me–a whole series of foster placements kept me fed and clothed and not homeless. But hey I owe her because she is so needy and she’s my mother. Naw. Fuck off.

Many years ago now my Leather Dad told me that he’d be happy to let my kids call him grandpa but I needed to keep in mind that he wasn’t going to do anything to help me because all of his money and support and property was going to his kids. Then a couple years after that he asked to borrow $10,000. We worked out a loan agreement and I gave it to him and he paid me back. Then he came back asking to borrow $25,000. For someone who was absolutely fucking clear that he wouldn’t help me he sure expected me to help him. I said no the second time.

I talked to a good friend about how they are the only person Sarah has lived with who Sarah doesn’t owe money because they didn’t charge Sarah rent. When Sarah broke up with me she had effectively stolen money from me; it was put in an account to buy groceries for the family. A couple weeks later she had a plane ticket to see her sister’s graduation and she needed more money for groceries. This was never really discussed because if I got angry with her then she would tell me I have Borderline Personality Disorder and she can’t deal with me because I am triggering because I am just like her mother.

They say that extreme independence is a sign of trauma and it’s not a good thing. I’m told that me being a bit on edge and not 100% trusting Noah means I shouldn’t be married to him because I am being abusive to him. Basically what that means is because I am a traumatized person I should be alone for the rest of my life–hey independence!

For reasons I don’t really understand he thinks that having this much of me is better than having none of me.

Recently I read something that I found interesting: The Unified Cutlery Theory. I feel like over the last two months I managed to turn the corner and all I have are knives. I posted a while ago about doing well and I think that was a stupid thing to do. I burst my bubble.

“Only cowards ghost.”

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Someone said that recently in a conversation I was part of. They weren’t trying to talk to me or about me. But I was in the conversation and it was a generalized statement that applied to me so I took issue. Then they told me that I was taking things out of context and I was just triggered.

Ghosting.

I got involved with a dude when I was 19. He was 19 years older than me. We were lovers and play partners and friends until I was 33. During that time period anytime I wanted to set a boundary he didn’t like (marrying someone other than him, wanting to have kids with someone other than him, all kinds of shit) he would tell me why my reasons weren’t valid. He was adamantly pro relationship anarchy poly and he didn’t think I should be artificially limiting our relationship. I argued for a long time. After a while I think I had a lot of sunk cost fallacy in the relationship and I didn’t want to give up on him. Also he liked to say that anytime someone did him dirty they were discriminating against him for being autistic.

Then in a short period of time we had several interactions. First he told me that I needed to “make my children be submissive to him” because he is an adult and they are children so they need to know that they have to obey him. I told him he clearly understands nothing about child psychology and no I am definitely not doing that. Then the Elliot Rodger shooting happened. He said that he totally understood why any autistic man would do that if he were denied sex. (By the way he had spent the previous several years buying guns and going shooting a lot.) Then we had a weird conversation and I said, “Do I need to specifically say that my children are never ever potential sexual partners for you? Do you understand that?” (I mean, he held them within a week of them being born. He was an “uncle”.) He smirked at me and said “We’ll see what they say when they are 18.”

I cut him off. I blocked him on all social media. I blocked him on my phone. I blocked him on email. He was dead to me from that moment further and no I don’t feel like he fucking deserved an explanation.

At a different time, years before that, I went on one date with a dude. He totally ghosted me after that date. I shrugged and went on with my life. A couple of years later he ended up engaged to one of my close friends. During the engagement period before the wedding he took me aside at an event. He told me that he ghosted me because he had just gotten out of a bad relationship and I had a few personality traits like his ex (to be fair, I knew the woman and we do have a lot of surface traits in common) and he was afraid I was going to be crazy and fuck over his life too. So he ran. He said that the way I conducted myself in social situations after that (I gave him space and didn’t try to corner him and demand an explanation) made him realize that he was wrong about me and he was sorry he had treated me that way. We hugged and wished each other all the best and I’ve been sending him and his spouse Christmas cards for over 10 years now. When we see each other we are perfectly cordial.

