evidence of noise part 8b

evidence of noise next door part 8a

evidence of noise next door part 7

evidence of noise next door part 6

evidence of noise next door part 5

evidence of noise next door 4b

evidence of noise next door part 4

evidence of noise next door part 3

evidence of noise next door part 2

Evidence of noise next door part 1

evidence to go with 8f of lmh complaint

Lmh complaint 8.f

At the bottom of this file note, Phil once again has the opportunity to mention that I am disabled, how, and what my disabilities are, in fact he should, but he doesn’t.

Saying he attached the letter isn’t good enough. He should note down the important information that in the letter in case it goes missing. He should also say what the next steps are for how he and LMH are going to fix their error of putting me in a disability unsuitable flat. He probably doesn’t do this because he and you had no intention of fixing the life threatening mistake you made.

All of the above is disability discrimination.

However, Phil once again cant help but go above and beyond in his discrimination of me, as he still cant help but to refer to my disabilities as “issues.”

He writes-

“Provided us with more information on Miss Vannuccis issues.”

Not-
Illnesses/Disabilities/ Conditions/Disorders

Once again Phil chooses to speak about me in a way that suggest I am choosing to be ill, and is othering and demeaning.

Evidence to go with 8e of lmh complaint

LMH Complaint 8.E

Another part of this file note where Phil tries to make me sound strange and crazy is when he says-

“Miss Vannucci said that she was going back to her flat to eat the BLUE rodent bait.”

As it paints an image of me biting int hard, raw, blocks of BLUE poison.

As previously stated, what I had in my flat was poisoned porridge. Which is a very common item to use as suicide poison.

I probably did say I was going to eat the poison, and knowing the suicidal thoughts I had been having I probably added “Because that’s the only way its going to solve my rat infestation,” (as at this point we had already been told that rats and mice eat where they live, and that they weren’t living in my flat, so the chance of them eating the poison in my flat was low.) but I certainly never said that it was blue. This is an embellishment on Phil’s part.

There’s also no way I would have said that you should call the police as I was threating to harm myself because-
1. I don’t believe the police should be dealing with mentally ill people, unless they are a danger to others.
2. I actually did intent to kill myself after I left that meeting (and I will explain how I know this later) which meant I wouldn’t have wanted anybody looking for me.

Him saying I said this again suggests I am looking for attention, or trying to use threats of harming myself to get what I want.

I have tried to commit suicide twice before, for no other reason than I wanted to die.

I have an illness that has the highest rate of successful suicide attempts out of any other illness or person group.

I have an illness that I have seen doctors describe as making not in recovery suffers chronically suicidal.

If I try to kill myself again, it will be the result of my illness making me want to die, not because I am trying to get attention or manipulate anyone, and to suggest such is actually a common way people discriminate against people with borderline personality disorder.

Evidence to go with lmh complaint 8d

LMH complaint 8.d

Phil once again lies to make me sound either strange, like a drama queen, or both, while at the same time admitting that he knew I was life threateningly mentally ill when he wrote his email the day after the viewing in which he calls me “Strange” and accuses me of having “issues” in this file note when he writes-

“Miss Vannucci mother, stay for 10 minutes and informed us that her daughter had been sectioned in August and September 2018 after being found walking towards on coming traffic on a main road in Liverpool and tried to kill herself.

(Also, she didn’t stay, she went back like I said earlier, to ask Phil to double check his information about ESA and UC was correct, which he refused to do even though he was wrong, and it could have been the difference between me reattempting suicide and not reattempting suicide.

Phil says this as though he knew nothing about any of this prior to my mum telling him, but he did because I told him earlier on.

Let me be clear, I was not “found” “walking towards oncoming traffic” which is actually an important discrepancy as saying that I was creates an offensive stereotype of a mentally ill person and/or suggests I was pretending to be suicidal. Both things are disability discrimination.

It is so obvious that Phil made this up, as it’s not even possible to walk towards oncoming traffic on a
main road for two reasons-

1. If the main road is busy, then you would be immediately hit by a car the second you stepped out onto the road. That is the entire reason you would use a main road to commit suicide.
2. If its not busy, the cars will see you and just change lanes, therefore you’re not walking towards on coming traffic.
   
   

I also wasn’t found anywhere. I was on the phone when I tried to commit suicide. People knew where I was, and what I was doing.

What I told Phil, and what my mum told Phil, is that I stepped out in front of at least two cars going fast.

The first time, I timed it wrong, which gave the person driving just enough time to swerve. At this point I started screaming at that car, and the other cars who had seen what was going on and moved into the other lane.

(So if I was “found” any where it would have been standing on a main road screaming.)

At this point, I got back on the pavement to wait for another opportunity to step out in front of a car whose driver wasn’t aware that I was going to do it.

The next memory that I have is of being on the opposite pavement as I stepped out in front of another car. Right as I did a man grabbed me, and dragged me back onto the pavement.

All Phil had to say here, was that we informed that I had been sectioned because I attempted suicide.

At most, that I did it by trying to get hit by a car.

That would be both accurate and true.

But because he needs to gossip and wants to try to make me seem strange, he tells this weird impossible story that suggest I’m either an offensive stereotype of a mentally ill person, or I was looking for attention.

Evidence to go with lmh complain 8.c

LMH complaint 8.c

In the third paragraph of his file note, Phil once again talks about my viewing of the flat.

Again, he claims that I was erratic, but gives no examples of how.

If Phil was lying that I was erratic (which he was, because if I was he would have been able to give examples of how I was behaving erratically, and we know that he would have given those examples, as he mentions other unimportant and insignificant details, such as I was picking my nail varnish, either because he is a gossip and/or because he wants to make me sound “strange” because he personally doesn’t like me) then that is disability discrimination.

If Phil isn’t lying, because he genuinely did think my behaviour was erratic (because he doesn’t understand what the word means, and has never seen a person behave erratically) then he is a very dangerous man, and should not be doing a job where he comes into contact with vulnerable people at all, never mind regularly, which he must as a housing officer. Not only that, but he is the only point of contact for those vulnerable people, even if, and when, they report his discrimination of them. This is because, if I was behaving erratically then I would have been having a very serious and potentially life threatening (especially considering my recent suicide attempt) episode. Therefore, Phil should have stopped the meeting for my safety, but instead he chose to make the viewing more stressful for me, which was a choice as it wasn’t even unavoidable because he did it by – lying that I would have my benefits stopped if accepted the flat, invited others who didn’t have to be a part of the viewing into it, tried to pressure me into getting back into work with no idea of whether or not I was capable of working (which I wasn’t) and whether I ever would be again, pried into my personal business, and belittled my medical conditions. He also questioned me very aggressively on why I had no money if I had just sold my house which wasn’t necessary (as many people lose money when selling property) and was inappropriate. He just wanted gossip.

Not only that but, he knew that I was unwell with mental illness because I personally told him that I was at the viewing, as well as what my diagnosis were, and that I had tried to kill myself by stepping out in front of cars on a main road.

He also admits he already knew this on the day of the viewing before I told him, as he writes-

“The only information we had on the day of the viewing was that Miss Vannucci was taken into hospital and had to stay there for a while.”

You don’t get sectioned unless you aren’t well.

LMH Complaint evidence 8b2

LMH Complaint 8.b.2

Phil again makes sure that when I die in this flat there is undisputable evidence of my death being your fault when he writes-

“Miss Vannucci has stated that she CAN NOT SETTLE IN THIS FLAT, and wants PEACE AND QUIET, but this WILL NOT HAPPEN as Miss Vannucci lives in a block where there are KNOWN ISSUES.”

Let me break this sentence down for you in detail.

I never said the words, “I can’t settle,” or “I want peace and quiet.”

What I did was inform Phil that this flat wasn’t suitable for my disabilities and why.

I imagine when Phil writes that I said I can not settle, he is referring to the multiple times both me and my mum told him very clearly that this flat was not suitable for my disabilities.

So, again, more evidence of disability discrimination by Phil, because he changes what actually happened, which was me telling him that I have Borderline Personality Disorder, Adjustment Disorder, and Non Epileptic Attack Disorder, and that this property isn’t suitable for me because of that, to the words “can not settle,” which are not the same, and nowhere near the same.

Again, there is no mention that am disabled, or what my illnesses are, where it is important to mention it, so again, more disability discrimination by Phil.

I also never said the words, “I want peace and quiet.”

However, even if I had, wanting peace and quiet in your home is a reasonable thing to want, even if you’re not sick, so why does he write it in a way that makes it sound like its unreasonable?

The fact that he does seem to believe that it is an unreasonable thing to want is very troubling, because he is the person responsible for dealing with ASB.

I would imagine that any decent person would agree that NEEDING peace and quiet in your own home when you are ill is more than reasonable, even when noise doesn’t trigger or make your illnesses worse.

So, to want it when you are ill and it does trigger and make your illnesses worse is more than reasonable, it’s a requirement.

It’s a requirement just like any other disability support requirement.

Yet, I assume, when Phil wrote that I said “I want peace and quiet,” he is referring to the fact that I explained to him on multiple occasions that both stress and noise is a trigger for both my Borderline Personality Disorder, and Non Epileptic Attack Disorder.

ABS is stressful for everybody, so I don’t understand why its so hard for others to understand or believe that for a person who is disabled by mental illness it would be much worse or much more serious.

In fact, its common knowledge that people with autism can struggle with noise.

Though it might not be as well known, people with BPD can also struggle with noise. (Again, google exists, someone at LMH/Torus could have googled this over the last four years to verify that what I am saying I suffer with is a known problem for people with my illness/es. Yes, people can have rare symptoms that most people with the exact same illnesses won’t suffer from, but that’s not the case with the symptoms I am raising to yourselves as being effected by the conditions in this property. The symptoms I am raising as not compatible with this property are common and normal to have with my diagnosis.)

People with BPD can also struggle more when noise is repetitive and or loud.

The noise in my flat is both. My neighbours upstairs and next door play the same music over and over again.

You have literally put me in a place that is designed to torture somebody with my illness, a place were it would be impossible for me to get well.

Its like if you put a person with epilepsy whose seizures were triggered by flashing lights in a flat that only had, and could only have flashing lights, in place of normal lights, then said you weren’t abusing or torturing them and they should be able to live a normal life. Then when they died during a seizure insisted it wasn’t your fault.

So again, Phil has changed what I said to him, which was that the noise was triggering and exacerbating my sleep problems, seizures, and BPD episodes, which included me being severely suicidal to, “wants peace and quiet.” And he has not mentioned my disabilities or that I am disabled at all in a place where it would be important as a matter of life or death for me for him to do so, so again, dangerous disability discrimination by Phil.

Phil admits that my flat isn’t suitable for me, when he writes “this won’t happen.”

However, what is more concerning is the fact that he is so confident that it won’t happen, when he is the person responsible for dealing with ASB. He is clearly stating that he has no intention of trying to fix the issue.

Why does he put it so smugly?
(That’s not just my opinion, other people who have read these file notes and emails Phil has written also think it sounds like he is enjoying himself.) Its like he is enjoying the fact that I’m suffering because I am disabled and he is responsible for that, being that he is the person with the power to stop the ABS here or was at the time that he wrote this.

It is really very concerning.

Phil then goes on to admits that you knew about the ASB problems.

This is evidence that LMH/Torus as a whole have a policy of or at least a habit of lying, because you keep insisting that nobody else has complained, and implying that I am lying when I raise the noise issues.

If nobody else complains how were there known issues?

And why do you keep asking my mum whether she’s been here when the noise has been happening as though I am making it up?

Also, my mum is partially deaf, so even if she had been here when it was as you put it “kicking off,” she wouldn’t be the best judge of how loud the music is, as she can’t always hear loud noise, and if she can sometimes she can’t tell what direction they are coming from. However, she has been here when its happening and has agreed that its too loud, and been able to distinguish the source of the noise, which proves just how loud it is, and just how obvious where it is coming from is. A partially deaf woman has been here and agreed the noise is too loud.

Also, my mum is partially deaf, and she isn’t making any excuses for these people, who among many other excuses, have used the excuse that they are deaf. A partially deaf person is saying that even if they are deaf that’s not the reason the music is too loud and that even if it was its not a reasonable excuse and that they should seek help such as hearing aids.

You know there are issues with noise here and yet your choosing to do nothing about it.

Evidence torus Complaint 8.a

Evidence for LMH complaint 8b1

Torus Complaint

section 1

p8

By February 2019, so less than 3 months after I had moved into the flat, the problems at the flat had exacerbated my disabilities to the point that me, my mum, my GP and my psychiatrist were all aware that I needed to move out of this property and as soon as possible.

The problems were
-flees in the carpet
-mice and rat infestation within the block which was leading to them coming into my flat
-fly tipping in the communal yard, some of which was directly outside of my flat, and meant that sometimes you couldn’t exit the block through the back door into the communal yard as the rubbish was blocking the back door, so you literally couldn’t get into the communal yard where the bins where kept to put your own rubbish into the bins, because other people weren’t using, and were miss using the bins, because rubbish was blocking the back door to the block.
-This also meant that there was broken glass, vomit, pee and poo which was definitely human, and potentially because of the drug use dirty needles, etc
-its also one of the many reasons that I can’t always open the windows in my flat, because of the smell, especially on hot days when the rubbish has already been there for a long time
-people banging on, looking inside, and shouting inside my windows, which is another reason that I can’t always open my windows, and the reason that I can’t ever open my blinds.
-people constantly ringing my intercom
-fights in the car park and communal yard
-noise from upstairs
-noise from next door
-mould infestation
-windows that aren’t properly sealed, so it gets freezing cold in the flat, and the wind comes in.

Considering that I didn’t bid on this flat, you picked it for me knowing that I couldn’t refuse it, and it was not disability suitable for me. Moving me shouldn’t have been an issue in the sense that you couldn’t do it, or even start the process. Due to the property being a risk to me because I am disabled, and it is not disability suitable for me, and you forced me into taking this property, you should have had a responsibility, and duty of care, to rehouse me as soon as possible to something disability suitable.

Put simply, you should have had to immediately rectify what was either your mistake, or your attempt to abuse a disabled person, so that it wasn’t fatal or even just torture for me.

Instead, Phil and his manager Geraldine Rice, called me into the office for a meeting, knowing they were immediately going to tell me they wouldn’t rehouse me.

This was a very dangerous decision, it was something that not only didn’t need to be done in the sense that they didn’t have to call me into the office to tell me this, and almost lead to me trying to commit suicide.

On the day of the meeting, I was already feeling very unwell, in fact, that’s all I can tell you about that day before the meeting, as I was already so unwell, I don’t remember the morning of the meeting other than a very small part of my journey there. I remember actually talking about how I didn’t think that the meeting was a sensible idea on LMHs part because I was at that time suicidal, because of the issues in my flat, and it was still only about six months since my most recent suicide attempt for which I had been sectioned, and I knew and had made Phil aware that the smallest of stressful things could be life threatening to me at this point, and telling somebody they are going to have to live in a flat that is literally emotional, mental and physical torture to them, because some of my symptoms are physical, is stressful.

My suicidal thoughts were not being helped by the fact that, because of the mouse and rat infestation, I was being forced to keep rat poison in my flat.

[Paragraph redacted as it details a way in which you can commit suicide using rat poison.]

[Paragraph redacted as it details a way in which you can commit suicide with rat poison and psychiatric medications that I am prescribed.]

I don’t think I have met a single person who I have talked suicide with (which happens when you are around other suicidal people, for example in hospital, where lots of you are there together for the reason you have all just failed at suicide, and you can share stories about why you failed and how not to fail next time (you know hospital the place you want to send me to because I am disabled and the flat you have forced me to live in knowing that it isn’t disability suitable for my disability, where I can be around other suicidal people and I can get tips for when I am discharged back to this flat because hospital wont cure my disability and/or fix the problems in this flat, like your ablest staff think it will because they are ignorant and/or stupid) who haven’t discussed taking rat poison as an option, because its easily accessible, more so when its already in your flat, and is literally poison, meaning it is literally designed to kill things.

I’ll say it again. Rat poison is one of the most common ways to commit suicide, and the reason why is in the name, rat POISON.

It’s not strange, It’s not weird, it’s not unusual.

What it is, is, logical, affordable (especially when you already have it in your flat) and easily accessible (again, especially when you already have it in your flat).

Having that poison in my flat was not only a huge temptation to me, but a suicide trigger in and of itself.

The mice and rats were also a suicide trigger for me, and particularly so in trigging the thoughts that didn’t feel like mine, as its very stressful to have a mice and/or rat infestation, particularly when you’re a clean person and have never had them before. The thoughts that didn’t feel like mine would tell me that me eating the rat poison was the best and quickest solution to not only the rat infestation, but all my problems in this flat.

Personally, I don’t remember the meeting at all. However, my mum was there, and she does. What she told me happened is similar to the accounts in Phil’s file note about the day, if you are aware that Phil is a liar, the type of lies he tells, and the way he behaves, so I trust her recollection when she tells me what happened.

Firstly, I want to address the parts of the meeting that Phil writes about.

Secondly the parts he doesn’t, which my mum has told me about.

Thirdly , what happened as a result of that meeting.

LMH Complaint 8b1

In this file note, Phil indirectly admits to lying. He admits that he did say things that we told you he said, but he then denied saying.

Phil cant keep his own lies straight, he constantly contradicts himself.

Phil insisted, and probably still would if you asked him about it today, that when he mentioned the drug problems at the viewing, he told us that it was in the general area.

We have always told the truth about what Phil actually told us, which is that he said it was an issue within the communal yard that my block of flats shares with one other block.

In this file note, Phil admits that he told us that, “there were issues within the block, and that she [meaning me] would see drug taking.

Is Phil unable to remember all the lies he tells because he tells that many of them?

Or, does he just say whatever will serve him better in the moment?

This is not even to mention that if Phil knows there are drug problems within whatever he means by “the block” he should be reporting it to the police, as well as other staff within LMH/Torus.
Is he?
Has he?

(As previously stated, I should not have been offered a flat where there is either drug or alcohol abuse problems, for many reasons, including-
-My borderline personality disorder makes me more likely to suffer with drug and/or alcohol abuse or dependency issues.
Just because I have never been a drug addict or alcoholic doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. You might believe (because your ignorant or ablest) that if I did develop those issues while living in a place where I actually see it happening, therefore am likely to come into contact with both the people selling and taking drugs by simply opening my blinds, or taking my rubbish to the bin, that is my own fault, but it would not be, it would be your fault. Your ignorance about mental illness and mental disability, plus your policies to not recognise mental illnesses and disabilities as real illnesses and disabilities therefore not provide suitable accommodation, as you do for the physically ill and disabled, would be to blame.

Do the government encourage, or just enable this?

Because people like me are not only being kept disabled by illness to the point were we can’t work, but to the point where our illnesses are being exacerbated by in appropriate housing for our disabilities.

This means that not only are we stuck in your properties, we are also stuck on government sick or disability benefits, and it is the government that then pay our rent. So therefore you are not only finding a way to manipulate the situation in order to get guaranteed rent off the government for people you are abusing, your abuse means the government then have to give me money to live because I am too sick to work because you are keeping me sick by forcing me to live in unsuitable housing.

The only person benefiting from both your abuse of me and the abuse of government policies and money is you. You are benefiting from abuse of the mentally disabled while everybody else suffers in some way or another because of it, even if that is just by paying more tax that is having to be spent on my rent when I want to be making money to pay my own rent.

And before you make the ridiculous defence that I am only one person, if this is happening to me, a person who has up until a few years ago been high functioning to the point I was diagnosed in my thirties, it is happening to other people who are vulnerable in ways that I am not. I would bet it is happening to at least tens of thousands of people, and therefore that’s tens of thousands of people who the government are not only using tax payers money to support, but are paying rent for them to be abused by you.

