On the season finale of White Women Scream at The Ocean

Derek is two weeks away from being home. He's been gone a LOT this year, and while I have missed my husband so much in the months he's been away, the closer you get to the end of their absence the more you can appreciate the time where you get to miss somebody.

I struggle with silence. It makes me uncomfortable. I have to have music playing, or a show on, or someone talking to me. I can't just listen to the sound of my breathing, or outside noises. I feel so exceptionally on edge if it's too quiet. Like I can't stand to have an open arena for my thoughts to spill out into, so I have to drown them out. I noticed this when I lived in California with my daughter's dad. We lived in a really rural area of Northern Cali, and at night, there was nothing to listen to. The entire city just....it died. My daughter would be asleep, her dad would be playing xbox with his headset on and I couldn't hear him, and I would panic. I would convince myself I could hear the end of the world, inexorably creeping toward me across the sky. I fucking HATED it. I latched on to being online, chatting with my friends so I could camouflage the panic I felt with my admittedly loud clack-clack-clacking on the keyboard. If I didn't have a busy brain with constant noise, the cataclysmic imagery would seize me. I've never grown out of this, to the detriment of my sleep and my electric bill. I used to sleep out on the couch so I could fall asleep with noise in the background, allowing for Derek to not be disturbed by the 59th rewatch of Parks and Rec droning on in the background just so I could get some sleep. I switched to my phone by the bedside, because not sleeping in the same bed as my husband was causing a rift. I felt distanced from him. I think he felt it, too, though we never spoke of it, and that may just be a baseless assumption on my part. Now I just watch on our tv in the bedroom. Derek sleeps with earphones on and a white noise app, plus his C-PAP. He rarely bitches about it, though I'm sure it aggravates him to no end that he's hitched his wagon to a person who can't stand silence.

All of this is to say that I started big little lies a couple of days ago because I needed something on in the background while I went about being handy in the kitchen (I had a horrendous clog in my garbage disposal, and I took the entire thing apart all by myself and fixed it all by myself and I felt very proud of my all by myself! We won't talk about the fact that there is a very small leak any time I use the disposal and I can't use it for anything other than regular water going down the drain. That is a discussion for another time). I was trying to describe it to Derek as being an absolutely fucking boring snoozefest of a show that I hated myself for being invested in. I described it to Steffie as being white nonsense. I dubbed it "White Women Scream at The Ocean" because that is legitimately 10% of the shit that happens on screen in the first season.

There's a bunch of privileged foreplay leading up to the climax of the first season's "mystery", and I think it's supposed to make you care about these women, but it fails and I hated all of them (except Laura Dern, because number one, it's Laura fucking Dern, and number two, she was remarkably unlikable and that made me love her; and with the additional exception of Zoe Kravitz in the first season, because she looked amazing every second she was on screen, and her character is quite sympathetic as the step mom who just wants everything to be positive). Season two was where shit got interesting, but not because of the story, or the high stakes of the rich white nonsense, not even because I got to see more of Adam Scott (did he fuck the wife of his wife's...uh...mister? I think he did. What do you call a male mistress? I just looked it up and it IS mister. I fucking love it). A fuckload of exposition on Bonnie was laid bare, and while my primary motivation for sticking through this show was to scoff at the obscenely ostentatious whiteness and privilege that was somehow meant to make me feel some sort of sympathy for those ridiculous caricatures of real humans, I will admit that I connected with the end of Bonnie's background arc.

I'm going to spoil shit for you and tell you that Bonnie pushes Celeste's abusive husband down the stairs as he's attacking Celeste and Renate and Madeleine and Jane, and he gets his fuckin' lunch ate. They all stick together to cover the murder (which....fucking why? Bunch of rich ass white women? They would have been FINE), but this eats Bonnie up inside. Blah blah blah, everyone carries on except Bonnie, Bonnie's husband calls her mom to come help her because she's clearly suffering, and Bonnie wants nothing to do with her mom. Of COURSE viewers are meant to either understand that some brutal shit went down between Bonnie and her mom, or they're meant to villainize Bonnie for being a royal cunt to her mother. I'm not sure which purpose the script actually meant to serve, but the former turns out to be the truth. Bonnie's mom was abusive and fucked up and it damaged Bonnie a great deal, and it's why she pushed Perry (Celeste's abusive husband) down the stairs. It triggered her trauma and she acted. While all of that shit is going down with Bonnie, Celeste is being sued for custody of her two terrible shit heel children by her mother in law. There's this whole courtroom drama that I really wish had been compelling but it was like watching stale bread try and do ventriloquism, and I hated it. What I did end up connecting to, though, was the discussion that was had about how abusers don't come out of a vacuum, they are created. They are polished, however inadvertently. This is something we see in character backstories all the time. The most recent I can think of is Billy on Stranger Things. He's a true and total asshole, but his dad beats on him, so you can kind of feel for him even though he's terrible. He's a terrible you can understand given the nature of his upbringing. I despise that excuse, but that's for another time.

Bonnie's back story and the discussion on how abusers are made made me think about my own childhood, and that's what all of this has been about. I thought a lot about both of my parents while I was watching the last few episodes of Big Little Lies, and it all culminated in this: I really wish I had gotten angry at my parents sooner, because I wasted so much time being kinder to them than I was to myself. I deeply resent them both for that, and I think it's time for me to stop resenting myself for my parents.

My parents got divorced when I was young. My mom moved states away from my dad. She did what she had to do, I certainly don't remember the relationship dynamic in the house before we left Ithaca, and anything either of them tell me would be tainted with self serving bias. So I'm disinterested in what caused their divorce. Infidelity has been thrown around, unsustainable job hours, I've heard lots of things, and I don't care about any of them. When my mom and I got to Florida, everything was fine until my mom and I lived on our own. While I've been a single mother, I have had the luxury of being a single mother with a support system that didn't make me feel alone. I don't know if my mom had that, but this is where I remember things getting rough for me. My mom wasn't a very good mom when it came to the nurturing warmth parents are supposed to have. When my mom's violence started I can't exactly pinpoint, but it DID start. She would react so disproportionately hard to things I did as a young kid. I haven't really talked about this, but there was a little girl in the neighborhood who got a bit molest-y with me (a lot molest-y), and I was afraid to tell my mom because I was worried she'd blame me and she'd get violent with me and she'd tell me it was my fault. I don't think I've ever told anybody that, but I remember sitting in my closet and crying because I knew what happened was bad and I didn't like it but I couldn't talk about it. I didn't even get threatened by the little girl (her name was Lisa, and I think she was actually a few years older than me, because she had boobs. I remember, because she made me touch them) to not tell anybody, and knowing what I know NOW, I'm devastated for her, because it means she thought this behavior was normal. What a horrible home life she must have had. It guts me for her, but it guts me for me, too, because I was little. Way little. Maybe 7 or 8, and I already knew I couldn't trust my mom. The person in the world who was supposed to have my back, I couldn't trust. I was afraid of admitting something like that to my own mom because she'd get so mad at me for kid things. I etched a smiley face into my wall with the needle for a loom once. I'm not sure if I could call my mom's reaction a beating, but she certainly got physical with me. Should she have been pissed? Righteously. We were renting, first of all, so she'd have to pay for that repair, but it was destructive of me. I had a lot of problems with destruction when I was young, and honestly, it's no surprise at all.

