One Sunday after church a woman approached me and said ‘Hi’ with a big friendly smile, JM had taught me to look at people and I could see a big friendly grin on this woman’s face, lots of people said hi and hello to me but I knew few names and I struggled to respond at all, but I knew that smiles meant friendliness, and this woman with delight and friendliness in her voice said to me ‘would you like to come to us for lunch? We are eating in the garden.’
This woman and her husband took me home, I was so very very nervous that my nose was running, they chatted away, seeming to realise that I could not say much, the woman did most of the talking while her husband listened and agreed with her and so did I, I actually had no idea who I was having lunch with, only that they were delightful and so was their garden, after a nice lunch they took me round the garden, teaching me plant names, and then we did the crossword, my first telegraph crossword, and I was hopeless at it back then.
Later I described that couple to JM and asked who I had lunch with, she said ‘That is A and R.’. JM then said that she when she arrived in L. she had never thought she would have the (interesting surname) in her congregation, she became helpless with laughter as she said this, and so I did too, even though to this day I am not sure what the joke is. I am crying as I write this, the memory of that beautiful day and the start of my friendship with A. and R.
JM had to dismiss A. as benefice administrator shortly after that, she felt bad about it but A. was too busy with too many areas of her life to get all the administration done, then JM employed R.P. as benefice administrator, and after a while R. P. had an affair with a a girl who worked at Old Alresford Place, the headquarters of the Diocese of Winchester! and went off with her, so he was no longer benefice administrator.
R’s wife was left behind and got a horrible cancer and died, but JM ‘forgave’ R. and hugged him still, it’s funny how everyone else can do as they please and be forgiven and hugged, and I am outcast, abused in the church and, condemned and ostracised by the church and the diocese, when I have tried to behave morally! Again, being vulnerable and abused and angry is classified as much much worse than sexual immorality by anyone in the employ of the diocese of Winchester!
When R. left there was competition for the Benefice administrator post, FM applied and was angry that JM didn’t support his application as he did a lot of paperwork for the benefice anyway and was on the deanery synod, diocesan synod, even the general synod if he wanted – think about that and think about me putting a complaint to the diocese about this man who was in these positions, who was a freemason supported by freemasons in the church, who was a magistrate, who was a part of Lou Scott-Joynt’s club, I didn’t have a hope in hell of having my complaint dealt with properly in the end with FM and the abuser in Jersey both well backed up and the parties in Jersey and L. working together to condemn me!
But in the case of the Benefice administrator job, FM failed to get it and was angry and refused to help with paperwork for JM and sulked long and deep, another member of church got the job and I think it was because of shingles she had to stop? And two other women took over and shared the job. I remember shyly bowling into the benefice office with a parcel of goods I had put together for the nightshelter for Christmas, ironically enough I also spent some spare time helping with street collections for the Trinity Centre!
( I didn't know, all those years ago, that I was going to be forced to use those services myself because of the same Diocese of Winchester). (And be further harmed by the Diocese of Winchester through them. 13/08/2015)
Back to the story: Things at JM’s house were not good, it is really hard to actually write things like this in sequence and explain it as it happened because I am trying to describe everything to you at once, and I keep remembering things and adding them in.
FM, as I explained, had suddenly softened to me and hugged me and then let JM move me in, he was a very jealous man and protective of JM, just as her mother was, but to extremes, he was known to lose his temper with people who turned up for help on JM’s day off, and to shout at people who came to the door, for which JM slated him if she found out, he also fell out with men in church over church matters and FM being unreasonable, but he was sweet and gentlemanly with most of the ladies, talking to them in a soft well-bred voice, as if he had swallowed chalk.
FM became involved in my life, JM had told me while I was in the bed and breakfast that she wanted to be like an adoptive mother to me, so I sometimes called her ‘Mammy’ or even ‘Parental unit’ –which made her laugh, and FM asked if he was a parental unit too? And JM and I were surprised. FM hurt and hated his own daughter, to the point of alienating her and leaving her in a psychiatric unit a lot of the time, JM used to try to look after FM’s daughter, until she had to choose between the daughter and FM because FM was being alienated by JM’s care of the daughter, so JM abandoned the daughter, unfortunately for me I was the spitting image of FM’s daughter (Sally), and this may well have caused some of FM’s reactions to me and definitely caused some of JM’s reactions.
JM made many references to Sally and me; I will go into this in more detail later as I need to go back to explaining about FM.
FM started to call me to him as I went past his study to go to my room, he told me he was ‘starved’, I was puzzled, he told me he was ‘starved of affection’, and he reached out to hug me, he told me that if JM was my mum, then he was my dad, he sat at his computer and hugged me, he got me to play games on the computer, he took me to the top of the stairs and sat me on his lap, JM’s dad came up the stairs and said ‘No!’ and I think he told JM and she told him not to, I had not thought anything about it, just that JM was a good person who loved God and FM was a church person and loved JM and so he must be a good person. But FM was never my Dad, or adoptive dad, and I remained fearful of him.
But things progressed, my friendship with JM was deeply strained and FM was taking advantage of this to comfort and cuddle me, JM got me to go into her office and tell her about my brother abusing me, after that, FM who had been listening outside the door got me to go and sit by his chair and tell him as well, ‘Poor kid’ he said softly, sympathetically. He liked to get me to sit by his chair after that, but I gather that JM got me to tell her because she really didn’t understand me and was wondering if I was a psychopath, I don’t think it helped that I couldn’t verbalise the abuse any more than I could verbalise anything, Great.
FM told JM that he wanted to buy me a skirt, JM told him that she doubted I could cope with men’s reactions if I went around in a skirt, and I did not want a skirt either, FM used to look at me as I walked upstairs to my room when he was sitting in his office at the bottom of the stairs, and this embarrassed me, I was not going to walk up those stairs in a skirt!
FM started standing on the landing outside my door, this was not great, the room had a window that faced onto the landing window so if I did not shut the curtains then he would be able to see me as he stood there when I was changing, the curtains had gaps even when they were closed and also when I was in the bathroom there was a gap between the bathroom door and the wall and if you looked through this gap you would have been able to see someone having a wash at the washbasin, this part of the abuse is part where I cannot actually prove his motive or justify what I am saying, but I know that he would stand on the landing and that he did actually come into my room without knocking one day when I was changing, and that I was uncomfortable with this. He took me out on day trips during the abuse, telling JM that I needed days out and it would help me, I had only ever had a few days out, and that was when I was living in Winchester with my landlady and her husband, and I was starting to have days out with Youth Group as well.
one day trip with FM in the beginning was to Marwell Zoo, I was really excited as I had never been to a zoo, as we were walking FM said to me ‘I can never allow anything sexual to happen between us, for JM’s sake’ I was amazed, I thought he was really eccentric, I told him that he was married and of course nothing would happen, but he kept hugging me, and when we went into the tropical house where the little crocodile was he hugged me and kissed me on the lips, I was bemused, I told him I wanted to kidnap the crocodile and bring it home. We went to the gift shop and got a big toy spider that looked real, we took it home to frighten JM with because she was terrified of spiders, we put it on the phone unit while JM was wandering round the house talking on the cordless phone, and she nearly screamed out loud when she saw it, only she was still on the phone so she stopped herself from screaming.
The next day trip was to Basingstoke, to the Milestones Museum, which bored me back then, and I was scared of the crowds and being enclosed, then we went bowling afterwards, FM was good at bowling as he used to do lawn bowls, I was hit and miss, on the way back he pulled over into a car park in Micheldever woods and he wanted me to give him oral sex and said he would reciprocate, I did not want to, so I put my thumb in my mouth and ignored him, I was a bit frightened, but he just got cross, not mad angry, and drove us home, he said that when I put my thumb in I was like a child and he couldn’t make love to a child, later he said to me ‘am I being too sexy?’ I answered ‘yes’ though I thought he would go mad, but he didn’t, he just backed off a bit for a while.
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Let's go back, part 7
JM was funny, I remember her saying she was going to paint her toenails for her day off, I was equally funny because I told her that my mum and dad had told me it was vain for people to point their nails or wear makeup or anything along those lines, because people should just keep themselves clean and not be vain. JM explained it was not vain, and so I continued to try clear nail varnish and lip gloss, but thankfully I was allergic to other makeup. JM paints her toenails but cannot paint her fingernails because she has ruined them with chewing.
Shaun, Shaun the Monk was JM’s friend, JM told me how FM used to get angry with her because she used to stay up till the early hours of the morning with Shaun, getting drunk, JM and Shaun loved each other, but they didn’t marry, JM said she felt she had to marry FM in order to not leave him alone when she moved away, I think that was her move from Lincoln to a rural parish.
While I was friends with JM, Shaun, who I met, was no longer a monk and married someone else, JM made no secret of being broken-hearted, and said she had hoped Shaun would wait for her, because she also made no secret to me that FM’s heart bypass work will not last forever and that she felt she had to marry him to look after him and she thought when she married him that she could tame his temper that broke up his first marriage and ‘make him better’ by force and love, as she tried to with me, she blamed FM’s terrible childhood for his temper. Anyway, JM was extremely critical of Shaun’s new wife, and I think FM was relieved Shaun had married, he knew about JM’s love for Shaun; JM said that FM had said something about Shaun not stepping into his shoes while he was still in them.
When FM and JM had really bad fall outs, JM would go to Bishop Trevor for help, she said Wolvsely were not very sympathetic. And one time things got so bad that FM went to the council to see the housing officer about being rehoused away from JM, but I don’t think he wanted to lose his comfortable life at the Rectory, and JM’s mother was saying ‘Good, go!’, so JM said nothing and FM changed his mind and stayed. This was not related to FM sexually interfering with me; this was a few years later on and was just one of many of their rows. I think it may have been the row after they did the marriage course at ********’s house.
Regarding the unwanted sexual advances I did continue to be troubled by that and told JM at one point that I had wondered about reporting it, though for her sake I didn’t, she immediately told me that no-one would believe me anyway, and that it would be my word against FM’s, I was not keen to report him and cause JM any sort of distress, but it did come out in my distress in conversations with S. when ******* ****** was arrested, and with conversations with the hypochondriacs and with M.F who was supposedly confidential. And finally in Jersey when I realised I had to let Jane Fisher know about it when JM was involving herself in the matter in Jersey to my detriment.
(The above was a detour, we haven't got that far)
After my Christmas in the bed and breakfast, I was at JM’s house in her study and FM came in and said to JM, ‘why don’t we have ****** to stay here in the little bedroom upstairs, we could get the money to pay for her from the housing department’, Apparently JM had told him how much it was costing the council to keep me in the mad shabby bed and breakfast, and he said about costs and how it would save the council money, JM said she had been wanting me to come and live with them, and she had been waiting for FM to come round to the idea.
She came and collected me and my mad jumble of possessions from the bed and breakfast, she was humming ‘here comes the sun’ as if it was all a great happy day, she said it was only temporary until I could get a permanent home from the council.
JM’s mother would sit at the breakfast table every morning with the newspaper and make adamant concrete and often, in my opinion, incorrect judgements on pretty much every article in the newspaper, then she would move on to doing the same about members of JM’s congregation, or the family, JM would join in, in a much milder way, and not always agreeing with her mother, but equally concrete and judgemental, and again it was her opinion, but her mother always had the last word, even if she had to shout it, which sometimes set FM off as well, JM’s dad sat there nodding, muttering quietly and graciously agreeing with everyone, he was very deaf.
The anti-depressants were making me sleepy and withdrawn, I kept putting myself to bed and JM kept coming in worried and bearing cups of tea, I did not really know that it was the anti-depressants, I just told her I didn’t feel like going out much, and she said that that was because I was in a home for the first time.
Me and JM weren’t getting on well, I resented the way she was presenting me to people and talking about me, I resented the way she had taken me from college and taken over my life, and I just found her bustle and bossiness too much when my head was singing and dizzy from the anti-depressants and I felt sleepy, sluggish and sick all the time, JM with her opinions and FM with his unpredictability and me trying to keep FM nice by being obedient and smiling at him was too much for me, sometimes he would bark orders at me as if I was the dog, I was in my room and could hear JM talking to her counselling supervisor on the phone in the room below, she said she was climbing the walls about having me there when I was like a four year old and she was climbing the walls about something else not to do with me, I didn’t understand what she was talking about, I told JM I heard her saying that and it hurt me, she said why was I listening to her conversation, I told her she was talking at the top of her voice and I was only in my room above her office. Anyway, she could not be my counsellor and have me living there could she?
It was a difficult time, and not just for me, people seem to think that I think everything is just about me, but despite being autistic, I hate to upset people or see them stressed, I do not mean to be the way I am, JM was stressed, not just about me, she lived in a permanent state of stress, she chewed her and bit her nails until they were a very serious mess, and she had been doing that for many years, it was not my doing, her nails and fingers were monstrously misshapen and bumpy and bleeding and ragged from where she had chewed down to the quick, she had frequent headaches and sore throats and stomach problems from stress, and part of this seemed to be that she needed to do things ‘perfectly’, she had to personally do things rather than trusting the lay preachers or PCC members to do things, and when I asked her why she had to be perfect like this she said something about me being too astute and said it was because she worked for God and He was perfect so she had to try to be.
Even the confused autistic disturbed me knew that that didn’t sound right. It got to a point where JM was very very short staffed because Tim left to go to Cornwall, and this was before all the new priests and readers came in, and JM was having a terrible time trying to keep the services running at all three churches, as it was only three then, and FM was kicking up a terrible fuss and saying thing about the diocese and how they should have been helping JM. Anyway this was all a bit later on. I remember turning up to dog walk for JM and being asked to come back later as ***** and some others were trying to lay hands on her and pray for her depression and stress.
After a while at JM’s house, she sent me to a place in Dorset called Pilsdon Manor, which was a ‘Christian Community’, I was to go there on a three-day trial, unfortunately the people who ran the place were away over that three days and only came back on the day I left, and no one else seemed to know what to do with me, they gave me a soft boiled egg with toast for my breakfast but I had never had a soft boiled egg in an egg cup before and had no idea what to do with it and so made a mess of it, I ended up involving myself in shifting barrowloads of stones for a construction project, apart from that I was ghost, no one explained to me about going to chapel, no one explained anything really.
The other woman who arrived at the same time as me was loud and overconfident, telling everyone about her divorce in great detail, and apart from a disturbed young man called Mark who had found a haven there and a lovely tree surgeon called Rupert, who had had a breakdown, I was alone and a ghost, lost, by the time the leaders of the community came back I was stressed and unhappy and worried about getting my period as I had no sanitary towels and there was no shop nearby, they asked me to stay longer to get to know me, I said no, because I couldn’t ask them for sanitary towels, that afternoon as I waited around invisible I walked away from the community and started walking, JM found me a few miles away and took me back to L. I had spent three anxious days wondering if I would remain an abandoned ghost in this place.
JM’s Mum openly resented me once I returned, she thought I was extra work for JM on top of her already too heavy workload, which is true, but JM and FM were the ones who had created this situation and arranged with the council to get money to keep me there – (though I have no doubt whatsoever that it was not money that motivated either of them, don’t misunderstand me, it was a commitment by them for different reasons, and I was vulnerable, I did not force myself on them, they decided, and in FM’s case it was for wrong reasons).
