A look back at 2014

It is difficult to look back.
I could say it's been a tough year, but when have I ever had an easy year? :) I prefer to say, it has been a year full of growth and development and new hope in things where I thought all was lost. It has been a year full of challenges, a year full of harm by the Church of England and their associated agencies as well though.

In the beginning. January/February:

The year started with uncertainty and turbulance, I was still looking for a place to call home and I was still terrified of indoors and of the Diocese of Winchester and their associates and intrusions and harm to me.

Fortunately I have never been completely alone or unsupported, although the learning curve of learning to live indoors has been like coming off drugs and going cold turkey, and I still find indoors difficult, especially as, and this is hard to explain, after being used to the simplicity of the streets, I am 'house dyspraxic', I break things, bump things and stumble a lot indoors, I get bruised and things get dropped, spilled, bumped or broken. I have no recollection of this happening previous to being a rough sleeper, and it is frustrating.

The weather at the end of 2013 and beginning of this year was atrocious and thus it is a good thing I was off the streets.

At the beginning of February I took a room in a lodging House. It turned out to be like being in a homeless hostel only without Staff. And regular readers will remember, I was without lights, had water coming through the ceiling and mushrooms growing in the bathroom, while addicts and dealers argued over drug money in the hall.
The last straw was the kitchen being locked because it was a health hazard. But during the time I was there, I went cold turkey from rough sleeping and came through to be able to actually sleep at night indoors, albeit with earplugs!

In the meantime the Diocese of Winchester and their associates in Jersey who were doing a cover up for Jersey agencies and police caused me distress, and Jane Fisher's friends at Hampshire Social services decided to break the law and remind me of how they had protected her wrongdoing and refused to protect me from her, deeply distressing.

I continued to plead with Hampshire Constabulary to protect me from the Diocese of Winchester but instead they ignored me, but HMIC then gave Hampshire constabulary a VERY BAD report for doing exactly the same thing to other vulnerable people. About time someone held that corrupt force up to the public for their faults.

Hardly able to walk, and realising how little movement I had, I saw a back specialist and was told that though there was a lot of work needed, there was also a lot of hope. The situation improved steadily but it was to be a long process. The specialist said he could only do a fraction of what he needed to or it would be too painful. But one session was too painful one day, and I was ill with the after-effects, and stopped the treatment, at the time I only stopped temporarily, but as the Church of England problems continued, I was unable to allow time or pain, because I had to fight for my life against the Church. I also had to quit attachment therapy because of the church and because of finances. However, I may be able to resume therapy, not just for attachment disorder but also the rest of the range of my problems, in the New Year, if I can afford it, as well as having the therapeutic horse therapy.

March/April:
One evening as I sat in the early hours, listening to the violent fights in the corridor, I decided to once again override the Diocese of Winchester's branding of me, and I remembered when I was in my early 20s and I had a few happy years in a nice little bedsit. I wondered why on earth I could not live like that again even with the Diocese's branding of me and the loss of my career, I knew I could do better, but how?

I advertised for a bedsit, stating I was quiet and looking for somewhere quiet.
And the advert was answered by one person, the person who had the place of my dreams to let.
This person is referred to in the daily blog as 'The lesser spotted landlady' only as a joke, she is a lovely lady who I will always keep in touch with. I absolutely loved the flat and the council condemning the house shattered my life, but that comes later.

April and onwards:
Settled in a new flat and starting to live a fuller life now, I was unfit and could hardly walk, but as the weather got warmer, I started swimming and doing water-based exercise, and this was the beginning of an ongoing programme to improve my health and fitness, which I believed to be impossible but is now going incredibly well, it was partly despair and depression that led me to believe this and partly what a terrible shape I had got into on the streets and because of the church, I was destroyed. I am amazed at the way things have improved.

The blue bike. I cannot remember when my life was transformed by the blue bike, which gave me freedom, joy and mobility, and improved my muscle tone so well that my walking has improved, and I now walk without a stick, and I started wearing shoes sometimes instead of always wearing boots to help me walk, and now I wear shoes, although I am left in pain and hobbling sometimes. I never thought I would regain mobility and fitness as I have, and a change of asthma medicines as well really kicked off a revolution in my life, with my fitness and health improving immeasurably.

I was no longer terrified of indoors by now, but if anything to do with the church and their associates triggered distress or flashbacks I stopped sleeping and felt trapped.

