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,