Anything and everything

I am considering doing a linked blog to my childhood story, which is fully written.

But I thought to get back into the Jersey story, I will try to do a brief chronology.

It was  July 2008 when I arrived in Jersey.
I met the churchwarden in July or August.

The Churchwarden ‘adopted’ me within weeks of meeting me.

It was October or november he first introduced inappropriate touch,
and he had already been talking inappropriately. 

It was November that the Churchwarden got me to go and live with them,
but he was already behaving wrongly, and churchpeople had observed him
holding my hand, hugging me etc, but done nothing, while his wife disapproved.

There was a disasterous Christmas, described elsewhere,
and immediately after this, the Churchwarden’s behaviour got much more inappropriate.

I became sick with depression and was told that it was a virus by doctors,
who had no idea what was going on.
 The churchwarden’s wife went on about me ‘beating myself up’
But never told me what it meant.

By March 2008, I had referred myself to Autism Jersey and
was having counselling, but not feeling any better,
Being regressed when my original childhood was so bad
was as bad as the sexual abuse

The counsellor told me that what the churchwarden was doing was wrong
and told me to slap him on the nose when he crossed boundaries
but didn’t completely realise that my sense of boundaries was impaired.

In April/May, I was actively looking for a new home and 
the Churchwarden’s wife, though openly resenting me,
was helping me look,
while her husband was talking about how
I would come round for supper every day when I left
which neither I nor his wife, agreed with

I was still suffering stress and depression
as you will see in the ‘year of emails’ 
when I launch it on the blog.

I moved out without saying goodbye
and tried to cope with life
after being part of a family
while the churchwarden sought incorrect advice
from a group who mess with lives and use God’s name in vain
‘The walk of 1000 men
chauvenist charismatic evangelicals
who are like rabid wolves 
after souls but with no concern for human welfare

the churchwarden had told me in detail
how he had been inappropriate with 
young women during partaking in
this dangerous charismatic rubbish

By summer 2008, my life was in collapse
From summer 2008 to Autumn 2010
I fought the church of england in vain to do something
about the abuse and subsequent cover up and discrediting of me
but I ended up homeless and with a criminal record instead.

The church, to this day, prefer destroying me rather than dealing 
with my side of things and my abusers.
And they use my distress and mustrust against me 
to continue to villify me.

 

 

 

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.

The Churchwarden’s neighbour

It is and was sad and baffling to me.

The Churchwarden and his wife had a road one side of their house and neighbours the other side.

The neighbours were a married couple, and the mother of the wife of the couple lived with them.

It was a very sad situation, because the couple didn’t love each other, and the wife said that they stayed together because they each owned half of the house and neither wanted to sell.
To me, this was incomprehensible, they didn’t like each other, surely it would be better to sell or come to some agreement where they were not living together unhappy?

Anyway, the wife had major problems, she frequently attempted suicide, and for some incomprehensible reason, she usually ended up in Jersey’s general hospital rather than the psychiatric one.
But her husband was rude to her and about her even so.

I remember her coming round sometimes, she was always nice to me, she came round one day, a bit hyper, and said she had a proposition for me, I was puzzled, so I told her about Horace, my pet seagull who was in the garden, he was a juvenile seagull. The churchwarden used to throw water at the seagulls, which funnily enough made them fly away.
Anyway, this neighbour wanted me to sit with her mother some evenings while she was out at the eistedfodd, because she taught some of the entrants, and she would give me piano lessons in return, which was great for me as I was really keen to learn and so I agreed to sit with her mother.

Her mother was a lovely lady, she just watched television quietly, I was very shy, too shy really, but she got me to sit at the paino, because she thought I could play, but I was not very good, she got me to do a duet with her, and told me which keys I needed, but I felt a bit silly, but she told everyone I could play quite well.

Anyway, the neighbour lady continued to have problems, and came round seemingly drunk when we were having lunch one day, her son had had a skiiing accident, and she was on new meds and had possibly overdosed and seemed drunk and worried the family.

The churchwarden had a special arrangement with the neighbour lady, and it still worries me.
She liked him.
He would cuddle her, just as he cuddled me.Only he did not sit her on his lap or anything when she came round.
But she did come round and ask him to fix this and that in her house, so he would go round there.
It was when I asked him if he went round there to cuddle her and he grinned and didn’t say anything, that I wondered, eventually he said that she was lonely.
Which she was.
I cannot imagine what it is like to have to live with someone you don’t love or get on with and feel so bad as she did.
She had three children who were grown up and gone.

