The police, the church and me, part 1.

The police, even those in Jersey who are supposedly SPELL trained, have no understanding of autism and no wish to understand it, it comes under ‘madness’ to them and they treat people with autism as such, their attitude to madness is singularly that it is a crime, to brutalize someone and not allow a complaint because ‘madness’ means that your bruises and pain are not real, they are all in your mind.

The first police brutalization was in Basingstoke, in the year before I went to Jersey, this was as a result of me making the Lihous go home after they spent a day with me in Dorset making my life an utter misery with their relentless boasting, I had no money at the time and was in debt and worried sick, trying to complete college, the Lihous did the usual, boasting incessantly about all the things their grandchildren in Jersey and Guernsey had, I was shamed, belittled and miserable and in the end shouted at them and told them to go home and stop boasting.

They did but when I went to apologize, George Lihou chased me up the road shouting and saying I made his wife ill, he did not tell his wife he did this, and I ran and ended up in a terrible state a mile away and unfortunately the police found me, decided I was mad, brutalized me and forcibly flung me in a cell, I was seen by a doctor who told them to release me as there was no mental illness – not true in the fact I was battling horribly with depression because Jill Lihou had had me put on a dangerous drug that she was supposed to guard and administer and yet claimed to me that it made her ill doing so.

When the police found me, I wasn’t doing anything criminal, just sitting in my car, depressed and despairing, I had been suffering the Lihous boasting and controlling and decision making for a year and was struggling through college with no money while every conversation with the Lihous was about what their family had, private schools, music lessons, dance lessons, holidays, etc, the Lihous refused offended when I asked them if we could talk less about what their family had while I was battling in poverty to get through college.

I was mentally ill in that the Lihous were making me ill, I was not delusional, hallucinating or schitzophrenic, but the police both treated me as if I was mad and beat and flung me about and locked me up for it.
It remains a baffle to me as to why the police are not aware that suicide is not a crime and distress is not a good reason to beat someone and throw them in a cell and then release them – the end result likely is that person, already distressed, now severely traumatized, is released to commit suicide.

Anyway, when I went to North Walls in October 2010, when Lou Scott-Joynt had accidentally phoned me instead of phoning my friend of mine who she intended to phone to get the Diocese’s side of things accross, the police treated me as mad then, and said ‘this has happened before, hasn’t it?’ leaving me baffled as they did not say what ‘this’ was, again, branding me as mentally ill and thus not valid.And the police refused to prevent the diocese from contact with or about me, and instead repeatedly met with them and the council, breaching confidences and the date protection act repeatedly.

Even though I had been released from Basingstoke police station at 2am suffering severe trauma from my beating for the crime of suspected insanity, with the doctor declaring me not mentally ill.
It is a funny pattern that the police never recognize the results of the assessment and release each time, and continue to treat me as mad just because they have beaten me and locked me in.

The police had moved my car, and it had almost no petrol in it for me to get home.

So, Basingstoke was the first church-related police beating and detention in 2007 or 2008.

The Lihous afterwards, George did not tell Jill he had shouted at me, chased me or blamed me for her mental illness, which she had been suffering for decades, which had in the past led to her hoping her children would die, but funnily enough I do not believe she was beaten and locked up for those incidences or any other, and she did do some unusual things in her illness, not least having me put on a drug that my body didn’t cope with, and telling the doctor she would administer it as she was a former nurse, and then telling me that looking after my drugs made her ill.

So, Jill had no idea Goerge had shouted and chased me when I came to apologize, and was deeply upset when I refused to stay with them every time she asked -they had gone from having me home every weekend to when it suited them, with no input from me and input from their family in Jersey instead, Reverend Phil Warren and Heather Warren, the daughter that Jill wished dead when she was younger.

So, when I finally went back to the Lihous, Jill asked why I cringed and tried to escape from George, and I told her, I thought she knew, he chased and shouted at me, she didn’t and it made her upset again, when George came home she confronted him, and he muttered ‘sorry’ and turned away, which was not enough to repair things, and I was always very uncomfortable with him after that, especially when Jill started crying in church because I was narrating the drama and then helping with sidesmans duties, I do not know why that made her cry but she was like that, always upset and very intense about things, and I fled church for fear of George going mad again.

The relationship with the Lihous was never healthy and never recovered. Nor did I, the injustice and Post-Traumatic Stress of the police beating hadn’t gone by the time I arrived in Jersey.
The record it gave me horrified me, because I hadn’t done anything wrong to be so brutally flung around, and I was left with massive bruises and shock, and I had to try and explain to my landlady and college why I was injured and shocked.

I also saw my doctor, who mentioned trauma but did nothing.

