Feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall - and the only thin I'm getting as a result is a migraine. I'm in my (mid)40s - at my age I should be out doing things, not living in fear. But that's the truth of it when you're autistic, you spend your life looking over your shoulder - and, eventually, you end up being held under laws meant for those with severe mental illness, even though you're NOT mentally ill - your life under the control of neurotypicals and you're treated like you don't know your own name, never mind what day/month/year it is.
I have spent the past 72 hours being violently ill, due to malnutrition. Gut rot from Hades, basically. I have been where I am now since 08/02 and, in that time, I've lost more than 2 stone. I ended up in Stoke Mandeville suffering from exhaustion and, while I was in there someone (the flat manager claims it was my SW, he says it was her - either way, she’s culpable because there are only two people (that I’m aware of who have a key to the flat door: her and her immediate manager and, at the time I was admitted, the more senior managerial position was vacant), so she would have let the ‘cleaners’ into the flat.
I lost EVERYTHING:
- Clothes (including all my underwear and socks!)
- Shoes
- 2 pairs of NC headphones (I had my cheapest pair with me, now that’s all I’ve got)
- All my art stuff
- Towels
- Bed-linen
- Everything from the kitchen (and I mean everything: crockery, glassware, utensils, pots, pans, cleaning stuff - they took EVERYTHING, including all the food in the cupboards)
- Everything out of the fridge/freezer
Apparently, this isn’t supposed to upset me; apparently letting complete strangers into what is, ostensibly, supposed to be someone’s ‘home’ is a perfectly normal thing to do, my feeling violated was an “abnormal” reaction, apparently. I mean, yeah, I’m autistic, but how would anyone here feel if someone let people into your house, without your authorisation, and those people cleaned you out…? Apparently, the manager just let them in and left, then she tried to gaslight me into believing that all the stuff I knew had been taken I’d imagined having in the first place.
The manager won’t accept any responsibility for what’s been stolen (apparently it’s somehow MY fault because “the flat was disgusting” (it wasn’t)), but she let complete strangers into the flat, and just left them to it (or, if she didn’t, just allowed them to take whatever they wanted).
This then gave her licence to tell people that I “didn’t understand” the “health risks of remaining in dirty clothes for weeks” - because I was forced to remain in the hospital stuff for obvious reasons. I still have very few clothes now (I have no access to a washing machine; staff have to take things to be washed and I’ve often not got things back).
She comes in frequently and helps herself from my fridge; she can get away with stealing my food because she simply claims that it was “out of date and mouldy”. She has told people (SW, police, paramedics, A&E staff) that I like to eat “rancid, raw meat” and that I “take mouldy food out of the bin and eat it’ (this is partly true; I have been taking food out of the bin - but it’s not been “mouldy”; it’s been unopened and well in date. So she’s now taken to putting perfectly edible food from my fridge, freezer and cupboards in the bin (or at least a bin bag) of the woman in the flat downstairs (she has cerebral palsy and is severely learning disabled). I demand to see what she’s taken “I don’t have to show you”.
So I’ve stopped buying food; I buy it and the literally the following day (or 2 days later at most) she’s in here ‘binning’ it (or she’s taking it to eat herself - everything she takes is unopened, so I assume that she’s retrieving it from L’s flat later and taking it home). I’m treated like I’m stupid; she speaks to me as you’d speak to a naughty toddler. Staff come to the bedroom door twice a day and now, rather than actually speaking to me, she’s got them using the same flashcards as she uses with L downstairs. I’m infantilised, dehumanised and treated like I don’t know my own fecking mind! Staff come in and help themselves to my washing tabs, and stuff from the kitchen cupboards. I’ve given up reporting things because it’s my word against flat manger’s and, because I’m being held under the MCA (for reasons I don’t understand, and apparently I’m not allowed to be privy to) I must be mistaken, I must’ve imagined ever having this stuff.
She has made several vexatious reports to the police (she seems determined to have me arrested or re-sectioned). She claims - because DoLS - that she’s allowed to barge in here whenever she feels like it, so I basically live in fear of someone barging in through the front door of the flat and taking stuff from the fridge/freezer (which is what she does).
She also told the police (about a week after the alleged incident occurred) that she’d found me “SITTING in the middle of the main road, SCREAMING that I was going to kill myself” - 100% pure fiction (if it was true, she’d have called the police at the time she alleged it occurred). The road in question is an extremely busy ‘A’ road; it goes to Aylesbury in one direction and Leighton Buzzard and Milton Keynes in the other. There’s absolutely NO WAY anyone could sit in it!
She has ensured that I cannot get help; she has turned everyone who could’ve helped me against me. Nobody listens to me, nobody believes me. Her word against mine. That not withstanding, I have no phone signal here and getting online is often patchy. This is literally the middle of nowhere; I can’t even order from Deliveroo or Just Eat because they don’t come out this way.
I am severely weak and sick from severe burnout, stress and lack of food. I am completely isolated here. I have no access to any kind of support and, due to the fact I can’t get a phone signal, obviously I’m unable to call for help (not that it matters because I’m so weak and ill now that I’m basically nonverbal).
All I can think about now is escape; I need food, and I need to feel safe. For some reason, I’ve been fixated on Bristol but, frankly, now I don’t care where I go, provided I have food and safety (including a decent phone signal and internet access). That said, I’ve long harboured a dream of being near a Dark Sky Place, but that’s not important now, really.
I don’t have much money, I don’t have many clothes - but everything I do need to take is heavy and I’m not strong enough to carry my rucksack.
I can’t stop crying; I would do anything to help anyone if I could - but nobody will help me. Just feel like I’ve been dumped here and left to die. I can’t fight anymore; she knows she can get away with the abuse, because she can simply claim “safeguarding” - but I don’t feel safe, I’m being starved to death.
I just want to have something of a life before it’s too late…
Thank you for any help. I'll be more grateful than you'll ever realise.
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