bad days

well this is a crash into despair and depression.
I am trying to see a way out of it. Sometimes I can't keep all the bad memories and injustice locked in, sometimes I can't cope with the church condemning me.

I went to a church last night but it was not a friendly church, more of a talk behind their hands because I'm homeless church.
I went to the Samaritans and they tend to be very good, I saw someone I had seen before, and he is very understanding and encouraging.

Why don't I have an online church for abuse survivors and outcasts?

It is a struggle to deal with the clocks changing, it means more time waiting for bedtime in the evening, and more time waiting for the library to open in the morning.

Last night was a night of distresses and bad memories, between my family and the church I feel like the worst person in the world.
It rained enough in the early hours to wake me up, and as I slept again I was woken up by a rat trying to get into my backpack, my backpack is pillow, so having a rat right by my head was not too amusing, but when I shone my torch on it it reluctantly moved off, and when I threw gravel at it it reluctantly moved further off, the gravel sparked as I threw it, I suppose it does that in the dark.
I am not scared of rats but they are destructive and germ ridden and I don't want my food eaten by them or my backpack damaged, fortunately this backpack is rat-proof.

I got up early as it got light early and went to the market, it is really hard to be up early with nothing to do until the library opens, I had several cups of tea and a good wash and change of clothes, and went round the bins collecting stickers.

I found nearly a whole pizza in the bin yesterday, I think that was what the rat was after.

not a good day

Today isn't a good day for writing, I have only limited computer access, I am feeling low, I wish there was some way out.
The camp isn't very safe, I didn't sleep there last night but people were invading all the tents including mine.

This morning one of the aggresive camp members was picking a quarrel and saying I don't contribute anything, I replied that since when did he notice anything I did? did he notice that I bring all the food I am given and share it? did he notice that I couldn't sleep at the camp or that I had been asked to look after the information stall when I wanted to go to church? or that I tidy the kitchen every time I stand there to be out of the cigarette smoke? All I notice about him is that he stands there smoking and smoking.
He is a short man, a short man who wants to take his aggresion out on someone.
sorry nothing more cheerful to say.
Last night I saw a rare bit of television, a Bishop standing up for the protesters and saying it was the church who were wrong and not the protesters, I wonder how he copes with his church's own inhumane and wrong policies on abuse and abuse victims?

abuse

Abuse takes the beauty out of beautiful scenery, it takes away smiles and laughter, it isolates people, it shames people, it takes hopes and bright futures. Abuse is bad, and so much abuse is denied at the expense of the victim.

more help

http://www.napac.org.uk/
Napac are good.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/

Remember it is not just the Catholic church that abuse occurs in.

hm, read if you dare.

God bless everyone in the world.

I remember on the island when one of the priests said about someone saying we should even pray for the extremists and mass murderers of a certain faith, some of the people muttered about it.
Yes, it is hard for me to pray for the people who have personally harmed me, and no doubt my abusers and their supporters pray for me for show.
But I can understand praying for people who want to harm people, praying that they will repent and see a better way of doing things.

Now I have launched into this controversial subject, I am going to stop talking in case I cause outcry.
I will now continue my draft of my 17-27 story that I will publish some of next week.

a short version of an ongoing poem of comparisons

who are these people who abused you?
Christians?
well a Christian is a follower of Christ,
and did he abuse or advocate it?

who are these people who called you mad?
Christians?
did Jesus condemn madness and use it to cover his tracks?
did he wrongly accuse anyone as madness?
no, he helped legion and didn't blame him

Who are these peopel who called you wicked, a liar, mad and all those other terrible things?
Christians?
when did Jesus do this? when did he advocate it? Never, it was done to Him
these people who have done these things are covering up their own wrongdoing
at such a price to the one they do it to
just as they did to Jesus when He shamed them

who are these people, in their big houses and so surrounded by wealth and good
that they have no understanding of poverty and pain? and yet for show they claim to help the poor?
Christians?
Jesus was homeless and had nothing,
he was scorned  and crucified by the people who claimed to be teachers of God's law
think about that and think about who is writing this

Jesus died in pain and agony, who are these people who suffer nothing and live in luxury?
Christians?
did Jesus work in an organization that puts out it's hands for money, hires out it's places of worship for money and lives behind lawyers, advisers and safeguarding?
Jesus turned the tables over in the temple in anger
but the church conveniently erases that, interprets that as they like
and despises and looks down on people like me, who struggle to build a better life out of poverty

The unforgiving church destroyed me for my distress and speaking out
are these people Christians?
Jesus taught forgiveness but the church in the strong position preferred harsh punishments
just as they had Jesus crucified thousands of years ago.
just as they crucified me, though I am no-one, just a thorn in their side

Today I have nothing current to blog about, the protesters are pottering about, the Polish man is drinking himslef silly because he can't see his son until 6pm, I had a middle of the road jacket potato for lunch, I have found that my asthma is getting worse at night, it has never troubled me at night and I still sleep well, but when I wake up needing the loo I am breathless and coughing.

Nothing else to report.

So

I have to start telling you more about my story from 17-30, or sharing some random thoughts, or writing some bad poetry.

:)

that smiley is for the purpose of annoying someone I know when they read this blog, because they don't like smileys.

: D ;) :-) ;-) :P

London -the final chapter

London was harsh, built up and busy, with too many people too close, too much cigarette smoke, too few places to hide, rest, shelter, even though I made friends with homeless people and got on well with food run people and some lovely daycentre people. I remain in touch with the Christian daycentre and housegroup who looked after me.

London has a wonderful atmosphere and is full of opportunities and boroughs, I will always remember being homeless in the Capital City, but I don't know if I will ever go back.

I remember when I swapped from going to the strand to spending more time at waterloo with my 'friends', one evening the lovely kind man from the daycentre was there, he always made sure I had clean towels for a shower or clean clothes on clothing store days and he was always cheerful and smiling. When I saw him at the food run I thought he was helping out, but he told me that he himself was homeless, I was astounded and saddened, he deserved better than homelessness, he was a lovely kind man.

I remember meeting the homeless German woman at the daycentre who had a teddy on her trolley, she stopped and greeted me and the giraffe, 'Toys are such a comfort' she said, she told me that her husband was at the hospital with suspected cancer, she was so upset and she said it might be throat cancer, which is a bad one, she said that her teddy was such a comfort and she understood why I had my giraffe. She was a catholic so we prayed for each other and blessed each other.

I was still searching for help, help to help me to cope and help to protect me from further interference from the church which had been threatened and which would get me into further trouble if I tried to fight back, as before. But getting help was impossible, I tried to contact a trauma helpline but kept getting the answer machine.

The trauma helpline tried to phone a few times when I was in the daycentres where I had to turn my phone off and phoned back when I was asleep in a deckchair in the gardens at embankment, a rare time when no-one came and smoked over me and so I could actually rest. (The deckchairs are left for anyone to use in the winter) They left a message which I thought was totally incorrect, they told me that if I was in distress then I should go to casualty. I phoned back and left a message telling them that they shouldn't be encouraging people to waste casualty's time as casualty cannot treat trauma and unless someone is mentally ill, casualty will turn them away. So that was another disappointing dead end in my search for help.

However, a few weeks later the distress and horrifying memories of the way the church had stiched me up and wrongly accused me and got away with it were too much for me, and I was desparate and went to casualty and told them that a helpline had advised me to go to casualty if  I was suffering trauma, it was 9pm when I arrived at casualty, it was busy in there and I doubted going in for a minute, but the receptionist smiled and said that they would get me to see a nurse and assess me. She put me in a corner as I was shaking, terrified of leading myself into a lockup situation, of which I had suffered too many at the hands of the church.
What can anyone do for someone who is in collapse due to trauma? They can't medicate me because my autism means I react very badly to anti-depressent medications, what can they do? not a lot.

As I wait there is a man with serious mental illness there, he starts going violently out of control and has to be restrained, while he is going mad he is blocking me in the corner that I am sitting in and I panick and escape casualty, which is a high risk thing to do in case they send the polices after you, but the reception lady comes after me and gives me another quiet area to sit in and the man is sedated and taken to a ward. The church think or make me out to be mad like that man because my distress went out of control in reaction to the way the church and clergy treated me. The church are the coldest and most unsympathetic organization I have ever met.

A 'Nurse' calls out my name, and I go over, I start to explain to her why I am there, and because of my communication problems I start by telling her I have Asperger's syndrome in order to warn her that it is going to be difficult for me to explain myself, she leaps in and says she's never heard of Aspergers syndrome and doesn't let me continue but assumes that the Asperger's Syndrome is the problem and asks what symptoms it presents, I struggle to explain that thats not why I am here but she doesn't understand, I know she can't help and I ask to speak to someone else, she says that she is the head of the department and why should I speak to someone else?
 (If she is the head of department she should be trained in Autistic spectrum disorders, this is essential in case someone with an ASD comes in and has the communication problems I am having).

The level to which failed interactions like this affects me always leaves me upset or in tears, this is no exception and I go and tell the receptionist that I am leaving because even the head of department doesn't understand me. I always end up upset with myself for not being able to communicate.

I go outside, but I don't want to be alone in the dark with my despair, so I go back in and the receptionist gets a male nurse to come and talk to me, he is very cheerful and nice and communicates so clearly that he could almost be speaking autistic language, he gets me to talk to him and I tell him about me being adopted and abused in the church and the repercussions of my reactions and reportings of the abuse and how I am in so much distress every day and it is getting unbearable and how I can't stop crying when normally I don't cry.

He tells me that he will refer me to the doctor, and he takes me onto a ward, I am not good at hospital wards, the noises and lights and bustle are an autistic person's nightmare, they put me in a cubicle and I scramble onto the bed thing and try to settle down, but it is not easy, in the cubicle next to me is the mentally ill man, he has been sedated but is still furious and in and out of consciousness he growls and swears, in the other cubicle a man has been in a serious accident and has head injuries and they are trying hard to keep him awake and assess him.

Every time someone shouts or screams, I potter to the door of my cubicle because I am frightened. I don't think that being here is helping me a great deal.

In the end after a while and a few reassurances, I tuck down on the bed and leave Patrick the giraffe on guard.