It was a while after I had left the churchwarden and his wife, and I was suffering terribly as a result of reporting him, that the neighbour lady was reported dead, she was found on the beach or in the sea, and the verdict was ‘drowning’ rather than ‘suicide’, which is why I wanted to die in the sea, to get a better verdict.
I am pretty sure it was suicide but of course I don’t know any details.

I thought it was so sad, she had a home, three children, and an occupation teaching music, and a churchwarden who loved to cuddle her, if she had all that then what hope was there for me with nothing?

No, it was sad and shocking, and of course, what could I do about her death? Nothing, because of course I was as estranged from her as I was from the churchwarden family.
It just seemed such a very sad situation, she had attempted suicide for so long and obviously not found any relief in remaining alive, no help through medicine or any ‘services’ offered in Jersey.

Seeking help, diagnosis and assistance continued

Mid 20s.

Battling exhaustion, at least the doctors did blood tests, but did not find much and were vague, life was simply too much for me, so I was exhausted.

Assessment and diagnosis for autism spectrum was stressful but after a few weeks of shock, I started to feel valid, human, not just ‘awkward’, ‘troublesome’ and ‘odd’ as JM and others said.
But I was alone with the shock, still with inadequate help.
I used to drive to the leisure park and just sit there because I was too numb and confused to skate or see a movie.

The Diagnosis read Asperger Syndrome, Depression (already Diagnosed), and ‘Social Phobia’.
At last, fairly clear diagnosis, although I believe that the social phobia is agoraphobia, sadly even this breakthrough was not without problems.

Firstly, it surprises me that the Maudsley did not pick up on Post Traumatic Stress or psychological trauma.
Secondly they did write some rubbish on that report. They wrote that I ‘fantasized’ about having a boyfriend, that is yuk, fantasized? RUBBISH!
The assessment was not long after I had broken up with G. and I was surprised when the nurse went on and on about didn’t I wish I had a boyfriend? until I said ‘yeah, I guess so’.
I was not in the slightest bit bothered by being single, just as I am not now. I have never approached anyone to ask them out and have been asked out a few times, resulting in 3 relationships in my adulthood, which are an extra responsibility for me and not something I look for. I do not and did not ‘fantasize’ and I think that is a disgusting, degrading and misleading statement.

Anyway, onwards from there, it was recommended I was put on an antidepressant which should not be given to people with blood pressure risks, and even by then (and untreated even now), my blood pressure was not right, and my close family have a blood pressure history, on both sides and in my siblings.
So I was put on this drug, presumably because one of the people who took me to the Maudsley was on this drug himself and suggested it.
It made me very ill before I withdrew from it on my own, as I did with all the others.

The Maudsley recommended that I had further assessment including brain scan and screening for mental illness, and they recommended behavioural therapy.

Well, I was thus referred to a psychiatrist, I thought all psychiatrists were old men in white coats, but this one was a polite young man.
As far as I know, and I am pretty sure, no further mental illness was found, no diagnosis made. I was at a bit of a loss when it came to talking to the psychiatrist, because it was the same as seeing a counsellor, I do not know how to interact. He was very nice anyway, I only saw him a few times, no behavioural therapy at all was available on the NHS there, so he referred me to some day courses in anxiety management and anger management, but again, I could not learn from them, firstly I had trouble getting in to the building where they were and getting a seat, which made me too anxious to learn anyway, and there was no helpful content, sadly. it was like that self-help course, it was not anything I could take in and use.

Anyway, the polite young psychiatrist, after a few sessions, told me he was leaving as he had a new job, so that was that, I was referred to two very ugly women, one was presumably a psychiatrist and the other her trainee, they were not only incredibly lacking in charm and sparkle, but they did not help me and even turned up on my doorstep one time without my permission, so I dismissed them.
Basically, psychiatry can do little for me, because my conditions are not really something they can do much with, psychological help is vastly more appropriate and I also feel much safer with psychology than psychiatry, my head needs soothing and untangling, not messing with.

Anyway, with regards behavioural therapy, the lengths I went to to get that therapy was incredible.
It was not available on the NHS in Hampshire, so I contacted the NAS and wailed miserably at them about how I had been DIAGNOSED and Needed HELP!
They sent me a list of behavioural therapists who could help people on the Autistic Spectrum, and it turned out that none of these were in Hampshire, the nearest was in Sussex, and I considered it, spoke to the therapist in Sussex and one in Dorset, but the combined costs of travel and fees were simply too much.
Stumped.

I wrote to the Hampshire Chronicle, asking if they could appeal for help for me, I got no response and felt shamed.

