BPD Life Hacks, OR, Penn Holderness is Daddy

This post is entirely based on the fact that I want Penn Holderness to stick his dick in me. However, he is happily married and I haven't knowingly slept with anyone in a relationship since an alternately enjoyable and concerning incident when I lived in Cambridge that involved bondage tape, leg restraints and hair washing. 

And I don't plan on doing it again. 

Anyway

He made a video about ADHD life hacks and some of them are really helpful for BPD. Or they would be if I'd slept in the past 5 days and had the mental capacity to implement them. So I thought that I'd create a list of BPD life hacks, despite hating the phrase life hacks but, as I said in the title, Daddy. 

Buy in bulk 

Be prepared to break and lose everything, you will break and lose everything. You can find pretty standard sunglasses, key chains, gloves etc online/in stores for like 2 bucks so stock up. 

Except don't go to stores if you don't have to you selfish cunt, because of Covid. 

BONUS ROUND. If you also hate yourself and your body, be on the lookout for magazines with free sunnies. You can simultaneously protect your eyes and destroy your soul. 

Accept that you may never find love

I have great friends around me and an amazing husband, but the thought of dating makes me want to go all Lucifer circa LillyMan86 and cut my own vocal cords. I don't like being around people for extended periods of time, I hate sharing my bed and I'm a completely selfish bitch, and that's okay. The sooner you accept the fact that you may die alone the better, then you can move on and get a hamster. 

BONUS ROUND PT 2. Unless, of course, you're like me and your fear of abandonment extends to being afraid of randomly finding your pets dead or whatever. Then maybe get some Sea Monkeys. 

Still a thing btw

This is completely unrelated, but this is what pops up when you search Pixabay for royalty-free Sea Monkey images and I'm happy about that. 

These cuties are from Glam Planner btw, they're Teeny and Bop: Phone Call stickers

Let people know 

There will be days when you don't want to talk to anyone, turn your phone off and sleep all day, and that's fine. Just let someone know. Otherwise, you may be woken up at 2 am by phone calls from your Mumma's boyfriend because you may have once left her a voicemail telling her you'd written your suicide note and she thought you'd offed yourself. 

Which totally didn't happen last week btw 

It's fucking embarrassing, get over it 

You will make a complete twat of yourself at times. For instance, you may release a YouTube video calling out a family member out for once telling you that you should be in therapy for being such a cunt. You may message someone telling them your aforementioned suicide note. Or you may post a video of yourself singing a cover of Cherry Bomb by The Runaways online with one of your tits hanging out. You have to get over this sense of shame, that way you'll have more time for your Sea Monkeys. 

Embrace your weird obsessions 

I am weirdly obsessed with grammar, I'm like Aunt Josephine from The Wide Window A Series of Unfortunate Events book. I also once watched The Riot Club and convinced myself no one loved me because I didn't own tinted lip balm and therefore had to go and get some in order to find love. I also once spent a good amount of time researching gastric band surgery because I was convinced I was eligible. You will get obsessed with things, some of these obsessions will stick, some will go. But hey, better to be obsessed with grammar than self-harming, right.

Also, I'm not eligible for gastric band surgery, in case you were wondering. 

So, to summarise; bulk, content, dying alone, embarrassment, obsessions, sea monkeys, daddy. 

xXx

My first time was rape

 

When I was 16, I went to a house party with my best friend at the time and lost my virginity, or so I thought. She was currently dating his best friend and lost her V plates to him that night, and in response he plowed me full of whisky, leaving me incapable of giving consent, and raped me on the bathroom floor of a house in Dersingham in order to get back at his sister. 

He and his friends mocked me, barging in and then licking the used condom covered in the blood that came when he broke my hymen. For the rest of the night, and from then on, he ignored me and I chalked it down to a bad first time. Thinking that it was normal. 

Oh, sweet girl, it was not. 

My best friend blamed me, thinking it was my fault and not acknowledging what he had done. To be fair, neither did I. I blamed myself for sleeping with her brother when, in reality, he had raped me and taken my virginity. The age of consent in England is 16 and I thought it was okay because it was legal. Regardless of his or my age, fucking someone when they don't have the ability to give informed consent? Rape. 

Ironically, even as I'm typing this I'm blaming myself. 

So many people, friends included, made fun of me. Made fun of the whole situation, and I pretended it didn't happen. I sat at the dinner table with him, thinking what he had done was okay and that him ignoring me was to be expected. That I should be embarrassed in front of his mother because I'd slept with her son. When in reality I was sitting at the dinner table next to the sister of the man that had raped me. 

I have, however, realized that I have been wrong. So wrong. When I was raped, for the second time, I believed that people who had taken years to say they were raped were full of shit. That I had come forward and reported the person that raped me and therefore so should they. In reality, I didn't realize that it could take people years to acknowledge, and understand, that they'd been raped. To those, I'm sorry, I'm very very sorry. 

