http://therightofreply.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/mental-health-in-spotlight-yet-again.html
Awesome picture, co-incidental to what I just wrote, and grim story, Jersey is in trouble.
Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health. Show all posts
Friday, 20 June 2014
Sunday, 18 May 2014
The police, the church and me, part 1.
The police, even those in Jersey who are supposedly SPELL trained, have no understanding of autism and no wish to understand it, it comes under 'madness' to them and they treat people with autism as such, their attitude to madness is singularly that it is a crime, to brutalize someone and not allow a complaint because 'madness' means that your bruises and pain are not real, they are all in your mind.
The first police brutalization was in Basingstoke, in the year before I went to Jersey, this was as a result of me making the Lihous go home after they spent a day with me in Dorset making my life an utter misery with their relentless boasting, I had no money at the time and was in debt and worried sick, trying to complete college, the Lihous did the usual, boasting incessantly about all the things their grandchildren in Jersey and Guernsey had, I was shamed, belittled and miserable and in the end shouted at them and told them to go home and stop boasting.
They did but when I went to apologize, George Lihou chased me up the road shouting and saying I made his wife ill, he did not tell his wife he did this, and I ran and ended up in a terrible state a mile away and unfortunately the police found me, decided I was mad, brutalized me and forcibly flung me in a cell, I was seen by a doctor who told them to release me as there was no mental illness - not true in the fact I was battling horribly with depression because Jill Lihou had had me put on a dangerous drug that she was supposed to guard and administer and yet claimed to me that it made her ill doing so.
When the police found me, I wasn't doing anything criminal, just sitting in my car, depressed and despairing, I had been suffering the Lihous boasting and controlling and decision making for a year and was struggling through college with no money while every conversation with the Lihous was about what their family had, private schools, music lessons, dance lessons, holidays, etc, the Lihous refused offended when I asked them if we could talk less about what their family had while I was battling in poverty to get through college.
I was mentally ill in that the Lihous were making me ill, I was not delusional, hallucinating or schitzophrenic, but the police both treated me as if I was mad and beat and flung me about and locked me up for it.
It remains a baffle to me as to why the police are not aware that suicide is not a crime and distress is not a good reason to beat someone and throw them in a cell and then release them - the end result likely is that person, already distressed, now severely traumatized, is released to commit suicide.
Anyway, when I went to North Walls in October 2010, when Lou Scott-Joynt had accidentally phoned me instead of phoning my friend of mine who she intended to phone to get the Diocese's side of things accross, the police treated me as mad then, and said 'this has happened before, hasn't it?' leaving me baffled as they did not say what 'this' was, again, branding me as mentally ill and thus not valid.And the police refused to prevent the diocese from contact with or about me, and instead repeatedly met with them and the council, breaching confidences and the date protection act repeatedly.
Even though I had been released from Basingstoke police station at 2am suffering severe trauma from my beating for the crime of suspected insanity, with the doctor declaring me not mentally ill.
It is a funny pattern that the police never recognize the results of the assessment and release each time, and continue to treat me as mad just because they have beaten me and locked me in.
The police had moved my car, and it had almost no petrol in it for me to get home.
So, Basingstoke was the first church-related police beating and detention in 2007 or 2008.
The Lihous afterwards, George did not tell Jill he had shouted at me, chased me or blamed me for her mental illness, which she had been suffering for decades, which had in the past led to her hoping her children would die, but funnily enough I do not believe she was beaten and locked up for those incidences or any other, and she did do some unusual things in her illness, not least having me put on a drug that my body didn't cope with, and telling the doctor she would administer it as she was a former nurse, and then telling me that looking after my drugs made her ill.
So, Jill had no idea Goerge had shouted and chased me when I came to apologize, and was deeply upset when I refused to stay with them every time she asked -they had gone from having me home every weekend to when it suited them, with no input from me and input from their family in Jersey instead, Reverend Phil Warren and Heather Warren, the daughter that Jill wished dead when she was younger.
So, when I finally went back to the Lihous, Jill asked why I cringed and tried to escape from George, and I told her, I thought she knew, he chased and shouted at me, she didn't and it made her upset again, when George came home she confronted him, and he muttered 'sorry' and turned away, which was not enough to repair things, and I was always very uncomfortable with him after that, especially when Jill started crying in church because I was narrating the drama and then helping with sidesmans duties, I do not know why that made her cry but she was like that, always upset and very intense about things, and I fled church for fear of George going mad again.
The relationship with the Lihous was never healthy and never recovered. Nor did I, the injustice and Post-Traumatic Stress of the police beating hadn't gone by the time I arrived in Jersey.
The record it gave me horrified me, because I hadn't done anything wrong to be so brutally flung around, and I was left with massive bruises and shock, and I had to try and explain to my landlady and college why I was injured and shocked.
I also saw my doctor, who mentioned trauma but did nothing.
And the branding for being in despair over the Lihous affected my record all the way to Winchester in 2010, where the police disregarded my complaint as that of a 'mad person' even though I was assessed as free from mental illness, and this happened in Jersey as well and back in Winchester, basically vulnerable people who get to a point where they cannot cope, are treated with contempt by police because of their inability to cope, so I was and have been, left with the Church harming me, and no defence because the police consider their detentions of me to mean I am insane and not credible.
I wonder how many other vulnerable people suffer and die horribly this way and are branded 'mentally ill' if they commit suicide as the result of trauma or lack of protection from their tormentors.
And where are the Diocese in this? Using the Lihous against me, because the Diocese only heard one side, from the Dean-Warrens-Lihou-Montague collaberation to try and clear all the wrongdoers and brand me.
Funny how George Lihou sent me a snotty note about how I was to forgive, when I told the Lihous I was traumatized by what happened, and yet they have remained unforgiving their part in condemning me for what happened, one sided, my side unheard.
The other thing, I nearly missed out, the police do not understand conditions such as autism and trauma, and so when they put me in a tiny cage, after brutalizing me in front of my fellow homeless in Winchester in 2011, and untruthfully claiming I tried to bite one of them when I ducked my head as he continued to throw me around, I was frozen with terror, and instead of letting me calm down, the police dragged me by my jumper accross the police yard, choking me and exposing me.
If this is how they treat people who are considered to be ill, who are traumatized and claustrophobic, what hope is there?
I am autistic and touch sensetive, especially in my upper arms, each police brutality has involved brutally tight squeezing of my upper arm, leaving bruises, and for no reason, I am not violent, I was terrified each time, frozen in terror, and that is what they did to me as a result.
I get the feeling it is an almost enjoyable experience for the police to beat and brutalize defenceless people, each time they are smiling, laughing, talking about their personal lives.
In Winchester in 2011, the police apparently acted out of Jane Fisher's 'compassion' after the public brutalization and locking me in a cage and dragging me by the scruff of the neck through the policeyard, and instead of locking me in the cell, left the door open and sat in the doorway, as if that was any less terrifying or as if what had already been done had not been done, I am scarred for life by that incident and will never recover.
The police kept me for 24 hours, jeering I was mad, talking outside the cell of a hospital to send me to, refusing, even when asked by my former counsellor, to get a female officer to see me, and an appropriate adult, they told my former counsellor that they 'couldn't change things to suit me', even though they were obliged to make provision for me as a vulnerable adult, they did not.
I was released utterly traumatized, each time I am beaten and locked in for being distressed, the injury it has caused has left me very ill and unable to function and has left me scarred for life, the horror of the diocese being able to trace me as they have, through those same police, and release press reports and try and silence me, has left me living in terror and unable to live a full and normal life.
Why is the law one-sided on the side of those who have power, why are the Diocese allowed to harm me and I am not allowed to protest because the police branded me incorectly?
My psychological report.
http://whatreallyhappenedinthechurch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/for-limited-time-only-here-is-my.html#.U3jGltJdXJk
The first police brutalization was in Basingstoke, in the year before I went to Jersey, this was as a result of me making the Lihous go home after they spent a day with me in Dorset making my life an utter misery with their relentless boasting, I had no money at the time and was in debt and worried sick, trying to complete college, the Lihous did the usual, boasting incessantly about all the things their grandchildren in Jersey and Guernsey had, I was shamed, belittled and miserable and in the end shouted at them and told them to go home and stop boasting.
They did but when I went to apologize, George Lihou chased me up the road shouting and saying I made his wife ill, he did not tell his wife he did this, and I ran and ended up in a terrible state a mile away and unfortunately the police found me, decided I was mad, brutalized me and forcibly flung me in a cell, I was seen by a doctor who told them to release me as there was no mental illness - not true in the fact I was battling horribly with depression because Jill Lihou had had me put on a dangerous drug that she was supposed to guard and administer and yet claimed to me that it made her ill doing so.
When the police found me, I wasn't doing anything criminal, just sitting in my car, depressed and despairing, I had been suffering the Lihous boasting and controlling and decision making for a year and was struggling through college with no money while every conversation with the Lihous was about what their family had, private schools, music lessons, dance lessons, holidays, etc, the Lihous refused offended when I asked them if we could talk less about what their family had while I was battling in poverty to get through college.
I was mentally ill in that the Lihous were making me ill, I was not delusional, hallucinating or schitzophrenic, but the police both treated me as if I was mad and beat and flung me about and locked me up for it.
It remains a baffle to me as to why the police are not aware that suicide is not a crime and distress is not a good reason to beat someone and throw them in a cell and then release them - the end result likely is that person, already distressed, now severely traumatized, is released to commit suicide.
Anyway, when I went to North Walls in October 2010, when Lou Scott-Joynt had accidentally phoned me instead of phoning my friend of mine who she intended to phone to get the Diocese's side of things accross, the police treated me as mad then, and said 'this has happened before, hasn't it?' leaving me baffled as they did not say what 'this' was, again, branding me as mentally ill and thus not valid.And the police refused to prevent the diocese from contact with or about me, and instead repeatedly met with them and the council, breaching confidences and the date protection act repeatedly.