I continued to seek help, and looked through lists of counsellors, found one near Winchester who worked with trauma and abuse, and she worked with me, for reduced fee, for two years, and helped me tremendously with communication and relationships and overcoming some of my overwhelming past. She even had a book of metaphors for people on the autistic spectrum to learn.
But behavioural therapy, which I also still needed, remained out of reach.

MIND outings and socials- Happier memories, early 20s

I self-referred to MIND in my early 20s to ensure I wasn’t too isolated and to encourage myself to socialize.

Because, just as I have done now, I developed a liking for being alone in my home, alone, no company, just drifting, and I know, however much I like drifting, I need to keep trying to spend time with others.

The Social groups were overwhelming for me at first, too much for me, so I would hide in a side room, and a support worker would either keep me company or coax me out to join the group, she was  a very nice support worker, who remained supportive and friendly until she left to move away.

It took me a while to feel safe in that group, and at first I just stayed in the corner and trekked to the urn for more tea every few minutes 🙂

The breakthrough was when the male support worker, another safe, helpful person, took to sitting with me and drawing cartoons and playing noughts and crosses. This progressively grew until a whole group of us were playing noughts and crosses, drawing cartoons and making each other laugh by captioning each other’s cartoons 🙂 

We progressed to me being able to play pool or ‘killer’ with them as well, which was great! 🙂 These skills, simple as they were, did help me.

I joined some music sessions and various MIND things but was busy with work and other things and didn’t keep anything apart from social group and outings up.

I made a friend or two at social, but everyone had problems and some of them never got my name right, nor did I learn everyone’s name, but it was good to be in a social setting where I wasn’t the lone vulnerable person in a church of england church.

I made a friend with an excitable young woman who was so like my old friend at college, so similar, and as at college, we made each other hyper and silly.

Outings were fun, we had a number of outings to the coast, enjoying strolling, sightseeing, going out on motor boat trips, and the usual seaside things.

We had a look round a historic village one time, and we often went to a market in the next county, it all added variety to a basic hand-to-mouth lifestyle.

Some of the trips I found harder were the ones that included the pub, the driver, who was not really part of MIND, jeered because I didn’t want to go in the pub for a drink with the others, but back then, I had only been in a pub a few times in my life, when I was 18 and 19 for Birthday meals with the people I lodged with, and for two of my brothers’ wedding receptions, and those were meals, not drinking times, I did not want to go into a pub and drink, but during a MIND trip, we simply stopped at a pub, and I was unprepared and bewildered.

The other time I found difficult, which was otherwise a good trip, was when we went out on a boat, it was a boat that did trips for disabled people, and we went out, but I was with the nice female support worker, and one of the staff was flirting with her and chatting to her, leaning over us and leaning in, and even then, and even now, I cannot cope with being leaned over or stood over if I am sitting, because I feel too vulnerable, especially if it is a man.

So I was getting anxious, and I tried to get away, and the man scornfully said to the support worker ‘I suppose you are used to this’, as if I was an animal, no feelings, no ears, such a wrong attitude, and he was causing the problem.

Sometimes living with the conditions I have is like that, extra hurts from being misunderstood on top of the daily struggles to live independently.

Anyway, never mind the less happy bits, we had fun, we had great fun, and I am grateful for it, I am grateful to anything that breaks up this difficult life and gives it some colour.

We went to a football match once, now that was fun, although we had to stand up all the time.

We had a great time, and on the way to the match, we had to stop for fuel for the minibus, and there in the petrol station was someone dressed as Elvis, that caused us much amusement! 🙂

One time I attempted to play squash with another MIND client, but I couldn’t afford to keep that up, and I was too shy really.

MIND did a great thing in helping me to communicate and interact and socialize, but they didn’t help me towards further diagnosis or treatment, aside from the social side of things, they didn’t really notice me, and despite me speaking to them, they kept wrongly addressing my newsletters and paperwork, so in the end when they restructured without me knowing, that was probably because they sent the information to the wrong address or simply forgot me.