And the branding for being in despair over the Lihous affected my record all the way to Winchester in 2010, where the police disregarded my complaint as that of a ‘mad person’ even though I was assessed as free from mental illness, and this happened in Jersey as well and back in Winchester, basically vulnerable people who get to a point where they cannot cope, are treated with contempt by police because of their inability to cope, so I was and have been, left with the Church harming me, and no defence because the police consider their detentions of me to mean I am insane and not credible.
I wonder how many other vulnerable people suffer and die horribly this way and are branded ‘mentally ill’ if they commit suicide as the result of trauma or lack of protection from their tormentors.

And where are the Diocese in this? Using the Lihous against me, because the Diocese only heard one side, from the Dean-Warrens-Lihou-Montague collaberation to try and clear all the wrongdoers and brand me.

Funny how George Lihou sent me a snotty note about how I was to forgive, when I told the Lihous I was traumatized by what happened, and yet they have remained unforgiving their part in condemning me for what happened, one sided, my side unheard.

The other thing, I nearly missed out, the police do not understand conditions such as autism and trauma, and so when they put me in a tiny cage, after brutalizing me in front of my fellow homeless in Winchester in 2011, and untruthfully claiming I tried to bite one of them when I ducked my head as he continued to throw me around, I was frozen with terror, and instead of letting me calm down, the police dragged me by my jumper accross the police yard, choking me and exposing me.
If this is how they treat people who are considered to be ill, who are traumatized and claustrophobic, what hope is there?

I am autistic and touch sensetive, especially in my upper arms, each police brutality has involved brutally tight squeezing of my upper arm, leaving bruises, and for no reason, I am not violent, I was terrified each time, frozen in terror, and that is what they did to me as a result.
I get the feeling it is an almost enjoyable experience for the police to beat and brutalize defenceless people, each time they are smiling, laughing, talking about their personal lives.

In Winchester in 2011, the police apparently acted out of Jane Fisher’s ‘compassion’ after the public brutalization and locking me in a cage and dragging me by the scruff of the neck through the policeyard, and instead of locking me in the cell, left the door open and sat in the doorway, as if that was any less terrifying or as if what had already been done had not been done, I am scarred for life by that incident and will never recover.
The police kept me for 24 hours, jeering I was mad, talking outside the cell of a hospital to send me to, refusing, even when asked by my former counsellor, to get a female officer to see me, and an appropriate adult, they told my former counsellor that they ‘couldn’t change things to suit me’, even though they were obliged to make provision for me as a vulnerable adult, they did not.

I was released utterly traumatized, each time I am beaten and locked in for being distressed, the injury it has caused has left me very ill and unable to function and has left me scarred for life, the horror of the diocese being able to trace me as they have, through those same police, and release press reports and try and silence me, has left me living in terror and unable to live a full and normal life.
Why is the law one-sided on the side of those who have power, why are the Diocese allowed to harm me and I am not allowed to protest because the police branded me incorectly?

My psychological report.

http://whatreallyhappenedinthechurch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/for-limited-time-only-here-is-my.html#.U3jGltJdXJk

shock horror – warning graphic post.

Good morning,
This blog is on a break due to computer problems and me being tired and busy with other things.
I am relieved that during my absence there has been no more nonsense from the CofE, and nothing happening and no-one illegally reporting me missing as Jane Fisher used to.

I have been reading the blog feeds and am horrified that someone came to my blog by searching ‘Are men with Asperger Syndrome more likely to be peadophiles’!
No, they are not more likely to be peadophiles, and the level of ignorance about such things horrifies me.

I am absolutely positive that instead of schools trying to teach four year olds about sex, they should start teaching all ages social awareness.

Every day I am horrified that even council and benefits office people and hospital staff do not know the difference between autism and mental illness,
There is a staggering level of ignorance that makes people think that autism, epilepsy, stroke, brain injuries and learning difficulties are the same as mental illness, and yet these people do not even understand mental illness itself.

Also Post Traumatic Stress tends to be treated as if it is insanity by too many people. It is a double blow to be traumatized and treated as insane -as the Bishop and Jane Fisher and their police treated me, for example.

Why are infants being taught about sex and having their innocence taken (a form of abuse) and yet children are not being taught basics about disability, when prejudice and discrimination do start in the playground.
(and, from what I saw as a mature student, young people are leaving school without even the basics of spelling and maths anyway, so why waste time on sex education and computers when these kids aren’t leaning what they need to).
End of rant.

The Ould Bully would ask what this has to do with the CofE, but the CofE’s attitude to disability is disgusting, I have been called ‘mentally retarded’ because of my autism, in the CofE.

Back to the blog feed, I would love to know who typed in something about ‘St. Helier, depression, bedsit land’, I am fascinated.

The Jersey hits on the blog have been high in the last few days, thanks for checking in.
This blog hopes to be running as normal within a few days, lets talk Jersey!
And there will be a statement in reply to Archbishop Wonga and his fascinating CofE type waffle.
Do they ever talk straight? Or is waffle part of the job description?

