The letter sent to Jersey police complaints department 13/02/09

If anyone wonders why I went mad, this is why. The incidents described in this letter below this paragraph. To me, being regressed and abused and thrown away, being told the police results in an email and being immediately brutalized and locked up – very deliberately omitted from the Korris report, which goes on about the police sending me a ‘nice letter’ which I never got, this, regressed to childhood, left back in my original childhood and some of the blank horror of what I went through then, and left abused and abandoned by EY and his wife who had always belittled me. Brutalized by police and shunned in the community, Philip LeClaire publicizing the brutality after playing a part in having me captured by police and trying to make out he was not part of that.
Bob Hill wonders why I don’t trust, why I don’t like people going behind my back.
I suffered severe Post Traumatic Stress as a result of the detention and brutalization the day the police let my abuse go, they used force, just as they always have because of my terror, and they locked me in a cell and were rude and insulting to me, for the crime of reporting an abuser.
I didn’t recover, and this is when I stopped coping, stopped coping with Jane Fisher’s nonsense, stopped coping with my abuser laughing when he saw me while he remained in church positions, stopped coping with Philip, with being shunned for reporting the man I reported, stopped coping with what was a horrible and hopeless situation, from which I didn’t and can’t recover.
 

** **** ******* ****
** ******
JE* ***
Email: ********@hotmail.co.uk

13/02/09

Police Complaints Department
Jersey

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am not at all sure if I should be writing to the police complaints department with my queries, but the DC who dealt with a complaint that I made seems unable to deal with my queries and concerns and seems more concerned with protecting my abuser. I am unwilling to contact the police again as I am afraid of them because of their treatment of me.
I am autistic, and am much more able to write than speak, I am making these queries entirely on my own.
I made a complaint to the police last year, with a bit of prompting, the complaint was about a man called Mr.******, Mr.****** is a churchwarden at St. A’s church at **** ******, Mr.****** decided to ‘adopt’ me as his daughter very shortly after meeting me, I believed that Mr.****** was trustworthy as he professed to be a Christian, but Mr ***** subjected me to unwelcome sexual advances and emotional torture, he was very careful in doing so, and made sure that I felt ‘to blame’ for my reactions to his treatment, and for a long time I took the blame.
Mr ****** told me that ‘God had told him to take me as a daughter’ and because of my faith I believed that my prayers for somewhere to belong were answered, I tried to cope with the increasing distress Mr.****** was causing me, and eventually had to tell his wife, who had never wanted a disabled ‘adoptive daughter’, I was brought into their family by her husband, for his own reasons, so I was thrown out of the family, with Mr.****** denying doing anything wrong, his wife despised me from the start, and when he heard I was making a complaint, he had the arrogance to phone an older friend of mine in order to try to get her to ‘shut me up’, she is not a good person to deal with abuse, despite being a priest, but she told him he had done wrong when he explained to her that he was trying to ‘help me’ by ‘breaking through my sexual barriers in order to cure my sexual problems’, I do not have significant sexual problems, my main problems are autism and trauma.
The matter was brought to the police, someone went with me to the police, there was a very helpful DC who’s name I cannot recall, he had shirt sleeves and a big grin, he seemed very prepared to deal with the matter. But then the matter was passed on to DC Hare, who I do not understand, and I do not understand the way he dealt with the matter or explained/didn’t explain it.
DC Hare interviewed Mr.******, he then contacted me by email with the results of the complaint, which didn’t make sense and still doesn’t. It seems to read that they ‘let poor Mr ****** off because there wasn’t enough evidence, and poor mr ****** had been under so much pressure due to the complaint that he wouldn’t do it again’. Mr ******  could not give a damn about what he has done, he has called me a liar since and has gone on with his life, he was sacked from his previous church for misconduct but he happily told me that they were mistaken, he refuses to take responsibility for his actions, and while he was abusing me he told me about how he talked sex to girls on his evangelising walk, he has not taken any responsibility for what he has done.
DC Hare told me that Mr.****** ‘admitted to most of the things I said? But said he was doing it to help me), therefore they could not prosecute Mr.******.  I do not understand this, is it legal in Jersey to force sexual contact in order to help someone? I did not understand the results , originally sent by email. I think what Mr ****** has done is wrong, but he appears to Have gained DC Hare’s sympathy. DC Hare said it was ‘on Mr.******’s record’, but I also did not understand what that meant. DC Hare was also aware that I have difficulty using a telephone, he said in his email that I could ‘phone him if I had any queries’.
If Mr ****** admitted to anything sexual, and DC Hare never explained what Mr ****** did or didn’t admit to, then why can no further action be taken?  DC Hare is obviously not willing to take further action even though I have asked. DC Hare has ignored my requests for further action or explanation, and I am afraid of DC Hare because he got me locked up.
When I received the unhelpful results of my complaint by email from DC Hare, I apparently threatened suicide, I am somewhat confused about this, but to cut a long story short I was seized by the police and locked up, I am told that this was for my own welfare, but I can see no evidence of that, DC Hare omitted to tell the police that I was autistic, dislike having my arms touched and need an appropriate adult at the police station.
Though I was very tired and ill and unable to run, and not trying to run, and was also trapped between two police officers and two cars, I was taken hold of by the upper arms, it was specifically mentioned in my statements to the police about Mr.****** that I have an extreme dislike of my upper arms being touched, because Mr ****** forced ‘therapy’ on me including constant touch of my upper arms, DC Hare, who apparently sent these officers out of ‘duty of care’ hadn’t bothered to tell the officers that he sent that I was autistic, disliked touch, and needed an appropriate adult, the officer, PC O’Brian, refused to let go of my arms even though I couldn’t run anywhere, I was panicking, I cannot begin to describe the severity of this panic to you, O’Brian said if he let go of my arm he would have to handcuff me (for the crime of reporting my abuser?), I said ‘handcuff me, let go of my arm’, he refused to do so, and I continued to panic with this nasty police officer gripping my arm when I had not commited a crime. It was only when my landlord stepped in and persuaded the officer to let go of me that he did, they then took me to the police station, they prepared to search me but I wouldn’t let them, I was absolutely out of my mind with terror. I told them not to lock me up because I suffer with claustrophobia? It means terror of enclosed spaces, they locked me up and I had a severe and prolonged panic attack, then they sent me to see a doctor who I didn’t understand and then they sent me home, no appropriate adult was present even though DC Hare was aware of my disability, and I was confused and distressed, I was shaking in severe shock and very much awake in the early hours of the next morning and the trauma of this on top of being abused by people who should have been safe, having to make a complaint, and feeling that DC Hare sympathises with Mr and MRs ******, who made my life living hell, has left me severely distressed, being ‘locked up for the crime of reporting my abusers’ did nothing for my welfare.
I still have nightmares of being on that police station floor struggling to breathe.