So I was not told that this valuable resource had been lost, and I was left with nothing to replace it.

seeking help and support continued

aged 20+

• I applied for help from a Christian counselling service in Winchester. They did not come across as very professional or helpful, and contacted JM about me without permission to get further details. I attended some sessions but due to that breach of confidences and JM’s usual unhelpful opinion of me, including me not being autistic but being awkward and her usual stories of me ‘acting out’ etc, I never settled to that counselling. And when I was working, the buses never ran on time so I simply could not get to the sessions. (funnily enough, when I arrived back in Winchester, homeless in 2010, my new GP told me no counselling was available on the NHS and I should contact the Christian counselling service, I explained to her that as Jane Fisher and the Bishop had maligned me to every church in Winchester, and the counsellors would be from those churches, it would be another humiliating waste of time at least and another avenue for Fisher and the Bishop to try and have me labelled as mad at most.
• Back to the past. I was told that ‘Connexions’ a youth support service, helped people with learning difficulties up to age 25, and a youth worker went with me to see them, it was a pointless exercise, they saw me twice, didn’t agree that they helped people up to age 25 and told me I came across as Autistic and that I should read a book called ‘Feel the Fear and do it Anyway’, which was pointless advice as it had been one of my first self-help books as a teenager and was not relevant to my ongoing struggles. I remained disappointed by Connexions for a long time.
• Sadly both MIND and the Youth Service restructured at the same time, both leaving me with no real support, and the MIND social group was gone, as was the Youth Centre, and there was no real replacement, and in the case of MIND, they neither warned me nor explained, which was really really bad.
• I am mainly talking about the emotional, mental and practical support I sought at this time, I will do a separate blog on the physical health issues that the NHS let me down on.
• Anyway, no counselling or therapy or even much support by the time I moved to a new home and job.
• I became increasingly depressed, trying to earn enough to live on, trying to cope with a church social life that was overloading my system and also not able to manage the trauma from my background and also cope with day to day life, now looking after a 2 bedroomed house on my own. so being put on yet another anti-depressant. When I became very tired, I did not really associate this or the extreme tiredness and increased depression with the anti-depressants at the time, but looking back, it may well have been that.
• I was on the waiting list for autism assessment by this point, but I was waiting for a long time.

Autism Jersey Part 1

Philip LeClaire worked for Autism Jersey, and several people had recommended his help by the time I made contact with him.

I actually met him before I made contact with him, funnily enough I met him at St. Andrews Church, where I was with (the churchwarden and his wife).
Philip and his wife and son ***, who has Asperger Syndrome, came to St. Andrews to pick up some clothes and odds and ends that the church had to dispose of from a fete.
Autism Jersey had just started a charity shop and needed the clothes and odds and ends for stock.

The Churchwarden was hugging me as we sorted out the things for autism Jersey, and a lady came downstairs from church and saw him but said nothing and did nothing and the Churchwarden pulled away from me.

When I made contact with Philip as a potential client of Autism Jersey, he was kind and friendly.
Which he was for a lot of the time I knew him but he was overstetched with work and the extra
stress must have been hard for him.
Credit to him for the lengths he went to to help me and to help others with Autism!

I did not meet Philip for a while after making contact with him, I didn’t meet him until things started going downhill, and I was so used to my privacy being violated that I begged him not to contact the Churchwarden couple about me, and was impressed when he said that he would not dream of making contact about me without my permission.

I was not sure how Philip could help me, I had been having counselling when I first contacted him but was not benefitting greatly, could not bond with the counsellor and couldn’t afford to keep the counselling going. I was not sure how Philip could help me. And while having counselling and while the churchwarden couple were involved with me, I did not want too much extra support as I get overwhelmed by being too supported and I have meltdowns, which means I collapse and get angry and things.
(now thought to be caused by reactive attachment disorder that went untreated when I was young).

I met Philip at some point, and he was nice, but I realised he was virtually running Autism Jersey on his own.
He was the only full-time member of staff and the only paid member of staff as far as I know, although ******** may have been paid.

Philip ran the office, courses for schools, businesses and organizations, helpline, office, and oversaw everything, deeply and passionately commited to making life better for people with autism and people around them.

Autism Jersey had a team of volunteers, these ran the shop and did fundraising and other work. I helped in the shop sometimes and also helped on checkpoints for the sponsored walk that raised money for Autism Jersey, I also counted the money that came in through collection boxes, mainly small change.

The person who was most involved apart from Philip was ******* ******, who had an office next to Philip’s office. I remember her saying something about putting her head through the door to speak to me, and as I sometimes do with things like that, I looked startled and Philip and ******* laughed because it didn’t mean literally putting her head through the door. But we always remembered that and laughed about it.
(despite being quite adept at figures of speech and metaphors once I know them, I can still be caught out by them and see literal pictures when they are used)

******* ran a befriending scheme which she put me on, but it takes a long time to match clients to befrienders, so it was months before we found me a befriender. The aim was to encourage me to socialise and be less isolated.