You are benefiting from getting rent of the government for me, and if I die because this flat isn’t disability appropriate for me, you’ll just move in another vulnerable and probably mentally disabled person in order to profit off them, through and by subjecting them to the same abuse I have already, and will go on, to discus, because the truth is that nobody capable of working would live in this flat, and if they were capable of working when they moved in, they wouldn’t be for long. Therefore the only way you are ever going to make money off this flat is by abusing the vulnerable and disabled, and government policies and money that allow you guaranteed rent for poor or unsuitable housing conditions be it for the unwell or the disabled.

I want to get better.
I want to be able to work again.
Therefore you are abusing and discriminating against me because I am disabled, by keeping me sick with my disability through unsuitable living conditions.

-I am vulnerable and could be easily exploited or victimised in many ways either by the people selling or taking the drugs.

-One of the ways in which I could be exploited or victimised is into using drugs. If this happened there could be a lot of problems including as I said above, addiction. However, non epileptic seizures can be triggered by drug use, therefore if I was some how bullied or forced into taking drugs then that could cause a seizure which could result in an accident that could be fatal to me.

-I now have easier access to drugs that I could purposely overdose on.

– I have easier access to drugs I could accidently overdose on.

I have a history of misusing prescribed drugs by taking too many at once, or mixing them with other prescribed or over the counter medication, in desperate efforts to sleep when very distressed or stressed out. I have done this more recently, so in between 2016-2018 with sleeping tablets, mainly zopiclone, and as far back as 2008ish using benzodiazepine’s, mainly lorazepam, depending on when my first suicide attempt was, as my first suicide attempt happened when I took several boxes of lorazepam that had been prescribed for me in one go, then not just happy with taking like seven boxes of lorazepam in what became an over dose attempt, also tried to drown myself in the bath. I don’t remember why I took all the tablets in the first place, but my guess is that it started out as not being able to sleep and taking them to sleep and turned into a suicide attempt at some point.

And I would be more likely to misuse drugs more dangerously if I had them because this flat has given me sleeping problems far worse than what I have ever been through, and I am no longer allowed sleeping tablets or benzis because I need a higher amount for them to work, and when mixed with anti psychotics which I am on they can stop your muscles, including those that have something to with your lungs, from working and you can basically suffocate to death.

The fact is that while I am in this flat, medication misuse is always going to be a potential threat to me because of the issues I have with sleeping here, and I am prescribed a lot of medication for my mental health as well as other issues.)

However, Phil also lies int this same sentence, because he claims that he told us there were issues with alcohol, fly tipping, and ASB at the viewing and he did not.

The fact is that if Phil had mentioned ASB to us at the viewing, and particularly noise ASB, I would have had no choice but to turn this flat down for my own safety, which means that I would have then been kicked off property pool and become homeless at this point because you offered me a property that wasn’t disability suitable. This is because I already knew at the time of the viewing that noise triggers and exacerbates both my borderline personality disorder, and its episodes, as well as my seizures, and its symptoms.

The way Phil talks about these ASB problems, suggest both he and LMH as a company were aware of the problems when you offered me this flat.

And before you offered me this flat I had made every body I had met or spoken to in regards to rehousing aware of my diagnosis, symptoms, and the fact that I had only just been discharged from hospital after a suicide attempt.

Therefore, you offered me this flat knowing it was unsuitable to the point where it would at least cause me great suffering and distress, and at worst be fatal.

Did Phil get my file off housing options?

Mike McDonald said that he should have but didn’t.

If he didn’t, he should have which means you are at fault.

If he did, but you still chose to offer me this flat, then you  are still at fault, because you knew what my illnesses were and how they affect me, as well as what the problems at this flat were and that the two weren’t compatible, and yet you offered me this flat, which you shouldn’t have done anyway, but you offered me it knowing that I couldn’t refuse it as I only had one offer.

This file note admits that you, as a company, knew that there were ABS problems, and in particular noise ASB problems at this property when you offered it to me.

Therefore, when I die in this flat, from a bpd episode, or symptom- meaning suicide or accident, or a seizure or seizure symptom- meaning an accident during a seizure, you are to blame.

The longer I am at this property, the more likely that becomes, and the more at fault you are for not doing anything to move me to something more suitable when you had the opportunity.

This file note means that my death in this flat will be indisputably your fault, especially when combined with all the evidence I have.

When that happens I want everybody who has dealt with me, and who I have reached out to for help at LMH/Torus, prosecuted for murder and torture of a disabled person, because this isn’t an accident on your part, it is wilful abuse of a disabled person for profit.

Regardless of it I die or not, all the people who have dealt with me, or who I have reached out to for help at LMH/Torus should be prosecuted for wilful abuse and torture of a disabled person.

LMH Complaint 8.a

8.a

In his file note, Phil immediately shows his lazy, can’t be bothered, attitude, as he gets both the date I came to the viewing wrong, saying here it was on the 28^th of November 2018, when it was on the 15^th of November 2018, and that I moved into the flat in December 2018, when I moved in, in, November 2018. It would be shocking to me, that Phil, who would have had easy access to this information, couldn’t be bothered to look up the dates of the viewing and when I moved into the property, if I wasn’t already aware of who Phil is and the way he behaves.

Dates are always important, when it comes to making sure they are accurate. They are especially so when it comes to dates that actually effect people’s lives.

Getting a date wrong could affect things like the date that I become eligible for certain things, such as being eligible to apply to move from my property.

or when it comes to records and documents that have been requested not being able to be found, or just not being provided, for example, such as when somebody puts in a subject access request.

LMH Complaint 7D

Firstly, though, I want to point out how Phil has broken data protection laws in regards to me, when he and you, when we needed information you already had on file, but were requesting from us, but saying you couldn’t give it to use to give to you, said you couldn’t give us that information because of data protections laws.

You have insisted on several occasions that you need the flat numbers of the properties the noise is coming from and who lives in those properties. In regards to next door, I cant tell you for sure as it is in a different block to me, but I think its number [redacted], yet even though there is only one neighbour next to me in that block, you say without me knowing for sure you can’t help me because I don’t know the number.

In regards to my safety, you cant tell us how many people should be living in that property, and whether it is the lady who attacked me.

Yet, Phil actually told a neighbour of mine, as discussed earlier, that my mother was the tenant of my flat.

So, Phil told my neighbour the information about me, that you refused to give to me about my neighbour in order to literally give back to you, for no reason other than he was offended somebody asked if he lived in my flat.

This led to me being asked again and again, for over a year, by this tenant -who lived in my flat, how long I had lived here, everythime he saw me let myself in, and who the older woman was, and did she also live here, even though I felt forced to tell him the first time he asked me so he would leave me alone.

As previously stated, I struggle to speak to, or deal with people, so this was a very distressing experience for me.

Notes for section 1 7c

I have now lost count of how many suicide attempts I have made due to my flat since writing this in 2022.

LMH complaint 7.c

Another way in which my illness affects me is that, emotionally things build up easily but don’t decrease as easily for me, meaning if I left a conversation feeling awful, the next time I know that I need to speak to that person I will feel the level of awful I felt at the end of the last conversation as soon as I know that I am going to have to speak to them again. These feeling will build and get worse until I finally speak to them, which means that I will then already enter that conversation distressed.

This means that the more I am exposed to an issue, the more urgent resolving it becomes as it makes me sicker and sicker, and the larger the action needs to be so that I can recover.

When we requested somebody other than Phil to deal with, because of his inappropriate behaviour, that is what I needed.

You not only denied me that, which was dangerous, you then allowed him to further victimise me by making ridiculous claims against me and my mum, such as us being distressed by his abuse was us being abusive to him, and that we came into the office screaming his name at a time we had already made you aware that having contact with this man made me very unwell every time I had to have contact with him, therefore us screaming his name in the office is not only ridiculous, but is a story only somebody with either no common sense would believe, or a story that a company/person looking for an excuse not to have to deal with a situation or person would use, knowing it was a lie, to cut that person off.

Seeing as I have received dangerous discrimination from other members of staff too, such as Geraldine Rice, Jill Ellis and Alan Ball, I would say it is the later, and that therefore as a company you have chosen to subject me to discrimination and abuse, because I am disabled, by your staff, that could in and of itself have lead to seizures because of the stress, and did lead to a near suicide attempt, which I am going to discus in a moment.

Notes for section 1 part 7b

Adjustment disorder has been taken off my list of current illnesses since I wrote this in 2022 as it was an illness I was wrongly diagnosed with before being diagnosed with bpd.

Please disregard any mention of adjustment disorder.

LMH COMPLAINT

section 1

7b

Phil’s attitude is telling, when it comes to exposing the fact that he thinks he is better than the people who live in the flats he is a housing officer for, and that he believes he personally is above living in them.

However, the best example of this happened at this meeting.

After the meeting, my mum and Phil were standing in the communal hallway, outside my flats front door, when the man who lives next door to me in my block of flats, so I believe at number [redacted], came out and asked Phil if he lived in my flat, because he was having a party during the daytime that Saturday and just wanted to let the person who lived in my flat know that there would be a party, but it would be over by the night time.

Phil got so offended that the man had asked him if he was the tenant of my flat, that he told the man with such disgust that my mother was the tenant of my flat.

If Phil thinks he is better than those who live in these flats, and that he is above living here himself, that’s a massive problem.

Firstly, it means that Phil knows they are unliveable places.

Yet, he is the personally responsible for making sure that they are liveable places, so if they aren’t liveable that is his fault, and I would both hope and assume his failure as a housing officer, so to then look down on the people he is failing for his failures is not just abuse but hatred for the people he is abusing because he is abusing them.

If he believes that we are not worthy of basic living standards, then why is he going to give us basic living standards?

More seriously though, it creates a cycle that vulnerable people like me-a person who had a good job and owned their own home, but lost it all because of disability discrimination [being told by my employer everybody suffers with mental health problems, so they could not give me special treatment, even though I don’t suffer with mental health problems, I have two lifelong disabling mental illnesses and a seizure disorder, and what I was asking for was the bare minimum disability adjustments needed to help me get into a place where my illness was managed so I could continue to work, which is similar to the situation I am in with yourselves, where I tell you I am disabled and my flat isn’t disability suitable so I am going to die, and you respond that you won’t be held responsible because you have no duty of care towards me] trapped in.

I ended up here because I am disabled and lost my job due to disclination, and now you are discriminating against me because I am mentally disabled, so you don’t believe I am entitled to basic human living conditions, which exacerbates my disability, keeping me too ill for therapy’s, so unable to work and more worrying unable to survive death due to my disabilities.

Why don’t you believe that me and other mentally disabled people deserve the same rights as non mentally disabled people, meaning, rights to -work, sleep , be able to take medication correctly, not have seizures, not have bpd epsidoeds, not die by a seizure or suicide.

I will always have my disabilities, but I don’t have to always be struggling the way I currently am with them, my disabilities are exacerbated by my environment, personal circumstances, events, life style, etc, something I have no control over in this property. I have the possibility of getting into recovery, which means having good management of my illness, but you are preventing me from getting well enough for that because you are leaving me in a situation where I can’t control my circumstances and environment therefore my lifestyle.

I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this medical fact you should already know before you actually educate yourself, mental health and mental illness are not the same thing, they are two very different things.

Mental l health is what those poor mentally well people who think they are hard done by because they have normal human emotions struggle with.

Mental illnesses are serious medical disorders and conditions. They mean sufferers have long term or permeant, serious mental impairment.

I DO NOT HAVE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS!

I HAVE BORDERLINE PERSONALIY DISORDER, AND NON EPILEPTIC ATTACK DISORDER.

If you still don’t understand or believe that Phil belittled my disabilities and discriminated against me, even though there is actual proof in his emails and notes about me, things like calling me strange because of how my illness effects me, trying to tell his superiors lmh shouldn’t rehouse me, and trying to have me sectioned rather than make my flat disability suitable and/or help me move to a more disability suitable property-which I am yet to discuss. There is proof in what he never writes. He never mentions the fact that I am disabled, or what my illnesses are, even when it is relevant as an urgent matter of life or death.

Phil completely and continually refused to acknowledge that I am disable, even when me being disabled mattered-
examples
-my property is unsuitable for my disability
-the anti-social behaviour, meaning the noise in this particular example, triggering my episodes borderline and sezuire
-when I have spoken about my suicidal thoughts
that isn’t just disability discrimination, it is dangerous disability discrimination to the point where it could be fatal to the disable person, who in this situation is me.

LMH Complaint 7.a

What is even weirder about this meeting being so important that it had go ahead, even if it endanger my safety, even though there seemed to be no reason for it other than for it to allow Phil the opportunity belittle my disabilities, is that when Phil decided he couldn’t be bothered coming out for the second meeting, which supposedly was just important as the first meeting, that meeting just didn’t take place, at all, ever.

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.

Notes for section 1 part 6b

I no longer want you to move me, as I no longer want anything to do with you as I believe it will be detrimental to my health and recovery.

What I want is compensation for everything you have done to me and put me through.

And for all the possessions you have destroyed, some of which were sentimental and I can never replace.

Torus complaing

section 1

6.b

written in 2022

However, even if Phil had reported these problems to the people he should have reported them to, I would have still been offered this flat that is unsuitable for me based on its problems and my disabilities, due to Phil’s incompetence and laziness, even though I made everybody aware of my disabilities that I spoke to about being rehoused, prior to being rehoused, because Phil didn’t request my file from housing options like he should have.

We know he should have and didn’t, and that this has to some extent lead to me being unsuitably rehoused in a property that is literally going to kill me, because Mike McDonald told us.

When he did, he said that there was nothing we could do about it now and the situation is what it is.

That isn’t good enough. I have already lost four years of my life to this flat, and I could lose my entire life to it if I end up having a seizure or episode that kills me.

It is what it is now, when it is what it is due to somebody’s incompetence, laziness, then discrimination, and when what it is has led to somebody losing four years of their life, going through four years of torture, and being at risk of losing their life because of it isn’t good enough.

You need to rectify the situation immediately and compensate me for what you have done to me.

You as a company are responsible for what has happened to me and what will happen to me in the future because of this property. Either your policies and/or staff monitoring isn’t good enough, or you are just as incompetent, lazy, and discriminatory to disabled people as Phil is. Even if this entire issue has been caused by Phil’s negligence, laziness, and hatred of disabled people, you created a work environment and culture that allowed this to happen to me, and you denied it was happening, lied, and covered up for Phil time and time again, which enabled him to do this to me and very likely other people, I suspect other people have in the past reported Phil for his behaviour and you have done the same to them which has now led to what has happened to me.

You need to rectify your error and move me straight away, whatever that takes. If it really is impossible to move me which I doubt very much it is, you need to evict the people next door and upstairs immediately, this is four years on since I started reporting it and if you haven’t dealt with it properly then that’s not my problem, it’s a risk to my life, safety, and health, so you need to take action now.

You need to compensate me for the time I have and will lose of my life to this flat, as well as for the pain and suffering, the absolute torture I have endured and will endure, and the discrimination I have faced and will continue to face. If you don’t I will be getting a solicitor to look into it for me.

More importantly, if you don’t and I die, I have kept evidence, I have made evidence public, I will be making this complain public, there will be enough for my mum to sue you. More importantly though I am making my wishes that you get charged criminally for my death for murder public. This isn’t even a case of manslaughter because you have knowingly allowed this to go on for four years and put actual effort in to covering it all up rather than helping me. I want everyone, every single person who has dealt with this prosecuted for my murder, and though I doubt my wishes will be taken into consideration I will keep making those wishes known until it does kill me, especially because I am sure if this does gain any sort of attention more people in my position will come forward, and more people who have had loved ones die because you will. There might not be power in just my voice asking for justice, but I doubt very much it will be just my voice, I am sure many other people have died because of this same thing and will if I don’t make my voice heard.

LMH Complaint

6.a

When my mum spoke to Gary, on the same day that I went to view my flat, about the drug use and it being right outside my window, he told her that both he and his manager, Jerry, knew nothing about the problems with drug use in the communal areas of these blocks of flats, in a manner that suggested that if there were problems he would know about them.

This indicates to me that if there are problems in properties, such as this, then it should be reported to him and/or his manager. And, whether or not it is LMH/Torus policy that housing officers report this type of information to everybody who deals with the property in question, it should be. It should be so that people aren’t offered property’s that are unsuitable to the point of being life threatening.

Though, personally, I don’t believe properties with any problems should be being offered to anybody, there is a huge difference between offering if to someone who it wont kill and someone who it will kill, as well as offering it to someone who can refuse it , and someone who cant refuse it.

So, either Phil hasn’t been acknowledging and reporting problems the way he should be, or Gary is also a liar.

I believe Phil certainly knew about all the problems in this flat, as everybody else at the clubmore office knew about the problems in these flats. I know they all knew because several members of staff told me and my mum when we went to drop of letter from my doctors that they all knew how awful these blocks of flats were.

Phil has also indirectly admitted that he knew about the anti social behaviour problems to us, even after telling us that he wasn’t aware of them. He told my mum that there used to be a disabled man who lived in these blocks of flats that would keep the antisocial behaviour in line, but that he’s dead now.

Phil not only admitted here that he knew about the antisocial behaviour, he admitted he did nothing to stop it, and allowed a disabled tenant to deal with it instead.

Once again Phil can’t help but gossip, even when it contradicts the lies that he has told in the past, and even to people he claims are abusive, dramatic, strange people, who you cant reasonably hold a conversation with.

LMH Complaint

6. My mums concerns-

After the viewing, my mum also said that she didn’t like the way Phil had spoken to me, and that she too was concerned that Phil would talk about me, and tell my business to other tenants. She was also unhappy that Phil invited in another housing officer, then a cleaner, so that they too could hear my business, as she felt, and rightly so, that only those who needed to know should know what me and Phil discussed, not everybody including the cleaners.

However, understandably she was more worried about the universal credit issue, and the issues with drug use in the communal yard and it being right outside my window.

At one point during the viewing, Phil told us that the general area was a bad place to live in regards to crime. At this point, he did not specify what type of crime. Later, he said there was a drug problem “in these flats,” pointed out of the kitchen window to the back door of the block of flats I live in, which is literally right outside my kitchen window, and said, “you can see them doing drugs right there, outside this window.” Phil has since tried to say that he never mentioned the corner that he actually pointed to, that he meant the general area, but that is not what he said, and where he pointed to was very clear. Regardless of whether or not he meant the corner he pointed to, he specified that you could see the drug use outside my kitchen window, and the area I can see from my kitchen window is very limited and includes only the communal yard.

Offering a vulnerable, disabled woman, with my particular set of disabilities a property where drug use and abuse is a problem is not just negligent, it is very dangerous for many reasons.
1. It means that I probably could get hold of a lethal amount of drugs to use to overdose very easily.
2. People with borderline personality disorder can develop drug and alcohol dependency very easily. I have never used drugs and have never wanted to, but as previously stated it easy to take advantage of me.
3. Which means that I am an easy target to be exploited for money or robbed etc.
4. I am an easy target for any other type of crime, and not only are people who are under the influence of drugs more likely to commit crime, so are the people selling drugs.
5. If I was somehow drugged, or pressured into taking drugs, they can cause me to have a seizure because I have non epileptic attack disorder. Although NEAD seizures are not fatal in and of themselves, they obviously can lead to death in other ways such as falling and banging my head, falling and breaking my neck, choking, etc.

And let me be very clear here, although I have never actually seen it, because I can’t open my blinds, likely as a result of the drug use, because people regularly bang on my windows, there is certainly a drug problem both in that communal yard, very close to my window, and in the car park on the other side of my flat, which regularly causes issues right outside my living room and bedroom windows.

People regularly stand around in both the communal yard and the cark park, though mainly in the carpark, for seemingly no reason, then fights break out.

On a couple of occasions, there has been what sounded like parties in the communal yard, which again resulted in fighting, only on a much larger scale. This fight included people from my actually block of flats from upstairs, though I don’t know exactly who, as I just heard them, a man and a woman, come in from the fight talking about how they weren’t scared of the other people involved, some of who were rampaging around the car park half naked covered in blood shouting, go upstairs and into a flat.