JM’s mother really worried about her and cursed the diocese for overloading JM with work. But JM’s mum called me names, which was not nice, and JM told her off. I was helpless, it was JM who had insisted on taking over my life and JM and FM who had brought me home, I could not have gone to live at Pilsdon, apart from anything they were not just a Christian community, they were a business who charged huge rents per week for each client, and they expected the client to pay a substantial share of that with the rest coming from housing benefit, I certainly had no money to pay them, and I couldn’t even imagine JM plucking this money from somewhere either.
Shaun, Shaun the Monk was JM’s friend, JM told me how FM used to get angry with her because she used to stay up till the early hours of the morning with Shaun, getting drunk, JM and Shaun loved each other, but they didn’t marry, JM said she felt she had to marry FM in order to not leave him alone when she moved away, I think that was her move from Lincoln to a rural parish.
While I was friends with JM, Shaun, who I met, was no longer a monk and married someone else, JM made no secret of being broken-hearted, and said she had hoped Shaun would wait for her, because she also made no secret to me that FM’s heart bypass work will not last forever and that she felt she had to marry him to look after him and she thought when she married him that she could tame his temper that broke up his first marriage and ‘make him better’ by force and love, as she tried to with me, she blamed FM’s terrible childhood for his temper. Anyway, JM was extremely critical of Shaun’s new wife, and I think FM was relieved Shaun had married, he knew about JM’s love for Shaun; JM said that FM had said something about Shaun not stepping into his shoes while he was still in them.
When FM and JM had really bad fall outs, JM would go to Bishop Trevor for help, she said Wolvsely were not very sympathetic. And one time things got so bad that FM went to the council to see the housing officer about being rehoused away from JM, but I don’t think he wanted to lose his comfortable life at the Rectory, and JM’s mother was saying ‘Good, go!’, so JM said nothing and FM changed his mind and stayed. This was not related to FM sexually interfering with me; this was a few years later on and was just one of many of their rows. I think it may have been the row after they did the marriage course at ********’s house.
Regarding the unwanted sexual advances I did continue to be troubled by that and told JM at one point that I had wondered about reporting it, though for her sake I didn’t, she immediately told me that no-one would believe me anyway, and that it would be my word against FM’s, I was not keen to report him and cause JM any sort of distress, but it did come out in my distress in conversations with S. when ******* ****** was arrested, and with conversations with the hypochondriacs and with M.F who was supposedly confidential. And finally in Jersey when I realised I had to let Jane Fisher know about it when JM was involving herself in the matter in Jersey to my detriment.
(The above was a detour, we haven't got that far)
After my Christmas in the bed and breakfast, I was at JM’s house in her study and FM came in and said to JM, ‘why don’t we have ****** to stay here in the little bedroom upstairs, we could get the money to pay for her from the housing department’, Apparently JM had told him how much it was costing the council to keep me in the mad shabby bed and breakfast, and he said about costs and how it would save the council money, JM said she had been wanting me to come and live with them, and she had been waiting for FM to come round to the idea.
She came and collected me and my mad jumble of possessions from the bed and breakfast, she was humming ‘here comes the sun’ as if it was all a great happy day, she said it was only temporary until I could get a permanent home from the council.
JM’s mother would sit at the breakfast table every morning with the newspaper and make adamant concrete and often, in my opinion, incorrect judgements on pretty much every article in the newspaper, then she would move on to doing the same about members of JM’s congregation, or the family, JM would join in, in a much milder way, and not always agreeing with her mother, but equally concrete and judgemental, and again it was her opinion, but her mother always had the last word, even if she had to shout it, which sometimes set FM off as well, JM’s dad sat there nodding, muttering quietly and graciously agreeing with everyone, he was very deaf.
The anti-depressants were making me sleepy and withdrawn, I kept putting myself to bed and JM kept coming in worried and bearing cups of tea, I did not really know that it was the anti-depressants, I just told her I didn’t feel like going out much, and she said that that was because I was in a home for the first time.
Me and JM weren’t getting on well, I resented the way she was presenting me to people and talking about me, I resented the way she had taken me from college and taken over my life, and I just found her bustle and bossiness too much when my head was singing and dizzy from the anti-depressants and I felt sleepy, sluggish and sick all the time, JM with her opinions and FM with his unpredictability and me trying to keep FM nice by being obedient and smiling at him was too much for me, sometimes he would bark orders at me as if I was the dog, I was in my room and could hear JM talking to her counselling supervisor on the phone in the room below, she said she was climbing the walls about having me there when I was like a four year old and she was climbing the walls about something else not to do with me, I didn’t understand what she was talking about, I told JM I heard her saying that and it hurt me, she said why was I listening to her conversation, I told her she was talking at the top of her voice and I was only in my room above her office. Anyway, she could not be my counsellor and have me living there could she?
It was a difficult time, and not just for me, people seem to think that I think everything is just about me, but despite being autistic, I hate to upset people or see them stressed, I do not mean to be the way I am, JM was stressed, not just about me, she lived in a permanent state of stress, she chewed her and bit her nails until they were a very serious mess, and she had been doing that for many years, it was not my doing, her nails and fingers were monstrously misshapen and bumpy and bleeding and ragged from where she had chewed down to the quick, she had frequent headaches and sore throats and stomach problems from stress, and part of this seemed to be that she needed to do things ‘perfectly’, she had to personally do things rather than trusting the lay preachers or PCC members to do things, and when I asked her why she had to be perfect like this she said something about me being too astute and said it was because she worked for God and He was perfect so she had to try to be.
Even the confused autistic disturbed me knew that that didn’t sound right. It got to a point where JM was very very short staffed because Tim left to go to Cornwall, and this was before all the new priests and readers came in, and JM was having a terrible time trying to keep the services running at all three churches, as it was only three then, and FM was kicking up a terrible fuss and saying thing about the diocese and how they should have been helping JM. Anyway this was all a bit later on. I remember turning up to dog walk for JM and being asked to come back later as ***** and some others were trying to lay hands on her and pray for her depression and stress.
After a while at JM’s house, she sent me to a place in Dorset called Pilsdon Manor, which was a ‘Christian Community’, I was to go there on a three-day trial, unfortunately the people who ran the place were away over that three days and only came back on the day I left, and no one else seemed to know what to do with me, they gave me a soft boiled egg with toast for my breakfast but I had never had a soft boiled egg in an egg cup before and had no idea what to do with it and so made a mess of it, I ended up involving myself in shifting barrowloads of stones for a construction project, apart from that I was ghost, no one explained to me about going to chapel, no one explained anything really.
The other woman who arrived at the same time as me was loud and overconfident, telling everyone about her divorce in great detail, and apart from a disturbed young man called Mark who had found a haven there and a lovely tree surgeon called Rupert, who had had a breakdown, I was alone and a ghost, lost, by the time the leaders of the community came back I was stressed and unhappy and worried about getting my period as I had no sanitary towels and there was no shop nearby, they asked me to stay longer to get to know me, I said no, because I couldn’t ask them for sanitary towels, that afternoon as I waited around invisible I walked away from the community and started walking, JM found me a few miles away and took me back to L. I had spent three anxious days wondering if I would remain an abandoned ghost in this place.
JM’s Mum openly resented me once I returned, she thought I was extra work for JM on top of her already too heavy workload, which is true, but JM and FM were the ones who had created this situation and arranged with the council to get money to keep me there – (though I have no doubt whatsoever that it was not money that motivated either of them, don’t misunderstand me, it was a commitment by them for different reasons, and I was vulnerable, I did not force myself on them, they decided, and in FM’s case it was for wrong reasons).
JM’s mother really worried about her and cursed the diocese for overloading JM with work. But JM’s mum called me names, which was not nice, and JM told her off. I was helpless, it was JM who had insisted on taking over my life and JM and FM who had brought me home, I could not have gone to live at Pilsdon, apart from anything they were not just a Christian community, they were a business who charged huge rents per week for each client, and they expected the client to pay a substantial share of that with the rest coming from housing benefit, I certainly had no money to pay them, and I couldn’t even imagine JM plucking this money from somewhere either.
Lets go back, part 6 2000/2001
JM took me to her ‘friends’ C. and M.F, if ever there was someone for bad judgement it was JM.
C. and M. were people I had nothing at all in common with and JM had humiliated me to them by telling them inaccurate things about me and the problems I had, which set my relationship with them off to a bad and doomed start anyway. I had stopped speaking by then and was mute all the time I was there, what was the point in speaking, when JM ruled my life and spoke for me? I wasn’t human any more.
JM followed this up by bringing the mental health services round, she was trying to force me to speak apparently and trying to use them to put me in emergency accommodation, but because all I knew of the mental health services was what my parents had told me, that they locked people up and that was their purpose, I was terrified, and felt betrayed and again as if I had no say as I had not been asked about this intrusion beforehand, I fled from the house and walked in the dark for miles, when it got late I went to JM’s house because I didn’t know what else to do, but only FM was there, and he came out and yelled at me, he really did yell, he told me I wasn’t welcome there and I was to go back to where I had a bed for the night and stop making a nuisance of myself, I walked up the road to a hay barn and tried to curl up there, but the hay had muck mixed in and I got mucky. I went back to the F’s house terrified, but they let me in and looked after me.
JM later said she had no idea that I had gone to her house and FM had yelled, he did tend to keep it from her when he did things to hurt me or others behind her back. One time later on I was there to see JM and FM came into the room and the dog had climbed onto my lap, the dog was too big but I didn’t mind, FM went mad at the dog, I told him I didn’t mind her there and so he went mad at me and threw me out, and told JM I had ‘just left’, I was so rattled that I didn’t go back to JM for a while, and when I next saw her she was bewildered, she had not known FM had thrown me out.
I was with the F's for a few days and then they were going away for Christmas, so JM took me to the council, still not speaking, and told them I was too vulnerable to go in the nightshelter, so I was put in a bed and breakfast.
I got my voice back at the bed and breakfast.
The Bed and Breakfast was a mad place, the landlady was an old Jamaican woman who had once been a slave, she was deaf as a post and did not like me running hot water for a bath, she brought me meals at extremely odd hours, and the meals themselves were extremely odd. She had a bad habit of deadlocking the front door when I was out, and was so deaf that she wouldn’t hear my frantic rings at the doorbell either, or JM’s when JM came round to see me or collect me for the peace and healing service.
One night I was locked out and rang the bell frantically for hours on end before trying to sleep in an old burned out car, it was -5 that night and I was so frozen that in the morning I could hardly move, I stumbled to the bed and breakfast and this time she heard the doorbell and let me in and said ‘I thought you were in when I locked the door’, she brought me a strange meal, something Jamaican with rice, funny breakfast. And I climbed into a hot bath and then bed, still shaking with cold, back then I just didn’t know how to be street homeless, I am an expert now so I don’t get cold. A few days later I fell on the broken steps outside the bed and breakfast and knocked my leg badly, huh, I wasn’t having a good life.
Homeless at Christmas, just like Jesus, JM wanted to take me home for Christmas, but FM wouldn’t let her, I didn’t go to L. church for Christmas, I went to another tchurch which was very near the bed and breakfast, in this church I was made welcome though the crowds and the interaction were difficult for me, and a family called the R's took me under their wing and took me home for Christmas day, along with a gaggle of Japanese? Language students.
I was absolutely petrified being in their nice posh house and being unable to stop my nose running, as it did when I was nervous, which made me more embarrassed, unable to cross the language barrier with the language students and my autism making that worse, I tried to talk to the R's, they asked me if I had seen any of the latest movies (no, of course I hadn’t, I had never been to a cinema in my life!), they talked about their holidays and asked about mine, I had never been on holiday before and one of the R. boys laughed at an ignorant question I asked about holidays, I was deeply embarrassed and at a loss.
The R. boys were doing high-flying degrees, they had everything and more, the family had their own yacht, I am not an inverted snob as JM says, I was just so ashamed to be there and to have nothing at all in common with them, and being laughed at for my ignorance was the worst bit though. But there were good things about it, good food, pulling crackers, playing silly games, being in company instead of alone, and celebrating my first real Christian and church Christmas. They also had me for boxing day, which was similar, and on new year’s night I joined in the church’s party for people who were alone and wanted to see in the new year, that was lovely, but the hustle and bustle and bigness and mildly charismatic atmosphere at that church was a bit too much for me, so I never really belonged there but I did respect them for making my Christmas so much better than it could have been.
O Little town of Winchester...
Despite the bed and breakfast being in Winchester, JM continued to get me to come to L. for tea and counselling, technically she shouldn’t have been counselling me while being my friend and me being part of her church, but the counselling wasn’t working either, because JM had her opinions on me and my life, and this affected her ability to listen to me and be non-judgemental, but I got great therapeutic value out of playing with her dog, Bonnie, and when I got to the rectory, Bonnie would leap into my arms and go mad with affection and we would play.
JM ‘counselling’ me didn’t seem to achieve a lot, apart from learning that light touch and touch to my upper arms and neck makes me very distressed, while I can cope with some touch with firmer pressure to it, handshakes are fine, some hugs are fine, even squeezing my lower arms is fine. But I am never comfortable if someone I don’t know touches me. JM used to experiment with touch, to see what I reacted to.
Unfortunately, kind church people often try to reach out and touch my upper arm when they are being kind, which tends to get a cringe from me, I am sure this has made my problems in churches worse, though it is simply one of many problems I have in social settings. My self diagnosis is emotional/behavioural difficulties, and I am not proud of it, nor is it under my control and is a condition that is reactive to the environment I am in and the people around me, I don’t randomly behave oddly, and having been through a very unsettled adulthood as well as childhood, I have reacted a lot.
FM remained deeply unpredictable as he always had been, and I remained scared of him, but one day when I was there he came out of the toilet when I was waiting in the hall for JM when we were going to walk the dog, he gave me a long hug and said softly ‘good girl’, I wondered if he had mistaken me for JM or something, and realised he could not have done, but I was startled, FM was not an affectionate person, he was usually rude to or about me, and he had never tried to hug me before.
JM once said she thought FM was an Asbergers type, she said that when they went to well off people’s houses FM would ask how much paintings and pieces of furniture cost; one day when I had been helping (a lady in church) sell cards to raise money for the church, FM said ‘you should make friends with the (lady and her husband), they are millionaires’, JM spluttered and I indignantly told him that my friendships were nothing to do with money.
Despite the L. benefice being a wealthy one I did not discriminate about money when it came to friends, my friends were the more ordinary people, my friends were the ones who reached out to me, and kept reaching out until they reached me, because I cannot reach out.
On other occasions, later on, FM called me a sponger and a scrounger, and so did JM’s mum, I don’t know how this could be so when FM lives off JM and in her words ‘does nothing’ for the household, while I was working all week and freelance working all weekend doing hard physical labour, including JM's garden, when the doctors had told me I could just sit around on benefits in the sheltered house for as long as I wanted.
I am indeed terribly labelled and judged by Church of England ladies and gentlemen who are not so keen to consider their own faults.
C. and M. were people I had nothing at all in common with and JM had humiliated me to them by telling them inaccurate things about me and the problems I had, which set my relationship with them off to a bad and doomed start anyway. I had stopped speaking by then and was mute all the time I was there, what was the point in speaking, when JM ruled my life and spoke for me? I wasn’t human any more.
JM followed this up by bringing the mental health services round, she was trying to force me to speak apparently and trying to use them to put me in emergency accommodation, but because all I knew of the mental health services was what my parents had told me, that they locked people up and that was their purpose, I was terrified, and felt betrayed and again as if I had no say as I had not been asked about this intrusion beforehand, I fled from the house and walked in the dark for miles, when it got late I went to JM’s house because I didn’t know what else to do, but only FM was there, and he came out and yelled at me, he really did yell, he told me I wasn’t welcome there and I was to go back to where I had a bed for the night and stop making a nuisance of myself, I walked up the road to a hay barn and tried to curl up there, but the hay had muck mixed in and I got mucky. I went back to the F’s house terrified, but they let me in and looked after me.
