The conversation that needs to be had

A woman came into the news recently because she retracted her statement claiming that she had been gang-raped. I'm not 100% sure of the details so I can't comment on her case specifically, but my opinions on the subject still matter.

My opinion may be different given my perspective on this issue, but there are few people in my eyes as scummy and repulsive as people who make fake rape claims. How dare you? How fucking dare you? You are the reason that the world keeps quiet because they're scared of not being believed. You are the reason that rapists walk free. You make up these stories for whatever reason and because of you people will continue to be assaulted and raped. The world will continue to suffer because of people like you.

I had a conversation with someone last night who said that they feel sorry for the woman involved in the situation in question, and I was so angry that I said I wouldn't have the conversation with them, with anyone at all, but that's not true. This is a conversation that needs to be had and I will continue to have it until my perspective is no longer shocking. What are people scared of? I was scared. I put my life on hold to make sure no one was at risk anymore. I changed the world. I kept people safe and you're telling me that you feel bad for someone who is being punished for lying, for retracting their statement? It's not a case of character, of not wanting their lives to be upturned for the sake of making someone pay for their actions. If you care more about yourself more than the lives of others, I don't know what to say to you.

In the latest season of you *spoiler alert* a woman is reluctant to report a paedophile because of what the media will say. Really? You would rather save face than keep people safe? What the fuck is wrong with you? For ages, I said I was glad it was me. I was happy that it was me instead of someone who wouldn't have been strong enough to make sure the man that raped me never hurt anyone again. Bullshit, fucking bullshit. I don't care who you are, you should, as a human being, want to keep people safe.

One of my pet peeves is celebrities that claim they have been raped or assaulted in the past. What, you were worried your career was at risk? You would rather become famous than make sure it didn't happen to anyone else? There is no excuse there. I did it, I kept people safe. You don't get to use a desire to have the career of your dreams as a means of justifying the fact that you didn't want the people in question to pay for what they did.

I did it, everyone else is just as capable as me as reporting people. Not everyone will be brought to justice, but people will know.

No more excuses.

xXx

My top five favourite albums, for absolutely no reason

As a result of the fact that I haven't even remotely been taking care of myself lately, haven't eaten an hot meal since Tuesday and managed to sleep for nearly 36 hours, I need cheering up today, so I'm going to write a post that really doesn't mean anything, but it's fun. I present to you, five of my favourite albums. In no particular order.

The Killers, Sams Town 

You ever remember the first time you heard a song? When, regardless of how long ago or obscure the memory is, the fucker is still there? The day I heard this song it was cunting it down, truly cunting it down. I was walking home from school in the rain and I remember being particularly pissed at my cousin's boyfriend at the time for driving past me without offering to give me a ride.

The perils of the personalised number plate. I knew your car Johnathon.

Anyway, I got home, soaked and sat on my living room floor, wrapped in towels watching TV and then When you were young started to play. I don't remember exactly why I liked it. Maybe it was the video, maybe it was the song itself, who knows, but I loved it and, subsequently, the album.

Maroon 5, Songs about Jane

This one I don't remember the day, but I do remember the song. She Will Be loved, which my angst ridden pre-diagnosis brain, related to as I had already subconsciously decided that all I wanted in the entire world was to feel like I was loved. From that spurned a love of the album, that I'd listen to over and over and over again regardless of the fact that a) I didn't really understand any of the lyrics and b) even if I did I really shouldn't have been singing them. It produced some of the greatest tunes of my youth and for that, I thank it.

Placebo, Meds 

My actual first encounter with Placebo didn't start with this particular album, but with a mix CD I somehow managed to steal off a guy I had a massive crush on in year 7 on a bus ride to a school trip to Pleasure Wood Hills (hi Sean, by the way). It contained the glories of Welcome to My life by Simple Plan and the iconic Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance and I will forever be thankful for the guy that I may or may not take some time to Facebook stalk later on this afternoon.

The first album from them I then came to posses, a birthday present from my mum's boyfriend, was Meds. If I'm honest, the most recently released album of theirs I actually liked and the disk that allowed my to first here a version of Pierrot the Clown with such a spectacular note change that I've replayed on Youtube more times than I can count. It's beautiful, and I would still bone the shit out of Brian Molko.

No Doubt, Rock Steady 

Fun fact, this is the first album I ever bought. I'd been searching for Dirty by Christina Aguilera on single (fuck my life that makes me feel old) but it hadn't been released yet. Instead I went to my second choice and found Hey Baby on the aforementioned album and No Doubt was purchased instead. 