Even though I had been released from Basingstoke police station at 2am suffering severe trauma from my beating for the crime of suspected insanity, with the doctor declaring me not mentally ill.
It is a funny pattern that the police never recognize the results of the assessment and release each time, and continue to treat me as mad just because they have beaten me and locked me in.
The police had moved my car, and it had almost no petrol in it for me to get home.
So, Basingstoke was the first church-related police beating and detention in 2007 or 2008.
The Lihous afterwards, George did not tell Jill he had shouted at me, chased me or blamed me for her mental illness, which she had been suffering for decades, which had in the past led to her hoping her children would die, but funnily enough I do not believe she was beaten and locked up for those incidences or any other, and she did do some unusual things in her illness, not least having me put on a drug that my body didn't cope with, and telling the doctor she would administer it as she was a former nurse, and then telling me that looking after my drugs made her ill.
So, Jill had no idea Goerge had shouted and chased me when I came to apologize, and was deeply upset when I refused to stay with them every time she asked -they had gone from having me home every weekend to when it suited them, with no input from me and input from their family in Jersey instead, Reverend Phil Warren and Heather Warren, the daughter that Jill wished dead when she was younger.
So, when I finally went back to the Lihous, Jill asked why I cringed and tried to escape from George, and I told her, I thought she knew, he chased and shouted at me, she didn't and it made her upset again, when George came home she confronted him, and he muttered 'sorry' and turned away, which was not enough to repair things, and I was always very uncomfortable with him after that, especially when Jill started crying in church because I was narrating the drama and then helping with sidesmans duties, I do not know why that made her cry but she was like that, always upset and very intense about things, and I fled church for fear of George going mad again.
The relationship with the Lihous was never healthy and never recovered. Nor did I, the injustice and Post-Traumatic Stress of the police beating hadn't gone by the time I arrived in Jersey.
The record it gave me horrified me, because I hadn't done anything wrong to be so brutally flung around, and I was left with massive bruises and shock, and I had to try and explain to my landlady and college why I was injured and shocked.
I also saw my doctor, who mentioned trauma but did nothing.
And the branding for being in despair over the Lihous affected my record all the way to Winchester in 2010, where the police disregarded my complaint as that of a 'mad person' even though I was assessed as free from mental illness, and this happened in Jersey as well and back in Winchester, basically vulnerable people who get to a point where they cannot cope, are treated with contempt by police because of their inability to cope, so I was and have been, left with the Church harming me, and no defence because the police consider their detentions of me to mean I am insane and not credible.
I wonder how many other vulnerable people suffer and die horribly this way and are branded 'mentally ill' if they commit suicide as the result of trauma or lack of protection from their tormentors.
And where are the Diocese in this? Using the Lihous against me, because the Diocese only heard one side, from the Dean-Warrens-Lihou-Montague collaberation to try and clear all the wrongdoers and brand me.
Funny how George Lihou sent me a snotty note about how I was to forgive, when I told the Lihous I was traumatized by what happened, and yet they have remained unforgiving their part in condemning me for what happened, one sided, my side unheard.
The other thing, I nearly missed out, the police do not understand conditions such as autism and trauma, and so when they put me in a tiny cage, after brutalizing me in front of my fellow homeless in Winchester in 2011, and untruthfully claiming I tried to bite one of them when I ducked my head as he continued to throw me around, I was frozen with terror, and instead of letting me calm down, the police dragged me by my jumper accross the police yard, choking me and exposing me.
If this is how they treat people who are considered to be ill, who are traumatized and claustrophobic, what hope is there?
I am autistic and touch sensetive, especially in my upper arms, each police brutality has involved brutally tight squeezing of my upper arm, leaving bruises, and for no reason, I am not violent, I was terrified each time, frozen in terror, and that is what they did to me as a result.
I get the feeling it is an almost enjoyable experience for the police to beat and brutalize defenceless people, each time they are smiling, laughing, talking about their personal lives.
In Winchester in 2011, the police apparently acted out of Jane Fisher's 'compassion' after the public brutalization and locking me in a cage and dragging me by the scruff of the neck through the policeyard, and instead of locking me in the cell, left the door open and sat in the doorway, as if that was any less terrifying or as if what had already been done had not been done, I am scarred for life by that incident and will never recover.
The police kept me for 24 hours, jeering I was mad, talking outside the cell of a hospital to send me to, refusing, even when asked by my former counsellor, to get a female officer to see me, and an appropriate adult, they told my former counsellor that they 'couldn't change things to suit me', even though they were obliged to make provision for me as a vulnerable adult, they did not.
I was released utterly traumatized, each time I am beaten and locked in for being distressed, the injury it has caused has left me very ill and unable to function and has left me scarred for life, the horror of the diocese being able to trace me as they have, through those same police, and release press reports and try and silence me, has left me living in terror and unable to live a full and normal life.
Why is the law one-sided on the side of those who have power, why are the Diocese allowed to harm me and I am not allowed to protest because the police branded me incorectly?
My psychological report.
http://whatreallyhappenedinthechurch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/for-limited-time-only-here-is-my.html#.U3jGltJdXJk
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.
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.
lets go back 29 2005-2006
Anyway, on return to Hampshire I was greeted by bad news, I went
straight to see my friends in L. when I got back, and JM had said
they would be ok while I was away, but when I went to see Anne and her husband,
Anne told me she had cancer. The cancer she died of in January this
year after just over 5 years fight with it. 5 years of prayers and
worries.
(This was written in 2011).
It was December, I had been offered another tied cottage job, at ******, I moved there, it has similarities to the previous job, and differences, the handyman was honest and not an alcoholic, and the place was in much better repair than the last one, the head gardener was full of himself and was not a quiet old fashioned type like Ted, but this head gardener got cancer and died very rapidly while I was there.
The cottage was an old well house and you could feel the well underneath, and the cold, and the house felt haunted and unhappy, the lady was massively demanding again, and had health problems, her husband was away in London a lot, there was a small flock of rare breed sheep, two dogs and a vicious old cat, my job was gardening, including the vegetables, assisting with the sheep and pets, and caretaking during their frequent trips to their farmhouse in Wales , it was even more difficult to get things right for this lady, and my self esteem was lower than ever, but at least the well house and its garden were smaller And more compact and therefore easier to maintain, though there was a problem with the boiler that cost me a bit. In this new job I also avoided letting JM be involved, and did not even tell her my address.
(Hence the emails that you see between me and JM in Jersey stating that she feels privilaged to have my address!)
Christmas 2005: I was alone, previous Christmases had been with the names redacted, and JM and family, I think there was a Christmas with the Hypochondriac couple, but this Christmas everyone was away, with someone else, had family with them, and so I was alone, I felt so sad, but the saddest thing was that my friends seemed to have forgotten to even ask where I was for Christmas.
No-one cared, I felt utterly and completely alone in the world. Then my brother rang and invited me, I did not know if I would really be able to make the journey from Hampshire to North Norfolk and back with snow forecast there.
It would be a long drive for me. I was going to go on Christmas day itself if I did go because I was on caretaking duties until then, on Christmas eve night I did not want to go to L. church and see FM and feel upset, even though SL. was hoping I would, so I went to S. church instead, JM’s curate was doing the service, JM had made best efforts to get between me and her curate and cause problems, but I wasn’t interested in that, I just enjoyed the service and felt sad at the same time.
Afterwards E and P.M spoke to me, they had their family with them for Christmas but kindly told me I was welcome to ‘pop in’ over Christmas, that cheered me no end, but being autistic and more concerned about boundaries I was not sure when or how to ‘pop in’ and I didn’t in the end.
Then I went back in church, JM’s curate asked if I was alright, I was extremely wary of talking to him, but I asked him to pray for me, he asked if I was ok and if I had somewhere to be for Christmas – and this is what made such a difference! Most of my friends hadn’t asked where I was for Christmas and here was this guy I didn’t get on with asking me where I was for Christmas! I told him I thought I had somewhere to go, he said I was in his prayers, and he gave me a hug!
There we were in the churchyard at 1am on Christmas morning and this man who I usually ran away from was hugging me and praying for me! In his hug and concern I felt that Jesus was hugging me and showing His concern and forgiveness also, and I was repentant of being unfriendly to the curate, and I looked at my life and wondered how I could be a better Christian, I went home thanking God and feeling better, but I was crying, and my cat cuddled into my arms and purred and kissed the tears off my cheeks.
The Christmas was one of violent rows between my brother and his wife, at one point she picked up the cordless phone and threw it, smashing it and making me hurtle out the back door.
I came back on Boxing Day or the day after and I was ill, it was snowing on the way back, and the traffic on the M25 was terrible, it took many hours to get home.
After Christmas I wanted to get stuck into this Christianity thing, the Christianity thing that caused my least favourite curate to hug me and pray for me, JM got silly about this, having not heard what had happened properly, and decided that I had gone from hating her curate to fancying him, I certainly didn’t I still had the strange flashbacks when I saw him, but I asked him if he had time to talk to me, I wanted to know how to be a Christian despite all my problems, I wanted to be able to call myself a Christian, which I didn’t because of my lack of love and trust and my behaviour.
The curate didn’t sit down and talk to me, not surprising, JM was giving her opinion of me to anyone caused them to not want to sit down and talk to me. But AD, one of the new input into the church, and the new Reader, was charmingly delighted to sit down with his wife and talk to me about Christianity and their journey in faith, I was delighted, they are so lovely, and even when I saw AD. more recently he greeted me with a joyful and friendly handshake, though that was a few months ago, so the diocese’s message of condemnation may well have reached him now.
AD and his wife became people who I would sit with in church, people I could talk to, it did not become a friendship where I went round to their house, apart from the fact that I went to mission support group at their house, Jane Fisher would be round there with her gun if I did that now – the diocese have a policy banning abuse victims from clergy homes and excluding them, either of my abusers would be welcome to mission support group, but I would no longer be allowed.