People ghost for a lot of reasons. I don’t think that any blanket statement can be made for those reasons. If you find yourself in a situation where person after person after person is ghosting you… maybe do some self reflection on your own behavior. I am welcome in the homes of 95% of my ex’s. The vast majority of my ex’s are people that I would welcome into my home for a holiday if they were in a rough spot and needed to be loved that year.

I’m totally comfortable with the fact that I have needed to ghost people. It was a need and I don’t feel bad. It took a lot of years of working on my self respect before I recognized that I don’t owe every fucking guy endless explanations just because he wants them. I owe myself integrity.

I could list all of the reasons it is utterly laughable to say that I am a coward. But frankly, that’s a waste of my time.

I think it is entitled and toxic to demand that everyone explain their feelings and boundaries to you on your time table. And I no longer have time to play games with toxic people.

Needing a break

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I find it kind of interesting that I do a lot of processing my feelings about Sarah and very little really going into the situation with the Bonus Family. I think it is relevant to what is going on now so maybe it is time to start.

I would say that set up came the closest to being “chosen family” for us as a family unit over the past decade. We really shared the four kids. We really gave one another assistance and breaks. That was by far the most help I got with my kids and it was a very mixed bag.

The mom and the dad in that family both had a fair number of issues as individual people. I strongly suspect the mom was pretty far on the autism spectrum but she grew up in a time and place where as the quiet daughter of an immigrant she just got flunked out of school and that was that. Even though she was very intelligent. The dad had PTSD from growing up with a violent alcoholic mother and a father who completely abandoned him despite living only a few miles away. He then went into the military and things got worse for him. When I met them (I didn’t know this at the time, it came out through the course of the relationship) they had already been in a very physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive relationship for a long time. Then they had kids because surely that would fix everything, right?

Things were complicated. I did as much advocating for the kids as I could from 30+ miles away. When the kids came to my house for their weekly stay (we pretty much split custody for a few years there. We each had all four kids for 24 hours a week meaning their children spent one 24 hour block at my house every week and every other weekend my kids spent a full weekend at their house) the kids would do these epic roleplays in the back yard. They were clearly trying to cope with what they were seeing. Screaming fights and divorce threats and hitting each other and calling each other really mean names. When I would come out to be like, “Uhhh, dudes… what is going on” they would all drop role instantly and say “This is just a game. We aren’t really saying any of this.” I would blink. They would resume roles.

They told me they were playing family.

I let it go on longer than I should have. I needed the breaks from my kids. I needed the support time for going to therapy. I really couldn’t access any other childcare for most of that time period. Things cooled off when I finally found a babysitter.

We met through a hippy dippy parenting forum. I have a whole bunch of crunchy things I try to do as a parent but when things aren’t working I am open to changing. My youngest child got raging diaper rashes from cloth diapers so despite being fairly fanatical about them for years, I stopped. I do long-term breastfeeding except I will cut it a bit short when my kid is biting me and I just don’t fucking think so anymore. We eat hippy granola food except when it isn’t easily accessible then we just eat fucking food.

My friend… she was not open to reconsidering her ideals. Her kids had open, bleeding wounds on their bottoms because cloth diapering wasn’t working and she wouldn’t entertain the idea of doing anything else. She couldn’t nurse for medical reasons so she drove all over the state collecting donation breast milk to the point where she was probably actually putting her children at risk because they were in the car seats so much. And a lot of it hadn’t been properly stored and it smelled off and she expected her kids to drink it anyway because she had gone to so much trouble to get it. She structured her entire life around getting hippy granola food and that was all she would let her kids eat but she would eat a box of donuts on the way to the long-way-away pickup because she just couldn’t deal. Her children were absolutely not allowed to have the unhealthy foods because she was fat and she didn’t want her kids to be fat.

She told me she gained so much weight on purpose so she could outweigh her husband (who was 6’7″ tall when she was 5’3″ tall) and win when they physically fight. She was well over 300lbs.