JM later said she had no idea that I had gone to her house and FM had yelled, he did tend to keep it from her when he did things to hurt me or others behind her back. One time later on I was there to see JM and FM came into the room and the dog had climbed onto my lap, the dog was too big but I didn’t mind, FM went mad at the dog, I told him I didn’t mind her there and so he went mad at me and threw me out, and told JM I had ‘just left’, I was so rattled that I didn’t go back to JM for a while, and when I next saw her she was bewildered, she had not known FM had thrown me out.
I was with the F's for a few days and then they were going away for Christmas, so JM took me to the council, still not speaking, and told them I was too vulnerable to go in the nightshelter, so I was put in a bed and breakfast.
I got my voice back at the bed and breakfast.
The Bed and Breakfast was a mad place, the landlady was an old Jamaican woman who had once been a slave, she was deaf as a post and did not like me running hot water for a bath, she brought me meals at extremely odd hours, and the meals themselves were extremely odd. She had a bad habit of deadlocking the front door when I was out, and was so deaf that she wouldn’t hear my frantic rings at the doorbell either, or JM’s when JM came round to see me or collect me for the peace and healing service.
One night I was locked out and rang the bell frantically for hours on end before trying to sleep in an old burned out car, it was -5 that night and I was so frozen that in the morning I could hardly move, I stumbled to the bed and breakfast and this time she heard the doorbell and let me in and said ‘I thought you were in when I locked the door’, she brought me a strange meal, something Jamaican with rice, funny breakfast. And I climbed into a hot bath and then bed, still shaking with cold, back then I just didn’t know how to be street homeless, I am an expert now so I don’t get cold. A few days later I fell on the broken steps outside the bed and breakfast and knocked my leg badly, huh, I wasn’t having a good life.
Homeless at Christmas, just like Jesus, JM wanted to take me home for Christmas, but FM wouldn’t let her, I didn’t go to L. church for Christmas, I went to another tchurch which was very near the bed and breakfast, in this church I was made welcome though the crowds and the interaction were difficult for me, and a family called the R's took me under their wing and took me home for Christmas day, along with a gaggle of Japanese? Language students.
I was absolutely petrified being in their nice posh house and being unable to stop my nose running, as it did when I was nervous, which made me more embarrassed, unable to cross the language barrier with the language students and my autism making that worse, I tried to talk to the R's, they asked me if I had seen any of the latest movies (no, of course I hadn’t, I had never been to a cinema in my life!), they talked about their holidays and asked about mine, I had never been on holiday before and one of the R. boys laughed at an ignorant question I asked about holidays, I was deeply embarrassed and at a loss.
The R. boys were doing high-flying degrees, they had everything and more, the family had their own yacht, I am not an inverted snob as JM says, I was just so ashamed to be there and to have nothing at all in common with them, and being laughed at for my ignorance was the worst bit though. But there were good things about it, good food, pulling crackers, playing silly games, being in company instead of alone, and celebrating my first real Christian and church Christmas. They also had me for boxing day, which was similar, and on new year’s night I joined in the church’s party for people who were alone and wanted to see in the new year, that was lovely, but the hustle and bustle and bigness and mildly charismatic atmosphere at that church was a bit too much for me, so I never really belonged there but I did respect them for making my Christmas so much better than it could have been.
O Little town of Winchester...
Despite the bed and breakfast being in Winchester, JM continued to get me to come to L. for tea and counselling, technically she shouldn’t have been counselling me while being my friend and me being part of her church, but the counselling wasn’t working either, because JM had her opinions on me and my life, and this affected her ability to listen to me and be non-judgemental, but I got great therapeutic value out of playing with her dog, Bonnie, and when I got to the rectory, Bonnie would leap into my arms and go mad with affection and we would play.
JM ‘counselling’ me didn’t seem to achieve a lot, apart from learning that light touch and touch to my upper arms and neck makes me very distressed, while I can cope with some touch with firmer pressure to it, handshakes are fine, some hugs are fine, even squeezing my lower arms is fine. But I am never comfortable if someone I don’t know touches me. JM used to experiment with touch, to see what I reacted to.
Unfortunately, kind church people often try to reach out and touch my upper arm when they are being kind, which tends to get a cringe from me, I am sure this has made my problems in churches worse, though it is simply one of many problems I have in social settings. My self diagnosis is emotional/behavioural difficulties, and I am not proud of it, nor is it under my control and is a condition that is reactive to the environment I am in and the people around me, I don’t randomly behave oddly, and having been through a very unsettled adulthood as well as childhood, I have reacted a lot.
FM remained deeply unpredictable as he always had been, and I remained scared of him, but one day when I was there he came out of the toilet when I was waiting in the hall for JM when we were going to walk the dog, he gave me a long hug and said softly ‘good girl’, I wondered if he had mistaken me for JM or something, and realised he could not have done, but I was startled, FM was not an affectionate person, he was usually rude to or about me, and he had never tried to hug me before.
JM once said she thought FM was an Asbergers type, she said that when they went to well off people’s houses FM would ask how much paintings and pieces of furniture cost; one day when I had been helping (a lady in church) sell cards to raise money for the church, FM said ‘you should make friends with the (lady and her husband), they are millionaires’, JM spluttered and I indignantly told him that my friendships were nothing to do with money.
Despite the L. benefice being a wealthy one I did not discriminate about money when it came to friends, my friends were the more ordinary people, my friends were the ones who reached out to me, and kept reaching out until they reached me, because I cannot reach out.
On other occasions, later on, FM called me a sponger and a scrounger, and so did JM’s mum, I don’t know how this could be so when FM lives off JM and in her words ‘does nothing’ for the household, while I was working all week and freelance working all weekend doing hard physical labour, including JM's garden, when the doctors had told me I could just sit around on benefits in the sheltered house for as long as I wanted.
I am indeed terribly labelled and judged by Church of England ladies and gentlemen who are not so keen to consider their own faults.
Lets go back, part 5
JM was drawing me into her church more and more, I was terrified of my parents finding out as they were set against the church and their anger and grudge were pretty terrifying when one of us children did something they didn’t like, the more I went to church, the more I saw of FM and his anger as well, and it made me deeply anxious, but other people in church were kind to me, as ever I couldn’t learn names easily, but I got to know kind faces after a while, E and P.M were some of these kind faces, though E could be very sharp if she wanted to and at first I was nervous of her but I actually really liked her brutal honesty and found it refreshing, somehow I got the job of painting E’s fence and shed, and from that sprung a weekly gardening slot with the M's, though E loved to remind me just how much I messed up in the beginning because I knew nothing about gardening, and E was more than happy remind me of the time I dug up all her foxgloves and left a great big plantain in the middle of the border.
The M's became my friends, blunt honest down to earth friends who fed me delicious food and coffee, and who I wanted nothing from but a chat over a cup of coffee occasionally, and who did me the world of good through the years until recently the church destroyal of me took them and my other friends from me,
(E now looks straight through me with disgust on her face but gabs behind her hands to others if she sees me, thanks to Jane Fisher and JM, I am sure God will reward them fior their unchristian harm to me! and maybe it is a lesson for me about friendship and the CofE and wealthy older cliques).
The M's were at S. Church, but JM was drawing me into L.church as well, I remained uncomfortable, asking a million questions about church when I could verbalise them, and terrified of JM when she dressed in her black cassock, for some reason it caused me to flash back to my early childhood and the women next door, one evening I couldn’t come into church as I was so terrified, JM tried to coax me by saying ‘come in and meet these nice boys’ I replied ‘There is no such thing as nice boys’ which showed just how disturbed and wary I was.
I did meet the nice boys and joined in ‘prayer and praise’ and with the help of some wonderful people – (three youth leaders' Names redacted), I became part of L. Youth Group, which remains one of the most blessed and rewarding and helpful parts of my young adulthood (back then I was one of only a few college students in a mainly school-age youth group), I grew to love prayer and praise and youth group, though I was way out of my depth at youth group as every young person at youth group came from the wealthy and high flying families of (the Benefice), and there was I, scruffy and with no background, surrounded by young people who literally had everything and more, but they accepted me as I was, and this was the first time I had known acceptance from young people, the last experience of a ‘Youth’ organisation had been when I was twelve, the youth club on the estate,where knives and fights happened and my brother was threatened with a knife.
I didn’t stop being ashamed of my poverty compared to the youth, my lack of style and speech and possessions, their conversations were about their horses and phones and weekends and going out and holidays and school situations, I listened and enjoyed the food and the company, but I had no holidays, no possessions, no ponies, no home, no wealthy family, nothing, and yet they accepted me as I was, and that youth group and their acceptance was one of the most beneficial things to me in all my adult years.
It offset the crazy inappropriateness of me with my background and condition being brought into such a wealthy church in such a wealthy district and suffering from church politics in this wealthy church where most of the congregation had extremely privileged and carefree lives and no understanding whatsoever of disturbed people and poverty and the things I had been through to leave me so disturbed;
this and JM’s opinion of me and FM’s behaviour meant it was hard for me to really belong properly, though during the time I was part of the L. benefice I did a tremendous variety of work for the church: sideman’s duties and welcoming at all three churches, reading lessons and prayers, handbell ringing at L. and bellringing training at C. –ended by my injured shoulder, tea and coffee duties, Sunday school helping briefly, Youth group helping, youth group sponsored events, taking all kinds of parts in helping with prayer and praise and all age worship, drama parts, fetching and carrying for JM, helping with many church related fundraising events, churchyard work, mission support work, helping with lunch club, helping with community based events such as S. fete, L. show, L. show service, L. flower festival, sometimes helping with flower arranging, these works were over the time I was part of the L. community and they helped me to grow and develop and communicate, I helped, I helped and nothing has ever given me more joy and delight in my life; and knowing that those days and my usefulness are gone and have been replaced by the label of wickedness and a criminal record is too much to bear.
JM would invite me for tea before church and youth group, FM was extremely unpredictable about this, and I was frightened of him and JM said he knew this, JM’s parents were also unpredictable and bickered with FM as well, I was always nervous being there, if FM made silly jokes rather than shouting then I would laugh to try and keep him nice instead of him turning angry, but he also liked to embarrass me and make me flustered and embarrassed, but his temper flipped suddenly and frequently, and the way he spoke to JM a lot of the time was horrible, she simply ignored it and told me that FM was ‘not nearly as bad as he used to be’.
One evening ( a youth leader ) was driving me and some of the others back from youth group outing, and she invited me back to her house for supper, she told me that her boyfriend, M., was cooking, I was a bit surprised, back then I had become dependent on the peace and healing service though, so I told her I wasn’t sure about missing that and missing seeing some of my friends there, but I feel sorry I turned that down, but at the same time I was a bit scared of meeting M. and also a bit puzzled as it hadn’t been that long since (her late husband's) death, anyway, the youth leader married her new boyfriend and stopped being part of the church, the new family had four children in it, (2 names redacted) who were part of our youth group, and (tow younger children) who were very wild and threw stones and things when they first arrived in the village, but turned respectable with the village and A. and R.’s influence, and I wished I had been lucky enough to come from sadness into a good family like A&R’s, I always longed to be part of a family, I never considered myself part of A&R's family, but later on in the last few years of her life, I remember A. inviting me to stay for a weekend and I said ‘are you sure?’ and she said ‘yes, but you will have to fend for yourself here, like the rest of the family do’. I accepted her invitations to stay, until it got to a point where I knew that even if she invited me she was too ill to have me to stay.
Through the Youth group I started being involved in helping with church activities, following the example of one of the members, *****, who was a sweet kind girl who helped out with church and community events, I managed to start taking part, when I met *****, she was at my very first L. show, handing out cakes at the show service, I was amazed to be greeted with a smile by her and when introduced, she was so friendly and welcoming, I honestly was not used to friendship from young people and I was amazed, delighted and panicking at the same time, she and her friends ***** and ******, some years younger than me, remained an inspiration to me for years, with their generous heartedness and compassion and good works. It was the first good I had known from young people.
The college work placement fell through, as I had known it would, JM jumped in and completely took over my life, it was as if I wasn’t human any more, she made the decisions, no one listened and heard what I had to say about the placement, JM said that the farm people couldn’t cope with me not listening to them, I tried to explain to her that I actually couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, but I was brushed aside, later diagnosed with dysphasia/speech input disorder, which has improved over the years, I was redeemed from that particular image of being awkward, but they had complained about me going back to the farm cottage for the toilet or when I fell down the bank, no one knew I had fallen down the bank because the jealous tractor driver’s wife had been so fierce that I had simply gone back to work upset, she gave the Tractor driver so much grief about him being alone with me or me going back to the cottage with him for lunch that that no doubt helped this hopeless placement to fail, an inexperienced or backward farm student needs to be on a stock farm, not a one-man arable farm, it was a disaster, and I was left with every ounce of the shame and blame for the disaster.
I had been trying to arrange a stock farm placement in Devon with a couple who seemed keen despite my problems, but JM took me over, I was not given the option of pursuing either a placement or a job on this farm, JM made arrangements to take me out of college, she did not consult me, she and the tutors were treating me as if I was an object, which made me lash out and react, the mentor who had told me all those untrue things about his life and had encouraged me in anger and given me his low opinion of my tutors and their attitudes was now in agreement with them about me, he had given up on his fantastic tales of South Africa, Shamans, being all kinds of things and having shamanistic powers, he wouldn’t even speak to me.
The tutors gave some sort of talk about how I could come back next year and do the management year and not get a qualification, which was insane because I would never get the funding, I had struggled with funding for two academic years, I would not be competent for the management year and I would be back alongside my old classmates who despised me, and would not have completed my work experience as they had. So I said no, I had lost the course, I was not being allowed to go into a new placement, and so I also lost my place in college accommodation, I was homeless. JM later said that the tutors had let her down and something about how she had agreed something about me going back with them, but this was when I had to get a letter saying I had left the course in order to be entitled to any benefits. JM helped me to apply for benefits, which I could never have done on my own.
( I wanted the qualification but didn't really like the tutors or the college, I didn't really realise that, despite being a big college, they had many problems, especially debt and personell problems, and they eventually merged with another college, and I hope they are doing better now, they are an animal care college now with very little agriculture). As I said in previous posts, I returned there within a year and studied various horticulture courses, but even so, I still didn't like the place, and so many staff, most of the ones I knew, quit in the years following me quitting my agriculture qualification, which I took up succesfully and passed with distinctions at another college later).
The M's became my friends, blunt honest down to earth friends who fed me delicious food and coffee, and who I wanted nothing from but a chat over a cup of coffee occasionally, and who did me the world of good through the years until recently the church destroyal of me took them and my other friends from me,
(E now looks straight through me with disgust on her face but gabs behind her hands to others if she sees me, thanks to Jane Fisher and JM, I am sure God will reward them fior their unchristian harm to me! and maybe it is a lesson for me about friendship and the CofE and wealthy older cliques).
The M's were at S. Church, but JM was drawing me into L.church as well, I remained uncomfortable, asking a million questions about church when I could verbalise them, and terrified of JM when she dressed in her black cassock, for some reason it caused me to flash back to my early childhood and the women next door, one evening I couldn’t come into church as I was so terrified, JM tried to coax me by saying ‘come in and meet these nice boys’ I replied ‘There is no such thing as nice boys’ which showed just how disturbed and wary I was.