I sleep, because these days I need sleep all the time, I am exhausted all the time.
It is gone midnight when a doctor comes and wakes me up, I am in a stupor but I am afraid of being told off so I leap up, but she is a nice smiley doctor and she smiles at the giraffe and asks me to explain things and I do my best, she assesses my mental state and says that it is difficult to help because I am not admitting to being suicidal and I'm not mentally ill. She tells me that normally with a vulnerable adult they would be concerned about letting me out on the streets and would prefer someone to be there to help me, I tell her that I can't cope with social services and she is amazingly understanding, this doctor really does understand me!
She also tells me that even if I was suicidal it would be unlikely that I would be locked up as keeping people in a secure hospital is reserved for extreme cases as there aren't enough resources.
As she says that I remember my paranoid schitzophrenic friend P. begging to be put in a psychiatric ward as he was struggling, and being turned down, refused. I have a terror of being locked in, especially since the church have tried so hard to have me put away and made me out to be insane so much. Well if you are seriously mentally ill and are turned away if you beg for hospitalisation then if you aren't mentally ill then you are hardly going to be locked in.

I ask the doctor to check my heartbeat as I have been  more breathless and tired with more chest pain, and I have never fogotten or understood that heart scare I had four or five years ago, but my heart is ok, it's just the asthma. The worsening asthma.

The doctor tells me she needs to speak to her senior in order to ensure that they can let me go in this state but she assures me that I'm not trapped here.

while she is gone a nice but slightly misinformed nurse comes along with a gown for me because she thinks I am being admitted, I tell her I don't think I am staying, she asks if she can at least take my pulse and blood pressure  and I agree very happily, she goes off to get the pulse thing and obviously loses her way as I don't see her again.

The doctor comes back and says that my records say that I am under that maudsley team that I said no to, and aren't they helping me? I have an asthma attack at this news and I tell her the situation and that I am not under that team and have said no to them so it shouldn't be on record that I am under them. She says that that is ok and that she will write to them.

I do not agree to be under any mental health team or social services, because mental health teams are for mental illnesses, I haven't got one for them to treat and it gives the church something to say against me in the press if I commit suicide, ie 'oh, she was under the mental health', because they cannot say what they hoped 'oh she was just mentally ill, we didn't do anything', they have continued to blame me and deny any responsibility even though they can't say I am mentally ill. And mental health teams who I have briefly interacted with before haven't actually been able to help me. I don't talk and I can't be medicated.
As for social services, they have never been known to help anyone.

I am released from the hospital, it is 1.30am I stagger up the road and realise that I haven't really eaten or had a hot drink for some time, I wander over to the all night burger van, the man puts a cuppa on the counter without even looking up, he is the same as me, he doesn't like speaking unless he has to, we had a few seconds of discussion one day when I asked for something and he said he'd never heard me speak before, and I told him that speaking isn't my favourite thing, he replied that he was the same, and he is, despite running a business where you have to talk.
Anyway, this time he got my cuppa without even looking up, because he knows I am a cuppa with two sugars, but I broke the silence by ordering some chips as well, then I went back to my bushes and slept. So if anyone in traumatic distress goes to casualty, be warned, casualty is a bit limited unless you admit to being suicidal or are found to be mentally ill. In my case, even if I admitted to being suicidal, there is no-one who can rebuild me from what the church has done, no doctor, no psychiatrist, and trying to talk to medical personnel tends to add to my stress.

I angrily contacted the maudsley team who were interfering and claiming me to be one of their clients, they somehow managed to persuade a very distressed me that they could help me, which shows how vulnerable I was, and said that my immediate crisis was not relevant and that I needed long term help and how would I like sheltered housing? my experience of sheltered housing was a hell when I was a teenager that left me more damaged and disturbed and because I could wash and feed and look after myself, the sheltered housing was of no benefit to me at all. So i once again told this leeching social worker and team to strike me off their records, I needed crisis help, not sheltered housing.

As I continued to really struggle on London's harsh streets, I continued to look for places to eat and wash away from the aggresive immigrants, and because I had been to the women's centre and found it so quiet, I looked for another women's centre, a dayccentre where I would be able to eat and shower, it wasn't very easy to find anywhere, the nearest one was more of a trek than the women's centre that had no showers but had computers.
I went to look, it was a disappointment, I went in, no-one looked up, no-one spoke, not even the staff, there were two members of staff, both were behind a desk, they wouldn't acknowledge me, after I had been standing at the desk a few minutes, one of them looked up and asked in broken english what I wanted, I said I was new and was I allowed in here? what did I have to do to come here?
She grunted that I could be here and that I should get a cup of tea or coffee.
I found the tea and coffee, there was hot water in two flasks, only it was lukewarm water. The staff took no more notice, I looked round, there were women sitting here and there, not really doing anything, I walked round the building and found a television room, there was a girl in there with her posessions strewn on the floor, I went in the corner to sit and she tried to get me to move out, she was only a guest there, the same as me.

The attitude of the two members of staff made me reluctant to go back to them to ask about showers or food and the 'timetable' on the wall just showed everything to be cancelled due to lack of staff. I left the centre, no-one even looked up, especially not the staff.

I went over the road to where there was a library, I asked the man if I could use a computer even if I wasn't a member of the library, he asked why I didn't join, I said I was street homeless, and he said I could use one of my daycentres as an address, and so I did and library membership meant that I got full internet access. As I was struggling along after all this I chanced upon the charity that allowed me to have osteopathic help, and so I was given an appointment for Osteopathy, that was the first actual help I had had with my increasing struggle to walk.

The following day I received an email from the women's daycentre that I had left, I had emailed them before I had gone there and asked about the daycentre and got no reply, they hadn't even registered that I had been to see them, and in reply to my email of enquiry they said that I should come and see the daycentre, I told them I already had and it wasn't going to work for me, it was too far and wouldn't help me. They replied that I should 'Kindly refrain from emailing and come and see them instead' and I was unimpressed and told them that 'kindly refrain' was incorrect terminology in an informal email where I was doing nothing untoward.
I never went back there.

The access to the computers at the other women's daycentre when I could get there was helpful, as the only other access I had to computers was  in the library where the computers were in demand or internet cafes here and there.

I went to the women's centre one day and as I was sitting in the sitting area, I picked up a brochure for a residential college, I asked the staff about it, I don't know why, because my hope in the future has been gone for a long time and yet in a way I have gone on having hope. The staff, who normally just sit there quietly and leave me to it, phone up the college and try to arrange an interview for me, the process gets complex and I get confused, the staff keep saying that they will phone back or that someone will be in contact, but nothing happens. Then when i go in there one day a member of staff tells me that the sexual violence worker wants to talk to me about my college application, I am confused and ask why, she says that this is so my college application can be clarified, I am still confused, especially as she asks me to wait in the centre, I tell her I have an osteopathy appointment about 30 minutes tube ride from there that afternoon and I will have to leave in plenty of time for that.

I waited for the sexual violence counsellor to turn up, when she came in she kind of winked at the receptionist, this seemed rather strange, I waited and waited for her to talk to me and she didn't. Then as she walked past me as I rested on the sofa, she said 'whats happening about your college application?'
I said that I had been asked to wait and speak to her about it, she said she knew nothing about it, and I replied puzzed that I had specifically been asked to wait and talk to her about it.
I remain puzzled by all this but will explain in a minute, she is a 'sexual violence counsellor' and yet she came over to where I was resting and started waving her arms about and talking aggresively and saying that she knew nothing about the application and why should she? I replied again that I had been told to speak to her about it, and that I didn't know why.

I was frightened into flashbacks by the way she stood over me and waved her arms around, she is someone who should know better.
I left to go to my appointment but I was in tears again because of her aggresive attitude, I had done nothing at all to provoke it, I had done as told and waited to speak to her.

The Osteopath manipulated my spine and told me that it was difficult to work with my legs as my joints were inflamed with wear and tear and that he had to work my spine carefully because of defective vertebrae. He told me to try and get the inflammation down and then come back, how could I reduce the inflammation as I continued to have to walk so much and with nowhere to elevate the legs and put ice on them as he suggested?

I emailed the women's centre and said I was surprised and alarmed by the treatment I had received and that I was no longer interested in the college, the stress of the attempts to apply and the lack of communication and the way the sexual violence worker had treated me was too much.

However, I did return to the women's centre despite this untoward treatment, because I valued the computer access.

But more problems broke out.

I had told the 'social worker' and the maudsley team no, I had told them no very angrily again when I heard that they had me on record as being under them, but I was to find out that my angry NO's had been ignored.

Let me just change subject from the women's centre and to something else and then come back. In my search for help in these last weeks in London I had contacted an organization that claimed to help people with learning disabilities, this charity said they thought I could help, and got me to phone their helpline as well as arranging to meet me, I agreed to meet and phone the helpline, I was surprised that the helpline didn't really seem to help much, I only phoned them once.
I agreed to meet the woman from the charity and she gave me long and involved directions after a number of emails where I told her some of my situation and asked if she felt she could help, to which she said yes, they offered psychotherapy and advocacy services and she agreed to meet me, IQ levels were not mentioned at any point, Aspergers Syndrome is a learning disability, and they advertise having helped someone with Aspergers Syndrome, I also have the learning disability 'dysphasia' though it is nowhere near as crippling as it was when I was young.
Anyway, I went to see this woman, and again I was surprised, because this had sounded like such a great setup, but she wasn't listening to me as I spoke and kept repeating things back that she thought I had said that I hadn't said, for example when I talked about someone abusing me and the vicar defending them, she said 'so the vicar abused you?' .......  what?!  I kept my temper, in fact I wasn't angry, just frustrated, and she tried some very cheerful psychology comments about how all this was about me and my healing and how even if the abuse was denied, I knew it had happened and that was what mattered.
No, this wasn't good, but because they claimed to support and advocate for vulnerable people, I thought that I had found somewhere where someone could hear what had happened to me, and maybe help protect me.

As I left this bewildering session, the woman said that she would talk to her colleague who was an advocate about defending me from the church.
But I heard nothing more. I found out why later, the women's centre.