My kids told me later that she regularly controlled their behavior with threats of beatings. They said they didn’t bother to tell me when it was happening because they were sure I wouldn’t care and I would tell them they had to go because “family”.

I didn’t end the relationship. The other mother ended the relationshp because I told the dad that the kids couldn’t home school. She didn’t work with them. The kids’ language regressed every week in between visits to my house because she wouldn’t speak to them. (She’s a pretty non-verbal person.) She would not help them with any fine motor activities because she either found them boring or sticky and she wouldn’t touch anything that made her skin feel weird. To the point where she would cook food in dirty pans because she couldn’t handle washing them.

I’m not talking about seasoning cast iron.

I told the dad that if he allowed her to continue to neglect the kids the way they were being neglected it is equally 100% his fault that it is happening. He said they can’t go to school without vaccines and she won’t vaccinate. I said you are equally their parent.

That was over her line. She was afraid of vaccines. Like, couldn’t have a rational conversation about them and was going to severely educationally and emotionally neglect her kids afraid of them.

He told me she might divorce him over it. I asked him if he cares more about his kids or supporting his crazy wife.

She didn’t talk to me again. Fair enough. I earned that cut off. The only thing I would do differently at this point is call CPS sooner. I feel a lot of guilt and shame that I subjected my kids to that environment because “I needed a break.” I miss those kids so much. I am really sorry I didn’t get to be close to them as they grew up. I loved them a lot. But their mother has the right to decide who she exposes them to.

I put my kids in school here because they wanted to try and because I needed a break. They got beat on. Adults came on campus to threaten them.

I will not put my “need for a break” over my children again. I don’t feel I can be a moral person and do so.

And I have some really intense feelings about pushing “chosen family” on my kids ever again.

We spent ECs birthday last year with Jenny’s family. It went remarkably poorly. Jenny’s oldest child spent the evening… being a kid who was annoyed about not being the center of attention. We tried a couple of other visits after that. After a couple of these EC said, “I don’t want to spend time around that kid again and if she is in my house I will feel like I have to supervise because you want to talk to Jenny and she’s not very nice to YC.”

I can’t do this to my kids again.

So Jenny is pretty upset with me right now. (I asked her not to read my blog for a while so I could try to process this without making her feel like shit.) Jenny feels like I have spent years complaining about how much I want family and years saying I want breaks from my kids and years talking about how my friends aren’t there for me and she wants the same things and she has been so alone here for ten years. She feels absolutely devastated that I have had a huge number of boundaries and I have not launched into hanging out with her and I have flat said my kids don’t like her kid and that’s a problem.

I don’t know how to solve this.

She is absolutely being hit with a ton of backlash that is way bigger than the situation with her and I agree that it isn’t fair. I am hesitant and standoffish and distrustful. I look for tiny red flags and I turn and run like a honey badger is chasing me.

I don’t know what fair would even mean in this situation. It’s not that I don’t love Jenny. It’s not that I think people have to be perfect in order for me to be in a relationship with them. It’s not that I think I am perfect. I have made whopping mistakes and in many cases my children paid for them. I am afraid to treat my children getting hurt like it is just the cost of doing business and my kids need to put up with whatever friend of mine I am choosing to call “family” today.

They have been very hurt by the actions of people who made promises to them and then didn’t keep the promises because of me. I mean, that makes it seem like I think I am more important than I am… it’s complicated.

The godmamas wanted to have more control over the kids lives or no deal.

Dad wants to have a relationship where I chase him and loan him money and provide him all the support a child gives their doting parent… without him having ever done anything to earn that from me.

The Bonus Mama needed me to tolerate her being abusive and neglectful without ever calling her on it.

I can’t ignore mothers hitting their kids when the kid has a panic attack ever again.

I can’t not call CPS when I am concerned ever again.

Sarah promised she would spend a lot of time with the kids then she cancelled because she was too tired from hanging out with her boyfriend.

The list goes on and on.