NOT Duty of Care

Jane Fisher’s incessant interference behind my back and without my consent led to me abandoning and mistrusting help and support services and also being shunned.

One of the services she interfered in was autism Jersey, even though I told Philip LeClaire expressly not to communicate with her or be a go-between.

Her interference meant I did not trust Philip at all, especially after what had already occured, see my letter to the police complaints department a few posts ago.

It is incorrectly claimed I kicked up a fuss at autism Jersey when Philip told me about the ‘Chaperoning policy’ that the churchwarden was supposed to be under.
This is rubbish.
It is rubbish because I told Philip he was not to tell me what the Diocese said, and he was not to act as  go-between, and he never did tell me what they said, but he claimed, incorrectly, that they had removed the churchwarden from his position, that is all he said when I told him not to upset me again by repeating anything Fisher said back to me.

Because by then Jane Fisher was just a severe trauma to me.

She still is.

Jane Fisher tried to use Philip to get a meeting with me, just as she tried to use Tracy.
She was told NO and told not to use people.
After all, she hadn’t dealt with my complaints and had rubbished me and allowed me to be harmed and coldly told me that what happened did not.

lets go back 36 – poverty

Here in the village the couple were anti-church, one of their family and one of them had had hell from the Church of England and they were disgusted with the church, this startled me, because despite my own bad experiences I was still very much pro-church. But I had tremendous respect for this couple, they had both lost their spouses from cancer at the same hospital at the same time, had comforted each other and had married, between them they had six children, and what I admire most was that the woman’s four children were adopted siblings, all badly abused, she and her first husband had adopted all four in order to keep them together, had worked with them through their problems and disabilities and raised four children who despite having problems, all went on to lead lives of their own, I have profound respect for her for this.

So the lady almost understood problems, and was inordinately patient with me as I had grown more disturbed from my continued problems, and her husband was also extremely patient with me, they were patient with my lack of money as well, the college hardship fund started subsidising my rent, but between petrol and creditors, my money tended to be gone before I got it, but I managed to keep up the rent payments.

I had trouble eating sometimes, they were puzzled by this, but learned that I could not usually eat a big meal and kept to simple food, the great thing about their house was that there was limitless cups of tea, and I could make a pot, I loved to hurtle home from college, make a big pot of tea, and put my favourite programme on TV ‘My parents are aliens’ on, and if you ever want a deep insight into what it is like to be high functioning autistic, then watch that programme, it also gives you an insight into some of my humour. After watching TV for a bit, I would head back to college for library study and planning to travel the world.

I liked the couple I lived with, but had almost nothing in common with them, they loved animals though, and being busy with volunteer work, which helped, they had a dog and a cat when I arrived, and got a mad puppy when I was there, they religiously took the dogs to kennel club training, and the cat would come and curl up with me as I watched telly, and I loved that.

I loved college as well, it was far too stressful, but I loved it, I was not one of the most able students, but I got some very good grades, I was the quietest student and found the social side of college very hard, and was glad that it was a very small college compared to the one in Hampshire, that helped, sometimes I made the effort to go with the other students and hang out in the hostels but I wasn’t really interested, they just sat around and talked about drunken binges and computer games and TV shows, when if I was on my own at break I would have been walking by the beautiful lake and getting a hot drink and a snack, I would have been in the library or on the farm, try as I did, I could not bring purpose to hanging out with the other students.

 And that is how it has been and is in my life, the more I try to be a social person, the more tired and hopeless and lost I feel, alone I am efficient, I carry out necessary routines, I sit alone and read, I listen to music and I escape the hopeless tennis games of conversation, but I made a big concerted effort at college, I didn’t want to repeat my life at the old college, so I went out for a few drinks with the others, didn’t enjoy it, went bowling with one of my fellow students and spent time with her and enjoyed that, went to the pub and played pool with landlady’s daughter and her spouse several times, and enjoyed that but panicked a lot each time.
 
Back to the grim Lihou and finance issues, Jill and George decided they would come and see me, and I wondered if I really wanted that, but I agreed, they were coming for the whole of my day off, despite the problems we were having.

Just to mention, my toy Lion, Joj, was not named after George, not sure why that is written here but I may as well include it.

lets go back 35

I went to Jill and George’s for the weekend after that, on their invitation, I got to the house and Jill and George had left the key for me as they were out somewhere, I heard that a message from Paul on the answer machine to Jill about me, Paul was not prepared to help me any more with finances, and his wife was kicking up a fuss about him involving himself, Paul wasn’t just someone who was helping with finances and letting me down, he was my friend and mentor, and I was deeply upset, I loved him as I loved George and Jill, I asked why this was happening and Jill said it was about Paul’s wife being worried he would have another breakdown, as he was another person who had had a breakdown not long before he retired.

