Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Posted last October - lets talk about flu

Well, at almost midday on October 10th 2013, it is running very close to the deadline, are Steel and the Diocese going to going to be able to block me reaching Jersey tomorrow in order to infect the island with flu?

ah, they are scared of flu, the church of england are, scared of many worldly things, they upheld the media in promoting 'media scare flu' the other year, that virus that they gave a click name 'H1N1 and showed how the world can be turned into a flock of panicking sheep by something that doesn't even exist, and the Archbishp, Bishop and church leaders endorsed that, preventing communion to prevent a fake disease from being spead, and showing just how devoid of Christianity and faith in God the church of england is!

It was a joke, instead of using individual cuplets for wine at communion or ignoring media scare flu as the worldy disease it is, the church of england latched onto it as another way of glorifying themselves in the media and getting a pat on the back from the media in return for spreading the fear and propaganda.

In Jersey, certain ministers 'prepared for deaths' from media scare flu, even though the media scare flu was not even a killer, it was a mild virus that people recovered from quickly and well, no-one in Jersey died, but the media in the UK tried to force deaths to be caused by media scare flu and the doctors bumped up the statistics in order to also stay in line, and yet, media scare flu neither caused as many deaths nor did as much physical harm to people as the normal winter flue did.
Ah well, I have flu and I am still on my feet, so who am I to talk? Last year flu put me in a hostel for three nights due to my asthma and the chest infection that flu caused, and earlier this year I was horrendously ill with pneumonia, media scare flu, Jersey flu, and HG flu back to Jersey to share the germs, share the fun and scare the hell out of those reading this who think I might go back.

The police will be guarding all ports tomorrow and maybe for a week or two.

I wrote to the Bishop and Jane Fisher about media scare flu while they were destroying me, and asked why the church of england were using a fake scare and propaganda to glorify themselves and promote a worldly and dishonest scandal, but they had no adequate reply, they just continued to destroy me, and my church that week avoided communion as commanded by the Bishop, but gathered for a 'bring and share lunch afterwards, where the hugging and kissing so forbidden by the church for the sake of media scare flu, was carried out at the bring and share lunch instead, isn't that ridiculous?!

Elizabeth Hall continues to ignore my complaint about Jane Fisher and leave her as a danger to vulnerable adults, which is also ridiculous, Jane Fisher is more dangerous than media scare flu, because she is a real danger, not propaganda, not made up.

Monday, 10 March 2014

lets go back 34 -days of darkness

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv8wo-t6C1I

One of the Songs we used to sing often, always reminds me of the Lihous.

At college my relationships with my fellow students was leagues better than my relationship with my fellow students on my original agriculture course in Hampshire, but even so it was still very difficult and I still had poor interaction skills and found it hard to stay with these students during leisure times.

I have never and will never deny my stunted communication and relationship skills, they are real, I have worked myself into the ground to do better and simply cannot overcome the autistic barrier completely, I am ashamed, and people have made me feel ashamed and have punished me, but I am at the highest level of communication that I will ever reach, and still it will never be enough in the eyes of the world, I will always be called ignorant, awkward, troublesome, unfriendly and selfish, and that is nothing compared to how the church have now labelled me.

Back to the story,  my fellow students were all 16-18, apart from a traveller girl called *****-***** who sadly had to leave the course early due to her caravan catching fire, which was a pity because she was in my age bracket and was an individual like me, and was a jolly nice friendly girl, her presence on the course may have helped me.

We were not a large group as the  group at the Hampshire college were, the initial numbers were below twenty and went down to below 15, we divided into two groups and I was in group B, fortunately for me because there were a few others in B with various problems, my tutors were aware from the start of my disabilities and the course was suited to people of different abilities, so that was ok, my way of ensuring that I could pass was an extra hour or two of library study before or after college every day, and it did make a difference. I was also extremely surprised how little the 16-18 year olds knew about writing, spelling, maths or anything, they were not high-flyers like the Hampshire lot, so they did not consider me to be stupid, they often asked me for spellings of words or got me to check their work.

I told no-one in L. where I was, much to the dismay of some of my friends, they actually thought I was working abroad, and I was happy for them to think that, because I did not want JM to know where I was, I was sick of her unsolicited and damaging interference, and by the time I started trusting JM again I was towards the end of my course and had been told my predicted grades and was spending my spare time in the channel islands, preparing to move over there, so when JM and her family took to guessing where I was, they guessed the channel islands and I said nothing, so they picked that guess.