Has Jenny let me down? No. She hasn’t. She has been there for me in ways big and small. Has she said things that hurt me? Holy fucking shit yes. Are there some red flags in how she parents that worry me? Holy shit yes. I am very worried about getting involved with another family where I see dynamics that trouble me. I am very worried about forcing my kids to deal with kids who have a bunch of behaviors they are not ok with.

I don’t know how to solve this. So yeah. I have been pushing Jenny away and she is hurt. I don’t know what else I can do in this situation.

My big kids are old enough and competent enough that I do get breaks now because the three kids can play together. Do I feel the need to push really hard for more breaks no matter how it impacts my children? Not at all.

I feel like if I need a break from anything it is from obligation to “chosen family” who bring more strife than joy to my life. And that doesn’t feel very nice at all to my friend who was so happy I was moving here. It feels downright cruel.

I don’t want chosen family anymore. I have a family. And they are enough.

Is that cruel?

{heavily filtered} Triggers

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Can I say that I'm getting fucking sick to death of how the word triggers is used?  Mostly I hear it mean: 'So this person is crazy and reacting to ghosts… it's not my problem that they are over-sensitive but I guess I can give a lame-ass "I'll try to respect your 'triggers'" line.'  Fuck you all.  No really.

I'm kind of tired of having people throw it in my face that they are trying to be "sensitive" to my "triggers".  Bitch you don't even know what the fuck that means.  By the way, I'm kind of angry.  Apparently having a trigger means that someone does the same asshole thing to you that someone else has already done.  Or at least caused you to think hard about the previous time and consider how you want to react this time.  People are so dismissive of "triggers" because it is a good way of saying, "You were already hurt here so it's not my fault you are hurting now."

Actually, an asshole act is an asshole act.  Lying is lying.  When you negotiate extensively for activity A and you instead engage in activity B… that's not a miscommunication and that's not about me being triggered.  

You want to know the "trigger" part?  My gut-level response to this behavior is to go sleep in a different bed and cry and assume there is nothing in the world that will change it.  Because that kind of lying is something that people just do.  I should stop listening to what people tell me.  There isn't a point.

Things that were effective coping mechanisms during your childhood are hard to abandon as an adult.  When someone lies to me, I have to withdraw trust.  Fast.  I have to shut down affection towards that person.  I have to stop being vulnerable because if they smell blood… I'm dead.

I suppose that triggering me means acting like my family.  So that I have to act like I do with my family.  It's not about a set word or phrase or experience.  If you act like my family… I have nothing for you.  

My family would set terms on who you can know.  If you had the audacity to want to be friends with someone they didn't like… well… that's going to result in nastiness, name calling, threats of abandonment (that aren't followed up on because the piece of shit bully is dependent on having you around to kick), and of course threats of suicide.  

Wow.  That all sounds like what I say and do when I tell Noah that I don't like him dating.  Ironic.  No wonder I feel like I shouldn't be saying no, no matter what.  Because I have this gut reaction of not wanting to be like them.  It's bad to say, "Actually this behavior is toxic to our marriage for 'x, y, and z reasons.'"  Because then I'm trying to control him inappropriately.  My adult spin on not wanting to be this person is to think that I should start shutting my mouth and putting my head down.

My family would rewrite history.  Oh, it's not that anyone lied.  We just miscommunicated, that's all.  No one ever has to be accountable for their actions.  That's why I have a scorched earth policy.  Someone who is going to lie to my face and then go behind my back and do something else all the while maintaining a dialogue with someone else that perpetuates a lie… wow.  I need to run, not walk away from that.  You want to know what a trigger is?

It's the sure knowledge that a liar is poison.  Someone who will lie to me… I can't know.  I can't be vulnerable with.  I can't pay attention to them.  I can't worry about what they want.  I know it will be a facade and I'll never know them anyway.  As soon as you lie to me, and then tell someone else that we "miscommunicated" well…  Yeah.  Ok.  The solution to this "miscommunication" is for me to assume you are lying going forward.  Sounds great.