 George said it was because there were concerns about me and Paul being too close, I was furious and asked what the grounds for that was, George just said ‘oh, well we have seen things happen before in our old church’, and again I was furious, nothing had happened between me and Paul, in fact nothing had happened with my finances and debt situation that he had promised to help with by communicating with people for me about, by now the CAB were beginning to help me as Paul was not.

I was furious and hurt at George’s answer, and told him I was gay, I had made no seductive moves on Paul and would not dream of it, nor had he tried it on with me as far as I know, he came round later, bringing the paperwork that he had had for my finances and he didn’t even speak to me, he tried to get Jill and George to get me to go to a place in Somerset called CAP, to get help with my money, but the CAB were now helping me and I was not travelling all the way to a strange place with strange people on the advice of a man who let me down, I went round to Paul’s and threw the paperwork back at him in a temper, I never saw it again, and I returned £20 that Jill and George tried to lend me to go to the CAP place, because it was beyond my capabilities and I was very hurt.

These horrible, needless wounds and shame were inflicted on me by the Church of England and have remained with me as the Church of England destroyed me. These wounds have not gone but have been reinforced and reinflicted by the Diocese and Deanery, and there are undoubtedly other lone and vulnerable people wounded by the church but who have no voice, and are left suffering as I was.

 I avoided Paul in church after that, I loved the church and the services, but the hurt of Paul was bad and coloured every service and every weekend with Jill and George and made our relationship more difficult. The last few times I have seen him he has seemed to think it alright to talk to me, but for me it still wounds me, though it is well forgiven, I avoid that place as all the wounds there still hurt me, though they are indeed forgiven.

Further rows came up when Jill said she hadn’t been talking to Paul about me previous to that incident, and I told her she had because I had heard the messages on the answer machine and seen his email to George about me. She tried to change what she was saying then and I was angry and said a naughty word, not at her but about what she had said and then changed, and I got into even more trouble with them later on for saying that word, instead of it being addressed then and there, I couldn’t get things right in that friendship, and I have always carried a burden of guilt and sorrow, and have now been condemned as wicked for what was an emotionally impossible relationship which was forgiven and forgotten.

The family in Weymouth were a troubled family, the man was a prison officer with a violent temper, the woman was a supermarket worker who did nightshifts, she had such a sweet honest face that I thought I could trust her, but they fought in the night when coming on and off shifts, their daughter had a ‘partner’ and a three year old girl who was looked after during the day by the supermarket worker mother, and they fought over the three year old because the grandmother treated her as if she was her mother and was possessive of her, the daughter was equally possessive but happy to relay the care of the child to her grandmother, then there was a grownup son who lived in the attic and had a girlfriend, it was hard for me to live in this house with all this unmarriedness going on, and then there was an 11 year old boy who was sweet natured and kind, and I worried for him because all around him was shouting, immorality and bad language, I remember listening in horror as this young boy’s adult brother called him gay repeatedly, and for no good reason, how can an 11 year old be gay? And how can someone call him gay when there is no reason to?

Anyway I was helping out in the kitchens of a private Boys School some evenings and that was starting to ease the problems, and I got a bit of food there and had nice colleagues, but I found it difficult, one of my extreme autistic reactions is to metal, stainless steel, pots and pans, knives, kitchen utensils, I find it hard to be near kitchen metals and the noise they make, which is why I use plastic cutlery and avoid kitchens, the other problem was getting the petrol to get to the school, it was only just profitable, and when it came to lambing time I simply had to give up.

It made me sad, the woman often had tears in her eyes from rows, the man was ferocious, and I was mildly reminded of JM’s niece and partner by them, partly the similar looks, the tears, and the rows. I started looking, with help, for a new lodgings, I was in Weymouth for between a month and 6 weeks, and had struggled badly to pay the rent and cope with finances and the difficult journey along a congested road to college every morning; it took an hour to get through the traffic from Weymouth to Dorchester in the morning, compared to an hour and a half journey up to Hampshire for weekends.

One day the man was endlessly angry, he kept shouting and he started shouting about me and calling me arrogant, saying that I was selfish because the 11-year old had offered to heat up some supper for me and I had absentmindedly said yes, not knowing he was eating his own supper at the time, the man was going on about the boy leaving his supper to get cold for my sake, I had no idea, and had simply said yes to the boy’s questions, and I am blind in that way, I want everyone to be happy and so I go along with things, but the man said the way I hardly spoke was arrogance – this isn’t the first time that has been said, and it breaks my heart, anyway he continued to be rude and insulting until I put him in his place, how does an autistic disturbed person stand up to an aggressive prison officer? Don’t ask! But I did. And he did know I was autistic by the way, the previous allegations of arrogance came from people who did not know. George Lihou reassured me on the phone that arrogant was the last thing I was, which was nice.