I have personally, on several occasions, witnessed people trying to get out of our communal yard by climbing over the metal gate on [street name redacted].

How did they get into the communal yard in the first place without a fob to the buildings, which would also allow them out of the gate?

Surely if they had been visiting somebody that person would be able to help them get out of the flats.

I suspect they get in through the same gate, as somebody props it open with a brick so anybody and everybody has 24-7 access to the communal yard, then other people who understandably don’t want anybody and everybody to be able to walk in off the street move the brick and close the gate, and then the people who have already gotten in without a fob to buy drugs then can’t get back out so climb over the gate.
As previously mentioned, people constantly bang on my kitchen window and scream to into get the block of flats where I actually live, even though they don’t live in this block of flats. When I have reported this to Phil, he just shrugged it off as people not having their key which even if that was the  case is not acceptable especially at 1am. However, this is obviously not the case, as if they didn’t have their fob to the building they also likely wouldn’t have their key to their own front door, so me letting them into the building wouldn’t solve their problem as they would either need to call yourselves or a lock smith to get back into their own flat. They definitely don’t live here though, they can’t all possibly live here, its all different people and there are only six flats in this building. Sometimes they are even talking on their phones while banging, so they have access to a phone to speak to who ever they came to see to ask them to let them out of the flats, if in deed they know the phone number of the person which I doubt they do if they are just here to buy drugs.

Phil should not have just shrugged this off and suggest that I let them into the building even if he believed that it was just tenants trying to get into the block without their fob, as I was told on the day I signed for this flat that it was in my tenancy agreement that I don’t let anybody into the block that isn’t coming specifically to my flat. Yet the fact that he suggested that I leave my flat to let strangers into the block of flats I live in is very concerning, especially when he is suggesting I do it at one in the morning when I have taken very heavy medication. It is a direct risk to my personal safety and I could be robbed, beaten, raped, or murdered because of Phils suggestion. Just like Phils insistence I went and asked my next door neighbours to be quiet at mid night when I had taken heavy medication got me assaulted.

During my first couple of years living here people would regularly knock on my living room and bedroom windows several times a night. They were always looking for the flat next door, as eventually that is where they’d end up, at the flat next doors windows talking to them. The flat next door had at least ten times the amount of people knocking on their window as I did in a single night. Most of the time they would go to the window for a couple of seconds, speak to the person, then the person would leave. They also had, or have, a doorbell on their front door, which is weird in itself because it’s a flat with an intercom, however the doorbell would be ringing all day every day, and there is only three other flats in their block. I frequently get stopped by people looking for number [redacted], which I believe is their flat as I am [redacted] and the flat opposite the appears to be [redacted], but I can’t confirm this because they live in a different block of flats to me meaning I cant get inside the block, and even if I could it wouldn’t be safe for me to do so to confirm the number as one of the people who lives there has attacked me.

When we mentioned the doorbell to Phil, as a small part of one of our noise complaints, he said that LMH don’t provide doorbells so it was nothing to do with him or LMH.

What’s even weirder about this particular flat is that even the people who live there don’t seem to know who lives there. On the night they attacked me they told the police it was a mother and son living there, even though it’s a one bedroom flat, and on the 13^th of June the told the police they are a deaf couple.

Although since the pandemic the amount of people banging on their windows has decreased, I personally believe that there are drugs being sold out of that flat.

Torus complaint

section 1

5.c

In his email the next day, Phil says that he expected that I should have tried to make a good impression.

I could say the same about him, and he was the one you were paying to be there, or rather, he was the one out of the two of us at the viewing representing LMH.

Would he have said the same about me if my disability was Tourette’s syndrome, or I was a wheelchair user.

What Phil has done here suggests that I chose to be disabled, chose my disability, and chose my symptoms.

You and he can’t deny this, because Phil wrote “I was quite surprised someone would attend a viewing and act like this…”

So, Phil was quite surprised that a disabled person would attend a viewing and “act” disabled.

This is more belittling and discrimination from Phil.

God forbid I be disabled in a way Phil doesn’t approve of. God forbid I force a man of such high standing in society as Phil to have to be in the presence of a disabled person.

How dare I, a disabled person, come to view a property. Surely, I should just live under a bridge, where I belong, so that housing offices such as Phil don’t have to be aware of the existence of the mentally disabled.

Then he ends this same sentence with – “but this lady clearly has issues.”

Again, disability discrimination, and belittling of my disability.

Would you think it was fine for Phil to say a person who is a wheelchair user has issues because they are in a wheelchair?

Imagine if Phil had written an entire email trying to convince somebody not to rent a person in a wheelchair a property because in his opinion they are lazy.

Then imagine he ended it with the same words, “but this lady clearly has issues.”

Would you still be defending him?

Because this is what he’s done to me because I am mentally disabled.

And that is what you have done by defending him.

He ends this email with, “I just thought I will highlight this to you.”

All Phil has highlighted in this email is that he dislikes mentally disabled people, and believes it’s fine to belittle people illnesses and disabilities, and discriminate against them.

I assume this email went to a more senior member of staff than Phil. Therefore, a more senior member of staff is aware of his behaviour.

Did they tell him it was unacceptable?

Or did they just allow him to carry on?

Because he did carry on.

Where is their response? Meaning why wasn’t it provided in my DSAR?

Torus complaint

section 1

5.b.1

I appreciate that Phil is not a mental health expert, nor do I expect him to be one.

What I expected that a housing officer would be –

– professional

– respectful

– give you correct information

– not make sexist comments

– or lie to or about you

– wouldn’t try to force you back into work

– or dictate to you what career you should have

– That he wouldn’t gossip to or about you

– that he would listen to you

– and at least attempt to understand your disability and how it affects you

– that he wouldn’t belittle any disability or illness you have

– or discriminate against you because you’re disabled.

Torus complaint

section 1

part 5.b

Phil claims that during the viewing I behaved erratically. Yet, he does not give any examples of how my behaviour was erratic. This is likely because I wasn’t erratic, and Phil has no idea what erratic behaviour would look or sound like.

Either Phil doesn’t actually understand the meaning of erratic behaviour, which is – inconsistent, unpredictable, or irregular behaviour, or behaviour that is illogical for the situation or circumstances, in which case Phil shouldn’t use the word erratic, as people with severe mental illness can behave erratically.

If I was behaving erratically, I would have at best needed a break from the situation, or to be removed from the situation altogether, or at worst needed immediate medical attention, because if I was behaving erratically I would’ve been having a very serious disability related episode.

Or, all Phil knows about erratic behaviour, is that severely mentally ill people can display it.

If Phil genuinely believed I was behaving erratically, he should’ve ended the viewing for my safety and well being. Instead he chose to ramp up the stress and pressure I was under, which is not just unprofessional and irresponsible behaviour, it is dangerous behaviour.

If I had a seizure during the viewing, would Phil have behaved the way he did?

Would Phil have just carried on like I wasn’t having a seizure?

Because a seizure is just as serious as any other episode I have, including one where I display behaviour that could be described as erratic.

If he didn’t genuinely believe that I displayed erratic behaviour, and he lied, that is just a serious. Regardless of whether the lied to gossip about me, or to achieve whatever malicious intentions he had on sending this email, lying is both malicious and disability discrimination, as he clearly did it to make me seem strange, dangerous, and/or “crazy.”

Again, compare this to my seizure episodes.

How serious would lying that I had a seizure at the viewing be?

Because that’s how serious lying that I had any disability related episode is.

My behaviour was normal for both the event and my own personal circumstances. In fact, I would say I did very well considering considering I only broke down fully once I left the flat, and was where none of the staff, including Phil, could see or hear me.

During the viewing, I remember it was very hard for me. I was struggling. I was upset, worried, stressed, anxious, and scared.

I don’t remember crying in the flat in front of Phil, but I may have. However, it would have been a few tears here and there for a minute or two at the most. It would not have been full on sobbing.

All of this is normal when you consider the event and my circumstances, which I made Phil aware of –

– I was seeing a property I knew nothing about

– other than I had to take it or I would be homeless

– and was been told if I took it I would have no money for the next few months at all

– as well as that there was drug use right outside my kitchen window

– and it was in an awful, and dangerous area to live in.

– The reason I was seeing the flat was because I was losing the home I owned

– with my abusive ex partner.

– I had just lost my job because my employer wouldn’t provide me with disability related adjustments

– after two very hard years of fighting for those adjustments.

– I have two very serious mental illnesses – borderline personality disorder and non-epileptic attack attack disorder.

– And I had just been discharged from hospital after a suicide attempt.

– To make matters worse I was being spoken to like an animal

– being told what job I should have based on the fact I contain ovaries

– and Phil invited in two other staff members to get involved in the viewing- clara, another housing officer. And, a man who said he was there to clean the flat, even though it was beyond filthy when I moved in.

– Which would’ve been bad enough, but was made worse by the fact I struggle with people. Communicating and dealing with one family member under normal circumstances can be a struggle for me, so dealing with several strangers at once in a stressful situation is impossible and very distressing for me.

Torus complaint

section 1

part 5.a

written in 2022

Phil asked me at one point if I was working.

I explained that I wasn’t, because I’d lost my job due to mental illness, and was now very unwell as a result of that.

Here, Phil inappropriately insisted that LMH would get me back into work.”

The way in which he said it, would, if I hadn’t already been aware that this wasn’t the case, have led me to believe that trying to get back into work might be a condition of my tenancy agreement.

In fact his delivery of the sentence made me anxious to decline, because I was worried it would make me appear like I didn’t want to work, even though he said it in response to me telling him I am very unwell.

I am a vulnerable person, my anxiety, stress, and fear can cause me to be easily pressured into things that I don’t want to do, or aren’t right and/or best for me.

It did not feel to me like an offer, I felt like Phil expected me to agree to what he was saying to me.

Knowing that I was too unwell to even look for work, to the point it could be life threatening, due to the fragile emotional and mental condition I was in, I spoke up for myself, which was hard, and I pointed out to Phil that I had not long been discharged from a psychiatric hospital, and would need to get well before I was able to start looking for work.

Still, Phil persisted and went a step further by attempting to dictate what career I should have based on the fact I am a female, and his assumption of my gender. “I have a nice lady as a tenant who was sick too, and when she got better we helped her to train to be a nursery nurse. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t like to be a nursery nurse when you’re better?” He said, in that voice that you would use to speak to an animal.

Would Phil have said this to me if I was a man?

I don’t think so.

However, even if he would have, I don’t think choosing a career for anybody is appropriate, and I certainly wouldn’t expect it to be part of his role as a housing officer.

How dare Phil look down on anybody this way, assuming that they are incapable of having or even choosing a career without his input.

I had a decade long career in banking, finance, financial services, and loans,. I do not need career advice from anybody, especially a housing officer.

I have a degree in a humanities subject.

There are many things that I would like to do with my life, that I probably would already be doing with my life now if it wasn’t for this flat keeping me sick, and none of them are being a nursery nurse. Believe it or not, my ovaries don’t ache when I’m not around babies and toddlers.

Let me make it very clear, that although Phil has made it obvious on several occasions that he believes he’s better than me, and all the other tenants in theses flats, he is not, and I sincerely wish four years on, and much distressing discrimination later, that I had told Phil I wasn’t an animal, so he wasn’t to speak to me that way. And, that choosing a career for a mentally disabled person is irresponsible, and dangerous, not to mention inappropriate.

All three of my mental illnesses present with stress related challenges and symptoms.

All of which are triggered and/or exacerbated by certain noises.

Mainly when stressed, I am prone to severe emotional and/or mental meltdowns, panic attacks that can be so bad I am completely paralysed during them, hallucinations, seizures, and suicidal episodes.

I don’t think anybody would disagree with me that one nursery age child is stressful, and loud. A whole classroom full of them is something else entirely.

Even once I’m in recovery, I will still be disabled, and therefore I will still have to avoid certain triggers.

Being a nursery nurse would not only have a negative impact on my disabilities even when I am in recovery, it would be a dangerous and irresponsible career choice for me to make.

Therefore it is not only a dangerous and irresponsible act for Phil to suggest it, it is inappropriate, and sexist because he obviously suggested it because I’m am female and Phil believes all female sexed people must constantly need to be around children.

Notes for section 1 part 5

Written in 2023

Did anybody bother to look into my complaints about Phils bigotry?

Or did you not have to because you were all talking about the way Phil did?

complaint to Torus

section 1

part 5

written in 2022

At the viewing, Phil made me feel very uncomfortable. He seemed to want to gossip, and got annoyed when me and my mum didn’t join in. Personally, I felt that Phil was being disrespectful to the people he was talking about. Worse, this made me worried that Phil would talk to other tenants about me as well as other members of staff which i now have proof of. Phil’s email the next day, reads partly (and at best) like gossip, both to me and other people I’ve shown it to, as do other emails he wrote about me.

He seemed to be easily annoyed, and became irritated and/or defensive whenever I ask him normal, relevant, and important questions about the property.

He made comments I found sexist, therefore offensive.

It felt as though I had to tell him more of my personal business than I wanted to, and certainly should have had to.

He made persistent attempts at what felt like forceful dictation to me on how I should be living my life.

Most of all though, it was obvious that he dislikes me, which I suspected at the time, and now know to be true, is because I am mentally ill.

In his email is about me, related to the viewing, he made several dangerous, disrespectful, and inappropriate comments about my disability, some of them belittling it.

He would go on to do this in person, regularly.

Though Phil might find me unpleasant to be around because I am disabled, his behaviour towards me has been very distressing and dangerous, and has therefore caused my symptoms to be more severe when I have had no choice but to deal with him.

It is clear that the email he sent the next day was sent with malicious intent, and was motivated by his hatred of the mentally disabled.

Notes for section 1 part 4

Written in 2023

Since writing this I have learned that severe and live threatening digestive issued can be cause by bpd, so again this is an example of Phil belittling my disability symptoms.

Why do I have the response to this email in my subject access request?

I am the subject of that entire conversation. Therefore, the entire email conversation should have been provided to me.

I would like that entire email conversation, along with all other conversations I was the subject of, such as the minutes of the meetings where mike told me I was discussed.

This is a request for a dsar. Please find and provide me with every written conversation about me.

Complaint to Torus

section 1

part

4.

written in 2022

It was obvious to me on the day that I viewed the flat that Phil Campbell had a problem with me, by the way he was speaking to, and looking at, me.

I recall several things from the viewing which were particularly upsetting, and my mum was very concerned about several things too.

Overall, she left the viewing so concerned that she phoned LMH to speak to (Gary) another staff member about these concerns. And, I left the viewing feeling as though I would be better off dead.

The viewing was in November. My suicide attempt had been in late August. I had only been out of hospital for less than two months. The first year after being discharged from hospital after a suicide attempt is apparently the most dangerous for a suicide survivor. The likelihood of another attempt is high.

What I remember –

Phil said that when I moved into the flat, my ESA would be stopped, and I would have to go without any money while I was assessed for universal credit. I’d only just been put on ESA, and not knowing whether I was going to get ESA, and how I would manage financially even if I did, was a contributing factor to my suicide attempt. In the August, I lost my job after a two year long battle to get disability support from my employer, which they didn’t want to give me, and which exacerbated my disability to the point I was no longer even capable of working. When I asked him how long this usually took, he replied that it normally took a couple of months. When Phil said this to us, he told us the reason was that all of [postcode removed] had been moved over to universal credit. I corrected Phil over the postcode as the flat isn’t in [postcode removed], it’s in [postcode removed] and requested that he double check for me that this was the case. He responded by snapping at me that [postcode removed] is still in [area removed], then tried to tell me, in a tone that suggested he thought I was stupid, that he said all of [area removed] had gone over to universal credit.

The reason I was moving was that I had found a buyer for the house I owned with my abusive ex partner, as I was having to to sell it due to not being able to afford it alone, so I was going to be homeless.

This meant that I was in band A, meaning that I could not refuse any property offered to me. It had been made it very clear to me that if I refused any property I was offered I wouldn’t be offered another (since moving in several people have tried to say this wouldn’t have been the case. I believe it would have been the case, because when we went to sign the tenancy agreement, there was a lady with a very small baby in the office, distraught because she had been in Band A, as she was homeless, and had refused what she was offered because it had severe damp and mould, and as a result had been taken off property pool. However, it is besides the point whether it was true when you informed me that I only had one offer, because you led me to believe it was true, therefore I was acting on what you, property pool, and housing options all led me to believe was true.) LMH offered me this flat. I did not bid on it. I knew nothing about the flat, or the area, prior to the viewing.

I even stated how I felt, which is that I had been put in a situation where I had to choose between either being homeless and having money, or having a home and no money.

After the viewing I broke down outside, and my mum even went back inside to request that Phill double check the information about universal credit was correct. When she came back out, she said he had seemed very annoyed, not only by her question, but because all three members of staff present where stood around chatting, and she had clearly interrupted them.

As stressful and distressing as the situation was, and would have been for anybody, it was made worse for me by my disability, and several other factors specific to my health and personal circumstances.

Thinking I was doing the responsible thing, I tried to talk this through with Phil, but now I see that was a mistake on my part, as Phil obviously dislikes mentally disabled people.

Firstly, I explained that I had just been discharged from hospital, where I had been admitted because I am mentally ill, and I was worried that I would end up back there if I was put in the situation I was being put in by having to choose between having no money or being homeless, as after my recent suicide attempt and because of my mental illnesses I wouldn’t be able to cope with the stress, so might end up being locked back up in a hospital, or worse I might actually succeed in completing suicide.

Phil just stared at me blankly, and didn’t respond.

Next, I explained my concerns that I wouldn’t have money for food. (I have nobody I could borrow money off, as my mum is only on ESA, and so she too struggles financially.)

Phil interrupted me to say that he personally would bring me food bank parcels, then asked would I like that in a voice you would use to speak to an animal.

At this point, I explained that I cannot eat several foods due to what me and doctors believed then, and still do, was due to food allergies (although it has been suggested this year, in 2022, by a nurse, that it might be an illness such as severe IBS, which is being caused or exacerbated by my severe mental illness disabilities) and that I almost died in 2014 because of these allergies, after becoming so unwell I was admitted to Fazakerley hospitals SAU because I was just hours away from my bowel rupturing. I explained these foods where in most premade food, and then I even listed them, dairy, garlic, onions, chives, leaks, shallots, asparagus (any other plant related to Lily family) (as well as aloe and weeds).

Phil replied that this was fine, as the food would be tinned food.

I informed him that if it was tinned food, he wasn’t correct, and that would actually be more of an issue, as most tinned food has either milk, garlic powder, onion powder, etc in it, but does not always list it individually, particularly the garlic powder onion powder, as they list multiple ingredients under “herbs and spices” and that I had experienced bad reactions to tinned food that did this in the past.

Phil looked at me as though I was just a fussy eater, and made a noise like he couldn’t deal with me.

I really shouldn’t have needed to go into as much detail as I did with Phil, a complete stranger, as everybody, including very young children, know that allergies can be fatal.

I shouldn’t have to go into as much detail as I am going to go into now with you to explain why Phil Campbell’s reaction to my food allergies was dangerous, but I’m going to, because you have ignored my concerns about Phil being dangerous whenever I have brought this up in the past. You’ve also tried to say several times that Phil does not belittle or play down the seriousness of peoples illnesses and disabilities. Yet, his email on the day after my viewing is evidence that he is and does.

Since I was a child I have suffered periods of very bad stomach pains and cramps, as well as vomiting if I ate certain premade foods. These came and went until I was 22, when I began getting horrific stomach cramps all the time, began to feel like had been set on fire from the inside out, and sweat constantly and excessively. I was so tired that I started falling asleep, and passing out randomly, sometimes in public, and once in the middle of the road, as in where the cars drive, while there were cars driving on it. I was constantly at the GP and walk in centres, but nobody knew what was wrong with me, or bothered to find out.

