Torus complaint Complaint

section 1

part 7

written in 2022

As previously stated, I was already unwell with my disabilities when you offered me this flat knowing that I only had one offer and therefore could not refuse it, but my doctors, not knowing the problems with my flat and assuming that you had as you should have taken my disability into consideration when rehousing me, expected that once I moved into the property and no longer had the stress of becoming homeless, or falling behind on the mortgage, or my abusive ex, turning up at the property and physically and/or sexually assaulting me, and he no longer had any excuse to contact me, or threaten me, or turn up where ever I was when he knew where I was for example when I was working at work, etc, that I would be able to get well enough for therapies, as with borderline personality disorder you actually need to be a certain level of well and functioning for therapies to not only work but to not do more harm than good. After being released from hospital, where I had a medication change, and no longer having the stress of losing my job or fighting for the disability adjustments that I desperately needed at work and having a little bit of ESA to afford basics like food, electric, gas, and water, my health had actually begun to improve a little bit- this is because borderline personality disorder is not a chemical imbalance, so medication doesn’t always help borderline personality and wont be the thing that helps you manage your illness it can only help management to a certain level, it is as I understand it a structural functioning issue, meaning I have stunted development and under to no functioning in certain areas of my brain, this means that borderline personality disorder is effected mainly by your environment, circumstances, events, lifestyle etc, anything that would negatively affect mentally well person even on a small scale, massively affects me, I was in a strict routine, which the doctors had advised me was an important part of managing my illnesses, and it was helping. I was sleeping properly, I was eating properly, I was taking my medication at the right times, and also not forgetting to take it, or mixing it up. I wasn’t having the thoughts that didn’t feel like mine anymore, or having panic attacks, or seizures.

All this progress I made not only fell apart, but my health had deteriorated within the first couple of months of me living in the property, to a point where I personally felt and was struggling worse than I was before I went into hospital, due to all the issues at the property, but especially the anti-social behaviour, and it happened so quickly that I was severely struggling by my first meeting with Phil at the property after I moved in.

When I signed the tenancy agreement, I was told I would need to have two of these meetings at specific times during my first year in the property to see how I was getting on living in the property, though I don’t remember the names of these meetings, or at what points during that first year they were scheduled to take place.

Due to how badly I was struggling, and how that effected my ability to communicate, deal with, or just be around people, and the fact that we had already made complaints about the issues in this property and how they were effecting me, meaning you were already aware of how I was getting on in the property, my mum asked for the meeting to be postponed until the problems had been dealt with and I was feeling and managing a little bit better. Probably because both he himself, and you as a company, had no intentions of dealing with the issues in the property and making it disability suitable for me, Phil insisted that he had to come to the flat and conduct the meeting.

At this point in time, I was no longer in any sort of schedule and wasn’t sleeping properly again due to the noise issues next door and upstairs, as a result of this I was unable to take my medication at the times I was supposed to take them, forgetting to take them, and mixing them up, I was no longer eating properly and my binge eating which is one of my self-harm behaviours, and just as serious as any other form of self-harm, if not worse as it can give me longer term or permanent health issues and other conditions and disabilities such as diabetes especially when you pair it with the fact that I am not sleeping which can also cause other long term or permanent health issues and other conditions and disabilities by itself such as diabetes, my self harm behaviours and any symptom of my illness like my other symptoms are not with in my control, had gotten worse, my migraines were back, my panic attacks were back, and my seizures and tics were back, and were getting more intense and frequent. I had begun to visually hallucinate (which outside of my sleep paralysis episodes I had never done before, and sleep paralysis hallucinations are not the same type of hallucinations as the type you have when fully awake, as up until this point I had only ever had taste and smell hallucinations, which are the same type of hallucination, they are not two different types, and can be connected to seizures and seizure disorders. More importantly though, I was missing larges parts of time, and was experience jumbled up time, which is very scary and distressing by itself, but which can be a sign I am having the thoughts that don’t feel like mine, but I don’t remember it because it’s happening during the time that’s missing, which is scary, worrying, and serious when you consider these thoughts are the thoughts that tell me to violently commit suicide by doing things like setting myself on fire, or slitting my throat, again I do not control these thoughts or my suicidal urges, they control me. If I was to commit suicide it is not because I made the choice to commit suicide, it is because I am sick and my illness killed me, which seems to be a concept that you can’t grasp. To me it seems like you seem to believe if I kill myself that is my choice and you are in no way responsible for that because I chose to do it, and that it has nothing to do with the fact that you put me in a flat that was not disability suitable and in fact was very very bad for my disability. What you have done to me is like putting a person with no legs in a flat with only stairs an no lift on the top floor of a high rise, leaving them their and expecting them to live a normal life, while saying if they fall down the stairs and die that is on them because they chose to try to walk down the stairs knowing they couldn’t do it because they have no legs.