Anyway, AD asked me if I would like to be Mission Contact for our Missionary in South America, I was delighted and Honoured, I never got very far with that due to going away to college.
Anyway, the hypochondriac couple were also very big in the mission support group, but when my relationship with them broke down, that didn’t affect us in the group, I do not know if they talked to the D's about me, but if they did it did no harm, church position holders tend to talk about their differences with people, because unlike the Catholics they are not taught it is harmful and sinful, it was when they talked to JM or their daughter in law behind my back that harm was done because they were given incorrect advice.
Basically if a friendship has problems, it can either be resolved through talking, or ended, gabbing behind someone's back solves nothing and wounds the person involved.
JM admitted that they had talked to her, and I told her for the hundredth time that she was breaching confidentiality and causing me problems, she was my ex-counsellor and she not only talked about me behind my back and without my permission, but she shared details with FM and her mother, which as a professional she should not do and which caused them to stick their oar in too and humiliated me.
I redid my baptism, I wasn’t happy about FM and the F's being my ‘sponsors’ for the original baptism, none of them were ‘upholding me’ and FM had abused me. I decided to invite everyone who was really there for me at Christmas apart from the curate, ie no-one, I baptised myself from the water of the sea, and then in extreme co-incidence my brother rang, we talked and he asked if I knew that my sister lived just up the road from where I told him I was, I said no I hadn’t heard from her since she divorced and the flat was sold, I only knew she was managing fast food shops and killing herself with work.
My sister had returned to her gardening/labouring career and had bought a new flat, in this old area where we had lived as children and always loved, My brother phoned her and asked if I could go and see her, she was waiting outside, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, she was a smoker, her situation was bad, she kept being rushed to hospital with heart problems and her neighbours were hounding her and she had been assaulted while living there, she was depressed.
But she made me welcome, heard about my baptism and said a prayer for me and gave me a cross and a little card thing with a saying about the cross on it, she said she was my Godmother now, and we laughed, but I didn’t think she would stay in my life, so I never told my friends I had a sister, I ended up calling her my ‘fairly odd mother’ after the cartoon ‘the fairly oddparents’, and I told people she was my Godmother or ‘my fairly oddmother’, rather than give them the idea I had real family around me if she wasn’t going to stay around, I feel bad about this now, guilty, I should have been honest but I guessed that she was going to move on and lose touch, I really didn’t have faith in a member of my family.
But we had fun, we drove along the motorway listening to songs we liked on top volume, we went to the chip shop and asked for a large sausage and giggled ourselves silly, but I worried about her and her heart problems that kept landing her in the hospital, and her scary neighbours, I worried.
She was trying to sell her flat and move closer to her work, but having no success, and she was depressed, then suddenly it all changed, she met someone at work, she moved in with him, she married him, she had a baby, I was happy for her, it all happened quickly, and it meant I saw less of her, but what mattered to me was that she was happy and her life had come right, so I lost the usual time I had with her, and in the end I did lose her, we had differences, she had a temper worse than mine at times, and with the fall outs of the family around Dad’s death, and what happened to me in Jersey, which none of my family understoodI did lose her.
I continued delivery driving, and also started getting tax credits, my hours were 12 per week plus caretaking in return for the house and £66 per week, so I should have been better off, only I couldn’t manage money or my spiralling debts, which were made worse by bank charge upon bank charge for not having enough in my account to pay bills, I would be charged and then they would charge again if that charge bounced and would not wait to present the next one, I was so hopeless at communication and could not afford the 0845 numbers to people who would not help anyway, so it got worse and worse.
(This was written in 2011).
It was December, I had been offered another tied cottage job, at ******, I moved there, it has similarities to the previous job, and differences, the handyman was honest and not an alcoholic, and the place was in much better repair than the last one, the head gardener was full of himself and was not a quiet old fashioned type like Ted, but this head gardener got cancer and died very rapidly while I was there.
The cottage was an old well house and you could feel the well underneath, and the cold, and the house felt haunted and unhappy, the lady was massively demanding again, and had health problems, her husband was away in London a lot, there was a small flock of rare breed sheep, two dogs and a vicious old cat, my job was gardening, including the vegetables, assisting with the sheep and pets, and caretaking during their frequent trips to their farmhouse in Wales , it was even more difficult to get things right for this lady, and my self esteem was lower than ever, but at least the well house and its garden were smaller And more compact and therefore easier to maintain, though there was a problem with the boiler that cost me a bit. In this new job I also avoided letting JM be involved, and did not even tell her my address.
(Hence the emails that you see between me and JM in Jersey stating that she feels privilaged to have my address!)
Christmas 2005: I was alone, previous Christmases had been with the names redacted, and JM and family, I think there was a Christmas with the Hypochondriac couple, but this Christmas everyone was away, with someone else, had family with them, and so I was alone, I felt so sad, but the saddest thing was that my friends seemed to have forgotten to even ask where I was for Christmas.
No-one cared, I felt utterly and completely alone in the world. Then my brother rang and invited me, I did not know if I would really be able to make the journey from Hampshire to North Norfolk and back with snow forecast there.
It would be a long drive for me. I was going to go on Christmas day itself if I did go because I was on caretaking duties until then, on Christmas eve night I did not want to go to L. church and see FM and feel upset, even though SL. was hoping I would, so I went to S. church instead, JM’s curate was doing the service, JM had made best efforts to get between me and her curate and cause problems, but I wasn’t interested in that, I just enjoyed the service and felt sad at the same time.
Afterwards E and P.M spoke to me, they had their family with them for Christmas but kindly told me I was welcome to ‘pop in’ over Christmas, that cheered me no end, but being autistic and more concerned about boundaries I was not sure when or how to ‘pop in’ and I didn’t in the end.
Then I went back in church, JM’s curate asked if I was alright, I was extremely wary of talking to him, but I asked him to pray for me, he asked if I was ok and if I had somewhere to be for Christmas – and this is what made such a difference! Most of my friends hadn’t asked where I was for Christmas and here was this guy I didn’t get on with asking me where I was for Christmas! I told him I thought I had somewhere to go, he said I was in his prayers, and he gave me a hug!
There we were in the churchyard at 1am on Christmas morning and this man who I usually ran away from was hugging me and praying for me! In his hug and concern I felt that Jesus was hugging me and showing His concern and forgiveness also, and I was repentant of being unfriendly to the curate, and I looked at my life and wondered how I could be a better Christian, I went home thanking God and feeling better, but I was crying, and my cat cuddled into my arms and purred and kissed the tears off my cheeks.
The Christmas was one of violent rows between my brother and his wife, at one point she picked up the cordless phone and threw it, smashing it and making me hurtle out the back door.
I came back on Boxing Day or the day after and I was ill, it was snowing on the way back, and the traffic on the M25 was terrible, it took many hours to get home.
After Christmas I wanted to get stuck into this Christianity thing, the Christianity thing that caused my least favourite curate to hug me and pray for me, JM got silly about this, having not heard what had happened properly, and decided that I had gone from hating her curate to fancying him, I certainly didn’t I still had the strange flashbacks when I saw him, but I asked him if he had time to talk to me, I wanted to know how to be a Christian despite all my problems, I wanted to be able to call myself a Christian, which I didn’t because of my lack of love and trust and my behaviour.
The curate didn’t sit down and talk to me, not surprising, JM was giving her opinion of me to anyone caused them to not want to sit down and talk to me. But AD, one of the new input into the church, and the new Reader, was charmingly delighted to sit down with his wife and talk to me about Christianity and their journey in faith, I was delighted, they are so lovely, and even when I saw AD. more recently he greeted me with a joyful and friendly handshake, though that was a few months ago, so the diocese’s message of condemnation may well have reached him now.
AD and his wife became people who I would sit with in church, people I could talk to, it did not become a friendship where I went round to their house, apart from the fact that I went to mission support group at their house, Jane Fisher would be round there with her gun if I did that now – the diocese have a policy banning abuse victims from clergy homes and excluding them, either of my abusers would be welcome to mission support group, but I would no longer be allowed.
Anyway, AD asked me if I would like to be Mission Contact for our Missionary in South America, I was delighted and Honoured, I never got very far with that due to going away to college.
Anyway, the hypochondriac couple were also very big in the mission support group, but when my relationship with them broke down, that didn’t affect us in the group, I do not know if they talked to the D's about me, but if they did it did no harm, church position holders tend to talk about their differences with people, because unlike the Catholics they are not taught it is harmful and sinful, it was when they talked to JM or their daughter in law behind my back that harm was done because they were given incorrect advice.
Basically if a friendship has problems, it can either be resolved through talking, or ended, gabbing behind someone's back solves nothing and wounds the person involved.
JM admitted that they had talked to her, and I told her for the hundredth time that she was breaching confidentiality and causing me problems, she was my ex-counsellor and she not only talked about me behind my back and without my permission, but she shared details with FM and her mother, which as a professional she should not do and which caused them to stick their oar in too and humiliated me.
I redid my baptism, I wasn’t happy about FM and the F's being my ‘sponsors’ for the original baptism, none of them were ‘upholding me’ and FM had abused me. I decided to invite everyone who was really there for me at Christmas apart from the curate, ie no-one, I baptised myself from the water of the sea, and then in extreme co-incidence my brother rang, we talked and he asked if I knew that my sister lived just up the road from where I told him I was, I said no I hadn’t heard from her since she divorced and the flat was sold, I only knew she was managing fast food shops and killing herself with work.
My sister had returned to her gardening/labouring career and had bought a new flat, in this old area where we had lived as children and always loved, My brother phoned her and asked if I could go and see her, she was waiting outside, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, she was a smoker, her situation was bad, she kept being rushed to hospital with heart problems and her neighbours were hounding her and she had been assaulted while living there, she was depressed.