At 23 or 24, I woke up one morning with horrific pain in my throat, and no voice. I worked in a call centre, so this led to several weeks off work. After a couple of weeks back at work the same thing happened again, only much worse and for much longer, and at one point I was rushed to A&E because I couldn’t swallow, not even my own saliva so was choking, like actually choking to the point I couldn’t breathe. Due to how swollen closed my throat was, at this point I was given heavy pain and anti inflammation medication and referred to the ENT Department, where they put a camera up my nose and down my throat. My throat was incredibly “sore, inflamed, and damaged” and my vocal chords were damaged. It was eventually determined that my stomach acid was coming up into my throat so I was put on Omeprazole, which helped a little bit. I could speak, but the pain in my throat came and went, most of the time I had some level of pain in my throat.

Over the next few years, I developed painful ulcers in my mouth and on my face, which would eventually burst or need bursting because they were so big and heavy, so became large painful sores. People began commented that I smelt like new plastic.

Then one day in May 2014, I woke up feeling really very ill, so ill I didn’t want to eat or drink anything. After about 4 days I realised I hadn’t been to the toilet for a couple of days. I hadn’t noticed straight away because of how sick I felt, but now my stomach felt heavy, swollen and uncomfortable, and I felt like I really need to go to toilet but couldn’t. After a few more days of this, I called in sick to work so I could go to the GP, because I felt so bad, and I was given laxatives by the doctor, which didn’t work. On the Friday, I was in so much pain I couldn’t walk or even stand up. By the Sunday, I had to go to the walk in centre because I couldn’t move the pain was so bad. The walk in centre called me a taxi to A&E, and gave me a slip of paper. When I arrived and handed in the slip of paper, I was rushed to the surgical assessment unit, where a group of doctors swarmed on me to do a million test. Then, I was sent for an x-ray. After the x-ray I was officially admitted as an inpatient and told I wasn’t allowed to discharge myself, because my bowel was so severely impacted, and I had food in my stomach because my GP told me I needed to eat, that it was very close to rupturing, and leaving could be the difference between living and dying if it did, as they were prepared to rush me into emergency surgery if it ruptured.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I still had the impaction, but was just now on movi prep (a strong laxative they give to people preparing for bowel surgery) which I had to drink at least a litre of every day, as well as enemas. I was on this and could not work for several months, well into 2015.

My health issues were so severe during this time, and nobody could understand why, so I was tested for intolerances, coeliac disease, and even Crohn’s, all of which came back fine.

As soon as I was taken off the movi prep, I became constipated again and was put straight back on it. This cycle repeated for all of 2015. I was informed that for some reason my body was turning all my solid waste literally solid, into a clay like substance, and at one point I had so much of it inside me I had gained a stone in weight, which was literally solid waste. You can’t imagine the pain this causes.

Knowing that I needed to do something about this myself, because nobody was helping me anymore, in January 2016, I began experimenting with my diet.

The reason I began to believe that I had an allergy was that I had begun to get painful itchy rashes and my hair was falling out, and as I began discovering what foods were making me ill and cutting them out, I cut the same things out of my skin and hair products and also saw an improvement.

At this point I dropped below six stone, meaning I had the BMI of a dangerously anorexic person.

The doctors advised me not to eat these foods anymore, warned me that if I did have an allergy just because I had never gone into anaphylactic shock didn’t mean I never would. They took me off the omeprazole and sent me to a dietician, who helped me get my weight back to a healthy weight.

In short, this all means what I’ve been telling you all along. It would be irresponsible and dangerous for me to eat these foods. It would be irresponsible and dangerous for anybody to suggest I eat these foods. And, if it came down to eating these foods or starving, I would choose starving without a doubt, because the alternative would be actual torture, and potentially more life threatening.

As the words intolerance and wheat were never mentioned, it would be dangerous and irresponsible for somebody in a position of power, such as Phil Campbell, to say substitute the word allergy for intolerance, to play down the seriousness of my food related issues, in order to make it sound like I am a fussy eater or awkward, which is exactly what he did the following day, when he emailed someone (name redacted).

Was there a response to this email?

If so, why don’t I have that response?

Another reason I was concerned, which I never mention, because in comparison to starving it seems minor, was that I had worked in insurance, finance, financial services, and banking for the previous decade, since leaving university. Meaning it was all I knew, therefore all I could reasonably assume I would be able to get a job in, in the future. More than that, it was my career. It was a career that I wanted to get well and return to, and to do that I would need a perfect credit score, something I would no longer have it if I failed to pay my bills on time.

Additionally, there was something I didn’t know at the time of the viewing. Something I only found out after signing for the property. Something Phil should have not only known, but been aware would be a serious issue to a person with no money who was living in the property, which is that the property has prepayment gas and electric meters installed in it, so I would’ve had no heating in the middle of winter, no hot water in the middle of winter, and no way to heat up those tins of delicious (to me) poison-that Phil lied by saying he would personally deliver to me, as it in the email he says he would refer me to the welfare reform team to do that.

That day, after my viewing, I went home and contemplated suicide because of how Phil made me feel about the financial situation I would be in having no choice but to accept the property.

My mum went home and spoke (as previously stated) to another member of staff called Gary (who I would eventually see to sign my tenancy agreement) who took this more seriously than Phil did, and chose instead of gossiping about it to God knows who the next day via email, decided to check immediately if the information was correct, so found out within a matter of minutes that it was not correct, so I would not be forced to swap over to universal credit.

Almost 4 years on, I’m still on ESA, and haven’t swapped over to universal credit.

Whether the tenant is going to be forced to swap over to universal credit, so go without money for several months, seems like information that housing officer should know.

More importantly, it seems like information that housing officer should know for certain is correct before they give it to any potential tenant, but specifically to a tenant who has no choice but to accept the flat or be homeless, and who has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital after their second suicide attempt.

Notes for section 1 part 3

Written in 2023

What haven’t you provided me with if this is what you did?

I think you thought it was perfectly fine for Phil to call me things like strange and act as though people are being demanding or dramatic when they talk about their disabilities and ask for support.

Did anyone check Phils emails and notes or ask anybody what he was saying about me?

Note to section 1

part 2a
written on the 1^st November 2023

This is an update to the paragraph where I mention that the conditions of my flat are going to kill me.

They actually already should of as in September of this year a combination of mould and stress caused me to have to go to A&E as I was no longer able to breathe, I am asthmatic and the doctor had already changed my inhaler. At hospital I was prescribed steroids and anti biotics that they use to treat pneumonia and I have since had to be put on tablets every day along with my inhaler.

I post videos of my decline in being about to breathe on twitter and you all just watched as I literally almost died. But I will be talking about that later in my complaint.

I just wanted to say here that I should already be dead just a year after writing this and can not return to the flat as the conditions there have and will not improve, so I am technically homeless right now while I pay rent to you so you can destroy all my property.

Complaint to Torus

Section 1

part 2a

written in 2022

Four years on, and the issue with torus refusing to deal with, speak to, and/or send all correspondence to my mum, rather than me, is still on going.

People from torus still phone me, still send me post, and still insist that they have to deal with me because I am the tenant.

In 2018, some of my suicidal thoughts, the ones that didn’t feel like my thoughts, the ones I would eventually act on, caused me problems dealing with things, answering my phone, and opening my post, emails, texts, etc. These thoughts would tell me that I didn’t have to open my post, I could open my throat instead. These thoughts would tell me that I didn’t have to deal with something, I could set myself on fire or walk in front of a bus or lorry instead.

These suicidal thoughts that don’t feel like mine are now fully back, and getting more frequent and intense.

So, just in case you are still struggling to understand my request that you deal with, speak to, and send all correspondence to my mum rather than me, and why, I will put it in writing again here, explain why I am requesting it, and why following my request is so important.

Please deal with my mother, Gillian Heffey, on my behalf.

Please send all written correspondence to my mother rather than me, at 16 Mollington Avenue, L11 3BG.

Please speak to my mother rather than me, her phone number is 0151 226 8593.

I am requesting this as I am severely disabled by mental illness. I have borderline personality disorder, adjustment disorder, and non epileptic attack disorder.

Right now, this means-
– Some days I can’t answer my phone, open my post, etc, and/or deal with anything.
-Some days just the though of doing any of these things is enough to exacerbate my depression, stress, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, etc.
-I have episodes of dissociation, which include not remembering what happened during the episode. This means that if I am already having one of these episodes when you call me or I receive a letter from you, or speaking to you or reading your letter causes me to have one of these episodes, I am not going to remember what was said.
-I have communication issues due to my disabilities. I am likely to have emotional and mental break downs, melt downs, and outburst when dealing with anything while I feel unwell or which makes me feel unwell. THIS MEANS THAT I SHOUT.  I shout if I am angry, stressed, upset, anxious, depressed, etc, it is not a sign of aggression, it is a symptom of my illness. I MAY SEEM HOSTILE. Again, this is not a sign of aggression. It is a symptom of my illness. These symptoms are not things I am in control of. I am disabled. These symptoms are part of my disability. They are part of the reason that I am classed as disabled. I did not choose my symptoms. I did not choose my disability. Experiencing these symptoms can worsen my illness and symptoms, as I don’t like being this way. So does other peoples reactions to these symptoms. A SINGLE BAD INTERACTION WITH ONE PERSON CAN LEAVE ME FEELING SUICIDAL FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME AND HAS CONTRIBUTED TO ME ATTEMPTING SUICIDE IN THE PAST.
-I get confused easily and will mix up words, things, people, etc, while I am talking to people. I will be thinking of one word, thing, person, and say another, particularly if I am having similar problems with two different people, example, sometimes when talking about the noise next door I will say upstairs, because I am having noise related antisocial behaviour issues with both the people next door and the people upstairs. This can make conversations very confusing, especially when I don’t realise I am mixing up what I am saying, or if the connection to the two things I am mixing up only exists in my mind, for example I might say washing when I am referring to clothing because once you have worn them they then become washing, but I am referring to them when they are clean.

Writing this complaint has already taken me months. It will probably take me even longer to complete. Having to write this letter has and is greatly exacerbating my stress, anxiety, depression, seizures, suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, etc.

I have to write everything, re read it, and redraft it a million times before its even slightly understandable and followable. The fact is that I am too sick because of my current living conditions to even be writing this complaint, but those living conditions are going to kill me and so I have to write this letter and risk that doing so might kill me, because the alternative is either waiting for the conditions in my flat to kill me, or killing myself to end the suffering that my living conditions are causing.

Writing this is draining what energy I need to even just make it through the day. Writing this leaves me mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted.

So please, do as I have requested, and deal with, write to, and speak to, my mum rather than me. I am classed as severely disabled for very good and serious reasons. You refusing to acknowledge those reasons or even that I am disabled in the first place is disability discrimination.

And listen, if you don’t like dealing with anyone other than the tenant, you can deal with me- once you move me so I can recover from what I have been going through, get well enough for therapies, and have gone through therapy to the point that I am managing my disability again- but until then you need to deal with the consequences of your actions, which is that you have not put me in disability suitable accommodation and that has caused me to become extremely and dangerously unwell to the point where I am unable to deal with anything myself, which means you now have to deal with somebody on my behalf.

The attachment in the email that I sent to Torus today

To whom it may concern,

Hopefully you are either Steve Coffey’s managers/bosses, or the owner/s of Torus, as those are the people I have requested my on going correspondence, of which this is the first part, to go to.

I am writing to inform you of actions I plan to take, and why.

My intentions are-

• To write a huge complaint about what I have gone through over the last five years of being a tenant, leaving absolutely nothing out.
• Aswell as to document what has happened to me through both anecdotal, and journal, style entries.
• To send you these part by part as I write them, and upload copies to my blog at the same time. This should give you sufficient time to read and respond to each part.
• Whether you respond or not, once I am finished, I will be sending he entire thing to the housing ombudsman.

My reasons for doing this, and doing it in the way I have stated is my intention is –

• For five year me, and my mum – on my behalf, have made complaint after complaint to Torus. At best we have been ignored. At worst staff members have made derogatory and stigmatising remarks about my disability and how it affects me, and called my mum abusive for being reasonably and understandably upset
• Due to you lack of response beyond generic copy past letters , and letters full of lies, we have not been able to get the ombudsman to help us.
• I wish for this to be the last time either me, or my mum, have to directly deal with Torus, and hope to raise enough awareness that either – one of the organisations we have been begging for help will finally intervene on our behalf, or my situation will reach somebody in a position of power who will.
• If the above point does not happen, and I die because of Torus, I ask that all of this be used as evidence in an inquest, and ask the judge to seek murder convictions for all those who have contributed to both my torture and death.
• In my opinion, things have now gone far beyond the point of Torus making the flat I rent suitable/safe/just liveable. I believe you have no intention of making it so, but even if you claimed to have done so, I could not trust you as you have claimed to have done so in the past, which considering I am writing to you now, was clearly untrue. I am now technically homeless, while you claim rent for me off the government, and have spent as much of my disability benefits as I could save furnishing that flat twice, only for it to be destroyed, and I can not afford to by a third lot. The voices of the people next doo immediately trigger my bpd, pnes and asthma as soon as I hear them. All of this means the flat is not safe for me to return to.
• Honestly it is my belief that I can not recover from what you have done to me, either mentally, emotionally, physically, or financially, and that I will die as a result of the torture and abuse you have put me through whether in the close or distant future.
• It is my belief that the only way out of this situation alive now for me, and without Torus actually being shut down  (as I am not the only person who is suffering abuse by Torus, others have come forward, and I am optimistic my public death would be the thing that finally gets Torus shut down, so you can no longer harm other vulnerable people) is if you paid me compensation so I could just walk away from that flat and replace everything I’ve lost, as well as money to facilitate a prolonged move if I have any chance at salvaging those of my possessions that can be salvaged, as due to the condition of my health and the condition of my stuff would take months. Compensation for the five years of torture and disability discrimination as well as the impact on my health over the last five years, and the effect the last five years is now going to continue to have on my health and my future, etc.

What I expect I will get from you is more derogatory and stigmatising remarks about my disability and how it affects me.

Whether I am right or wrong about this is down to you.

As is whether this situation continues on, or ends here and now.

I am just a mentally disabled woman fighting for my life.

You are multimillion pound company.

This puts you, not me, in the position of power to end this in away other than my death.

You might believe that position of power means you have no obligation to help me, or end this, as I do not have the health or finances to fight you legally.

Luckily for me I don’t expect it will be me fighting you legally. I expect it will be whoever is leading the inquest into the fact that I have died as a direct result of Torus abusing me because I am disabled.

Either way, I sincerely request that you read and respond to my correspondence over the next few months.

Rachel Vanncci

The email I sent to Torus today

To whoever opens this email,

I am requesting that it, the contents it contains and all future correspondence linked to it, to be sent to both whoever Steve Coffeys managers/bosses are and the owner/s or Torus.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 13

More disability discrimination

Due to my communication issues, we made everyone at Torus, including Phil, aware, from the very beginning, that until my health improved, my mum would be dealing with torus for me, at least most of the time.

Yet, Phil still refused to deal with her, insisting that he could not speak to her on my behalf even with my permission because I was the tenant.

Every time he said this, she would explain how I struggle and so can become upset and start to cry and shout. He told her if I became upset while speaking to him, even though it’s a symptom of my disability, and Torus were forcing me to live in a flat that was both exacerbating and triggering that disability, he would not deal with me, because he would consider my distress to be abuse against him.

Honestly, I think Phil just did not what to deal with anybody, or do his job at all.

He once pocket dialled my mum while complaining to other torus staff members that he wanted to go home.

Him not want to deal with anyone or do his job was fine with us if it meant we got someone else to help us, as we had requested several dozen times to have another member of staff to deal with, as Phils disability discrimination was not only distressing but a risk to my safety, but every time we were told Phil was my housing officer, and he wasn’t discriminating against me, so I wouldn’t be given another point of contact.

We couldn’t have been more clear to Torus that we wanted nothing to do with Phil, and yet, just three weeks after I signed an official document giving my mum permission to deal with Torus on my behalf, which is likely the next time we contacted Phil, he made a complaint against her, lying about two things that never happened.

The first was that she had been abusive to him. I believe he was referring to the phone call that happened on the day he pocket dialled us, where she was distressed due to him discriminating against me.

The second was that we had visited the clubmoore office and just stood there screaming his name in the middle of waiting area.

This obviously didn’t happen, and I’m sure if it had we would have been asked to leave, and Phil would have jumped on the opportunity not to deal with us right there and then.

By doing this, Phil left me completely cut off from Torus, as they didn’t just say she couldn’t contact Phil, they told her she couldn’t deal with Torus at all even to request repairs etc.

And I was too ill to do it myself.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 12

More gossip

Phil constantly tripped himself up, and exposed Torus’ policies to purposely and intentionally lie, due to his compulsive gossiping problem.

We see it in his file note, where he tells the Torus approved lie of, “Three have been no other complaints,” then he immediately can’t help but gossip to himself, saying, “She won’t get peace and quiet as the block where she lives is known for ASB,”

This, gossiping to himself, is bizarre.

Another time he admitted there was a known ASB problem in my blocks of flats, because he can’t help but gossip, was when he told my mum, “There use to be a disabled man in the block who kept the ASB in line, but he’s dead now.”

I find it alarming that torus have a history of putting disabled people in those flats that they know have an anti-social behaviour problem, then force those vulnerable people to keep criminal behaviour, “Inline.”

And they do expect this.

Phil told me to go around to the flat next door and ask them to be quiet and when I did and was attacked, the police almost arrested me for being attacked, because thy claimed that by going around to ask them to be quiet I incited my ow attack.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 11

Disability discrimination

By the time my first tenancy review meeting happened, I had reported both the noise next door and upstairs, as well as the impact that it was having on my disability on several dozen occasions.

When I reported the noise next door to Phil, he was adamant they had never had any other complaints about that property, which we now know was a lie, because the man who lives next door to me on the other side, has since informed me that he has been complaining about the noise from my next door neighbours since before I even lived there.

When I reported the man upstairs, Phil said, “Oh, so he’s noisy now as well is he?” As though we were lying.

Due to the fact that instead of improving, as we had expected it to, mu disability related health was deteriorating, I took the opportunity to explain in great detail how the noise was impacting me due to my disabilities.

I talked about-

• How it was triggering both my BPD episode and seizures.
• Making general living and everyday tasks difficult for me due to it exacerbating the symptoms of both my BPD and seizures.
• That I am on antipsychotics which are major sedatives, so if I can’t sleep during the night, I have choice but to sleep during the day or risk having a serious accident and or passing out.
• That my sleeping pattern is important to control both my BPD and seizures and the noise was already messing it up.

Phil once again went away and wrote about this conversation in a manner that made me sound, as he had put it earlier that same day “dramatic and demanding,” rather than disabled and requesting reasonable disability support.

Like with the “gluten intolerant” comment, he changed what I actually said to something entirely different.

He wrote that what I had said to him was that “I could not settle in the flat and wanted peace and quiet.”

Then he admits that I won’t get peace and quiet there, as the flats I live in are known for anti-social behaviour.

This is also an admission that they had other tenants complaining about the noise.

And that they knew those flats were not suitable for a person with my disabilities when they offered me it, knowing I was in band a on property pool, so could not refuse it.

This note is a perfect example of why a person in a position of power and authority belittling a disabled person disability when that disabled person is dependent on them for disability support is dangerous to a life-threatening level.

Yet every time we tried to report Phils discrimination against me to torus, we were told that he was not discriminating against me, even though there was written proof that he was in the emails and file notes he was writing.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 11
Another time Torus had no budget to fulfil their duty as a landlord.

Something I forgot to mention when writing about my living room window. Probably because it happened on one of the other occasions they came out to tell me they wouldn’t fix or replace my broken ones, as well as the fact that they said it my mum and not me, is that they were adamant I would have to wait for a window related scheme before I got new ones, even though my windows are over thirty years old.

Torus would not replace my broken, mouldy, unsafe, thirty year old windows unless it was on a scheme, and if there hasn’t been a window scheme in thirty years I doubt there will be one in the next thirty years.