I lie too.  I lie compulsively sometimes.  I say things in the heat of an argument that aren't true no matter how you look at them.  And I hate myself for it.  That makes me want to run too.  Because these topics are things that I can't be honest about.  So I'd rather not discuss them.

At any other point in my life this kind of behavior would be cue for an abrupt turn on my heel and exiting the premises permanently.  I would much rather leave than try to fix something like this.  My life is complicated now.

I understand a lot of things differently as life goes by.  I think about why women stay in domestic violence situations.  I think about why my mother and my sister are the way they are.  Why do they lie compulsively all the time?  They were taught to.  That's what hanging out with liars will do.  It teaches you to lie.  

The problem with being married to a sociopath is I am never sure if his vision of enlightened self-interest lines up with mine.  My best-interest is considered to the extent that he wants to manipulate the correct
behavior out of me, preferably while volunteering as little as possible.  Because the less he volunteers, the more control and power he has.  There are cracks in my Stockholm Syndrome.

It's hard having such extreme opinions about Noah.  Mostly I feel better about/toward/with him than anyone else on the planet.  And then sometimes I don't.

(ETA: the formatting is weird and I don't know why.)

Best day in months

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Every so often I don't want to say something on blogger.  Yay lj.  Yesterday I dropped off money towards a new venture that will change a lot of the focus of my life.  I'm really excited.  It's pretty darn big.  And then… when I got home… I found a message from someone I have known in the scene for about 8 years.  It's hilarious to me that I have known her that long.  But I digress.  She's uhm, gorgeous.  And ridiculously skilled as both a top and a bottom when it comes to rope.  Like I'd pit her against Tom any day.  And she asked me out on a date.  *swoon*  We'll see how that goes.  I said YES. YES.  PLEASE OH PLEASE GOD YES.  😀  I'm excited.

And then I woke up this morning and found that a new-ish friend invited me to go to a womens party with her.  She's pretty damn cute so I'm not saying no.

How in the hell did it start raining girls?  I'm not complaining.  I'm celebrating.  It's been a long time since I was interesting to a woman.  I may have forgotten how this goes.  Oh gosh.

I'm so excited I'm bouncing.  My life is pretty wonderful.

About that muse

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He has decided that he needs to be celibate for a while because he is using sex in unhealthy ways. I think that is a great decision for him given what he has been up to in the last year. It’s hard being the girl who teaches guys what they don’t want. We talked about how awkward things have been on the past few dates. No, he can’t fix me and I’m not ok with him being mad at me because he can’t. I feel like telling people these things about my past puts up a brick wall between us. The phrase “I don’t know what to say” makes me want to break things. I would much prefer that people sit in silence than say that. Noah says, “Wow. That sucked.” As simple as that. It’s why I married him. He gets me.

So I got dumped yesterday.

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Not by my husband, by one of the women in my mom group. I got sent a rather hurtful email. To be defensive, because I always am, the hot sauce comment was not even vaguely serious. I would never do that. It was an unkind thing to say at all, but I don’t think this level of response was appropriate. And the ‘cold baths’ were tepid, just not warm and fun. I took zero pleasure in them and I don’t feel they were cruel. They were business like and not *fun*, but Shanna was not harmed in any way and despite not being fond of them she doesn’t seem traumatized by being in less than super warm water.

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Follow up

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My midwife called me a little bit ago. She thought we should process. This was a good thing because she opened the conversation somewhat neutrally and then she accepted complete responsibility and apologized. She explained that she has been feeling really bad and trying to figure out why she didn’t suggest the test to start with. She said that she thinks that it was an emotional reaction because she didn’t want me to feel like she didn’t believe me. I told her that I would have jumped on the chance to know for sure because I don’t want to be put on a timer. She acknowledged that in retrospect she knows that and she is really sorry she made the call she did.

We also talked about child care logistical issues at great length. We figured out a compromise that I hope is going to work out well–she also doesn’t have a whole lot of good options for childcare (which in my opinion is a bad thing for her professionally but that’s a different matter). That was very useful.