Rob Lewis, you raped me. End of. 

xXx

Baby mine

 

I couldn't quite decide whether to post this on my main blog or my bpd blog, then I realized i didn't give a deep-fried shit and carried on typing. 

I've touched upon this topic before, but never really talked about it much. It's always been something I'd brushed off, pretended it didn't happen. But I have a lot of feelings now, so maybe I'll deal with part of it, but I probably won't. 

When I met Rob, it was through a guy that lived below him, his name was Jake. Dancing around the facts, eventually I ended up meeting his friend Olly who, unintentionally, got me pregnant. He didn't know, I didn't know, and no one found out until months later when I realized that the inexplicable bleeding I'd experienced the night after I took the morning after pill as a result of sleeping with someone else was more than just a bad period. There'd been a baby inside me. 

Now I've never wanted kids, I've always said I'd be a terrible parent, but the baby that I'd been pregnant with would have been turning 8 or 9 now. In my head, they either don't exist, or they're still a new born.  Hallucinating earlier, I thought they were in my arms and I placed what I thought was them in the back of my closet and taped the door shut, desperate to keep them safe. I still don't know how I should feel about, that's just it, I don't know what it's about. Do I say it? Do I say, child? The person I was with at the time I miscarried told me he'd kick a baby out of me if he found out I was pregnant and, at the time, I thought it was funny. Looking back, that wasn't funny, that was just an example of the kind of person he was. 

I'm tired now, and I don't really know how to feel this evening. But, whatever happens, I know that when I close my eyes I saw my baby, and when I wrapped my arms around them I wanted to keep them safe. 

xXx

Fancy a cuppa? Tea with Rasputin by Rolf Richardson

As a kid, I was obsessed with the movie Anastasia. I saw it god-knows how many times at the cinema, had all the toys I could possibly get my hands on, and even sported an Anastasia lunch box at one point. I also think that my love of the film is what spurned my all-consuming adoration of the iconic Angela Lansbury, who played the Dowager Empress Marie in the film. 

Aside from this, I have very little experience with anything even remotely Russian, unless you count the reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 7th grade, which I don't because I remember nothing about it. That is until I was sent Tea with Rasputin by Rolf Richardson to read last month. 

The book begins with Terry, a low-ranking member of a flight crew, being sent to locate missing pilot Gregory who disappeared along the Alaska-Russia border. Travelling to the US state, he investigates the pilots unexpected vanishing, meeting his future wife Coral along the way, and eventually discovers the pilot was killed and buried in Russia. 

Unconvinced by this explanation, Terry continues to investigate the pilot's disappearance only to find that he had faked his own death in order to start a new life in his native Russia, leaving behind his wife in the UK to whom he left a large life insurance policy. 

From then on, the novel recounts Terry's relationship with the former pilot, both personal and professional, and he and his family's own time spent living in Russia. With details about corruption in the country, Grigori as becomes known is killed by a suspected poison dart whilst attempting to flee the country for England with his children and Terry's family. 

What I liked most about the book was that I had very little experience with reading literature focused on Russian heritage. Whilst the story of Terry's life and how it became intertwined with Grigori's was the main focus of the plotline, there were also pieces of information regarding the development of Russia during the 1990s that I did not expect. Turning against the traditional form of fictional text, elements of interesting non-fiction were included to both entertain and educate the reader. It was also unlike anything I had ever read before, which is always a bonus when being sent texts to review. 

However, my understanding of such events was not always what it could have been, and a little extra information about the influencing Russian politics may have been useful as a means of expanding my understanding of the text. Plus the title had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the book unless you count the two of so pages towards the end where Grigori is found dead at an installation depicting Rasputin's meeting with the Tsar at a popular museum. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its title, but it felt very much as if the connection had been tacked on unnecessarily because the author liked the title. 

Overall, this is definitely a novel I'd recommend. Both interesting and unusual, it was unlike anything I'd ever read before and I'd happily read someone of the author's other texts. 8/10

xXx

Hell hath no fury, Dead Woman Scorned by Michael Clark

Let's talk sequels, shall we? 

When I got sent this book, I was told the first one was absolutely amazing and found it attached to the accompanying email. Normally I would have read the first novel before diving into the second, but time limitations prevented me from being able to do so and, for the most part, it was pretty easy to club together an idea of what the first text had been about. 

Dead Woman Scorned by Michael Clark could very easily be a standalone text. Slipping between time periods, it talks of a man renovating a house haunted by a murderous ghost who murdered her son, the story of how the murderous ghost came to be, and the actions of a man obsessed with the aforementioned ghost and how her appearances have affected his family. Interwoven with other days of her actions and the occult, it's one of the few texts I have encountered recently where the time-hopping was not only beneficial to my understanding and enjoyment of the text but also incredibly clear. 