Journal entry 2

29^th October 2023.

Today I plan to try to wrap up all my blog posts about Phill, so I can move on to that part of my complaint.

I want to apologise in advance, as this means lots of tiny notes about issues that won’t be addressed until later, such as noise.

Journal entry29TH of October 2023

For the las four weeks, I have been simultaneously counting down the weeks to my blog relaunch from four to one, while announcing that the relaunch date is the 30^th of November.

Honestly, even though I knew both Halloween and my birthday are next week, I thought I was counting down to the end of November and the beginning of December.

Even now, I genuinely don’t know what my actual plan was, whether it was to relaunch at the beginning of November or December.

I only realised my error on Friday, when I began scheduling my blog post for the beginning of December and noticed my others were scheduled for the end of October.

This is important to address, as I constantly talk about my struggles with muddling things up.

Usually, people just see me muddling up words and think that’s all it is.

Bigots on social media love to jump on this to call me illiterate even when I’m vocal, and have been vocal for a very long time, about it not being literacy related, but BPD related.

Even if I was illiterate, your still a bigot if you laugh at and or look down on a person’s intelligence and/or worth based on their English language literacy.

Some people-

• Have disabilities that do cause literacy problems.
• Were not financially able, or in the right are of a country, or the right family environment to get a decent education.
• Speak multiple languages, and English is not their first language.

There are hundreds of reasons why somebody might not have perfect spelling or grammar skills, etc, especially on social media, none of which are an indicator of their intelligence or worth.

But my favourite reason, where social media is concerned, is that it’s fucking social media, not a university dissertation.

However, it’s not just words I muddle up, its everything, and it adds to my disablist, as I can not, “make or carry out a plan” or “appointments”.

I mean, I also can’t do these things for much more serious reasons, but it is still part of the issue.

And it is part of an issue Torus have greatly exacerbated by denying me disability support I desperately need, yet if it effected my ability to make or keep an appointment with them, they would happily threaten to punish me for it, while referring to it being a part of my tenancy agreement.

I know they would, as they have done it for the more serious reasons that interfere with me keeping and making appointments.

And because it’s a silent condition of my tenancy agreement that I am neurotypical, apparently, based off the way the majority of their staff have treated me.

incident diary windows

entry a

https://youtube.com/shorts/oPiSDcOlVXM?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/CDlChc-F6Vk?feature=share

My tenancy review meeting

Part 10

The window

That living room window has still, to this day, not been fixed.

I reported it several hundred times to Torus, before I posted a video of it on twitter in 2020 or 2021.

The next week surveyors called to make an appointment to come look at it, but by this point I was already sleeping in the day due to a combination of being kept awake at night by my neighbours, and being an antipsychotic user.

We asked torus to deal with the anti-social noise next door and upstairs, so I could correct my sleeping pattern, in order to allow members of staff to come in for repairs, such as the window to be dealt with, but they didn’t, so it hasn’t been done.

Let’s be honest though, they would really have fixed it anyway.

They made a big fuss about it needing to be fixed, just like they did with the mould this month, because it almost killed me, even though they haven’t been bothered about it for the other five years I’ve been reporting it. Then when they came out they didn’t even do half a job while complaining they didn’t have enough time to do that.

There is still mould in that bedroom.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 9
Note D

The word dramatic is actually well known to be a stigmatising comment used against bBPD sufferers, to the point psychiatrist have spoken out about not using it when referring us, or our behaviours and reactions, as we are not dramatic, we are suffering from severe mental illness.

The physical illness equivalent, would be calling a wheelchair user lazy.

In regards to the demanding comment, I assume Phil was referring to my request to make my flat disability suitable, which again is discrimination.

The physical disability equivalent would be calling a wheel chair user demanding if they asked for a lift to be installed in a block of flats where they lived on the twentieth floor, which only had stairs.

However, it is my opinion base on Phils behaviour and attitude that he thinks requesting safe living conditions such as, no mould, or no mice, is also demanding.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 8

An overheard conversation

Against my request to have the appointments on separate days, as I knew I would not be able to deal with both on the dame day, mum schedule the window appointment on the same day as the tenancy review meeting, because has mobility issues, so struggles to get to my flat.

After how ill I was during the days following my double-booked appointments, she never double booked appointments again.

However, her double booking, means that I overheard Phil making stigmatising remarks about me regarding my disability to another member of staff, to the point where after Phil left, I felt like I had to explain to that member of staff that I am mentally ill, which I should not have had to do.

But, then, I never should have been put in the situation where I had an episode in front of, or because of, a member of staff doing repairs, because that flat should have been in a safe liveable condition when I moved in.

Phil called me both “dramatic” and “demanding.”

Then the man came back in and pretend to seal the windows.

Obviously, he didn’t really do it, as Torus would never allow that.

And my blinds continued to blow in the wind while my windows were shut.

My tenancy review meeting

part 7
The window man

After moving into my flat, I requested new windows for several reasons-

1. The mould on the bedroom window.
2. How the window in the living was letting in cold air, to the point where my blinds blew in the wind when the window was shut.
3. They have no safety latches on, and I, understandably, suspected that somebody was pulling my windows all the way open.

When the man came, he refused my request for new windows, and even refused to put sealing on my living room window to help with the cold air blowing in.

My only tenancy review meeting

Part 6

Note c

However, Phil has gone beyond this to a more serious level of discrimination– making derogatory and stigmatising comments about me because I am disabled.

I have proof that he does this from his own emails and file notes, where he makes comments about-

• “My strange behaviour.”
• And warns other people about me.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 6
Note B

Discounting disabled peoples symptoms and lived experiences is discrimination by itself, as is belittle somebody’s symptoms and illness.

In this case though, its much more dangerous, because I was relying on the person who was doing it to me for disability support.

Belittling and discrediting a disability in my case is saying things like-

“A little bit of depression and anxiety.”

Or

“We all suffer from x y z.”

Instead of accepting I have borderline personality disorder, and that I am disabled by it, and how I am disabled by it.

Or changing things to make it sound less serious, such as –

“Wheat intolerant”

Instead of acknowledging the long list of foods I can’t eat, and that if I do eat them I am at risk of my bowel rupturing.

Or comparing suicidal pseudo psychos to a time when well people feel normally overwhelmed, to a normal level, by an appropriate thing.

Or comparing dissociation to a time when things were “a bit of a blur.”

Its more serious when a person in a position of power and authority does this to you, because you then don not get the necessary and appropriate help and support for your disability.

Which I obviously have not.

My tenancy review meeting

Part 5
Note A

Before I continue, I want to make it clearly that I actually don’t dislike Clara. Thats not to say I like her, I just have not experience the same level of disclination and unprofessional behaviour from her as I have from many other members of Torus staff.

Although I may be wrong, after all I am a terrible judge of character due to my empathy impairment,  which means I stuggle to read and understand people’s emotions and intentions, and it might just be that I have not had as much contact with Clara as I have with other members of torus staff, clara really did seem to be acting the way she was as a result of Phil directing her to.

My tenancy review meeting

Part four
Disability discrimination

Due to how stressed out the anticipation of this review meeting had caused me to feel, I don’t remember much of it.

The only memories I have are those that seem to remain to remind me that Phil posed a danger to me.

When talking about my disability, Phil, once again, put on that voice that you hear people use when speaking to dogs, and said in a manner which sounded as though he was telling me rather than asking me, “Do you suffer with a little bit of depression and anxiety do you?”

For the now one thousandth time, I informed him that no, I don’t suffer with a little bit of depression and anxiety, I suffer from borderline personality disorder, which is a very serious and complex mental illness that affects me to a disabling level.

Distressingly, when I tried to expand on this and explain some of the ways my illness affects me, he kept cutting me off to incorrectly correct me on how my own illness affected me and down play my disability.

For example-

If I said-

I get thoughts that don’t feel like mine, instead they feel like there is a worm inside my brain telepathically communicating with me through impulses rather than words, which tells me to set myself on fire and which I respond to with emotions of euphoric and amusement to the point I want to do it publicly and theatrically.

He said-

“We all feel like we can’t cope sometimes.”

As though I was saying I was a mentally well person, dealing with feeling a normal level of overwhelmed, in a normal way, because of a normal trigger.

The two of these situations aren’t the same.

They aren’t even close.

He also encouraged Clara to join in.

While explaining how I was likely not going to remember the majority of the review meeting because I dissociate, I was force to use the last time I was sectioned as an example, because they just didn’t seem to understand, but this only made it worse, as Clara cut me off and said just the way Phil had, as though she was telling not asking me, “Was it one of those times when everything’s a bit of a blur?”

Then, when I tried to explain that I was talking in literal terms, and that no it wasn’t a blur, I literally have chunks of my suicide attempt, that day, and the following week missing, she cut me off to agree with herself that what I was describing was just an experience that was “just a bit of a blur.”

Which isn’t the case.

Dissociation is a serious symptom of serious mental illness.

And a student psychiatric nurse has told me that I experience it in a way that people having sever bi polar episodes experience it.

My only tenancy review meeting

part 3

Due to how difficult the viewing had become as a result of three member of staff not only being present, but all thinking their opinion on everything including my complex disability was required and an educated opinion, my mum enquired as to whether it was policy, for example- a safety measure, that staff members come in pairs.

Phil informed her that I was not.

So, she requested that if the review meeting must go ahead on the date they said it must, considering my disability and how it affects me, that Phil attend alone, and he agreed.

However, when he arrived, he was with Clara.

On seeing Clara at the door, my mum asked could she please not attend the meeting, and suggested that if they had come by car, could she wait in the car.

Shockingly, Phil told my mum that Clara was “here now” and so she “had to come in, but he would make her stand in the corner.”

This is both bizarre, and degrading to Clara.

It is also not a solution to my problem, as she would still be present and so would still impact how much I struggled.

Obviously, we did not make Clara stand in the corner.

But even thinking about her doing so is very disturbing and gives me Blair Witch vibes.

Was she just going to silently stand in the corner watching?

Or was she going to join in by shout to us from the corner?

Or was he expecting her to face the wall like a naughty child?

If Phil is willing to degrade his colleagues in this way, he certainly isn’t going to have issues degrading tenants.

My only tenancy review meeting

part 2

My disability related health had begun to improve so much between me being discharged from hospital and moving into that flat, that I had been referred to an outpatient psychiatric facility, that specialised in therapies designed to treat bpd.

In fact, I had improved so much, that we expected I would be doing better, than I had been before my melt down at Santander, by the end of my first year living in my new property.

Because my illness causes me difficulties communicating, and how bad interaction can cause me to because unwell to a suicidal level, paired with Phil’s discrimination against me due to my disability and his unprofessional attitude and behaviour, we requested that the first review meeting be pushed back until I was coping better, for my safety.

Phil aggressively refused, claiming this couldn’t be done, as LMH policy strictly stated that each meeting must be done by a certain point in my tenancy.

Yet, when Phil couldn’t make the deadline for the first meeting it was pushed back with no problem.

And, when he just didn’t want to do the second meeting, it was called off all together.

My only tenancy review meeting

part 1

I was supposed to have two tenancy review meeting within my first year living the property but ended up only having one.

Torus claimed that they were to see how I was settling in living at the property, yet I had already told them the flat was not disability suitable, and requested to move by the first meeting, and they had no plan as to what to do if I wasn’t settling in, so they certainly did not have a plan for if the property was unsuitable for me due to my disability.

Which all makes me suspect that this wasn’t actually what the meeting was for.

Several people have independently speculated that the review meetings were to check-

1. I wasn’t subletting.
2. Didn’t have anybody else living with me, who shouldn’t have been living with me.

But, if this is the case, why are they allowing an entire family to live in the one bedroom flat next door to me?

Tenancy agreement signing

Note 2

Gary claimed that he used to work in a psychiatric hospital, so knew how bad BPD is, and how it effects sufferers.

The people at the clubmoore office later admitted everybody at LMH knew how bad the flats I live in are. Therefore, Gary knew that my flat was not disability suitable and was dangerous to a life threatening level to me, when he happily gave me tenancy agreement to sign.

Tenancy agreement signing note 1

At the signing of my tenancy agreement, with Gary, I was very strictly informed, even though he had asked me several times who else I had to support me apart from my mum, and I had told him nobody, that I was responsible for the behaviour of the people I invited into my flat.

He said this in a way that made me feel like he expected me to have people constantly at the flat behaving anti socially.

Wat this because of what Phil was telling everybody about me after the viewing?

Or was it disability discrimination due to me having BPD?

And why aren’t the people next door and upstairs being held responsible for both their own and their visitors anti-social behaviour.

Reasons why my flat was not disability suitable for me when they offered it to me

Part 2
Its a perfect place to poison yourself

Although I plan on going into greater detail about the mice later, I want to make a note here before I moved on.

LMH offered me that property knowing-

1. It had a mouse infestation, meaning I was going to need to have mouse poison in it.
2. That I had just been discharged from hospital after a serious suicide attempt.

Mouse poison is a popular way to kill yourself, because-

1. It’s porridge so, you can mix it easily into food.
2. It’s literally poison.

Rising damp?

A few months after I moved in, I noticed these weird marks around the bottom of the bedroom wall, which looked as though the paint had been washed off.

And that the paint was flaking off one of the walls.

On closer inspection, you could clearly see that this had happened several times and had just been painted over.

I now know the former issue is called tide marks.

And that both issues are a sign of risking ramp.

Poor ventilation

Torus

According to another surveyor who came out about the mould, there is a ventilation issue in my flat, but it’s one torus are to blame for.

My hallway as you enter the flat is a long L shaped windowless room.

Off it, to the left, is a windowless cupboard, which is the same length as the hallway.

Together, they make up maybe one fifth or sixth of my entire flat.

Neither rooms have vents in them.

The surveyor told us at least the cupboard should have vent in it.

He even put through a request for one.

But torus have just ignored that request.

Poor ventilation

The vent in the bedroom

It was while we were cleaning the bedroom, I was cleaning the blood off the walls, and my mum was cleaning what we though then was dirt, but now know is mould, off the window, that she noticed the vent was blocked up with soaking wet tissue paper.

As she removed it, she speculated that the reason it was blocked was because the bedroom got cold during the winter.

After living in the flat, I believe whoever blocked it up, did so to reduce some of the anti-social noise from upstairs and next door.

Although it probably didn’t make much difference, it would have slightly reduced the noise, as I’ve personally noticed, the noise is amplified in the bedroom by the vent, sort of like surround sound.

And the bedroom really isn’t cold, it’s the Livingroom that’s the problem with the cold.

I have never considered blocking that vent myself.

Yet, one surveyor we had out to look at the mould told me, as though I already had “Don’t you block that vent up, because that will cause mould.”

Him saying this alone, was as strange as I found the vent blocked up in the first place.

But the fact that it was, paired with him saying this, makes me wonder why he said it.

Has he been there to that flat before I was a tenant and witnessed it?

Either way, the vent was blocked by a previous tenant, and that mould was there when I moved in, so if that vent being blocked cause the mould, then it’s the previous tenant that is to blame for the mould.

More about the condition of the flat when I moved in

The intercom

You might recall, earlier, I mentioned that Clara rang the intercom during my viewing.

So did the cleaner.

And Phil when to answer it both times.

Well, that intercom, which looks like a wall mounded phone, was broken when I moved into the property. The part you speak and listen through lived on the floor, at the end of a stretched-out wire, because the part that held it onto the wall unit was missing. Due to this, the part you speak and listen through didn’t work.

Phil used it twice, so was aware that it was broken in a way that not only made it unusable, but that made it a trip and fall hazard, yet he could be bothered to have it repaired.

An overview of my flat viewing

After the viewing, Phil sent an email to another member of staff at LMH, warning them about me, and how I behaved at the viewing.

I will dissect that email in much greater detail later, as well as in my complaint to torus.

However, there is one point that I want to bring up now.

In that email, Phil says he couldn’t believe I behaved the way I did at the viewing, “While trying to make a good impression.”

What can’t he believe?

That a disabled person behaved in line with their disability?

Or that a person would behave appropriately to how poorly both Phil and Torus were treating them?

Because neither Phil, nor Torus, attempted to make a good impression at the viewing.

1. The flat was filthy.
2. I was incorrectly told my sick benefits would be stopped if I took the property, and that I would have no money to live off for the first few months there.
3. And that people would be regularly taking drugs directly outside my kitchen window.
4. My housing officer gossiped about another tenant to me.
5. And made misogynist and transphobic comments about my future career options.
6. Three members of staff made discriminatory comments and suggestions about my disability, including my housing officer.

But, Phil, the housing officer in question, can’t believe I had the audacity to turn up to the viewing mentally disabled, to the point he felt he needed to warn other members of staff about me.

Journal entrySaturday 28th October 2023

Thank you for reading my posts about my flat viewing. I know it was a lot. I don’t think any other single issue in this series is going to take up that much time and space, in terms of me writing about it, as everything other than my experience with having Phil as a housing officer with be far heavier in terms of photographic or video evidence.

Excluding, obviously my complaint to Torus, which is the entire point of me writing this series.

My plan for my next few posts is-

1. Today, wrap up my viewing posts with and overview and some notes that should have fitted into the viewing posts, but just felt to me as though they didn’t, mainly because they fall into a topic I will be covering later in more detail.
2. Finish writing about my experience with having Phil as a housing officer.
3. Post what complaints I already written about Phil.
4. Finish that part of my complaint.
5. Post any evidence relating to this part of my complaint.

This should take up the next couple of weeks.

How Phil’s behaviour contributed to the flu tipping

Because the fly tipping issue was partly caused by overcrowding and Phil was advising tenants to padlock bins shut, he was directly contributing to the fly tipping issue, as those bins belonged to everyone in the communal yard and locking them prevented other tenants from using them

He was also potentially getting those tenants into trouble with torus, if they ever found out that they were padlocking communal bins shut.

Anti-social behaviour

Phil also claims that he made us aware of anti-social behaviour in the blocks of flats including noise, which isn’t true.

All Phil said in regards to anti-social behaviour, was that there was drug taking in the communal yard.

He pointed, out of my kitchen window, at the corner by the back door of my block, and said, “You see them doing drugs right there.”

Phil denies saying this.

When my mum phoned Gary about the ESA, she mentioned this to him, as she was concerned about my safety, as a vulnerable, mentally disabled, woman, living in a block of flats where crime was taking place.

Gary assured her neither he, nor his manager Jerry, were aware of drug taking in those blocks of flats, and if there was drug taking, it should have been reported to Jerry, by the housing officers.

Phil did not mention noise ASB, I know this to be true for several reasons-

1. If he had the issue of ESA would have been redundant, as there would have been a much more serious issue with the flat.
2. I’d have broken down entirely as I could not have taken the flat, therefore would have been removed from property pool and been left to become homeless.
3. Phil would have mentioned how it was part of my “strange” behaviour at the viewing.

If Phil had mentioned noise ASB, I would have been clear I could not accept the flat, as I already knew my illness would have been effect by this, not because I had been in a similar situation, though if I had that wouldn’t make a difference to the fact that it wasn’t suitable for me, but because-

1. I was struggling with noise in public.
2. I had problems, near the end of our relationship, living with my ex as a result of noise he was making.
3. And was struggling with it at work during training sessions.
4. I knew that noise at night would keep me awake, and I am an antipsychotic taker, so if I don’t sleep at night I can’t function, have accidents, and pass out, so would have had to sleep during the day, which I shouldn’t do because-
5. I need a strict routine to help manage my both my BPD and seizures.
6. Then wont sleep again that night.

Are Torus purposely stealing money from tenants?

A single wheelie bin, according to google, currently costs thirty to forty pounds, which, if I remember correctly, was around the same price I paid around a decade ago for mine.

Phil tried to get me to buy two of them for the communal yard, which would have saved Torus, and cost me, sixty to eighty pounds.