I can't remember what happened to cause a specific lashing from my mom, but I got beaten, and I got beaten pretty soundly. I was scared and sad and I told a counselor at school that my mom hit me. And when my mom found out, the irony of her reaction is too awful to be amusing: my mom beat me. She hit me with a frying pan. I got a bruise on the side of my leg, and I remember that pretty vividly. So I never told another soul that had any authority to help me that my mom was violent. I don't know how my mom explained that away. Perhaps she blamed it on me being sad because she and my dad were divorced, perhaps she said I was angry about having to leave New York, I have no idea. But it all got smoothed over, except my mom would still hit me when the mood struck her (high hat smash!).

This went on for years. Did she beat me every day? Certainly not. It's not even like my mom and I didn't have good times together. And it's not even like I can't acknowledge what a difficult task my mom had in front of her. Being a single parent? Famously difficult if you're not wealthy, educated, and supported. When my mom met Dee, things settled for a little bit, until my little sister was born. My step sister and I were just kids when Sybley was born, but any favor we had curried with her dad and my mom we lost for the baby. Stephanie, my step sister, was lucky. She could go to her mom's and escape for the weekend. My family took little interest in me. I got to go stay with my dad sometimes, but my mom talked shit about my dad a lot, and the weekends I WAS with my dad, things weren't that great. We had a lot of fun, we really did. Every weekend we would take on some new cooking adventure. We would go to the beach. We would watch scary movies. My dad wasn't violent with me, it was a respite for sure. But my dad was also an alcoholic, and I had to take care of myself a lot more than any young child should have. He would sleep in, or have hangovers and be unable to get out of bed, and I'd just kinda...be there for all of that. I remember telling my dad once that my mom was violent with me sometimes, and I remember my dad brushing it under the rug and saying that he knew my mom and she wouldn't be that way.

I started seeing shit that wasn't there when I was about 11 or 12. I'd see people in cars that weren't there, and they always looked funny. They'd have funny colored hair, or weird skin, or they'd be wearing wild clothes that I couldn't quite see straight. I started seeing animals on my bed at night when I was at my mom's. This is when things started getting really, really, REALLY bad. My mom and step dad made me call my step-dad "dad". Despite my protestations. They made Stephanie call my mom "mom", despite my protestations. I would flat out refuse because it felt wrong to me, and I would get into trouble. I'd get soap in my mouth for backtalking, or I'd be put with my nose against the wall for an hour. And at the end of all of it, I'd still have to call Dee dad and apologize for disrespecting him. And Dee really trumped my mom's violence. He was wholly destructive, he was terrifying, and my mom did not care to extricate him from me, my mom never rushed to defend me. My mom never told him in front of me that he was out of line, or he needed to calm down. When Dee was tearing my room apart and literally throwing my bookcase down AT ME, my mom didn't blink an eye. She would stand around, lips pursed, arms crossed, like I was getting my just desserts for whatever it was I had done.

Sometimes I would have to stand against the wall while my mom or Dee hit me with a belt (because lest either of them use their hands to beat the children in the house, that would be inhumane!). I got soap in my mouth once for mouthing off, and while my mom was lecturing me, I was being flippant with my eyebrows (because my mouth was too full of soap to say anything cunty, obvs) and she hauled off and backhanded me, then slapped me with her open hand on the other side of my face. The two of them together were demons. When I was a teenager, I had the audacity to have male friends, and the two of them wouldn't allow it, because obviously I was going to fuck all of them, and these are things they expressed to me. I remember Dee using the term "slut" a lot, and I hadn't even DONE anything. I just had male friends. I had to hide having male friends, and have my friend's parents cover for me if we were all going to hang out with males in the mix because my parents would drag me from my friends and make me go home, and then they'd yell at me for just being around males and they'd tell me I couldn't be a slut and Dee would hurl things in my room at me and my mom would stand by and watch, or participate by acting so exasperated by her teen daughter who just wanted to be a wanton slag, even though I was petrified of sex and didn't want to have it, I just liked my guy friends and like my group of friends and I wanted to be a normal teenager.

My mom threw a phonebook at me once. Hit me square in the chest and knocked the wind out of me. I don't remember what I did to deserve that, and here's why: I didn't do ANYTHING to deserve that. Was I an easy child to raise? Surely not. But the events I'm describing are not normal reactions to teenage flippancy. They are not normal reactions to little kids fucking up the way they do while they figure out how to maneuver their way through their place in the world. They are violent. Excessively violent. They are the kinds of things that both of them should have been locked away for. But I didn't have the guts to tell anybody, because the last time I had, my mother hit me in the leg so hard with a frying pan that I got a bruise. Who knew what she would do next?

Things got so bad that my mom tried to pawn me off to my family. None of them could take me. I remember crying on the phone with my aunt and uncle while my mom was crying on the other end of the line, feeling quite at her wits end because wouldn't you know it, beating your child senseless and letting your husband beat your child senseless accomplished nothing and she just didn't know what to do anymore, and I felt so unwanted. Unwanted and unloved and terrified and STUCK. It was around that time that I got put into the psych ward. Highlight of my life, being cavity searched at three in the morning while my notebooks were confiscated because I might use the wire binding to hurt myself or someone else. I was young. Too young for that. I needed help, but what I really need was an escape. And in some ways, there was that solace at the psych ward. I wasn't worried anybody was going to beat me, I wasn't being yelled at, but I was sad about having to go back home. I had recently been molested by my grandfather and I didn't want to talk to my mom about that. I talked to my doctor, and he wanted me to tell my mom, but I refused. I had to leave the psych ward and be outpatient for awhile, but when I was released, I still had to live in a home that was not friendly to me, was not helpful, was, in fact, violently stifling and cruel.

