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,