If they provide one wheelie bin for every two people, which I’m guessing, based off what the call centre woman told me, that not every tenant gets a full bin, then that would be five bins for those two blocks of flats.

There are at least one hundred and thirty-eight properties on my street based off the fact that I have been in 69a, and the flats are not numbered a and b, rather they are numbered normally on the bottom floor, then have an a added to the number of the upstairs properties.

Let’s say Torus own half of those properties, which they probably don’t, they probably own most of them, and there is probably more than one hundred and thirty-eight, that’s 34 flats, and if each flat gets half a bin that’s 17 bins.

If Torus can find one tenant who is vulnerable like me in every two blocks and just keep getting them to provide the bins, they are saving five hundred to six hundred and eighty pounds, on my street alone.

Image how much they would save if they did this in every single block of flats they owned.

Again, I am happy to stand by the statements I have made here, not only because I feel like the entire reason Phil forced me to provide one bin, then tried to force me to buy another, is because he knew there was a fly tipping issue that was partly due to overcrowding, but, also, because after a couple of years they finally admitted there weren’t enough bins for us all, then had the cheek to say they were waiting for bins to be donated, which took forever, even though they have a duty as a landlord to provide bins, which shows they either aren’t prepared to spend money on bins, or have no budget for them, and why would they have a budget for bins if they are forcing vulnerable tenants to provide them.

Honestly, after writing all this, I also feel safe saying, Phil knows he never told us there was a fly tipping issue, because if he had, it would have been admitting that there wasn’t enough bins, and that would have prevented him from forcing me to provide Torus with free bins, and he was clearly prepared to see how many bins he could get me to pay for.

The obvious issue with over-crowding and communal bins

I am not opposed to sharing bins with other tenants, although I do fear getting hurt by, or sick off, something they dispose of dangerously.

But, there is a problem with these two blocks sharing bins, which is overcrowding.

As far as I am aware, there is no overcrowding in the block I live in, as there are six flats, I believe four have one bedrooms and two have two bedrooms, and that only six people live in the block.

However, the block next door only has four flats, which I believe are all one bedroom. The block next door to me definitely only has one bedroom and at least six people live in that flat.

This means that there are around three blocks worth of people, and only two blocks worth of bins.

This has obviously contributed to the fly tipping issue, as half of it is caused by people dumping bags of general waste outside of the bins in the communal yard, as there is not enough space in the bins, then never moving it.

The wheelie bin issue

Part 4

Upset and afraid that I was now in trouble with the council for “stealing wheelie bins,” I phoned Torus and requested they explain to Phil that it was torus responsibility to provide tenants with wheelie bins.

Either missing the point, or just purposely ignoring it, which was that Phil had told me it was my responsibility to provide and use my own bin, she told me that Phil would never had said “every tenant is entitled to their own bin,” which he hadn’t, and I hadn’t claimed he had, because the bins were communal bins for everybody in the two blocks to use, and that not every single person got a full bin, that the number of bins was calculated based on the overall amount of tenants living in both the blocks that shared the communal yard.

The wheelie bin issue

Part 3

Not surprisingly, the city council referred us back to Torus, not only because the fly tipping was on Torus’ property, meaning it was their responsibility to deal with, but because as a landlord it is also Torus’ responsibility to provide tenants with wheelie bins.

Then, she informed me that I actually should have left the bins I bought when I moved into my house at the house, because even though I paid for them, they did not belong to me, they belonged to the property, and that I could get into serious trouble for “stealing wheelie bins.”

The wheelie bin issue

Part 2

I neither bough another bin, because I couldn’t afford it, instead, stressed out and worried about getting into trouble with either torus or another tenant, I just had to do what Phil had warned me not to do, and use the bins that were already in the communal yard; nor did I padlock the one I had shut, as that would have been expensive, complicated and, considering my disabilities, unsafe for me to do. The bin that was already padlocked had two giant holes drilled into it, one in the lid and one in the side, which a chain had been looped through, then secured with a padlock. Not to mention that the entire situation felt off to me.

So, the problem with somebody else filling my bin up continued.

At first Phil made me dig through rubbish that could have contained glass, dirty needles, used tampons etc, to get a name and address of the person using my bins.

This was when my issues with cleaning myself began. I would shower, scrubbing everything including my hair, four, five, six times afterwards, then get back in the shower again straight after another two, or three times, and still not feel clean.

But, when I finally got the name and address of the person doing it, Phil wouldn’t take it.

It was during this time that the fly tipping problem became obvious to us.

After several months, Phill got so angry with us reporting both problems to him that, he eventually shouted as us to stop contacting him and claimed it wasn’t even torus responsibility, it was the city councils.

The wheelie bin issue

As soon as I put my wheelie bins into the communal yard, somebody else filled it up and dumped a large pile of bin bags next to it, as though expecting me to also put that rubbish out for collection when I put my bin out, which I wasn’t prepared to do, as anything could have been inside those bags.

Due to Phil being firm that I had to provide and use my own personal bins, we phone him to report that another resident had done what I had been told not to do and ask what I should do with my rubbish in the meantime.

Phil was not happy with us contacting him about this. His response was that, short of buying another wheelie bin he could not advise me how else to deal with my general waste until collection day. Then he insisted I should padlock my wheelie bins in the future, as though locking up your waste is a normal thing to do.

As bizarre as suggesting somebody padlocks heir wheelie bin shut is, I know for a fact I was not the only resident Phil advised to do this, as there was already at least one wheelie bin in the communal yard padlocked shut. A detail I had found strange until this conversation.

Floating memory c

Maybe, Phil really does think he mentioned the fly tipping issue in the communal yard to us at the viewing, even though he did not, due to a particular demand he made of me. As in, he might have said what he did as a way to bring up the fly tipping issue, then forgot for some reason such as getting side tracked by telling us another piece of gossip, or something similarly unnecessary and unprofessional.

However, I believe it’s more likely torus are using their most vulnerable tenants, the ones who aren’t going to question them, either because they don’t have the ability to, or are too scared to, to pay expenses, and do jobs, that as a landlord Torus are both responsible for paying and doing.

Phil was firm with me that LMH would not provide me with wheelie bins, neither for general waste, nor for recycling, and that as a tenant it was my responsibility to buy both from the council.

When me and my ex-boyfriend bought our house, I had to buy us wheelie bins from the council, so I actually believe this bit of information was true.

Having no money, I was forced to bring the bins from that house, as I could not afford to buy new ones as soon as I moved into the flat. This was really difficult for me, even then, before I had my self-cleaning OCD, because it meant putting filthy, smelly, wheelie bins into the moving van with all my stuff.

My flat viewing

part 20
Mind your business

Torus is not blameless for Phils behaviour.

It is obvious from their own, and the Torus foundations, social media posts, that they give themselves credit for both helping people get well and get back into employment, when what they actually do is make their tenants sicker and keep them out of employment.

The irony of this, is that, if Torus just minded their own business, and did the jobs they are supposed to do as a housing association, their tenants would be able to get better if they are sick, and get back to work if they are unemployed.

As long as Torus are-

• Getting paid the rent they are owed.
• Not making tenants sick and/or keeping them out of employment.

Then a tenant’s health and employment status is none of their business.

All Torus have to do to help their tenants be well and employed is make sure-

• The property is suitable for their tenants medical/disability needs.
• The property is in good condition.
• The property has no infestations.
• There is no anti-social behaviour being perpetrated by, or effecting, their tenants.

Yet they choose not to do these things.

Instead, the try to get involved in their tenant’s medical treatment, which is not only invasive and degrading, its dangerous to a life threatening level because are not medical professionals

While, telling their tenants what job to get and when.

My flat viewing

Part 19
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Part 3

In my case, Phils nursery teacher comment was also transphobic.

Although, my personal opinion is that it was not Transphobic, rather non binary phobic.

I am non binary, more specifically I am genderfluid, and I had been out a couple of years, so I wasn’t hiding my gender.

However, I also don’t advertise it, in fact, I am very vocal about how I shouldn’t have to, and don’t want to.

I never chose to be gender non-conforming, or fluid, so I don’t want to have to tell everybody I meet my pronouns and gender, I simply want them to accept me for the person I am without commenting on it.

And honestly, I think this is what every genuinely trans and non-binary person wants. To just live their lives as the gender they are and present as and be accepted.

The fact is, that as a non-binary woman/female, the majority of non-binary phobia I experience is also misogyny.

All Phil had to do at the viewing not to be Transphobic to me, was not make any misogynistic comments to me, such as, because he can see I have ovaries, I should get a job working with very young children.

That’s it, that all Phil had to do not to be Transphobic, and he couldn’t do it.

My flat viewing

Part 18
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Part 2

As soon as Phil began telling me another tenants business I was horrified.

I’ve had people try to make excuses for him, for some reason, such as, I didn’t know the tenant, and he didn’t tell me the tenants name or address etc.

That doesn’t matter.
And it doesn’t excuse his behaviour.

Firstly, it’s unprofessional.

Secondly, it’s a breach of that tenants’ rights.

But, mainly, it’s that gossips, gossip.

I knew that if Phil was taking to me about another tenant, he would talk about me to other people, and that would include talking to other members of Torus staff about me in a way that went beyond necessary and appropriate.

I was also in a vulnerable position, where I could not refuse to give Phil any information he demanded no matter how personal, and it did feel as though he was requesting more personal information about my life than was necessary or appropriate.

That is why, when Torus refused to listen to me about his bigoted behaviour, I knew I get proof of it in a DSAR.

It was so obvious Phil did not like me, yet he couldn’t help but gossip to me.

Because, gossips, gossip.

My flat viewing

Part 17
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Part 1

Phil didn’t even attempt to ask me what my future career plans might be.
Please don’t take this the wrong way. I would not have wanted Phil to have enquired as to what my future career plans were. Its none of his business, but, also, Phil is the last person I would want to tell any of my business to.
My point is simply this, if he had asked, maybe somebody brighter than Phil at Torus would have foreseen the current situation between me and the company as potential risk, if they put me in that flat.
Especially, if he had simply bother to listen to what I was telling him about losing my job…
And my disability.
My career ambitions at this time were-
• To get another job in either finance or banking, but int the fraud department, and work my way up to being a fraud investigator.
• To write horror and fantasy.
• To continue to learn how to paint, and get back into illustration, sculpting and textiles.
It would have been obvious to anybody with common sense that I am not the type of person content to do nothing with my life, and that I would consider Torus preventing me from getting well for five years stolen time.
It would have been obvious that a person like me would know that what Torus have done to me is wrong, that I would have understood that if they were doing it to me they were doing it to other people, and that I would have began to think about how I could put all my knowledge and skills acquired through my specific education and employment history to use in fighting Torus and fixing the system.
And that this battle would have spilled out on to the internet, where I would scream and scream and scream because of how mentally unwell they have made me.

My flat viewing

Part 16
Nursery Teachers

Let’s start with Phils nursery teacher comments.

Phils assumption that I would excitedly jump at the chance to be a nursery teacher is so layered with bigotry its hard to know where to begin.

If Phil had made this comment knowing absolutely nothing about my employment history, that would have been misogynistic enough, in my opinion, given that is my belief that he only assumed I would love to be a nursery teacher because I wasn’t born with a penis.

I’m confident to continue based on that opinion, as Phil was aware that I had just lost my job at Santander which is a bank, not a nursery or day care. He was aware I had both wanted, and fought, to continue working at Santander, as I told him my fight for reasonable adjustments had gone on for so long, and was so difficult, that it had exacerbated my illness. If I hadn’t wanted to stay employed with Santander, them refusing me reasonable disability adjustments would have been the perfect excuse for me to leave Santander and find another job. On top of that, I had been clear that part of the reason I attempted suicide was because I lost my job.

All of this is enough for me to be sure I’m right, and its not even taking into consideration the two biggest cluse I had no desire to be a nursery teacher.

The first of which, is that I obviously applied for a job at Santander which is bank.

The second being that I was almost thirty two at the time of my viewing, if I had wanted to be a nursery teacher, I would have already been a nursery teacher.

Which raises the question of whether or not that other female tenant had wanted to be a nursery teacher, or whether it was Phils idea.

As well as the question of why, if Phil thinks being a nursery teacher would be such a nice job, he isn’t one.

After all, this was 2018. Surely Phil is aware its ok for men to want to be nursery teachers, and for women not to.

None of this is me looking down on nursery teachers, or anybody who wants to be one, male or female.

My mum was actually training to be a nursery teacher before she had me.

And educating young children is an important job, and I imagine an extremely difficult, job.

In fact, that is another point I want to raise about this comment.

Although a person with BPD who is well should not be prevented from becoming a nursery teacher because they have BPD, and I am sure many people with this illness do the job perfectly well, and to say otherwise would be disability discrimination, expecting that I should be able to a job like this when I have made it clear that I am disabled is also discrimination, because it ignores that I am severely impaired in the ways that I personally am severely impaired.

Stress has been the reason for every suicide attempt I have even begun to make, I and personally think it would be stressful to have one child of your own who is nursery ages.

Being responsible for somebody else’s very young child, never mind a group of them, must be incredibly stressful.

And that’s not even taking into consideration noise and dirt/germs are huge triggers for me personally. In my experience, young children can be loud and messy.

Then there is the issue of the assumption that I am incapable of making decisions about my own employment or education options. I do wonder whether this is just Phils inferiority complex at work, where he must believe that Torus tenants are inferior to him, because he has such terrible issues with his own self-worth, that he must project that onto everybody else and have it effect their lives in very severe ways.

Again, ill stand by everything I have said here, because it never occurred to Phil that being a nursery teacher would be outside of my financial reach, because I have what the government, not me, classes as a higher level of qualification, which is a bachelor’s degree. This also mean that I’m a qualified specialist in certain things.

If I want to teach, I will take a PGCE, which is actually an option for me financially, as I would be eligible for a student load to do so, this is because as I said, I am a specialist in certain things, and teaching young adults and adults is actually thought of as more important, again by the government not me, to nursery teaching, causes the quite depressing reality that, nobody I know who works in or understands the education system would actually choose to be a nursery teacher over being a teacher, or a college or university tutor.

Again, that’s not me looking down on nursery teachers, I actually think nursery teachers should be paid more and have more career progression opportunities which they don’t. Nursery teachers have a lower highest salary potential than the starting salary for other teaching roles, as well as less opportunities to progress or branch out. This is why, many nursery teachers return to education to become teachers.

If by this point you aren’t convince that Phil is a bigot who shouldn’t be doing a job that puts him in contact with vulnerable people, I hope it has at least convince you he’s not qualified to be suggesting education and/or employment options, never mind telling people what qualifications and jobs they should be pursuing, which is what I felt like he was doing.

And honestly, I don’t think anyone at Torus is probably qualified to be doing this, but I think they all believe they are.

My flat viewing

Part 15
A more in depth analysis

Let’s analyse Phils, behaviour during this very small part of our much longer conversation, and what it tells us about Phil as a person, not just because I want to, but because it is important to.

It is important for two reasons-

1. It helps us judge whether there is any bigotry or malice Phil might be acting under the influence of.
2. It helps us judge whether Phil should be allowed to do the type of jobs he’s doing, which puts him in direct contact with some of the most vulnerable people in society.

And we need to judge these two things in order to try to understand why Torus may have treated me the way the have, as either all Torus staff are like Phil, which I know might seem unbelievable but I actually think this is the case after dealing with so many of them, or Phil has set the bar for how I should be seen, therefore treated by Torus staff, as for far too long, considering how he was speaking to me and treating me, due to my disability, Phil was our only point of contact, and no matter how much me and my mum tried to raise concerns about his behaviour towards me, nobody else would listen to us, never mind help me.

My flat viewing

part 14
Misogyny

“I lost my job because Santander wouldn’t give me the reasonable disability adjustments I needed, then I tried to kill myself, so I’m currently too sick with my BPD to work. I’m waiting for specialist therapy’s that my psychiatrist says I need to even start my recovery,” I explained to Phil.

When he responded, it was as though he hadn’t actually been listening to me, so had only heard the “I lost my job” part of my statement.

“Don’t worry about that, LMH will get you back into work in no time,” he said this so confidently, and forcefully, that he made it sound like being employed, or at least searching for employment, would be a requirement of my tenancy.

So much so, that even though I was sure that couldn’t be the case, I was afraid to repeat that I am disabled and was too ill to work due to my disability, but I did, because trying to work, even at this point in time, would have literally killed me.

“Don’t worry about that, well get you well in no time, he responded in the same confident tone, again, as though he had not been fully paying attention to what I was saying, because if he had been paying attention, he would have understood that nobody at LMH was qualified to be getting involved in my medical treatment.

Just like the information he gave me about my ESA being stopped, telling me LMH would help me get better has proven to be a lie.

In fact, they have caused my disability related health to decline, to the point I really should be dead because of that flat.

“Then, well get you back into work, he continued as though I would never be able to get myself a job without somebody else helping me do it. Before he had even finished his sentence, his eyes lit up and his speech quickened, due to how excited he was becoming at the though of telling me somebody else’s business. “I had a tenant, a lady, who wasn’t also wasn’t well, (like all illnesses are equal and the same) and I helped her get better, an then I helped her train and get a job as a nursery teacher. “Here his voice changed again, to that voice that you would use when speaking to a dog. “That could be you. I could help you get a job as nursery teacher. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t you like to be a nursery teacher?”

Extremely uncomfortable, and taken a back, by not only the fact that Phil though it was fine to even begin to discus another tenants business with me, but also with the misogyny behind Phils assumption that I would jump at his suggestion that I, little old me, who only has a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art, and had only worked in finance and banking for the last ten years, could reach the dizzying heights every woman aspires to reach of being surrounded by very young children all day every day, I stared at him, my neurodivergent brain unable to identify the correct human response I was supposed to give here. Now I’m not sure there is a correct human response to Phils type of behaviour.

My flat viewing

Part 13

Misinformation Kills

People think that when you are sectioned following a suicide attempt, you are treated with medication and therapy, and only discharged once you are no longer a risk to yourself.

The opposite is true.

In my experience, you are given neither medication nor therapy, you are simply held there until one of three things happens-

1. You demand a solicitor, which is your legal right when you have been detained in hospital against your will.
2. The time they are allowed to hold you for, based on your diagnosis, runs out, according to the girls I met who also had BPD during my last hospital stay, for me that would be four weeks, and the psychiatrist sort of confirmed that.
3. The psychiatrist in charge can believably claim they were sure you were no longer an immediate risk to yourself.

You are discharged, usually with no follow up plan for out patient care, unless you were already getting it.

The reality is, and this is an actual statistical fact, that you at greater risk of not just reattempting suicide, but doing it successfully in the weeks and months following your discharge.

So, when Phil told me that my ESA would be stopped, I was a hight risk for a successful suicide attempt.

In the hours after my flat viewing, I sat at home, staring at the wall contemplating suicide.

I could not fail again.

When my mum got home, she called Gary, the person Phil had informed I was taking the flat, as though I had a choice, in a “surprised” tone, and asked him would he please check whether my ESA would be stopped when I signed for the flat, as he was the person we needed to see, to sign the tenancy agreement.

He agreed to double check.

Then went and actually checked.

The answer, was no, my ESA would not be stopped, the information Phil had been so adamant was correct, that had caused me to sit and contemplate suicide, was wrong.

My flat viewing

Part 12

The fake emergency call

Lets jump ahead here, to the end of the viewing, so we can move on from the topic of the disability discrimination, at least in relation to the ESA, that I was subjected to at my flat viewing, by, now that I am recalling it in detail, all three members of staff present that day.

After we left the flat, I only made it out of the street, and to the end of the next street, before breaking down completely.

In fact, I was so unwell at this point, as a result of being told my ESA, which I had only just been put back onto, was going to be stopped, that I was actually afraid that I was going to “throw myself in front of a car” again, on the way home.

Seeing how unwell I was, my mum, probably not wisely, left me on that street corner, and went back to the flat to ask Phil, one last time, to please double check that the information he had given me about my ESA being stopped was correct.