There was no follow up on that nasty incident. I have been left to ‘commit suicide as I please’ and I believe that if I had not been exhausted after that police incident I would have taken my own life because of how I was treated, it is incredibly cruel and twisted that the DC got me locked up and punished, while my abuser is walking around calling me a liar and has laughed the whole matter off, and he really has called me a liar.
And now my abuser is aware of me being locked up due to Phillip LeClaire publishing it in an article, it no doubt gave the ******s a good laugh to hear how I was locked up for their crime.
DC Hare offered to meet with me to ‘discuss the matter’, I was persuaded by Phillip LeClaire to attend a meeting, at short notice, though I said I was ill and couldn’t cope, I attended the meeting, but the primary aim of the meeting seemed to for DC Hare to act as a mouthpiece for the ******s to ‘shut me up’ , as I had not understood DC Hare’s email of the results of the complaint, I thought Mr ****** had simply walked away laughing, and as Mr.****** was calling me a liar, that seemed to be the case, so I had continued to tell Mr.****** off myself, he has never apologised or taken any responsibility, DC Hare ‘warned me’ that ‘people would think I was bad’ if I continued to deal with ****** myself, I felt intimidated and was afraid of being arrested again, so I was all agreement, ‘oh yes, I will behave myself, don’t lock me up for my abuser’s crimes again’. Mr ****** had phoned DC Hare, who should have dealt with Mr.******, and ‘told him I was verbally attacking him in the street.’ Mr ******’s arrogance in doing that, phoning the officer who was supposed to deal with him abusing me, and DC Hare actually trying to shut me up on ******’s behalf seems incredibly wrong.
Why was Mr ****** allowed to ask the DC who should have taken action against him to shut me up? I want something done about Mr.******, I am certain from things that he and his wife said, that he has abused before, and will again, he is very clever, hence me being punished for his crimes, and will get round the tiny mark on his CRB check, which has in big letters next to it ‘his victim is trouble’.
 I will shut up when something has been done about my abuser.  I don’t think it’s fair if it has been recorded on my CRB check instead.
DC Hare said that what ****** did was bad but not criminal  (so I am being told that sexual assault is not criminal on a disabled person?), and I am the one in danger of a criminal record, why? I am being told that Mr.****** adopting me to Abuse me, damaging me and letting me bear his wife’s fury, and throwing me away when I spoke up is my fault and the police couldn’t care less.
I was also not happy with Mr. LeClaire discussing things about me with DC Hare without my permission, but that is Mr. LeClaire’s fault. He works for Autism Jersey and wants to be on good terms with the police, hence his backing DC Hare and reference to the police being marvellous in his article where he talked about me in the paper against my wishes, that article was also without my permission and against my will, but that is Mr. LeClaire’s fault, I am in support of Mr. LeClaire’s marvellous advocacy of autistic people, but confused about some things he does.
DC Hare hasn’t clarified some things and I was too intimidated by the meeting, what did ****** admit to? If he admitted to sexual things, why are they not criminal? If he didn’t, he still did all those things, why does DC Hare believe ****** over me and stand up for him? If ****** admitted to doing some of those things to help me, why is that believed?  I feel that Mr.****** set up a situation where he could get gratification from me. Mr ****** continues in his role as church officer and works with young mothers and Yacht club cadets, he has taken no responsibility for what he has done to me, he and his wife have left me devastated. Mr ******’s excuse of doing things to ‘help me’ is made very believable by his demeanour, but it could not possibly be true, I know from living with him as his daughter that he is very sexual and has a huge problem with boundaries.
I don’t expect you to understand this, but my faith in God was central to my life, it has been destroyed by the ******s, I wanted to belong to a family, Mr ****** called me his ‘daughter’ and then I was thrown away when I started to speak up and Mr ****** denied everything, these things have hurt me more than anyone can imagine, my background was from poverty and abuse, violence and neglect, but I lived on faith and hope, that has been taken from me by these things and I have been left devastated by these things.
I don’t understand the results of my complaint, I feel that I have been called a liar, I have been traumatised and devastated, my abuser has walked away calling me a liar, the police are on his side and I expect to be arrested again and treated brutally for standing up for myself.
DC Hare did explain at the meeting that it is on Mr.******’s CRB check in the ‘greyline’ because what Mr.****** did was ‘bad but not criminal’I don’t understand what this means, does this mean it’s ok for Mr.****** to abuse because he has friends in the police? I am also concerned what this has done to my CRB check because the police are hostile to me, why is my abuser walking around laughing and calling me a liar? Lying about something like that would be horrific for me, being called a liar of something like this is horrific, I am the one suffering massively for this, for the crime of reporting my abuser, I am the one who was locked up and had my arms and brain hurt, why am I the one in massive trouble and why was I arrested for my abusers crimes?

My continued concern and request for further action has been totally ignored by DC Hare, and since I couldn’t understand his explanation of all this, I asked him for someone who could, and the address of the police complaints department, that was also ignored.
I also remain confused about being told firstly there was not enough evidence to prosecute Mr.******, then being told that he had admitted to a lot of things but because he ‘did them to help me’ it was bad not criminal’, I was not told what he admitted to, but probably not the more serious sexual things, but if he admitted to anything, why is he walking around laughing and calling me a liar while I am still suffering? I really want something done.
I have done my best to protect other vulnerable people, I do not expect to be arrested for it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.`
I am not Jersey born, I know about Haute de LA Garenne, is this just normal Jersey justice? Should I pipe down and wait for the police to think of another excuse to thrash me for being autistic yet speaking up about being mistreated? Am I going to be named and shamed in the paper?

Can you help me with my concerns please?

Sincerely,

****** ******

lets go back 37

Jill and George were coming to my house and meeting the couple I lived with, and I was actually getting on a lot better with the couple than with Jill and George and was now quite comfortable with them, but I loved Jill and George deeply but was not comfortable with them.

Funny point, the Diocese and Deanery villify me for George and Jill but I had now known them for some months and Jill used to phone me every night and get me to go home for weekends, and here they were coming to Dorset, why, if I was evil and abused and accused them?