But she made me welcome, heard about my baptism and said a prayer for me and gave me a cross and a little card thing with a saying about the cross on it, she said she was my Godmother now, and we laughed, but I didn’t think she would stay in my life, so I never told my friends I had a sister, I ended up calling her my ‘fairly odd mother’ after the cartoon ‘the fairly oddparents’, and I told people she was my Godmother or ‘my fairly oddmother’, rather than give them the idea I had real family around me if she wasn’t going to stay around, I feel bad about this now, guilty, I should have been honest but I guessed that she was going to move on and lose touch, I really didn’t have faith in a member of my family.
But we had fun, we drove along the motorway listening to songs we liked on top volume, we went to the chip shop and asked for a large sausage and giggled ourselves silly, but I worried about her and her heart problems that kept landing her in the hospital, and her scary neighbours, I worried.
She was trying to sell her flat and move closer to her work, but having no success, and she was depressed, then suddenly it all changed, she met someone at work, she moved in with him, she married him, she had a baby, I was happy for her, it all happened quickly, and it meant I saw less of her, but what mattered to me was that she was happy and her life had come right, so I lost the usual time I had with her, and in the end I did lose her, we had differences, she had a temper worse than mine at times, and with the fall outs of the family around Dad’s death, and what happened to me in Jersey, which none of my family understoodI did lose her.
I continued delivery driving, and also started getting tax credits, my hours were 12 per week plus caretaking in return for the house and £66 per week, so I should have been better off, only I couldn’t manage money or my spiralling debts, which were made worse by bank charge upon bank charge for not having enough in my account to pay bills, I would be charged and then they would charge again if that charge bounced and would not wait to present the next one, I was so hopeless at communication and could not afford the 0845 numbers to people who would not help anyway, so it got worse and worse.
lets go back 28 - Maudsley and NZ
In my old town, I felt hopeless and useless, working for the takeaway
doing delivery driving part time and suffering out of control depression
and exhaustion, I also started working for Neighbourcare, a charity that
helps old and infirm people with things, I worked as a gardener for
them but felt too shy of the customers, too lacking in confidence and
struggling with paperwork that I had to do each time I did a garden. It
was a time of complete and utter wretchedness for me. Deep depression
and exhaustion.
I was taken to the Maudsley Hospital in London by the Hypochondriac couple, and after a day of tests that exhausted me, I was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum and also as suffering from Social phobia and depression, I was put on an anti-depressant called venaflaxine and I think this was suggested to the doctors by the hypochondriacs when they were interviewed about their views on me, as one of them took venaflaxine, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me, it made my blood pressure go wrong and made me feel ill.
I was also referred for psychiatry and it was recommended that I had behavioural therapy, the psychiatry didn’t seem to achieve anything constructive and so it drifted away, behavioural therapy was as impossible to get as anger management, being not available on the NHS and too expensive privately and hardly available privately in Hampshire at all, I tried really really hard to climb these barriers, and failed, I applied for funding, I asked charities, I asked the newspaper, I asked for reduced fees, I asked the Maudsley to help, but to no avail, so I was alone, alone with the shock of being diagnosed and knowing that my problem was not just trauma, but a lifelong condition that meant I would always be alone, misunderstood and struggling. My friendship with the hypochondriac couple was breaking down anyway, which also added to my problems. The maudsley also got me to go back for a brain scan, I went alone and for all that trouble, stress and expense I was never given the results.
I really want to know if the scan showed brain damage, as that is a possibility and if only I knew, I could get more help and get better.
In a way though, the diagnosis allowed me to step into my skin and to stop being just ‘awkward’, ‘troublemaker’ and everything else I was called, I was autistic and living independently and working and looking after myself as best I could. But people never have stopped misunderstanding me and being angry and upset with me, even when I put every ounce of my effort into trying to be ‘normal’ and trying to do the right things. The autistic disorder is a life sentence really.
(Although I have come to realise that what helps keep an even keel is a great deal of solitude)
The relationship with the hypochondriac couple was breaking down, they took me to local mental health services in order to try and help further before they obviously planned to abandon me, and I didn't know how to sustain or end a friendship then,
But the mental health services said I didn’t appear to meet their criteria at all and autism wasn’t a mental illness and so I should just read a book, I cannot remember what book, I only remember that the woman we spoke to was hiding behind her hair and wouldn’t even look at us, and that the hypochondriac man stayed behind to talk to her without my permission to talk about me, and I wandered off in distress and got lost.
The hypochondriac couple themselves had some sort of mental health problems, the man had had a breakdown at work before retiring, I think he said he was bullied, but I am not positive, but he had been reliant on anti-depressants for years, his wife had some sort of social anxiety disorder and told me at one point that my way of going out and helping in the church and community helped her to have confidence to want to do more, which is nice, but I should have known better to have let this fragile couple get so involved, it hurt them, it hurt me, and here I am condemned for it. I carry all the condemnation for everything, and no one else does.
Anyway, a few stressed wars of words and a few letters ended my relationship with the hypochondriacs, I paid them back some money and I saw them sometimes after that and never wanted to speak to them, at one point they greeted me and this was while I was on the stronger meds and I didn’t recognise them, but they weren’t the only ones I didn’t recognise, my memory for people and faces faded a bit when I was on the meds Jill Lihou had me put on on condition that she would supervise the situation, I didn’t recognise (another couple) either.
JM went on her sabbatical, starting in a quiet cottage somewhere, without FM, just her and the dog, she kept her phone with her and on and gave me her number so I could ring her, which surprised me, and was kind of her. No-one else had her mobile number apart from her family, she didn't usually use a mobile.
JM took me to New Zealand, but it was a struggle, there were tensions between us because of the unresolved FM issue and JM determinedly telling me it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, New Zealand was a hell of a shock for an autistic person, probably the most drastic change of scene and routine I could have had, and we were stressed with each other, but we had fun and adventures, but I felt guilty all the time that I was so anxious and stressed that it cannot have been much fun for JM, it still hurts my heart that she really meant it well, but I was unsettled as anyone autistic is when they have such a big change of scenery, and to make it worse I had the worst set of flashbacks ever while we were there, I wondered if JM thought I had gone insane.
When we met up with her friends there she obviously told them something unhelpful because they treated me extremely gingerly and I felt unwelcome. JM has always been the master of emphatic concrete and totally incorrect pronouncements about me, which had been alienating me from the minute I first came to the Church of England.
I was taken to the Maudsley Hospital in London by the Hypochondriac couple, and after a day of tests that exhausted me, I was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum and also as suffering from Social phobia and depression, I was put on an anti-depressant called venaflaxine and I think this was suggested to the doctors by the hypochondriacs when they were interviewed about their views on me, as one of them took venaflaxine, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me, it made my blood pressure go wrong and made me feel ill.
I was also referred for psychiatry and it was recommended that I had behavioural therapy, the psychiatry didn’t seem to achieve anything constructive and so it drifted away, behavioural therapy was as impossible to get as anger management, being not available on the NHS and too expensive privately and hardly available privately in Hampshire at all, I tried really really hard to climb these barriers, and failed, I applied for funding, I asked charities, I asked the newspaper, I asked for reduced fees, I asked the Maudsley to help, but to no avail, so I was alone, alone with the shock of being diagnosed and knowing that my problem was not just trauma, but a lifelong condition that meant I would always be alone, misunderstood and struggling. My friendship with the hypochondriac couple was breaking down anyway, which also added to my problems. The maudsley also got me to go back for a brain scan, I went alone and for all that trouble, stress and expense I was never given the results.
I really want to know if the scan showed brain damage, as that is a possibility and if only I knew, I could get more help and get better.
In a way though, the diagnosis allowed me to step into my skin and to stop being just ‘awkward’, ‘troublemaker’ and everything else I was called, I was autistic and living independently and working and looking after myself as best I could. But people never have stopped misunderstanding me and being angry and upset with me, even when I put every ounce of my effort into trying to be ‘normal’ and trying to do the right things. The autistic disorder is a life sentence really.
(Although I have come to realise that what helps keep an even keel is a great deal of solitude)
The relationship with the hypochondriac couple was breaking down, they took me to local mental health services in order to try and help further before they obviously planned to abandon me, and I didn't know how to sustain or end a friendship then,
But the mental health services said I didn’t appear to meet their criteria at all and autism wasn’t a mental illness and so I should just read a book, I cannot remember what book, I only remember that the woman we spoke to was hiding behind her hair and wouldn’t even look at us, and that the hypochondriac man stayed behind to talk to her without my permission to talk about me, and I wandered off in distress and got lost.
The hypochondriac couple themselves had some sort of mental health problems, the man had had a breakdown at work before retiring, I think he said he was bullied, but I am not positive, but he had been reliant on anti-depressants for years, his wife had some sort of social anxiety disorder and told me at one point that my way of going out and helping in the church and community helped her to have confidence to want to do more, which is nice, but I should have known better to have let this fragile couple get so involved, it hurt them, it hurt me, and here I am condemned for it. I carry all the condemnation for everything, and no one else does.
Anyway, a few stressed wars of words and a few letters ended my relationship with the hypochondriacs, I paid them back some money and I saw them sometimes after that and never wanted to speak to them, at one point they greeted me and this was while I was on the stronger meds and I didn’t recognise them, but they weren’t the only ones I didn’t recognise, my memory for people and faces faded a bit when I was on the meds Jill Lihou had me put on on condition that she would supervise the situation, I didn’t recognise (another couple) either.
JM went on her sabbatical, starting in a quiet cottage somewhere, without FM, just her and the dog, she kept her phone with her and on and gave me her number so I could ring her, which surprised me, and was kind of her. No-one else had her mobile number apart from her family, she didn't usually use a mobile.