Philip wasn’t aware of the full extent of the churchwarden situation until some time after I met him, he knew there were problems though.

It wasn’t until I didn’t turn up for an appointment at the supported employment centre that they realised I was in real difficulties and contacted Philip as they said it was unlike me to not turn up.

I was struggling and I was on an anti-depressant/sedative combination which was preventing me from waking up or staying awake and that is why I missed the appointment.

Philip made contact and I met with him, I told him everything and he wanted me to see a social worker with him and he mentioned the police.

Philip really stepped in to support me then, and especially as Bob Key messed up the complaint and left me struggling more and I phoned Philip’s supportline one evening as I was so upset.

Philip was very supportive but the damage done to me by the churchwarden couple was really bad, I had been regressed so I was ‘****’s ‘little girl’ and I had been hurt and belittled and was now alone with no ‘God-sent family’ and then Bob Key was confronting me and obstructing my complaint.
but Philip got my agreement to get someone from social services in, he assured me that Social Services in Jersey were good, not like Social Services in England.

So we met with ******, the social worker and she heard everything, was nice, and talked to me about getting the police involved.

Eventually, I agreed with Philip and ****** to go to the police, they told me I had to make the decision but they did not want **** to do the same again to anyone else.

The police met us for an initial interview and told us that due to the caseload from Haute de la Garenne, they would have to delay interviewing me.

In the meantime I went to England as I saw the churchwarden couple wherever I went and it was upsetting me, and **** laughed when he saw me, as if my complaint was a joke. I have a feeling that he thought his connections and friendship with the right people would get him let off entirely, as well as his story of how the regression and abuse were his method of healing me.

I had a nightmare time lost in Hampshire, not able to really be part of my old community or settle, not enough money to live on and no-one to turn to, with JM, due to her involvement in Jersey with the Dean and the churchwarden couple, and her discussion of it with her family – as usual not respecting professional boundaries, giving me a hard time.

Before I had left England, I had contacted the leader of an evangelizing walk that the churchwarden couple were due to go on, the reason for this was that he had told me stories of inappropriate conversation he had had on previous such walks, with young females. The evangelist who led the walk was also the one who had been in Jersey for the ‘Mission’, the awful brainwashing stunt that that type do.
(I am scarred by their awful games).

I had two trips back to Jersey during my time in Hampshire, to do police statements, I do not remember much, I must have met DC **** and I was also interviewed in a house with a video so my evidence was videoed.

I will never forget the way ****** tried so hard not to laugh, and so did the policewoman, when I described sex when I was asked to.
I think they had to wait until later to go and howl with laughter because even I knew it was funny.

After six weeks, still deeply damaged and depressed, I returned to Jersey to new lodgings as I had had to give up my old tenancy. I remained deeply depressed and the churchwarden couple were on the radio about how they were running the church fete and their number was given out to anyone who had things to donate. I was angry that neither Bob Key nor the Diocese had done anything about ****, but they still haven’t.

My new home was with an old army associate of Philip’s. (Perfectly safe, and it was coincidental and not due to Philip that I found that home).

I went to work in a factory up until christmas as there was no outdoor work available. (It was soul destroying and I remembered how the churchwarden family would ‘never do work like this, as I had been told several times).

A wait of a month or two went by before the police released the results of the investigation into the churchwarden, and I remember how distressed and anxious I was, as I continued to see the churchwarden couple leading church groups. Philip continued to work hard to help me through these times. (poor man, I think it was unfair that he had all the strain as well as being overloaded at work).

I do not know why the Korris report states that Hampshire police investigated as well as Jersey police?

Jersey Police sent the results by email, nothing could be more shocking and distressing!
They said they had let **** go due to not enough evidence.

I was very upset indeed, to be alone with this email. (which triggered a terrible situation)
Not only had they let him go but had let him go to go round saying he was cleared. He was already getting me shunned by claiming to the tight evangelical clique that he was innocent and I was something bad, and he was already using JM and the Lihous and Warrens and Keys in this. The fact he had been able to isolate me in church and give his side of the relationship all along made it all the easier for him be believed and me to be villified.

Jersey police should have met with me and someone responsible and told me things properly.

because they didn’t, they left me in a state where I was in a bad way and they used that to enforce the Jersey way, and punish me for reporting abuse, the violence and insults and police detention I received that day was more punishment that churchwarden has ever received and it is on my records, along with all the other brutalizations and detentions, to punish me until my dying day, and that is why I wish I was dead. (the message is, being an abuser is fine, being a victim and speaking up is not!).