The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground 

We return once again to remembering the first moment we ever heard a song, and therefore remembering the first time I heard an album. I was balls deep in the first round of my eating disorder, walking around the outside of a rug that had once lived in my living room and sobbing to myself listening to Candy Says. The opening line, Candy Says, I've come to hate my body was the only way I could think to describe how I felt about, funnily enough, my body. My mum was ill, I was ill, and the desire to lose pound after pound after pound was relentless. I'm not going to go into my eating disorder right now, this is not want this post was about but, that song, I still and will always love.

It's about a woman named Candy Darling btw, just incase you were wondering. 

xXx

Proximity

I want to do my best to post a little more throughout December, a 12 days of blogmas if you will. I can't promise I'll get through a full 12 but, to kick things off, here's a guest post from the author of the crime thriller novel Proximity, Jen Tugwell. 

Proximity: A crime thriller set in a world that suffocates us in safety by Jem Tugwell

When I wrote my debut novel, Proximity, I was worrying about where the current technology advances would take us, and how a government might misuse it to suffocate us in safety.

Sound farfetched? In the last few days, I’ve been warned that my hot drink is hot. Warned to hold onto the handrail on the stairs. Warned at an indoor ski-centre with real snow, that snow is slippery.

These days, technology is at the heart of everything, but rather than focussing solely on the technology, Proximity is a thriller that uses it to add another dimension to the crime story. 

The technology imagined in Proximity provides the convenience of no keys, no identity theft and no passwords to remember. The characters are healthier because their calorie and fat levels are monitored, and their hearts are constantly scanned for issues. Because the government knows where they are all of the time, the police solve nearly every crime very easily. Murders, mugging, stabbings and theft drop to nearly zero when the perpetrator is guaranteed to get caught. 

So far so good.

But, like in real life, political expediency overwhelms the naivety of scientists and technologists. A system designed to enhance people’s lives, becomes a control system.

Fiction mirrors fact as the physical person and their data twin are more and more inseparable. I hope that Proximity challenges the reader to recognise the importance of their data and the potential implications of sharing it.

The main plot of Proximity is a crime thriller. It is designed to be a fast-paced, entertaining read, but during the police investigation into a ‘impossible’ killing, Proximity asks the reader to think about how technology might be used and abused. 

How would you feel if the government collected data of your activity levels, your intake of calories, alcohol, fat, etc.? It would allow health professionals to make you healthier. Insurance companies would reward you with lower premiums. Great, but things can easily turn, so that medical professionals and insurers use our data against us. What if they think you are taking too many risks? Will they claim that your illness is ’self-inflicted’ and use it as a justification for denial of service? Will the reward for healthy behaviour become an obligation? Will it be ‘no insurance unless you conform’? Is a longer, dull life better than a shorter, more exciting one?

Proximity allows an examination of how our lives might look inside a fast-paced crime thriller. The positives and negatives. The moral dilemmas. It is a near-future could be just a few steps away. Almost an alternate now - a world where, 'You can't get away with anything. Least of all murder.' Hopefully, it doesn’t act as a design template for our politicians.

Skate away

When I first started mentioning my ex in my blog, I referred to him as Andy for reasons that involved bodies of water, T-pain and my love of the song Jizz in my Pants. For the purpose of the title of this blog post and the fact that the only Christmas album I really love is A Very Ally Christmas from the kick ass 90's TV show Ally McBeal, I'm finally going to tell you his name.

It's River.

We met on Tinder, as so many stable couples do, and I ended up living in the same building as him thanks to him being able to find me a spare room and my desperate need to stop living in hostels. From the beginning it hurt, it hurt a lot. I'm not good at getting close to people and I second guessed every interaction we had. I visited him one night whilst drunk and regretted it for weeks because he said that at first it was 'off putting'. I was convinced that every time he rolled over in bed to kiss me he was going to tell me he didn't want anything to do with me anymore and agonized for weeks over whether or not I should sleep with him regardless of the fact that I really wasn't ready.

Yeah, I'll fuck a one night stand senseless but it takes me weeks to be ready to bone someone that I like. Work that one out.

When River broke up with me, I already knew it was over. It had always been over, if I'm honest, in that I knew that I shouldn't have him in my life. I was too desperate to cling onto the idea of him, too afraid of ending things because of my utter terror at being rejected that I held on for so much longer than I should have. He'd only want to see me once a week, I couldn't tell anyone that we were together and he denied that there was anything between us despite him living with me for at least three weeks. When I met my friend Anna in New York we talked for ages about how he wasn't good for me and how I wanted to end things, but I still couldn't let him go.

Luckily for me I didn't have to, and I returned from New York to be told that he "couldn't handle" how I react to things and that he "couldn't be relied on by anyone for a social life." It hurt, it hurt a lot. I cried more than I can ever remember and became friends with my friend at the Irish bar near my house because I sobbed uncontrollably in her arms. I started cutting again, couldn't get out of bed and was in an amount of pain that I hadn't felt for years.