My new home in a village near Dorchester, a luxury compared to Weymouth, a room with a big double bed and a freeview TV, cupboards and surfaces to put things in and on, mirrors, soft bed, my own bathroom which was a really luxuriant one, I felt human again. Though the worst with Jill and George was yet to come, and the debt problem became immense, this home brought me comfort.

The house in Weymouth was a little terraced house in a grimy street in the rather rough tourist town of Weymouth, the new home was a nice quality detached house in a village 10 or 15 minutes from college, it was in a quiet cul-de-sac, and I was much better off being in a quiet house in a quiet street than in a chaotic house in a chaotic town.

My story seems extreme, but it is all true, I know that many abuse survivors and survivors of institutional abuse such as that in Ireland, can have trouble expressing their stories because the extremes are hard for a normal person to comprehend, and to be disbelieved or told your story isn’t credible is a terrible wound.

lets go back 28 – Maudsley and NZ

In my old town, I felt hopeless and useless, working for the takeaway doing delivery driving part time and suffering out of control depression and exhaustion, I also started working for Neighbourcare, a charity that helps old and infirm people with things, I worked as a gardener for them but felt too shy of the customers, too lacking in confidence and struggling with paperwork that I had to do each time I did a garden. It was a time of complete and utter wretchedness for me. Deep depression and exhaustion.

I was taken to the Maudsley Hospital in London by the Hypochondriac couple, and after a day of tests that exhausted me, I was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum and also as suffering from Social phobia and depression, I was put on an anti-depressant called venaflaxine and I think this was suggested to the doctors by the hypochondriacs when they were interviewed about their views on me, as one of them took venaflaxine, but unfortunately it didn’t work for me, it made my blood pressure go wrong and made me feel ill.

 I was also referred for psychiatry and it was recommended that I had behavioural therapy, the psychiatry didn’t seem to achieve anything constructive and so it drifted away, behavioural therapy was as impossible to get as anger management, being not available on the NHS and too expensive privately and hardly available privately in Hampshire at all, I tried really really hard to climb these barriers, and failed, I applied for funding, I asked charities, I asked the newspaper,  I asked for reduced fees, I asked the Maudsley to help, but to no avail, so I was alone, alone with the shock of being diagnosed and knowing that my problem was not just trauma, but a lifelong condition that meant I would always be alone, misunderstood and struggling. My friendship with the hypochondriac couple was breaking down anyway, which also added to my problems. The maudsley also got me to go back for a brain scan, I went alone and for all that trouble, stress and expense I was never given the results.
I really want to know if the scan showed brain damage, as that is a possibility and if only I knew, I could get more help and get better.

In a way though, the diagnosis allowed me to step into my skin and to stop being just ‘awkward’, ‘troublemaker’ and everything else I was called, I was autistic and living independently and working and looking after myself as best I could. But people never have stopped misunderstanding me and being angry and upset with me, even when I put every ounce of my effort into trying to be ‘normal’ and trying to do the right things. The autistic disorder is a life sentence really.
(Although I have come to realise that what helps keep an even keel is a great deal of solitude)

The relationship with the hypochondriac couple was breaking down, they took me to local mental health services  in order to try and help further before they obviously planned to abandon me, and I didn’t know how to sustain or end a friendship then,

But the mental health services said I didn’t appear to meet their criteria at all and autism wasn’t a mental illness and so I should just read a book, I cannot remember what book, I only remember that the woman we spoke to was hiding behind her hair and wouldn’t even look at us, and that the hypochondriac man stayed behind to talk to her without my permission to talk about me, and I wandered off in distress and got lost.

The hypochondriac couple themselves had some sort of mental health problems, the man had had a breakdown at work before retiring, I think he said he was bullied, but I am not positive, but he had been reliant on anti-depressants for years, his wife had some sort of social anxiety disorder and told me at one point that my way of going out and helping in the church and community helped her to have confidence to want to do more, which is nice, but I should have known better to have let this fragile couple get so involved, it hurt them, it hurt me, and here I am condemned for it. I carry all the condemnation for everything, and no one else does.

 Anyway, a few stressed wars of words and a few letters ended my relationship with the hypochondriacs, I paid them back some money and I saw them sometimes after that and never wanted to speak to them, at one point they greeted me and this was while I was on the stronger meds and I didn’t recognise them, but they weren’t the only ones I didn’t recognise, my memory for people and faces faded a bit when I was on the meds Jill Lihou had me put on on condition that she would supervise the situation, I didn’t recognise (another couple) either.

JM went on her sabbatical, starting in a quiet cottage somewhere, without FM, just her and the dog, she kept her phone with her and on and gave me her number so I could ring her, which surprised me, and was kind of her. No-one else had her mobile number apart from her family, she didn’t usually use a mobile.