The next week, and the next day that I went to the women's centre I was woken up by the outreach team, it was different people but they knew who I was, they told me that they wanted to meet with me, they were all nice and smiley and telling me that they wanted to talk to me about bedsits and studio flats and would I meet with them, I told them that they had abandoned me after sending me to that horrible centre and why suddenly come after me again after all this time? they had no answers and I asked why they were talking about studio flats and bedsits when the woman at the maudsley who they had referred me to without permission had tried to tell me I needed to be in supported housing?! They had no answer, they tried to tell me she was a nice person, I told them that it didn't matter if someone was nice or not if they interfered unsolicited and caused me distress, it was 6am and I was already in distress from being woken from this stupor that could grip me for 14 hours at a time and still leave me tired when I was woken from it, being woken suddenly from it was traumatic, as happened at that assessment centre.


Anyway, these people said they wanted to meet me at the daycentre, I told them I wasn't interested and that their team had made things worse and that they had abandoned me some time ago and couldn't just pick me back up again and could they leave me alone please and that I doubted my ability to walk to the daycentre (it was at a point where I really found it hard to get to any daycentre).
They went away. And after a few hours of distress, I got myself to the daycentre with a letter to them asking them to leave me alone and ensure that there was no further interference from the woman on the maudsley team who they referred me to without agreeing it with me and while they were incomprehensibly no longer working with me. I also told them that if studio flats were suddenly available to rough sleepers then why weren't the rest of the homeless population off the streets and in these nice flats and rooms that have never been mentioned to anyone before?

I heard nothing in reply, I had had no replies to emails to them about the situation since they left me at the assessment centre.

I went to the women's centre the same morning, to my surprise the woman I had seen at the charity that said they helped people with learning difficulties was there, she ignored me, she was talking to the sexual violence woman, the sexual violence woman said to her that she was going to show her where the room was where she could work with people who came to the womens centre, and they went away.


 I was tired and dozy from being woken so early and suddenly. I asked the receptionist if I could have a sleep on the balcony and she said no, she said I could rest on the sofa, but there were a few women in the centre for once and I said that I didn't want to block the sofa, she said well this wasn't a homeless daycentre and something about me coming here for help with housing, I said that I hadn't come for help with housing, I came to the drop in for some quiet and computer use, and that I was going to go outside for a rest, she said something about me being under a specialist team and I said WHAT? she said got confused and wasn't prepared to answer and I asked what she was talking about and she said that someone had been in contact about me, and I said WHAT? I was very worried that it was the church or something to do with them, eventually by the time I was very upset and distressed, she said that it was to do with my application through the women's centre for behavioural therapy, that it had been turned down because I was supposed to be under that social worker woman at that maudsley team which meant I was invalidated for behavioural therapy!

I couldn't believe what I was hearing! That social worker woman was still making out I was under her and was still damaging my life! I had waited for years and years for behavioural therapy and here I was now having it turned down because this woman who I had repeatedly and clearly said NO to was still leeching on me and saying I was her client when I had said no from the start.

I was out of my mind with distress and anger, this news of me being 'under the maudsley team' had obviously been around in the women's centre already and wasn't new, but they hadn't told me, they had just changed their attitude to me, and the receptionist had let it out by accident, I phoned the social worker from the maudsley team and was very angry with her, the receptionist got the manager to come up, I wanted to know what was really going on, why they hadn't told me before that I had been turned down for help on grounds of being under this team, why the sexual violence worker had been treating me like dirt, and was the church or the bad record they had given me involved? seeing as my request to the outreach who had set the social worker on me to not make any contact with the authorities involved in the church harm to me could easily have been ignored since they had set the social on me without consulting me, and seeing as the social could access records.

In case this sounds like paranoia, paranoia is unfocussed and unrealistic, my hypervigilance regarding the church is based on real possibilities of the church getting their side accross and real possibilities of people treating me with prejudice because of the church and the bad record they have given me.
The manager of the womens centre didn't deny or confirm anything. I asked if this was to do with the church? and why I had been refused the help I needed on the grounds that I was under a team that I wasn't, and why the sexual violence worker had treated me so rudely, and why was I being treated with such hostility by the women's centre when I hadn't done anything wrong? I was being damaged by the intervention of the woman at the maudsley team and whatever information she had got hold of about the church and passed on.
I left the women's centre in tears because of this and I made a formal complaint to the Maudsley about all this as I had been refused help and damaged by this social worker's interventions, she had effectively taken away the therapy that I had fought to get for years, as well as impacting on me attending the women's centre and upsetting me at the hospital.

I am not sure how or if any of this description of the situation makes perfect sense, but the staff at the women's centre became unfriendly and hostile when they were contacted about me being under this maudsley social worker who I was not under, and I was unwelcome at the women's centre and refused the behavioural therapy that I had applied for.

The women's centre sent me a letter saying that I couldn't go back because I was 'too high support needs' and I replied that I had asked no support of them and was disgusted with the way they had treated me and had no intention of going back, I couldn't afford to keep going there anyway.
I am pleased to say that no other daycentre has ever turned me away, in fact they tend more to ask where I am and if I am coming in, which is lovely, I remain with good memories of my three London daycentres, despite being too tired and ill to deal with the immigrants very easily and struggling to get to the daycentres in the end. I am still in touch with one of the daycentres in London and I think the world of them. So, considering how empty the women's centre was and how unreasonable they were, I think they can keep their daycentre and it's horrible attitude, I am not banned from the centres in my home counties or here, because I am quiet and don't do anything, some homeless people do shocking things and they don't get banned but I don't do anything.

I emailed the woman at the charity who claimed to help people with learning disabilities and she came back with an incredible load of excuses about how she could only really help people with an IQ of lower than 70, (there are no such people at the women's centre and yet she was discussing with the sexual violence worker about setting up a room there to help people), she said she had 'been looking for alternative sources of support for me but hadn't found any', I asked why then she hadn't been in touch in the two weeks since she said she would speak to her colleage the next day, even to discuss alternative sources of support, and why, if she had really mistakenly thought I only had an IQ of 70 or so, she had let me cross London alone to meet her and expected me to follow a map? She knew my condition and ability because of a number of emails before I went to meet her, and had agreed to see me and also to look at referring me to her advocate colleague once she had seen me.

I asked if her if her sudden flurry of excuses after not contacting me at all was due to her interaction with the sexual violence worker at the women's centre and the intervention of the social worker from the maudsley who had forced herself into my life, but she didn't reply.

I struggled to communicate with another charity for help, but communication there was impossible as it was another answerphone system like the one at the trauma charity who kept missing me and then left the message about casualty, so basically the church had won in silencing me, no-one would stand up and say 'well hang on, this is an incorrect charge, there was no communication from me to the church up until they had been driving me med by phoning and emailing my friends, maligning me to churches and interfering in my housing situation for three months at which point I was going out of my mind with distress and started speaking up and asking them to refrain, etc'.
The church bore false witness. Had me accused wrongly and didn't explain to the court the tremendous harm they did to me to cause me to be so humiliated and so angry, and they have tried to make me out to be insane and the problem in order to avoid liability, and I will never recover from this.

So here I was with no help, the new doctor, who had no idea about all of this suggested referring me to the maudsley because I was suffering depression and he had never seen me before, and I said no, he was helpful in giving me stronger inhalers and referring me for physiotherapy for my legs. He accepted no to the maudsley without me having to explain and understood that I couldn't take anti-depressents.

My friends and I stayed in the waterloo and westminster area to get our handouts from the runs and meals where there were less immigrants and because I couldn't walk very far at all. One day one of the clothing runs gave me a duvet, a luxury in the homeless world, and as I couldn't find cardboard that night I used the duvet as a matress and put the sleeping bag over me, I was in heavenly luxury, really comfy and snug.
These were my last days in London and within a week it had started raining heavily again and there was no shelter at all, one night me and my duvet and my sleeping bag were soaked through, I had no waterproofing at all. I got up in the early hours and tried to shelter in the stairwell of the dodgy nearby flats, a few old men asked if I was alright, but they were harmless, though who knows what they were doing out at this time in the pelting rain. I had a blanket with me which i kept in a plastic bag for emergencies, and the blanket got damp from being wrapped around me while I was wet. I dozed in the stairwell and then went to Waterloo and got a cup of tea with my stickers.
It always feels good when morning comes after a bad night. But I was cold and endured stares as I kept the blanket around me.

Waterloo can be hostile to homeless people, so I was surprised as I walked past a laundry and the woman offered to dry my blanket, I left it with her to collect later.

I went to the daycentre, by now this was the only one I could easily get to, and my feet were getting sore as well. I got a cup of tea from them and they are ok with the doctor sending the physio letter there.

As the day aimlessly goes on I try to think what to do, I can't get help in London, apart from the free counselling which is hit and miss often fully booked, and the samaritans who have their staffing difficulties, there are samaritans in most towns and usually more safe sleeping places and sometimes less immigrants, but with being hardly able to walk, would I be able to access help in another town? and having found the only good spot in London to sleep, would I be so lucky elsewhere? where could I go? I couldn't go back to my home counties, the church had made sure I would never be ok there. Where could I go? and how? what help could I get if I did go? I just knew I was truggling and lost in built up, harsh London. I am very lost without my home counties and my old friends. I don't know which way to go from here, there is always a magnetic pull towards home, but I can't go back.

I had a ticket, still valid, an open return, from when I came back on the train from my brother's house, the ticket people had persuaded me a return ticket for if I changed my mind and needed to come back, as the return didn't cost any extra.
I decided to use that ticket, maybe not to go the full distance up to where my brother lived but stop off on the way or change trains, it was a big step to make when I was tired and caught up in the bad weather, but I decided I would go anyway, I could always hitch hike back. And so I did, I raided my stashed goods and took what I could, and left the soaked sleeping bag and duvet folded for the next person, and took my now dry blanket and headed off for the tiring trek to the station.
In some ways I chose the wrong day, the last two trains had been cancelled, and on a train that is always quite full there were now three lots of passengers, it was a nightmare! But I got to my destination and didn't look back, here I am now. And yes, I didn't go right up to my brother's home town, I stopped off on the way.

Dad

my dad would have been 66 today if he had lived.

Last night I went to homeless meal but I was too late to get anything to eat, I went to the chinese takeaway and they gave me spicy chicken and potatos and a seperate tub of cooked potatos, I didn't have to eat it all to feel extremely full.
I went to the samaritans, which wasn't as helpful as usual, I suppose this is a bad patch of depression. I went back and settled down to sleep.
It was very noisy in the camp, party night, fire jugglers, many people drinking, lots of noise, but I slept anyway, I was asleep quickly though I always feel vulnerable kipping down with all the party people nearby.

