Live as purely and honestly as possible.

I start to lie.

I start to hide.

When the feelings go dark. When they could hurt someone. Or hurt me. Make me feel out of control of the situation. Hopeless. Alone.

I also have children now, I don’t think I mentioned that either. Two. I probably started lying more once they came. I did.

How can you be honest with your emotions around children you are raising? Obviously they see it even when you hide it, repressed and coming out at them.

But how can you be a full human, with sadness and anger and paralyzing fear and hatred, around a two year old? A four year old?

How can you be a full human around a woman…….

Don’t edit. Don’t edit. Around a woman who you don’t like. Around a woman who…has emotions that you don’t like.

No editing. I have not allowed my wife to be honest with her emotions. They were too dark. They were too hopeless. They were constant. Constantly connected to a woman in pain. I pushed her away from me, or controlled her to not be sad or angry or hateful. Because it hurt me.

Me, who is all about honesty. Only selfishly.

It’s not flowing right now. When I was young it would just flow. I could just feel so deeply, so easily.

I…want to turn my brain off.

I went to Sundance this past week. Saw a lot of movies. Haven’t done that in a long time, since I got married/started running my business. My brain got to stop.

I hate myself. I always have, but, you know that.

I want to be known. That’s what drives me to be open. But I stopped wanting to be known. And I forget daily that that’s who I am.

I hate myself, but I didn’t feel it all the time growing up. This, was a blessing. It’s what Kanye says about himself, that his bipolar is his superpower. I realized about 3 years ago I had dissociated at a young age from dark shit. Pain, fear, anger, self-hatred — any feeling that made me feel out of control. Because I couldn’t get in control, and I couldn’t allow myself to stay out of control, so I just turned it off.

And forgot.

This is why my marriage is what it is. I had thought it was just dissociation in general but this trip to Sundance helped tremendously, it’s kind of crazy, to clarify what it I was dissociating from. My marriage, my children, my company, all force you to feel out of control all the time. I have essentially lost myself and ruined my life (while still looking good from the outside) because as a child I could not deal with how out of control of my pain I was.

During this trip, I realized I have controlled my wife’s bad side (anger, paralyzing sadness and fear) the same way I have controlled my own. And the same way I controlled my abusive father. And the same way I controlled my too close to me mother. And the same way I was starting to control my oldest son. Because these bad feelings are not okay because they are out of control.

It’s not having children or a wife that made me lie about them, or hide them — it’s the thing that brought them out. And then all I knew to do was lie and hide, curate my emotions so they were acceptable to me and others.

I have rarely been honestly, hopelessly, agonizingly sad in front of anyone. Because that feeling disgusts me.

I want to be known. On the trip to Sundance, I cried in an honest, hopeless, agonizingly sad way to my friend who I went with for about 5 hours. I’m changing. I’m “allowing” my wife to have whatever feelings she’s going to have. I feel awful sitting in them, but I’m giving up control.

In the entry, I have had moments where it flowed. Generally it did not. I think the thing that made it work back then is I wanted honesty, and to some degree I did not care how it made me look.

I am afraid the 3 people who read this will think I am a bad husband, that I controlled my wife. But it’s true. It was subtle, but it is how I survived. It is how I hurt her for 10 years. How to be honest when it makes you look bad. Maybe it was easier before because no one relied on me. No company, no wife, no children. Nothing to lose. That is actually how it felt. I’m being open now because everything is a mess, and being honest is the only way out. Everything to lose.

I just didn’t know I was lying before. To be as non-mysterious as possible and on the nose, my marriage pretty much re-triggered my childhood. And I fucking lied.

Being honest is the only way out.