JM took me to New Zealand, but it was a struggle, there were tensions between us because of the unresolved FM issue and JM determinedly telling me it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, New Zealand was a hell of a shock for an autistic person, probably the most drastic change of scene and routine I could have had, and we were stressed with each other, but we had fun and adventures, but I felt guilty all the time that I was so anxious and stressed that it cannot have been much fun for JM, it still hurts my heart that she really meant it well, but I was unsettled as anyone autistic is when they have such a big change of scenery, and to make it worse I had the worst set of flashbacks ever while we were there, I wondered if JM thought I had gone insane.

When we met up with her friends there she obviously told them something unhelpful because they treated me extremely gingerly and I felt unwelcome. JM has always been the master of emphatic concrete and totally incorrect pronouncements about me, which had been alienating me from the minute I first came to the Church of England.

lets go back 18, aged 21-23

I mentioned the supervisor, she was growing more and more irrational and angry as her long term relationship broke up, she crashed the works van a few times, and she was really laying into us, calling me stupid when I asked her a genuine question about what saw to use for my work and asking me why I couldn’t do an absolutely straight line when putting in a new edge on a border – because I was not as perfect as she was, but the worst thing she was doing was taking her anger out on my epileptic colleague, causing him to drink and neglect himself and not turn up for work and to have constant fits, which upset me a lot, he lost teeth while I was there because his fits got so bad.

I stuck my neck out to defend him repeatedly and determinedly, which brought her utter wrath down on my head, ‘STOP TAKING YOUR ANGER OUT ON SOMEONE WHO IS EPILEPTIC!’ I shouted, me, the quietest person on site, I was misunderstood even on this site for disabled people, because I spoke so little and couldn’t greet people, I was not diagnosed autistic, and so no one knew why I was silent.
(Which, until I was diagnosed, and even since, has caused a lot of people to be angry with me).

But my outbursts of anger came as this woman started to wind everyone up, she snapped at good-natured ***** and *****, so **** kept storming out and going home cursing her, *** was in so much trouble with fits and not coming to work, and *****was depressed and going drinking at the club, the team was in disarray when I went and told the Boss that I was not working for this supervisor any more.

 And then JM involved herself, behind my back, against my wishes, and certainly not to my benefit, and caused me great embarrassment and she seemed to think, without knowing anything, that I was to blame for the confrontation, JM wasn’t there to see this stupid woman coming to work with a hangover and admitting she had drunk a whole bottle of wine the previous night, and so JM’s damaging interference that had started at college went on, and on throughout my adult life. I badly fell out with JM and told her off, but I also let it blow over as I loved her, she actually seemed surprised when I told her we could put it behind us, and she was pleased too.  And the boss began to clamp down on this stupid supervisor who tried very hard to ensure she did not get into any trouble for her behaviour, used JM to help with that, because she had decided to train as a teacher and did not want a black mark on her record for bullying me and ***, but her behaviour was not just to me, and was not unnoticed, and I worked with the chargehand from then on, as I looked for a new job.

Employment officers, the original man who had helped me into employment and supported me went to work in another department, I was provided with another employment officer, this was during the supervisor’s reign of terror, he was an impatient man and when he met with me and I couldn’t say nothing he shouted at me, I told him, without swearing or cussing, to go away and never get in my away again, DO NOT SHOUT AT CLIENTS. He obliged, and along came a very dynamic South African man instead, to replace him, who had tremendous similarities to the man at College who had been my mentor and had had so many fictitious careers and experiences.

 This new man was dynamic, he was determined to change my world and make me into a high flyer. But he was overambitious and obviously had problems of his own, this could be nothing but a repeat of the previous disaster.

This man kept going on about how he had to gain my trust and how he wanted me to trust him, I was puzzled, why? He told me had he was a South African Diplomat who had been an ambassador for South Africa, and how he had had a big house with servants and everything paid for by the government and how they had had a beautiful garden and a pony in a paddock and how he had had to get permission to marry his wife, and how he used to be in navy, at the time I just took all this at face value, though I didn’t understand why he had moved from that to a miserable terraced house in Portsmouth and then to a miserable little house in my town, he was very open about where he lived, his family, the children’s schools and things, I wondered why he was telling me all about his personal life, and I wasn’t very interested, but he told me it was because he wanted me to trust him. A few years later as a delivery driver I used to deliver takeaways to his house, he was surprised to see that I had passed my driving test and was working unsupported and in an industry that required customer service, albeit minimal and scripted.
He even wanted me to meet his wife and for JM to meet him.

My boyfriend, G, had moved back to Southampton and was working for the council looking after the cemetery, and for a while we decided it was too far away for us to continue our relationship, which was very sad.