I woke at 4am, there was a man disrupting the camp, all the party people had gone, the man who was disrupting the camp was drunk or in need of help, someone called the police.

I think I only woke because I needed the loo, I went to the loo, had to go behind my tree because the loo that we have a key to is out of order.
I am very very tense with distress about the church.
I go back to sleep eventually, despite the teenagers squabbling in a tent next to mine, I dream that I am in a farmyard, herding pidgeons and ducklings and a person from the church comes along and starts self righteously preaching at me, telling me that they had to 'teach me a lesson', I reply by asking if she would like me to teach her a lesson by turning her upside down and standing her on her head?

Then I wake up and it is a grey cloudy early morning. The dream makes me grin and I do feel a bit less distressed.
I get up and there is a new face in the camp, a famous protester, who's name I can't mention, he talks to me about his writing and tells me how I should protect my writing, then he gets involved in a deep discussion with the traveller woman about the protests they have been on.
I go to the market and have a wash in the toilets and get a cuppa and some breakfast, as the camp are a bit lacking in hot water and solid food this morning, and it looks like the party people had fun in the kitchen.

Here I am listening to 'Music Box Dancer' by Frank Mills, a very soothing bit of music for those who can cope with it.

hmph, no-one is reading my blog and i feel ill.

I went to the homeless lunch but all the bad homeless people were there, whispering about me and sniggering. They do this, every town has a group of druggies and winos who make up rumours and lies about people because they have nothing better to do, they target clean, quiet homeless people, I think it's resentment, I don't know, but I remember when I first became homeless and met this kind of people it really upset me, in a way it still does, they can alienate people for no good reason.
still there are good people to talk to so ignoring the bad is a great idea.
The other thing about the homeless lunch was a bit odd, one person decided they wanted to keep up a conversation about sex and sex shops for the whole room to hear, this wasn't a homeless person, but the lunch includes all vulnerable people, but anyway, they got the homeless people joining in, and the conversation was really in the gutter.
I have had times in my life where I have used bad language and bad words, but that never suited me, I have no interest in anything dirty, and yet part of the church slander of me was that I was deliberately trying to seduce someone's husband. The church are a law unto themselves, so are some of the homeless. I am having a bad day, so I find it hard that no matter what I do I am talked about detrimentally and I am all wrong.

I went back to the protest camp and someone had donated a cake that had icing with pictures of giraffes on it, Patrick seemed pleased with that, and then I went to the Chemist, the chemist had finally sorted out a prescription of mine that they had lost, and I got some very strong pain relief as well as my stomach medicines.
Here I am wishing I could write something and wishing I felt better.
No-one is following my blog because that phantom menace is stopping them, no-one is reading my blog because I am writing too much and not writing what I need to, and I am just crying out in distress and unable to do anything. I have nowhere to go and sleep off this pain, nowhere quiet.

It rained all day yesterday, it rained as I went to the bed and breakfast, it rained during the night. I managed to sort my backpack out and sort myself out a bit, there are some aspects of hygeine that you just can't deal with when you wash in public toilets.

For some reason I find that when i am indoors, at the bed and breakdfast or staying over somewhere, I am always in more and more severe distress.

I watch the end of a programme where a woman had been attacked in some way and lost her face and hands, she was horribly damaged but she went on surviving. At one point she said 'there must be a reason for me to have gone on surviving'.

I think one of the reasons is that she helps to inspire people like me, people who don't know how to go on living.

I can't get the temperature in the room right, I end up too hot and wake up sick, this is what happened last time.
I wake up in the night sick with distress and I wake up in the morning sick with distress and sick from the heat and tension, this is where my my neck seizes up and I end up in terrible pain.

At least I am all clean and sorted out. I walk down to the protest camp and leave my spare clothes and boots there, the camp is just chugging along quietly, nothing has happened.
Today the sky is clear and the sun is shining.

Yesterday I got a new support for my right leg, that will help with walking, that is all good.

Now here I am in in a very noisy disrupted library and my head and neck ache.

I want to tell you about the church and what has happened and my feelings, but it all just sits inside and hurts, the church really did gag me, they complately rubbished me, and my feeble faltering voice won't work any more, I just live with the pain and anger inside me.

Patrick the Girraffe

Patrick the giraffe is my toy who comes with me on my journey.
He is giraffe coloured and has a mane, but he he has a short neck and a round belly.

People often comment on Patrick or tweak his nose or shake his hooves, sometimes he is misguidedly called a teddy, and people get told off for that, which usually leads to a conversation. One eccentric lady apologised to him sincerely and introducted herself to him.
Patrick is a bit like the assistance dog that I wish I had, he helps me to communicate.
A number of Autistic people have assistance dogs and I wish I could have one, but the demand for assistance dogs is great and the supply of trained dogs is short. Assistance dogs help autistic people to communicate and interact and stay safe.

Patrick lives on the side of my backpack, his seat belt is the side strap on the backpack.

Patrick came from a daycentre in London, he was on the free gifts table where people donate things for homeless people, there were two teddies and Patrick, and before I could go over and investigate, an immigrant picked Patrick up and the immigrants were abusing him and throwing him about, but he kept smiling.
The teddies were no good, one was huge, one was tiny, and I wasn't sure the giraffe was the right size anyway, I can't measure because I have learning difficulties, but patrick isn't small and he isn't large either.

Anyway, the immigrants stopped thowing the giraffe around and put him back on the table, the giraffe smiled at me and so I picked him up and fastened him to my backpack and left the daycentre.

The giraffe remained nameless for a long time, I didn't try to name him, I wasn't in any way attached to him, he just deserved better than immigrants being cruel to him. But the giraffe with his big smile attracted a lot of attention, and people asked his name all the time.
His first name was from my Christian Romanian homeless friend, he told me that the giraffe's name was whatever day of the week it was. So I accepted that. Then B. named the giraffe Percy, and told me it was a metaphor for something crude, so I protested, and he renamed him Patrick.

Patrick was washed by one of my fellow survivors not long after I got him, but all the handling and nose tweaks that he gets led to him needing his recent bath.
I am vary between being in my own world and being a bit anxious and self conscious of my scruffy hunched up self, but now people grin when they see me and I know it is because of Patrick, so I grin too, he is a good asisstance giraffe, he cheers me and everyone up.

My previous toys included a squirrel and a seal puppy, but none of them had the roaring popularity that Patrick enjoys. He is bigger than them and he smiles.

On the journey we have met several homeless ladies who carry teddies with them, one of these ladies was German and she said that in Germany everyone has a toy.

Patrick wrapped in a jumper also doubles as a pillow if necessary.

If you see someone with a giraffe hitching a ride on their backpack, say hello, break up my silent world for a minute. I am quite friendly if I am spoken to, never mind what the church say.

Asthma

Asthma is very debilatating sometimes.
When I went to collect my giro this morning and they messed it up, I ended up having difficulty breathing,
and when I walked down to the mission, I had difficulty breathing.

My asthma isn't getting any easier and isn't under control, but I don't really want to see a doctor, I just can't cope with medical attention.

I am looking at homeopathic remedies to help, some people may think that is not very helpful, but I think it's worth a try, and of course I will continue to take my inhalers as well.

Hello, I am too sleepy to blog much this evening.

I went to collect my giro. and guess what? They messed it up again. The giro was there but it had on it that it was to be cashed in London, how do they expect me to travel hundreds of miles to get there?! Anyway, I never shout and rage at the Benefits Office, because it is their head office that messes it up, every time! Don't they realise how harmful it is to people on disability benefits to have to keep coping with their mistakes?

Anyway, I tell the staff that I desparately need that money for clothes and toiletries and I can't wait for them to sort it out at the last minute this afternoon. So they kindly sort it out, and half an hour later a new, correct giro is issued.
See, if I was all mad and bad like the church say I am, I would have raged and sworn like some people do when the Benefits Office messes them around.

I go to cash the giro and then it is stressful shopping time, I get toothpaste, lozenges, spray deodourant, soap, mouthwash, wet wipes, socks, underwear, jeans and a teeshirt, then I go to the daycentre toilets and have a wash and a change of clothes. That makes me feel better.

Then I go to the mission hall. My Grandad is there and he hugs me. I am reunited with patrick, who is very clean and his nose is no longer grey.
It is fun drinking tea and talking to the mission people, fun and in a way it hurts me as well, talk of God and prayers and Holy Spirit and all of that does hurt me.
My Grandad slips me a small banknote and says that is a gift from his wife, she is the one who gave me some money last week. I used to say no when people offered me money and if someone who I don't know offered me money now, I probably still would say no, but I have got to a point of accepting gifts.

When I leave the mission I walk back along the road to town, on the way I stop at the charity shops just to see what there is. I am surprised to find a nearly new pair of boots at the same price as the money that Grandad gave me, boots are expensive, and I usually have to buy new boots every four weeks or so because the way I walk wears them down.
These boots in the charity shop are nearly new and would have cost four times the amount they are on sale for, so I buy them, even though my stout boots that the daycentre gave me are wearing well and have life in them yet, I wonder if the Osteopath really has been able to correct my walking enough to stop me getting through boots so fast. Anyway, I now have a spare pair and will have to find a place to store them, I try them out and they are ok to walk in.

I go to the protesters camp, the council haven't told them to move, they have just asked them to make the camp smaller as it has been growing. while I am there a lady is building a tepee out of scrap. The protesters told the council they will think about it.

I get a room in a bed and breakfast for tonight and I have a very long soapy shower and attend to my hygiene, hopefully the protesters will keep my blankets safe at the camp while I am away.

When I left the library last night I was considering going to the Samaritans, as there is several hours between the library closing and soup kitchen opening when I have nothing to do, keeping the protesters company is ok, but they sit in a shelter and smoke and smoke, which doesn't do my lungs any good. I stayed with the protesters anyway, I can't go to the samaritans when I can't talk.