 JM’s sister said within my earshot as I left the room, ‘She is an odd girl’ and JM’s mother said ‘yes, very odd’, but scarred from them and JM, I did not want them to know anything, I had not wanted my college course screwed up by JM and my memories of her interference at the other college remained with me. And as well as that anyway, when I had prepared to go away to College in Dorset, JM had expressed complete disinterest when I went to see her to tell her I was going away, she had said ‘oh you have decided to spend your time in (your home village) and not come round here?’

As I was leaving after repeatedly trying to tell her I was going away, she came after me and said ‘ you are actually going away?’ but I was fed up by then ‘yes, goodbye JM’.

A month or so later on return to L. she made a huge fuss of me, I was surprised, JM has huge stresses on her, and reacts like that, but it was the other things that she did, not her moodiness that upset me, her breaches of confidence and her unsolicited interference and blackening my name.

Anyway, back to the college situation, Jill got me to go back to them for the weekend EVERY weekend at first, I accepted this completely, doing as asked, and to me it was like having a family to go back to, time with George and Jill meant I did not see my friends in the Winchester area very much, but I did as Jill wanted.

Then suddenly it changed without discussion, Jill said I could not come back one weekend, I was confused, I was settled into the course by now, but not settled in Dorset, and so I was used to going back for the weekend, and the chaotic family I lived with were also used to me going away, we all thought it was how things went, Jill and George did not discuss this change or warn me of it, and continued to refuse to discuss it, so I thought I had done something wrong, I moped at college and sent them an email apologizing for every single little thing I could think of that I could have done to make them shun me, I always feel terrible if I have hurt anyone, especially my friends, and because of what I term ‘autistic blindness’ I do hurt people, and my anger that gets the better of me when I am hurt also undoubtedly hurts me, and people think I am smart enough to control both these things and I am not, so I do end up in muddles.

Anyway, George and Jill explained nothing, and because I loved them, my heart broke. I will change the subject for a minute as my relationship with them still hurts. Anyway, they took to trying to get me to stay with them on weekends when I had farm duties and had to be at College all weekend, and they seemed unable to absorb this or adjust to arrange other weekends for me to come back, so I started to come back to Hampshire when it suited me, and stay with other people and camp out in my car, this started my healthy independence of George and Jill, and I only wish that I had gone further with it, I did try to lose them later on, but failed.
I did not know at first that the Warrens from Jersey had told Jill not to have me home every weekend, and Jill and George simply changed the boundaries without discussion with me.
So that injured me.

On Wednesdays we had study/work experience day at college, and there were no classes, one day the tutor asked how many of us would like a free day out at the southwest dairy show one Wednesday, I leapt to sign up, my fellow students were all committed to work and other things to do, only one of the other students was going, and she was going with her family who were showing cattle at the show, so I went with one of my tutors in his car, he was a nice tutor who taught us beef production.
I love agricultural shows, I was having a whale of a time looking round the show on my own while my tutor went to do whatever he was doing at the show, which was based at the Bath and West Showground in Somerset.

Then I started feeling ill, as I did and do sometimes, dizzy, headache, tired, wanting to close my eyes and sleep. I wandered over to the St. John Ambulance tent to ask if they had any spare painkillers and a place I could rest, they asked what was wrong, sat me down, checked my pulse, checked it again, listened to my heartbeat, and then put ECG pads on me and looked at my heartbeat, they told me my heart wasn’t beating properly and they called an ambulance, I was totally taken by surprise, I often had, and still have these symptoms, but have never been ambulanced for it with a broken heart.

The Ambulance took me to hospital in Yeovil, where I was put on a trolley and wheeled about and then put in an A&E cubicle on a monitor, the sharp noises of the monitor distressed me, and several people looked at the heartbeat and one person tried to explain why what they were seeing on the monitor was wrong, it was something to do with the lines that went sharply down between the lines that went sharply up, I keep disconnecting myself from the machine and trying to escape because the sharp noise of the machine was too much for my autism, eventually they came to see me and said ‘you didn’t tell us you were on...., (Whatever medicine it was I was on).

 I told them I had told the St. John Ambulance, and they asked if I had overdosed on my medicine, I said no, and they said that I needed to see my GP about the medicine as it may have been the cause of the problem, they also said the problem could be a heart murmur, so then they put me on a trolley in the corridor for some time as casualty was very busy and they needed the cubicle, I did not know what was happening, but then my tutor arrived at the hospital to see what was happening, and they discharged me, telling me to see my GP and that the GP should refer my for heart tests, the poor frazzled tutor took me back to college and I drove myself home, the GP was vague and never referred me for heart tests, but I started to withdraw myself from the medication not long after that as I was concerned that it was the med that upset my heart.