JM took me to New Zealand, but it was a struggle, there were tensions between us because of the unresolved FM issue and JM determinedly telling me it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, New Zealand was a hell of a shock for an autistic person, probably the most drastic change of scene and routine I could have had, and we were stressed with each other, but we had fun and adventures, but I felt guilty all the time that I was so anxious and stressed that it cannot have been much fun for JM, it still hurts my heart that she really meant it well, but I was unsettled as anyone autistic is when they have such a big change of scenery, and to make it worse I had the worst set of flashbacks ever while we were there, I wondered if JM thought I had gone insane.
When we met up with her friends there she obviously told them something unhelpful because they treated me extremely gingerly and I felt unwelcome. JM has always been the master of emphatic concrete and totally incorrect pronouncements about me, which had been alienating me from the minute I first came to the Church of England.
lets go back 25
I had unwillingly become involved in the local churches to my house, my
boss at the big house was part of these churches, and she got me
involved, she introduced me to Vicar and his wife and I
was dragged into helping with Sunday school at one of the churches,
which was odd because the congregation varied between 8 and 15 people,
so where the children came from I do not know.
I went to the other churches without great interest, there was nothing remarkable about them, but it got me out of the range of FM’s temper and the stress of L. occasionally, L. was a deeply cliquey church and just a few people there made me feel small despite the wonder of all the nice kind and friendly people.
St. M's was in that benefice local to me then, and I quite liked that occasionally. I also made a few friends/gardening customers through the churches, I have nothing bad to say about them, the only problem was that old staff from the college who did not understand me and still didn't were there and could be quite rude about me from not understanding. Whereas Ted who was part of the choir at the next benefice over, often poked fun at the local vicar and his half-empty churches, Ted liked their Vicar/rural Dean at his church, I did too. JM got jealous if I went to other churches. And I asked her not to get involved as she usually did, and not to intervene.
But she did.
I suppose most churches have their politics and people who don’t get on, and I was not really equipped to deal with the politics of L. and some of the characters there, there was one woman who always seemed to be laughing at me, she really seemed to think I was stupid, and that made me sad, if I was helping with something in church, she didn’t want me to be helping, it made me sad, because as well as being like that she sometimes could be very kind and helping me, albeit in a patronizing way, when I am treated as stupid, I feel stupid and I lose competency.
That lady is part of what I call ‘the gossip club’ -essential to all Church of England Churches, she talks about people, including me, being ‘talked about’ in a less than helpful way added to my lack of confidence, but I forgive her, she is not evil, not malicious, certainly not deliberately unkind, in fact she means well, she simply has no experience at all of poverty or disability, she has led a very comfortable life indeed, married to a millionaire and a stable part of that lovely wealthy community.
Anyway, when JM’s startling curate moved on, she eventually got another one, I was never at odds with this woman, when she first arrived JM vaguely introduced her to me and no doubt gave this curate her opinion of me, whatever that is that makes people avoid me, and though there was no enmity whatsoever between me and her, she only spoke to me once, that was in the last year of her curacy, she spoke to me about Anne’s illness and impending death. Her recent apparent opinion of me to Romsey Abbey is therefore unjustified, unchristian and wrong, in fact if I had gone on JM’s opinion of her when she first arrived in L., that could have caused problems, with JM saying this curate was far too uptight, self absorbed and beset with emotional problems, I gather that in reality she was just very nervous but gained confidence.
The hypochondriac couple really came into my life one day after a sponsored fast, I know from my two sponsored fasts that if I fast or starve I get ill, after the fast I asked JM if I could rest in her study as I was not well, the hypochondriacs heard me and invited me to go and rest at their house, I had spoken to them and helped alongside them with things but I had never been to their house before, and they took me home and befriended me. Their life seemed to be so much about illness and symptoms, and in the end it was damaging me: they had depression, cancer, hypoglycaemia, cold feet, stiff neck, spots in the throat, arthritis, in fact every time I met with them they were working with my symptoms and theirs, what the symptoms were and how to control them, but this was actually making me ill.
They liked the idea of me having autism and the rest of the problems and got very involved in the efforts to take me to the Maudsley in London for diagnosis. They were very kind, but the boundaries of the relationship were shot, they got too involved and exhausted themselves and me, but I was the one who took all the blame as usual, they also used to embarrass me sometimes, they had family in Italy and went on and on about them, and would also speak to me in Italian and expect me to answer, I thought this was showing off and asked them to speak in English please, and when their family were there, they would make jokes that I didn’t understand and when I asked what the joke was they would say, ‘oh it’s a family joke, never mind’, and one of their Italian family was rude to me and said ‘oh you don’t speak two languages, you only speak English, which technically isn’t true, but I was humiliated at being spoken to like this by an 11 year old’
I do speak two languages and a small amount of three other languages, but I don’t want to boast.
They had family in Devon as well, and were constantly telling me of the rows that their Electrician Son in Devon had with his ‘partner’ who was a psychologist, I really really wondered what a psychologist was doing fighting with her unmarried partner in front of their young child, and I gather that the hypochondriac couple also asked this ‘psychologist’ for advice about me!
Isn’t it a bit stupid to ask advice from someone who is in a damaging relationship and harming their own child, and they were asking advice without my consent and when their son and partner’s relationship was causing them concern!
The hypochondriac couple were constantly stressed or even in tears over their son and partner, and were up and down to Devon to try and look after the child, and then the couple had another child. The first one sounded miserable and neglected and the relationship was not stable, so why have another? The hypochondriac couple were very involved indeed, and even gave their son their car when he was struggling for work. I was simply horrified by the way that they were describing the rows and the way this psychologist ‘daughter-in law’ was behaving.
It made me wonder if psychologists could really help anyone else if they couldn't even look after their own personal lives.
The hypochondriac couple also advised me on money, and told me that credit cards were worth applying for as I was bombarded with ‘acceptance letters’ from credit card companies, and the hypochondriacs were also the ones who helped me to get a loan to pay for my new car, I ended up in debt not being able to pay everything because my finances were never stable and money I relied on from one of my jobs never came through, I do not blame the hypochondriacs for any of this, it is my life, but I am and always have been a bit too childlike to cope with finances or override the influence of older church people in my life.
I went to the other churches without great interest, there was nothing remarkable about them, but it got me out of the range of FM’s temper and the stress of L. occasionally, L. was a deeply cliquey church and just a few people there made me feel small despite the wonder of all the nice kind and friendly people.
St. M's was in that benefice local to me then, and I quite liked that occasionally. I also made a few friends/gardening customers through the churches, I have nothing bad to say about them, the only problem was that old staff from the college who did not understand me and still didn't were there and could be quite rude about me from not understanding. Whereas Ted who was part of the choir at the next benefice over, often poked fun at the local vicar and his half-empty churches, Ted liked their Vicar/rural Dean at his church, I did too. JM got jealous if I went to other churches. And I asked her not to get involved as she usually did, and not to intervene.
But she did.
I suppose most churches have their politics and people who don’t get on, and I was not really equipped to deal with the politics of L. and some of the characters there, there was one woman who always seemed to be laughing at me, she really seemed to think I was stupid, and that made me sad, if I was helping with something in church, she didn’t want me to be helping, it made me sad, because as well as being like that she sometimes could be very kind and helping me, albeit in a patronizing way, when I am treated as stupid, I feel stupid and I lose competency.
That lady is part of what I call ‘the gossip club’ -essential to all Church of England Churches, she talks about people, including me, being ‘talked about’ in a less than helpful way added to my lack of confidence, but I forgive her, she is not evil, not malicious, certainly not deliberately unkind, in fact she means well, she simply has no experience at all of poverty or disability, she has led a very comfortable life indeed, married to a millionaire and a stable part of that lovely wealthy community.
Anyway, when JM’s startling curate moved on, she eventually got another one, I was never at odds with this woman, when she first arrived JM vaguely introduced her to me and no doubt gave this curate her opinion of me, whatever that is that makes people avoid me, and though there was no enmity whatsoever between me and her, she only spoke to me once, that was in the last year of her curacy, she spoke to me about Anne’s illness and impending death. Her recent apparent opinion of me to Romsey Abbey is therefore unjustified, unchristian and wrong, in fact if I had gone on JM’s opinion of her when she first arrived in L., that could have caused problems, with JM saying this curate was far too uptight, self absorbed and beset with emotional problems, I gather that in reality she was just very nervous but gained confidence.
The hypochondriac couple really came into my life one day after a sponsored fast, I know from my two sponsored fasts that if I fast or starve I get ill, after the fast I asked JM if I could rest in her study as I was not well, the hypochondriacs heard me and invited me to go and rest at their house, I had spoken to them and helped alongside them with things but I had never been to their house before, and they took me home and befriended me. Their life seemed to be so much about illness and symptoms, and in the end it was damaging me: they had depression, cancer, hypoglycaemia, cold feet, stiff neck, spots in the throat, arthritis, in fact every time I met with them they were working with my symptoms and theirs, what the symptoms were and how to control them, but this was actually making me ill.
They liked the idea of me having autism and the rest of the problems and got very involved in the efforts to take me to the Maudsley in London for diagnosis. They were very kind, but the boundaries of the relationship were shot, they got too involved and exhausted themselves and me, but I was the one who took all the blame as usual, they also used to embarrass me sometimes, they had family in Italy and went on and on about them, and would also speak to me in Italian and expect me to answer, I thought this was showing off and asked them to speak in English please, and when their family were there, they would make jokes that I didn’t understand and when I asked what the joke was they would say, ‘oh it’s a family joke, never mind’, and one of their Italian family was rude to me and said ‘oh you don’t speak two languages, you only speak English, which technically isn’t true, but I was humiliated at being spoken to like this by an 11 year old’
I do speak two languages and a small amount of three other languages, but I don’t want to boast.
They had family in Devon as well, and were constantly telling me of the rows that their Electrician Son in Devon had with his ‘partner’ who was a psychologist, I really really wondered what a psychologist was doing fighting with her unmarried partner in front of their young child, and I gather that the hypochondriac couple also asked this ‘psychologist’ for advice about me!