I got kicked out not too long after that. I had to go live with my dad for the second time. There had been a time a bit earlier where I had been sent to Las Vegas to live with my dad, and I got sent back. My mom and Dee had decided I couldn't be with them anymore, that I was too much trouble, that I made their house too emotionally messy and wasn't worth the trouble. My dad was married to a woman named Cheryl who was, bluntly put, insane. And I don't say that with slangy malice, I truly mean she was insane. I recall my dad saying once she had bi-polar disorder, but my memories of her are so much worse than any cases I've read of bi-polar presentation. Cheryl HATED me. Cheryl was abusive to my dad, and this was no family secret. When he and Cheryl got married, none of the family was allowed to be there, not even me. His own daughter couldn't be at his wedding. Cheryl and my dad moved to Vegas, and we'd all hear about my dad being thrown in jail for fighting back against Cheryl, who would lunge at him and burn him with hot curling irons. Who would throw pots at him (she must have traded technique with my mom!). Who would beat at him, and then call the cops when he'd fight back and because she's a woman, HE'D be taken to jail. Spousal abuse at the hands of wives at the expense of husbands is real, and shouldn't be marginalized. This was the house I was sent to. Cheryl was terrifying, too. I wasn't allowed to be out in the living room if she was out in the living room. I wasn't allowed to talk to her. I had to come back from school, clean my room, do my homework, and stay silent in my room.

As a messy teenager, my room never stayed clean. One day, I came home from going to the movies with my dad, and Cheryl had written in permanent marker all over my door things like " A PIG LIVES HERE" and all manner of other insults. All over my door. Like graffiti. Big, huge slings at me in permanent marker. My dad and I were horrified. When we opened my door, she had torn my room apart. My mattress was thrown on the other side of the room. Everything on the shelves had been thrown on the floor. She had ripped up my journal and threw the page shreds all over the place. My sketch books had been destroyed in a similar fashion. I wasn't even scared, I was just so crushed. I was confused and betrayed and I didn't understand why she hated me so much. She and my dad had a fight about it later, and the next morning, I was woken up by Cheryl banging on my window. When I sat up, she started screaming at me, and then she took lipstick out of her purse and wrote CUNT in massive, red letters on my window glass. I wasn't too terrified of her, which was a mistake, and I ran outside and started screaming right back at her. That I was just a kid and she was crazy and when I called her crazy, she lost it. She grabbed my by my throat and squeezed, choking me. I slipped out of her grasp and ran. I ran down the street. It was raining and gross out, but I ran.

I got sent home a couple of days later.

I did.

I was sent home.

My dad din't leave Cheryl. My dad didn't think that was grounds enough to leave her, and you know, I understand. It's hard to leave an abusive relationship. It can be ESPECIALLY hard to leave an abusive relationship if you're a man being abused by a woman. If it's your second marriage. If you've alienated your family for your spouse only for that spouse to turn out to be a stale ham sandwich of a human being. I couldn't understand that as a child, but I can as an adult, and you know what, if that had been my father's only transgression? If staying too long in a relationship where his partner was emotionally and physically violent to him and his child were it, perhaps I wouldn't be so angry at my father. Perhaps I'd still be talking to him.

I got sent back to my mom and Dee, where things did not improve. Where things got worse. Where I spent the most time with my friends at their homes to avoid being home at mine. I did my best to live with my friends because I despised being home in a place where I was screamed at and slut shamed and denied the usual fuck ups of teenage growth, and denied autonomy. Where I still had my clothes policed and I couldn't wear make up and I couldn't wear anything revealing and I couldn't have male friends, and I had to stand against walls and get hit with belts and have things thrown at me and get slapped in the face and just generally be abused.

The general consensus of the finality of my tenure with my mom and Dee is that Dee told my mom either I went, or he did. Dee won.

Perhaps I should allow my mom the same almost forgiveness that my dad gets (until he doesn't, but that's still coming). My mom says Dee was emotionally abusive to her, and I believe it. I don't doubt for a second that my mom felt trapped by Dee, but in whatever space of desperation she was in, she was also deeply complicit in my abuse. She STARTED it. My first abuser was my mother, and she stayed fairly consistent with that. When she found Dee and he added to the fun, I am left to assume that this further normalized my mother's behavior and she could rationalize it away by saying that Dee acted the same way, surely this is how one parents.

It's a powerful thing, understanding that you play second fiddle to your birth parents to two outrageously cruel and vile people. I truly had an evil step-mother and step-father. It was like living in a fairy tale, except I didn't get to be beautiful or rescued or powerful at the end, and I didn't get to see anybody get their comeuppance. My mom chose Dee over me. I got sent back to live with my dad, who not even a year prior had chosen his wife over me. Twice in one year I understood that both of my parents had passed me over, and I am not sure either of them will ever fully be aware of how damaging that was. I felt damaged and worthless and like nobody really loved me, I was just a burden to be passed around. I had to live with that. I had to live with my lonely dad, who not so subtly let me know that he left Cheryl because of me, and he never said that with gratitude. He wasn't glad to be rid of someone who abused him and abused me, he was sad to not be married.

My dad has an alcohol problem. And a drug problem. And I had never noticed it until I went to live with him the last time, but he also had a rage problem. I was beaten up by my dad. Not beaten, there's a difference. I was beaten up. Like a man taking on another man. I would go out and do something with my friends, and if I came home and my dad had been drinking and was a little coked up, he'd find something to scream at me for, and then he'd beat the shit out of me. He'd punch me, he'd tear at my hair, he'd push me down, he'd slam my head into walls. I fought back as best I could, because my dad, and the irony shouldn't be lost on you, always taught me to never take a beating lying down. So I would punch my dad back and I'd push back against him and I'd scream and I'd struggle and I'd kick because fuck him. I didn't deserve any of that. I gave my dad a black eye on more than one occasion, though most famously for the time that I was being a teenager, flirting with a boy instead of playing babysitter to his girlfriend's kids (a duty that was never explicitly given to me, and I didn't want, because I hated her and they weren't my wards), and I went and took a walk with this boy after walking the kids back to the apartment, sending everyone in a tizzy because the kids had to leave the pool early and nobody knew where I was. My dad drunkenly chased after me, and he kept calling me a whore and a slut, screaming it into the night for everyone around to hear, and when he finally caught up to me and grabbed me, I fucking socked him right in the god damn eye. I frogged him, in fact. Middle finger bent up, popped him square on. He deserved that, and so much worse. He got a ticket for drunk driving that night. He had a bench warrant out for his arrest, so he got in triple trouble. Ended up going to jail for five days. He blamed me for the entire thing, saying it was my fault that he got arrested and he would have been fine if I hadn't been out being a whore.

Mind you, I hadn't even touched that boy.

I lived with my dad and his demons for a few years, having to deal with how they physically manifested, and never knowing when the next time I'd get the shit kicked out of me for no reason was going to be. When I found my daughter's dad, I latched on because I just fucking needed someone to love me best. I needed it. Desperately. Chris didn't love me at all. He cheated on me, he was emotionally manipulative, he was cruel, he was withholding. He was also 7 years my senior, and at 17, that's its own kind of abuse. When I got pregnant, I split like a fuckin' thief in the night. I ran off to California with him because it seemed safer. I didn't want to have that baby. I really didn't, but Chris goaded me into it.