April and May:

In April? The cold monsters in the Church of England announced they were going to release the Steel report, a biased conflicted report that defames me and defends the wrongdoers with a concocted story by the wrongdoers and their stories and a complete omission of my story, a but like the Korris report only much worse.
I asked the police for protection from harassment by the Church of England and they treated me as they have throughout this matter and acted for the Diocese again.

So I took the Church of England to court. And they seemed thrown by that, I have no idea who took them to court before over this matter, but I recall the Ould Bully proclaiming that he didn't think I had the ability, and in a way he was correct, but to save my life, I did, and they didn't seem prepared and arrogantly offered to the court not to release the report for 40 days and give 2 weeks notice, what utter insanity, how would that make any difference?  It was a traumatic experience for me, but I was left astounded by the lengths that the Church would go to to cover up, yet again. They lied to a court of law! They compiled a complete statement of lies.
Well, I guess I should have expected that as they had already lied to two courts of law and three police forces about me and about their actions, leading to me being branded with an inaccurate record. But dishonesty from senior members of the church never ceases to astound and shock me.

It isn't over.

June/July:

We had a hot summer and I swam every day in the sea, and biked around happily along the seafronts and around town. I barely left the town and got to know people and was generally very happy in the town. I would have been on the beach more but the Church matter took up too much of my time, at the same time as I continued to develop my life through art classes and sessions at the daycentre.
I continued to live in fear of the church, although things had changed.

August/September:

I lost my ESA for a few months and was left destitute and was helped through by friends until my ESA was restored and backpaid.
The ESA system has changed for the worse.

My destroyer, Jane Fisher ruined my weekend with my adoptive parents and friends by adding me on twitter as if to jeer. The problem with her jeer was that I thought it was funny she only had about 27 friends and seemed to think twitter was the same as facebook, and was boasting about her life on there.
I had a minor breakdown so at the time it was far from funny, especially how, after wilfully destroying me, she boasts about being 'passionate about safeguarding', but what the church call safeguarding is not what is safeguarding in reality. Anyway, she boasted about being matey with Sally Dakin etc, and basically that nothing had been done about her serious misconduct. There was no doubt she didn't add me by accident and knew my avatar, after all, she has few friends and few people to follow, and my avatar makes it clear who I am.

So, I contacted the police, who were as helpful as they usually are when it comes to dealing with wrongdoers they protect because of status etc.

I have continued a complaint and they continue to fob me off. However, Jane Fisher apparently deleted her twitter account the same day, I was informed of this by friends on twitter after they supported me through the day and I had complained to the Diocese of Winchester and to the police.
At the time I was astounded that Fisher deleted her account, because she is arrogant and hard-nosed without remorse or conscience and spent three years and more deliberately smashing me down and defending my abusers and their colaberation and condemning and criminalizing me and lying as well. But the church's main focus, especially in safeguarding, is to protect themselves, at the expense of victims. Which would be the only reason she would delete her account.
The same day, a certain someone else related to this, added me on twitter and started asking on twitter what people thought of my legal letter to Bishop Dakin, and what people thought of Dakin. It appeared to be a bait. I gave a few responses for a laugh, not that I felt like laughing. And they left. It took me a long time to recover from Fisher's jeer.

Death.
One evening I looked out the window, having heard noise and the noise continued, and I was shocked to see a man lying on the pavement with paramedics trying to revive him and just giving up, he was dead.
It was late evening and raining heavily and the death became a suspected murder, and the whole night became full of emergency services and noise, tarpaulins and incident tents being battered by wind and rain, and the flat was so hot that I couldn't close the window, so I got little sleep, when I was due to go to my adoptive parents for the next day and had to start out early.
The police did house to house inquiries in the early hours and I spoke to them. I suffered double trauma from suddenly seeing a dead man and then all the police and ambulance all night. It took a while for me to recover.

Photography. I have spent most of the year indulging my passion of photography, which makes me very happy, and my Mum was delighted with my life collage, which she took to show off to our friends.

Two people have been kindly talking to me by email for the last six months of 2014, since Bob ceased to mediate and concentrated on the Jersey Care inquiry, and I appreciate that regular lifeline.

October/November/December:

During these months there was increasing interest from my friends in my written work, especially the short stories and so I have been encouraged to keep writing and look at getting work published, which is my project for 2015.