My mum enquired as to whether it was possible for Phil to come alone, and he agreed that it was. My mum made it clear that I was really struggling to be around, communicate with, and deal with people and that the more people at the meeting the harder and more distressing this would be for me, and how it could force me into an episode that could last for days or even weeks after the meeting.

Yet, when Phil arrived at the meeting he was with Clara, the housing officer he had invited into the property half way through my viewing.

At this point, before they had entered the flat, my mum reminded him that he had promised he could and would come alone, and requested that Clara did not attend the meeting or enter the property.

To which Phil replied that, he would make Clara stand in the corner.

Firstly, I can’t believe that this man had the audacity to call me strange. Being mentally disabled and showing signs of that mentally disability isn’t being strange. Making your colleague stand in the corner is strange.

Secondly, I don’t think Phil has any right to be believed when he accuses others of being abusive, which is abusive itself when it’s a lie, and more so when it’s a lie which has dangerous consequences, and was intended to have those dangerous consequences, but particularly when those consequences effect vulnerable people, if he can’t understand that forcing a person to stand in a corner is abusive. If Phil can’t see that forcing a person to stand in a corner is not only abusive behaviour as it is belittling and dehumanising, but to do it is but to do it to your colleague is also actually work place bullying, then he can’t possibly have any understanding of what is abusive behaviour and what isn’t abusive be haviour.

Thirdly, him forcing her to stand in the corner isn’t going to make things easier or less distressing for me. Watching another person be abused in this way would only make things harder and more distressing. In fact, just the suggestion that he would force her to stand in the corner is distressing and worrying, especially when you consider this is a man with power over me, a man who clearly enjoys having and abusing power.

The majority of the meeting was spent with Phil belittling my disabilities, my symptoms, and how they affect me, and encouraging Clara to join in.

It is clear that Phil has problems when it comes to listening to others, both when it comes to keeping quiet, and actually taking in what is being said to him, as well as trying to wrongly correct the information people are giving him.

Like at the viewing, and every other time we had to speak to him, be it in person or on the phone, Phil could not stand anyone but himself talking, with the exception of when he encouraged Clara to join in on belittling my illnesses.

People talking over me and interrupting me is very difficult, distressing, and disabling for me, and therefore effects my ability and rights of communication.

One of my symptoms is severe racing thoughts, this means I have a lot of different and urgent thoughts all at once which I am not able to follow. The best way to give you some understanding of my experience is that it feels like being in a crowded room with everybody shouting different but equally urgent and stressful things at me all at once, but they keep changing what they are shouting about. Obviously this isn’t accurate to what it is like but the best way I can describe it so other people can have some understanding of it, as since I have gone on anti psychotics and it has slightly eased these symptoms I can no longer be in a room where a lot of people are just normally talking as it feels far too much like the inside of my head on a milder scale and that is enough to make me start to feel very unwell.

Another symptom is extremely poor concentration and attention.

For example-

Last week I forgot I was lifting a pan of boiling hot water off the hob while it was in my hand, which resulted in me pouring boiling hot water all over myself.