I go to get myself some leftovers from the chinese takeaway, as I go, one of my protester friends and the Polish man are sitting on a bench drinking alcohol, they tell me that they were turned away from the chinese because they had alcohol with them and the owners think that if people can afford alcohol then they can afford food, they ask if I will share my food with them, and seeing as the chinese people give me three generous tubs of food, I share it out, one tub each, these two are both homeless as well as being protesters after all. The Polish man is beside himself with gratitude and keeps trying to explain things to me and losing his way because he is tipsy, he overreacts to alcohol, they are only drinking cider and he says he can't handle vodka at all. I am surprised because all the Polish people I have known are born with vodka in their veins.

The police come down to the site, they have always been friendly, they always give me flashbacks. But this policeman is happy to join in the conversation but also says that the council want to meet with the protesters tomorrow at 2.30pm, this looks like the council want to move the protesters out. The police don't mind the protesters.

I am tired, I settle down to sleep at 9.30pm instead of waiting up for soup kitchen at 10pm, I can hear all the homeless people and their drunken shouting, but I am tired, I fall asleep and no-one disturbs me.
at 3.30am I wake up needing the loo and in great distress from the church memories, I must be in distress in my sleep, I can't just wake up to instant distress?

Outside all I can hear is drunken shouting and swearing, the shelter area where someone sits or sleeps to guard the camp is full of the teenagers who hang around the protest, they are all drunk or high and complaining loudly about a row that has just occured, I haven't heard any of the row, someone has been winding someone up.
I wonder if any of the sensible protesters are actually there and if the loo key is there either. When I come out of the tent one of the protesters starts shouting at the teenagers for waking me up, but I say I woke up because I needed the loo and did anyone have the key?
They produce the key and I stumble to the loo, I consider phoning the samaritans because of the church distress, but I know that if I go back to the tent I will fall asleep again.
I go back to the tent and realise I am having trouble breathing, I take my cross chain and jumper off and take inhalers and sleep again. All I hear before I sleep is one of the teenagers vomiting in the gutter.

I wake up at a calm 8am and the silence in the camp is deafening, all I can hear is the quiet pedestrians walking around nearby.

I get up and the camp once again just has the sober and quiet men who have slept the night in the tents or come from their homes in the morning.
There is hot water in the kettle and I take advantage of this while one man cheerfully goes to fill the hot water urns, he is new, he is nice and cheerful and helpful.
The others ask me if I heard the rows last night and I tell them I slept like I was dead apart from my toilet break.
The cheerful man brings the hot water urns and starts the washing up, then he goes and fills the big cold water barrel at the nearby cafe.
The Polish man is wide awake and looking none the worse for his drunkenness last night, I am glad he is awake and ok as he has a busy day of meetings to try and help him out of his crisis.

One lad puts a pot of porridge on to cook, I am happy with that, a nice bowl of porridge with honey for me, and I take advantage of the really hot water to drink too much tea.

Today is a big day for me, I am supposed to get my giro today, so I will be able to get clean clothes and all the toiletries I need and probably I will go into the cheap bed and breakfast for the night so I will have access to a shower and space to sort myself and my hygiene and my backpack out.
Today is also the day that Patrick the giraffe comes back to me, he has been washed and was last seen relaxing on the radiator in the mission woman's house.
Remind me to tell you how I got Patrick, that is in the end part of my London story.

London, the ragged ends

The last post ended a bit raggedly due to the computer crashing, I am just thankful that I didn't lose the whole post as it was saved in the drafts folder.

I have just been back to the camp to have some tea and snacks, and now I have just under an hour to start tying up the loose ends of London.
If you are wondering what I am talking about when it comes to the church accessing records and causing me problems with homeless authorities and other agencies, they really did, and that will need to be explained in  the 27-30 part of my story.

While I was in that awful centre, I saw an advert for a women's only daycentre, my friend encouraged me to find somewhere away from men as she said I was scared of men. I don't know if I am, but the other women's daycentre had tried to set social services on me, so I was a bit unsure, and this new daycentre had quite a dubious name, which I attributed to their focus on working with prostitutes, they said they helped other vulnerable and homeless women though, so I emailed and said could I come along, on condition that they didn't set social services on me, I explained that I went to other daycentres but sometimes I needed a break from the harshness of the immigrants who pushed and shoved and bullied.

Anyway, I will continue to tell you about the daycentre in a minute, when the outreach had got me to fill in paperwork and sent me to the assessment centre, they had talked about referring me to a 'team', which was technically a 'mental health' team, connected with the Maudsley, they said maybe this team could help speead up my referral to the traumatic stress unit, I was deeply skeptical, mental health teams don't actually do anything helpful or useful in my experience, usually they waste time, talk a lot, expect me to talk or say I don't fit their criteria as I am not mentally ill. Hm. They have never been known to help; but this outreach person said that they were a multi-skilled team who helped anyone with mental illness, learning difficulty, addictions and anything that isolates people.
I didn't agree to referral, and when I left the assessment centre, the outreach team, who had made promises to try and help me even if I couldn't cope with the assessment centre (plenty of people can't), abandoned me and yet I got an email from a woman from this 'mental health' team, saying I had been referred to her.

I emailed back telling her in no uncertain terms that I had not agreed to referral, and that I didn't want to see her, her title was 'social worker', oh horrors, thats the last thing I need!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was miffed but I thought that the social worker from the maudsley team had taken no for an answer, I had no idea that she would go on causing me so much trouble.

I heard from the women's centre, they said that was ok, and invited me to come and see them.
When i got there I found it was a simple setup, no showers or food, there was a sitting and reading area, four computers, tea and coffee, and rooms where counselling and other therapies took place. The centre was empty of women and it was mid morning, this puzzled me, but it remained that way in the weeks I was going there, usually there would be one or two women who came in at lunch and one or two in the afternoon and a few going in and out for different therapies, it was almost as if this centre was going to waste.

I was instructed to get myself a drink and have a go on the computers, which I did, and that is what I spent most of my time there doing. I was given literature and told to look and see if there were any therapies or classes I wanted to join.

Later a woman took me into a little room and told me she was the sexual violence worker, because I didn't know, I thought sexual violence meant rape or forced prostitution, I told her that I didn't really need help with sexual violence, she said any sexual abuse is sexual violence and she asked if there was any help I needed or any therapy I wished to access, I told her that I had seen behavioural therapy in the booklet and that I had been trying to get behavioural therapy for years in order to calm down my extreme autism and trauma reactions of anger, distress and running away.
She filled in a form on the computer and sent it off, she told me it would go to the Maudsley as they ran the behavioural therapy in these boroughs.

(Over the years my efforts to get behavioural therapy have been thwarted by it being unavailable on the NHS and too expensive privately).

I accessed this centre for a few weeks and took advantage of the empty space that was designed to have people in it, I had almost unlimited computer access, and used that to access the Turn2Me resources and to look for help and to try to start doing as I am doing now, writing it all down.
I was in a lot of distress in that time, the cult, my brother and sister, the assessment centre and the news that G.P had been arrested on kidnap and child porn charges was all too much for me along with the harshness of London and the terrible damage wreaked by the church, the terrible memories of everything. I used to phone Samaritans or hopeline or one of the other helplines every night.

Despite my distress I didn't ask the women's centre for any help, I find feminist environments hard to understand and I didn't think there was anything they could do anyway. I just enjoyed the big empty room and the quiet and the lack of pushy immigrants, I enjoyed the cups of tea when they remembered to get milk, and  when the door was open, I enjoyed sitting out on the balcony as this place was high up on a third floor.

But my levels of distress were high, and this women's centre was a bit of a trek away, I usually got the tube if I had enough money, but when I didn't I tried to walk it and one of those times is when I collapsed with hypoglycemia on the way back to Waterloo as that is when I was short of food as well.

Just going to lose internet accesss,

London

London.
Just to continue where I left off, I returned to Central london as I still had the idea that it was safest from the church and the best place to access food and support. In reality the harsh crowds of London were damaging my legs and lungs as I tried to dodge them and their cigarettes and strained myself to do so. The food was a fight to get because of the immigrants, the Samaritans appeared to be having a staffing crisis, there were no other avenues for support, even though I looked, and the Maudsley didn't appear to be doing anything about my application. But on the other hand I couldn't go back to my home counties, and the only way there seemed to be for coping with my shock and distress and raw state was staying on the streets of London with all the other shellshocked and nameless homeless people.
I was kidding myself, but it was a reality that I had no idea where to go.

My sister and this woman stopped making contact with me, though they may or may not have continued contact together, and whether or not the following interventions in my life by the outreach and related teams were to do with them or even the church and their ability to give me a bad name and hang me in every area in return for me trying to get help about them, I do not know. I will have to try to tell you the full story, but it will take time. The person in the church has access to private records and also the very strong ability to get the church's story accross.

My sleeping ground is a building site or the park next to it, the park has other rough sleepers, so I have to be careful, but no-one bothers me while I am there.

One morning I was lying dozing on my cardboard and thinking I would have to move soon, when along came some outreach people, I told them I wasn't interested, but they offered me a cup of tea, which isn't part of their job, so I was a bit impressed, then they talked about meeting me for breakfast. I liked this idea, the female outreach worker told me she would meet me later at the daycentre, it was 6am now, and she would meet me at 9.30am, that would give me a chance to get a shower at the daycentre first.

I met with her at 9.30am, and we went in a cafe and had breakfast, I dont get many proper breakfasts in London, out of my three daycentres one daycentre does a breakfast that is something like fish and spaghetti hoops on toast, one does a cheese, meat or fish sandwich, and one doesn't do any breakfast.
So a good bacon and egg roll went down well, with a few proper cups of tea, and this woman tells me about a centre where all homeless people are sent for asessment, it is not a hostel, there are no beds, but people are expected to live there day and night for several days. I don't like the idea, she tells me that people all sleep in a big room and there are lights and cameras so it is safe, it sounds like hell to me, I sleep alone in the dark on my cardboard and I like that.

The woman continues to tell me about this centre and how they will try and find me a nice quiet place to live and I will be safe and my records will be safe from the church. She tells me that they can probably put me in a quiet side room to sleep on my own.
I reluctantly agree to go to this centre and I fill in all the forms and state that no-one is to be contacted about me and no information is to be made vulnerable to the church or shared with the church or any connected organizations, in a way I feel that it doesn't matter what I say, once I risk giving out information I put myself at risk.