The hospital incident caused further upset with the Lihous, with Jill becoming emotionally upset, did I understand this and its impact at the time? Not completely, I did feel Jill’s upset and react to it by being upset myself, but I was not aware of how much she got upset until later. The other thing that happened was that Paul, my failing mentor who was doing my finances heard that I was in hospital because I had phoned George while I was there, to ask for prayers and to see if he could somehow let my new part time employers know I was not going to get to work, and he had told Paul.

Paul offered to go to the Hospital and collect me and take me back to Weymouth, before any of us knew that my tutor as going to collect me, this apparently upset his wife, who was not happy with his involvement with me anyway. Paul and the man in L. church who had done my finances, had something in common, they were both retired from finance and had ferocious wives, and they were both tall and thin and went to church and helped people struggling with money, maybe cloning already exists.

My other sadness and worry is that I let Paul down by not completing enough gardening for him, as I was ill from the meds by then.

Home in Weymouth, I was not feeling great, I found I could hardly walk the short distance to the beach, I felt low and lost, I had started going to the CAB for help with finances as Paul was failing me, and about a week after the hospital incident, I was at the CAB and started feeling unwell, I was struggling to speak to a different person from usual and she didn’t understand me, I stared feeling dizzy and blank, kind of unable to move or speak or do anything, they called an ambulance and the paramedics checked my pulse, which seemed fairly normal and this time I started to feel better as they spoke to me, they took me to the GP I think, or the hospital, I am not sure, but they said they thought I was simply overwhelmed from dealing with the money troubles and the situation with the Lihous, and trying to deal with accommodation and coursework.

 So they referred me to a mental health nurse, who assessed the situation, asked when I had last eaten and how much money I had, I told her I had no money or food, and she gave me £20 and a sandwich and a lift home, promising to be in touch and see what could be done to help me, brilliant! I was delighted with the £20 because I was hungry and had had no money to get myself to college for the rest of the week, so I ate and I walked along the cliff tops and felt better, though the situation with the Lihous was breaking my heart.

By the Way, the mental health nurse said I wasn't mentally ill, and spoke to Basingstoke where I used to see the psychiatrist after being diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum, and Basingstoke told her I was 'normally a cheerful and positive girl' or something.
Dorset and the Lihous was nearly the death of me, there was a marked deterioration in my general and mental health as a result of the stresses, and by the time I went to Jersey I was still far too stressed.

Monday, 24 February 2014

Seeking help, diagnosis and assistance continued

Mid 20s.

Battling exhaustion, at least the doctors did blood tests, but did not find much and were vague, life was simply too much for me, so I was exhausted.

Assessment and diagnosis for autism spectrum was stressful but after a few weeks of shock, I started to feel valid, human, not just 'awkward', 'troublesome' and 'odd' as JM and others said.
But I was alone with the shock, still with inadequate help.
I used to drive to the leisure park and just sit there because I was too numb and confused to skate or see a movie.

The Diagnosis read Asperger Syndrome, Depression (already Diagnosed), and 'Social Phobia'.
At last, fairly clear diagnosis, although I believe that the social phobia is agoraphobia, sadly even this breakthrough was not without problems.

Firstly, it surprises me that the Maudsley did not pick up on Post Traumatic Stress or psychological trauma.
Secondly they did write some rubbish on that report. They wrote that I 'fantasized' about having a boyfriend, that is yuk, fantasized? RUBBISH!
The assessment was not long after I had broken up with G. and I was surprised when the nurse went on and on about didn't I wish I had a boyfriend? until I said 'yeah, I guess so'.
I was not in the slightest bit bothered by being single, just as I am not now. I have never approached anyone to ask them out and have been asked out a few times, resulting in 3 relationships in my adulthood, which are an extra responsibility for me and not something I look for. I do not and did not 'fantasize' and I think that is a disgusting, degrading and misleading statement.

Anyway, onwards from there, it was recommended I was put on an antidepressant which should not be given to people with blood pressure risks, and even by then (and untreated even now), my blood pressure was not right, and my close family have a blood pressure history, on both sides and in my siblings.
So I was put on this drug, presumably because one of the people who took me to the Maudsley was on this drug himself and suggested it.
It made me very ill before I withdrew from it on my own, as I did with all the others.

The Maudsley recommended that I had further assessment including brain scan and screening for mental illness, and they recommended behavioural therapy.

Well, I was thus referred to a psychiatrist, I thought all psychiatrists were old men in white coats, but this one was a polite young man.
As far as I know, and I am pretty sure, no further mental illness was found, no diagnosis made. I was at a bit of a loss when it came to talking to the psychiatrist, because it was the same as seeing a counsellor, I do not know how to interact. He was very nice anyway, I only saw him a few times, no behavioural therapy at all was available on the NHS there, so he referred me to some day courses in anxiety management and anger management, but again, I could not learn from them, firstly I had trouble getting in to the building where they were and getting a seat, which made me too anxious to learn anyway, and there was no helpful content, sadly. it was like that self-help course, it was not anything I could take in and use.