I did meet the nice boys and joined in ‘prayer and praise’ and with the help of some wonderful people – (three youth leaders' Names redacted), I became part of L. Youth Group, which remains one of the most blessed and rewarding and helpful parts of my young adulthood (back then I was one of only a few college students in a mainly school-age youth group), I grew to love prayer and praise and youth group, though I was way out of my depth at youth group as every young person at youth group came from the wealthy and high flying families of (the Benefice), and there was I, scruffy and with no background, surrounded by young people who literally had everything and more, but they accepted me as I was, and this was the first time I had known acceptance from young people, the last experience of a ‘Youth’ organisation had been when I was twelve, the youth club on the estate,where knives and fights happened and my brother was threatened with a knife.
I didn’t stop being ashamed of my poverty compared to the youth, my lack of style and speech and possessions, their conversations were about their horses and phones and weekends and going out and holidays and school situations, I listened and enjoyed the food and the company, but I had no holidays, no possessions, no ponies, no home, no wealthy family, nothing, and yet they accepted me as I was, and that youth group and their acceptance was one of the most beneficial things to me in all my adult years.
It offset the crazy inappropriateness of me with my background and condition being brought into such a wealthy church in such a wealthy district and suffering from church politics in this wealthy church where most of the congregation had extremely privileged and carefree lives and no understanding whatsoever of disturbed people and poverty and the things I had been through to leave me so disturbed;
this and JM’s opinion of me and FM’s behaviour meant it was hard for me to really belong properly, though during the time I was part of the L. benefice I did a tremendous variety of work for the church: sideman’s duties and welcoming at all three churches, reading lessons and prayers, handbell ringing at L. and bellringing training at C. –ended by my injured shoulder, tea and coffee duties, Sunday school helping briefly, Youth group helping, youth group sponsored events, taking all kinds of parts in helping with prayer and praise and all age worship, drama parts, fetching and carrying for JM, helping with many church related fundraising events, churchyard work, mission support work, helping with lunch club, helping with community based events such as S. fete, L. show, L. show service, L. flower festival, sometimes helping with flower arranging, these works were over the time I was part of the L. community and they helped me to grow and develop and communicate, I helped, I helped and nothing has ever given me more joy and delight in my life; and knowing that those days and my usefulness are gone and have been replaced by the label of wickedness and a criminal record is too much to bear.
JM would invite me for tea before church and youth group, FM was extremely unpredictable about this, and I was frightened of him and JM said he knew this, JM’s parents were also unpredictable and bickered with FM as well, I was always nervous being there, if FM made silly jokes rather than shouting then I would laugh to try and keep him nice instead of him turning angry, but he also liked to embarrass me and make me flustered and embarrassed, but his temper flipped suddenly and frequently, and the way he spoke to JM a lot of the time was horrible, she simply ignored it and told me that FM was ‘not nearly as bad as he used to be’.
One evening ( a youth leader ) was driving me and some of the others back from youth group outing, and she invited me back to her house for supper, she told me that her boyfriend, M., was cooking, I was a bit surprised, back then I had become dependent on the peace and healing service though, so I told her I wasn’t sure about missing that and missing seeing some of my friends there, but I feel sorry I turned that down, but at the same time I was a bit scared of meeting M. and also a bit puzzled as it hadn’t been that long since (her late husband's) death, anyway, the youth leader married her new boyfriend and stopped being part of the church, the new family had four children in it, (2 names redacted) who were part of our youth group, and (tow younger children) who were very wild and threw stones and things when they first arrived in the village, but turned respectable with the village and A. and R.’s influence, and I wished I had been lucky enough to come from sadness into a good family like A&R’s, I always longed to be part of a family, I never considered myself part of A&R's family, but later on in the last few years of her life, I remember A. inviting me to stay for a weekend and I said ‘are you sure?’ and she said ‘yes, but you will have to fend for yourself here, like the rest of the family do’. I accepted her invitations to stay, until it got to a point where I knew that even if she invited me she was too ill to have me to stay.
Through the Youth group I started being involved in helping with church activities, following the example of one of the members, *****, who was a sweet kind girl who helped out with church and community events, I managed to start taking part, when I met *****, she was at my very first L. show, handing out cakes at the show service, I was amazed to be greeted with a smile by her and when introduced, she was so friendly and welcoming, I honestly was not used to friendship from young people and I was amazed, delighted and panicking at the same time, she and her friends ***** and ******, some years younger than me, remained an inspiration to me for years, with their generous heartedness and compassion and good works. It was the first good I had known from young people.
The college work placement fell through, as I had known it would, JM jumped in and completely took over my life, it was as if I wasn’t human any more, she made the decisions, no one listened and heard what I had to say about the placement, JM said that the farm people couldn’t cope with me not listening to them, I tried to explain to her that I actually couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, but I was brushed aside, later diagnosed with dysphasia/speech input disorder, which has improved over the years, I was redeemed from that particular image of being awkward, but they had complained about me going back to the farm cottage for the toilet or when I fell down the bank, no one knew I had fallen down the bank because the jealous tractor driver’s wife had been so fierce that I had simply gone back to work upset, she gave the Tractor driver so much grief about him being alone with me or me going back to the cottage with him for lunch that that no doubt helped this hopeless placement to fail, an inexperienced or backward farm student needs to be on a stock farm, not a one-man arable farm, it was a disaster, and I was left with every ounce of the shame and blame for the disaster.
I had been trying to arrange a stock farm placement in Devon with a couple who seemed keen despite my problems, but JM took me over, I was not given the option of pursuing either a placement or a job on this farm, JM made arrangements to take me out of college, she did not consult me, she and the tutors were treating me as if I was an object, which made me lash out and react, the mentor who had told me all those untrue things about his life and had encouraged me in anger and given me his low opinion of my tutors and their attitudes was now in agreement with them about me, he had given up on his fantastic tales of South Africa, Shamans, being all kinds of things and having shamanistic powers, he wouldn’t even speak to me.
The tutors gave some sort of talk about how I could come back next year and do the management year and not get a qualification, which was insane because I would never get the funding, I had struggled with funding for two academic years, I would not be competent for the management year and I would be back alongside my old classmates who despised me, and would not have completed my work experience as they had. So I said no, I had lost the course, I was not being allowed to go into a new placement, and so I also lost my place in college accommodation, I was homeless. JM later said that the tutors had let her down and something about how she had agreed something about me going back with them, but this was when I had to get a letter saying I had left the course in order to be entitled to any benefits. JM helped me to apply for benefits, which I could never have done on my own.
( I wanted the qualification but didn't really like the tutors or the college, I didn't really realise that, despite being a big college, they had many problems, especially debt and personell problems, and they eventually merged with another college, and I hope they are doing better now, they are an animal care college now with very little agriculture). As I said in previous posts, I returned there within a year and studied various horticulture courses, but even so, I still didn't like the place, and so many staff, most of the ones I knew, quit in the years following me quitting my agriculture qualification, which I took up succesfully and passed with distinctions at another college later).
Lets go back, part 4, back to my past again!
I ended that year on a high, good grades, warning gone, middle year placement to go to, sad to be leaving Winchester and Hampshire for a year, but relieved to be able to come back for weekends occasionally on the invite of my landlady, and knowing I had a placement to go to and that I would be back. I had successfully worked for the newsagent’s right until the end.
I got to the placement.
I quickly learned that it was not for me, a farmhouse on its own at the top of a hill by a remote village in Wales, the farmer had a terrible temper, not a single day went by when he didn’t shout at the other student, who persuaded him not to shout at me as I couldn’t cope with it, she would be leaving at the end of the summer and I would really start my training when she left, in the meantime I did all the grotty jobs such as strimming under miles of live electric fence (and it was impossible not to hit the fence and get shocks) , because the hedges didn’t keep the sheep in, the training that the other student was getting was obviously good, the farmer’s wife trained her in theory for hours on end, while the student was out doing a tremendous amount of practical work, pretty much everything on her own during the day, she told me bluntly what the villagers nicknamed the farmer for his temper and the way he got students to do all the farm work, and I wondered how I could cope when she had gone.
JM wrote to me saying she was trying to find me a counsellor in the area near the farm, and had contacted the Archdeacon of Brecon, but there wasn’t any realistic way of me getting to a counsellor in that area, so nothing came of that.
In the meantime there was nothing to do in the house, the farmer and his wife would sit and watch TV, while me and the other student were not allowed to, we were not allowed in the TV room, only the kitchen, the other student had family, a dog, a boyfriend, money in the bank, I had nothing, we were given pocket money every week, and she was often out with her boyfriend, I took to going to the pub, initially for chocolate, but I learned to drink vodka, briefly, which made me even worse than usual, I could still close barn doors when I was drunk, so no one noticed, but I was isolated in this strange place with no phone signal and no people around, silent as I was, I did want people around, but there was only the farmer and his wife who were really cold, and the other student who decided I was not right in the head and gave up on me, likewise the farmer openly called me mad and stupid, and asked why I pretended to be stupid when I was intelligent.
I knew that I did not mean to ‘pretend to be stupid’ and I was desperate for some way to explain myself, but I could not, I did not know I was autistic, I did not know fully about trauma, I only knew I was miserable and being punished more and more for not fitting in. One day when I got my period I had no sanitary towels and the nearest shop was 8 miles away, I told the farmer that I was going to walk into town after ‘work’, he asked why, I certainly wasn’t telling him why, I said I wanted a walk, after that he raged at me saying he was going to do tractor driving with me that evening, I couldn’t get things right there however hard I tried.
I had a few driving lessons while I was there, but I was too tense to really progress and couldn’t afford them anyway.
The farmer told me one day why didn’t I just shout and swear to let off steam, instead of being silent and stewing, he said that he shouted and swore when he was annoyed, but I thought of the college and wondered why I was being told one thing by them and another by the farmer.
The famer said he was watching me and listening because that’s what he did with his students, and he thought I was weird, I knew he was watching me, I knew he was a bit of a snoop, he would sometimes be on the landing at night outside my door, which embarrassed me as I would hum and sing and chatter, beep and squeak to myself in an autistic way as I tried to relax to sleep, I get very anxious about sleeping and was scared of the dark, I think it stems from being woken up by people breaking the door down one night when I was 12 (etc, if you know what I mean), I still do this autistic routine, and I have always been a bit embarrassed in case anyone hears me when I am in someone else’s company, which is why I like to sleep alone, and also because I suck my thumb and have frequent nightmares that sometimes cause me to scream out or leap from my bed in my sleep, anyway the farmer and his wife also went in my room on the excuse of going to the cupboard in there, but I had no privacy, I was like a goldfish in a goldfish bowl.
And basically I was relieved when he said that I wasn’t suitable for the placement, it had looked promising but very basically I did not have the mettle or ability to be there with that furious tempered man, I remember one day sitting in a field exhausted, worked into the ground and thinking ‘this is no better than ***** (early childhood) I may as well die if life is going to go on being such a struggle’, that was almost my first death thought as an adult, and my first real realisation of depression. My younger brothers had got jobs without even getting their GCSE’s, and I felt stupid and useless for my struggles in an industry that even uneducated and slow people could get jobs in. But I was angry about the cruel farmer saying unhelpful things to my tutor on the phone, the tutor was the one who had already said he couldn’t see me making it through the course, and I was worried sick for my future.
In the end the tutor and another member of staff from the college came to collect me, the member of staff who came with him was a man who had befriended me earlier in my college career, he was the one who told me he was a Muslim and that he and his Muslim friend used to get drunk together, he was a man who said many many things to me in the time I knew him that could not possibly be true, including that he used to be a gamekeeper, that he was a trained psychotherapist, that he was a gamekeeper, that he was trained in shamanism by a shaman, and that he had broken his back in a 100mph car crash, that he was a college warden, sadly these things he told me were all totally believed by me, and I was very reliant on him for advice during my first years at college, he encouraged and enjoyed this reliance, though at the time I did not know that other members of staff were not happy about it, he told me things like ‘If you want to swear then do, go for it!’, and ‘get angry, it is good for you’ which is not a good thing for a mentor to tell someone who is autistic! and many many other things that were actually bad for me and helped to make college more difficult, not that I went around swearing, I swore once at the counsellor, once at another student when I was wound up, other students swore and used obscenities frequently, but I was the one who got in trouble.
Anyway, this guy encouraged me to go a bit loopy, his ideas were far out and radical and not actually helpful, he became my close friend and mentor and father figure, and people didn’t like that, but he never misbehaved, neither of us did, I think he just enjoyed being respected and mentoring and being in charge of my life so to speak, and because of my upbringing, I always though that the 'adults knew best and were in charge'.
JM was the next ‘mentor’ to spring into my life, she was a counsellor who thrust herself upon the college as counsellor/chaplain, the old counsellor spoke to me at one point asking if I would like to see JM, who he described with prejudice as ‘The local vicar’s wife’ and ‘a bit of a livewire’, I said no, I later decided of my own accord that I wanted more help, and asked the student officer to refer me to JM, JM maintained that I was forced by the tutors to see her, which is rubbish.
(I remain puzzled as to why JM lost her position at the college a few years later, although she told me she was made to feel unwelcome, she tried to be 'Chaplain' as far as I know).
When JM came to meet me she rushed towards me with her arm outstretched, this was far too quick for me and I dashed backwards out of the room, then I came back. JM leaped into my life, telling me her background, family, dog etc, she was so lively and loud and she asked why my attention kept wandering, I told her ‘I think fast’, I didn’t know why my concentration wasn’t great.
JM enthusiastically took me over, she started taking me home very quickly, within weeks of meeting me she would take me home for tea or meet me for dog walks, her husband was rude about that from the start, but JM would take me to her office, where I would interact with the dog more than with her. JM had a thing about me hating women, I didn’t hate women, but maybe because I had had more male company than female, and my dad and brother being the ones who looked after me and influenced me more than my mum, maybe I was used to men more than women. (the thing with JM was, she was very opinionated, like her mother, and would form concrete opinions of people and tell everyone)
JM told me about her stepdaughter, Sally, how I was the spitting image of Sally, how Sally had been mentally ill, had passive dependent personality disorder and spent a lot of time in psychiatric care, how Sally had been a big liar, how Sally had been a 12 year old (?12)disturbed girl when JM met her, and how Sally was desperate for affection and would sit in JM’s lap and want to be cuddled all the time, how JM tried to look after Sally and how Sally had no sense of humour and neither did FM, and how one day she made them a meal to try and get them to sit down peacefully together but FM chased Sally out into the road and they were screaming at each other.
JM told me of how Sally grew up and went to live on her own in a flat and would sit there chain smoking all day in the dirt and squalor, and JM would go and continue to try and help her and clean up and put the washing on while Sally sat and smoked, JM told me that FM resented her helping Sally and would sit outside in the car while JM went in and helped, and how it was tearing their marriage apart, so she abandoned Sally, and got one letter from her some time later, and that Sally changed her name.
The worst thing about all this was that JM told me I was the spitting image of Sally, and she showed me photographs, I was not comfortable with this at all and would leave the room rather than hear her go on and on about Sally and see the photos. I do recall something about JM going on about a ‘second chance’ with me, when she had become really emotionally involved, but I did not want to be a second Sally, I wanted to be me, not mentally ill or a chain smoker who lived in a hovel. One thing JM could not make me be was passive dependent, I am not, I value my independence more than anything, which may be why homelessness suits me so well now.