Jill and George arrived and introduced themselvest to the couple, while I just flustered and was unsure of myself, we all went out to lunch at a local Harvester pub that I had been to with the couple a few times, my landlord kept going on about how I was only going to have roast potatoes for lunch because he knew that I would eat any amount of roast potatoes as he often cooked them for me, he was cook and housekeeper in the house, and his wife did the office work and computer things.

We arrived at the pub, and Jill made an effort to make sure I was seated in a way that made me feel safe, I was and still am scared of sitting too close to other people, I do not like sitting if anyone is standing near me, especially not if they are male, and I get very anxious if people move around me when I am sitting, to the point where I panic and try to get away.

As soon as we sat down, Jill and George started their usual boasting, the boasting that all and sundry have to hear every time they meet anyone new, and they started it here, despite my constant pleas for them not to make me listen to them doing this: Here goes, the boast about George being from Guernsey kicked it off, then it was the family and all the nice things they had and did, the private schools, the dance lessons, the music lessons, the grades, the holidays, the ministry, basically they went through the whole list, I sat there without £10 to my name and beginning to think that this miserable futile struggle while listening to everyone else and the good in their life was all I would ever know.

 I was listening to this wealth and their well-to-do family and their privileges, despite having asked repeatedly for them to stop doing this to me, I did not enjoy my meal and I wanted to go home, landlady sat there quietly listening, landlord hardly said a word, George and Jill were on the stage, as usual, and we were their audience, landlady didn’t boast, didn’t tell of how she, with no wealth, adopted four severely damaged siblings in order to keep them together and gave them a full second chance at life and brought them up with a chance despite their injuries and disabilities, which is worthy of a boast.

What I remember significantly was not wanting to ride with Jill and George in their van, but I wanted to stick with the couple I lived with, but landlady said ‘you see us every day, you only see your friends every so often, go with them’.

When we got home, Jill and George wanted to take me out for a drive, so I went with them but the day was already ruined for me, I was pent up anger and distress as I always was as I struggled with life and listened to the boasting,. We went to Chesil beach and Portland, but I was not happy with them, I asked them again to stop hurting me by talking about their family, but as usual it did not register with them, Jill was clinging onto me and asking what was wrong and I continued to say ‘please don’t hurt me with your wealth while I am struggling’ they got offended, and it was time to go home, I got out of the van when we got back, and went indoors without them.

Hindsight is always useful but I should have assertively ended this friendship some time before, but I was dependent and scared and still did not know how to end a friendship. Nor did I know that their behaviour was truly unacceptable or cruel, I not only was being hurt even when I had asked them to stop, but I was carrying the burden of blame and shame.
 
This caused a big big problem, they did come after me, the couple let them in but I went to my room and hid in the duvet and cried, I felt so utterly and completely worthless, I would have given my right arm for even one music lesson, even one set of nice soft clothes like the photos of their family showed, I had nothing, nothing but debt and struggle and defeat and angry letters from creditors, I hadn’t been to school, let alone private school, I hadn’t had a single holiday as a child, I had nothing, had always had nothing, nothing but disgrace for not fitting in, I still did not understand myself and what was wrong with me.
 Jill and George kindly spending time with me and refusing to curb their family boasts was as beneficial to me as rolling on broken glass.

Jill came upstairs to speak to me and I screamed at her to go home.
my landlady came up later, shocked, and having spoken to George and Jill, and tried to get me to calm down, it made it more difficult.

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 34 -days of darkness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

lets go back 33 -bones of contention – missed out earlier post, should be a few posts ago

I continued to be part of the L community despite the distance, my relationship with JM was still extremely difficult and FM continued to throw tantrums which always caused me distress and wore me down, but I loved my friends in the benefice.

 FM’s tantrums were totally random, for example he was photographing some little children who were with us doing the graveyard clear up, they were sitting on a tombstone, and because that was early days for me, I did not know and I asked him if photographing them on a tombstone was appropriate, for some reason he utterly flipped, this is just one of hundreds of sudden furies from him, and it has certainly not done me any good to learn his temper, but he is one who can get away with it, untouchable in the rectory and with money, I get condemned as mad and bad for my temper, FM suffers nothing for his, and JM irons it all out for him.

But I was drawn to the community where I was, I had always found it difficult to get to L.Gardening club due to other commitments, but I thought I would try the local Gardening club, and also the amateur dramatics, but due to not having enough money for the fees, and in the case of the amateur dramatics, they didn’t send the necessary paperwork and newsletters as promised, so I was discouraged, but I did go to church, I was badgered into the church by a woman called Jill Lihou, who was insistent once she had found me, that I became part of the church and then part of her housegroup.

Jill and her husband George became my friends, though from early on I had concerns about Jill because of my experience of the other emotionally disrupted people involving themselves in my life and causing chaos, Jill told me early on that she had had problems, she told me that she had problems with her relationship with her children for years after their births and wished them to come to harm, she told me that when her daughter Heather went to school she hoped that Heather would have an accident in the playground and she hated her,  and she didn’t acknowledge this problem for years until one day when her vicar (at a previous church) asked her to help with something and she became emotionally distressed (I actually don’t understand this completely), and when Jill collapsed in front of the vicar he got her to seek help.

 In the time I knew Jill she showed this emotional disturbance constantly, crying in church frequently, and crying about people’s sufferings very frequently, even crying about me, which sent me mad with distress, I will elaborate later. I remember one day she was getting emotional about ‘poor women in Africa who had had babies and been torn given birth and ended up leaking both ends and no one really cared for them’ this kind of sickened me, the graphic detail, but she was somehow involved in some project to help them. Jill’s whole life was mission, which in a way is not bad, but she was fanatical and made herself ill over it, this she freely admitted to me, but in the end I took the brunt of the blame for her over involving with me and making herself ill over me. To this day I remain broken-hearted and traumatised by my friendship with George and Jill, though I have no doubt whatsoever that not one of us meant any harm to another.

And yet it has been used against me again and again by the Deanery and Diocese employees, who are where they are because they claim to be Christians.

Jill and George were overflowing with kindness but were also extremely set in their beliefs, and I was not comfortable with some of these beliefs trying to push my own beliefs out of the way.
This is so hard to write as it is still hurting me.
(written in 2011 of course.).