Anyway, the polite young psychiatrist, after a few sessions, told me he was leaving as he had a new job, so that was that, I was referred to two very ugly women, one was presumably a psychiatrist and the other her trainee, they were not only incredibly lacking in charm and sparkle, but they did not help me and even turned up on my doorstep one time without my permission, so I dismissed them.
Basically, psychiatry can do little for me, because my conditions are not really something they can do much with, psychological help is vastly more appropriate and I also feel much safer with psychology than psychiatry, my head needs soothing and untangling, not messing with.

Anyway, with regards behavioural therapy, the lengths I went to to get that therapy was incredible.
It was not available on the NHS in Hampshire, so I contacted the NAS and wailed miserably at them about how I had been DIAGNOSED and Needed HELP!
They sent me a list of behavioural therapists who could help people on the Autistic Spectrum, and it turned out that none of these were in Hampshire, the nearest was in Sussex, and I considered it, spoke to the therapist in Sussex and one in Dorset, but the combined costs of travel and fees were simply too much.
Stumped.

I wrote to the Hampshire Chronicle, asking if they could appeal for help for me, I got no response and felt shamed.

I continued to seek help, and looked through lists of counsellors, found one near Winchester who worked with trauma and abuse, and she worked with me, for reduced fee, for two years, and helped me tremendously with communication and relationships and overcoming some of my overwhelming past. She even had a book of metaphors for people on the autistic spectrum to learn.
But behavioural therapy, which I also still needed, remained out of reach.


Sunday, 23 February 2014

MIND outings and socials- Happier memories, early 20s

I self-referred to MIND in my early 20s to ensure I wasn't too isolated and to encourage myself to socialize.
Because, just as I have done now, I developed a liking for being alone in my home, alone, no company, just drifting, and I know, however much I like drifting, I need to keep trying to spend time with others.

The Social groups were overwhelming for me at first, too much for me, so I would hide in a side room, and a support worker would either keep me company or coax me out to join the group, she was  a very nice support worker, who remained supportive and friendly until she left to move away.

It took me a while to feel safe in that group, and at first I just stayed in the corner and trekked to the urn for more tea every few minutes :)
The breakthrough was when the male support worker, another safe, helpful person, took to sitting with me and drawing cartoons and playing noughts and crosses. This progressively grew until a whole group of us were playing noughts and crosses, drawing cartoons and making each other laugh by captioning each other's cartoons :) 
We progressed to me being able to play pool or 'killer' with them as well, which was great! :) These skills, simple as they were, did help me.

I joined some music sessions and various MIND things but was busy with work and other things and didn't keep anything apart from social group and outings up.

I made a friend or two at social, but everyone had problems and some of them never got my name right, nor did I learn everyone's name, but it was good to be in a social setting where I wasn't the lone vulnerable person in a church of england church.
I made a friend with an excitable young woman who was so like my old friend at college, so similar, and as at college, we made each other hyper and silly.

Outings were fun, we had a number of outings to the coast, enjoying strolling, sightseeing, going out on motor boat trips, and the usual seaside things.
We had a look round a historic village one time, and we often went to a market in the next county, it all added variety to a basic hand-to-mouth lifestyle.

Some of the trips I found harder were the ones that included the pub, the driver, who was not really part of MIND, jeered because I didn't want to go in the pub for a drink with the others, but back then, I had only been in a pub a few times in my life, when I was 18 and 19 for Birthday meals with the people I lodged with, and for two of my brothers' wedding receptions, and those were meals, not drinking times, I did not want to go into a pub and drink, but during a MIND trip, we simply stopped at a pub, and I was unprepared and bewildered.

The other time I found difficult, which was otherwise a good trip, was when we went out on a boat, it was a boat that did trips for disabled people, and we went out, but I was with the nice female support worker, and one of the staff was flirting with her and chatting to her, leaning over us and leaning in, and even then, and even now, I cannot cope with being leaned over or stood over if I am sitting, because I feel too vulnerable, especially if it is a man.
So I was getting anxious, and I tried to get away, and the man scornfully said to the support worker 'I suppose you are used to this', as if I was an animal, no feelings, no ears, such a wrong attitude, and he was causing the problem.
Sometimes living with the conditions I have is like that, extra hurts from being misunderstood on top of the daily struggles to live independently.

Anyway, never mind the less happy bits, we had fun, we had great fun, and I am grateful for it, I am grateful to anything that breaks up this difficult life and gives it some colour.