The ensuing situation also broke my trust for Philip, but the Korris report omits it and Korris does not appear to know what happened.
And Philip’s memory proved dodgy while I was in Jersey and he recounted situations back to me incorrectly at times, so if she interviewed him, he may have also misrepresented things by accident.

I will always be grateful to Philip for the lengths he went to to help me and sorry that it didn’t work out. He hurt me inadvertantly, and I hurt him, but my situation was spiralling rapidly out of control from reporting the churchwarden onwards, the damage by the churchwarden and the church response was so severe, I could feel it in everything, and with no access to psychological support, there was little hope of recovery as I continued to be hurt in that small island community for reporting the churchwarden.

Philip is one of the people who showed me by example why there is such good in Catholic morals and ways, he is one of the first Catholics I had ever spoken to at any length, as far as I know.
I am sorry Philip, that it became such a mess.

The damage in my life remains and even now, paying for my own therapy, I am still in a bad way and still have to cancel therapy due to poverty, and I still get angry and hurt myself and others with my words.
Is there a better future ahead? I can only persevere.
Philip’s help is lasting, because he was such a rock during bad times, and because he introduced me to the Catholic church and that is how I met some of the best friends I have, who have stayed with me through the bad times and through Diocese of Winchester attempts to separate me and them.

And it was the words of those Catholics that saved my life, they told me that ‘My perceived wrongs were between me and God, and the Church of England had no right to judge me’.
The Church of England’s condemnation would have killed me in 2011 if the Catholics had not shown me a new view of things, because I could not live under the shame and condemnation, sadly even the knowledge now that God forgives me does not change the fact that the Diocese may kill me yet with their harmful interventions.

Thanks Philip.

my efforts to get help, diagnosis and assistance part 2

• Throughout my early 20s, the doctors gave me a variety of anti-depressants which invariably left me ill and didn’t help me, the doctors didn’t tend to actively moniter me on these drugs and it was a question of either making appointments and feeling stupid and a nuisance or not going back, I was never given repeat prescriptions, and to this day I puzzle as to what a repeat prescription actually is, as I simply have always had to go back to the surgery and beg for more prescriptions each time I run out and I always felt stupid about it, a waste of time. Alternately I would just let the awful andti-depressants run out, and then my work and friendships would suffer a bit less. 
• I never got much help or support from the doctors in the town where I went after the sheltered house. It was a youth worker and church people who saw me struggling and almost simultaneously discussed Asperger Syndrome and Autism with me, and lobbied the Doctor to refer me for assessment. At the time, however, there was no facility in Hampshire for assessment and so there was a very long wait as I continued to struggle with life.
• The surgery I registered with next, had good and bad to it, they had some male doctors who were famous for being rude to patients because they were ‘old school’ and thought everyone just whinged. I was vaguely monitered for depression but was very tired a lot, like I am now. I was offered a chance by the surgery to do a self-help course, I agreed, because I was keen for help. Sadly it was a kind of re-hash of things out of my self help books, and it was all women, talking about their ‘partners’ and babies, it was very boring, and I didn’t learn anything, so when they offered me a follow-up course I said no.
• The strain of struggling with life and anti-depressants became worse and worse as I approached mid-20s, and still no-one had realised I responded badly to anti-depressants, not even me. And so I was struggling and I was being blamed for struggling, my friends were mainly older, well-off church people, and their families didn’t struggle and so they didn’t see why I should be doing, I remember one of them pretty much telling me so. It is amazing how much I was not understood even by my friends sometimes, they were all very secure and had no idea of the kind of background I was from.
• I referred myself both to the Youth centre for help with various things I needed communication assistance with, and MIND, where I referred as isolated and suffeirng depression so that I could join their social club and outings. I will do another post on MIND outings, as it is another happy memory post.

TBC in further posts.

Inspired by the WRAP post, lets look at some of my efforts to get help, recover, understand myself and be understood, part 1.