I go to this asessment centre, it is boiling hot and the lights are harsh and bright, the centre is full of people, with a large group of dodgy leery old men who stare at me and get too close. The staff tell me I can sleep in one of the asessment rooms, but that they may have to wake me or move me or put another vulnerable person in there with me, they put a strange wooden thing in there that I assume is meant to be a bed, but I know that if  I tried to lie on it it would collapse and that I need to lie on the floor for the sake of my back.

There is a little kitchen for making tea, but the milk keeps disappearing, and in the few minutes here and there when people aren't blocking the kitchen and talking, I try to get tea, but the leery men keep barging in so that I am cornered, the leery men get a sharp reply each time which leaves them a bit less confident, there are staff but they are not taking any notice of the behaviour of these men.

There is a small garden, but it is where everyone smokes, I can't go out there and rest as the staff suggest, I don't know how they expect me to 'rest' surrounded by strange men and cigarette smoke anyway.

The staff don't ask many questions, they say they will talk to me tomorrow, oh hell, tomorrow I have to go to Guys Hospital to have my broken tooth looked at by the dental department and then I have a free haircut at the hairdressing college, I have a doctor's appointment, how can I be here and there? They don't mind me going out to my appointments though, as long as I come back.

The first night was a nightmare, I was in this assessment room but the door was unlocked, the light was on and the leery men kept staring into the room through the glass window in the door until a member of staff turned the light off and then the men took to actually coming into the room, the staff caught them each time, each time they apparently claimed to be 'looking for a member of staff' ! what in a dark assessment room with the light off? The room was stifling with the window closed, but with the window open it was too noisy from a gang outside in the street, this isn't a place where you can yell at them to shut up!

Next day I went to the hospital, the dentist filed my tooth down where it broke and said that I needed to register with a dental practice and get a mouthguard made up as I was breaking my teeth through grinding them in my sleep. I had been told that before but circumstances have always prevented me getting a guard made up.

Then I had to get to the other end of central London to get to the doctor and hairdresser, all this is always stressful for me, but I get that done and get to the daycentre briefly. I worry and stress about getting back to the assessment centre and when i get back I find some of my clothes missing, I had to hang them on a drier there as they were soaked from recent rain.

There is nothing to be done about the missing clothes, in a place like this it is useless to report anything.
The staff are discussing me and I overhear them and ask why they are discussing me in my hearing and what on earth are they talking about, they tell me it is nothing untoward, even though onelady sounds like she disbelieved that I was too tired last night to answer a question she asks, they say it is ok and they have just been looking at where to house me and had been looking at housing policies on the island in case they could send me back. I ask them if it is logical to be looking at such things before they have asessed me and heard why I can't return to the island. I get no reply to that.

This night they tell me that I can have the light off and lock the door, that will keep the men away. But it is freaky being locked in a room while the men continue to peer through the window into the dark room and hang around outside the door, there is no better way of making someone with claustrophobia panic.
The staff come in and out, jingling their keys, it is like prison. I go out for air and the staff leave me trapped between two sets of locked security doors at the front entrance, with the men still staring through these doors at me while I panic.  More and more all I want is my cardboard and my space, and at one point while I am using the computer with permission, a new member of staff comes on shift and tells me to get off the computer and out of the room as I have no right to be there, I tell her I would be delighted to just leave the centre altogether, and she turns all nice and tells me she didn't know anything about the situation and that it is fine for me to be on the computer and in the room and everything.

I hate people who work with homeless people just so that they can push them around, she isn't a lone member of that club at all. Though a mojority work with the homeless because they really care.

In the early hours they bring another girl into the room, switching the harsh lights on and demanding that I move, pushing me and my sleeping bag away so they can put the other woman, who is drunk, on the wooden bed thing.
I pick up my sleeping bag and ask to be let out, they let me out into the sweet cold dark night and I start heading home, one of the creepy men looks as if he is going to come after me and I tell him in very strong language not to as I know how to castrate. This homeless world is very harsh sometimes.

I walk the mile back to my cardboard and I bed down and sleep sweet deep sleep and wake with the headache that has plagues me for days gone.

That place was an autistic person's nightmare, a vulnerable female's nightmare, a homeless person's nightmare, they keep people there at night and don't provide beds,

London

I get writers block at this point.

London, London? can't remember it, hm.

Having dealt with the patronizing dentist and the rude doctor at the same practice, I consider moving on.
Did I say about the rude doctor? well, he was just a bit impatient, but curiously enough I had just been telling the nurse that I was nervous of Doctors because my first experiences of doctors were impatient doctors who were oversubscribed and running late, and I have been damaged by their impatience that left me without treatment that I needed. Anyway I went to see the doctor and tried to explain about the problems I was having walking, and he hurried me out the door and tried to tell me that I needed to see a podiatrist at one of the daycentres. This was not acceptable because of his impatience, the fact it wasn't all a podiatry problem, and the fact that the daycentres where the podiatrist went were local connection daycentres that I had no access to.

So I registered temporarily elsewhere and in the meantime had been having osteopathy for which I referred myself and was charity funded. The osteopath said that my joints were inflamed by the wear and tear of walking in London and so it was difficult for him to work with my legsuntil the swelling went down, and did a grand job of manipulating my head and damaged spine, the new doctor referred me for physiotherapy to help the joints and so life started to look a bit less painful.

The new doctor also put me on a new inhaler as the steroid one and the reliever were not contolling my asthma.

I remember one day I was at Oxford Circus and a lady with a twin pushchair with two young boys in it was trying to get the pushchair with the boys in it down the steps, an old man hurried over to help, he staggered though and bumped into the wall, and so I came to help, as a whole crowd looked on at this step-blocking activity, between me and the girl and the old chap, we got the pushchair and boys down the steps, the old chap told the boys that they ate too much and were far too heavy, and I said it would be nice if they would install a lift in this station. Anyway, as I walked up the steps I realised I could hardly walk or breathe, I had forgotten for a few minutes that I had asthma and difficulty walking, I was just back where I used to be, helping out at every opportunity. The best thing about life was helping out, volunteering, and the church have prevented me from doing that again ever.

Going back a bit- what happened to me and my sister before my Brother picked me up:
Briefly, my sister, who meant well, thought she was doing me a favour by contacting an organization who she thought would help me, but doing it behind my back and sharing too much information including telling them of her and my differences of opinion. Unfortunately this same organization was one of a number who failed to help me during the time that the church were continuing their harm of me, despite seeming to be the organization that possibly would be able to protect me from the church, when I sent them a copy of what had happened to me they claimed to have read it and yet kept asking questions to which the answers were in what I had written, including asking what a certain person in the church was doing to hurt me, and then they told me that they couldn't help me while I was homeless and that I shouldn't remain homeless to spite the church! (when it was the church that had prevented me from being housed!)

Anyway, this organization tried to arrange behind my back with my sister, to have me picked up by the outreach, I was furious, I had told this organization to leave me alone, I hadn't agreed to my sister sharing information with them, I felt dehumanized.
I told my sister and the woman at this organization that this interaction and plans about me behind my back were to stop, this woman had hurt me and refused to help me, so why did she think she could make plans for my life against my wishes and behind my back?
This new upset was too much for me when I was so raw, London was harsh, the cult had not only reminded me of my childhood, but had hurt me in a lot of ways. Now I was dealing with my life being taken off me and rearranged by people who overrode my privacy and wishes and feelings. Me and my sister being so very different in nature were struggling to get on anyway and this was the last straw.
In writing an email to my sister and this woman about my feelings at this intervention, my laptop froze, and I slapped it in frustration and it broke, it was my lifeline for writing and internet, I used free wifi wherever I went and this tiny laptop fitted just nicely in my bag and kept me company in the cold dark sometimes with music or games of solitaire. My laptop remained broken with no hope of repair.

My sister went round making out I had agreed to her intervention and that I was just going mad, I intercepted some of this and was annoyed, she was dragging friends of the family into it who had been nothing to do with it. A few years ago when my dad died, I did a tribute to him and was asked to read it out, while I was reading it out and when the Vicar did a tribute to my dad, my sister was saying that what we were saying was just lies, she turned up for the funeral saying she was just there to support the siblings and not for my dad, and she came to stay with my other sister and took the duvet that I would have had and left me cold on the floor when I was very ill. After the funeral there were rows and upsets over all this, and yet my sister is in a position to share personal information about me with someone who has coldly turned me away and used my homelessness as an excuse and then malign me for my upset reactions.
I don't understand life, I know I can get very upset and angry, especially now, and I know from what the church have done that I am not even forgiven by God when I apologize for my upset and startled reactions.
Just to put a perspective on it, I do get angry when people invade me, but my first reaction is tears, not swearwords.

Anyway, I did my very best to ensure that my sister and this woman knew that they should not do anything further, and then I moved away from Central London for a few days, the weather chose to turn ferocious with high winds and rain then, and I had a very cold and wet night before someone took me in for a few days and I found that comforting.
Regarding the outreach, I actually went through the procedure of letting them help me when I came to London, the procedure is to give in your details and bed down somewhere pre-arranged with them so they can pick you up and place you somewhere, they never turned up, never phoned my mobile number which they were given, and when asked again, they had lost my details. That coupled with me not wanting to be in a hostel and unable to cope with being housed and afraid of the church meant that I wanted no further outreach contact.

I will sign out now as the computer is about to log off. More later.

The Big Issue seller wanted to hug me but he knows I am not keen, so he was a lot less intense and didn't try to ask me out.
I went to the daycentre and had tea and toast, then I went to the mission. The mission was friendly as usual and my adoptive Grandad gave me a big hug. The man with the guide dog was there, we always end up talking about guide dogs. I learned a bit about guide dogs from books and from a puppy walker when I was younger, but it always good to hear more from someone who has had a guide dog for so many years.
I have several cups of tea and a banana and they give me some sweet things called 'fruit winders', these are a rather complicated sweet.
They all gather round and pray for me, this is hard for me to cope with but I accpet it because they are a sparkle of light in my life. But I am relieved to step out into the cold cloudy day, there are dark clouds looming and the wind and the air are cold. Lovely.

I come back to town and check on the camp, no-one has stolen my sleeping back or taken over my tent again, so I do some tidying up round the camp kitchen.