We went to a football match once, now that was fun, although we had to stand up all the time.
We had a great time, and on the way to the match, we had to stop for fuel for the minibus, and there in the petrol station was someone dressed as Elvis, that caused us much amusement! :)

One time I attempted to play squash with another MIND client, but I couldn't afford to keep that up, and I was too shy really.

MIND did a great thing in helping me to communicate and interact and socialize, but they didn't help me towards further diagnosis or treatment, aside from the social side of things, they didn't really notice me, and despite me speaking to them, they kept wrongly addressing my newsletters and paperwork, so in the end when they restructured without me knowing, that was probably because they sent the information to the wrong address or simply forgot me.
So I was not told that this valuable resource had been lost, and I was left with nothing to replace it.




seeking help and support continued

aged 20+


  • I applied for help from a Christian counselling service in Winchester. They did not come across as very professional or helpful, and contacted JM about me without permission to get further details. I attended some sessions but due to that breach of confidences and JM's usual unhelpful opinion of me, including me not being autistic but being awkward and her usual stories of me 'acting out' etc, I never settled to that counselling. And when I was working, the buses never ran on time so I simply could not get to the sessions. (funnily enough, when I arrived back in Winchester, homeless in 2010, my new GP told me no counselling was available on the NHS and I should contact the Christian counselling service, I explained to her that as Jane Fisher and the Bishop had maligned me to every church in Winchester, and the counsellors would be from those churches, it would be another humiliating waste of time at least and another avenue for Fisher and the Bishop to try and have me labelled as mad at most.
  • Back to the past. I was told that 'Connexions' a youth support service, helped people with learning difficulties up to age 25, and a youth worker went with me to see them, it was a pointless exercise, they saw me twice, didn't agree that they helped people up to age 25 and told me I came across as Autistic and that I should read a book called 'Feel the Fear and do it Anyway', which was pointless advice as it had been one of my first self-help books as a teenager and was not relevant to my ongoing struggles. I remained disappointed by Connexions for a long time.
  • Sadly both MIND and the Youth Service restructured at the same time, both leaving me with no real support, and the MIND social group was gone, as was the Youth Centre, and there was no real replacement, and in the case of MIND, they neither warned me nor explained, which was really really bad.
  • I am mainly talking about the emotional, mental and practical support I sought at this time, I will do a separate blog on the physical health issues that the NHS let me down on.
  • Anyway, no counselling or therapy or even much support by the time I moved to a new home and job.
  • I became increasingly depressed, trying to earn enough to live on, trying to cope with a church social life that was overloading my system and also not able to manage the trauma from my background and also cope with day to day life, now looking after a 2 bedroomed house on my own. so being put on yet another anti-depressant. When I became very tired, I did not really associate this or the extreme tiredness and increased depression with the anti-depressants at the time, but looking back, it may well have been that.
  • I was on the waiting list for autism assessment by this point, but I was waiting for a long time.

Friday, 21 February 2014

my efforts to get help, diagnosis and assistance part 2


  • Throughout my early 20s, the doctors gave me a variety of anti-depressants which invariably left me ill and didn't help me, the doctors didn't tend to actively moniter me on these drugs and it was a question of either making appointments and feeling stupid and a nuisance or not going back, I was never given repeat prescriptions, and to this day I puzzle as to what a repeat prescription actually is, as I simply have always had to go back to the surgery and beg for more prescriptions each time I run out and I always felt stupid about it, a waste of time. Alternately I would just let the awful andti-depressants run out, and then my work and friendships would suffer a bit less. 
  • I never got much help or support from the doctors in the town where I went after the sheltered house. It was a youth worker and church people who saw me struggling and almost simultaneously discussed Asperger Syndrome and Autism with me, and lobbied the Doctor to refer me for assessment. At the time, however, there was no facility in Hampshire for assessment and so there was a very long wait as I continued to struggle with life.
  • The surgery I registered with next, had good and bad to it, they had some male doctors who were famous for being rude to patients because they were 'old school' and thought everyone just whinged. I was vaguely monitered for depression but was very tired a lot, like I am now. I was offered a chance by the surgery to do a self-help course, I agreed, because I was keen for help. Sadly it was a kind of re-hash of things out of my self help books, and it was all women, talking about their 'partners' and babies, it was very boring, and I didn't learn anything, so when they offered me a follow-up course I said no.
  • The strain of struggling with life and anti-depressants became worse and worse as I approached mid-20s, and still no-one had realised I responded badly to anti-depressants, not even me. And so I was struggling and I was being blamed for struggling, my friends were mainly older, well-off church people, and their families didn't struggle and so they didn't see why I should be doing, I remember one of them pretty much telling me so. It is amazing how much I was not understood even by my friends sometimes, they were all very secure and had no idea of the kind of background I was from.
  • I referred myself both to the Youth centre for help with various things I needed communication assistance with, and MIND, where I referred as isolated and suffeirng depression so that I could join their social club and outings. I will do another post on MIND outings, as it is another happy memory post.
TBC in further posts.