Jill hated people working on Sundays, and if I did any freelance work or delivery driving on a Sunday, then she grouched, I said to her ‘What about Vicars?’, ‘What about doctors, firemen, police?’ she said ‘well they have to’ I said ‘So do I’, but she didn’t agree. This was one of our bones of contention,

 but there were a number of small bones like this, another one was ‘Fair-trade’, Jill and George were well off and bought ‘Fair Trade’, and Jill was fanatical about it, she said everyone should buy fair-trade, but I could hardly afford the supermarket’s value foods, let alone fair trade, my life had been about buying reduced goods at the end of the shop’s day, Fair Trade was the top end of the spectrum, so I was guilty of robbing those poor Africans who made fair trade stuff just because of my own poverty.

Some of my life was lost in Jill and George’s rescue of me, a lot of my rare as gold dust self esteem was lost there in their way of thinking and doing.
And yet I am punished over and over again by the Church of England for all this, while no-one else is punished for their side of things.

lets go back 32

Let me give you examples of what you ordinary and settled people might thing is just my whingeing about Jill and George’s conversation:

Every single conversation contained references to the Channel Islands, George’s heritage of being a Guernsey man, everyone had to be told of this and Island life and the journeys to and from the islands and the holidays that Jill and George and their family had there all the time, everyone needed to know about the White House hotel on herm and how the family spent their luxury days there, everyone needed the details, and then it was the grandchildren. Their piano lessons, dance lessons, how they were going to have parts in a film, how they went to private school, how they had luxuries beyond my imagining, while there I was struggling and struggling to make ends meet, while I had never done a dance step in my life and I would have given my right arm to have piano lessons, and then we had to hear about the grades they got in their music exams, the skiing in Switzerland, the…

In return for living with them, Jill wanted me to garden for them, and I was more than willing to do this, but I was very unselfconfident in their garden, and didn’t want to take it over and was it was such a pretty, neat garden, just like the house, that I was unsure of myself and Jill got cross with me for what she considered me not doing enough, she was like this with George on cross days, telling him he shouldn’t be at the computer all the time and he should do some manual work around the place, but I was dreadfully ashamed, I was mortified, and I insisted on taking over the watering from George after that, so that I was ‘paying my rent’, I couldn’t find anywhere else to live, and accepted Jill’s offer of me staying there until October.

 Though I did spend a week or so house sitting and cat sitting for Marion and Peter, a church couple who were highly involved in the church and who I liked. Jill wanted me around but grumbled that it meant she didn’t have enough time to herself, in the same way when she invited me for the Christmas holidays I again felt guilty because she told me that ‘she could have a had a grandson to stay if I had not been there’, this is the problem with our relationship, it was all backwards because I only did as they asked or said, within my ability, but I got guilt tripped for it frequently.
Jill had learned to hug me by taking my hands in hers, just as Ted did in the days before he hugged me, and then she progressed to carefully hugging me, but I would tense up, she persevered and got me to relax into a hug sometimes, she used to tell me as she hugged me ‘just let go’ meaning ‘relax’, but it confused my autistic brain a lot.

George didn’t hug me until when I was at college. I was anxious with George because sometimes I wasn’t sure if what he said was literal or a joke sometimes, and sometimes he was mock scary. But he waited to be able to hug me, he waited until I could let him, and he behaved impeccably, for which I respect him.

I remember at Christmas how I wandered downstairs in my dressing gown on Christmas morning and George appeared and wanted a Christmas hug, I blushed and said ‘I’m not dressed’, he said ‘never mind that’, he wanted a Christmas hug because it was Christmas, not because he wanted to be naughty, the only time he ever even said anything naughty was about another lady in the village and he was joking and Jill slapped him, he even told the pigeons in the garden to stop mating while we were having supper, (he told them it was a family meal).

He was impeccably well behaved and devoted to Jill, but the horrifying thing was that my relationship with George and Jill was used against me in Jersey lumped together with my statements of FM and the churchwarden abusing me as if I had accused George and Jill of abuse, which I didn’t, and once my relationship with them was over for the final time it was forgiven and forgotten, without the conclusion they were asked for.

One of the other things in my sad and chaotic relationship was that Jill knew I had had a difficult past, and if I had a flashback occasionally, she started to make me sit down and talk about my past, even though I could not verbalise it, she would keep this up and I would sit in silence, but I got autistically used to being sat down and sitting there struggling, and then without telling me she changed her mind, and later I got told off when there was a rare confrontation about the problems we were having, the thing was that they would not communicate about changes or boundaries, even if I specifically asked them to sit and talk it through, until almost the end of the relationship, I never meant to upset Jill, I went along with her attempts to get me to talk, and when they decided it was a bad idea, they should have told me.

I wish with all my heart that I knew the sad thing I know now, I have attachment disorder and could not and cannot cope with intense closeness and help.

Another problem we had was that they let me watch my Buffy videos at their house, they encouraged me to unwind with my videos, and then after months of this and watching my videos when I came back for the weekends, Jill said I was not to watch my videos, she said they were bad, evil even, I asked why my videos were suddenly evil, I told her they were not, they were about fighting evil and fighting personal demons and bouncing back and having a sense of humour even when things are grim beyond anything, I explained that the videos had helped me to recover from some of my really bad fears and phobias, but she was adamant, and I asked why her and George watching Andrew Lloyd Webber ogling young girls in ‘who wants to be a trollop called Maria?’ was not evil? That show reminded me of a slave market, and what is good about an old man checking out a host of young girls and pretending it is an audition? And on television? She and George watched all kinds of odd things, she and George were never in the room when I was watching my videos and she had encouraged me to watch them, then after months and months she banned them, but would not talk through other problems we had.
They used to go on about their young grandchildren watching a crass show called ‘Saturday Night takeaway’ and yet they called my videos evil after so long of encouraging me to watch them.

My counsellor said that sometimes people with problems would try and ‘cure’ other people and be disappointed when the cure wasn’t magical and overnight, I wasn’t curable, and the emotionally distressed and difficult to communicate relationship with George and Jill plus the nasty antidepressants was not a miracle cure, but I have been told by the Dean of Jersey that I am wicked for all of this, that I am to blame, and that I am the problem.
Why am I condemned for a forgiven and finished relationship, and why was the Dean given leeway to call me wicked for this? And where does it say in Jesus’ teaching that this is how to treat someone? I have never stopped feeling sorrowful for this disaster, but I did not deliberately or maliciously cause any of this.

At church I got to really enjoy Jill and George’s church and liked the church so much that I became more part of that church than L. church especially as the paedophile case going on at L. had scarred and traumatised me.

