#liwl.txt

[bakedbakermom]

psychiatrist still won't prescribe me stimulant medication for my adhd even though i know it works for me with no side effects except insomnia, which i've had since i was 6 and can be easily dealt with.

i am so tired. i am so tired of failing at life. i am tired of feeling trapped inside my own head and unable to function as a human being. i am so tired of experimenting with meds that may or may not work and may or may not come with debilitating side effects (and they always do, because i'm me, and i always get the bad side effects), when i know there's something out there that actually helps, a little blue pill that makes life--if not easy--at least within reach of possible. that's all i want: possible.

but i can't just say "i want my fucking adderall" because then i look like an addict, and the last thing doctors want to give an addict is the medicine they're addicted to, apparently; i guess being addicted to being a functional human being is frowned upon these days.

i know addiction and abuse are common with stimulant meds. i appreciate her caution. but i am 37-year-old woman who has never held a steady job, who can't keep her fucking house clean, who is trapped in a cycle of self-loathing that is just barely short of crippling. i just want help, and all she's doing is prescribing anti-anxiety meds and telling me to quit smoking weed (which has done more for my anxiety than anything i've ever tried and can be grown in my own backyard in this state).

i am giving her one. more. try. with this new medication and if she still won't help me, won't give me what i actually need, i'm finding a new psychiatrist.

[bakedbakermom]

Hey teacher if you actually think taking a socially isolated six year old, sitting her down with the class, and then letting them talk about ALL THE THINGS THEY DON'T LIKE ABOUT HER is an acceptable way to treat a child then we do not have a different approach when it comes to child development, we have a different approach when it comes to being a human fucking being.

I Do Not Care what class rules she struggles with, that is abuse.

Hearing my daughter cry for the last few days as she recounts what she's feeling in that classroom... I can't explain what that feels like. When she was born, and I held her for the first time, I was Changed. I've tried to explain it so many times and the best I've got is. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. When his heart grew three sizes and it broke the little box? I felt that. I felt my heart growing inside me as a physical sensation so strong it was almost painful. It's beyond words.

The pain I feel for her now is beyond words in the same way. I am physically sick for her. She has been pouring her heart out to me. The phrases she uses:

I just curled up in a ball at my seat and was crying. Teacher may was well have written "Talk about Stupid (name)" on the whiteboard.

I'm worried I'll never be able to be happy at school again, and then maybe I'll never be able to be happy at all ever again.

Imagine if someone took a tiny baby, and they just put it in the trashcan. Teacher does that to me over and over.

Teacher only talks to me when I'm doing something wrong, I'm scared to go talk to her when I need something.

I'm a good kid! I know I am! Why can't Teacher see the angel in me?

I'm always crying at school and I hate it because they all think I'm a baby.

Teacher is always frowning at me. I hate my whole life right now, except my parents.

And she was singing the "I Wish I Wasn't Different" song from the Movies episode of Bluey. And she's got a fucking stress rash on her hand because she can't stop picking at herself.

SHE'S SIX FUCKING YEARS OLD.

I am astounded by the depth of her pain and I'm only feeling the echo of it in that piece of my heart she made.

This woman made my child feel that. To say I am incandescent with rage is barely scratching the surface.

I kept her out of school today (and gave her the best self-care a 6yo could ask for*) and feel massively guilty I haven't taken more action much sooner. She WILL NOT be made to feel this way one more goddamn minute. Tomorrow we talk to the principal and we will make them make this right.

* Last night she was telling me it felt like her heart used to be all pink and happy and now it's blue and has a frowny face and tears falling down, and then it broke in half and now this half is all the way down in my KNEE (I am raising a delightfully dramatic child).

So today, we had a Fix Daughter's Heart Day. I let her download a few cute but dumb apps on her tablet and she got to play them in her jammies during breakfast - that alone broke 3 boring routines that she finds tedious. We went to Build A Bear. Frankly, we went a little nuts at Build A Bear. We got junky mall food for lunch. We went to the little candy store that has "disappointing gummy BEARS but the best gummy WORMS in the whole world."

We stopped at the grocery store and got a little bit of junk food, a stuffed toy from the impulse aisle, she picked out a card for her dad for valentine's day, and we chose the stuff to make her favorite dinner, which is also the one she likes to help with - she pushes the switch on the Cuisinart to shred the cheese, it's adorable and slightly terrifying and she is drunk with power, giggling the entire time. She got downtime to craft and color and read while I cooked and helped her with words.