Isn’t it a bit stupid to ask advice from someone who is in a damaging relationship and harming their own child, and they were asking advice without my consent and when their son and partner’s relationship was causing them concern!
The hypochondriac couple were constantly stressed or even in tears over their son and partner, and were up and down to Devon to try and look after the child, and then the couple had another child. The first one sounded miserable and neglected and the relationship was not stable, so why have another? The hypochondriac couple were very involved indeed, and even gave their son their car when he was struggling for work. I was simply horrified by the way that they were describing the rows and the way this psychologist ‘daughter-in law’ was behaving.
It made me wonder if psychologists could really help anyone else if they couldn't even look after their own personal lives.
The hypochondriac couple also advised me on money, and told me that credit cards were worth applying for as I was bombarded with ‘acceptance letters’ from credit card companies, and the hypochondriacs were also the ones who helped me to get a loan to pay for my new car, I ended up in debt not being able to pay everything because my finances were never stable and money I relied on from one of my jobs never came through, I do not blame the hypochondriacs for any of this, it is my life, but I am and always have been a bit too childlike to cope with finances or override the influence of older church people in my life.
Saturday, 8 March 2014
The Jersey side of things
The reason I have been writing about pre-Jersey background is that a lot of untruths and misleading information has been spread about by the clergy and laity of the Jersey Deanery and the Ould bully, so I am telling some of my adult background. I am unlikely to share in depth my childhood, but I would like to tell the truth of both Jersey and my adult life before Jersey.
I don't think I need to tell you my childhood, it was bad enough to leave me with avoidant attachment disorder and severe psychological problems, which have gone untreated as an adult and not because I didn't want help, as you will see from my story, but the lack of help, support and diagnosis in adulthood helped to lead to the meltdown I had in Jersey.
I don't think I need to tell you my childhood, it was bad enough to leave me with avoidant attachment disorder and severe psychological problems, which have gone untreated as an adult and not because I didn't want help, as you will see from my story, but the lack of help, support and diagnosis in adulthood helped to lead to the meltdown I had in Jersey.
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
copied off the day-to-day blog for those who do not read it - behavioural therapy
This evening, thinking about the lack of progress in therapy and and how upset I have been recently, I downloaded some behavioural therapy manuals onto Kindle, I have always battled with, and been baffled with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, maybe because of my cognitive problems, but I now have a book on Dialectal behaviour therapy, which I heard about at my psychology clinic, and I already understand that better than any CBT books.
My behaviour is wired wrongly from early on in my life, I did not have any example but my parents and siblings, no solid outside influence due to no school or nursery or any other organization, not even social services managed to intervene.
So, I learned anger, out of control anger, and fear, out of control fear, and the very real dangers in life magnified those emotions, I also didn't learn to relate to people properly and simply experienced a lot of aggressive and disruptive behaviours around me, in the family and the people they fought with, and then the autism element is also a factor.
I have never been proud of my problems, in fact I carry a burden of shame, but it has been a long slow progress for me to recognise what problem is what and seek treatment, it is hard work changing problems that stem from so early on, especially as the NHS have been worse than useless in any form of diagnosis or help, and I have to fight every inch and pay for my own treatment, diagnosis and books to help me, I have had to learn how to keep my environment stable and avoid triggers, and yet, I remain with unresolved problems.
Recent stresses have sent things out of control, and all I can ever do is look at what has happened and pick myself up and start anew and look for new solutions, so hopefully the behavioural therapy manuals will help.
My behaviour is wired wrongly from early on in my life, I did not have any example but my parents and siblings, no solid outside influence due to no school or nursery or any other organization, not even social services managed to intervene.
So, I learned anger, out of control anger, and fear, out of control fear, and the very real dangers in life magnified those emotions, I also didn't learn to relate to people properly and simply experienced a lot of aggressive and disruptive behaviours around me, in the family and the people they fought with, and then the autism element is also a factor.
I have never been proud of my problems, in fact I carry a burden of shame, but it has been a long slow progress for me to recognise what problem is what and seek treatment, it is hard work changing problems that stem from so early on, especially as the NHS have been worse than useless in any form of diagnosis or help, and I have to fight every inch and pay for my own treatment, diagnosis and books to help me, I have had to learn how to keep my environment stable and avoid triggers, and yet, I remain with unresolved problems.
Recent stresses have sent things out of control, and all I can ever do is look at what has happened and pick myself up and start anew and look for new solutions, so hopefully the behavioural therapy manuals will help.
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
The Churchwarden's neighbour
It is and was sad and baffling to me.
The Churchwarden and his wife had a road one side of their house and neighbours the other side.
The neighbours were a married couple, and the mother of the wife of the couple lived with them.
It was a very sad situation, because the couple didn't love each other, and the wife said that they stayed together because they each owned half of the house and neither wanted to sell.
To me, this was incomprehensible, they didn't like each other, surely it would be better to sell or come to some agreement where they were not living together unhappy?
Anyway, the wife had major problems, she frequently attempted suicide, and for some incomprehensible reason, she usually ended up in Jersey's general hospital rather than the psychiatric one.
But her husband was rude to her and about her even so.
I remember her coming round sometimes, she was always nice to me, she came round one day, a bit hyper, and said she had a proposition for me, I was puzzled, so I told her about Horace, my pet seagull who was in the garden, he was a juvenile seagull. The churchwarden used to throw water at the seagulls, which funnily enough made them fly away.
Anyway, this neighbour wanted me to sit with her mother some evenings while she was out at the eistedfodd, because she taught some of the entrants, and she would give me piano lessons in return, which was great for me as I was really keen to learn and so I agreed to sit with her mother.
Her mother was a lovely lady, she just watched television quietly, I was very shy, too shy really, but she got me to sit at the paino, because she thought I could play, but I was not very good, she got me to do a duet with her, and told me which keys I needed, but I felt a bit silly, but she told everyone I could play quite well.
Anyway, the neighbour lady continued to have problems, and came round seemingly drunk when we were having lunch one day, her son had had a skiiing accident, and she was on new meds and had possibly overdosed and seemed drunk and worried the family.
The churchwarden had a special arrangement with the neighbour lady, and it still worries me.
She liked him.
He would cuddle her, just as he cuddled me.Only he did not sit her on his lap or anything when she came round.
But she did come round and ask him to fix this and that in her house, so he would go round there.
It was when I asked him if he went round there to cuddle her and he grinned and didn't say anything, that I wondered, eventually he said that she was lonely.
Which she was.
I cannot imagine what it is like to have to live with someone you don't love or get on with and feel so bad as she did.
She had three children who were grown up and gone.
It was a while after I had left the churchwarden and his wife, and I was suffering terribly as a result of reporting him, that the neighbour lady was reported dead, she was found on the beach or in the sea, and the verdict was 'drowning' rather than 'suicide', which is why I wanted to die in the sea, to get a better verdict.
I am pretty sure it was suicide but of course I don't know any details.
I thought it was so sad, she had a home, three children, and an occupation teaching music, and a churchwarden who loved to cuddle her, if she had all that then what hope was there for me with nothing?
No, it was sad and shocking, and of course, what could I do about her death? Nothing, because of course I was as estranged from her as I was from the churchwarden family.
It just seemed such a very sad situation, she had attempted suicide for so long and obviously not found any relief in remaining alive, no help through medicine or any 'services' offered in Jersey.
The Churchwarden and his wife had a road one side of their house and neighbours the other side.
The neighbours were a married couple, and the mother of the wife of the couple lived with them.
It was a very sad situation, because the couple didn't love each other, and the wife said that they stayed together because they each owned half of the house and neither wanted to sell.
To me, this was incomprehensible, they didn't like each other, surely it would be better to sell or come to some agreement where they were not living together unhappy?
Anyway, the wife had major problems, she frequently attempted suicide, and for some incomprehensible reason, she usually ended up in Jersey's general hospital rather than the psychiatric one.
But her husband was rude to her and about her even so.
I remember her coming round sometimes, she was always nice to me, she came round one day, a bit hyper, and said she had a proposition for me, I was puzzled, so I told her about Horace, my pet seagull who was in the garden, he was a juvenile seagull. The churchwarden used to throw water at the seagulls, which funnily enough made them fly away.
Anyway, this neighbour wanted me to sit with her mother some evenings while she was out at the eistedfodd, because she taught some of the entrants, and she would give me piano lessons in return, which was great for me as I was really keen to learn and so I agreed to sit with her mother.
Her mother was a lovely lady, she just watched television quietly, I was very shy, too shy really, but she got me to sit at the paino, because she thought I could play, but I was not very good, she got me to do a duet with her, and told me which keys I needed, but I felt a bit silly, but she told everyone I could play quite well.
Anyway, the neighbour lady continued to have problems, and came round seemingly drunk when we were having lunch one day, her son had had a skiiing accident, and she was on new meds and had possibly overdosed and seemed drunk and worried the family.
The churchwarden had a special arrangement with the neighbour lady, and it still worries me.
She liked him.
He would cuddle her, just as he cuddled me.Only he did not sit her on his lap or anything when she came round.
But she did come round and ask him to fix this and that in her house, so he would go round there.
It was when I asked him if he went round there to cuddle her and he grinned and didn't say anything, that I wondered, eventually he said that she was lonely.
Which she was.
I cannot imagine what it is like to have to live with someone you don't love or get on with and feel so bad as she did.
She had three children who were grown up and gone.
It was a while after I had left the churchwarden and his wife, and I was suffering terribly as a result of reporting him, that the neighbour lady was reported dead, she was found on the beach or in the sea, and the verdict was 'drowning' rather than 'suicide', which is why I wanted to die in the sea, to get a better verdict.
I am pretty sure it was suicide but of course I don't know any details.
I thought it was so sad, she had a home, three children, and an occupation teaching music, and a churchwarden who loved to cuddle her, if she had all that then what hope was there for me with nothing?