I gather from JM’s talk about me and what she told FM, that she thought I was having a relationship with the college safety man who was my mentor, which was undoubtedly unhelpful, added to her thinking that my ability to interact with some of my tutors but not my fellow students was about me wanting a relationship, but without exception it was not, I was not mature enough to think that way, I had grown to trust some of my tutors from the First Diploma, and therefore greeted them while not really acknowledging anyone else, I was as I said, a frightened person, and found being able to talk to the tutors comforting
(of course, my thinking that the adults knew best was also a part of this, as well as my fear of young people and people of my own age from the ghettos, council estates and hostels).. FM and this Safety man also started going to the same Masonic lodge together at around this time.
I didn’t have sex or desire it in the whole time I was at college, in fact I have not had sex since then, I am not really adult enough for a sexual relationship, nor do I find the thought of the physical side of it appealing and I am against sex outside of marriage, but the way JM talked about me you would think I was a nymphomaniac.
Looking back I am embarrassed about my clinginess to the tutors, I am ashamed of how JM seems to have branded me a slut, I never had any sort of sexual relationship with those safe and trustworthy men, and it didn’t cross my mind, I am glad that they were trustworthy too. The mentor was a bad influence in that he was untruthful and irresponsible, but it is my fault that I was blind to that and that his behaviour influenced mine, but he was not sexual.
Anyway, on leaving the farm in Wales, I returned to the college to live on site. JM arranged me a placement off a local farm owner who was her friend, unfortunately it was not a suitable placement to start with, but the arrangements were made behind my back between JM and the tutor and the farm owner (a wealthy landowner, oligarchy and church position holder, of course!).
I was not happy with this and I said so, I pointed out various problems that I could see would occur, but no one listened to me, so I started this placement, they also were only paying pocket money, it was a large arable farm where one man did all the tractor work, the farm owner’s son did the paperwork and sometimes a bit of tractor driving, and I was not going to gain any practical experience there as they simply left me weeding between hedgerows they had planted to gain government bursaries, they would not get bursaries unless someone weeded these miles and miles, literally, of hedges, it was hard hopeless work, that I was left doing on my own, the first day I got very thirsty because I had no water, I did not really understand break times, until the tractor driver started taking me home for breaks he warned me that his wife was a bit mouthy and snappy because she spent all her time alone indoors in the rural cottage, and she was, she didn’t like a girl working on the farm, she didn’t want a female anywhere near her husband.
One day they left me weeding a hedge on a steep bank by a road, the bank was slippery and I fell onto the road with a sharp scythe in my hand, I was shaken and again my leg was hurt, I walked back up to the farm cottage, and got yelled at by the jealous wife because I could not explain to her what had happened or that I wanted at least a high visibility jacket before I went back to that bank, as well as a bandage for my leg, the placement was falling apart, I was living onsite at the college but struggling for food because I had no cooking facilities and relied on the college canteen, which was not open when I got back from work, and it was difficult to get a packed lunch out of them, let alone breakfast, in the early morning, cycling to the placement every morning I came off my bike on the ice and it was ruined, I then had to rely on the tractor driver coming to get me or I had to walk to the placement, which took ages or put a strain on the tractor driver.
The hedges were all weeded, and they were struggling to find work for me, a big arable farm is not the place for an inexperienced or disabled student, they could not give the tractor driver time to train me and they could not let me loose on a tractor in the fields. They got me doing beating on shoot days, despite me being mainly against driving birds to their death at the hands of fat old men with guns, including JM’s farm owner friend, this was another reason I didn’t want to stay in this placement, but for this job I got extra pocket money as everyone got beater’s pay, we also got beer and partridges, I gave the partridges to the cleaner at college, and gave the beer to my friend ****, which was stupid in hindsight, but I had stopped drinking after my experiments with vodka in Wales, and **** wanted the beer, it made her hyperactive and more wild than ever, leading her to graffiti in chalk outside the hostels among other things, for which I was blamed, she got clingy too, and wanted to be with me all the time, she would come to my room in the evening and when it was bedtime and I threw her out, she would stand outside my window and tap on the window for ages, she also wanted to fight and wrestle, and she was bigger than me and quite heavy and I wasn’t comfortable with the physical contact or being sat on a lot, especially not as she farted all the time as well, she was a ladette, I wasn’t, I was just the way I had been brought up, looking like a boy, but I was the one who was called a lesbian, no one dared to cross **** because she had no compunctions about thumping them. She was company for me, someone who did not treat me like an idiot or a troublemaker, but she wanted a lot of time and energy and I was used to being alone.
And we were getting into trouble with the tutors for hanging around and chalking on the ground, mainly ****, but I got the blame,**** told me about her brother who had been killed when they were young, I told her that I had not gone to school and that there had been a lot of violence in my life, but apart from that we didn’t talk about the past.
**** told me many many rude things and jokes, and I listened, she talked about how she hated her classmates and she talked about agriculture, she was passionate about tractor driving and machinery and I knew that she was going to complete her NCA and had a better chance of getting a job than me, I was ashamed of the failing, badly set up placement that I was in, and I was ashamed of my inability to make things work out properly, basically I was as I had been for years, ashamed, embarrassed, I knew and everyone knew that I was odd, I didn’t have communication and interaction skills or understanding of social skills or what people wanted, expected or what their motives were, I only understood half, if that, of what people said to me, and I felt hopeless, I felt to blame, I felt depressed and sad and tired for struggling through each day like this, I still feel like this now, despite knowing what is wrong with me.
JM continued to get me to go to her home for counselling, though her husband’s unpredictable temper terrified me, he would sometimes answer the door with a stone cold growl ‘what do you want?’ JM said that was just how he was, and that he had been like that in church when they had arrived at ******* and he had been sat on for it, and later she told me she was pretty sure he had been violent to his first wife who could not stand up to him as she did and that FM knew if he ever hit her (JM) he would be out on his ear and that would be it, usually in public he came across as very mild and nice, especially to women, but in the house he was raging and yelling all the time he raged at me, at JM who ignored him and at JM’s mother who raged back, and her rage was terrifying, this situation never changed or got better. Apart from FM’s brief gentleness and generosity during the abuse, and even then he could flip and become what JM called autocratic.
I also raged and yelled during ‘counselling’ because JM refused to do anything about this badly set up unworkable placement,
I remained hating driving birds to their death on shoot days and being left in the middle of nowhere with no water and no toilet, on an open bridleway with no privacy to toilet, at the time, at the time I was simply not as capable as I am now, now I carry a bottle with me and fill it with water and I know how to go to the toilet in the field, but back then I had no control and I had to keep going back to the farm cottage for the toilet, and the jealous wife complained, I also continued to struggle to arrange food for myself.
I got to the placement.
I quickly learned that it was not for me, a farmhouse on its own at the top of a hill by a remote village in Wales, the farmer had a terrible temper, not a single day went by when he didn’t shout at the other student, who persuaded him not to shout at me as I couldn’t cope with it, she would be leaving at the end of the summer and I would really start my training when she left, in the meantime I did all the grotty jobs such as strimming under miles of live electric fence (and it was impossible not to hit the fence and get shocks) , because the hedges didn’t keep the sheep in, the training that the other student was getting was obviously good, the farmer’s wife trained her in theory for hours on end, while the student was out doing a tremendous amount of practical work, pretty much everything on her own during the day, she told me bluntly what the villagers nicknamed the farmer for his temper and the way he got students to do all the farm work, and I wondered how I could cope when she had gone.
JM wrote to me saying she was trying to find me a counsellor in the area near the farm, and had contacted the Archdeacon of Brecon, but there wasn’t any realistic way of me getting to a counsellor in that area, so nothing came of that.
In the meantime there was nothing to do in the house, the farmer and his wife would sit and watch TV, while me and the other student were not allowed to, we were not allowed in the TV room, only the kitchen, the other student had family, a dog, a boyfriend, money in the bank, I had nothing, we were given pocket money every week, and she was often out with her boyfriend, I took to going to the pub, initially for chocolate, but I learned to drink vodka, briefly, which made me even worse than usual, I could still close barn doors when I was drunk, so no one noticed, but I was isolated in this strange place with no phone signal and no people around, silent as I was, I did want people around, but there was only the farmer and his wife who were really cold, and the other student who decided I was not right in the head and gave up on me, likewise the farmer openly called me mad and stupid, and asked why I pretended to be stupid when I was intelligent.
I knew that I did not mean to ‘pretend to be stupid’ and I was desperate for some way to explain myself, but I could not, I did not know I was autistic, I did not know fully about trauma, I only knew I was miserable and being punished more and more for not fitting in. One day when I got my period I had no sanitary towels and the nearest shop was 8 miles away, I told the farmer that I was going to walk into town after ‘work’, he asked why, I certainly wasn’t telling him why, I said I wanted a walk, after that he raged at me saying he was going to do tractor driving with me that evening, I couldn’t get things right there however hard I tried.
I had a few driving lessons while I was there, but I was too tense to really progress and couldn’t afford them anyway.
The farmer told me one day why didn’t I just shout and swear to let off steam, instead of being silent and stewing, he said that he shouted and swore when he was annoyed, but I thought of the college and wondered why I was being told one thing by them and another by the farmer.
The famer said he was watching me and listening because that’s what he did with his students, and he thought I was weird, I knew he was watching me, I knew he was a bit of a snoop, he would sometimes be on the landing at night outside my door, which embarrassed me as I would hum and sing and chatter, beep and squeak to myself in an autistic way as I tried to relax to sleep, I get very anxious about sleeping and was scared of the dark, I think it stems from being woken up by people breaking the door down one night when I was 12 (etc, if you know what I mean), I still do this autistic routine, and I have always been a bit embarrassed in case anyone hears me when I am in someone else’s company, which is why I like to sleep alone, and also because I suck my thumb and have frequent nightmares that sometimes cause me to scream out or leap from my bed in my sleep, anyway the farmer and his wife also went in my room on the excuse of going to the cupboard in there, but I had no privacy, I was like a goldfish in a goldfish bowl.
And basically I was relieved when he said that I wasn’t suitable for the placement, it had looked promising but very basically I did not have the mettle or ability to be there with that furious tempered man, I remember one day sitting in a field exhausted, worked into the ground and thinking ‘this is no better than ***** (early childhood) I may as well die if life is going to go on being such a struggle’, that was almost my first death thought as an adult, and my first real realisation of depression. My younger brothers had got jobs without even getting their GCSE’s, and I felt stupid and useless for my struggles in an industry that even uneducated and slow people could get jobs in. But I was angry about the cruel farmer saying unhelpful things to my tutor on the phone, the tutor was the one who had already said he couldn’t see me making it through the course, and I was worried sick for my future.
In the end the tutor and another member of staff from the college came to collect me, the member of staff who came with him was a man who had befriended me earlier in my college career, he was the one who told me he was a Muslim and that he and his Muslim friend used to get drunk together, he was a man who said many many things to me in the time I knew him that could not possibly be true, including that he used to be a gamekeeper, that he was a trained psychotherapist, that he was a gamekeeper, that he was trained in shamanism by a shaman, and that he had broken his back in a 100mph car crash, that he was a college warden, sadly these things he told me were all totally believed by me, and I was very reliant on him for advice during my first years at college, he encouraged and enjoyed this reliance, though at the time I did not know that other members of staff were not happy about it, he told me things like ‘If you want to swear then do, go for it!’, and ‘get angry, it is good for you’ which is not a good thing for a mentor to tell someone who is autistic! and many many other things that were actually bad for me and helped to make college more difficult, not that I went around swearing, I swore once at the counsellor, once at another student when I was wound up, other students swore and used obscenities frequently, but I was the one who got in trouble.
Anyway, this guy encouraged me to go a bit loopy, his ideas were far out and radical and not actually helpful, he became my close friend and mentor and father figure, and people didn’t like that, but he never misbehaved, neither of us did, I think he just enjoyed being respected and mentoring and being in charge of my life so to speak, and because of my upbringing, I always though that the 'adults knew best and were in charge'.
JM was the next ‘mentor’ to spring into my life, she was a counsellor who thrust herself upon the college as counsellor/chaplain, the old counsellor spoke to me at one point asking if I would like to see JM, who he described with prejudice as ‘The local vicar’s wife’ and ‘a bit of a livewire’, I said no, I later decided of my own accord that I wanted more help, and asked the student officer to refer me to JM, JM maintained that I was forced by the tutors to see her, which is rubbish.
(I remain puzzled as to why JM lost her position at the college a few years later, although she told me she was made to feel unwelcome, she tried to be 'Chaplain' as far as I know).
When JM came to meet me she rushed towards me with her arm outstretched, this was far too quick for me and I dashed backwards out of the room, then I came back. JM leaped into my life, telling me her background, family, dog etc, she was so lively and loud and she asked why my attention kept wandering, I told her ‘I think fast’, I didn’t know why my concentration wasn’t great.
JM enthusiastically took me over, she started taking me home very quickly, within weeks of meeting me she would take me home for tea or meet me for dog walks, her husband was rude about that from the start, but JM would take me to her office, where I would interact with the dog more than with her. JM had a thing about me hating women, I didn’t hate women, but maybe because I had had more male company than female, and my dad and brother being the ones who looked after me and influenced me more than my mum, maybe I was used to men more than women. (the thing with JM was, she was very opinionated, like her mother, and would form concrete opinions of people and tell everyone)
JM told me about her stepdaughter, Sally, how I was the spitting image of Sally, how Sally had been mentally ill, had passive dependent personality disorder and spent a lot of time in psychiatric care, how Sally had been a big liar, how Sally had been a 12 year old (?12)disturbed girl when JM met her, and how Sally was desperate for affection and would sit in JM’s lap and want to be cuddled all the time, how JM tried to look after Sally and how Sally had no sense of humour and neither did FM, and how one day she made them a meal to try and get them to sit down peacefully together but FM chased Sally out into the road and they were screaming at each other.
JM told me of how Sally grew up and went to live on her own in a flat and would sit there chain smoking all day in the dirt and squalor, and JM would go and continue to try and help her and clean up and put the washing on while Sally sat and smoked, JM told me that FM resented her helping Sally and would sit outside in the car while JM went in and helped, and how it was tearing their marriage apart, so she abandoned Sally, and got one letter from her some time later, and that Sally changed her name.
The worst thing about all this was that JM told me I was the spitting image of Sally, and she showed me photographs, I was not comfortable with this at all and would leave the room rather than hear her go on and on about Sally and see the photos. I do recall something about JM going on about a ‘second chance’ with me, when she had become really emotionally involved, but I did not want to be a second Sally, I wanted to be me, not mentally ill or a chain smoker who lived in a hovel. One thing JM could not make me be was passive dependent, I am not, I value my independence more than anything, which may be why homelessness suits me so well now.
I gather from JM’s talk about me and what she told FM, that she thought I was having a relationship with the college safety man who was my mentor, which was undoubtedly unhelpful, added to her thinking that my ability to interact with some of my tutors but not my fellow students was about me wanting a relationship, but without exception it was not, I was not mature enough to think that way, I had grown to trust some of my tutors from the First Diploma, and therefore greeted them while not really acknowledging anyone else, I was as I said, a frightened person, and found being able to talk to the tutors comforting
(of course, my thinking that the adults knew best was also a part of this, as well as my fear of young people and people of my own age from the ghettos, council estates and hostels).. FM and this Safety man also started going to the same Masonic lodge together at around this time.