• My first ever attempts to understand myself and improve life where when I was a teenager, my Dad wouldn’t accept my leaning difficulties and had frequently physically punished me but that had not improved anything, so I bought my own text books from the money I earned doing a newspaper round, and I taught myself. I found that I could teach myself and that learning became fun, no longer an ordeal of being afraid of punishment.
• I was also a teenager when I first found out about bullying, really found out, from a book, and pretty much stopped my sister’s daily torment of me. She was a year older than me and had spent my whole life belittling me and making me feel stupid and small. You wonder why I am so irritable? I think that played a small part in it, I feel small and stupid still, but she pretty much stopped when I learned from the bullying book and told her off.
• The first year I spent at college was when I did my GCSE’s, and back then I was so afraid of ‘The Social Services’ and other similar services that I freaked out whenever learning support approached me, because I was afraid that they were the same thing, so I missed out on valuable help there.
• The Second college year was when I left home to go to the Agricultural College, this is when I started to develop independence, although my family still had great influence on me, with my Mum phoning me about ‘Jihads that might kill us’ etc, and leaving me terrified. In agricultural college I referred myself for counselling, which was entirely against my parents’ beliefs and wishes and my Mum was very vocal on the topic, saying it is better to speak to a friend than ‘one of them’, in that case though, she was almost right, as the counsellor was merely a tutor who earned extra money for the label ‘counsellor’ and if anything, his involvement made things more complex and certainly did not bring any insight into ‘what was wrong’, as I had been increasingly aware through my teenage years that ‘something was wrong’. I do not know if I directly connected my problems to what had happened in the past then, I think I kind of knew, but didn’t realise the depth of it.
• Self-help. Because counselling was not working effectively, I started self-help, through books and tapes. I became addicted to it, and thankfully, being young and autistic, I managed to memorise some social skills from the books and tapes, which did help me, advice like, ‘don’t go round looking miserable, smile’, I learned to smile instead of my face being stuck in an unhappy mask, it did help.
• I also continued to seek help but didn’t know either what was wrong or what help I needed. I was not put on regular learning support because I passed the basic skills tests and so they thought I was ok. When counselling at the college didn’t work, I sought counselling elsewhere, I went to the Youth Centre in Winchester but they were very vague and their counsellors who were trainee counsellors, did not know what to make of my silence and so could not offer anything. So again I was left with no help and nowhere to turn.
• The college student officer didn’t understand me and treated me with scorn, and the feeling was mutual because I really didn’t like her or her ethics. She referred me to the college doctor, the first doctor I had actually seen, apart from a police doctor when I was 12 and a doctor friend of my mum’s when I was about 11. My parents had taught me that Doctors were bad news, so that didn’t help, but when he asked if I was hearing voices because of my hypersensitivity to noise outside and because of the bad view that the student support officer had of me being ‘odd’ and not fitting in, I was furious, and again, there was no help available. Horrifying prejudiced perceptions, but as I was not hearing voices, the end result was me upset, angry, believing that my parents could be right about doctors, and with no help.
• When JM burst onto the scene and tried to take over the college, she also liased with the student welfare officer and as a result I nearly abandoned my request to see JM, I did end up seeing her though, and she swiftly crossed boundaries, took me home, and stopped being my counsellor and told me she was like a surrogate mum for me. Fine, but then I was without counselling again.
• When I left college, I was on anti-depressants and seeing the doctor every fortnight, the same doctor who had let me and a friend of mine down. I did not have faith in him, didn’t like him, didn’t know I had a choice and could change doctors, seeing him was not benefitting me, and the anti-depressants were leaving me in the confused and vulnerable haze that allowed FM to abuse me. Basically anti-depressants made me ill from the start and didn’t help, but you trust doctors and medicines, I guess, you think they cannot be wrong, even me, with my background, I did as I was told and took these anti-depressants and was ill all the time, as well as having FM’s advances and a crisis situation whereby I had left college and had no idea of the future.
• JM claimed that anger management could only be accessed in Hampshire if you were in the prison. She was mistaken, and I started paying most of my benefits to see an anger management psychologist, but sadly I couldn’t afford to keep that up. Later, recently  it turned out he was available on the NHS, but I am sure he wasn’t at the time.
• I joined a creative writing class to see if that would help me work some things out, but it was run by one of the tutors from the agricultural college, and so I was always ashamed to share my work, in view of the fact that back then, the college simply had not understood me. I quit the class for the same reason.
• I started studying psychology as a correspondence course and learned about autism from that and was increasingly sure I was on the spectrum, but at the time I had no idea how to get diagnosis, the doctor was basically not interested in me and my problems, and my appointments with him were a drag, so I never dared to ask him, he did only a few helpful things when i saw him, and these were not to do with mental health, he diagnosed me with hayfever and he gave me antibiotics for my tonsils, which regularly flare up and cause me problems to this day, I have got bored with taking my tonsils to the doctor, I just wash them with TCP instead.
  JM claimed that autism was ‘just a label’ that would prevent me from taking responsibility for my behaviour’, the fact that she had so much influence in my life meant she won about that and she continued to make me out to be ‘difficult’ to people in the parish, sharing my college problems and basically blatantly breaching every confidence possible, for which the diocese did not have her publicly flogged when they flogged me for ‘causing her problems’ in 2011.
• So, undiagnosed and with no form of therapeutic help, I was in ‘sheltered housing’, which was another form of help that wasn’t. I had agreed to the referral and JM had done it, because she said her friend ran the sheltered house, as it was, her friend had gone on permenant sick leave, leaving an agency support worker who came in on weekdays, in charge of the house. The agency support worker liked to party, got PMT, took it out on us, I was there for a matter of months and not receiving any benefit or support from being in such an environment, rather deteriorating as I watched or got caught up in, the other residents rows and problems, I did, however see the similarities between myself and two autistic residents there. But after a few months in the house, and a few months in the transition flat, I moved independently into independent lodgings, where I remained for years.
• So, newly independent, I worked in supported employment and continued to seek help and to try and develop myself.
• In the town I moved to, I registered with an awful surgery, but there wasn’t much choice there. The doctors were always both late and impatient. I was left with an injury from work that I was told to go back t owork with, doing lasting damage, and was eventually, too late, referred for NHS physio, which didn’t repair it, although the physio noticed I was lopsided, she and others never thought to check if I had leg length syndrome, which would have saved a lot of pain a long time ago if they had. Anyway, NHS physio didn’t work and I was left injured until I paid to go to a private clinic, where the injury was mended by re-aligning the out of place components.
• I did short courses at work on ‘confidence building’, ‘communication skills’ and ‘teamwork’, but did not find them very beneficial, as my communication did not improve, and ‘communication skills’ was geared up to making presentations rather than interpersonal skills, and I was scared of the rest of the group because I did not know them and still didn’t know how to be with people.
• Basically not a lot of help was available in those few years, I continued to work very hard on my self-help instead. and as well as that, I broke away from my parents influence, with my Dad shouting at me that ‘The Church of England were brainwashing me!’, having found out about my association with them, well he was mistaken about that, but the Church of England have done their share of harm and I can now understand why my parents disliked the Church of England, although their views were quite extreme.
• One of JM’s church members, very feminist and ‘frothy’ (JM’s way of describing airy-fairy), decided she was my ‘counsellor’ untrained and with no supervision or qualification or permission from the church, where she held various positions. She would make me sit there, and I was supposed to talk, but as ever, I had no idea how to do this (funnily enough, I still can’t talk to my therapist unless she asks me questions, I am very reactive and not very proactive when it comes to speaking and making contact verbally). Anyway, this frothy woman, who is still around in Winchester, would get me to sit there in her office as if she was counselling me, no contract or explanation, she just actively made a habit of it, rather than me seeing her and her husband for a cuppa, she would get me to go and sit in her office and talk. It was always embarrassing.