Dear Diocese

Dear Diocese of Winchester,

You remain ominously silent. My cynical guess is you plan a police attack on me the day you release them reports in order to silence me, and that reconciliation and forgiveness are not on the agenda.

My good leg has become a daily problem with some injury that isn't going to heal now, and it needs to be assessed, my back is even more of a concern, not only with the problem with the mass presumably pressing on my spine, but I also cannot sit without pain now, presumably tail bone, or maybe the same spine problem, and that needs to be scanned for infection.
In my long walk today I could not walk at any speed and was in pain and unco-ordinated, I was overtaken by a man on crutches, yes, really.

I daren't see a doctor in case it leads to me being traced again and hurt further by you, the Diocese of Winchester, who are free to keep coming after me and hurting me, I cannot afford a private assessment. I am treated like dirt by the NHS since your attempt to have me put away three years ago anyway, but can there be an amnesty so that I can see an NHS doctor before this gets worse?

This cycle of health preventing exercise and money preventing exercise and money preventing health and then all those the other way round is wearing me down. I can only walk as I cannot afford swim or phys or anything, and if I can't walk well, I can't keep fit, I am like a vegetable.

Humpf, I wonder what vegetable I am? A happy tomato.

Sincerely

Inspired by the WRAP post, lets look at some of my efforts to get help, recover, understand myself and be understood, part 1.