Chris cheated on me, though I don't know how often. I know he looked for it a lot, can't say for sure how often he found it. He disappeared a lot during my pregnancy. He was selfish. He was unkind. He would say things to me when I'd unravel about his disappearing for days like, "it's your fault, because you make me feel trapped. You can't even have the same life I can have because you're so young." And he'd make me feel guilty for my age, when he picked me, and he'd make me feel guilty for my pregnancy when he wouldn't let abortion be the road we took. I was so sad during my pregnancy. I was also angry. I had hoped Chris would be my answer and my escape, and while he wasn't physically violent, he wasn't kind, and he wasn't gentle. He didn't love me, and I knew it, and I knew what a mistake I had made, but I was boxed in. When I'd threaten to leave, Chris would tell me I had nowhere to go, and nobody would love me like he did and look past how horrible I was like he would. And in a way, he was right. I didn't have anywhere to go. I couldn't go be with my parents, I wanted to escape from them. I didn't have money, Chris made sure of that. And when I tried to complain to Chris's mom and step-dad about how horrible he was, they'd both tell me I was taking things out of context and Chris was just nervous about being a dad.

Scoff.

When my daughter was born, I suffered from PPD, and I suffered from it bad. Some days I couldn't even get out of bed, and making sure my daughter was as cared for as she could be was...it was just the hardest thing in the world. I'd cry about having to get out of bed to make her breakfast, and I'd feel so much relief when she was fed and clean and we could just lay down and watch Brother Bear and The Emperor's New Groove and Treasure Planet. Nobody talked about PPD back then. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I knew that I was sad, and then Chris would make me angry, and I would react disproportionately. I remember throwing a box of art supplies right at his face once. I also remember Chris tackling me in a moment of anger and...while not quite raping me, having sex with me despite my struggles, though I eventually acquiesced because it's easier that way. It really muddies the waters of rape, and while I know cognitively that I would tell any other person that they were indeed raped, it's harder to admit that to myself.

I got increasingly more violent. It started to spill into how I disciplined Rhyann. To my great horror and utter shame, I bit her once. She hadn't even done anything obscene, I just had so much rage well up in me that I bit her. It's been fifteen years since that happened. I will never forget the look of betrayal on her baby face. I broke down over it. I apologized and apologized and I got her a cookie and we did everything she wanted that day and it wasn't enough for me. And it shouldn't have been. I saw it. I saw in me what I had fled from my parents for> The monsters I saw them for was something I was turning into. This broke me up inside. I needed help, and I knew it, and when I told Chris and his family I wanted therapy because I was sad and twisted up inside, and I wanted to make sure Rhyann had access to daycare and a place to be during the day, they accused me of not wanting anything to do with my daughter and just trying to foist her off on others. This wasn't true. It never has been true. I love my daughter so much. I needed help. I needed help and Chris was toxic to me and cruel to me and I was circling that around to my daughter, and I was continuing the abuse I went through as a kid, and I just couldn't tough it out anymore. I left my daughter's dad.

And my parents played their same bullshit games when I split with Chris. Chris told me, and rather rightfully, that I'd never be able to leave him because everything was in his name, and I had no money (he wouldn't let me get a job), he'd turn me in for welfare fraud (something that was his idea, though I'd be on the hook for it), and ultimately, nobody wanted me and I had nowhere to go. My mom wouldn't take me in, said she couldn't because of Dee. My dad said I could come stay with him, but I couldn't bring Rhyann with me because Caryn (his new wife) said so.

I was stuck again. I went and lived with my dad and left my daughter behind with every intention of getting her back, but the details of that are for another day.

For years I was far more stable. I wasn't angry, I wasn't violent, I wasn't so depressed that I wanted to stop existing, I was in a good place. Fast forward to having Gabriel, and I caught the bad parenting vibe from myself again. I slapped Gabriel across the face a few times. Allen and I argued about it all the time. It took me years to stop being physical with my son. He was about five when I stopped putting my hands on him in anger. I recognized how monstrous I was, and that I couldn't help it and there was something rotten in me, and I finally got diagnosed with BPD. And I was able to help myself with that, for the most part.

Seven years later, Derek and I are married, my son lives with me, and I feel far more clarity about my disorder and how it manifests. I've gotten physically violent with my husband. I've bitten him. I've punched him, I've lunged at him, I've torn at him. I've recycled everything that's been done to me to him. And while I had every right to be angry at my husband, the ways my anger has manifested isn't ok. And having BPD doesn't excuse the monster I can become.

This whole story has been to say that seeing Bonnie's parents on White Women Scream at The Ocean acting like Bonnie was just such an unrelenting bitch for being mad at either of them made me understand both of my parents a lot better. I spent years telling them I forgave them for everything they had put me through, telling my dad that it was his addiction, not him, that made him so abusive. Telling my mom that all of this stuff had made me stronger so it's ok. And for what it's worth, it's not like that's lip service. I firmly believe that I AM a stronger person because of the things I've been through at their helm, and it WAS my dad's addiction that made him abuse me.

However.

I also understand that they've had years of forgiveness from me that they hadn't yet earned. I was kinder to them than I was to myself, because I told myself I had to forgive them, and I had to love them, because they're my parents and that's the right thing to do. But the things I am...a parent, an athiest, a person whose philosophic mindset tells her that morality is performative and strictly conceptual....tell me that I don't have to forgive them. I'm not religious, so there is no higher power telling me that forgiveness is key to a good life. Resenting my parents isn't eating away at me, if anything, I feel better than I have in YEARS being free of both of their poisonous bullshit. They still choose their spouses over their daughter, but the nice thing is, I'm free of having to suffer for it.

I don't owe my parents my gratitude. I didn't ask to be born, and I certainly didn't ask to be born to two people who abused the fuck out of me and helped turn me into a monster. I don't owe my parents my love simply because they fucked once and decided to have me. They have not really earned my love. I don't owe them kindness. I don't owe them anything. In my eyes, they got years of friendship and adoration from me by virtue of their role in my creation, and because I thought being a kind, forgiving daughter was something I was duty bound to be. I never took the time to resent them fully, because I thought it would only serve to bring me down and make me a bitter person, but I don't think that's true. There's a definite value in acknowledging what people have done to you, and how they've made your life miserable. I'm not Jesus. I don't have to turn another cheek or forgive because it gets me into heaven. heaven is bullshit. I got lucky that I caught myself before I turned into either of them. I'm not a racist apologist that's too afraid to stand up to my spouse when he can't remember himself, and I'm not an alcoholic co-dependent that thinks drunkenly screaming at my child makes me right. I will never be the kind of parent that will blame my child if they get raped, and I will never be the kind of parent that makes my child leave their child behind because my spouse is a twat.

