That Christmas 2009

It was heading towards Christmas 2009.
I was suffering and traumatized by the police and the way I was treated in Jersey as a result of the way I had  reported the churchwarden and also Jane Fisher's nasty and senseless communications which left me in more despair than anything else.

I had made up my mind to commit suicide at Christmas and leave a letter explaining to the haters how badly being regressed to young childhood and abused and then vilified for reporting the abuse had affected me (as if they would care!).

I was very unhappy, the world was dark with no light and no-one to turn to.

But I remember being able to do something that brought light to my world as well as to others, and it is something that I just really wanted to do.

I asked my friend who went into the nursing home several times a week, presumably to teach something?
If she would get me the names of all the residents and if they preferred to be known by first names or more formally - as some older people do.
When she got me the list of names, I did a Christmas card for all 64 or so residents, because I knew that some of them wouldn't get any other cards.
I am very shy of people, afraid of people, but I know that each human being is valuable and matters, no matter what their age or state of health.

But the response to my cards surprised me, not only the residents greeting me by name and smiling and waving when I walked past, but also their families and visitors, and I received a number of cards in reply, everyone was so nice! And from that, I ended up in regular conversation with a number of people, and this led to my confidence and conversation building remarkably.

That Christmas, within the weeks up to Christmas, as I searched the internet looking at the most effective methods of suicide, I came across Maytree Sanctuary for the suicidal, and applied to go there, within the week before Christmas, I completed my self-referral to Maytree and went there for Christmas.

My journey to Maytree was disasterous, this is when the heavy snow was falling, and it looked like the plane wouldn't even leave Jersey, but it did, and when we landed at Gatwick, our plane had a good old scary skid along the runway!
Arriving at Gatwick in the heavy snow, trying to get the coach looked impossible as snow was affecting the coaches and there were no announcements and no-one could adequately explain what was going on, but thankfully I eventually got a coach, my phone was on a Jersey sim and hardly worked in the UK so I could not let Maytree know what was going on as it took hours and hours to get to London and to Maytree, I ended up in tears in a phone box trying to explain to Maytree and then eventually got to them, very upset.

I think I was tired and it was late when I got there and they made sure I had a hot drink and food before bed.

The stay there was generally pleasant, and I had my own room with ensuite, and no-one was supposed to come into my room unless they were concerned for my safety but one volunteer barged in anyway.

One of the ways Maytree helps people is through talking, and we talked a lot, there were a number of volunteers at Maytree and so I met a lot of people, but the one I found easiest to talk to was retired tube driver called R.

I came downstairs and the kitchen smelled of frying breakfast and Richard was there with the garden doors open, frying breakfast, he was great to talk to and we talked a lot, he told me about his late wife who was a beautiful Indian lady, he fell in love with her the minute he saw her, but she never wanted flowers, because she was a mechanic, she always wanted new spanners and tools :)

Maytree was great, we went looking for a turkey on Christmas eve, but they were sold out so we got a duckling, not a duck but a duckling! :) I feel bad about having eaten one of those little fluffy yellow beeping things. But I have a feeling it was a rather grown up duckling. Them beeping yellow things are too small to have the meat on them that the 'duckling' we cooked did.

It was good to have Christmas, if I had stayed in Jersey I would have had no Christmas and I would have been dead.
And, looking at what happened in the following year, maybe death would have been better, although I would have missed out on my awesome experience of sleeping rough if I had died.
(and I still believe this church matter may kill me yet).

So time at Maytree was spend relaxing, talking, enjoying good food and drink and lots of Christmas cake, it was all good.
I went for walks, and was surprised that there in the dirty, dog-messy streets, everyone said 'good morning' and 'Happy Christmas', I went into a Catholic church one day and lit candles, asked Philip LeClaire what the difference between the red and blue candles was and got no response.
But there was a notice in church that eternally amused me.
It read:

'Please note, the heating is off due to a leek in the pipes'

I couldn't help wondering how the leek got there and why they couldn't fish it out :)

Anyway, on Christmas Day, I went to the morning service at a local Church of England/Charismatic church, a pretty young lady from Maytree came with me, it was incredibly funny how, after the service, all the Charismatic men came up to us and started chatting with her and ignoring me, she was not a Christian but had offered to accompany me for support and safety. The men really liked chatting to her, they hardly said hello to me! :)
I wrote an amused letter to the church and told them I had enjoyed the service and been amused by the men's keenness on my companion, they wrote a friendly letter in reply, saying I was always welcome to drop in.
One of the lovely parts of the service was when they let a net of balloons down from the roof, the children ran riot!

Anyway, before I left Maytree, the person in charge met with me and talked with me about my strengths and plans for the future, I found that empowering, but lost the letter when I had to leave Jersey, and Maytree wouldn't let me have another copy.

The problem with Maytree, excellent as they were, the communication wasn't good, and before I went, a woman tried to get me to fill in a questionaire that even she didn't understand, and it included asking me if I was an abuser, apparently, but she didn't know or wasn't clear what the questions meant and I was left very upset. She then said that it didn't matter anyway and I didn't need to fill it in. That was awful, it was intrusive and distressing and undid some of the good by stressing me.

I left Maytree and sadly, walked into terrible football crowds on the underground and was trapped and panicked.
Thankfully a member of tube staff rescued me and got me back to Central London, and I headed for Hampshire to my friends (who the diocese have since taken from me).

I arrived back in Jersey feeling refreshed and determined to move forward positively, Jane Fisher had temporarily shut up, or so it seemed, as I had written to Scott-Joynt just before Christmas, as I expected to be dead in the new year and wanted him to know that Fisher had been bullying me and making life hell.
The Korris report claims Scott-Joynt wrote to me, he did not, he didn't have my address, of course at that stage I wasn't going to tell anyone in the Church where I lived, life was hell enough in the community because I was shunned.

So I resumed life and was surprised by the curate who had been so rude and snappy before Christmas -when her cousin comitted suicide.
She really wanted to be in contact and see me, I was surprised, so I took her a load of firewood logs.

I had no idea that we were at the start of Jane Fisher using her further to harm me.
One of Fisher's greatest triumphs against me was the way she wrecked a safe and healing relationship and used that curate against me in the most terrible and damaging way and also brought the dean into it, again, as she continued to do, leaving me with no safe and private church relationships and help, it is a deep wound.

So this was 2010 now, the beginning of the end as I continued to be damaged by the church of england.