  • My first ever attempts to understand myself and improve life where when I was a teenager, my Dad wouldn't accept my leaning difficulties and had frequently physically punished me but that had not improved anything, so I bought my own text books from the money I earned doing a newspaper round, and I taught myself. I found that I could teach myself and that learning became fun, no longer an ordeal of being afraid of punishment.
  • I was also a teenager when I first found out about bullying, really found out, from a book, and pretty much stopped my sister's daily torment of me. She was a year older than me and had spent my whole life belittling me and making me feel stupid and small. You wonder why I am so irritable? I think that played a small part in it, I feel small and stupid still, but she pretty much stopped when I learned from the bullying book and told her off.
  • The first year I spent at college was when I did my GCSE's, and back then I was so afraid of 'The Social Services' and other similar services that I freaked out whenever learning support approached me, because I was afraid that they were the same thing, so I missed out on valuable help there.
  • The Second college year was when I left home to go to the Agricultural College, this is when I started to develop independence, although my family still had great influence on me, with my Mum phoning me about 'Jihads that might kill us' etc, and leaving me terrified. In agricultural college I referred myself for counselling, which was entirely against my parents' beliefs and wishes and my Mum was very vocal on the topic, saying it is better to speak to a friend than 'one of them', in that case though, she was almost right, as the counsellor was merely a tutor who earned extra money for the label 'counsellor' and if anything, his involvement made things more complex and certainly did not bring any insight into 'what was wrong', as I had been increasingly aware through my teenage years that 'something was wrong'. I do not know if I directly connected my problems to what had happened in the past then, I think I kind of knew, but didn't realise the depth of it.
  • Self-help. Because counselling was not working effectively, I started self-help, through books and tapes. I became addicted to it, and thankfully, being young and autistic, I managed to memorise some social skills from the books and tapes, which did help me, advice like, 'don't go round looking miserable, smile', I learned to smile instead of my face being stuck in an unhappy mask, it did help.
  • I also continued to seek help but didn't know either what was wrong or what help I needed. I was not put on regular learning support because I passed the basic skills tests and so they thought I was ok. When counselling at the college didn't work, I sought counselling elsewhere, I went to the Youth Centre in Winchester but they were very vague and their counsellors who were trainee counsellors, did not know what to make of my silence and so could not offer anything. So again I was left with no help and nowhere to turn.
  • The college student officer didn't understand me and treated me with scorn, and the feeling was mutual because I really didn't like her or her ethics. She referred me to the college doctor, the first doctor I had actually seen, apart from a police doctor when I was 12 and a doctor friend of my mum's when I was about 11. My parents had taught me that Doctors were bad news, so that didn't help, but when he asked if I was hearing voices because of my hypersensitivity to noise outside and because of the bad view that the student support officer had of me being 'odd' and not fitting in, I was furious, and again, there was no help available. Horrifying prejudiced perceptions, but as I was not hearing voices, the end result was me upset, angry, believing that my parents could be right about doctors, and with no help.
  • When JM burst onto the scene and tried to take over the college, she also liased with the student welfare officer and as a result I nearly abandoned my request to see JM, I did end up seeing her though, and she swiftly crossed boundaries, took me home, and stopped being my counsellor and told me she was like a surrogate mum for me. Fine, but then I was without counselling again.
  • When I left college, I was on anti-depressants and seeing the doctor every fortnight, the same doctor who had let me and a friend of mine down. I did not have faith in him, didn't like him, didn't know I had a choice and could change doctors, seeing him was not benefitting me, and the anti-depressants were leaving me in the confused and vulnerable haze that allowed FM to abuse me. Basically anti-depressants made me ill from the start and didn't help, but you trust doctors and medicines, I guess, you think they cannot be wrong, even me, with my background, I did as I was told and took these anti-depressants and was ill all the time, as well as having FM's advances and a crisis situation whereby I had left college and had no idea of the future.
  • JM claimed that anger management could only be accessed in Hampshire if you were in the prison. She was mistaken, and I started paying most of my benefits to see an anger management psychologist, but sadly I couldn't afford to keep that up. Later, recently  it turned out he was available on the NHS, but I am sure he wasn't at the time.
  • I joined a creative writing class to see if that would help me work some things out, but it was run by one of the tutors from the agricultural college, and so I was always ashamed to share my work, in view of the fact that back then, the college simply had not understood me. I quit the class for the same reason.
  • I started studying psychology as a correspondence course and learned about autism from that and was increasingly sure I was on the spectrum, but at the time I had no idea how to get diagnosis, the doctor was basically not interested in me and my problems, and my appointments with him were a drag, so I never dared to ask him, he did only a few helpful things when i saw him, and these were not to do with mental health, he diagnosed me with hayfever and he gave me antibiotics for my tonsils, which regularly flare up and cause me problems to this day, I have got bored with taking my tonsils to the doctor, I just wash them with TCP instead.
    JM claimed that autism was 'just a label' that would prevent me from taking responsibility for my behaviour', the fact that she had so much influence in my life meant she won about that and she continued to make me out to be 'difficult' to people in the parish, sharing my college problems and basically blatantly breaching every confidence possible, for which the diocese did not have her publicly flogged when they flogged me for 'causing her problems' in 2011.
  • So, undiagnosed and with no form of therapeutic help, I was in 'sheltered housing', which was another form of help that wasn't. I had agreed to the referral and JM had done it, because she said her friend ran the sheltered house, as it was, her friend had gone on permenant sick leave, leaving an agency support worker who came in on weekdays, in charge of the house. The agency support worker liked to party, got PMT, took it out on us, I was there for a matter of months and not receiving any benefit or support from being in such an environment, rather deteriorating as I watched or got caught up in, the other residents rows and problems, I did, however see the similarities between myself and two autistic residents there. But after a few months in the house, and a few months in the transition flat, I moved independently into independent lodgings, where I remained for years.
  • So, newly independent, I worked in supported employment and continued to seek help and to try and develop myself.
  • In the town I moved to, I registered with an awful surgery, but there wasn't much choice there. The doctors were always both late and impatient. I was left with an injury from work that I was told to go back t owork with, doing lasting damage, and was eventually, too late, referred for NHS physio, which didn't repair it, although the physio noticed I was lopsided, she and others never thought to check if I had leg length syndrome, which would have saved a lot of pain a long time ago if they had. Anyway, NHS physio didn't work and I was left injured until I paid to go to a private clinic, where the injury was mended by re-aligning the out of place components.
  • I did short courses at work on 'confidence building', 'communication skills' and 'teamwork', but did not find them very beneficial, as my communication did not improve, and 'communication skills' was geared up to making presentations rather than interpersonal skills, and I was scared of the rest of the group because I did not know them and still didn't know how to be with people.
  • Basically not a lot of help was available in those few years, I continued to work very hard on my self-help instead. and as well as that, I broke away from my parents influence, with my Dad shouting at me that 'The Church of England were brainwashing me!', having found out about my association with them, well he was mistaken about that, but the Church of England have done their share of harm and I can now understand why my parents disliked the Church of England, although their views were quite extreme.
  • One of JM's church members, very feminist and 'frothy' (JM's way of describing airy-fairy), decided she was my 'counsellor' untrained and with no supervision or qualification or permission from the church, where she held various positions. She would make me sit there, and I was supposed to talk, but as ever, I had no idea how to do this (funnily enough, I still can't talk to my therapist unless she asks me questions, I am very reactive and not very proactive when it comes to speaking and making contact verbally). Anyway, this frothy woman, who is still around in Winchester, would get me to sit there in her office as if she was counselling me, no contract or explanation, she just actively made a habit of it, rather than me seeing her and her husband for a cuppa, she would get me to go and sit in her office and talk. It was always embarrassing.
It was also unethical as she wasn't trained for what she was trying to do and her prejudices were so extreme and so awful. JM, breaching counselling confidences herself, had given her opinion of me to this woman and she repeated them back, in what became a feature of the way the church of england treated me from start to now, prejudice, rumours and condemnation, I was not allowed to develop and grow from who I was when I struggled at college, just as the Diocese and Deanery's attack on me has not let me grow from the terrible state I was in in Jersey.
Anyway, this woman would make me sit there, and she would tell me I shouldn't be doing the kind of work I did because I was female, shocking prejudices that don't belong in counselling, she was so 'us girls and them men!' when I don't think like that at all, I am not feminist or in favour of segregation, I just think people should live.
Anyway, I told this woman about FM abusing me, but nothing was done, I told her in 2001 or 2002, but last time I saw her, she and her husband (now deceased) were with FM, laughing at me as I was homeless and shamed on the streets of Winchester in 2010.