I don't hate my parents, but I certainly blame them for making me someone with the difficulties I have. BPD is not created from nothing. I know where mine stems from. I think I even sought to make my mom feel better when she asked if me having BPD was her fault...I think I told her it wasn't.

I lied. I lied for her instead of being honest for me, and I can't stress enough that she's done nothing to earn that degree of kindness from me. It's my dad's fault, too, not just hers, but they're both to blame. I could have been the worst teenager in the world, and never once would I have deserved any of the physical or emotional pain they both brought down on my head. My parents curated the demons on my shoulders, and I have misgivings about them being involved with Gabriel. I don't want my mother's bystander racist ideologies to be passed along to my son, and I certainly don't want him in the presence of her racist bastard of a husband. I don't want my father's co-dependency to rub off on my son, and I certainly don't want my father's tendency to be dubious of atheism or any other religion to taint my son's ability to think for himself without being berated. I will not remove them from Gabriel's life, because he would ultimately suffer for that, and I am not that cruel. But I will be adamant about the exposure he gets to either of them, and as he is my son, they have to follow my rules.

I am a happier person without this weighing on my soul, and without them both weighing me down. Derek told me that my mom wanted to come out for my graduation, to hide in the crowd just so she could be there, and I told Derek that feeding my mother that information so she could be somewhere that she is not wanted is a betrayal of our marriage. I am saying this plainly: I do not want my mother, or my father, at my graduation. They do not have the right to be there, they have done nothing to help me get where I am, they are not wanted. Their presence is not allowed, it is not required, it is not desired.

I don't think I have to work through my resentment of them, I've done a lot of emotional labor on that front and honestly, I disagree that resentment is always unhealthy. I owe it to only me to be in a place where I am simply ambivalent to their existence, they are owed nothing. They can wrestle with their own memories, I do not care to make them feel forgiven or accepted or loved anymore.

Two things I do regret, however, are the relationships I've ruined because of this. My relationship with my sisters, especially my youngest sister,  who perhaps needed more from me than I could ever give her. I felt a disdain for her that I could never quite understand, and I've always tried to squish that down and look beyond it, but doing that never allowed me to figure out what was going on, and it only ever served as a bandaid. A faulty one, at that. I love my sisters, and I wish I knew them better. We could commiserate on a lot of fronts, I'm sure, and I wish those would be relationships I could patch up. Maybe I will, one day, if that's something either of them allow for. If not, it will remain a regret of mine, with the understanding that I curated that on my own.

And my relationship with my daughter. Another thing I fucked up, and I definitely feel that my parents are partially to blame, but I know for my own sanity I have to take the full brunt of that without finger pointing. I hold no hope for patching that up and making her understand everything that happened. As I feel my parents are the rightful heirs to my anger and tenuous grasp on mental health, I understand that I am the rightful heir to her refusal to acknowledge me as her mother. While circumstances make everything understandable to me, she may never reach a place where she is willing or able to hear my side of the story. And I am ok with that. Consequences are only ever what they are, and no amount of apologies make them different.

The little gems that make parenting worth it

First thing's first:

My hair is peacock teal.



Well...it was. I've let the color go out because I'm going to go batshit for my next coloring, but I'm STILL getting compliments on it. It's dulled into a really cool, bluish-green that just about matches the color of the ocean here. I'm going to be sad when I bleach it all out to do something that may or may not work, because I think this blue has been the color best received by the general public.

Second thing isn't first:

Gabriel has been here since June 24th, and it's been lovely.

We've been working on getting him into healthy habits, working on his portions, being active, we go to the beach and the pool and we hike, and it's been fantastic. It's gotten me out of the house, as I am a true homebody that would rather laze around in pajamas and be antisocial, watching Pose until the world ends (if you're not watching Pose, you are sleeping on the fucking best show that television has to offer, in almost every single way). I'm better about getting out of the house when Derek is home, but when he's gone, I'm a dull little bird, but I don't really mind. I go out when I want to go out, and I stay in and enjoy being alone the other 98 percent of the time. I'm much more fun when there's someone else around, and having Gabriel here has given me a lot of energy and a lot of drive to do hikes and go to the beach and the kicker is I'm not even taking my camera. I'm just enjoying time with my kid. It has also been the summer where my legs are in all of my photos because I can.



Gabriel enjoying his new full face snorkeling mask at the pool, barely seen because my legs.



Legs, but more different legs, also whilst Gabriel tries his older full face snorkel mask. Summer of my legs, 2019!



I got rolled up in a wave and smashed my foot right into some coral.



Not seen here: My son. At all.

Here's where we get back to Gabriel, and he's why I'm writing this blog, because I scared the absolute fuck out of him tonight and I am still laughing over it an hour later.

Here we are, on our various hiking adventures around the island. In no specific order of adventure.









Gabriel despises going to bed, and because it's summer, I'm inclined to let him stay up. I don't care, that's the fun of summer. Plus we both went HAM on some shit yesterday, needed a two hour nap in the middle of the fucking day, and STILL went to bed early. He had energy to spare today, so when 11:30 rolled around and I told him he had to go brush his teeth and get to bed because he has a doctor's appointment in the am, he was busying himself with everything but teeth brushing and bed going. Earlier in the evening, he said something and I misheard it as "deez infinity nuts". I kind of assumed it was something maybe he and Allen had as an inside joke, but Gabriel thought it was hilarious, so "deez infinity nuts" was said all evening. As I was trying to make sure he was doing what needed to be done for bedtime, he was hollering down to me to not forget deez infinity nuts. Naturally, when he asked me what I was supposed to remember, I pretended to draw a blank, so when he reminded me of deez infinity, I interjected with BUTTHOLES, and he thought that was fucking hilarious, so I kept yelling buttholes at him. We were both laughing over buttholes, and i heard him making his way across the top floor to come downstairs, so I jumped out of my chair where I had been reading Mad in America, and he had seen me not five minutes prior reading in my chair, and hid in the corner where he couldn't see me from the stairs.

He got halfway down the stairs and was like, "mom, don't forget..." and he trailed off, because he didn't see me in my chair, though my book was on the table and my chair was still reclined. I could hear him shifting uncomfortably on the stairs, wondering where I was, and I Assume he was craning his neck to see if I was maybe in the kitchen.

"Mom..."

"Mom don't forget infinity BUTTHOLES...."

"......mom?"