I was now also exercising really well, doing gym and swim regularly as well as biking everywhere, getting fit in a way I never imagined I would be able to, and also learning to cook and eat healthily as well. If only this had been possible before!

I also picked up my knitting again, deeply keen on creativity and seeing my life expand in all directions with never a shortage of activities to fill my time, I am still a bit hit and miss with my knitting :)

Sadly also, the news came that my home was condemned by the council as unfit for tenants. Unfair as it was a lovely flat in a lovely quiet house and we were all happy, but the council's stringent safety regulations means that the old house needed so much work to meet their standards that it could not be financially viable, so I had to look for a new home.
This devastated me as I had seen the flat as my permenant forever home after years of homelessness.
I am still devastated. We were given long notice but I was so unsettled and distressed that I decided to move as soon as possible and be settled somewhere for Christmas. Haha.

Also during this time, the Church Times released another defamatory attack on me, one of many done by their reporter Madaleine Davis, as well as the defamatory letters they published for Jersey clergy and their supporters.
This left me very ill. But this time I had had enough, the damage was done but this time I stood up to the Church Times and they whined miserably about how they 'Only produced facts' Rubbish, proven rubbish, where was my side published? It wasn't, the only resources they were using were the Church of England's defamatory inaccurate Korris report and the Jersey Deanery smear campaign, without including my side, so, facts? No.

Onwards. I took an expensive apartment in order to remain in my community, but I hated it.
However, two days after I moved, I was able to launch into, and complete within a week, my traditional Christmas walk for charity, 70 miles to provide 40 families with Christmas Hampers and gifts. I had a lovely, if tough, walk, and got hundreds of photos, and came to no harm apart from a shin splint.

I didn't settle in the new apartment, I worried about money, the rent was extortionate and as plumbing and boilers kept breaking, it became increasingly clear that this was a get rich quick scheme for the landlord and it was going wrong.
The apartments were brand new, a converted hotel. No soundproofing, lots of flaws, very uncomfortable and I was very unhappy.
But there was no way I could have replaced the old flat anyway.

I grew increasingly unhappy and tense in the new apartment and wasn't sleeping well. Trying to enjoy the run up to Christmas with the church events, the songs and decorations, but unhappy and out of my depth.

On Christmas eve I arranged rent in lei of notice, put my furniture in storage and took myself and what I needed, and came home for Christmas. I wont go back to the apartments. And I am peaceful here in a tenancy of lower rent and lower demands on me, somewhere I know and am happy enough to be.
And basically, that brings the year to a happier ending, and I am hoping for a better 2015, without needless cruelty from the Church of England.

I have enjoyed my Christmas so far, and was delighted to receive a lovely email from old friends yesterday, people asking how I am as I haven't been around. Heartwarming.

It has been a year of friendships, new and old, and a year of building and growing and learning to relate to people, the reactive attachment disorder and autism continue to stump me and stunt growth (which in turn always reminds me of  the Diocese of Winchester's opinion of me as a result of my problems) but generally my ability to interact is better than it has ever been and I am less afraid of people and my agrophobia has mysteriously dwindled to almost nothing.

In 2015 I start equine therapy and also the more serious and intense therapy focussing on my problems and their origins.

You will notice I have started mentioning my adoptive parents on the blogs, and openly calling my Mum 'Mum'.
Those who don't know the story, this was nothing new, I didn't mention it because while I was homeless in Winchester in 2011, the Diocese tried their best to separate me from my adoptive parents when they were still new friends, but I have realised that despite the massive hurt the Diocese caused, they became powerless to prevent this friendship, despite the many other friendships of mine, long term, loving friendships that the Diocese destroyed because my friends there were Church of England and easily influenced, but my adoptive parents are Catholic, as I am.
This is the story, if you don't know it:
http://whatreallyhappenedinthechurch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/my-adoptive-parents-i-wont-look-too.html#.VJ0x-sgJA

Lets go into 2015 with courage and hope. I will stand tall and continue to face off against the Great Grim Church and their vanity and arrogance and I hope they will let me continue to build my life out of the ashes of their repeated devastation of it. Life will be bound by the horrific one-sided record that the Diocese got me as a result of their failure to safeguard, or take responsibility, and all I can do is going on being creative with and in my life and keep up a steady programme of activities to prevent depression and hopelessness, and focus on the good in life, not the bad. I still have flashbacks and distress and I have learned to recognise this and work with it as it will continue this way indefinitely as will the fight with the church.

Happy New Year!