I didn’t have sex or desire it in the whole time I was at college, in fact I have not had sex since then, I am not really adult enough for a sexual relationship, nor do I find the thought of the physical side of it appealing and I am against sex outside of marriage, but the way JM talked about me you would think I was a nymphomaniac.
Looking back I am embarrassed about my clinginess to the tutors, I am ashamed of how JM seems to have branded me a slut, I never had any sort of sexual relationship with those safe and trustworthy men, and it didn’t cross my mind, I am glad that they were trustworthy too. The mentor was a bad influence in that he was untruthful and irresponsible, but it is my fault that I was blind to that and that his behaviour influenced mine, but he was not sexual.
Anyway, on leaving the farm in Wales, I returned to the college to live on site. JM arranged me a placement off a local farm owner who was her friend, unfortunately it was not a suitable placement to start with, but the arrangements were made behind my back between JM and the tutor and the farm owner (a wealthy landowner, oligarchy and church position holder, of course!).
I was not happy with this and I said so, I pointed out various problems that I could see would occur, but no one listened to me, so I started this placement, they also were only paying pocket money, it was a large arable farm where one man did all the tractor work, the farm owner’s son did the paperwork and sometimes a bit of tractor driving, and I was not going to gain any practical experience there as they simply left me weeding between hedgerows they had planted to gain government bursaries, they would not get bursaries unless someone weeded these miles and miles, literally, of hedges, it was hard hopeless work, that I was left doing on my own, the first day I got very thirsty because I had no water, I did not really understand break times, until the tractor driver started taking me home for breaks he warned me that his wife was a bit mouthy and snappy because she spent all her time alone indoors in the rural cottage, and she was, she didn’t like a girl working on the farm, she didn’t want a female anywhere near her husband.
One day they left me weeding a hedge on a steep bank by a road, the bank was slippery and I fell onto the road with a sharp scythe in my hand, I was shaken and again my leg was hurt, I walked back up to the farm cottage, and got yelled at by the jealous wife because I could not explain to her what had happened or that I wanted at least a high visibility jacket before I went back to that bank, as well as a bandage for my leg, the placement was falling apart, I was living onsite at the college but struggling for food because I had no cooking facilities and relied on the college canteen, which was not open when I got back from work, and it was difficult to get a packed lunch out of them, let alone breakfast, in the early morning, cycling to the placement every morning I came off my bike on the ice and it was ruined, I then had to rely on the tractor driver coming to get me or I had to walk to the placement, which took ages or put a strain on the tractor driver.
The hedges were all weeded, and they were struggling to find work for me, a big arable farm is not the place for an inexperienced or disabled student, they could not give the tractor driver time to train me and they could not let me loose on a tractor in the fields. They got me doing beating on shoot days, despite me being mainly against driving birds to their death at the hands of fat old men with guns, including JM’s farm owner friend, this was another reason I didn’t want to stay in this placement, but for this job I got extra pocket money as everyone got beater’s pay, we also got beer and partridges, I gave the partridges to the cleaner at college, and gave the beer to my friend ****, which was stupid in hindsight, but I had stopped drinking after my experiments with vodka in Wales, and **** wanted the beer, it made her hyperactive and more wild than ever, leading her to graffiti in chalk outside the hostels among other things, for which I was blamed, she got clingy too, and wanted to be with me all the time, she would come to my room in the evening and when it was bedtime and I threw her out, she would stand outside my window and tap on the window for ages, she also wanted to fight and wrestle, and she was bigger than me and quite heavy and I wasn’t comfortable with the physical contact or being sat on a lot, especially not as she farted all the time as well, she was a ladette, I wasn’t, I was just the way I had been brought up, looking like a boy, but I was the one who was called a lesbian, no one dared to cross **** because she had no compunctions about thumping them. She was company for me, someone who did not treat me like an idiot or a troublemaker, but she wanted a lot of time and energy and I was used to being alone.
And we were getting into trouble with the tutors for hanging around and chalking on the ground, mainly ****, but I got the blame,**** told me about her brother who had been killed when they were young, I told her that I had not gone to school and that there had been a lot of violence in my life, but apart from that we didn’t talk about the past.
**** told me many many rude things and jokes, and I listened, she talked about how she hated her classmates and she talked about agriculture, she was passionate about tractor driving and machinery and I knew that she was going to complete her NCA and had a better chance of getting a job than me, I was ashamed of the failing, badly set up placement that I was in, and I was ashamed of my inability to make things work out properly, basically I was as I had been for years, ashamed, embarrassed, I knew and everyone knew that I was odd, I didn’t have communication and interaction skills or understanding of social skills or what people wanted, expected or what their motives were, I only understood half, if that, of what people said to me, and I felt hopeless, I felt to blame, I felt depressed and sad and tired for struggling through each day like this, I still feel like this now, despite knowing what is wrong with me.
JM continued to get me to go to her home for counselling, though her husband’s unpredictable temper terrified me, he would sometimes answer the door with a stone cold growl ‘what do you want?’ JM said that was just how he was, and that he had been like that in church when they had arrived at ******* and he had been sat on for it, and later she told me she was pretty sure he had been violent to his first wife who could not stand up to him as she did and that FM knew if he ever hit her (JM) he would be out on his ear and that would be it, usually in public he came across as very mild and nice, especially to women, but in the house he was raging and yelling all the time he raged at me, at JM who ignored him and at JM’s mother who raged back, and her rage was terrifying, this situation never changed or got better. Apart from FM’s brief gentleness and generosity during the abuse, and even then he could flip and become what JM called autocratic.
I also raged and yelled during ‘counselling’ because JM refused to do anything about this badly set up unworkable placement,
I remained hating driving birds to their death on shoot days and being left in the middle of nowhere with no water and no toilet, on an open bridleway with no privacy to toilet, at the time, at the time I was simply not as capable as I am now, now I carry a bottle with me and fill it with water and I know how to go to the toilet in the field, but back then I had no control and I had to keep going back to the farm cottage for the toilet, and the jealous wife complained, I also continued to struggle to arrange food for myself.
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.
Jane Fisher's meeting
Jane Fisher, who never dealt with my complaint and rubbished me. Had an obsession with trying to get me into a meeting.
The problem was, she was told no, over and over again because of her scorn and rubbishing of me.
But she didn't give up, because she is spoilt and thinks she can always get her way, so she trashed helpful mentoring relationships to try and get me into this meeting.
She repeatedly tried to use Philip LeClaire to force this meeting on me, despite me telling him that he was not to act on behalf of the diocese while working with me, not to set things up for them, not to communicate with them about me, etc.
Sadly my privacy there was ignored and confidences breached, hence me not trusting Philip.
Tracy was also used repeatedly as a mouthpiece for Fisher, which again, broke my trust for her, and she was used to try and get this meeting, which I refused.
Fisher even tried to get me into this meeting with Tracy there as my 'friend'.
Tracy ceased to be anything good or trustworthy for me the day Fisher got her claws in.
The question is, why did Fisher rip through my personal life to try and force a meeting on me about my abuser, when she had done nothing about my abuser? And still hasn't.
The problem was, she was told no, over and over again because of her scorn and rubbishing of me.
But she didn't give up, because she is spoilt and thinks she can always get her way, so she trashed helpful mentoring relationships to try and get me into this meeting.
She repeatedly tried to use Philip LeClaire to force this meeting on me, despite me telling him that he was not to act on behalf of the diocese while working with me, not to set things up for them, not to communicate with them about me, etc.
Sadly my privacy there was ignored and confidences breached, hence me not trusting Philip.
Tracy was also used repeatedly as a mouthpiece for Fisher, which again, broke my trust for her, and she was used to try and get this meeting, which I refused.
Fisher even tried to get me into this meeting with Tracy there as my 'friend'.
Tracy ceased to be anything good or trustworthy for me the day Fisher got her claws in.
The question is, why did Fisher rip through my personal life to try and force a meeting on me about my abuser, when she had done nothing about my abuser? And still hasn't.
Depression
I am increasingly battling depression.
I have no purpose to my life.
I have been very damaged by the Diocese.
I have been left living in fear of them.
I am increasingly disabled.
And I am unable to access the help I need, because the diocese may intervene and I have no money.
I have no purpose to my life.
I have been very damaged by the Diocese.
I have been left living in fear of them.
I am increasingly disabled.
And I am unable to access the help I need, because the diocese may intervene and I have no money.
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.
Chichester
I have only recently read that after an 'apology' from the Church of England (which was rejected).
Diocese of Chichester Abuse Survivors called for another inquiry that the Church of England made agreeable noises to, and then the Church of England did a U-turn and changed their minds about supporting the inquiry.
I have sympathy for the Chichester Survivors, who probably went through worse than I have.
I am angry that the Church of England started using abuse and victims to glorify themselves and then realised it wasn't really working, and gave up on victims again, we were not the easy source of glory that they hoped, and the apology and the launching on me and the Deanery, did not get them the response that they hoped for and the acclaim that they hoped for, they were not suddenly better than the Catholic Church because 'The CofE cared and the Catholics didn't'.
There hasn't been an atom of care for me by the Church of England, they haven't even done the basics of treating me as a human being with rights and feelings.
I hope that the Chichester survivors have been better treated personally even though they have been badly let down, again, by the Church.
I gather that the Archbishop thinks that banking is more important than abuse inquiries.
Does he not realise, even now that he is a priest? He still has the mentality of a banker.
Diocese of Chichester Abuse Survivors called for another inquiry that the Church of England made agreeable noises to, and then the Church of England did a U-turn and changed their minds about supporting the inquiry.
I have sympathy for the Chichester Survivors, who probably went through worse than I have.
I am angry that the Church of England started using abuse and victims to glorify themselves and then realised it wasn't really working, and gave up on victims again, we were not the easy source of glory that they hoped, and the apology and the launching on me and the Deanery, did not get them the response that they hoped for and the acclaim that they hoped for, they were not suddenly better than the Catholic Church because 'The CofE cared and the Catholics didn't'.
There hasn't been an atom of care for me by the Church of England, they haven't even done the basics of treating me as a human being with rights and feelings.
I hope that the Chichester survivors have been better treated personally even though they have been badly let down, again, by the Church.
I gather that the Archbishop thinks that banking is more important than abuse inquiries.
Does he not realise, even now that he is a priest? He still has the mentality of a banker.
Jersey Politics -Serious
I have found a new website about Jersey Politics.
It is all very serious and looks into aspects of Jersey Politics and Jersey life in a way that the general public don't often get to see.
You have to take it seriously and not laugh, otherwise you could cause a constitutional crisis like Tim Dakin did by not taking Jersey politics seriously.
http://my-maison-detre.blogspot.co.uk/
It is all very serious and looks into aspects of Jersey Politics and Jersey life in a way that the general public don't often get to see.
You have to take it seriously and not laugh, otherwise you could cause a constitutional crisis like Tim Dakin did by not taking Jersey politics seriously.
http://my-maison-detre.blogspot.co.uk/
Happier Posts, JM, the Village fete
Before JM started being sent curates to train, she used to take me to many services and events, presumably as a companion and assistant, as I had many little errands to run, such as fetching chairs from the church room and getting things from the car, fetching and carrying etc.
JM never actually prepared or told me when she started getting curates that she would stop taking me along for assistance, usually I would go and help her at the old people's home, but she turned up with her curate and did not even explain to me that she would not be taking me to help, which caused a problem for me, more so that she maligned me to the curates, gave her opinionated opinion, which did not include me being autistic but did include how she 'rescued' me, she never told them or anyone else in the Benefice about her step-daughter and how I was the spitting image of her step-daughter etc.
Anyway, before she started getting curates, she used to take me to the fete or meet me there, and the fete became part of my life, in a smaller way than the show, but nonetheless, part of life. I first went to the fete with JM when I was at college.
Because I became friends with people in the village and people who worked at the fete, I became a helper in a small way, mainly helping with the tea stall, as well as accompanying JM round the fete.
In the early days, I was so ingrained in my background, where 'respectable people' would shun my family and say we were a shame, I was sure that no-one who spoke to JM would want me around, so I would feel unsure of myself and would move off while JM spoke to them.
JM took this as me being hostile, and when I tried to explain that I felt I was out of place, she said I was being an 'inverted snob', when actually, I did not know what that was and was simply acting on what I had learned from experience, in this wealthy district, most of the people were very comfortable and would not have liked my family, so I just thought I didn't belong.
Although I grew more comfortable with a lot of these people, and some were very nice to me, it is true that a majority did not understand what was wrong with me, and how could they? In the early days I didn't even understand, and even to this day, the puzzle of autism and other disorders is still being worked on.
Although now those people shun me because of the terrible reputation the Diocese and JM both gave me to cover up their wrongs.
And it is true that they would believe clergy and Diocesan staff over me, of course.
Anyway, let's go back to those lovely sunny summer fete days.
I remember the trail of coins for charity, the village school dance display, the stalls and the bouncy castle, the book stall that was my favourite! And the tea stall, where I waited on tables, did cups of tea, cleared tables, washed up, it was great fun! :)
FM would usually join us for the fete too, with his camera and he would either sulk or be smiling, depending on if there had been a row with me or JM or her Mother or whoever. In public and church he was always smooth and smiling and talking in a gentle voice, so different from his violent shouting and slamming about in the house when he was angry.
I remember taking JM's hat off her head one day, and FM was there, all dressed up in his sports jacket, and he said 'The Vicar must have some decorum!'
But I did not know what decorum was, so I thought it was JM's hat.
Long live those sunny summer days that are all gone!
The BBQs:
There were often garden parties and BBQs in the benefice, various people, including my friends and the youth group would have BBQs, and so I got invites.
As with everything, I was usually nervous and limited in communication, but I loved to be there and have fun.
If my friends were doing the BBQ, then I would often help. I remember how exhausted I got, helping at a BBQ and swim party and how I realised then that interaction made me tired. It was another piece of the big jigsaw, each little realization adding up to more understanding of my condition.
And there were several village and benefice BBQs every year, two of which involved a walk to get to the BBQ, and a big meet up.
One of those was organized by a family in one of the villages, and the other was a benefice thing, where the villages all walked and met up at a farm in the middle and had a service followed by a BBQ, I used to help set up for the service, putting hay bales out, and I also recall doing some form of reading or prayer for that service, and also sidesman's duties.
In case I hadn't mentioned it, JM would get me to do the occasional reading or prayer if she had a slot that no-one else had taken or if she was left short of a reader at the last minute, just as she would get me to do sidesmans duties if she was short-staffed.
I have loads of photo's of one of the benefice BBQs, but I daren't put them on here because of Identity. There are some of me handing out service sheets, some of me chatting to one of the Readers, some of me with my (then) friends and JM. Mainly these were taken by FM, who had been angrily and obviously ignoring me for months and that day decided to break his silence by offering me a glass of wine at the BBQ.
JM always said ignore FM if he is sulking, because he sulked with her and her parents and everyone, and he would stop when he realised no-one cared.
FM was always prolifically photographing church events.
I will stop there because things like Carol Singing and other Winter things cannot be imagined after such summery events and that will make another post.
JM never actually prepared or told me when she started getting curates that she would stop taking me along for assistance, usually I would go and help her at the old people's home, but she turned up with her curate and did not even explain to me that she would not be taking me to help, which caused a problem for me, more so that she maligned me to the curates, gave her opinionated opinion, which did not include me being autistic but did include how she 'rescued' me, she never told them or anyone else in the Benefice about her step-daughter and how I was the spitting image of her step-daughter etc.