Cafe church at Jill and George’s church was an amazing mix of worship and bacon butties with orange juice and tea, they also did a teatime church with cake, and despite my lack of speech and occasional panics, I was made so welcome and loved the worship, but what made it more difficult was Jill and George confiding their concerns about me in the Vicar and curate, this upset me and my view of them somewhat. I called St. Mary’s Overton ‘The Beautiful Church’.

Anyway, time came for me to go away to college, Jill and George were away in Jersey, they had expected me to be there when they got back, and Jill said she had expected me to go in October and not suddenly when they were away, Jill was upset about this.
Which is paradoxical considering the accusations!

But my mind was on college, yes I would love to stay, but what future would I have in the village? I would need more work in order to stay, and I was not completely well enough to work, so college was a better option, and I had wanted so much to go back and complete agricultural college, so I went to college.

When Jill and George returned and I was beginning college. They asked me to come back to them for the weekend, and they phoned me every night,  or Jill did, I asked why George did not phone, Jill told me he was not very talkative on the phone, but she urged him to make the effort anyway, but it was Jill’s idea or need to phone me every night, not mine, it meant that I waited every night for the phone to ring, and remained emotionally in the village for the time I was in college, especially as Jill was getting me to go back to them for weekends.

College was a challenge, there I was surrounded by noisy lively students, there I was with no money coming in, and waiting for the benefits office to stop messing about and start paying benefits, I could get no money from any LEA, my credit rating and situation meant no student loan or maintenance grant, the college hardship fund were prepared to help to a certain extent, but they had restrictions on what they could help with, they gave me a meal card to keep me fed at the canteen for a little while, and they let me stay in a college hostel for a few weeks while I tried to get money and lodgings.

Lodgings came up in Weymouth, but no money was coming through to pay the rent, despite Jill and George’s friend Paul taking over my finances – he got me to sign a letter saying he was in charge of my finances – nothing was happening about benefits, and I found out both that Paul had been doing nothing that he promised regarding my benefits and that there was an error in my benefits being paid, so as this was happening I became in serious financial difficulties due to money being demanded by all the organizations I owed money to, and they added charge upon charge every time I could not pay, and this added up, especially with the bank also charging me for having no money in my account and then charging when I could not pay the charges, hundreds into thousands that I owed were because I could not deal with the overdue charges and could not communicate with the companies, Paul was letting this happen and doing nothing that he promised. Paul did not seem to realise or care about the urgency of the situation and was doing nothing as I was hounded by creditors, I emailed him repeatedly telling him that I liked and respected him as a mentor but that I was in trouble and he had promised to help and I was relying on him, he still very little got done.

Eventually, benefit money came through, I was entitled to £57 per week, and the bank charges were all in the range of £30-£40 so imagine trying to balance that and £50 rent and trying to eat, I was going hungry now and collapsing faint, I was ill so much.

I believed in Paul because of the resounding success of  a member of L.church, when he stepped in and resolved my financial problems that came from the poor support at the Sheltered house and the mess ups with housing benefit there, he had resolved those problems for me with no emotion, no prompting and no fuss, he did it so efficiently that problems that bogged me down and affected my sleep were dealt with within weeks and never troubled me again, and I fully expected Paul to do the same, he volunteered his helped and signed responsibility of my finances to himself, I completely trusted him. Just as I trusted George and Jill, JM and my abusers, I trusted ‘adults’ to do the right thing and take responsibility for themselves and their volunteering in my life and their actions.

Jill and George paid off one of my smaller debts, and I owed them instead, and in the end I did pay them back.

lets go back 31 2006

Jill continued to get me to talk, even though I did not know it was too much emotional strain on her, but they were ‘the adults’ and I was the problem child, so I responded as best as I could to Jill.
Jill worried and fussed about my depression, she went with me to the doctor and spoke for me, telling them of a medicine that someone thought would work, but which was dangerous for a suicidal person to have, so they rarely prescribed it any more, this was a whackingly strong drug compared to what I had had so far, and as a result my short term memory started having blips, Jill told the doctors that she was a retired nurse and would secure and administer the drug herself, in order to keep me safe.

 Sadly later as my relationship with Jill and George broke down, they told me that Jill had got ill from having to look after my drugs in case I commited suicide. Sadly the drug didn’t help anyway and made me ill and Jill was not keeping an eye on the side effects and I was the one who withdrew the drug after months of its effects on me, I had massive black patches of depression while on it, the worst I have ever had, and my memory became rubbish as well. I also ended up in hospital from the drug, I will explain that later.

I had continued to do delivery driving for the takeaway in my old town, though this was part time and I could not claim benefits while doing this, though my income from driving was low, I couldn’t go all the way to the town every night to work as it was too far, and so I was doing three nights and finding it a trial anyway, the long treacherous road  was too much, and the drive back late at night was the worst bit, the petrol it used was also too much, and I was by now only doing a small amount of freelance work due to customers divorcing, moving and dying, and me being pretty ill with depression.

One evening on the way back I stopped at the village takeaway for something, and they offered me a delivery job, so I gave up the longer journey, but sadly the new job was not brilliant, the Turkish takeaway owners had all sorts of strange men coming into the back of the shop where I waited for deliveries, I was intimidated, and the bosses also wanted me to break speed limits to get the deliveries out as I drove carefully, the Takeaway in my old town had had a firm anti-speeding policy, and it was against my ethics to speed, and especially after the tragedy with Laura, I was not speeding for a takeaway, and as I was too quiet in the shop and too uncomfortable with speeding, I resigned, now all I had was casual freelance work and a feeling of hopelessness.

My old job at the big house also got passed from one unsuitable hopeful to another, so at least I knew it wasn’t just me, that is not to say I was not ashamed and demoralized by the loss, and I was also furious that Jill and George kept in contact with my old boss there, without my permission and behind my back, wounding my pride and taking my much valued privacy and dignity, this was one of the bigger bones of contention between us, but I was the one who got slated for complaining about it, and it is never mentioned by the Channel Islanders who have used Jill and George against me to absolve the Dean, nor are the other wrongs done to me.

So now I was a Jill and George brand of me I started going to their church more often, so what I tended to do was go to a mixture of their church and L. Benefice services, their church in the morning and L. in the evening for example, it worked, and I became fond of their church, very much so, I wish I could go back, but it would break my heart beyond anything if I did, I do not think I would cope with the grief, even going to see my friend in that town makes my cry and hurt so much.