Another example of this is-

Last year I ended up in A&E with a severe concussion and nerve trauma, which was so bad they made me have an MRI scan, then admitted me to an in patient observation room that I was told I wasn’t allowed to leave, until my results came back showing no damage to my sulk or brain. This was a result of me forgetting I had just mopped the floor as soon as I let go of the mop, then I went to hurrying to the next room, slipped and smashed my head on the floor.

My memory is also very poor.

I will mix words, names, people, or things up when I am talking, even I don’t know why I do this. Sometimes I don’t even notice I do it.

So, if somebody interrupts me, or talks over me, it causes me to forget what I was saying, lose my place in what I was saying, become confused, disorientated, distressed, and eventually agitated.

Conversations with me can be confusing for other people involved in the conversation when and I am not feeling well, and this obviously gets worse if you speak over me or interrupt me.

I have tried to explain this to Phil every time I personally have spoken to him, since the viewing, because his inability to listen, let anybody else speak , or try to correct them when they are right and he is wrong, makes it impossible for me to communicate with him because of my disabilities. All I have asked him for in this respect is to be patient with me and show me basic manners that you would except to be shown by anybody. Yet Phil not only seems to be unable to do this, but to be unwilling to do it. His attitude in how he has responded to me when I have asked this of him seems to be that he is above treating me like a normal human being as he thinks he is better than me, and that me asking for him to be aware that I am disabled and to bear that in mind when speaking to me and how he speaks to me is asking far too much from him.

As previously stated, I have also tried to explain that I may seem like I am shouting, or hostile when I am not, I am struggling with my illness and these things are signs that I am struggling.

My illnesses are not an invisible illnesses, despite how much you want to insist they are, you can see and hear my illnesses present themselves.

To ignore that these are symptoms of my illness is to ignore that I am ill.

These symptoms obviously get worse when I am in a difficult situation, dealing with difficult things, in a stressful situation, or dealing with stressful things. So of course they are going to be worse when I am suffering because you have put me in a flat that is unsuitable for my disability.

They are also made worse though by people being rude, hostile, aggressive, etc, to me, as although I don’t mean it I will subconsciously match their tone and attitude.

However, attempting to explain this to Phil not only makes him combative, defensive and threating –

For example-

Threatening to hang up on me if I am struggling with my illnesses.

It is in itself enough for him to say you are being aggressive and hang up on you. This is distressing when you are calmly explaining how your recognised disabilities effect you.

Id say it’s the equivalent of somebody who suffers with coprolalia as a symptom of their Tourette’s being treated this way, but it’s actually worse, because I am not evening seeming to be offensive or aggressive, I am just distressed and like anybody under extreme distress my voice gets louder. Getting upset or distressed is not abusive behaviour, but Phil will certainly tell you and everybody else that it is, only when he tells everyone else you were abusive he will leave out the fact that you were crying, and he told you that he wasn’t going to deal with you if you were crying and “shouting” and just say that you were shouting.

In my opinion, Phil’s behaviour is rude and inappropriate even if you’re not disable, and as someone who worked as a front line staff member for seventeen years it is behaviour I have witnessed in other staff members I have worked with who are lazy or looking for any excuse to do as little as possible, it is behaviour that some of the people I have witnessed doing it have bragged they do because they couldn’t be bothered working, or doing a particular thing, or dealing with a particular person.

If either of these is the case then Phil should not be working with the public.

However if Phil doesn’t want to deal with me in particular because of my disabilities, this in itself is disability discrimination.

When, during this meeting, I tried to explain to Phil that I have diagnosed borderline personality disorder and adjustment disorder, and I was waiting for confirmation I have non epileptic attack disorder, which has now been confirmed, what these illness are, how they affect me, and why my flat wasn’t disability suitable for me, Phil aggressively interrupted me to tell me I was suffering with “a little bit of depression and anxiety,”

As I have already stated, I know Phil isn’t a doctor.

But, does Phil know he isn’t a doctor?

Is Phil aware that he hasn’t gone through a decade of education to become a psychiatrist, or neurologist?

Does Phil know that he is neither qualified to diagnose, or change a diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder and/or seizure disorder?

