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.