(remember this was written in 2011, I have no feelings for the Church of England or anyone oin it any more)

I first met my friend J. in the gardening club, though she was a member of the church, a bright, joyful, cheerful lady who adored God, J. has been an inspiration to me over the past 6 years, J needed help in her huge rambling garden, her hens and chickens helped by digging out the wrong plants and causing merry chaos, and her dog Jay was the most adorable sweet natured dog, a dog so like his owner, J. brought instant calm to my life as she got me helping with her veg plot, and that was where I was one day when the college in Dorset rang to offer me a place on their Agricultural course, at the same time I was offered a job on a gardening team in Berkshire.

 Weighing it up I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to work at commercial speed in the mess I was in, and I had dreamed of returning to Agriculture since leaving the old college, so I accepted the college place, wondering how an earth I would fund myself, and deciding that by hook or by crook I would! J was the first to hear of my acceptance by the college and she was delighted, J. is such a joyful person, with such a faith in God, her prayers and teaching and support have been invaluable to me, and now the only thing between us is distance, heartache and my fear of Jane Fisher’s interference.

I went to the college for interviews and those went well, and unlike at the old college, I knew and declared special needs in my registration, and returned to Hampshire to excitedly wait the start of the course, to return to what I had abandoned at the old college and to achieve greater, I thought maybe this was the good that came out of all the sadness and bad of losing my tied cottage job.

George and Jill’s friend Paul became my friend and involved himself in my finances because he used to be an accountant and Jill and George asked him to help me, I also gardened for him, but by that time I was very slow, my heart must have been struggling without me knowing it by then, due to the meds, I remember finding it inordinately hard to barrow stones down the hill, Paul was a bit serious and solemn, he had a big house and garden and played golf, but he had had breakdowns from depression and nerves in the past and had had to retire as a result, and his wife was not a Christian and this seemed to cause Paul great problems, his wife was also a jealous woman and I gather she became jealous and upset at Paul’s involvement in my life, but that was during my time at college so I will finish explaining later.

Jill and George went to Jersey to babysit their grandchildren while the parents were away at a conference, the parents were Jill and George’s daughter and her husband, the Warrens, who run St Lawrence and St. Matthews in Jersey, I had instructions to phone them in Jersey if I had the slightest query, and I did have some query at one point, so I phoned and it was the priest son in law who answered, he was Phil Warren, who later involved himself in the problems I had in Jersey and used his parents-in-law’s side of things against me.

The saddest and most difficult part of my relationship with Jill and George was something they did regularly and my reaction to it. They boasted, I am sorry to put it so bluntly, and though they denied it, they boasted. All day, every day, indoors, outdoors, even George’s ‘sermons’ were a large percentage of boasting and a small percentage relevant or teaching.

From the first housegroup at their house I met with their boasting, and did not know how to cope, I was insecure, felt small, felt ashamed at my lack of background and experience and home and education and everything else, I lacked all the things that most people take for granted, and here I was with this wealthy, extremely lucky, gifted and blessed family, and the wealth, gifts, education, privileges and blessings were flaunted, spoken about non-stop, flung in my face, and sadly Jill and George would not accept my gentle and tactful requests to talk about other things, they did not understand when I needed a break from such conversations, and when I was with them if anyone joined us they would carry on like this, even to a total stranger who came to church for the first time, I escaped to J’s often, and listened to her talk about God and gardening and Jay and Freddie and the chickens and the wildlife, J was refreshing and her son was a nice man, he lived over the road from her, J prayed for me and George and Jill, she prayed for peace for us, but we never found peace.

lets go back 30 2006

I knew at some point I didn’t have a future in the job I was in, and I was struggling so much to make ends meet and to communicate with the lady of the house, I started looking in ‘The Lady’ magazine for overseas jobs, as I wanted to travel, often there were jobs in Spain, France or Italy, most of the time people were looking for couples to mind holiday homes, or au pairs, I didn’t want to go to Spain, it seems very hot there and I don’t want hot weather, so I enquired about jobs in Italy and France, and ended up using my holiday time from the tied cottage job on a trip to Italy on a work trial, it was in the Dolomites, so I thought it wouldn’t be too hot, and because it wasn’t in Southern Italy where the hypochondriac couple’s family was, that would prevent any comparing and problems.

 But I decided quickly that the pressure I would be under and the Italian lifestyle wouldn’t work, it was useful to find out though, that the Italian courses I had done in my spare time (along with Welsh, Irish and French) were very valid and helped me while I was there. I remember sitting  watching an English film in Italy and someone asked me to translate an Italian word into English and I could, and when someone shouted out a question in Italian, I knew the answer, etc.
I felt a bit less small about the hypochondriac family and their boasts once I knew some Italian and some Italian lifestyle.

When the tied cottage job was coming to an end, Jill Lihou was very much involved with me, though at the time I was not responding, Jill and George at the time were just nice people in my vague mind, my thoughts were on my doubtful future and my relationships in the Littleton Benefice, I had been to their church a few times by then, and liked it, but my heart was in L. and WInchester, and Jill had already shoehorned me busily into her and George’s housegroup, which I liked vaguely and disinterestedly, though the housegroup contained some interesting specimens, Paul – who became my ‘friend and took over my finances and screwed them up’– I will explain more later, and Margaret who was a sweet kind lady who was Married to Brian a nice man who was assistant churchwarden.

Anyway, I was struggling in my job, I was slow even when I tried to speed up, I was not deliberately slow, I tried hard, but whether anyone knew that I do not know, and my communication skills were also a great source of concern to my boss, the antidepressants were also playing a part in the demise of the job, and the boss herself being an excitable and high-strung perfectionist who expected perfection and expected chatty staff, was not happy with me, especially not when I went to two funerals in two weeks, one of these was JM’s dad’s funeral, he had died quietly at home while being washed by JM’s sister, he was in his 90s and his heart was failing, but to me JM was still as close as I had to a Mother, and I was on good terms with her parents then, it was like losing family, but in church his family who barely saw him sat in the family pews and I sat at the back alone.

After the funeral JM went a bit mad, her mother felt down and dislocated a supposedly undislocatable hip, and JM kept phoning people and raging, her mother was put in the private hospital and it all got sorted out, I remember going in the hospital to see JM’s mother with her, her mother was not grieving then, but some time later when she was home she kept crying, she cried when she was with me several times and was nice and kind to me at the same time instead of being rude or shouting at me. JM’s dad was quite a gentle person and his death was sad.