If you guessed that his answer was still no, you are correct.

If you also guessed that she found all three staff members stood around chatting, as though Clara didn’t have that meeting with another tenant, that she now would have been over half an hour late for, you are also correct.

My flat viewing

Part 11

A personal issue with having zero income in that flat

In regards to my then career, which I wanted to progress in, and which if I can not go back to once I am in recovery, which is now likely the case due to being unemployed for five years, may leave me with no other prospects, having no income would have destroyed it,.

I had overdraft fees, and furniture I had almost finished paying off on credit, which would not have been paid.

To work in finance and/or banking, you need a great, if not perfect credit rating, and that was the industry I had worked in for over decade.

Sadly, due to how long I have now been out of work, I very likely wont be able to go back to working in finance or banking anyway, and so Torus have destroyed my career.

My Flat Viewing

Part 10

Another serious issue with having zero income in that flat

Another very serious issue with having zero income while living in that particular flat, that Phil should have been aware of, is that the previous tenant was on prepaid gas and electricity meters, meaning I am now on prepaid gas and electricity meters, so I would have had no gas or electricity during the winter.

My Flat Viewing

Part 9

More Obvious Issues With Having Zero Income

Food aside, there are many other obvious issues that having absolutely no money coming in would have cause me, especially for a two month time period, which likely would have increased due to the Christmas holidays falling within those two months.

How would I have cleaned myself, my teeth, my hair?

Was I expected to just go without tampons and bleed all over myself, my clothes, and my furniture?

Was I meant to not clean my mouldy flat that had mice shitting in it and pissing all over it?
And live for several months with someone else’s shit all over my bathroom, their blood all over the walls and body hair in every single room? Because, that flat was not clean, when I moved into it.

Did I deserve to lose all my teeth, and be degraded by bleeding all over myself, while not being able to clean myself, my clothes, my furniture, because I had been unemployed due to disability discrimination for two months, and was having to sell my home?

My Flat Viewing

Part 8
Disability Discrimination
Part 2
People who don’t want to be beggars can’t be choosers

Baffled by how Phil could not see there were serious problems that having no money at all would cause a person, I pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to buy food.

I was about to expand on this, to point out that not being able to buy food meant I would starve, when his eyes lit up, he smiled this smug little smirk, then cut me off to inform me that he knew I was selling my house, as though he had caught me in a lie, and tell me that he wanted to know why I couldn’t use the money I was getting from the sale of my house to buy food.

The use of the word money here is a direct quote.

Even if I had been receiving money from the sale of my house, that sale had not completely yet, and I had no control, or idea, of when it would, at this time, as both me and my ex-boyfriend had already signed all the sellers’ parts of the paperwork, and just had to wait to be notified once the sale was finalised. This eventually happened in the January of 2019, as nothing happened with the sale for several weeks over the Christmas period.

However, due to the circumstances around why we were selling the house, we were selling the property at over a six-thousand-pound loss, as we were asking for just enough to break even so we weren’t left with either money on our mortgage, or joint equity deal, which we still owed money on to the property developers, who we had directly purchased the property from, and who still owned under 20% of our property.

Phil didn’t seem to understand any of this, yet he kept asking why there was no equality in the house, while using the word equality incorrectly several times, like he though I had just taught him the word, but he didn’t actually understand what it meant, but was insisting on using it anyway, so I thought he had always know what the word equity meant.

No offence to anybody who doesn’t know what the word equity means, when referring to a property’s value, or when selling a property. The equity is the overall value of the property minus anything owed in fees, sales costs, mortgages, etc. Put simply, its what you might be able to take away from a sale. People don’t always sell a property for the full value, and they don’t get the full amount a property actually sells for. Phil seemed to think that property had to sell for what the estimated value was, and that you got literally the value of the property back in full, like mortgages and sales fees, etc didn’t exist. And he was using the word interchangeably for money.

The point I am making is that I only know this after the process of buying and selling a shared equity property, and five years of working in banking.

Yet, Phil could not let himself feel as though I wasn’t inferior to him, and his own self worth was so fragile that not knowing a word, I assume lots of people wouldn’t know, made him feel inferior to me.

A person like that, should not be doing his job.

Phils behaviour, in regards to how he aggressively questioned me about the house I was losing, was distressing. I had put every penny into that house, and if we had sold it under better circumstance, which was something I had been willing to do, both of us would have walked away with a couple of thousand pounds. If that had happened, I wouldn’t have even been renting from a housing association, because I would have had the money for a deposit on a private let, and I had always rent private lets in the past.

Eventually, I suggest that could bring a copy of the paperwork from the court case, where all the details of how we would sell the house had been officially worked out, into the LMH office, if I could get it, and he instantly stopped interrogating me, which makes me believe he shouldn’t have been interrogating me on the matter in the first place.

Here, I believe there is a slight gap in my memory of this conversation, as the next thing I recall is him taking to me in the sort of voice you’d speak to a dog in. He was saying, and I quote, “I will bring you food parcels. Would you like that? Would you like it if I brought you food parcels?”

If you think this is strange, that he personally would bring me food parcels, I felt that way too, and when writing about it later, he didn’t mention offering to personally bring the parcels. Instead, he wrote something which seemed much less creepy and much more realistic, which is that he would refer me to either a food bank, or a department within Torus who dealt with food banks, but at the viewing he did say he personally would bring me the parcels, because I remember feeling very uncomfortable with the idea of Phil coming to my flat when I was alone, even more so than I normally would.

However, there was something far more concerning in his later emails and notes about this conversation, which is that he claims I asked him if the food would contain wheat because, I am wheat intolerant.

None of that is true.

What I said, was that I could not accept food parcels, as I have a genuinely life threating reaction to many of the ingredients that are used to make most processed foods, and that a lot of the time, the ingredients that I am most at risk of reacting to, aren’t listed in the ingredients, as they come under the collective term of “herbs and spices,” and that this is definitely the case with tinned and canned foods.

During this, I listed all of things I can’t eat, whether those things are common in processed foods or not.

Here is the list-

• Dairy, which includes, milk, butter, and cheese.
• All plants from the lily plant family, which include, onion, garlic, shallots, chives, leak, and asparagus
• Aloe
• Weeds, including, dandelions and nettles.

Then I explained to him the reaction I have to these foods which is that I stop passing solid waste completely, because my solid waste literally becomes solid, or as the doctors put it, it turns into a hard clay like substance which cannot pass through my intestines, and that in 2014 I came extremely close to my bowel rupturing, due to this, which would have either killed me, or resulted in me wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of my life, and that the doctors though it was likely an extreme allergic reaction, as this is how allergic reactions can sometimes present with all of these specific food groups.

(However, I have since learned that one of the lesser known symptoms of BPD, is severe and life threatening digestive issues, though a medical article I read online.)

At no point did I use the words wheat or intolerant.

But even I f I had, it’s my opinion that nobody should be forcing anybody who is wheat intolerant to eat wheat, and if they did, they certainly shouldn’t be calling it a favour or an act of charity, because what it is, is abuse, as you are literally poisoning that person.

I did however use the words “I will die, if I am forced to eat it.”

My Flat Viewing

Part 7
A Real Life Game Of Would You Rather

At some point in the viewing, for some still unknown reason, that I can only speculate on, Phil decided to tell me that immediately after I signed my tenancy agreement for my flat, my ESA would be stopped, so that I could be swapped over to universal credit, as the property was in a universal credit post code, and that the process of swapping someone from ESA to universal credit usually took around two months.

As soon as he told me this, I began to panic. However, I just about managed to hold it together enough that I didn’t melt down, at least not at first, because the postcode he gave me when saying the flat was in a universal credit post code, was not the properties actual post code.

For example- If the post code of the property was L1, he sat it was L20.
(These aren’t the real post codes, rather the postcodes I will use here, in this post as a stand in for the real postcodes.)

When I pointed this out to him, he exploded on me in this really weird way, where he didn’t shout at me, rather he very forcefully put me in my place, while both staring at me in disgust, yet managing to also be wearing a furious expression.

The best way I can describe it, is that his reaction made it very clear to me that his opinion was that he was above me in social standing, and that I had no right to question him.

It was, as I believe he intended it to be, very intimidating.

He said it didn’t matter that the post code he had given me was L20 but the actual post code of the property was actually L1, because both those postcodes covered the same area. This directly contradicted his entire reason for why me ESA would be stopped, which was that ESA and universal credit are post code, not area, dependant.

If I could have dropped the subject, I would have, but I couldn’t, because he had basically just told me I had to choose between having money and being homeless and having a home but no money.

This is a choice nobody should be forced to make, but especially not a person who has recently been discharged from hospital after being section for a failed suicide attempt.

Much more timidly, I explained my situation to Phil, then requested that he please check that the information he had just given me was correct.

Again, he forcefully insisted that he didn’t have to check, because he knew the information he had given me was correct.

This is when I began to cry, but I still wasn’t hysterical, just overly teary eyed.

I turned to my mum and addressed her only, and nobody else, telling her I didn’t know what to do, because if refused the property I would be removed from property pool, but if I accepted it, I wouldn’t be able to cope financially, and therefore mentally.

Nobody allowed my mum to reply.

The cleaner must have a psychiatric degree, seeing as, according to him, people just have to tough out difficult stuff sometimes.

The word impossible, rather than difficult, would have been an understatement when describing this situation LHM were more than happy to put me in.

I wounder if he would have felt as qualified to give a wheelchair user the same advice on walking up a hundred flights of stairs every day for two months.

Clara agreed with him, because everybody these days is a mental health expert, yet nobody seems to understand that mental health and mental illness aren’t the same, while being adamant a person disabled by mental illness should be able to do what a mentally capable person would struggle to do.

Sighing before he responded in a pissed off voice, Phil asked why I wouldn’t be able to cope, as though my reaction was completely out of order.

In my, more qualified opinion, being the only person there that day who has a mental illness, obviously based on their reactions, even a mentally well person would have been upset by the choice I was facing, so to me either option was literally a death sentence, as I am not a well person, I am a disabled person, due to serious mental illness.

My Flat Viewing

Part 6
Floating Memory B

Clara was not the only other member of LMH staff present at my flat viewing.

Somewhere, in between Clara arriving, and when me and my mum left, a man turned up carrying a vacuum cleaner, claiming he was there to clean the carpet, and Phil thought it was not only appropriate to allow him into the flat during the viewing, but to also allowed him to take part in our conversation.

I find this really inappropriate, as not only were we discussing very person details about my life and health.

But, also, at this point, I had already made Phil aware that I struggle to not only communicate with people, but to just be around people.

There were far too many people around me, and talking to me at that viewing, and I began to get distressed and struggle to communicate more as a result of this, the longer the viewing went on.

My Flat Viewing

Part 5
Floating memory A

Not long after I had joined my mum and Phil in the kitchen, the intercom rang.

Phil went to answer it, and when he returned, he was with another housing officer, Clara.

What followed, was obviously the housing officer version of an arranged phone call in case you want to cut a meeting of some sort short.

He was a while returning, and the distance from the communal front door to my front door is less than ten steps, so they were obviously talking privately for a few minutes outside, so they could have had the conversation they had in front of us, in private, ten time over, but they didn’t, as it was clearly staged to try to get us to leave.

She asked him whether he was done with the viewing, because he had promised her that he would accompany her to an appointment, which she was now in a hurry to get to.

He agreed to accompany her, but then both of them stayed for at least another half an hour, during which time Clara made no attempt to contact the tenant her meeting was with to inform them that she would be late.

And they didn’t leave once me and mum left, but I am going to tell you about that late.

Moving Forward

As I have explained, in my posts about dissociation and how it affects me, I have really struggled to write about the viewing, because

1. I am missing parts of what happened at the viewing.
2. The parts I have don’t seem to be in the correct order, but I can’t put them in the correct order.
3. I have several parts that sit outside the complete memory, as though they are separate memories.

This means that my recollection of the viewing is gappy and disjointed, so does not flow like recounting a single event should.

For this reason, I have decided to split it up into sections, with each section covering a single piece of my memory, or issue as the subject.

My Flat Viewing

Part 4
Disability Discrimination
Part 1
Complete Disinterest

After my very quick look around, I joined my mum and Phil in the kitchen. The first thing I did, is the first thing I always do when I meet new people in a formal setting or meeting, since my diagnosis in 2016 2017, which is to inform the person I am meeting that I have borderline personality disorder, which is a very serious mental illness, that currently affects me to a level where I am disabled, and that it makes everything extremely difficult for me, but especially communication and just being around people.

Several times during me explaining this, he rolled his eyes. I couldn’t work out whether I was boring him, or whether he thought I was being dramatic.

Once I finished, he stared at me blankly, which made the situation much worse for me, as other people’s behaviour has a massive impact on how my bpd affects me in the moment.

For the entire viewing, Phil acted as though I hadn’t told him that I was mentally disabled, which is what I am, I am disabled, and my disability is mental illness, therefore I am mentally disabled.

My Flat Viewing

Part 3
Suspicions
Part 2

Once inside, Phil seemed reluctant to let me look around, the reason why will be clear if you read my posts about the state of the flat, both on the day of the viewing, and when I moved in.

Although looking around did sort of seem pointless, as I had no option to refuse the property, which you will already know if you read my posts about both property pool and direct matches, and I wasn’t feeling up to the viewing due to my already poor health, on to of which viewing the property was exacerbating my illness, as viewing a property is stressful, and I struggle to communicate, or even just be around people, I was there, and isn’t the point of a property viewing, that you view the property, so I insisted on having a quick look around.

Every two seconds, while I walked around, Phil would ask me, in a really demanding tone, whether I was taking the property.

I responded several times that, “I had no choice, I had to take the property, as I was in band A in property pool, meaning I had no refusal rights.

Each time he behaved as though I hadn’t answered him, so eventually, fed up of having repeated myself thirty times in the space of a minute, I told him yes I was taking the property.

As soon as we entered the flat, Phil had headed string into the kitchen, and at this point my mum was in there with him.

She remembers him immediately calling a man named Gary (who I will talk about in more detail later) and informing him in a surprised tone, that I was taking the property.

When she recalls this, she unintentionally mimics his tone, and to me it doesn’t sound surprised it sounds like a person who just conned somebody and is supper pleased with themselves, and I’ve worked in sales with some shady as fuck people, so I know that tone well.

My Flat Viewing

Part 2

Suspicions

Phil was late for the viewing.

Something that I personally found strange on the day, was that Phil did not meet us outside the building, which is how I have always been greeted when viewing properties, even with flats. Instead, he came from inside the block, opening the communal front door, and called us inside the building.

What made this even stranger, was that he had not come from inside my flat, which you might assume was the case, if he wanted to inspect it before the viewing to make sure it was in a good condition, which he certainly hadn’t.

I know for a fact that he had not been inside my flat at all earlier that morning, as he struggled to get inside the flat, just because there was this weird clunky key padlock on the door, which I have since learned are put on hard to let properties as extra security.

Phil behaved as though he did not expect the keypad lock to be on the door, even though he obviously knew it would be as he had the code to open it, and that he didn’t know how to press numbered buttons at all, never mind in the correct order, then he blamed whoever put it on, calling them “stupid,” because, “it was on upside down.”

Now I have actually lived in that flat, it is my belief that the reason Phil was late that day, and why he came from inside the building, was because he came from the block next door.

Why would he be coming from the black next door?

Maybe, he paid my next-door neighbours a visit to ask them to be quiet for an hour, and that is why the flat quiet that day.

There is also no doubt that property was a hard to let property, at least in my mind.

My flat viewing

Part 1

Me and my mum were early for my viewing. This wasn’t on purpose. My mum has her own disabilities, which affect her mobility, and understandably, we wanted to make sure we arrived on time.

From the outside, the several block of flats, appeared to be a perfectly pleasant place to live.

On the morning of the viewing, it was silent there.

The only other resident we saw, was a woman from the next block, quietly having a cigarette outside, before going to, and coming back from, the supermarket.

The communal yard was so clean, that neither of us thought it would be an inappropriate place to allow your child to play, when we saw the tiny pink scooter laying in the communal yard, next to the glass door.

I want to make it clear, that at no point, did Phil, the housing officer. Make us aware that there was a fly tipping problem in that yard, and especially not right outside the back door (where the Childs scooter was laying) and my window.

Journal Entry

Tuesday 17^th November 2023

As you probably already know, if you follow me on Twitter/X, I have decide to write, and try to publish, an autobiography about my experience as a disabled housing association tenant, which will be created from what I write and publish here, on my blog.

Other than that, the plan hasn’t changed.

After two weeks of writing, I only have around eight thousand words, which is four days’ worth of blog posts, however I am hoping now I am getting back into writing almost every day, I will start to increase the pace at which I write.

Right now, I am concentrating on my health, to be exact, fixing my sleeping patter, as my psychiatrist has said that it is the most important thing to do, which is what I have been saying all along, so I haven’t been back to the flat since Thursday.

In regards to the condition of the flat-

1. Somebody came out and “treated the mould,” but they did it reluctantly, and by treated, I mean they cleaned half of it, then painted over that some half.

There is still mould in that bedroom. I need to photograph it next time I go back to the flat.

I am going to start a working list of things I need to do.

• Somebody else came out to “fix my front door,” and by fix, I mean just photograph it.

I am going to try to see if I can find the companies Torus use for repairs and maintenance,etc, and see if I am allowed a subject access request from them about what work they have come out to do during my tenancy.

I know HMS is one of them.

And I don’t think I will be allowed a subject access request, as I don’t own the property, but it’s worth trying.

Dialogue words you could use instead of the word…

Begged

As a verb

appealed
appealed to
asked
beseeched
Besought
bludged
cadged
called on
called upon
charged
claimed
coaxed
coerced
commanded
compelled
conjured
demanded
desired
entreated
exhorted
forced
impetrated
implored
importuned
influenced
insisted
invoked
lured
mooched
motivated
petitioned
plead
pleaded
pleaded to
plead to
pled
pled to
petitioned
prayed

Prompted
requested
required
solicited
sponged
sued
supported
wheedled

Dictionary corner

Affect

The word affect is both a noun and a verb.

Noun

As a noun it mean-

• Emotion, as influencing behaviour
• Desire as influencing behaviour
• Pretend

Verb

As a verb it means-

• To have an effect on
• To make a difference
• To move emotionally
• To touch the feelings of
• Pretend to feel
• Pretend to feel something
• Pretend to have
• Pretend to have something
• To assume pretentiously
• To assume something pretentiously
• To assume as to make an impression on others
• To assume something as to make an impression on others
• To use pretentiously
• To use something pretentiously
• To use as to make an impression on others
• To use something as to make an impression on others
• To wear pretentiously
• To wear something pretentiously as to make an impression on others
• To wear as to make an impression on others
• To wear something as to make an impression on others
  
  

Writing overview

Week 2

Week 2/4
Week starting- Monday 8^th November 2022

Thursday

4 hours 28 minutes

Saturday

5 hours 50 minutes

Total hours done= 10 hours 18 minutes
Total pages done= 14

Fight Club

Part one

At the age of twenty, I had a physical fight with a team of bouncers.

All five foot one, seven stone me, barely dressed in the snow, with circulation issues, against three bouncers, two male, one female.

It doesn’t sound like much of a fight, does it?

Which is why I can assure you, I didn’t start it. I am reckless. I am impulsive. I am not stupid.

If somebody had predicted earlier that night that I would have a fight with three bouncers and come out on top, never mind alive, or just not hospitalised, I’d have obviously thought they were joking, but that is what happened.

It is, I suppose, a testament to how bizarre my life has been overall, as well as how chaotic and awful this particular time in my life was for me, that I rarely remember it. For fifteen years, the memory of this event only came occasionally, specifically when recalling my sexual assault trial, and even then not always.

It was a couple of months ago when I first recalled it outside of those circumstances. I was DMing with a girl who also has BPD, sharing war stories, when our conversation sparked my memory of the event, and I suddenly understood that I only came out on top because I have BPD.