We talked about her ambiguous feelings about driving this far and how it is obvious she is irritated with driving up here. She feels like every single time I have called her it was 100% appropriate and she wants me to continue calling her for the things I am calling her for… but man she hates the drive to Fremont. I get that. But it means she is sending mixed signals that feel bad for me. This overall part of the conversation was left at the place of–she is glad she is doing this for me because she cares about me but she needs to never get herself in a position like this again. This is just too far for her to really handle for work. So it’s not the best situation but we need to work with it for now and make the best of it and she is going to try and check her irritation.

We talked about the 180 degree behavioral change she has between her office and showing up here to check stuff for potential birth. I told her that my logical brain feels that she is more casual in the office because there is less pressure on her to ‘perform’ and when it comes to showing up for births she has to be more clinical and distant so that she can potentially make decisions that have serious weight so she doesn’t read as ‘friendly’ any more. I pointed out that I feel like I can read her body language pretty well in the office to know when she is having different moods/reactions but in my house it feels like trying to read a brick wall and that’s hard. She said she will reflect on this and see how true it feels for her and decide what to do about it. That’s perfectly valid and fair.

I brought up the parting crack from my doula and she agreed that she was pretty shocked and unhappy with that comment. She agrees that I need to have a serious conversation with V because that just wasn’t ok. I didn’t do anything wrong at any point and I didn’t deserve that.

So yeah. I’m feeling significantly less pissed off. I feel that my midwife calling today was a really good thing and absolutely the best thing for figuring out stuff between us. I feel that I was really brave in laying out my issues the way I did (God it was hard) and I feel like she totally validated me and listened and was supportive. I feel that she did a really good job of listening to constructive feedback that was probably more than occasionally uncomfortable without being defensive. I don’t think I can ask for more than that. She continually stressed that she really wants to work with me. She really wants me to keep calling her early. She really thinks that I have done everything right. I needed that.

I’m really happy with how she has chosen to deal with this conflict. I’m not completely ‘over it’ at this point but I’m most of the way there. It’s good because I don’t really have a lot more time to be fusstastic before I’m probably going to really need her help.

Identity

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I noticed something today that I consider interesting. When I glance around at the profiles of mothers I know in various social networking sites almost all of the mothers with young children have pictures of themselves with their children as their primary picture and sometimes their partner/husband is in the picture. It is very rare for a father to have a picture of himself and his child as his primary picture. Once parents have teenagers it is fairly uncommon to have pictures of the kids in a primary profile picture at all. In fact, for most fathers of young children you have to spend some time hunting to find mention of their kids/pictures of them. And once you find pictures you notice that the father has 1-5 pictures of his kids (out of dozens or hundreds of photos) whereas the mother in the same relationship has the kid(s) in almost all pictures up.

I hear a lot about how women give up too much of their identity to their children. I wonder if this attitude comes about because men don’t give up enough of their identity to having children and in our society the default ‘personhood’ is being a man and women are wrong for where and how they deviate from that norm. If you think about it, that is very much how (at least American) society works. Women are shafted in the work place because they need maternity leave/sick leave to care for children/time off during the day to take care of appointments for children. This is all left to the sole providence of women in the vast majority of cases. Yes, there are some exceptions but they are exceedingly rare. I believe that companies get away with their nasty anti-woman policies because the default is that everyone should behave like a man therefore women are bad/wrong for when they need something different.

Back to my original point about parents. I’ve been thinking about this kind of stuff a lot. Women are told not to give themselves up to being a mother. I hear it. I’m told to go out and have a separate identity. The thing is, there are only so many hours in the day. Having a toddler is a shitload of work and I really don’t see how I could do much more than I am doing lately and still be as present as I am with my daughter. I’m not willing to put my daughter in daycare for a wide variety of reasons, not least of which is I’d have to get a job to pay for it and then I would be gone all the time working and I would have even less time for myself than I get now. 😛 My job was brutal on me for having a separate identity anyway.