But then something unexpected happened in my life, I met a girl, I never expected such a thing to happen, but there one evening was a girl sitting on the wall near the concrete, she was crying, I soon found out that this was very rare for her, but there she was crying, and despite my autism and communication problems, I do ask people if they need help if I find them crying, so I asked her if she was ok, she didn’t say anything, so I stood there, then she told me her guitar string was broken, I puzzled over that and wondered if she was like me, as I was sure it was not the end of the world, but somehow we got talking; she had black hair with green streaks, she was a talented musician and singer, she like Goth things and art, she was very different from me in many ways, but in some ways we were the same, we got to know each other and I was jealous of her musical talents because I have music going through my veins and I wanted so much to learn to express it.

 I got my own guitar so she could teach me, she also played and loved her banjo, I had a keyboard, but my playing was slow, one handed and by ear, so I tried hard to sing along to her playing, but my dysphasia made it difficult.
Her name was ****, she was gay, we got on well, I got involved, I started reading ‘Diva’ and going to the gay club with her, but there was one thing I couldn’t do, I couldn’t sleep with her.
**** was quiet but she had a wicked temper very occasionally, same as me, and I remember JM laughing when I told her I had been hit by a flying saucepan, she said something to one of the church about me having a saucepan shaped bruise which was why I couldn’t kneel at the altar, JM seemed to like me being gay, she never met ****, but she met G.

When G. and I got back in touch I told him sadly that I thought I was gay, he said he didn’t mind, he wanted to marry me anyway, I don’t things could have got more complicated than that.
G. was very straightforward, me having a slight confusion about who I was, didn’t phase him.

But because I could not bring myself to sleep with ****, and dancing was not enough for her, we were struggling, I am sad about this, it got more and more upsetting, **** went to Ireland to her mother.
And as for me, I have never puzzled out my sexual orientation because I am not really mature enough to have one or care.

  I missed **** and was lost, but G. comforted me, I started to make that long journey to Southampton to meet up with him, we would walk round Southampton holding hands, we would stop and have a cool glass of coke at the pub, we would go to the Cinema, I wasn’t used to cinema, but he was and he taught me how to buy tickets, so I soon relaxed, it is actually a reasonably comfortable environment for me, the sound is a bit loud and the screen a bit bright, but I can cope. I remember us seeing a gangster film while we held hands and behaved ourselves in the back row,  and G’s dad, a senior police officer, gave us a lift home, he listened to us plotting robberies and drugs hauls as he drove us home, he thought we were hilarious.

So, my confidence was rocked by work difficulties, but it wasn’t surprising that in an environment where even the supervisor had problems and needed support, there would be problems, and my lack of diagnosis made it harder for everyone.
But this was also the time when I almost matured into an adult in the relationships sense, I didn’t quite make it, but I am lucky to remember two sweet friendships at that time, G, and ****.

 