I cannot remember the other funeral, it may have been my aunt, in which case that funeral entailed an exhausting interaction with my family, where my mum and my long-estranged sister had problems with each other and my brother who abused me as a child caused me problems. Or was it JP’s funeral? She died while I was there, definitely, but there was so many deaths in my life, too many, though no one I was too close to at the time, I know that the aunt’s funeral happened sometime in those few years, so I think that was it, I remember Anne comforting me,although I wasn’t deeply grieved, my aunt was elderly and at peace, and I remember the long drive to the midlands for the funeral.

Anyway, the I remember coming back from a funeral and being unable to take in the boss lady’s chatter, she told me her brother had had a nervous breakdown, she told me we were shearing the sheep soon and that her son wanted to come back and live at home, I was ill, I collapsed and she called the doctor out to see me at home.

I had to look for somewhere to live, I felt so useless and so ashamed of my inability to do a good job, I found lodgings with a single woman who was a heavy smoker who called me ‘mate’, but communication went awry, and in the meantime Jill phoned when she found I was moving and struggling, and she asked me to go and live with her and George for a few weeks, I agreed this, and stumbled into their ordered house with my chaotic life and possessions, oh God I wish for all our sakes I could turn back time and undo that move.

 I was off the stupid venaflaxine, but I think that coming off it may have been a contributor to my collapsed and depressed state but taking it had affected my heart and blood pressure, thus affecting my work.

 At Jill and George’s house I dozed and fought with my emotions and grief, this was bad for Jill because of her own emotional problems, but at the time I had no idea of this.

Jill and George were actually preparing to go on holiday in their camper van when they took me in, so it was somewhat irrational of them to take me in anyway, they decided to leave me in their house while they were gone, a Christian act of trust, they must have known me well enough to do this so why do the Jersey Deanery constantly use them against me?

 George wrote a ‘List of instructions for the lodger’ which was funny, he was a walking sense of humour and that gained my confidence and I remember one evening he was watering the plants and he said ‘That one is not doing well, what should I do?’ I said ‘I would sing to it’ he said     ‘I have done’, I said ‘That’s why it is dying’ and he said ‘how would you like to sleep in the shed?’. From then on we made jokes and wound each other up and bewildered Jill no end, good therapy for me.

They went off to Switzerland, as they did regularly, they left me with a bit of paper that said on it a quote from Ezekiel about the Lord delighting over you with singing, they seemed to think it would help, Jill was a bit frightened because before they went she had wheedled me into talking and had learned of my depression and suicidal thoughts, but I only found out later it had frightened her, and it made me feel bad.

I behaved myself, and Elizabeth and Richard, church people across the Road, and Jane and Kelvin Taylor, the curate and his wife next door, kept an eye on me on Jill and George’s behalf.

 Elizabeth came round while they were away and saw I was hoovering and said I was like a good daughter to them, I said I was nothing of the kind and she said ‘adoptive daughter, you know what I mean’, but I said I was not, I was too raw from JM and FM and also probably from the hypochondriacs and their family, I wasn’t anyone’s daughter, I was still waiting for God to answer my prayer for a family.

Elizabeth and Richard were good to me, and I ended up doing their garden for them and also worrying about them as they and their family seemed to be having a run of serious health problems and bad luck. I think it was surprising to me to see good Christians of such good standing in the church struggling so much that they were doing dog walking and cleaning to make ends meet.

Nigel was the vicar, he was a nice staid type but Jill kept going to him about my problems and going on about me, so I was ashamed to speak to him, Nigel had been widowed, his wife had died of Motor Neurone disease, Elizabeth  gave me a special framed bit of paper called the prodigal daughter, it had belonged to Nigel’s wife, who they said had seemed closer and closer to God as she died, While I was in that church, Nigel met a divorcee called Sheree, she had three cavalier spaniels and that’s how Nigel got to know her, because he and Liz had had a Cavalier spaniel, anyway, Nigel married Sheree but not in church as she was a divorcee, there was a blessing service and Jill and George were invited but I wasn’t, but when I first met Sheree, Jill told me that she was a speech therapist, and Jill was determined that Sheree was going to help me, and she was so nice, but she didn’t help me or get involved or want to.

The other person in the village who I did not like Jill talking about me to was one of my old Sparsholt Tutors. But Jill did as she pleased, I was the one in the wrong if I spoke up. When George and Jill came back from their holiday, they made a fuss of me and their clean tidy house, and they said I could stay with them until their family came over from Jersey in October for half-term.

lets go back 29 2005-2006

Anyway, on return to Hampshire I was greeted by bad news, I went straight to see my friends in L. when I got back, and JM had said they would be ok while I was away, but when I went to see Anne and her husband, Anne told me she had cancer. The cancer she died of in January this year after just over 5 years fight with it. 5 years of prayers and worries.
(This was written in 2011).

It was December, I had been offered another tied cottage job, at ******, I moved there, it has similarities to the previous job, and differences, the handyman was honest and not an alcoholic, and the place was in much better repair than the last one, the head gardener was full of himself and was not a quiet old fashioned type like Ted, but this head gardener got cancer and died very rapidly while I was there.

 The cottage was an old well house and you could feel the well underneath, and the cold, and the house felt haunted and unhappy, the lady was massively demanding again, and had health problems, her husband was away in London a lot, there was a small flock of rare breed sheep, two dogs and a vicious old cat, my job was gardening, including the vegetables, assisting with the sheep and pets, and caretaking during their frequent trips to their farmhouse in Wales , it was even more difficult to get things right for this lady, and my self esteem was lower than ever, but at least the well house and its garden were smaller And more compact and therefore easier to maintain, though there was a problem with the boiler that cost me a bit. In this new job I also avoided letting JM be involved, and did not even tell her my address.
(Hence the emails that you see between me and JM in Jersey stating that she feels privilaged to have my address!)

Christmas 2005: I was alone, previous Christmases had been with the names redacted, and JM and family, I think there was a Christmas with the Hypochondriac couple, but this Christmas everyone was away, with someone else, had family with them, and so I was alone, I felt so sad, but the saddest thing was that my friends seemed to have forgotten to even ask where I was for Christmas.

 No-one cared, I felt utterly and completely alone in the world. Then my brother rang and invited me, I did not know if I would really be able to make the journey from Hampshire to North Norfolk and back with snow forecast there.