I also lost my job at the same time, which was nice.

Bizarrely, thanks to a part of my brain that I"m really not fond of, I did actually see him again after that. He came over, and as we lay naked together in bed I tried desperately to convince myself that I was happy. I wasn't. I don't know if I ever really felt happy with him but at the same time I didn't want to let go. I was holding on to things that were irrelevant, tissues of anecdotes that meant nothing no matter how hard I wanted to them to. He didn't care about me, he never would and it would have meant nothing if he did because he was no good for me. As he left he told me that I made him feel uncomfortable, and I never saw him again.

No shit, he ghosted me.

It wasn't until I went to Montreal at the beginning of July that I really felt over him. I reached a place of pure euphoria as I danced barefoot to a live jazz band with an electric harmonica, sweaty and happy with the moonlight coming through the window and a queue of people wanting to dance with me. The band played The Doors on my request and it was, without a doubt, one of the best nights of my life. I finally, finally, felt over him and I experienced the kind of feeling that I only ever feel when I'm listening to live music. I felt free and happy and every time I think of that moment I smile. I loved it.

I've been thinking about him a lot lately, a lot a lot. I don't know if it's because someone has moved into his old room below me, if it's because I'm vaguely involved in someone else or for another reason I can't quite work out. I feel sad when I think about him, there's no hope or happiness involved, but he's there. I don't have any contact with him and, other than an Instagram account I've been blocked from following, I have no way of contacting him. I don't want us to speak, speaking to him won't do me any good and I know that, but the idea is still there.

xXx

One day

I just saw that someone I follow on YouTube did a "day in the life with gastroparisis" video and I decided I wanted to write one of my own. About BPD obviously, because whilst I have destroyed my stomach and shit myself from time to time, I don't have gastroparisis.

Anyway, here's a day in the life of someone with BPD, ish.

Morning: Wake up, or at least try to. You're exhausted. You're always exhausted, and you always will be exhausted. You're medication is brutal but without it you can't function. So have at it baby Jane, it's time to suck it up and haul ass out of bed.

Morning pt 2.: You take aforementioned medication. It may not be unusual for you to contemplate not taking it but, as with anything that you're body relies on, withdrawal is a bitch and you really like being able to communicate and function, so you knock them back. You also take a shower and have breakfast because, after over a decade of living with an eating disorder, you actually don't mind eating first thing and won't blame that for anything bad that may happen that day.

Don't get too comfortable, it won't last forever.

Morning pt 3 to somewhere in the afternoon: Go to work. You struggle at your job, everything anyone says to you can be misconstrued as an insult and it takes a lot of strength to keep it together when you are losing control of your schedule and pay check. You're constantly paranoid that you're going to get fired and, on some occasions, you may feel the need to sob uncontrollably until your anger goes away. This is normal.

Not only this but you will be exhausted, physically and mentally exhausted. There is no amount of caffeine in the world that is ever going to rectify this, so get on with it. Your body hurts, your brain is spinning and forming sentences is a real struggle but, as people with BPD are known to be unlikely to hold down a job and you don't wish to become a statistic, you carry on.

After work: You get home, once again exhausted, and take a nap because there's no way your body can continue to function without rest. Whilst lying in bed you may cry, feel angry or personally attack or victimized by an event that has happened during the day, this is normal. There's nothing you can do about this and no amount of crying is going to fix how you feel but, as is the norm, you deal with the amount of emotions you are feeling as best you can and try to get on with your life.

Post nap: You wake up, you're still tired, and you contemplate getting up and having something to eat but the prospect of staying in bed and going back to sleep is more appealing to your exhausted brain and body, so you decide it's time to call it a day. If you're lucky you manage to brush your teeth, if you're really lucky you manage to take your makeup off. When all else fails you are, at the very least, likely to take your medication. You knock it back, lay your head down once again and call it a day.

Nunight

xXx 

Cirque de Boarderline

Roll up, roll up, come on inside. 

It's time for a magical borderline ride.

They're terrible people I hear them say, 

Well some may agree but I,say nay.

So read this list, count one to three

and learn how knowing us can benefit both you

and me

Bitch be sick at poetry

If you're basing your opinion on some evidence, my own behavior included, you may come to the conclusion that knowing a borderline is a massive pain in the g-spot. Not to be a traitor to my own brain but, if I'm honest, we can be complete assholes. But this doesn't happen all of the time. Whether you believe me or not, there are some benefits to having us in your life. 

So, without further a do, I present to you three reasons why being friends with a borderline is pretty kick ass. Mostly because the number three rhymes with me and it fit quite well in my poem. 