My point being that I think that it is crap that women are told they should be less invested in their identity as a parent when men are not told they should be more invested in their identity as a parent. Yes, there needs to be a balance but I don’t think men are doing better than women they are just fucking up in the opposite direction. There has to be some meeting in the middle and I’m not exactly sure where it is.

Pity party, table of one

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Today my (awesome, fabulous) midwife was asking me questions about my community and what kind of support I have. It was quite disheartening to realize that for my first pregnancy I was completely confident in my community, my chosen family, and my friends that they would be there for me. I’m not anymore. If something bad happened and I had to stay in the hospital for a while with the new baby I would have to do it alone because Noah would have to stay with Shanna. I don’t think we have other options. I have people in my life who love me, but they are all people who have too much on their plates to begin with and they really, legitimately don’t have time for me.

I’ve tried so hard to make new friends in the mommy world and it’s just completely failed. When people just stop returning my calls that is kind of a hint. I feel like I have become too mundane for the freaks to give a shit about me anymore and the more mundane people seem to find me kind of disgusting.

I am so lonely.

Rules for my sandbox.

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This journal is my space. I get to decide how it is used. If you object to the rules you are free to leave.

1. Do not assume a post is meant to solicit your opinion. Most of the time I am posting because I use this journal as a combination of safe space for me to work through my stuff/thoughts and a way for me to do record keeping. I have a weird/spotty memory and I have trouble keeping everything straight sometimes. I am good at using tags and at finding things again when I need them. Posting here does not constitute a request for anyone to tell me what their opinion is on any given topic. I do not write for an audience I write for myself. I choose to post publicly the things I write for myself because that is a medium that keeps me writing.

2. Be respectful in your tone. I post about things that some of my friends disagree with. I have the right to do that in my space. No one has the right to speak to me as if I am stupid in my space. If you think I am stupid, stop reading and go elsewhere. I am not trying to get everyone to agree with me or to approve of me. I am posting my thoughts and opinions. If you have different opinions by all means feel free to write about them in your journal. I will not go there and tell you that you are wrong or that you need to change them to be more in line with my opinions. If you want to engage in debate with me I suggest that you monitor your tone quite carefully. If I think you are being an asshole I will delete your comments and not respond to you. I’m not ok with my journal being turned into a space that causes me stress.

3. I am not completely opposed to debate. Sometimes debate can be really awesome. Most of the time I am content to leave the debate to other people who are able to do so more calmly than I can. There is one frequent commenter in particular (Mr. NotMyRealName) who can open debate on my journal at any time on any topic. This is because he never implies in even the smallest of particulars that I might be stupid. Even on topics where he feels a rather high level of frustration (it seems) he manages to still debate in a way that is respectful and polite to all involved. If you like debating on my journal it is worthwhile to watch for his posts because I could not possibly come up with a better example of the sort of disagreement/debate I welcome.

4. Don’t bother to leave a comment that begins with, “I think you should” because I am not interested in hearing it. If you really really want to give me advice on a topic where I have not solicited your advice you can leave a comment saying, “I’m really bursting with a piece of advice I want to give you. Is it ok to share it?” Sometimes I will say yes and sometimes I will say that it isn’t a good time. It isn’t a personal rejection if I am not in the mood to hear it. I regulate most of my life pretty carefully to avoid stress and my personal reactions to unsolicited advice are such that I need to minimize it wherever possible and I can only do that completely in some circumstances and I need to do that where I can.

I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder and PTSD. I am not on any form of medication. I regulate these disorders by having a pretty firm control on my life and the stress points in my life. I am not always capable of responding in a completely “rational” manner to things that other people believe I should. I am always doing my best. Comments, tone, and attitude affect me far more than other people believe they “should”. It is absolutely completely and totally irrelevant to me if anyone believes that I “should” be able to do things in a way that I cannot. In other situations in my life (face to face interactions, other people’s journals, other forums, etc.) I do not get to have much control over how people interact with me and I deal with that. Here I get to have iron control and it is good for me. I do not care if you disagree with me about any of the ways I enforce rules in my journal. I need to do it and I do not need to assuage anyone else’s ego.