Bullet point chronology 3 from the other blog

• After I moved to my lodgings away from Winchester, I really was standing on my own two feet at last, aged 20, which was not too surprising because in everything I was usually a few years behind everyone in my age group and really quite immature and childlike. But I wanted to progress and be independent.
• I continued to return to the Vicar’s benefice weekly as I was heavily involved in church groups and events and also because I still had gardens to look after in the Vicar’s benefice and Winchester as well as my work during the week.
• I also started to attend the church in my new town. Interestingly the smear campaign in Jersey that blames me for all problems I have had in the Diocese of Winchester omits that I have been to several churches including this one where I had no trouble further than the usual social and communication difficulties.
• the  church at the time was run by a Vicar and his wife, this vicar was a big tall hearty man, known in town as ‘The Giant’. Interestingly, but this is a theme throughout my story, he had connections with my churches at Winchester. This Vicar had been the Vicar of the churches at Winchester that my Vicar friend now ran, and there had been problems and quarrels after he left because he kept coming back and leading and taking services even when my Vicar friend was installed, and they had had quite a row and she professed to dislike him, she told me that she had had to ask the Bishop of Winchester to intervene. She told me that it was the only time she had ever got any help or co-operation at all from Bishop Scott-Joynt.
• It’s funny that this dysfunctional diocese blames me for everything isn’t it?
• Anyway, so I began to worship at a combination of  church in my town and the churches in the Winchester benefice,  I found the town church very different and I got caught up in what I did not know would be known as ‘Charismatic’ worship, the Diocese of Winchester appear to want all their churches to lean towards charismatic, and that is driving away people who want more steady worship, which is sad, but anyway, I got caught up in it, I had experienced it previously at  Church in Winchester, where again I was perfectly ok and got to know a few people although my vicar friend did cause problems between me and some other  Church people in Winchester in her interventions which were to become a habit in my life right up until I was in Jersey. But anyway, Winchester Church and my town Church, so far so good, no abuse, no-one taking over my life or crossing professional boundaries, no-one taking control of me, and so I was ok.
• But on the other hand I wasn’t ok, because no-one really understood my lack of communication skills and Charismatic churches are all bright and friendly on the outside but your problems go deeper and you can’t ‘God them away’ people lose interest and are not sure what to do.
• So I got a variety of reaction to my problems, there was a group of young people, my age, one of whom befriended me and remained a friend, she lived up the road from me and we did various things together, the other young people, mainly men, were also shy, and we never knew what to say to each other, while the girl who became my friend was very charismatic and said she would never marry a man who was not a Christian, but the other young men weren’t interested in going out with her and she said she was lonely.
• Anyway, the other people in church, the Vicar was the one who made the teas and coffees after church in the evening, and I asked him why, and he said no-one would bother to help him or even stay if he didn’t. So I got into the routine of helping him.
• The church people were variable, as a large group of people are, some were friendly, some didn’t understand me, but there were no real problems. Someone once thought I ‘stormed out’ during a hymn, but actually it was because of the sharpness of the violin that someone, I think it may have been the Vicar’s wife, was playing, I was undiagnosed and did not understand that sharp noises hurt me because of AS, but it was actually someone in the church who helped me to realise I was on the Autistic Spectrum, as well as talking to me about hypersensitivity.
• It remained that there were no real problems in the church. But I never really grew fond of them. The Vicar and his wife had problems, and those problems included the Vicar’s wife being mentally ill, I think it was depression, but it disrupted their lives and service badly at one point, it made me realise, again, that even people with dog collars and in postions in the church are not infallible and not perfect, this was driven home to me even more when their teenage daughter started sleeping with one of my work colleagues, she didn’t appear to be solidly in a relationship with him, just sleeping with him, and it made me wonder again, what the point of a Christian upbringing in the Church of England is actually worth? Very sad. But nonetheless, I am condemned worse than anyone who actually ‘belongs’ in the church due to dog collar or family, because I am autistic and I do not ‘belong’, at least not in the Diocese of Winchester, but at the time and until I was driven from Winchester two years ago, I had never known another Diocese, I have known other Diocese since, and I have seen things done so much better and much more inclusively in other diocese.
• at some point a new clergyman arrived at the church, he was a friend of my Vicar friend at Winchester, and was at college with her at evening class, doing an MA in Theology, which she eventually dropped out of. He was ok, but my Vicar friend talking about me to him and giving the wrong view of me was not helpful. But anyway, he preached sermons about hellfire and brimstone and how we would perish in our wicked ways, which was great fun, but when I told my vicar friend, she was not impressed. But anyway, this clergyman’s wife, when I went to her when I was wrestling with life, told me she thought I had Asperger Syndrome and that was why I was struggling.

Autism, police

This story in the Mail (link below) made me feel very sad.
It reminded me so much of the needless and terrifying treatment I suffered at the hands of the police, especially on 14/02/2011 in Winchester, from which I don’t think I will ever really recover.
Police Officers truly think they can do as they please, and they do treat the vulnerable and voiceless like dirt, that is my experience, and they also write what they like about incidents, because we have no voice.
I am so sorry for the young man who was treated like that, I know he must have been terrified and I share his terror of seeing police when I am out and about, because I still expect a repeat of what has happened to me, especially with the record the Diocese got me.
The police are not here to protect me or the community, they are very dangerous and damaging and for me now, there is no safety in this world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2573941/Severely-autistic-man-33-hurled-bins-pinned-police-officers-helped-binmen-collect-rubbish-LOOKED-SUSPICIOUS.html

copied off the day-to-day blog for those who do not read it – behavioural therapy

This evening, thinking about the lack of progress in therapy and and how upset I have been recently, I downloaded some behavioural therapy manuals onto Kindle, I have always battled with, and been baffled with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, maybe because of my cognitive problems, but I now have a book on Dialectal behaviour therapy, which I heard about at my psychology clinic, and I already understand that better than any CBT books.

My behaviour is wired wrongly from early on in my life, I did not have any example but my parents and siblings, no solid outside influence due to no school or nursery or any other organization, not even social services managed to intervene.
So, I learned anger, out of control anger, and fear, out of control fear, and the very real dangers in life magnified those emotions, I also didn’t learn to relate to people properly and simply experienced a lot of aggressive and disruptive behaviours around me, in the family and the people they fought with, and then the autism element is also a factor.

I have never been proud of my problems, in fact I carry a burden of shame, but it has been a long slow progress for me to recognise what problem is what and seek treatment, it is hard work changing problems that stem from so early on, especially as the NHS have been worse than useless in any form of diagnosis or help, and I have to fight every inch and pay for my own treatment, diagnosis and books to help me, I have had to learn how to keep my environment stable and avoid triggers, and yet, I remain with unresolved problems.
Recent stresses have sent things out of control, and all I can ever do is look at what has happened and pick myself up and start anew and look for new solutions, so hopefully the behavioural therapy manuals will help.