Today is a day when the Church really really hurts, I am very conscious of all their blame of me and blackening of my name, all their lies about what happened and all their villification of me.

Tomorrow is giro day, I will have money for essentials such as toiletries, clean clothes etc, I will have money to put credit on my phone so that I can text my friend who sent me a text two weeks ago, she is a devout Christian who wants me to be a devout Christian and part of her denomination, but because of what has happened with me and the church I cannot be what she wants for me. I wear a Christian bracelet and a cross that she gave me though, because that reassures her.

I haven't been back to that daycentre that was involved in that attempt to set social services on me, I remember sometimes when I was there there was a girl who was in a bad way, she shouted rather than spoke, her teeth were broken and in bad condition, she kept trying to get the attention of the men there, but they took surprisingly little notice, even when she tried to hug them or sit on their laps, she took her tracksuit top off once and all she had underneath was a vest with her bust spilling out of it, but the men hardly glanced at her, this surprised me, sometimes I am under the impression that a lot of men, especially on the streets will jump at the chance of being close to anything female, but maybe I am too cynical and bitter, and I have had to deal with too many men who incomprehensibly show and interest in me. I am not pretty, even this girl in her tracksuit and makeup and broken teeth was prettier than me.
She went to my friend P. and tried to cuddle him, but he wasn't interested at all, she acted like she had a drink or alcohol problem, one morning when P. was sitting with me, he and I were laughing at my picture in the paper where I was photoed at the protest camp, the girl decided we were laughing at her, she started shouting and calling me names, including 'four eyes' because I wear glasses, there is a good reply to this, only a certain section of the population calls people 'four eyes' because that section of the population can't count.

Not really funny, but I shudder to think that the church think I am the same as this shameless girl. I have always tried to behave morally and be polite, though it is no secret that when I am being hurt I can get very angry, but I don't want to fight, cheat or sleep with the rest of the population.

I went to the daycentre and got some toast and tea, then I went on to the mission, my adoptive grandad was at the mission and he  gave me a big hug, the blind man with his guide dog was there, we always end up talking about guide dogs, and though I know a bit about guide dogs, I don't know everything, I think I will look it up later.
I have a few cups of tea at the mission, and they pray for me, they get a bit intense with the praying. Grandad gives me another big hug, and I set off with my ration of bananas and sweets, they have given me a kind of sweet called a 'fruit winder' I don't quite understand the point of these things, you have to unwind them in order to eat them.

The mission said I can use them as a c/o address, that is very handy.

The environment in the library is hot and noisy, there is a librarian hanging over the computer where I am trying to work and it is impossible to get anything done.
I cannot cope with men standing over me, it makes me go to pieces, and this guy is supposed to be helping the person next to me but he is too close and waving his arms about, flashbacks, I ask if he can not stand over me, and only then does he move round to the other side of the other computer where he isn't standing over anyone, why didn't he stand there before?
I try very hard to fit in with things and people and cope with what people do, I can't always manage it though.

Tomorrow I should get some money and I will be able to sort out essentials like toiletries and clean clothes, that is something to look forward to, clean clothes!
I will be able to get phone credit tomorrow and reply to a text my friend sent me two weeks ago, she is a good friend, I wear a bracelet and a cross that she gave me. She wants me to be a Christian still, she wants me to be part of her denomination, but I can't because of what has happened.

My friend is on facebook, she is asking if I want to house share with one of her family, in a way I do, but this house is about 500 miles away and I do not know if it would work, even if I could get there.

I haven't been back to the other daycentre since the attempt to involve social services, but I think about my life and I remember a girl there who is in a really bad way, she is very loud and her voice is harsh with alcohol and drugs, she keeps openly propositioning the men there, but to my surprise none of them are interested, even when she takes her sweatshirt off so that her bust is spilling out of her top they don't glance at her, she tried to get P. once, he wasn't in the slightest bit interested, she is so desparate, she is all made up but her teeth are half missing and she is dressed in a tracksuit and vest with no bra. One time I was with P. or one of the others, looking at the picture of me in the paper at the protest site and she decided we were laughing at her.

Sorry, I was starting to write about London again last night but the computers spent the last 45 minutes crashing and freezing, so nothing was written.

I will continue London in a minute. I will just tell you what has been going on since yesterday evening.

The computers kept freezing, so nothing got done. Then I went out and headed for the Samaritans but chickened out. I found two stickers and got a cup of McD's hot chocolate. The protesters camp seems to have only warm water more often than not, their flasks don't keep anything hot for long.
I eat some snacks at the camp, there isn't really any solid food there, and I go to rest in my tent.

It starts to rain. I go over to the soup kitchen, after all, I am still homeless and I need a hot drink and some food, they ask if I am a protester and I say that I am not officially and that I am a rough sleeper,  they give me a spare blanket, one that has never been used before. It is always different people running soup kitchen, so they don't know me. They get worried about me standing in the rain with no coat, but I tell them I never wear a coat (true, I have a problem with heat sensetivity and if I wear a coat then I easily overheat and get ill).
Even though I am currently in a tent, I accept the blanket as I will not always be in a tent, I don't know how long I will survive being in the camp, or how long they will be here.

I go back to my tent in the pouring rain, but it has been invaded by some of the silly noisy teenagers who hang around the camp, they are smoking something illegal in my tent and the tent stinks and is full of smoke, I get some of the protesters to help me, and they tell the teenagers off, they don't want to make a big thing of it in case the camp gets closed down. My tent stinks and is full of smoke, my bedding stinks and I choke as I haul it out of the tent.
I am lucky that there is another tent free tonight that is better protected by the camp, and I am not happy that the teenagers now know that that is my tent on the edge of the camp, facing away from the main camp, it is too vulnerable.
But anyway, I settle down in this other tent, I am only disturbed once by someone trying to come in, this is annoying. I get up once to go to the toilet, the protesters now happily have a key to the toilet, so I don't need to go behind the tree.
All the smoke in the camp and in my tent is making my chest tight and my breathing difficult, but I sleep anyway.

I end up having a strange dream where I am in Gloucestershire with some of my family and some church people, Gloucestershire has moved to the North East of England and there is an antiques fair going on, for some reason my family and church people think I am really interested in the antiques fair, I am mildly interested and deeply depressed and suicidal.

I wake up and it is fairly quiet outside, hustle and bustle of people not far away but the camp is quiet.
I crawl out of the tent and the only people in the camp are a Polish man and a half deaf chap who is always nice, they smile and say good morning, and I have a cup of tea with them. The water is lukewarm.
Someone has put their sleeping bag in my tent, I turf it out and put my stuff back in because the other tent will be wanted by its original owners tonight, and my tent  was put up for me.

The poor Polish man has split up with his wife and he has a young son, he spends a lot of time in the camp with us, he is obviously devastated, he sometimes has his son with him. Poor man, he is trying to find housing, trying to come to terms with the breakup, but he is so nice and friendly and loves being here.

Well it is two years since my dad's death. I could write loads and loads about this, but I wont. I get to the library and start doing my emails, in the middle of replying to an email the fire alarm goes off, and we all hurry outside, it is a fire drill, but I wander back to the camp and get a snack, I haven't had breakfast yet.

Facebook is very quiet, no-one has put anything about dad, I put simply 'I don't forget you', and my sister likes this, she puts 'Two years feels like a few weeks', and my brother adds 'or less'.

I am going to the mission in a minute, to see if they can act as a forwarding address.

The ongoing poem of comparisons

my teeshirt is dirty with stains on it, my clothes are beginning to smell, I need a good shower and tidy up.
Thankfully I found my nailclippers and brush buried in the backpack yesterday and trimmed and scrubbed my dirty nails so they are neat and clean, and I brush my teeth even without toothpaste.

please tell me if my comparisons in the following ongoing poem are bitter, it's just something I mull over, and it would be interesting for me to see on paper what I think, and I know that those of you who want me to be healed from what has happened might be a bit unsure of this, but healing will take a while yet.

The ongoing differences between Jesus and his teachings and the church and their way of doing things:

Jesus was born in poverty and without a proper home,
so was I,
most people in the churches where I was hurt were born into comfortable homes

Jesus was born  to his parents alone with no medical help, so was I,
the church people have pictures of mothers and babies in hospitals
that is all they know,

what is Christening? Jesus was baptised as an adult without the frills and showers of gifts that the church Christenings demand and the wealthy who have destroyed me take for granted, I was baptised as an adult by someone who emotionally harmed me, with a witness who sexually abused me, and with two other witnesses who upheld them, my baptism was rushed because of their hurry to have me confirmed into the church, my baptism wasn't the big family occasion with gifts and a party and drinking and dancing, neither was Jesus's, but probably without exception, the party and gifts were what the people in the church had for their baptisms and their children's baptisms.

That is enough of the poem of comparisons for some time.

It will go on to explain the comparisions between Jesus' teachings and the way the church treated me.

I wish I had a clean teeshirt and jeans, some spray deodourant, toothpaste, a shower, shampoo and soap, clean underwear, and a new life.
in two days I will have money to sort myself out and get clean clothes and toiletries, that will be good.
Or if I am lucky I will go to the mission tomorrow and they may have some things there, but they don't usually.

I want to write some musings in a poetry style, but I have never done poetry and don't know how, I may try anyway.

before long I will have finished messing around with London memories and will be facing the memories 17-27 and 27-30, where the more serious stuff happens, please hold my hand as I do that.

I will break it up with some charming but bad poetry and thoughts that you aren't interested in and a continued account of my daily life.

stay tuned...or throw the computer away and hide.

my brother's rescue mission

This adventure lasted from Tuesday Morning the day after the bank holiday to Saturday afternoon.

I need to write some more about my sister and her involvement in my life and the devastation of her involving an organisation that had already rejected me for help, but I will explain that later. To put it briefly I had fallen out with my sister, and had had to deal with the mess of her well meaning intervention, which made life more stressful. My brother told me that when my sister and I fell out, she expected him to stop speaking to me for her sake, but   he  continued to speak to me.

My brother talked about bringing me to his home county to stay, about having the garage sorted out as a living space. I have long since given up hope of escaping the streets or any good happening, but a silly little part of me tries to go on hoping, tries to believe when other people make offers and promises, thats how I ended up in the cult recently.