I probably should simply turn off comments entirely. They are frequently a source of stress for me. However, comments are frequently my main interactions with a large number of people I like very much. So instead I am asking that people who supposedly like me honor the rules I set down for my space. I will talk about things that will frustrate you, anger you, piss you off, annoy you, and make you want to smack me upside the head. I am not going to be silent just so you don’t have to have those feelings. Pretty much everyone who reads this is a grown up. You get to be responsible for your own feelings and you don’t get to tell me how I should change my opinions or actions so that you don’t have to experience any of those feelings of upset. They are yours to manage. You can set rules in your space for managing them. I am setting rules in my space for managing my own feelings. You can abide by them or leave.

The harshness of this aside, I do appreciate that my friends usually speak out of concern for me, Shanna, or whatever it is that I am talking about. I have intelligent, well-spoken friends. Many of you mean very well but your tone sucks. I am not saying that I hate any of you or that I don’t want interactions with you. What I am saying is that I want and need a space safe from criticism and hostility and I will get that even if I have to stop interacting with you to get it.

Two things

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Noah’s parents sent us a box of stuff for Shanna. She loves the duck. The book is a bit over her head so it will go on the shelf for later reading. The clothes are all very adorable. There is something funny about the clothes though. They sent a mix of sizes. As in: 6/9 month, 12 month, and size 5. She wears 18 month and is rapidly heading towards 24 month. I find this kind of funny. 🙂 The too small stuff will go into the baby clothes box and Little TBD might wear it. Luckily we have a box of WAY too big stuff (started with that excellent juggling shirt from Andrew) so we can store stuff for later. 🙂 At least his parents send clothes I like unlike my mother. 🙂

I think I need to give up on having friends. My life is pretty lonely and I need to figure out how to come to terms with it because fighting against it is making me really miserable. Very few people are willing to make any effort to see me and even those people are too busy to do it often. I’m tired of being the one to put in 100% of the effort in relationships. I’m tired of trying to make new friends and having it go pretty badly. Like driving 30 minutes to south San Jose for a play date only to find that the mom I am meeting brought a friend and they sit there talking to each other…in Russian. I feel like going through a list of the things I try to do is a comedy of errors but it’s gone on long enough that I’m not laughing anymore. Scene people have dropped me completely. Shanna goes to sleep at 8/8:30 so dancing just isn’t an option. This is my life. People don’t want to visit me. I need to stop fighting it and just accept it so that maybe I can stop crying.

Bits and pieces to get them out of my head

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Looks like trying to have more of a relationship with my family was a bad idea. 🙁 It’s time to withdraw from that again. Noah gave me some really good advice on how to do it without exploding a drama bomb.

I got into a really bad place for a while there where I was doing the martyr thing full time. That doesn’t help anyone least of all me. I need to knock that crap off. Noah can take care of his own happiness.

Shanna now, quite delightfully, says “owwwww sigh”. For those of you without children this means outside. It’s awesome. She loves her swing so much. I’m thrilled that I got the idea from and and I bought one. 🙂

I’m shifting things around in the house a lot more trying to figure out what arrangements will make me happiest long term because the long term is how long we are here. I really really want to make a cool playroom for the kidlet so I’m looking into that. I have a bunch of cool links that I might post later.

I’m feeling frustrated by the fact that people very very rarely initiate social interaction with me. Why is it that I have to do all of it?

My last tattoo appointment is on August 3rd. We’ll be stopping birth control after that. That means I’m taking advantage of the ability to drink. 🙂

Noah and I had a wonderful date on Monday where we had breathtakingly good food. Being married to a foodie is the best thing ever.

I’m not being good about exercise just lately. This is another thing I need to work on.

Urf and arf. Time to start walking towards the bus stop. I bet Shanna is going to love the trip on BART again. 🙂