Anyway, before she started getting curates, she used to take me to the fete or meet me there, and the fete became part of my life, in a smaller way than the show, but nonetheless, part of life. I first went to the fete with JM when I was at college.
Because I became friends with people in the village and people who worked at the fete, I became a helper in a small way, mainly helping with the tea stall, as well as accompanying JM round the fete.
In the early days, I was so ingrained in my background, where 'respectable people' would shun my family and say we were a shame, I was sure that no-one who spoke to JM would want me around, so I would feel unsure of myself and would move off while JM spoke to them.
JM took this as me being hostile, and when I tried to explain that I felt I was out of place, she said I was being an 'inverted snob', when actually, I did not know what that was and was simply acting on what I had learned from experience, in this wealthy district, most of the people were very comfortable and would not have liked my family, so I just thought I didn't belong.
Although I grew more comfortable with a lot of these people, and some were very nice to me, it is true that a majority did not understand what was wrong with me, and how could they? In the early days I didn't even understand, and even to this day, the puzzle of autism and other disorders is still being worked on.
Although now those people shun me because of the terrible reputation the Diocese and JM both gave me to cover up their wrongs.
And it is true that they would believe clergy and Diocesan staff over me, of course.
Anyway, let's go back to those lovely sunny summer fete days.
I remember the trail of coins for charity, the village school dance display, the stalls and the bouncy castle, the book stall that was my favourite! And the tea stall, where I waited on tables, did cups of tea, cleared tables, washed up, it was great fun! :)
FM would usually join us for the fete too, with his camera and he would either sulk or be smiling, depending on if there had been a row with me or JM or her Mother or whoever. In public and church he was always smooth and smiling and talking in a gentle voice, so different from his violent shouting and slamming about in the house when he was angry.
I remember taking JM's hat off her head one day, and FM was there, all dressed up in his sports jacket, and he said 'The Vicar must have some decorum!'
But I did not know what decorum was, so I thought it was JM's hat.
Long live those sunny summer days that are all gone!
The BBQs:
There were often garden parties and BBQs in the benefice, various people, including my friends and the youth group would have BBQs, and so I got invites.
As with everything, I was usually nervous and limited in communication, but I loved to be there and have fun.
If my friends were doing the BBQ, then I would often help. I remember how exhausted I got, helping at a BBQ and swim party and how I realised then that interaction made me tired. It was another piece of the big jigsaw, each little realization adding up to more understanding of my condition.
And there were several village and benefice BBQs every year, two of which involved a walk to get to the BBQ, and a big meet up.
One of those was organized by a family in one of the villages, and the other was a benefice thing, where the villages all walked and met up at a farm in the middle and had a service followed by a BBQ, I used to help set up for the service, putting hay bales out, and I also recall doing some form of reading or prayer for that service, and also sidesman's duties.
In case I hadn't mentioned it, JM would get me to do the occasional reading or prayer if she had a slot that no-one else had taken or if she was left short of a reader at the last minute, just as she would get me to do sidesmans duties if she was short-staffed.
I have loads of photo's of one of the benefice BBQs, but I daren't put them on here because of Identity. There are some of me handing out service sheets, some of me chatting to one of the Readers, some of me with my (then) friends and JM. Mainly these were taken by FM, who had been angrily and obviously ignoring me for months and that day decided to break his silence by offering me a glass of wine at the BBQ.
JM always said ignore FM if he is sulking, because he sulked with her and her parents and everyone, and he would stop when he realised no-one cared.
FM was always prolifically photographing church events.
I will stop there because things like Carol Singing and other Winter things cannot be imagined after such summery events and that will make another post.
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.
Autism Jersey Part 1
Philip LeClaire worked for Autism Jersey, and several people had recommended his help by the time I made contact with him.
I actually met him before I made contact with him, funnily enough I met him at St. Andrews Church, where I was with (the churchwarden and his wife).
Philip and his wife and son ***, who has Asperger Syndrome, came to St. Andrews to pick up some clothes and odds and ends that the church had to dispose of from a fete.
Autism Jersey had just started a charity shop and needed the clothes and odds and ends for stock.
The Churchwarden was hugging me as we sorted out the things for autism Jersey, and a lady came downstairs from church and saw him but said nothing and did nothing and the Churchwarden pulled away from me.
When I made contact with Philip as a potential client of Autism Jersey, he was kind and friendly.
Which he was for a lot of the time I knew him but he was overstetched with work and the extra
stress must have been hard for him.
Credit to him for the lengths he went to to help me and to help others with Autism!
I did not meet Philip for a while after making contact with him, I didn't meet him until things started going downhill, and I was so used to my privacy being violated that I begged him not to contact the Churchwarden couple about me, and was impressed when he said that he would not dream of making contact about me without my permission.
I was not sure how Philip could help me, I had been having counselling when I first contacted him but was not benefitting greatly, could not bond with the counsellor and couldn't afford to keep the counselling going. I was not sure how Philip could help me. And while having counselling and while the churchwarden couple were involved with me, I did not want too much extra support as I get overwhelmed by being too supported and I have meltdowns, which means I collapse and get angry and things.
(now thought to be caused by reactive attachment disorder that went untreated when I was young).
I met Philip at some point, and he was nice, but I realised he was virtually running Autism Jersey on his own.
He was the only full-time member of staff and the only paid member of staff as far as I know, although ******** may have been paid.
Philip ran the office, courses for schools, businesses and organizations, helpline, office, and oversaw everything, deeply and passionately commited to making life better for people with autism and people around them.
Autism Jersey had a team of volunteers, these ran the shop and did fundraising and other work. I helped in the shop sometimes and also helped on checkpoints for the sponsored walk that raised money for Autism Jersey, I also counted the money that came in through collection boxes, mainly small change.
The person who was most involved apart from Philip was ******* ******, who had an office next to Philip's office. I remember her saying something about putting her head through the door to speak to me, and as I sometimes do with things like that, I looked startled and Philip and ******* laughed because it didn't mean literally putting her head through the door. But we always remembered that and laughed about it.
(despite being quite adept at figures of speech and metaphors once I know them, I can still be caught out by them and see literal pictures when they are used)
******* ran a befriending scheme which she put me on, but it takes a long time to match clients to befrienders, so it was months before we found me a befriender. The aim was to encourage me to socialise and be less isolated.
Philip wasn't aware of the full extent of the churchwarden situation until some time after I met him, he knew there were problems though.
It wasn't until I didn't turn up for an appointment at the supported employment centre that they realised I was in real difficulties and contacted Philip as they said it was unlike me to not turn up.
I was struggling and I was on an anti-depressant/sedative combination which was preventing me from waking up or staying awake and that is why I missed the appointment.
Philip made contact and I met with him, I told him everything and he wanted me to see a social worker with him and he mentioned the police.
Philip really stepped in to support me then, and especially as Bob Key messed up the complaint and left me struggling more and I phoned Philip's supportline one evening as I was so upset.
Philip was very supportive but the damage done to me by the churchwarden couple was really bad, I had been regressed so I was '****'s 'little girl' and I had been hurt and belittled and was now alone with no 'God-sent family' and then Bob Key was confronting me and obstructing my complaint.
but Philip got my agreement to get someone from social services in, he assured me that Social Services in Jersey were good, not like Social Services in England.
So we met with ******, the social worker and she heard everything, was nice, and talked to me about getting the police involved.
Eventually, I agreed with Philip and ****** to go to the police, they told me I had to make the decision but they did not want **** to do the same again to anyone else.
The police met us for an initial interview and told us that due to the caseload from Haute de la Garenne, they would have to delay interviewing me.
In the meantime I went to England as I saw the churchwarden couple wherever I went and it was upsetting me, and **** laughed when he saw me, as if my complaint was a joke. I have a feeling that he thought his connections and friendship with the right people would get him let off entirely, as well as his story of how the regression and abuse were his method of healing me.
I had a nightmare time lost in Hampshire, not able to really be part of my old community or settle, not enough money to live on and no-one to turn to, with JM, due to her involvement in Jersey with the Dean and the churchwarden couple, and her discussion of it with her family - as usual not respecting professional boundaries, giving me a hard time.
Before I had left England, I had contacted the leader of an evangelizing walk that the churchwarden couple were due to go on, the reason for this was that he had told me stories of inappropriate conversation he had had on previous such walks, with young females. The evangelist who led the walk was also the one who had been in Jersey for the 'Mission', the awful brainwashing stunt that that type do.
(I am scarred by their awful games).
I had two trips back to Jersey during my time in Hampshire, to do police statements, I do not remember much, I must have met DC **** and I was also interviewed in a house with a video so my evidence was videoed.
I will never forget the way ****** tried so hard not to laugh, and so did the policewoman, when I described sex when I was asked to.
I think they had to wait until later to go and howl with laughter because even I knew it was funny.
After six weeks, still deeply damaged and depressed, I returned to Jersey to new lodgings as I had had to give up my old tenancy. I remained deeply depressed and the churchwarden couple were on the radio about how they were running the church fete and their number was given out to anyone who had things to donate. I was angry that neither Bob Key nor the Diocese had done anything about ****, but they still haven't.
My new home was with an old army associate of Philip's. (Perfectly safe, and it was coincidental and not due to Philip that I found that home).
I went to work in a factory up until christmas as there was no outdoor work available. (It was soul destroying and I remembered how the churchwarden family would 'never do work like this, as I had been told several times).
A wait of a month or two went by before the police released the results of the investigation into the churchwarden, and I remember how distressed and anxious I was, as I continued to see the churchwarden couple leading church groups. Philip continued to work hard to help me through these times. (poor man, I think it was unfair that he had all the strain as well as being overloaded at work).
I do not know why the Korris report states that Hampshire police investigated as well as Jersey police?
Jersey Police sent the results by email, nothing could be more shocking and distressing!
They said they had let **** go due to not enough evidence.
I was very upset indeed, to be alone with this email. (which triggered a terrible situation)
Not only had they let him go but had let him go to go round saying he was cleared. He was already getting me shunned by claiming to the tight evangelical clique that he was innocent and I was something bad, and he was already using JM and the Lihous and Warrens and Keys in this. The fact he had been able to isolate me in church and give his side of the relationship all along made it all the easier for him be believed and me to be villified.
Jersey police should have met with me and someone responsible and told me things properly.
because they didn't, they left me in a state where I was in a bad way and they used that to enforce the Jersey way, and punish me for reporting abuse, the violence and insults and police detention I received that day was more punishment that churchwarden has ever received and it is on my records, along with all the other brutalizations and detentions, to punish me until my dying day, and that is why I wish I was dead. (the message is, being an abuser is fine, being a victim and speaking up is not!).
The ensuing situation also broke my trust for Philip, but the Korris report omits it and Korris does not appear to know what happened.
And Philip's memory proved dodgy while I was in Jersey and he recounted situations back to me incorrectly at times, so if she interviewed him, he may have also misrepresented things by accident.
I will always be grateful to Philip for the lengths he went to to help me and sorry that it didn't work out. He hurt me inadvertantly, and I hurt him, but my situation was spiralling rapidly out of control from reporting the churchwarden onwards, the damage by the churchwarden and the church response was so severe, I could feel it in everything, and with no access to psychological support, there was little hope of recovery as I continued to be hurt in that small island community for reporting the churchwarden.
Philip is one of the people who showed me by example why there is such good in Catholic morals and ways, he is one of the first Catholics I had ever spoken to at any length, as far as I know.
I am sorry Philip, that it became such a mess.
The damage in my life remains and even now, paying for my own therapy, I am still in a bad way and still have to cancel therapy due to poverty, and I still get angry and hurt myself and others with my words.
Is there a better future ahead? I can only persevere.
Philip's help is lasting, because he was such a rock during bad times, and because he introduced me to the Catholic church and that is how I met some of the best friends I have, who have stayed with me through the bad times and through Diocese of Winchester attempts to separate me and them.
And it was the words of those Catholics that saved my life, they told me that 'My perceived wrongs were between me and God, and the Church of England had no right to judge me'.
The Church of England's condemnation would have killed me in 2011 if the Catholics had not shown me a new view of things, because I could not live under the shame and condemnation, sadly even the knowledge now that God forgives me does not change the fact that the Diocese may kill me yet with their harmful interventions.
Thanks Philip.
I actually met him before I made contact with him, funnily enough I met him at St. Andrews Church, where I was with (the churchwarden and his wife).
Philip and his wife and son ***, who has Asperger Syndrome, came to St. Andrews to pick up some clothes and odds and ends that the church had to dispose of from a fete.
Autism Jersey had just started a charity shop and needed the clothes and odds and ends for stock.
The Churchwarden was hugging me as we sorted out the things for autism Jersey, and a lady came downstairs from church and saw him but said nothing and did nothing and the Churchwarden pulled away from me.
When I made contact with Philip as a potential client of Autism Jersey, he was kind and friendly.
Which he was for a lot of the time I knew him but he was overstetched with work and the extra
stress must have been hard for him.
Credit to him for the lengths he went to to help me and to help others with Autism!
I did not meet Philip for a while after making contact with him, I didn't meet him until things started going downhill, and I was so used to my privacy being violated that I begged him not to contact the Churchwarden couple about me, and was impressed when he said that he would not dream of making contact about me without my permission.
I was not sure how Philip could help me, I had been having counselling when I first contacted him but was not benefitting greatly, could not bond with the counsellor and couldn't afford to keep the counselling going. I was not sure how Philip could help me. And while having counselling and while the churchwarden couple were involved with me, I did not want too much extra support as I get overwhelmed by being too supported and I have meltdowns, which means I collapse and get angry and things.
(now thought to be caused by reactive attachment disorder that went untreated when I was young).
I met Philip at some point, and he was nice, but I realised he was virtually running Autism Jersey on his own.
He was the only full-time member of staff and the only paid member of staff as far as I know, although ******** may have been paid.
Philip ran the office, courses for schools, businesses and organizations, helpline, office, and oversaw everything, deeply and passionately commited to making life better for people with autism and people around them.
Autism Jersey had a team of volunteers, these ran the shop and did fundraising and other work. I helped in the shop sometimes and also helped on checkpoints for the sponsored walk that raised money for Autism Jersey, I also counted the money that came in through collection boxes, mainly small change.
The person who was most involved apart from Philip was ******* ******, who had an office next to Philip's office. I remember her saying something about putting her head through the door to speak to me, and as I sometimes do with things like that, I looked startled and Philip and ******* laughed because it didn't mean literally putting her head through the door. But we always remembered that and laughed about it.
(despite being quite adept at figures of speech and metaphors once I know them, I can still be caught out by them and see literal pictures when they are used)
******* ran a befriending scheme which she put me on, but it takes a long time to match clients to befrienders, so it was months before we found me a befriender. The aim was to encourage me to socialise and be less isolated.
Philip wasn't aware of the full extent of the churchwarden situation until some time after I met him, he knew there were problems though.
It wasn't until I didn't turn up for an appointment at the supported employment centre that they realised I was in real difficulties and contacted Philip as they said it was unlike me to not turn up.
I was struggling and I was on an anti-depressant/sedative combination which was preventing me from waking up or staying awake and that is why I missed the appointment.
Philip made contact and I met with him, I told him everything and he wanted me to see a social worker with him and he mentioned the police.
Philip really stepped in to support me then, and especially as Bob Key messed up the complaint and left me struggling more and I phoned Philip's supportline one evening as I was so upset.