And I am silently laughing in the corner, waiting for Gabriel to come downstairs so I can leap out at him and shout BUTTHOLES!, I can hear him shifting his weight from one foot to another, unsure of where his mom is, and I can almost hear the gears grinding in his head, torn between this being a prank, or him having something real to be scared of.

This is where my maternal skills just never developed.

I know my son.

My son has anxiety, and I think it can be quite crippling for him, as it can be for me.

I KNEW, the more quiet he got, and with the last tiny cry out of "mom...infinity buttholes" that my son was absolutely TERRIFIED. I hadn't even needed to leap out from the corner to shout at him, I had thoroughly scared him by being silent. I heard him turn himself around, and he absolutely charged up the stairs and ran directly into his room, slamming the door with the quickness, and I was shaking with laughter. I really thought Gabriel could hear my body as it rattled against the keys on the wall because I was laughing so hard and trying to be silent.

When I heard him in his room, I knew two things to be true:

One, he had locked his door because he was so scared;
two, I know how to bypass his lock.

I pulled myself together and silently crept upstairs, making sure not to put too much weight on the stairs because I had to be quick, but stealthy, and I got to his room, tricked the lock, threw open the door, and screamed "BUTTHOLE!!!!!!" with as much glee and loudness as I could muster.

And he turned around and SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS. He screamed so fucking hard and so fucking loud, and then he covered his mouth and sobbed. He covered his mouth and sobbed like some mother on Maury who just found out the man she brought on the show is NOT the father. He covered his mouth and sobbed like he just won Miss America, but with absolutely none of the joy.

I watched several things happen to him in the span of about a quarter of  a second.

I watched him realize that something terrifying was happening that he didn't understand yet;
this melted into realizing his room was not safe because the lock had betrayed him;
this turned into realizing his room was not a safe space at ALL;
this turned into "oh my god I just screamed at a decibel unheard of previous to this";
which ended at "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY CUNT OF A MOTHER".

And then he got the joke and he laughed for a long time. He laughed because he was relieved, he laughed because I was doubled over in hysterics and laughter is infectious, and he laughed because he was genuinely panicked and I know it.

My son is so easy to fool, and I try not to exploit it very much because like him, I suffer from crippling anxiety that doesn't really let me have fun with pranks like that as often as I'd like to.

However, as Derek said to me as I was telling him I'm a terrible mother for enjoying this as much as I did, these are the little gems that make parenting worth it.

Let's go spend all our cash at Store Complete!

I'm not even sure how the subject came up, but Derek mentioned picking me up at the airport after my accident, and I told him something he said he didn't think I'd ever told him. I feel positive I had, but maybe I should write all of this in here, just so it's concrete and also because I love talking about myself.

A pretty important thing to mention here, and it comes into play a couple of times in both this story, and like, a bajillion more times in the entirety of my relationship with Derek: I REALLY credit Dan with being where I am today. Not like, as a person or anything, but in my socially sanctioned marital relationship, he is 100% responsible for that. Well, 100% responsible for the parts outside of circumstance (thank you, Ologies episode on the science of intimacy!!). There are three big credit dings Dan gets for my relationship with Derek: breaking up with me (ish? Were we even in a relationship? What even was that?); being an aloof prick after my accident (while yes, I was notably still hung up on Dan and holding a candle for things to work out with him, I was doing my best to just be his friend, as I assumed he was, as well, but I mean...I felt very snubbed by his nonchalance regarding my BRUSH WITH DEATH/s); and telling me of course he loved me.

If Dan hadn't broken up with me, I...hold on...because I don't think he DID actually break up with me. I am not sure I've ever REALLY figured this out. When Dan left Colorado, he made it clear that long-distance shit just didn't work, but he still talked to me like we were a thing, and then when I told him a month later that I didn't want to know him or talk to him anymore because reasons, that felt like a more concrete break up, and that may have been why I did it, but then he had his dippy moment of drunkenly telling me to stay in Michigan with him forever and then NEVER MENTIONING IT AGAIN and then breaking my heart all over again, but I hung on because that's what I did, and then he called me a couple of weeks after that to tell me that he hadn't been a very good person to me and I let him fucking have it and not get a word in edgewise because hi, have we met? And did that count as a break up? I don't know if any of it did. I heard Dan call me his girlfriend twice: once after he came home from Afghanistan, and once off-handedly when I was in Michigan, but I could tell by the look on his face that he answered "yes" when someone asked if I was his girlfriend more because it was easier than explaining the truth to someone who probably didn't care very much. I really remember that, too. At that stupid party I went to with him and felt so awkward at, but I also remember these three dudes with just the most outrageously fucking foxy bodies, so it wasn't a total loss. I don't think we ever had a real relationship, and I think that's more Dan's fault than mine, I just enabled his bad behavior but I've strayed from the point. Let's say it this way instead: if Dan and I hadn't stopped doing whatever the fuck it was we (read: I) were doing, I wouldn't have proceeded to go on the world's most HILARIOUS crusade for all the dicks I could gobble, and I wouldn't have met Derek.

The dick gobbling crusade was marvelously successful. I feel fairly confident that I fucked my way through at least 75% of the 25-30 male age group in Colorado Springs, and at least 10% of Denver's, and I did it with aplomb. The highlight of all of this was...wait for it....the first one night stand I had after Dan left. I had been fucking this guy Brian pretty regularly since before Dan left, because I was just making sure I had options available and I am not a bad person for that, but Brian was someone I was comfortable-ish with, it didn't feel like an official end to something with Dan like a one night stand did. I had a one night stand with this dude who....I mean, seriously, he couldn't have been worse if I had written him myself. His name was Dan, he had the same position the Dan had held in army, he had so much in common with Dan, BUT he was WAY fucking hotter, and way more sexually aggressive. I slept with him, he asked me to spend the night with him, I declined and left immediately and I just BAWLED on my way home. I cried because he wasn't Dan, I cried because I knew everything was really over, and I cried because I had let some dude hit me rapid fire in the face with his penis. Twice. Like...have you seen those videos of cats attacking something SUPER fast with their paws? It was like that, but not funny, because it was with a penis, and also because it happened to me and not someone else. I listened to John Secada and Sage Francis's song Bridle in the car on repeat. I listened to Bridle on repeat for hours when I got home, even though it was 2am. I felt emboldened. I got on Facebook and sent a message to Sage Francis about how I was really struggling to cope with my personal life at the moment, and I really loved his music and thought he was supremely talented, and I connected to a lot of his songs, but Bridle was my shit at the moment...AND HE FUCKING WROTE BACK. He was so fucking nice and supportive and gracious. I remember him ending his message with "chin up, Gal Galileo. You won't stay down for long, just look for that silver lining."