No, it was sad and shocking, and of course, what could I do about her death? Nothing, because of course I was as estranged from her as I was from the churchwarden family.
It just seemed such a very sad situation, she had attempted suicide for so long and obviously not found any relief in remaining alive, no help through medicine or any 'services' offered in Jersey.
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.
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
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!
The Apologist 2
To all and anyone who I have ever offended or distressed, I am sorry.
I do not pick fights, am not violent, I do react to how people treat me.
And sometimes I vastly overreact.
Behind my anger is pain and fear.
I do not know why you hurt me, I am afraid because I have been hurt.
I do not understand why I am always to blame, always the one who is sorry.
Over and over again I know that abuse and abuse of trust are not my fault, but when I apologize for my reaction, I do not get an apology in reply.
I carry the burden of every burst of anger, every cross word I have uttered,
but the consistent thing about neurotypical people is that they don't carry what they have done to me,
they don't apologize and they do not take responsibility,
I am eaten up with shame, every day of my life,
but no-one else ever is.
It is funny, well not really, but it makes me long to be 'normal'
and shrug off my wrongs and pass them on to someone else.
The Diocese has put me in the centre of the Circus and whipped me for my anger
but that has not cured me,
if anything it has made me worse
more angry and more guilt and shame ridden,
but I am not violent
do not intend anger and do not see fights
I react
and as yet,
in the ongoing stress of the situation
there is no hope of curing my tendency to lash out
because the stress is preventing healing
and my anger comes from wounds
I do not pick fights, am not violent, I do react to how people treat me.
And sometimes I vastly overreact.
Behind my anger is pain and fear.
I do not know why you hurt me, I am afraid because I have been hurt.
I do not understand why I am always to blame, always the one who is sorry.
Over and over again I know that abuse and abuse of trust are not my fault, but when I apologize for my reaction, I do not get an apology in reply.
I carry the burden of every burst of anger, every cross word I have uttered,
but the consistent thing about neurotypical people is that they don't carry what they have done to me,
they don't apologize and they do not take responsibility,
I am eaten up with shame, every day of my life,
but no-one else ever is.
It is funny, well not really, but it makes me long to be 'normal'
and shrug off my wrongs and pass them on to someone else.
The Diocese has put me in the centre of the Circus and whipped me for my anger
but that has not cured me,
if anything it has made me worse
more angry and more guilt and shame ridden,
but I am not violent
do not intend anger and do not see fights
I react
and as yet,
in the ongoing stress of the situation
there is no hope of curing my tendency to lash out
because the stress is preventing healing
and my anger comes from wounds
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.
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.
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Open letter to the Jersey Deanery
Dear Bruce Willing, Philip Bailhache, Gavin Ashenden and others who have villified me,
I thought I would write in response to what I see as a smear campaign against myself by yourselves in response to the Korris report that assesses the Dean of Jersey to have done wrong.
I have silently endured your very unChristian response to the Korris report for a long time
I am deeply dismayed by your approach to the matter.
I am first and foremost very sad to see how far behind the rest of the world Jersey is with regards to attitude to mental health.
You claim me to be mentally ill and you use that against me not only in a way that criminalizes me but in a derogatory way that puts your view across in a way that makes it look as if you are removing credibility from all people with mental illness.
I have several comments on that, firstly ‘mental illness’ covers a very wide range of illnesses, from mild forms of depression and anxiety/phobia to the more severe forms of psychosis and schitzophrenia.
It is important to remember that even people who are seriously mentally ill are still human and have a side to things, and that the attitude you are showing is simply that ‘people with mental illness are not credible’, sadly it is people with mental illness and people on the autistic spectrum who are most vulnerable to abuse, because they are isolated, need care and are vulnerable, can be misunderstood and often isolated lacking in voice and effective advocacy or enterpretation.
I am dismayed that you, in your positions, are not enlightened on the subject of mental health, to the point where you are using my supposed mental health condition to scapegoat and vilify me and remove my credibility.
The damage you have done to me by scapegoat ing me in your efforts to clear the Dean and clergy in Jersey of misconduct is pretty horrifying, firstly because, hopefully you would know better than to scapegoat and verbally bash someone who has a physical disability, I do not understand why you feel that the equivelant is not the case with mental illness but that you feel that you should further hurt someone who is already suffering illness in order to achieve your own aims.
Also, Mr Willing, calling me a ‘poor unfortunate woman’ is the kind of terminology that belongs in the dark ages, it really really shows up how Jersey has not moved forward with the rest of the world in understanding mental health, autism and other conditions.
To conclude on mental illness, I am diagnosed as free from it. not only was I diagnosed as free from mental illness in a psychiatric report done in La Moye prison, but again in Winchester five months later, again in Sussex a few months following, and again in a comprehensive report from my current clinical psychologist who specializes in autism and trauma and has been in practice for 20 years.
You need to stop excusing the wrongdoing of the Dean and Church in Jersey by using mental illness that I do not suffer, and if you insist on proceeding to use my ‘mental illness’ as an excuse for the wrongdoers, you need to name my mental illness and back it up not only with clinical proof but with reasons why it is an excuse for the Dean and church’s misconduct.
Most mental illnesses can strike at any time and anyone can suffer, rich or poor, believer or non-believer, I ask you, do you expect to lose your own credibility and rights if any of you were to be struck down with mental illness of any kind, be it mild depression or any other form of illness? In this day and age, even though Jersey is a long way behind most of the developed world in many issues such as mental health, human rights and equality, it astounds me that you are, in the media and in front of the world, behaving in this severely prejudiced way.
I don’t know how to put this politely but ‘shafting Jersey to the rest of the world’ comes to mind.
And especially in the case of Gavin Ashenden making statements about mentally ill people being demon posessed and driving demons out during services, it is understandable why he was chosen as a Jersey clergyman, and his letters and statements about me when he doesn’t know me and only knows one side of what happened between me and others, he isn’t just showing how unenlightened he is about mental illness, or just how much an investigation into safeguarding in Jersey is needed, he is also showing that despite being an ordained Priest, he does not understand the basics of Christianity.
I am diagnosed as mildly autistic, suffering severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and severely psychologically damaged by my experiences not only of a very damaging upbringing but also of my what happened to me in Jersey and the Diocese of Winchester. Those things are not so easy for you to use as excuses I guess.
Lets move on to the subject of the Church.
Bearing in mind that I did not ask for this hugely disasterous visitation with it’s conflicts and PR Firms and reports that omit the views of key witnesses, I am astounded at just how unchristian the deanery of Jersey has been in their smear campaign against me. Even if I did make a complaint, it was five years ago, was disregarded and could have been dealt with in private.
Let’s go back to the very basics of Christianity the ones that are hard for the older, more wealthy and influential people to swallow.
Jesus said ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’, is any clergyman or lay church worker in Jersey who has maligned me at deanery meetings and in the press without sin? No, and no doubt in their own personal lives and histories, there are sins and skeletons, and yet they forget Jesus’ teaching, or, more horrifyingly, they do not know it or feel that, in this case, they can excuse themselves. Focussing on defending themselves or others who have done wrong.
When I left Jersey, I continued to suffer, mainly because I was condemned by the Church, until the day I was befriended by Catholics, and it was their words that saved me.
My dear Catholic friends, who remain dear to me two and a half years after I met them, taught me these simple things:
We are all accountable to God, the Church members who hurt me may have done wrong but it is between them and God, and I may have done wrong in retaliation but that is between me and God, and ultimately it is between me and God for me to confess my sins and be forgiven, and it is also up to the people who hurt me to confess before God and be forgiven by Him.
And there is no-one in Jersey who hurt me, who I have not forgiven, this does not mean that I am not deeply dismayed by their past and current behaviour.
I confessed my sins, and was provisionally Baptized a Catholic in order to be confirmed, as it was not possible to safely get my Baptism record from the Church of England, and in Baptism, all past sins are forgiven, and since my Baptism I have returned to confession with my sins and struggles regularly, and I love that integrity before God.
I can see that in Jersey no-one who has done wants to admit to their wrongdoing, and instead they are metaphorically stoning me, and using mental health as a rock to throw, which is, although they don’t realise it, tarnishing their image as Christians and certainly leaving them with a lot of wrong between themselves and God.
And I hope and pray that all of this can change, and that these people, Philip Bailhache, Gavin Ashenden and Bruce Willings will have a change of heart, come back to the basics of Christianity and cease to use the Church in incorrect ways.
I have an image of Jesus arriving in Jersey and going to these churches, homeless and unqualified, ‘different’ and saying things that people like Senator Bailhache and Bruce Willings do not like, I have an image of them rejecting him and yet not being able to get rid of him, I have an image of them venting their wrath on him, I have an image of my own experience of Jersey, and I have an image of the crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Pharisees, and you know something? Those three images tell the same story.
I will discuss with you Senator Bailhache’s ‘campaign’ to get the Dean reinstated. I know I am autistic but I do not understand why Senator Bailhache was so keen to clear someone who had done wrong at the expense of the person who had been wronged.
Senator Bailhache has never met me, and no matter what he is told about me, that is heresay and he should know better, as a church member and as a representative of the States of Jersey, but especially as a church member who presumably professes to be a Christian, than to judge and condemn someone he doesn’t even know.
As I said earlier, I know Jersey is behind the times, but Senator Bailhache shows just how seriously behind the times he is, as well as showing just how much wrong there is between himself and God.
Hopefully Senator Bailhache’s new promotion to foreign affairs minister for that tiny Island of Jersey will ensure that his travel and liason with other, less insular countries will broaden his mind and bring Jersey, and himself, a bit more up to date on courtesy, balanced judgements and mental health.
He has really showed himself up and done himself a disservice in running a campaign that harmed me in order to try and clear the Dean of misconduct that the Dean did commit.