Philip was very supportive but the damage done to me by the churchwarden couple was really bad, I had been regressed so I was '****'s 'little girl' and I had been hurt and belittled and was now alone with no 'God-sent family' and then Bob Key was confronting me and obstructing my complaint.
but Philip got my agreement to get someone from social services in, he assured me that Social Services in Jersey were good, not like Social Services in England.
So we met with ******, the social worker and she heard everything, was nice, and talked to me about getting the police involved.
Eventually, I agreed with Philip and ****** to go to the police, they told me I had to make the decision but they did not want **** to do the same again to anyone else.
The police met us for an initial interview and told us that due to the caseload from Haute de la Garenne, they would have to delay interviewing me.
In the meantime I went to England as I saw the churchwarden couple wherever I went and it was upsetting me, and **** laughed when he saw me, as if my complaint was a joke. I have a feeling that he thought his connections and friendship with the right people would get him let off entirely, as well as his story of how the regression and abuse were his method of healing me.
I had a nightmare time lost in Hampshire, not able to really be part of my old community or settle, not enough money to live on and no-one to turn to, with JM, due to her involvement in Jersey with the Dean and the churchwarden couple, and her discussion of it with her family - as usual not respecting professional boundaries, giving me a hard time.
Before I had left England, I had contacted the leader of an evangelizing walk that the churchwarden couple were due to go on, the reason for this was that he had told me stories of inappropriate conversation he had had on previous such walks, with young females. The evangelist who led the walk was also the one who had been in Jersey for the 'Mission', the awful brainwashing stunt that that type do.
(I am scarred by their awful games).
I had two trips back to Jersey during my time in Hampshire, to do police statements, I do not remember much, I must have met DC **** and I was also interviewed in a house with a video so my evidence was videoed.
I will never forget the way ****** tried so hard not to laugh, and so did the policewoman, when I described sex when I was asked to.
I think they had to wait until later to go and howl with laughter because even I knew it was funny.
After six weeks, still deeply damaged and depressed, I returned to Jersey to new lodgings as I had had to give up my old tenancy. I remained deeply depressed and the churchwarden couple were on the radio about how they were running the church fete and their number was given out to anyone who had things to donate. I was angry that neither Bob Key nor the Diocese had done anything about ****, but they still haven't.
My new home was with an old army associate of Philip's. (Perfectly safe, and it was coincidental and not due to Philip that I found that home).
I went to work in a factory up until christmas as there was no outdoor work available. (It was soul destroying and I remembered how the churchwarden family would 'never do work like this, as I had been told several times).
A wait of a month or two went by before the police released the results of the investigation into the churchwarden, and I remember how distressed and anxious I was, as I continued to see the churchwarden couple leading church groups. Philip continued to work hard to help me through these times. (poor man, I think it was unfair that he had all the strain as well as being overloaded at work).
I do not know why the Korris report states that Hampshire police investigated as well as Jersey police?
Jersey Police sent the results by email, nothing could be more shocking and distressing!
They said they had let **** go due to not enough evidence.
I was very upset indeed, to be alone with this email. (which triggered a terrible situation)
Not only had they let him go but had let him go to go round saying he was cleared. He was already getting me shunned by claiming to the tight evangelical clique that he was innocent and I was something bad, and he was already using JM and the Lihous and Warrens and Keys in this. The fact he had been able to isolate me in church and give his side of the relationship all along made it all the easier for him be believed and me to be villified.
Jersey police should have met with me and someone responsible and told me things properly.
because they didn't, they left me in a state where I was in a bad way and they used that to enforce the Jersey way, and punish me for reporting abuse, the violence and insults and police detention I received that day was more punishment that churchwarden has ever received and it is on my records, along with all the other brutalizations and detentions, to punish me until my dying day, and that is why I wish I was dead. (the message is, being an abuser is fine, being a victim and speaking up is not!).
The ensuing situation also broke my trust for Philip, but the Korris report omits it and Korris does not appear to know what happened.
And Philip's memory proved dodgy while I was in Jersey and he recounted situations back to me incorrectly at times, so if she interviewed him, he may have also misrepresented things by accident.
I will always be grateful to Philip for the lengths he went to to help me and sorry that it didn't work out. He hurt me inadvertantly, and I hurt him, but my situation was spiralling rapidly out of control from reporting the churchwarden onwards, the damage by the churchwarden and the church response was so severe, I could feel it in everything, and with no access to psychological support, there was little hope of recovery as I continued to be hurt in that small island community for reporting the churchwarden.
Philip is one of the people who showed me by example why there is such good in Catholic morals and ways, he is one of the first Catholics I had ever spoken to at any length, as far as I know.
I am sorry Philip, that it became such a mess.
The damage in my life remains and even now, paying for my own therapy, I am still in a bad way and still have to cancel therapy due to poverty, and I still get angry and hurt myself and others with my words.
Is there a better future ahead? I can only persevere.
Philip's help is lasting, because he was such a rock during bad times, and because he introduced me to the Catholic church and that is how I met some of the best friends I have, who have stayed with me through the bad times and through Diocese of Winchester attempts to separate me and them.
And it was the words of those Catholics that saved my life, they told me that 'My perceived wrongs were between me and God, and the Church of England had no right to judge me'.
The Church of England's condemnation would have killed me in 2011 if the Catholics had not shown me a new view of things, because I could not live under the shame and condemnation, sadly even the knowledge now that God forgives me does not change the fact that the Diocese may kill me yet with their harmful interventions.
Thanks Philip.
The Poor don't make choices - The exclusive Diocese
'The poor don't make choices/don't have choices' Is what my mother used to say over and over like a creed.
I remember in the Church of England, how I was squashed for being poor, being me and having to live the life I did.
A certain person used to go on about how people shouldn''t work on Sunday and how they wouldn't go to a shop on Sundays, over and over, this was while I had no choice but to work on sundays, because if you are in a basic job with a basic wage, you work what hours you are asked, usually, and if Sunday is part of that, then so be it.
The Pharisees kicked up a fuss about Jesus and his disciples because the disciples gathered ears of corn on a Sunday, and Jesus answered them, asking who would not untie their animal and take it to water on a Sunday if it was Thirsty (I think), I am writing from memory, (how much more if a human being needs food and water and thus works for it on Sunday!).
Anyway, that judgement of things such as working on a Sunday while ignoring the real scripture answer is typical of the scary evangelical side of the diocese of Winchester.
But at the time my answer was: 'The Vicar works on Sunday and you would be dismayed if he didn't, and the same if the fire service and ambulance didn't work on Sunday'.
But when people are rich enough to judge and not understand, rich enough to hold position in the Church of England but judge the poor, I suppose Jesus' answers to those same judgements thousands of years ago, matter to the church just as much as they mattered to the pharisees, they did not want an answer, they just wanted to be superior.
Do you know, I wrote this from thoughts as I tidied my room this morning. Because I remember being judged for 'working' on a Sunday. Yet another abuse from the Church of England, yet another wound that stays with me along with the rest.
Fairtrade:
'everyone must buy fairtrade!'
Was another judgement thrust on me by the same people, same place.
Sadly, I could barely afford Co-OP budget range and the reduced goods.
So I asked 'Why must everyone buy Fairtrade?'
'why, to help the poor of course!'
It didn't help me, because Fairtrade is a very expensive idea, run by the wealthy old church people. I could not afford Fairtrade and was thus judged.
That is another fond memory of the Diocese of Winchester.
What you can watch:
This remains an awfully damaging memory.
They used to boast, all the time, about their family, all the time, every conversation was about what their family had and did, and along with things such as the above situations that belittled me, the boasting made me feel small and useless.
They went on about how their grandchildren were allowed to stay up late and watch rubbish like 'Saturday Night Takeaway'.
They used to let me watch my Buffy Videos every weekend when they invited me back for the weekend, and then one day, after months of me watching Buffy, they labelled it 'evil' and banned me from watching these videos in their house, nor would they talk it through, telling me that 'It was the same as if someone smoked in their house'.
Basically it was always one rule for them and other Church elite and another for us lesser mortals.
This person who suddenly decided my videos were evil, while their grandchildren watched trash, was the same person who lied to me about breaching confidences, accidentally admitted to lying after denying it, and then slated me for me immediate reaction which was to say a mild expletive.
All I heard from them was judgement about my reaction, no forgiveness and no responsibility either for lying or for breaching my confidence, and that is how it always was with them.
One rule for the pharisees and another for the rest of us. I am glad beyond belief that after years of being constantly damaged by the Diocese of Winchester, I have left them behind and seen what Christianity really looks like, and I pray for all vulnerable and poor people being abused and oppressed and judged in the Diocese, that they realise that they are being treated without the respect that they deserve and that they escape.
The Church of England simply took the place in my life of the cult environment I had grown up in, and furthered the damage, and the one good thing now is that I am free from both, at last, and free to learn to be me and be in therapy for the damage done.
The plebs don't all believe the Daily mirror, and will not all start flocking into the dying and outdated judgemental and segregational Church of England, basically because the poor deserve better, and on a basic level most people know that the Church of England is designed for and run by the elite who treat everyone lower than them with contempt while putting on the 'fair trade and aid overseas show'.
I remember in the Church of England, how I was squashed for being poor, being me and having to live the life I did.
A certain person used to go on about how people shouldn''t work on Sunday and how they wouldn't go to a shop on Sundays, over and over, this was while I had no choice but to work on sundays, because if you are in a basic job with a basic wage, you work what hours you are asked, usually, and if Sunday is part of that, then so be it.
The Pharisees kicked up a fuss about Jesus and his disciples because the disciples gathered ears of corn on a Sunday, and Jesus answered them, asking who would not untie their animal and take it to water on a Sunday if it was Thirsty (I think), I am writing from memory, (how much more if a human being needs food and water and thus works for it on Sunday!).
Anyway, that judgement of things such as working on a Sunday while ignoring the real scripture answer is typical of the scary evangelical side of the diocese of Winchester.
But at the time my answer was: 'The Vicar works on Sunday and you would be dismayed if he didn't, and the same if the fire service and ambulance didn't work on Sunday'.
But when people are rich enough to judge and not understand, rich enough to hold position in the Church of England but judge the poor, I suppose Jesus' answers to those same judgements thousands of years ago, matter to the church just as much as they mattered to the pharisees, they did not want an answer, they just wanted to be superior.
Do you know, I wrote this from thoughts as I tidied my room this morning. Because I remember being judged for 'working' on a Sunday. Yet another abuse from the Church of England, yet another wound that stays with me along with the rest.
Fairtrade:
'everyone must buy fairtrade!'
Was another judgement thrust on me by the same people, same place.
Sadly, I could barely afford Co-OP budget range and the reduced goods.
So I asked 'Why must everyone buy Fairtrade?'
'why, to help the poor of course!'
It didn't help me, because Fairtrade is a very expensive idea, run by the wealthy old church people. I could not afford Fairtrade and was thus judged.
That is another fond memory of the Diocese of Winchester.
What you can watch:
This remains an awfully damaging memory.
They used to boast, all the time, about their family, all the time, every conversation was about what their family had and did, and along with things such as the above situations that belittled me, the boasting made me feel small and useless.
They went on about how their grandchildren were allowed to stay up late and watch rubbish like 'Saturday Night Takeaway'.
They used to let me watch my Buffy Videos every weekend when they invited me back for the weekend, and then one day, after months of me watching Buffy, they labelled it 'evil' and banned me from watching these videos in their house, nor would they talk it through, telling me that 'It was the same as if someone smoked in their house'.
Basically it was always one rule for them and other Church elite and another for us lesser mortals.
This person who suddenly decided my videos were evil, while their grandchildren watched trash, was the same person who lied to me about breaching confidences, accidentally admitted to lying after denying it, and then slated me for me immediate reaction which was to say a mild expletive.
All I heard from them was judgement about my reaction, no forgiveness and no responsibility either for lying or for breaching my confidence, and that is how it always was with them.
One rule for the pharisees and another for the rest of us. I am glad beyond belief that after years of being constantly damaged by the Diocese of Winchester, I have left them behind and seen what Christianity really looks like, and I pray for all vulnerable and poor people being abused and oppressed and judged in the Diocese, that they realise that they are being treated without the respect that they deserve and that they escape.
The Church of England simply took the place in my life of the cult environment I had grown up in, and furthered the damage, and the one good thing now is that I am free from both, at last, and free to learn to be me and be in therapy for the damage done.
The plebs don't all believe the Daily mirror, and will not all start flocking into the dying and outdated judgemental and segregational Church of England, basically because the poor deserve better, and on a basic level most people know that the Church of England is designed for and run by the elite who treat everyone lower than them with contempt while putting on the 'fair trade and aid overseas show'.
Unrelated political thoughs
When I was working in Jersey, I worked alongside a cheerful, hardworking and nice migrant worker, who was working in Jersey in order to send money home to his wife, who was a student, and their baby daughter.
I always admired him for being so brave as to be so far from his family in order to provide for them.
He told me he spoke to his wife and infant daughter on skype every evening, but I wondered what it was like, to be so far from your loved ones like that, just to be able to provide for them.
This migrant worker told me about religion in his country, he said that it was a Catholic Country.He told me sadly that even though it was a Catholic Country, the Catholics seemed more about politics and power than loving God.
He told me that the Catholic Church in his country had so much power that they would tell the people which politician or leader to vote in in elections.
He obviously thought this was wrong and not to do with Christianity, so did I, but what can you do if your country is dominated by one particular branch of religion and they are entwined in politics and power?
In a way it is a bit like the Church of England, with Bishops like Scott-Joynt and Dakin, who cannot even handle their own staff, but sit in the House of Lords and make decisions for out county!
Real Christianity and Politics do not mix. Jesus and the pharisees did not mix, Jesus had no interest in power, he was a homeless wanderer. He did not live in an all-expenses-paid palace and get a high salary, he wandered and taught and was disliked by the pharasees, with their rituals and politics.
Do you think there should be a country where a meeting is held where election candidates have to explain themselves to a group of 'Christians' in the hope of getting their vote? Do you think such a meeting chaired by a clergyman who is also a politician should happen?
I personally think such things are taking the Lord's Name in Vain.
I always admired him for being so brave as to be so far from his family in order to provide for them.
He told me he spoke to his wife and infant daughter on skype every evening, but I wondered what it was like, to be so far from your loved ones like that, just to be able to provide for them.
This migrant worker told me about religion in his country, he said that it was a Catholic Country.He told me sadly that even though it was a Catholic Country, the Catholics seemed more about politics and power than loving God.
He told me that the Catholic Church in his country had so much power that they would tell the people which politician or leader to vote in in elections.
He obviously thought this was wrong and not to do with Christianity, so did I, but what can you do if your country is dominated by one particular branch of religion and they are entwined in politics and power?
In a way it is a bit like the Church of England, with Bishops like Scott-Joynt and Dakin, who cannot even handle their own staff, but sit in the House of Lords and make decisions for out county!
Real Christianity and Politics do not mix. Jesus and the pharisees did not mix, Jesus had no interest in power, he was a homeless wanderer. He did not live in an all-expenses-paid palace and get a high salary, he wandered and taught and was disliked by the pharasees, with their rituals and politics.
Do you think there should be a country where a meeting is held where election candidates have to explain themselves to a group of 'Christians' in the hope of getting their vote? Do you think such a meeting chaired by a clergyman who is also a politician should happen?
I personally think such things are taking the Lord's Name in Vain.
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