The parade of mediocrity through Boner Town, where I was the mayor, really started to drag on my nerves. After thirty or so one night stands, it all starts to blend at the edges. Like a wax painting made of dicks and bad conversation. I remember telling Allen that I was unhappy, and I was lonely, but I felt stupid admitting I was lonely because I had spent years trying to be unattached, and all of that bullshit had landed me in a whole heap of crushed feelings.

Allen called me a faggot. True story, direct quote.

I ran for President of Boner Country, and won unopposed, dated The Swede for a hot minute, dated some other dude whose name escapes me, fucked my friend Brian and ruined that friendship because the sex was awkward and I hadn't wanted to sleep with him I was just bored and anxious to feel SOMETHING, started a really fucking weird fling with my friend Ian against my better judgment because I am a trash monster and also I was bored and I laughed so fully at him asking me to text him a picture of my asshole that like...duh, of course we fucked sometimes. Met Justin, felt my feelings stir just the slightest bit, and then met up with Derek. That's where Derek makes his grand entrance, and his timing was just so fucking bad.

I was still farting around with Dan whilst slip sliding on every crotch I could wiggle myself at, lying through my god damn teeth about my wanton ways to Dan because duh, no dude wants to change his mind about a girl who's pining for him but also fucking her way through the phone book just because she can. That was never in any love story I'd seen, and as they are the great documentaries of our time, I played coy and made myself so god damn available that looking back on it hurts my feelings. My ovaries tense up and my teeth clench because how god damn desperate and sad of me, but that's who I was after Dan. I was desperate and fucking sad. In every way a person can be sad. Pathetic and always on the verge of tears. So when Derek came along, and he was so plucky and upbeat and kind to me and upfront with me and wore his situation on his sleeve, I was so turned off. YUCK, ammiright? Where's the chase? If I don't go into a relationship knowing I'll need therapy for years when I get out of it, there's just no point.

Derek offered to take me on a trip to Durango, driving out to Texas for the first sunrise on the road, then heading to Durango, going to Silverton, going to Mesa Verde, all to take photos and enjoy each other's company, all on his dime. I said I'd go, but very begrudgingly, and the day before we were supposed to leave, I was talking to Allen and lamenting having to go on this trip and ugh, I just didn't wanna go did I have to go? Derek wasn't Dan, wah wah wah, and Allen got so fucking irritated with me, and he was like, "Jesus fucking christ, Drea, you have dated every asshole and how has that been for you? I'd like to think I am the best guy you've dated, but even I suck and was horrible for you. How about you go after someone who just fucking likes you, dude? Don't be a fucking moron, go on the god damn trip."

I'm paraphrasing, but he was right. So I went, and I lied about who I was with and what I was doing to Dan, because I am just the fucking worst and when I said I was hung up, I fucking meant it. Like, I meant it the most. And for the record, I don't even understand why. Dan was kinda garbage. And not in that I'm So Bitter kind of way, I mean he was seriously trash adjacent, like a raccoon but not even close to as adorable or lovable, and I do NOT want to feed him grapes. I don't even want to feed him cat food, I kinda hope he does nothing but suck eggs for the rest of his life because Dan aint shit. He had...has, I'm sure...a lot of qualities that I find exceptionally attractive in men. He had a penis, that's a plus, he was smart, he was cocky but I think he had a vastly over inflated sense of self worth, and he had a high sex drive that matched mine, except fucking him was a boring chore. You guys, I fucking obsessed over that man for YEARS, what the actual fuck. I never lied to Derek about being torqued in the head over Dan. In fact, I told Derek that I couldn't give him what he wanted because I was just wasting away over some tall, skinny fucktwat living in Michigan that gave approximately a quarter of a fuck about me when it was convenient and ignored my existence when it wasn't. I told Derek to date other people. When he asked me about exclusivity, I remember having a fucking panic attack while I was driving back home from Stevie's and texting him back as fast as I could NO NO NO, SLOW YOUR FUCKING ROLL. I kept shit open, not because I didn't like Derek, I did. That was the worst part. I really liked Derek. A LOT. Derek was hot as fuck (and still is. My husband is forty fucking two and looks like a god damn 30 year old, and it is both a turn on and also deeply upsetting that I look older than a man who is almost a decade my senior), smart, really funny, fun, thoughtful, adventurous, and not at all embarrassed to be seen with me, unlike other dweeby cunts that shall be named, Daniel Christian Jacobson, birthday November 27th 1984, last known location Michigan and he is a terrible person that I will forever maintain owes me so many apologies.

There wasn't anything I didn't like about Derek, except for the annoying fact that he wasn't Dan, even though I was angry with Dan. I just wanted Dan to love me back, and I pushed Derek away waiting for that shit. Whether it was intentional or not, Dan kept tossing morsels my way and I kept utilizing Derek's time and energy, lying to Dan about it but telling Derek the truth about it, and playing both ends against the middle, feeling seriously fucking hollow and depressed. I played this ridiculous game for months, and then I got into my accident.

It makes me laugh to say "my accident" because seriously, it was a slow car bump into a wall in a parking garage. I just happened to break my arm at 7 miles per hour, because I am nothing short of freakishly brittle of bone in my left arm.

While I was in the hospital, my mom called everybody she knew to call, like my job, and Allen, and my friends, but she didn't contact Derek, because in her defense, I had literally over 100 phone numbers for dudes in my phone, and she wouldn't have known where to start. It was Allen that told Derek I got into a car accident, I don't even know how he did that, I just know he did. It pushed my travel time back to Colorado back by almost two weeks. I was in the hospital for days and days, had surgery, got molested by a nurse (fun!), got released, and once I got back to my mom's, I jumped onto my laptop and reported my accident to Dan, who gave half a fuck for half an hour, and then that was that, and I was so put out. I was so fucking upset by how very little he cared, and I remember him asking me "were you wearing a seat belt?" and my head went BITCH THIS IS YOUR QUESTION?? I was so angry that his first reaction wasn't WILL YOU BE MY GIRLFRAN 4EVA NOW THAT U HAVE X-CAPED DEATH??!?!?!?!?! And I got it. The second of three clicks clicked and I was just kind of taken aback and I felt very stupid for chasing someone who couldn't even ask the prerequisite " are you ok" even though, duh, I was ok, I was telling him I had been in an accident from the comfort of a laptop. I wasn't critical, but still, pro tip: ask if people are ok. They want you to ask.