I will stop for now as I am so disgusted. The Diocese have never dealt with any of this or taken my side and my account of things at all, they would whip me when these neurotypical people in authority in their churches have behaved as they have! 


WRAP

Someone asked me what WRAP was.
WRAP is Wellness Recovery Action Plan, I think.

I did WRAP  probably a year or 18 months ago.
I did it to help me cope with times when depression, despair and flashbacks stopped me functioning properly.
I can recommend WRAP, because it is easy to understand and use, basic and simple and effective.
I have been using it as best I can this week, although it is hard to do anything good when you have no money. But I can use the basic day-to-day maintenance plan.

WRAP was designed by illness and disability sufferers as a strategy for coping when life is hard, it has been used by people with physical and mental illnesses, it can be used for trauma sufferers, amputees, people with depression and a wide variety of challenges.

The basic day-to-day maintenance plan encourages you to remember to eat, wash, look after your appearance, rest, talk to someone, watch television, it encourages you not to stay in a stupor of hopelessness which drags you down further, and I do find that I am better when I get myself to look after myself and my room.

WRAP is good. I am often cynical of 'mental health' programmes, but WRAP is for anyone who is struggling, and was created by people who had challenges, and is real-life help.
I can recommend it, it helped me when not much else was helping me.


Thursday, 10 October 2013

let's talk about flu

Well, at almost midday on October 10th 2013, it is running very close to the deadline, are Steel and the Diocese going to going to be able to block me reaching Jersey tomorrow in order to infect the island with flu?

ah, they are scared of flu, the church of england are, scared of many worldly things, they upheld the media in promoting 'media scare flu' the other year, that virus that they gave a click name 'H1N1 and showed how the world can be turned into a flock of panicking sheep by something that doesn't even exist, and the Archbishp, Bishop and church leaders endorsed that, preventing communion to prevent a fake disease from being spead, and showing just how devoid of Christianity and faith in God the church of england is!

It was a joke, instead of using individual cuplets for wine at communion or ignoring media scare flu as the worldy disease it is, the church of england latched onto it as another way of glorifying themselves in the media and getting a pat on the back from the media in return for spreading the fear and propaganda.

In Jersey, certain ministers 'prepared for deaths' from media scare flu, even though the media scare flu was not even a killer, it was a mild virus that people recovered from quickly and well, no-one in Jersey died, but the media in the UK tried to force deaths to be caused by media scare flu and the doctors bumped up the statistics in order to also stay in line, and yet, media scare flu neither caused as many deaths nor did as much physical harm to people as the normal winter flue did.
Ah well, I have flu and I am still on my feet, so who am I to talk? Last year flu put me in a hostel for three nights due to my asthma and the chest infection that flu caused, and earlier this year I was horrendously ill with pneumonia, media scare flu, Jersey flu, and HG flu back to Jersey to share the germs, share the fun and scare the hell out of those reading this who think I might go back.

The police will be guarding all ports tomorrow and maybe for a week or two.

I wrote to the Bishop and Jane Fisher about media scare flu while they were destroying me, and asked why the church of england were using a fake scare and propaganda to glorify themselves and promote a worldly and dishonest scandal, but they had no adequate reply, they just continued to destroy me, and my church that week avoided communion as commanded by the Bishop, but gathered for a 'bring and share lunch afterwards, where the hugging and kissing so forbidden by the church for the sake of media scare flu, was carried out at the bring and share lunch instead, isn't that ridiculous?!

Elizabeth Hall continues to ignore my complaint about Jane Fisher and leave her as a danger to vulnerable adults, which is also ridiculous, Jane Fisher is more dangerous than media scare flu, because she is a real danger, not propaganda, not made up.