When people tell Phil their disability diagnosis’s, and how those disabilities affect them, or present themselves, Phil should listen, Phil should not tell them what he thinks is wrong with them.

When I attempted to explain to Phil how I have episodes of dissociation, which for me includes having thoughts that don’t feel like mine, that tell me to set myself on fire, slit my throat, or run in front of lorries, and these contributed to my then recent suicide attempt, and that I experience missing and jumbled up time, he interrupted me, told me he complete understood, and that what I was describing was completely normal, and everybody experiences these symptoms, then he encouraged Clara to join in.

She did join in. She insisted everybody has “hazy” memories and times things are “all little bit of a blur.”

At this point I thought maybe it would be better to talk to Clara about my disability issues at the property and tried to explain that wasn’t what I meant, but again Phil cut me off.

Let me make it very clear-
-What I was explaining isn’t normal.
-It doesn’t happen to everyone.
-If you want to talk about depression my illness has the highest rate of successfully completed suicides, we can suffer with severe chronic depression and what I have seen described as chronic suicidal thoughts. A little bit of depression wouldn’t come close to describing what I have when it comes to depression. Depression, some peoples entire mental illness is just a symptom of my illness.
-If you want to talk about anxiety I have suffered with anxiety and panic attacks so bad they have left me completely paralysed during them meaning that I can’t do anything except lay on the floor and cry. My anxiety causes me to become very suspicious and paranoid. Again my anxiety could not be described as a little bit of anxiety, it is severe and disabling as is my depression. Again someones entire illness – an anxiety disorder, because anxiety itself is not an illness, it is a normal human emotion- is just a single symptom of my illnesses.
-I was sectioned because of this particular episode I was using to explain how serious my disabilities are, and how my flat could lead to my death. During this episode I was using to explain how serious my illness is and how my flat is a danger to my safety, I tried to kill myself, I could have caused a car crash, or a car to hit somebody else. I am not only missing most of this episode, but this day, the next day, and the week after, as well as most of April through to August before the episode which happened in late August. What memories I do have of the episode, the week after, and the months before are out of order in how I recall them happening, and honestly I don’t know the correct order most of these memories should be in. Then, when I was detained by the police in the street after I ran out in front of cars at least twice, I had a seizure that police officer witnessed and which was so bad that he then took me to hospital himself rather than wait for the ambulance to come, and later said he thought that I was epileptic because I looked like I was having an epileptic seizure.

If Phil and Clara don’t really understand, then saying they do is belittling my disabilities. They are also dangerous for saying they do and that what I experience is normal and everybody experiences it, as some people with my illnesses don’t believe they are ill and believe they are fine, and here Phil and Clara are happy to tell them that they are fine and aren’t at all ill.

If Phil and Clara really do understand then they are very unwell.

And if they think it is normal, then they are more unwell than I am, because I am at least in touch with reality enough to understand these experiences aren’t normal and don’t affect everybody, therefore I am very ill.

If they do understand my symptoms and illnesses because they personally experience these symptoms, please get them immediate help, because they are a danger to themselves and potentially others.

Regardless of whether they do or don’t understand, please for the safety of the vulnerable people they encounter on a daily basis release them from their current roles, as they pose a real danger to the mentally ill and mentally disabled, and probably other vulnerable people.

They should not be working with the public in any way or role.

The very obvious reality is that unless Phil and Clara have borderline personality disorder, and non epileptic attack disorder, they can not begin to understand what I experience or how I suffer as a result of my disabilities and they shouldn’t believe they do.

But I don’t think they do believe they know what I experience or suffer as a mentally disabled person. I think the two of them are so used to being able to belittle disabled people and get away with it, because you back them up, that they believe they are entitled to belittle peoples disabilities and discriminate against people because they are disable in any way they want.

And I would bet that it is only mentally disabled people that you allow them to do this too, because you as a company are just as discriminatory and belittling of my mental illness related disability, as I face this behaviour from the majority of your staff that I have to deal with.