I spent the next few days playing Scrabble with Adam, and chatting with Derek, and taking pictures of my extremely fat and swollen hand because it looked like the rear end of a chubby baby and it made me laugh. When it was finally time for me to go home, I didn't want to, because I was in so much pain and going home meant doing things on my own and I threw several tantrums in the airport. That is upsettingly a true story, my mom can attest. I hollered and cried and I had to dose myself on percocets and get walked onto the plane because I was dazed and I was hurting and I didn't want to be there, and under all of that I was sad about Dan, but, and this is important, that was fleeting. I was upset that I had wasted so much time on Dan, and I cried about that for maybe an hour on the flight, and then I cried for all of the time I had wasted pining over someone who was never going to love me instead of spending time with someone I might be able to love openly and without shame, and then I thought about Derek, and I cried because he was the only person in the world I wanted to see. I wanted to see Derek so fucking badly and I wanted to tell him I was so sorry for being such a dummo, and that he was way better than Dan and I was so grateful for his patience, and could he maybe just let me start over because I can be a really good girlfriend. I came out of my percocet and tears stupor about an hour before the flight landed, and then, when I got off of the plane, there was Derek, waiting for me at the gate, and I really do remember all of this, I felt so fucking relieved. Like the biggest weight had been taken off of me. Pretty sure this weepy weeperson cried more than a little when I saw Derek waiting for me. I was wearing this stupid blue cover dress meant for lounging by the pool, but it was all I could put on due to my broken body, I was holding a pillow, I had a pillow in my good hand, and I wished so hard that I looked beautiful in that moment. I looked worse than the picture I am painting. Derek had his arm brace on, he looked so handsome, and I had never in my life been happier to see another human being. Not even Dan when he came back from Afghanistan. I think the only thing in the world that could top my absolute and complete joy and love for seeing Derek when I got off the plane would be if I ever get to see my daughter and give her a hug. Other than that, I feel pretty confident that was the happiest I've ever been seeing someone.

And Derek told me....months ago, when I started this blog...that he had no idea. He had no idea that he was the only person I wanted to see, and I knew it on the plane, and I knew it even more once he was there waiting for me at the gate. I thought I had told him that, but it was a watershed moment for me. Maybe that was when I figured out I loved Derek, I don't quite know, but I know it was important, and I know on that rainy flight home back from Alabama that I wanted to be with Derek more than I wanted my arm to not be broken.

I undid all of the shit I told Derek, in time. I had spent a long time being the Dan to his Drea, except to my credit, I was upfront about it, I never mislead Derek. Maybe I did, I can't say for sure, but I was as honest with him as I could be. As overjoyed as I was after my accident, and as much as I relaxed and relished in being with a man who really tried to meet my emotional needs instead of trample all over them because I was an easy target, I still had a tiny little bit of Dan stuck in my craw. I figured out I loved Derek and told him so (I said I love you first, because I am a modern woman who may not NEED no man, but definitely likes having one and it is ok to admit that), but with that revelation came a renewed sense of confusion over why I wasn't worth Dan loving me. And I wanted to ask him. I spent months trying to pick up the nerve to ask Dan why he didn't love me, but I didn't want to upset the apple cart. I had been plugging along, being friendly with him and being far more casual about it; we were watching some trashy reality dating show, as he was who I did that with, because Derek wasn't interested and neither was Allen, and he made an off-hand comment about how if we had gotten married I would still be his wife, but he said it in a way that had weight. It was an intentional admission, and it was like a busted can of sterno directly into my asshole, so I asked him what the fuck he would say something like that for, because years ago when I had told him if he had given me any indication that he wanted to marry me for real, I would have done it. I was angry. I wasn't sad, though I did cry a bit during the conversation. Dan told me of COURSE he loved me, and he had wanted to marry me, he just didn't know how to say it. He said he still loved me, and I asked him why he didn't do anything about it, and to be honest, I don't remember his answer. Because I didn't really care (though I don't think he really gave me an answer that was an actual answer, just more verbal waffle from America's Favorite Asshole).

I got upset after that conversation with Dan. Real upset. Ugly cry upset. I had waited for years for that validation, it felt like bullshit, and that was my third click. That was the final nail in a coffin comprised of nothing but nails, and after a few hours of stewing, I called Derek and told him we should get married (modern fucking woman, you guys! I am the modernest about my approach to antiquated social rituals!), and he said we could talk about it when he got home, because he was off Christmasing with his daughter, but I said nuts to that, mother fucker, we will discuss this NOW.

And five years later, here I am, married to Derek because Dan was a disregarding prick. Derek also credits Dan with us being married, because he thinks that if I hadn't gone through all of that with Dan, I wouldn't have been able to handle being in a relationship with him. Pretty sure he's right on about that.

As a final note for this, I realize I write about Dan a lot in here. Derek says I talk about him a lot, too. In case it isn't clear, it's not because I miss Dan, or I still love Dan, or I'm still hung up on him. I'm still processing all of whatever it was we had. It's important to me that I suss out what I'm responsible for, so I can forgive myself for how much damage I let him do to me, and so I can forgive myself for how little I loved myself because getting his love meant more, and so I can stop making excuses for Dan, because I've blamed myself for all of it for a long time. All of the damage I'm carrying around from that, and it is a lot because that relationship cracked me open in the worst ways, I placed all of the blame at my feet instead of figuring out where it all rightly went. I got lucky with Chris and Allen, I know where those relationships went wrong, and while I blame Chris 95% for our relationship ending and I blame Allen 50% for our relationship ending, they were easy to figure out. I didn't have to wonder, because they weren't clandestine with their humanity like Dan was. Dan let me fall on the sword, and while I don't resent him, that is a lie. I definitely do. But figuring this kind of thing out is tricky, and I'm still working through it.

I get triggered sometimes because Derek has some of the same tendencies now that Dan had then, and it scares me a lot. He's grown to be cavalier with my feelings more often than I ever thought he would, he blames me for a lot of the problems we have instead of sharing culpability and seeing where I'm coming from, and he doesn't really see that I need more from him even when I ask him for it directly, but he knows I'm not going anywhere. The line gets blurred between Derek and Dan, and it's terrifying. I've thought, in anger, about rage screaming to Derek that he's just like Dan, because that is the highest insult to me. Dan was the worst man I've ever been with, and considering my thoughts on my daughter's father, that is a mighty fucking man to dethrone, but Dan stole that shit with the quickness, and exceptionally easily. I don't know if it hits for Derek like it does for me. I wonder sometimes if it hurts Derek that I still don't have my Dan shit figured out, and I would feel bad if it does, because it isn't about Dan, it's about me, Dan was just there for all of the me shit I'm trying to figure out, which is unfortunate, because I would love to stop thinking about the biggest failure of a decent human being I've ever known. I am dying to shut that book forever, and I've neglected to get a therapist to help me work through it, because I am still trying to work through my daughter, and through my parents, and through the myriad ways I've fucked up my life on my own without adding that into the mix, but maybe it's time, because I still have so many questions, and Dan hasn't spoken to me in years. Maybe he thinks I'm as truly awful as I think he is.

And in fairness, I really, really am.