It was also unethical as she wasn’t trained for what she was trying to do and her prejudices were so extreme and so awful. JM, breaching counselling confidences herself, had given her opinion of me to this woman and she repeated them back, in what became a feature of the way the church of england treated me from start to now, prejudice, rumours and condemnation, I was not allowed to develop and grow from who I was when I struggled at college, just as the Diocese and Deanery’s attack on me has not let me grow from the terrible state I was in in Jersey.

Anyway, this woman would make me sit there, and she would tell me I shouldn’t be doing the kind of work I did because I was female, shocking prejudices that don’t belong in counselling, she was so ‘us girls and them men!’ when I don’t think like that at all, I am not feminist or in favour of segregation, I just think people should live.

Anyway, I told this woman about FM abusing me, but nothing was done, I told her in 2001 or 2002, but last time I saw her, she and her husband (now deceased) were with FM, laughing at me as I was homeless and shamed on the streets of Winchester in 2010.

I will stop for now as I am so disgusted. The Diocese have never dealt with any of this or taken my side and my account of things at all, they would whip me when these neurotypical people in authority in their churches have behaved as they have! 

This is not the post I previously mentioned, this is a link

There is not a great deal of specific support for church abuse survivors.
In the Uk there is macsas, a very crass and badly run charity, which increased the damage to me rather than helping me.
There is a group called SNAP, who are America-based but are expanding.
And there is the Hope of Survivors, who are mainly USA-based but offer support to anyone, wherever they are in the world, via internet and email.

Although the sexual abuse I suffered was from people in church postions, I also suffered badly from the way clergy have treated me as a result of the abuse, and have suffered emotional abuse at the hands of the clergy.

This is a link offered by The Hope of Survivors  http://thehopeofsurvivors.com/