We will feel for you the way few people ever have or will

Being loved by a borderline is something unique, something that you really can't explain unless you yourself know what it's like to be consumed by a suffocating urge to devote your entire existence to the happiness of someone else. Can we hurt you? Yes, but we never want to. When you're loved by a borderline it truly is a love that will never be experienced by anyone else. You are our everything, our night and day and day and night and you will be for as long as we can make it possible. You may have been loved before, but there's nothing quite like being loved be a borderline. 

We will never lie about how we're feeling 

When it comes to rocking the BPD flag, there's no hiding behind our true colors. Emotionally, what you see is what you get whether you like it or not. There's no lying about emotions when it comes to BPD. If we're sad, we cry. If we're mad, we scream. If there's any other emotion in our hearts we can possibly express we will do it whether we want to or not. Parts of us are manipulative, there's no denying it, but when it comes to how we feel? It's as clear as night and day.

When we're done, we're done 

You know when you're a teenager and you can't tell if someone likes you and it goes back and forth and back and forth in your brain until it hurts so much you want to scream? Knowing a borderline, past a certain point, isn't like that.

When we first try and let go, it hurts, We want to hold you, clasp your fingers in ours and beg you to stay until we scratch and bleed and burn our skin and you're pulling away and there's nothing we can say or do or promise to make you come back. We want you, we need you and we really will do anything to have you.

But eventually, we're done.

When a borderline doesn't want you in their life anymore, you'll know it. There'll be no second guessing, no doubting, Whether you have any say in the matter or not once being in our lives isn't beneficial to us we can, and will, cut you out, Seemingly brutal at first but, if you think about it, who really wants someone in their lives if the person in question doesn't want to be there in the first place?

xXx

Boarderline Personality Doesn't, Pt 1

Earlier in the month I wrote a post about the things that my BPD causes me to do. Things I can't always control and that happen even if I don't want them to. Today, instead of focusing on more of the things that my BPD causes me to do, I thought I'd write a post about what it doesn't do. You know, for balance.

IT DOESN'T MAKE ME INCAPABLE OF LOVE 

This one may be a little hard to believe given my terrible love life, reluctance to discuss my feelings with people I feel affection for and my raging commitment phobia, but I am actually capable of forming relationships.

Whilst I've been in some terrible ones, I have also found myself caring for people in what could almost be described as a, GASP, healthy way. Relationships with people with BPD are not all necessarily doomed to fail and they won't lead the opposing party to have to undertake years of therapy in an attempt to remove the horrible memory of having ever interacted with a member of my kind. Can they be shitty? Yes, but so can all relationships. Whilst it's a factor that can be influenced, I'm not eternally destined to be alone forever.

Unless I choose so myself.


IT DOESN'T MAKE ME SELFISH 

Being called selfish is one of the things that gets to me the most because it really is a double edged sword. If by selfish you mean I focus on my own feelings as a way of protecting myself and going after what I want? Then yes I am selfish. If by selfish you mean I don't give a shit about others and never consider the feelings of those around me, then no I'm not.

By putting the man who raped me in prison, I undertook the most selfless act that I will ever have to do. Whilst I wanted him to be punished for what he did, I also wanted to make sure he could never do it again. Thanks to me, he can't hurt anyone anymore and he is being punished for what he did to others. It's not just me that benefited from his incarceration, but everyone he'd hurt in the past and anyone he may have hurt in the future. I sacrificed my health, my degree and my happiness to put him behind bars and it baffles me that some people still feel they have the right to call me selfish.

It also baffles me that people use the "oh xxx could have affected my career" as a reason to not report those that attacked them, but that's another story.

IT DOESN'T MAKE MY FEELINGS INVALID 

I've been struggling with this one a lot lately and actually reaching out to people for help and advice when I'd normally try to ignore it. I'd like to be clearer about how I describe it, but it's 2019 and the world can't keep its mouth shut so there are going to be a few euphemisms in there.

Recently I was at, lets say the zoo, when I had a problem with a particularly difficult moose. This moose does not like me and feels the need to harass and complain about me over the fact that I once asked said moose not to move a gate. I have no problems with any of the other moose in the zoo, this one is just a cunt. And not in a good way.

Anyway, I ended up having a meeting with the head zookeeper and one of the supervising zoo keepers who I'd also been having a problem with, which essentially became 30 minutes of me being told I was wrong about how I'd perceived things.

Quelle Suprise

Now, interpreting situations differently is one of the key symptoms of BPD, but that doesn't mean my reactions are always wrong. The supervising zoo keeper has been treating me badly, but instead of supporting me the head zoo keeper said it was my fault for interpreting it in that way. As someone with BPD is difficult to trust your feelings, particularly when you don't often know what they are. But, whilst I may sometimes react in ways that others would not, I am also able to interpret situations correctly. Just because I might interpret things in the wrong way most of the time, it doesn't mean I can't be right some of the time.

xXx