It would be a long drive for me. I was going to go on Christmas day itself if I did go because I was on caretaking duties until then, on Christmas eve night I did not want to go to L. church and see FM and feel upset, even though SL. was hoping I would, so I went to S. church instead, JM’s curate was doing the service, JM had made best efforts to get between me and her curate and cause problems, but I wasn’t interested in that, I just enjoyed the service and felt sad at the same time.

 Afterwards E and P.M spoke to me, they had their family with them for Christmas but kindly told me I was welcome to ‘pop in’ over Christmas, that cheered me no end, but being autistic and more concerned about boundaries I was not sure when or how to ‘pop in’ and I didn’t in the end.

 Then I went back in church, JM’s curate asked if I was alright, I was extremely wary of talking to him, but I asked him to pray for me, he asked if I was ok and if I had somewhere to be for Christmas – and this is what made such a difference! Most of my friends hadn’t asked where I was for Christmas and here was this guy I didn’t get on with asking me where I was for Christmas! I told him I thought I had somewhere to go, he said I was in his prayers, and he gave me a hug!

There we were in the churchyard at 1am on Christmas morning and this man who I usually ran away from was hugging me and praying for me! In his hug and concern I felt that Jesus was hugging me and showing His concern and forgiveness also, and I was repentant of being unfriendly to the curate, and I looked at my life and wondered how I could be a better Christian, I went home thanking God and feeling better, but I was crying, and my cat cuddled into my arms and purred and kissed the tears off my cheeks.

The Christmas was one of violent rows between my brother and his wife, at one point she picked up the cordless phone and threw it, smashing it and making me hurtle out the back door.
I came back on Boxing Day or the day after and I was ill, it was snowing on the way back, and the traffic on the M25 was terrible, it took many hours to get home.

After Christmas I wanted to get stuck into this Christianity thing, the Christianity thing that caused my least favourite curate to hug me and pray for me, JM got silly about this, having not heard what had happened properly, and decided that I had gone from hating her curate to fancying him, I certainly didn’t I still had the strange flashbacks when I saw him, but I asked him if he had time to talk to me, I wanted to know how to be a Christian despite all my problems, I wanted to be able to call myself a Christian, which I didn’t because of my lack of love and trust and my behaviour.

The curate didn’t sit down and talk to me, not surprising, JM was giving her opinion of me to anyone caused them to not want to sit down and talk to me. But AD, one of the new input into the church, and the new Reader, was charmingly delighted to sit down with his wife and talk to me about Christianity and their journey in faith, I was delighted, they are so lovely, and even when I saw AD. more recently he greeted me with a joyful and friendly handshake, though that was a few months ago, so the diocese’s message of condemnation may well have reached him now.

AD and his wife became people who I would sit with in church, people I could talk to, it did not become a friendship where I went round to their house, apart from the fact that I went to mission support group at their house, Jane Fisher would be round there with her gun if I did that now – the diocese have a policy banning abuse victims from clergy homes and excluding them, either of my abusers would be welcome to mission support group, but I would no longer be allowed.

 Anyway, AD asked me if I would like to be Mission Contact for our Missionary in South America, I was delighted and Honoured, I never got very far with that due to going away to college.

 Anyway, the hypochondriac couple were also very big in the mission support group, but when my relationship with them broke down, that didn’t affect us in the group, I do not know if they talked to the D’s about me, but if they did it did no harm, church position holders tend to talk about their differences with people, because unlike the Catholics they are not taught it is harmful and sinful, it was when they talked to JM or their daughter in law behind my back that harm was done because they were given incorrect advice.
Basically if a friendship has problems, it can either be resolved through talking, or ended, gabbing behind someone’s back solves nothing and wounds the person involved.

 JM admitted that they had talked to her, and I told her for the hundredth time that she was breaching confidentiality and causing me problems, she was my ex-counsellor and she not only talked about me behind my back and without my permission, but she shared details with FM and her mother, which as a professional she should not do and which caused them to stick their oar in too and humiliated me.

I redid my baptism, I wasn’t happy about FM and the F’s being my ‘sponsors’ for the original baptism, none of them were ‘upholding me’ and FM had abused me. I decided to invite everyone who was really there for me at Christmas apart from the curate, ie no-one, I baptised myself from the water of the sea, and then in extreme co-incidence my brother rang, we talked and he asked if I knew that my sister lived just up the road from where I told him I was, I said no I hadn’t heard from her since she divorced and the flat was sold, I only knew she was managing fast food shops and killing herself with work.

My sister had returned to her gardening/labouring career and had bought a new flat, in this old area where we had lived as children and always loved, My brother phoned her and asked if I could go and see her, she was waiting outside, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, she was a smoker, her situation was bad, she kept being rushed to hospital with heart problems and her neighbours were hounding her and she had been assaulted while living there, she was depressed.

But she made me welcome, heard about my baptism and said a prayer for me and gave me a cross and a little card thing with a saying about the cross on it, she said she was my Godmother now, and we laughed, but I didn’t think she would stay in my life, so I never told my friends I had a sister, I ended up calling her my ‘fairly odd mother’ after the cartoon ‘the fairly oddparents’, and I told people she was my Godmother or ‘my fairly oddmother’, rather than give them the idea I had real family around me if she wasn’t going to stay around, I feel bad about this now, guilty, I should have been honest but I guessed that she was going to move on and lose touch, I really didn’t have faith in a member of my family.

 But we had fun, we drove along the motorway listening to songs we liked on top volume, we went to the chip shop and asked for a large sausage and giggled ourselves silly, but I worried about her and her heart problems that kept landing her in the hospital, and her scary neighbours, I worried.

She was trying to sell her flat and move closer to her work, but having no success, and she was depressed, then suddenly it all changed, she met someone at work, she moved in with him, she married him, she had a baby, I was happy for her, it all happened quickly, and it meant I saw less of her, but what mattered to me was that she was happy and her life had come right, so I lost the usual time I had with her, and in the end I did lose her, we had differences, she had a temper worse than mine at times, and with the fall outs of the family around Dad’s death, and what happened to me in Jersey, which none of my family understoodI did lose her.

I continued delivery driving, and also started getting tax credits, my hours were 12 per week plus caretaking in return for the house and £66 per week, so I should have been better off, only I couldn’t manage money or my spiralling debts, which were made worse by bank charge upon bank charge for not having enough in my account to pay bills, I would be charged and then they would charge again if that charge bounced and would not wait to present the next one, I was so hopeless at communication and could not afford the 0845 numbers to people who would not help anyway, so it got worse and worse.