And the whole time, we talked. That was the best part. She talked to me, and I talked with her, good stuff and bad stuff and silly stuff and sweet stuff, and I swear we really Saw each other today.

I checked in with her about the color of her heart a bunch of times throughout the day. (Her answers were incredibly specific, btw.) Tonight at bedtime she said it was all the way pink again, and it was shaped like a cat and it was purring and making biscuits.

I am trying my ass off to be the mom I wish I'd had, the mom she deserves, the mom who protects her and uplifts her and cheers her on and comforts her and teaches her. This shit is HARD. This shit is WORTH IT, but this shit is hard.

[bakedbakermom]

The worst part about Mother's Day is seeing the gushy shit my sister posts about our mom, alongside photos of her hugging my nephews. "You gave me all the best parts of me" yeah bc she was a narcissist and you imitated her until you became her because that was the only way she'd love you. God I feel fucking sick.

[bakedbakermom]

After barely being able to eat for 2 weeks, the urge the weigh myself is nearly unbearable but I KNOW IT WON'T MAKE ME HAPPY no matter what the scale says and I know losing weight doesn't make me a worthy person and I know weight loss from illness/injury is nothing to celebrate and I know it will come back on once I can eat again which will be depressing and I know that seeing the number go down will make me want to make it go down more which is a Bad Thing I know I know I know all these things BUT I WANT TO DO IT ANYWAYYYYYYYY

plz throw some support my weigh way if you can spare it i'm struggling and i hate asking but 🥺

[bakedbakermom]

The thing about my mom is. I have felt guilty for not being good enough for her since literally my first memory. (They say I was too young but I remember.) I have never been up to her standards, because I have never been her enough. I tried, oh fuck how I tried. I tried to be every damn thing she ever wanted. I was always so, so terrified she'd leave again if I failed. I pushed down piece after piece of myself until I was choking on it.

So when she texts me to tell me about a new mermaid show on Netflix after not seeing me in over 2 years, forgetting my daughter's birthday, and spending our entire mother's day conversation complaining about her life. Like. I don't quite know what to write back.

[bakedbakermom]

Tumblr Fam I am in a quandary. I need to build a website for my small business because trying to do it all via social media is murdering my soul one slice at a time. I want to use neocities because that's the version of the web I know best.

I recently found an old hard drive that has my entire old website on it, which I built by hand in html and css in the 00s.

The problem? It was my eating disorder site. (Yeah, I ran one of those. A big one. Please don't hate, I was suffering really badly and honestly without the connections I made there I would have killed myself before 20.)

It was beautifully built, but I know if I go look at it and try to rebuild a new site off of the files there, I will be triggered as fuck. Just finding the folders on the hard drive was a shock and brought up some stuff I'd rather not dwell on.

I know there are pages, images, and files I can delete without looking through, and then I can get into the guts of the code and take what I need with minimal harm to my mental health. But I don't know, even now when I've been in recovery for over a decade, if I can bring myself to let go of them. Believe me when I say my ED was my entire life. My entire identity was centered around it. To delete those files feels like cutting off a part of myself.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I just needed to put it out there into the void. If anyone has advice or just support or a "sorry that sucks" to throw my way, I'd very much appreciate it.

[bakedbakermom]

Kiddo and I just had an Uptown Funk dance party and then she read me a bedtime story about otters. These are the moments I dreamed of when I thought about being a mom.

[bakedbakermom]

okay so i NEVER spend money on myself, i never dress up... 90% of my wardrobe comes from target and i have a huge guilt complex when it comes to money. BUT there is a semi-formal family dance thing coming up that my daughter desperately wants to go to and she insists i dress up properly. my husband practically shoved me at the personal stylist at nordstrom and told me to fancy it up. an absolutely enormous thanks to Pam for finding styles and even properly guessing my size (which i have neither known nor wanted to know in several years) and finding me adorable and comfortable flats that won't mess with my knee. kiddo is going to be dressed like a princess and for once i actually feel like a queen ❤️

[bakedbakermom]

It's a serious pain in the ass but I also firmly believe that my ADHD saved my life. When I was a kid, and horrible shit was going on around me, I could hide. I could go deep inside some hyperfixation and all the yelling and abuse just faded away. I was so invisible that it almost never turned on me.

Thanks, goblin.