Senator Bailhache makes me out to be a troublemaker and an abuser despite never having met me and acting only on what he has heard, this shows very plainly why Jersey’s Deanery needs a visitation, it also shows him as unprofessional, a judge who judges someone he doesn’t know? writes libellous letters about them to all and sundry and has such letters published as fact and with claims to represent the whole island? Islanders protested about this, but because of the tremendous power that Senator Bailhache has, his was the voice which was heard.
Even the Bishop and Archbishop were made to give way and reinstate the Dean without an enquiry, on the grounds of Senator Bailhache using his political position, his signature as ‘Senator Bailhache’, despite later stating that he was acting as a member of the church and thus had every right to support the Dean.
Let me return to how this fits in with the Church and God, if this behaviour by Senator Bailhache is endorsed, commended or acceptable to the Church, then the Church is not following Jesus and is not of God.
If Senator Bailhache describes himself as a Christian, then he needs to stop and look at what he is doing and has done, and he needs to realise that not only is he behaving in a very unChristian way and very displeasing to God, but he is also tarnishing the Church’s Name, Image and purpose, and should choose between continuing his Unchristian behaviour and leaving the Church or considering how to achieve his aims, including supporting the Dean, in a proper, reasonable manner, without the unspeakable wrong of abuse of power in his political position while calling himself a Christian or his hate campaign against someone he considers to be ‘mentally ill’ in order to clear someone who has commited misconduct agains that same person.
Sincerely,
HG
I thought I would write in response to what I see as a smear campaign against myself by yourselves in response to the Korris report that assesses the Dean of Jersey to have done wrong.
I have silently endured your very unChristian response to the Korris report for a long time
I am deeply dismayed by your approach to the matter.
I am first and foremost very sad to see how far behind the rest of the world Jersey is with regards to attitude to mental health.
You claim me to be mentally ill and you use that against me not only in a way that criminalizes me but in a derogatory way that puts your view across in a way that makes it look as if you are removing credibility from all people with mental illness.
I have several comments on that, firstly ‘mental illness’ covers a very wide range of illnesses, from mild forms of depression and anxiety/phobia to the more severe forms of psychosis and schitzophrenia.
It is important to remember that even people who are seriously mentally ill are still human and have a side to things, and that the attitude you are showing is simply that ‘people with mental illness are not credible’, sadly it is people with mental illness and people on the autistic spectrum who are most vulnerable to abuse, because they are isolated, need care and are vulnerable, can be misunderstood and often isolated lacking in voice and effective advocacy or enterpretation.
I am dismayed that you, in your positions, are not enlightened on the subject of mental health, to the point where you are using my supposed mental health condition to scapegoat and vilify me and remove my credibility.
The damage you have done to me by scapegoat ing me in your efforts to clear the Dean and clergy in Jersey of misconduct is pretty horrifying, firstly because, hopefully you would know better than to scapegoat and verbally bash someone who has a physical disability, I do not understand why you feel that the equivelant is not the case with mental illness but that you feel that you should further hurt someone who is already suffering illness in order to achieve your own aims.
Also, Mr Willing, calling me a ‘poor unfortunate woman’ is the kind of terminology that belongs in the dark ages, it really really shows up how Jersey has not moved forward with the rest of the world in understanding mental health, autism and other conditions.
To conclude on mental illness, I am diagnosed as free from it. not only was I diagnosed as free from mental illness in a psychiatric report done in La Moye prison, but again in Winchester five months later, again in Sussex a few months following, and again in a comprehensive report from my current clinical psychologist who specializes in autism and trauma and has been in practice for 20 years.
You need to stop excusing the wrongdoing of the Dean and Church in Jersey by using mental illness that I do not suffer, and if you insist on proceeding to use my ‘mental illness’ as an excuse for the wrongdoers, you need to name my mental illness and back it up not only with clinical proof but with reasons why it is an excuse for the Dean and church’s misconduct.
Most mental illnesses can strike at any time and anyone can suffer, rich or poor, believer or non-believer, I ask you, do you expect to lose your own credibility and rights if any of you were to be struck down with mental illness of any kind, be it mild depression or any other form of illness? In this day and age, even though Jersey is a long way behind most of the developed world in many issues such as mental health, human rights and equality, it astounds me that you are, in the media and in front of the world, behaving in this severely prejudiced way.
I don’t know how to put this politely but ‘shafting Jersey to the rest of the world’ comes to mind.
And especially in the case of Gavin Ashenden making statements about mentally ill people being demon posessed and driving demons out during services, it is understandable why he was chosen as a Jersey clergyman, and his letters and statements about me when he doesn’t know me and only knows one side of what happened between me and others, he isn’t just showing how unenlightened he is about mental illness, or just how much an investigation into safeguarding in Jersey is needed, he is also showing that despite being an ordained Priest, he does not understand the basics of Christianity.
I am diagnosed as mildly autistic, suffering severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and severely psychologically damaged by my experiences not only of a very damaging upbringing but also of my what happened to me in Jersey and the Diocese of Winchester. Those things are not so easy for you to use as excuses I guess.
Lets move on to the subject of the Church.
Bearing in mind that I did not ask for this hugely disasterous visitation with it’s conflicts and PR Firms and reports that omit the views of key witnesses, I am astounded at just how unchristian the deanery of Jersey has been in their smear campaign against me. Even if I did make a complaint, it was five years ago, was disregarded and could have been dealt with in private.
Let’s go back to the very basics of Christianity the ones that are hard for the older, more wealthy and influential people to swallow.
Jesus said ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’, is any clergyman or lay church worker in Jersey who has maligned me at deanery meetings and in the press without sin? No, and no doubt in their own personal lives and histories, there are sins and skeletons, and yet they forget Jesus’ teaching, or, more horrifyingly, they do not know it or feel that, in this case, they can excuse themselves. Focussing on defending themselves or others who have done wrong.
When I left Jersey, I continued to suffer, mainly because I was condemned by the Church, until the day I was befriended by Catholics, and it was their words that saved me.
My dear Catholic friends, who remain dear to me two and a half years after I met them, taught me these simple things:
We are all accountable to God, the Church members who hurt me may have done wrong but it is between them and God, and I may have done wrong in retaliation but that is between me and God, and ultimately it is between me and God for me to confess my sins and be forgiven, and it is also up to the people who hurt me to confess before God and be forgiven by Him.
And there is no-one in Jersey who hurt me, who I have not forgiven, this does not mean that I am not deeply dismayed by their past and current behaviour.
I confessed my sins, and was provisionally Baptized a Catholic in order to be confirmed, as it was not possible to safely get my Baptism record from the Church of England, and in Baptism, all past sins are forgiven, and since my Baptism I have returned to confession with my sins and struggles regularly, and I love that integrity before God.
I can see that in Jersey no-one who has done wants to admit to their wrongdoing, and instead they are metaphorically stoning me, and using mental health as a rock to throw, which is, although they don’t realise it, tarnishing their image as Christians and certainly leaving them with a lot of wrong between themselves and God.
And I hope and pray that all of this can change, and that these people, Philip Bailhache, Gavin Ashenden and Bruce Willings will have a change of heart, come back to the basics of Christianity and cease to use the Church in incorrect ways.
I have an image of Jesus arriving in Jersey and going to these churches, homeless and unqualified, ‘different’ and saying things that people like Senator Bailhache and Bruce Willings do not like, I have an image of them rejecting him and yet not being able to get rid of him, I have an image of them venting their wrath on him, I have an image of my own experience of Jersey, and I have an image of the crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Pharisees, and you know something? Those three images tell the same story.
I will discuss with you Senator Bailhache’s ‘campaign’ to get the Dean reinstated. I know I am autistic but I do not understand why Senator Bailhache was so keen to clear someone who had done wrong at the expense of the person who had been wronged.
Senator Bailhache has never met me, and no matter what he is told about me, that is heresay and he should know better, as a church member and as a representative of the States of Jersey, but especially as a church member who presumably professes to be a Christian, than to judge and condemn someone he doesn’t even know.
As I said earlier, I know Jersey is behind the times, but Senator Bailhache shows just how seriously behind the times he is, as well as showing just how much wrong there is between himself and God.
Hopefully Senator Bailhache’s new promotion to foreign affairs minister for that tiny Island of Jersey will ensure that his travel and liason with other, less insular countries will broaden his mind and bring Jersey, and himself, a bit more up to date on courtesy, balanced judgements and mental health.
He has really showed himself up and done himself a disservice in running a campaign that harmed me in order to try and clear the Dean of misconduct that the Dean did commit.
Senator Bailhache makes me out to be a troublemaker and an abuser despite never having met me and acting only on what he has heard, this shows very plainly why Jersey’s Deanery needs a visitation, it also shows him as unprofessional, a judge who judges someone he doesn’t know? writes libellous letters about them to all and sundry and has such letters published as fact and with claims to represent the whole island? Islanders protested about this, but because of the tremendous power that Senator Bailhache has, his was the voice which was heard.
Even the Bishop and Archbishop were made to give way and reinstate the Dean without an enquiry, on the grounds of Senator Bailhache using his political position, his signature as ‘Senator Bailhache’, despite later stating that he was acting as a member of the church and thus had every right to support the Dean.
Let me return to how this fits in with the Church and God, if this behaviour by Senator Bailhache is endorsed, commended or acceptable to the Church, then the Church is not following Jesus and is not of God.
If Senator Bailhache describes himself as a Christian, then he needs to stop and look at what he is doing and has done, and he needs to realise that not only is he behaving in a very unChristian way and very displeasing to God, but he is also tarnishing the Church’s Name, Image and purpose, and should choose between continuing his Unchristian behaviour and leaving the Church or considering how to achieve his aims, including supporting the Dean, in a proper, reasonable manner, without the unspeakable wrong of abuse of power in his political position while calling himself a Christian or his hate campaign against someone he considers to be ‘mentally ill’ in order to clear someone who has commited misconduct agains that same person.
Sincerely,
HG
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