I said to my brother he should be realistic and wouldn't it be too much for him to cope with me and his family? (There being 9 of them altogether in a 4 or 5 bedroomed house as well as three dogs and a cat),

and when he put me on the train to London he shortened this to me having said was he sure he could cope with me? make me to blame, everyone else does! I don't deny that I am not very tame these days but I am house trained and respectful.

Excuse my self pity but the family have been very harsh on me for speaking up about my other brother abusing me and also my anger at my younger brothers' treatment of me and a number of other things like my fallout with my brother which I mentioned in a previous blog today. It's not just me, my family fight amongst themselves all the time, and I never know who is friends with who, it is impossible to be a member of my family and not be caught up in the misunderstandings and anger. I hope you don't think I am being too whiney.

In London I had appointments and people to see: The nurse who was going to tend to my feet and see what the lab said about the infection I seem to have, the counsellors who I had just made contact with at the free counselling service,the other nurse who was going to see what could be done about the trauma, the solicitor, the advocate, the everyone, this little adventure interrupted or broke all contacts and left me very exhausted and helpless for a while.

my brother phoned me late at night and said he was coming to collect me, he seemed to think it would help me and it would work. I had to believe him, I am like a child, everyone else has to be the adult.

I sleepily made my way from where I was sleeping at waterloo to where my brother could meet me, by the time he got to me it was gone 2am and a combination of exhaustion and chest infection were getting to me, I get frequent chest and throat infections now, partly weather and partly that the other homeless people can be very unhygenic and like to share their germs.

I didn't sleep in the car, we talked about the past, it used to be comforting to share our past, but in my world of no future it just hurts me now, Dad is gone, all the good is gone and the past cannot come back, my brother is not just my brother, he is the person who keeps his family together and has been far away for a long time.

We got to his house at almost 5am in the morning, then his wife was up and wanted to talk, eventually I got to bed, bedded down in their daughter's little bed, while she is sleeping elsewhere, already this is all wrong, but what can I do?

The room and the house are stifling hot but if I open the window the dog is in the garden making a terrible shrill yowling noise, I hate to be all symptoms but my hearing is too sensetive, which caused confusion when I was younger before I was diagnosed with dysphasia, because I could hear too well and sharp noise sent me wild with distress and yet I couldn't understand what people were saying, especially not when there was background noise or more than one person talking.

Unfortunately my brother's house is all sharp noises from young children and dogs, background noises from music, too much going on.

I have come from the dark empty cold solitude on the streets to the hot noisy chaotic house where there are 7 children and an angry unpredictable woman, sorry but much as I may be angry and unpredictable, my brother's wife is more so, and since Christmas about 6 years ago I have been nervous of her, I remember her throwing the phone accross the room and smashing it that Christmas, and I am terrified of that type of violence.

Anyway, I slept for a few hours, woke up dizzy and groggy, slept again, when I woke, my brother and his wife were arguing, then we took one of their children to stay with his gran, his mother's mum, she already had two of them staying, so that means only four were left at home.

my brother's wife was being very nice to me, I know she flips though, so I was on edge, my brother really really wants this to work, so I do, for his sake, he went to the length of coming to collect me from London in the night, and that is more than anyone has done to help me in a long time, but I am still concerned, I know he thinks time and space will heal everything, but I don't think he realises how bad things are, I want to believe him in his optimism, but inside I am dead and full of dread.

My brother has the music on loud, he talks about the past, it is nice to be with someone who knows me and my past and understands, it is nice not to be alone, and to have a feeling of belonging, but the music and the talk take energy, and I have none, my head is a raging temperature, my chest feels like it is full of water, my throat is sore and my voice is strained trying to keep in the conversation and talk over the music, I just want to go somewhere dark and cool and hide my head in something soft, I wish I could be wrapped in the arms of one of my adoptive parents' even though they abused me.

My brother and his wife talk to me in the kitchen over many lovely cups of tea, but there are no chairs and I find standing difficult, my right leg is more and more awkward, so I try to sit in the porch just outside the kitchen, I try to explain this though I don't want to seem like a hypochondriac or munchausens, my legs are awkward, standing, sitting on a chair, walking are all difficult, and I will never be able to run again.

My brother works as a taxi driver, he works in the evenings and comes back in the early hours, it is hard to get to sleep because when I start to doze off the children become noisy, saying they are hungry and asking their mum if they can go downstairs, by the time I sleep through the noise my brother is back from work and wants to know if I will get up and have a cuppa with him, and in the morning I wake up groggily when my nephew bursts into the room, something that becomes a habit, I know my nephew is young and completely innocent and that my brother wouldn't understand in a million years that I find anyone bursting in on me alarming, more so a male, and that my nephew innocently jabbing at my breast repeatedly with a toy is very distressing for me, I cannot relax, I know that my brother's children are good kids, but I am overwhelmed, the door of the bedroom opens itself constantsly and there is no privacy. 

my computer was ruined by the dispute with J. (my sister) and the people she contacted about me, so my brother's wife says I can use their daughters' spare laptop, it has keys missing but it works.

One of the things my brother said about me coming to stay with him was that it would 'get me away from J.and all that s**t', but he is on the phone to her and texting her all the time, telling me that she blocked me on facebook, etc etc, he is also happy to tell me what some other family members think of me, and yet not listen to what I have to say about their treatment of me, so far being with my brother is deepening my depression, and there is none of the help in this county that I was arranging to access in London, but my brother means well, he certainly doesn't mean to hurt me.

My brother is worried because I don't talk, don't volunteer anything about what has happened to me, his way of resolving things, despite his own Asperger's Syndrome, is to talk, or even shout, the church have gagged me and left me with years of damage and emotions trapped inside me, things I haven't even been able to write in this blog yet, and no words will come, I have never been good at verbally expressing myself and now I am even less able to.

 One of my other sisters comes to see my brother, we have a lovely time but the talking is searingly exhausting over the music and my voice is going.

I want to get away from J. for a while and get some space, she doesn't understand the meaning of the word, she is talking to me through my brother, texting me, unblocking me on facebook and spamming my conversations, SPACE! SPACE! I get cross, she gets my brother involved and undoubtedly also tells other members of the family that I am staying with him even though we are keeping it a secret.

my brother says he never had her on facebook and my other sister says she blocked him,

my family are a crazy array of fallings out and pretences of blocking each other and not speaking, it is harshly exhausting and painful and I almost wish I hadn't regained my brother and sister and been reminded constantly and bluntly by them that I am villified by some of the family for reacting to the way some of the family have treated me, some of them apparently deny that I was sexually abused when I was young. Napac tells me that in up to 90% of cases there is this denial.

I cannot possibly to be to blame for everyone's problems as well as mine, but they are dgood at making it that way.

my brother's wife said my brother makes phonecalls in his sleep and he does, in between snores he constantly answers the phone, chats and then snores again, being a taxi driver and constantly taking calls while awake means that he does it in his sleep. 

my brother and his wife take me shopping for clothes, I feel very guilty about letting him spend money on me as I have been called a user by the church and I also overhear something my brother and his wife say that alarms me, something about someone leading someone up the garden path, but I cannot understand how that can apply to me?! They aren't necessarily talking about me, I am hypervigilant because of what I did very clearly hear people saying and what was said to my face because of what the church said about me.

My brother takes me to sort out my benefits and have everything changed to his address, this worries me a lot but he is confident that it is a good idea. So I do.

I still feel ill, I have a headache and a temperature, a productive cough and a runny nose, I apologize to my brother's wife that I seem to have brought a cold to the house, but she makes out that it is not a problem, and fortunately no-one else seems to catch it, it is a homeless germ, not a domestic cold. My brother's wife is either friendly or wary of me or trying to be hospitable, she doesn't really trust anyone, every time I go to get a drink as I am told I can, she comes to the kitchen and has a drink with me, tea or coke, and talks to me, tells me about her disputes with my family, tells me of a time when she went screaming mad at my mum and sisters, I had never heard of this dispute, it sounds like it got quite extreme,

 I had heard of others where all kinds of rows and threats went on, sometimes I wonder why I feel so ashamed in front of my family when they get to do all these crazy things.

she talks about her children and her family and all kinds of things, tells me how she had a hellish childhood (which maybe where her Borderline Personality Disorder comes from),

 this is fine, it is nice to have company, but for me it is really strange to have company all the time after being alone a lot, and I feel so ill, I want so much for my brother's wife to be happy with the situation and to feel that we can talk as we are doing, but I also want to take my illness and distress somewhere cold and dark and quiet. She talks about painting the garage for me and seeing if the council will house me nearby and would I like that?

The ideas my brother had of getting me a licence or getting me to drive a taxi are unreal, there is no way I can stay here and rely on him for transport, the services I need, especially the doctor are not accessible without transport, there is no way I can be housed by the council or suddenly return to work as my brother hoped, and then there are rows about redecorating the garage for me, his wife wants to, his wife doesn't want her house and children disrupted by me, I don't want to disrupt them, I dont want to be in the way, I feel useless and guess who the family grapevine will blame for all of this mess? me.

My brother's wife walks out with the kids, my brother throws and smashes cups and shouts,

I want my cold dark empty life back,

my brother tells me that this was exactly the same scenario when he had my youngest sister to stay after dad's funeral, his wife went mad and left with the kids, and he can't live without his kids.

He says what I already know, that this is how his wife is, even with medication to calm her down.  before she stormed out she was telling me of her many suicide attempts. I know my brother really wanted to help me and to be the big brother to the little sister who used to be, but the old him and the old me are gone, and he is a family man who cannot live without his kids, and needs his wife there to help look after them.

my brother drives me to the station and goes to pick up his kids.

my sleeping bag is missing when I return to London, it is raining and my chest is full of infection and my head is aching and my leg is getting seriously painful.

the cigarette smoke and the perverts and the trains are my life, I get propositioned by a man who looks more like a priest than a pervert, I tell him what I think of that in very short words.

I am not family, I am the thrown away one.

This adventure leaves me further drained and hopeless, and I know that I have hardly been able to tell you what has happened to me and how I have ended up homeless and in this state, but I can tell you that the steady avalanche of last straws has been going on for some time and hasn't stopped with this adventure. Things like this and the cult adventure leave me wandering around in a distressed sick daze for a few days.