[bakedbakermom]

Most days I'm fine being low- to no-contact with most of my family but days like today I just want to know WHAT DID I DO. WHAT IS SO FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG AND HORRIBLE ABOUT ME THAT YOU ALL THOUGHT IT WAS OKAY TO TREAT ME LIKE THAT and to continue to treat me like shit even now. Why am *I* the scapegoat? Why am *I* the forgotten one? Why do my siblings and their kids get showered in love and affection, while me and mine get the shaft left right and center??? The best I eeeeever get is a quarter-assed (not even half-assed!) throwaway pacification, just enough so they can tell themselves they're not horrible people but enough that *I* look like a bitch for not falling all over myself in gratitude.

[bakedbakermom]

kiddo has finished her second week of first grade and brought home some of the stuff she's been working on. so proud right now.

she also used and correctly spelled the word "soar"

[bakedbakermom]

Sometimes I honestly feel like a really crappy mom, and then out of nowhere my kiddo will show me just So Much trust and tenderness and ask me to sing her the lullaby I sang her as a baby and I just. I'm not fucking this up all the way. Sometimes for sure. But not all the times. And that's nice.

[bakedbakermom]

my mom is slowly dying. and i'm so fucking pissed at her. she is having problems with breathing and her oxygen level keeps dipping down. she can no longer drive or go up and down the stairs or do anything without getting winded and dangerously dizzy.

she blames it on allergies. the woman who has been smoking AT LEAST two packs a day for FIFTY FIVE YEARS insists that her copd and emphysema are from pollen. never mind that her symptoms exist in all seasons, never mind that it's been getting progressively worse for.... well she's had a horrible bone-deep death rattle of a cough my entire life so almost forty years. can't be the cigarettes. she couldn't possibly need to quit. she just needs to find the right allergy meds and she'll be fine.

am i horrible if i just want it to be over. i can't talk to her. i mean i literally can't - she can't talk for more than a few seconds without bursting out coughing. i haven't seen her in two years and at this point i don't even want to. i cannot sit and smile and pretend it's all fine when every cell in my body wants to scream at her to PUT OUT THE FUCKING CIGARETTE. i can't be in her house or even hug her because of the stench.

honestly quitting at this point is probably pointless because the damage has been done and it can't be undone. but she could stop making it worse. she could give half a shit about herself, or about the people who love her.

if she lives to see her oldest grandchild (12) graduate high school i will eat a piano.

[bakedbakermom]

i thought it had been one year since my parents saw the kiddo, but it's actually been two. they forgot her last birthday. i'm used to them ignoring me but it hurts so much to watch them forget about their grandchild. the good news is that kiddo doesn't know them enough to care about them enough to miss them.

i mailed a mother's day card this week and wanted to cry. they should make cards that say, "you were kind of crap as a parent and are definitely crap as a grandparent but i am socially obligated to get you a card so. here."

[bakedbakermom]

hey i'm nicely stoned and feeling much less like dying now. for some reason spring is really hard for me?? (studies have shown that spring is actually the highest time for s***cides, not winter/holidays) and i''m sort of falling apart physically right now. rsd was in full swing today because kiddo is hating the fact that i can't do jack shit right now. so even the things i can do, she doesn't care enough to do them and it's like baby, i'm sorry your mommy is broken, i want to be able to do better too, but i am giving you everything i have, every drop, and please can you let it be enough?

[bakedbakermom]

I have this cousin. We were exceptionally close when we were kids, as we were only 6 months apart in age and all the other cousins were at least 2 years older or younger. Plus our dads are twins and we lived - well, not close by, but an easy drive.

We even briefly attended to same college. I was deeeeeeeep in my eating disorder at the time, and cousin was basically my only friend (besides a boyfriend who was Bad News). At one point, shortly after our grandma died around spring finals, my cousin told me he could no longer be around me because it was too painful for him to see me wasting away. I didn't know at the time but he was also struggling with his gender identity and sexual orientation, and severely depressed himself, and probably didn't have the emotional bandwidth for my shit.

I've tried my best to forgive him for the hurt that caused but frankly? It still stings. I tried to rekindle our friendship once I got to a healthier place, but we were never the same and when I moved 600 miles from my hometown, I just sort of let him go.

Now it's 10 years later and he's tried twice in the last 2 months to contact me via FB and I just don't know what to do. I've left him unread, only seeing the preview of the messages, and there's some serious guilt tripping in them. He's always needed a lot of emotional support and caretaking, and I barely have enough Me to handle myself and my little family.

What am I supposed to say? Sorry but you abandoned me when I was dying and I've never forgiven you and I don't have the spoons to be your friend anymore? Ugh that feels so shitty but it's true.