The only problem I have surrounding the idea of the book being a sequel is how it prepares for what the third text in the series, that I have not and, if I'm honest, have no desire to read. The text could have ended perfectly without the inclusion of a shorter storyline involving the death of the owners of a funeral home in a drunk driving accident, and the subsequent journey her children take towards carrying on working for the company. Eventually leading to the death of their daughter, their fuck-up son has to take over the business and is inexplicably visited by the ghost of his parents when he continues to run his family's business into the ground. 

Ground, funeral home, get it? God, I'm a hoot. 

Anyway, this part of the text is included incredibly late in the narrative and leads to the novel ending rather abruptly, an attempt to encourage the reader to pick up the next book. Thing is, there was so much going on otherwise that this part felt almost pointless to me, and served no purpose other than to slightly spoil something I'd really enjoyed. The author didn't need to add this part in, it would have fitted perfectly in a book all on its own, and it seemed to me to be an almost underhand way of baiting readers into buying his future work. 

The reason this annoyed me was that the text itself is absolutely great, and unlike anything I would normally pick up. I've had mixed feelings towards some of the works I've been sent to review lately. Some of them have been great but others have either been over-the-top, miserable, or just had far too much going on. The main characters are well created and I connected with the protagonist living in the 1970s, who's dealing with the repercussions of a divorce that is leading to his ex-wife preventing him from seeing his children and altogether being a dick about visitation. 

I'm a child of separated parents, I get it

In addition to this, it was very easy to tell which time period I was reading about due to the clearly titled chapters and changes in narrative voice and tone. They also linked and flowed together well in a way that I have no seen many texts of a similar style do. If you are into books about the occult, or even if you aren't, I would definitely recommend this text. 

xXx

Hmm, how about no?

Hands up any woman who's had sex with a guy to shut them up. To stop them complaining or to keep them happy when you had absolutely no desire to. Sadly, I can guarantee that there are a few arms being raised. 

Last month I briefly dated a guy who I thought was a decent human being, only for him to ghost me. Which, of course, I blamed myself for. Pretty average in bed, he asked if I was up for sex one night and when I said no, he told me that I "wouldn't have to do anything". 

Ah yes, because there really is nothing sexier than being treated like a hand. 

To give him the smallest amount of credit, I really think that he thought what he was saying was appealing. In his head, he would be pleasuring me as well as himself which, given my lack of interest in sex at that point, would definitely not have happened. Thankfully, he didn't push it, but I really don't think I should have to be thankful for someone not pushing to have sex with me when I say I don't want to. 

Sadly, this wasn't the first time this has happened, and on many occasions, I have given in, done something I really wasn't up for just to appease them. Lying on my back in pain, because being used as a fleshlight can be incredibly painful when I really didn't want to be. I'm not blaming myself entirely, I did say yes after all, but the people in question should have taken no as my first answer. As I said in my post To the guy that drove me home, no doesn't mean try harder, it quite simply means, no. 

xXx

So much more

Don't you just love it when you think you've met a genuinely nice guy and then he ghosts you out of no-where?

I know, it really gets me going too. 

A few weeks ago I met a guy. He was sweet, kind and we had a series of amazing dates. We'd planned another date today which seemed to be all systems go, until Monday when he randomly started ignoring me for no reason. I've texted him checking in, asked if he is okay, and been left on read both times. It seems he really was too good to be true, and I'm not going to lie I'm kinda bummed. 

Part of me has been blaming myself, blaming my condition because I ran out of my meds and wasn't able to get them until yesterday because the chemist I collect them from is closed at weekends (if you're looking for the line of people blaming me for this it starts around the corner btw). Without my meds, I'm not myself, but I feel this is a given. I have an incredibly serious and rare condition and my medication keeps me alive, without it I'm simply who I really am. 

As a result of my unusual behavior over the past few days, I assumed that he did not feel comfortable around my BPD and therefore didn't want to see or speak to me anymore. Leading my brain to lay the blame on myself once again. But now I have my medication I'm changing my thinking. Or trying to anyway. 

The fact is that, although I may have BPD, I'm so so much more than my diagnosis. I'm kind, hardworking, brave and a good person, no matter what I may tell myself. Or what other people may tell me for that matter. It's not simply a case of his loss, that's a given, but more a case of that it's sad that people don't see that, that I don't see that. 

One of the things I'm refocusing on working on is building my self-esteem. I say building not re-building because in order to re-build something it has to have existed in the first place. Yesterday I stood crying by the pastry display at work because of how much I hate myself, and I've blamed myself for every break-up I've ever had. I'm ready to date again, want to date again, but am tired of being with people who ghost or break up with me. I am so much more than my BPD, and it would just be nice if people could see that. 

xXx