Before I was diagnosed with BPD, I used to joke that Bruce Banner wouldn’t like me when I was angry. After my diagnosis, I still do, because I realised, whether intentional or unintentional Bruce Banner is the human personification of BPD itself. When people lift cars off their children or partners, that’s a great example of how a BPD episode, caused by the belief that you are in immediate physical danger can affect you. You gain this superhuman strength and physical resilience. The guy on the battlefield who won’t stop fighting in movies, even though he has literally been hacked apart: the final girl who has been thrown down a flight of stairs, stabbed ten times, then shot, but still gets back up and defeats the murderer; they are BPD.

Borderline personality disorder can work that way emotionally too. While chaos reigns, I am the God it fears. When chaos dies and I have time and space to reflect back on it, that is often when I fall apart emotionally and mentally.

I’ve agonised for a while over where the best place to begin my stories about the group from the first floor is, and I have decided this story is the best place.

There are so many reasons why.

Not only does my physical, emotional, and mental survival, during and after the incident in today’s story mirror the struggles I had to come, this incident might have played apart in beginning the one to come. It certainly gave me the false impression I could trust Laura and Mel. It also may have given my stalker the knowledge that I was both a vulnerable and an unbelievable, or at least just an unlikable, victim.

Additionally, this night mirrors my first suicide attempt in some ways too, which is where I personally consider this chapter of my life to have ended. On this occasion, I was worried I might lose my fingers to frost bite. After my suicide attempt, I was informed by the doctors that they were shocked I hadn’t lost both of my hands and feet to it.

When the fire alarm started ringing, around half an hour before the school uniform event was due to finish, I was coincidentally, but unsurprisingly, in the toilet, mid pee.

Laura and Mel were in the function hall.

The toilets were located in the entrance of the building, near the cloak room.

As I exited the toilets into that entrance, a student member of staff, who was waiting outside the toilets, ordered me to leave the building.

Looking back, I appreciate it might be odd that a member of staff would be ready to direct those of us coming out of the toilets as soon as the alarm went off, what’s weird to me about this is that she didn’t come inside to tell us to leave immediately, rather waited patiently for us to finish whatever we were doing in there. I’ll happily admit that in the confusion, as half the people around me panicked their way outside, and the other half left calmly, it never occurred to me that this might be strange. If it should have, but didn’t, I still don’t blame myself.

Personally, I feel, I took the responsible action for me, the other people attending the event, the staff, and any rescue workers, by leaving the building calmly and immediately. Therefore, not contributing to the mayhem that followed, as confused, scared, panicking, heavily intoxicated, students all tried to push through a single door into the entrance, fighting each other to get outside alive.

Every business is supposed to have a fire evacuation plan in place, that their staff are both aware of and trained in. I know some don’t, but they are supposed to.

That cloak room was just a few steps away from the toilets.

Even if I had requested my coat before leaving the building, explaining nicely and reasonably about my circulation issues, I wouldn’t have gotten my coat, because that’s what I eventually did, and despite my obvious evidence I wasn’t lying, meaning my blue hands, they refused to give me it.

Laura and Mel, who later informed me of the mayhem that had erupted inside, had purposely held back, making the decision that fire or not, that was the safest option.

Apparently not a single person attempted to use a fire door, including them. When I enquired as to why this was, they shrugged and confessed it never crossed either of their minds to do so. In their defence though, neither had the possibility they might be in danger, as they never believed there was fire to begin with.

Even at twenty, the idea of a school uniform night felt off to me, so I hadn’t attended the two previous ones. Whereas, Laura and Mel had attend both.

By the time they found me in the crowd, the best part of an hour had passed.

Some students had already gone home.

The majority were still there, a small amount waiting to collect their belongings from inside, many searching for friends they’d been separated from, most waiting to see what drama unfolded next.

I’m not a fire expert, but I think its safe to assume that after almost an hour, if there had been a fire, all the staff would also have been evacuated, the fire brigade would have been both alerted and arrived, and there would be visible flames, smoke, and property damage. None of this had happened.

Laura informed me that one of the girls on her course worked on the bar at the Enfield campus student union. The same thing, meaning the fire alarm going off had happened at the second school uniform event. When Laura questioned her as to what had caused it the next day, the girl bragged that the staff deliberately set it off to clear the bar, as they’d had problems getting people to leave the first school uniform event once it was over.

She told me this because her and Mel were concerned about the condition of my hands when they found me. They were already blue, and numb. I was having difficulty moving my fingers, and despite the numbness they burned. Yet, I was reluctant to ask for my coat, due to what I assumed to be the seriousness of the situation, being that I believed there was a real fire.

The situation was serious, but not because there was a real fire, quite the opposite.

Laura was right, the staff had deliberately pulled the fire alarm to empty the venue, which I imagine is serious enough. What they didn’t do, which made the situation even more dangerous, was follow their evacuation plan.

Unlike the first time they set off the fire alarm, they decided as they knew there wasn’t a real fire they didn’t have to properly follow their evacuation training. Probably not emptying the toilets as soon as the alarm was pulled was one way they failed in their duty to keep us safe. Another way they failed was that they didn’t direct people to use their nearest fire door.

The main double door was only big enough for three people, maximum, to fit through at once.

It’s a miracle nobody was killed.

I knew none of this at the time.

As we walked across the large grass field, through the crowds, back towards the entrance, it was obvious that a lot of people were still frightened, shocked, and confused.

It was me who approached the female bouncer, showed her my hands, and explained I had circulation issues. It was freezing outside, and small flakes of snow were blowing in the wind. If she had been honest and informed us they had no intention of letting anybody back inside to retrieve their belongings that night, I might have given up straight away and called a taxi to go home. It is very likely I would have ended up using that taxi to take me to hospital if that was what I had done. Instead, what she said was that at that moment it wasn’t safe enough for us to re enter the building.

This gave me the impression it was me re entering the building that was the issue. As I could see passed her into the cloakroom and my jacket, one of less than ten, was on the nearest hook, I asked her to please get it for me. The cloak room staff where still inside the building, behind the table, so they could have easily passed it to her.

No, she answered, hostilely If she gave me my coat, other people would want their own.

“Other people don’t have circulation issues,” Mel pointed out.

“You could just give them their coats too,” Laura suggested. “How longs it going to take you to hand out six coats?”

“Not very long,” Mel responded.

Glaring at me, the female bouncer accused me of being a problem earlier in the night, warning me that if I was going to continue to be a problem now as well, I wouldn’t be allowed back to the venue.

“How was she a problem earlier?” Mel questioned her.

“Please, I just need my coat so I can go home,” I begged.

That’s when the two male bouncers started making disgusting sexual comments about us.

Though I know they were saying things about the way we were dressed, the only comment I even partly remember is that the bouncer who attacked me just moments later made a comment about me not needing hands when I had such a big mouth.

I’ll assume I don’t need to list all the reasons this was an inappropriate and vile comment to say to any women, but especially one who is genuinely afraid she is going to lose her fingers.

Regardless of the fact that I found their comments upsetting, I ignored the two men and continued to beg the female bouncer for my coat, while Laura, Mel, and the two male bouncers argued.

It was when Laura declared loudly that we all knew there wasn’t a real fire and that if anything happened to me she would make sure they all lost their jobs, that the bouncer nearest me lost his temper, grabbed me by both shoulders, and launched me into the air.

Trigger Warning

Fair warning, today post, and all my posts for the foreseeable future are going to be triggering for many of us. The non fiction, autobiographical, stories I am going to be telling over the next few weeks will contain-

• Male on female violence,
• Stalking by a serial predator
• Sexual assault
• Rape
• Potential unwanted pregnancy
• Consideration of abortion
• STI’s
• Sexual objectification of females
• Sexual degradation of females
• Female on female judgement
• Female on female oppression
• Police interrogation
• Sexual assault court trials
• Witness intimidation
• Victim blaming
• Sexist inequality
• Gender based inequality
• Incorrect use/abuse of prescription drugs
• Incorrect prescription drugs being prescribed
• Severe mental illness
• Suicidal ideation
• Incorrect medical care
• Incorrect medical diagnosis
• Abusive relationships
• Abusive friendships
• Recreational drug use (not my own)
• Potential drug addiction (not my own)
• Suicide (not my own)
• More car accidents (this time non involving me)

If you can’t cope with reading about any of the above right now, then please don’t read the posts this trigger warning is for right now.

Though, I do sincerely and humbly request that if you can, or when you can, you do, especially if you personally have been affected by any of the above.

My reason for starting this blog wasn’t to vent, it was because I believe we need to change our society for the better, and soon.

Due to this, and the reality that it is going to be extremely triggering for me to write about these events, I am not going to be holding back my opinions or emotions, no matter how unpopular they are going to be to the majority of our society, and probably mostly to those in our society who have luckily never experienced the above. However, I will try to separate the stories and the opinions, by writing the stories as I normally do, and adding an opinion piece post. Honestly, I am proud, as a person these popular opinions are supposed to protect, to hold the unpopular opinions I do, because I am happy I am intelligent enough to understand that not enough of us, and especially those of us these popular opinions claim to protect, while actually doing the opposite, are challenging these harmful opinions that have made our society the shit show it currently is, and my opinions as unpopular as they may be, are just as valid as yours, or anybody else’s.

More importantly, they are more important and valid than the opinions of people who have never been affected by any of these things, as are yours if you have.

My opinions and thoughts around the terrible things I have lived through aren’t kind or nice, nor should they be. Just because they aren’t kind or nice doesn’t mean they are wrong, and society has no right to tell me that they are. They come from very real unpleasant events that I have actually lived through and survived, therefore it would be ridiculous if they were kind and nice, and nobody has a right to try to force me to feel the way they want me to about those events, especially when you consider censoring people like me only cuts us off from current and future survivors. My real emotions and opinions have the potential to inspire meaningful support to other survivors, and meaningful change that can hopefully lead to true equality for us all, and less people falling victim to the same or similar horrors.

It is time survivors started a meaningful conversation about how we as survivors feel and the change we want. We won’t agree on everything and that more than ok, it is normal. Respectful, openminded dialogue with those you don’t agree with is so important for society and societal change, and it is a skill many of us sadly don’t possess. The reason these people don’t possess that ability isn’t because they are incapable of it, it is because learning how to do it doesn’t benefit them. What they truly want isn’t to discus change that is best for us all, they want to force change that benefits themselves.

I am inviting that respectful openminded dialogue here, and now, between survivors’. If you’re not a survivor of any of the above please respectfully mind your own business and stay out of the conversation.

As survivors we need to stop caring about the emotions and opinions of people who are talking about the events we have survived, but they haven’t. You can’t claim to have the answers to a problem you haven’t experienced, or to know what is right for those who have experienced it, first hand. The fact we don’t request that these people be quiet and listen to us is the reason we can’t agree on and advocate for the change we want and need, and the true equality we want and need. When people talk about an issue they have never faced, over the people who have, that’s oppression. Worse. It’s oppression we, as a society, have approved.

Ironically, the same thing could be said about trigger warnings.

Trigger warnings are just another way of censoring those with trauma, by people without it, while they pretend they are doing it for the victims of that trauma.

Really think about it. The people who demand trigger warning are demanding them from people who have faced trauma they themselves haven’t.

Therefore, very rarely is the correct material censored in the correct way.

Those of us who have lived through awful things know that trauma isn’t a switch that can be flicked off and on. We live with it constantly. Sometimes it’s stronger than others, but its always there.

When that trauma is fresh or at it strongest, do, or did, you personally seek out material that depicted similar events?

The answer for some will be no. In which case, you don’t seek out horror, you don’t seek out true crime, you don’t seek out the news.

The answer for others will be yes. In which case, you ignore the trigger warnings knowing how it’s going to hurt and doing it anyway.

I think the answer for most of us is actually both at different times.

We don’t need those trigger warnings to baby sit us. We are adults, we know what we need to avoid in the media and what we don’t.

It’s real life where we need the trigger warnings, and it’s real life where we don’t get them. It is my opinion that real life is a place we shouldn’t get them. Who are we to say what can be censored in other people’s lives?

I also believe that true survivors will understand me when I say that it’s often not even the mention of the awful thing you survived itself that triggers you. Often it is the smallest, seemingly most insignificant, things.

For me, it’s not the mention of women being raped in their sleep, but if it was I can tell you I have never seen a trigger warning on a news story, or any of the in poor taste media that depicted female students being raped after passing out drunk that was shoved down our throats after the me too movement.

For me it’s Dr Who, guys who look like my rapist, finger shaped bruises…

Bruises, faces that look a certain way, Dr who, none of them come with trigger warnings.

Should they?

Of course they shouldn’t.

But, I give trigger warnings, and will continue to give them, on my blog as a courtesy, just in case someone is triggered by my subject matter.

And listen. If you do need them, I’m not slating you. Needed them doesn’t mean you’re weak. I just hope one day you won’t need them. It’s just that I feel most of us probably haven’t benefited from them, and don’t feel they are beneficial. As I said earlier, none of us will agree on everything.

It’s a courtesy that I actually never get repaid.

Nobody puts trigger warnings before they demonise, glorify, appropriate, or malinger, stigmatised mental illness.

Nobody cares whether those of us who are suffering with them and vulnerable because of them are triggered by what they are saying, or how that affects us in real life.

Yet, the same people who do this to us, demand trigger warnings on my tweets where I talk about the reality of living with my illness in order to educate people and destigmatise it. The same people will request I put a trigger warning stating that a tweet contains the word suicide before I list things I feel would prevent suicide in large numbers.

This is what I mean by it being oppression.

They are allowed to cause harm to me through their uncensored tweets, but I must censor my own when I speak about that. I must put a warning that this post mentions the word suicide, therefore saying the very word I’m warning you I’m going to say.

Its not just oppression. Its harmful, insane, oppression, that is counterproductive and makes no sense whatsoever.

The truth as I see it is that, trigger warning aren’t there to protect those of us who have lived through trauma. Sorry to break this to those of you who haven’t, we lived through it. If you think I survived the act of rape itself but you talking about it will break me then you’re absolutely disconnected from any idea of what its like to be a survivor of rape. No, trigger warnings are there so that those who are lucky not to have survived it don’t have to vicariously live through a situation they personally feel is icky.

Yet, these same people will happily read a news story that goes into great detail about how somebody killed themselves, without requesting a trigger warning for that article, even though suicide contagion is a very real thing.

For those of you asking what suicide contagion is, I’ve never looked up the meaning, as I’ve never felt like I have to, as when I heard the phrase being thrown around I was pretty sure I had it. When I read an article about a person killing themselves that goes into great detail about how they done it, I don’t feel the way other people say they feel. I don’t feel horror, or pity. I feel relief and happiness for the person who succeed in doing it, and a euphoria that one day I might succeed in doing it, to the point that sometimes it’s all I’ll think about for weeks, and the more I think about it the more I want to give it another go.

I say this, as two time suicide survivor, not to shock you, but to educate you, and to hopefully prove my point, because if I am going to read that article, I am going to read it whether there is a trigger warning or not.

Trigger warnings are censorship of those of us who have trauma or mental illness etc, while others talk freely about that trauma and those illnesses without censorship.

A person who has never been affected by real mental illness has no right to demand a trigger warning from me when I do.

Just like a person who has never experienced a certain type of trauma has no right to speak over those of us who have when we do.

I will share links to this warning every time I share a link to a blog it’s about.
This is it. These are the stories I have been building up to tell you for the longest time. Hopefully I will see you all on the other side.

Déjà vu

That night started off badly.

This is why-

Firstly, it was colder than we expected. I believe it was February of 2007. I know it had snowed heavily that January. The snow was so deep even those students born and raised in London claimed they’d never experienced weather like it. The forecast had reassured us the weather would be getting warmer. It was wrong.

To make the temperature situation worse, we were on our way to a school uniform night at the Enfield campus, so we were wearing short skirts and thin blouses. I, a northern girl, from a city infamous for women winter clubbing in nothing more than tiny dresses, was the only one of us who had worn a jacket. Please keep in mind I have very bad circulation issues, particularly in my fingers and toes, and though at the time I didn’t know why, I was aware I had them.

I want to add a note here saying it is my recommendation that you don’t go to school uniform nights, especially if you’re a student. They are disgusting, and what makes it even worse is the majority of the people they were encouraging to dress up like school children had only just left school themselves. We were barely older than the children wearing those school uniforms to school rather than a university event. It is my opinion the people running these events were perverts. I especially still looked like a very young child.

Secondly, Amy had decided not to go at the very last moment, I don’t remember why, leaving me to go alone with Laura, Mel, and Nicola. Nicola also decided not to go right as we were leaving.

This happened around the time me and Amy removed ourselves from the penthouse crew. As a result of this, and that the five of us always ended up together a uni events anyway at this point, I had become much closer to Laura and Mel, so Amy’s change of plans did not change my plans.

Most of that night is now lost to me. What I do still have is a hazy recollection of the journey there, and a clear memory of the end of the night.

In this post I am going to talk just about the journey there.

We had as usual been pre event drinking. I need to pee every five minutes normally, drinking alcohol make this worse. Due to the cold temperature though, I wasn’t the only person desperate for the toilet on our journey from the Trent Park campus to the Enfield campus, on the bus there, Laura started complaint that she needed to go too.

Once off the bus, there was a maybe ten minute walk to the campus, then we would have to wait a queue, while the bouncers searched those before us who were also waiting to get inside the student union.

Laura was certain she couldn’t make it to the campus. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the queue, but due to what happened to me that night in central London, I was adamant that we try to make it to the event to pee.

Halfway there, Laura declared she couldn’t hold it anymore. Refusing to go into an alleyway alone at night, she insisted I go with her.

As I was with someone else, I couldn’t make myself pee. This wasn’t like the night in Trent Park woods with Amy, where it was so dark we couldn’t see each other and could hear each other pissing into the grass and soil. Here, there was the dim glow of the streetlamps, and the ground was concrete.

Despite this, Laura had no problem going.

The building we were behind was a closed commercial building, so why it never occurred to us that there would be security cameras I don’t know.

Laura was done by the time she noticed the security camera that was pointing directly at us. I hadn’t been able to start. Regardless, we got out of there straight away. Laura waved up at the camera smiling as we did.

She though it was hilarious and told everyone.

Again, I felt shame and violation. What I also felt was a different type of fear to the type I had felt in the alley way in central London.

Regardless of our councils here in England not providing enough public toilets, and those they do closing at night, urinating in public is illegal. If I had urinated in public and gotten into trouble, or even had been the one who had demanded we did it but couldn’t, that wouldn’t have been great, but at least I would have actually broken the law. What I was afraid of was getting into trouble for something I hadn’t even done. This is a fear that has haunted me through both my teenage years and adulthood, as well as one that triggers my episodes.

Though I don’t remember doing it, I’m certain I dwelt on this possibility all night, as I know myself.

On top of this, the bouncers at the door treated me with suspicion. There reason for doing so seemed to be that I was wearing a jacket and nobody else was, even though it was freezing cold. As well as searching my handbag which was standard practice, they patted me down which wasn’t, despite me obviously having no pockets and wearing barely there clothing, further exacerbating my bladder discomfort. I had wanted to keep my jacket with me, but when they insisted, they either take another few minutes to check it, or I take a few seconds to check it into the cloak room, I checked it into the cloakroom, in order to get to the toilet faster.

The cloak room was just a row of coat hangers in buildings entrance, which was separate to the main function room, which they had put some tables in front of so they could charge everyone a couple of pounds in return for a raffle tick receipt to get your coat back.

Little did I know that my decision to leave my jacket in that cloak room would lead to me being physically assaulted by these very bouncers just a few hours later.

That time I was accused of stealing

During my time living in London, there was one occasion where I was out right accused of stealing. This was particularly upsetting, as it was not only in a very public place, and aggressively executed, to the point I feared physical violence from my accuser, but also because I overpaid for the item that I was accused of stealing.

Full disclosure, if I had stolen this item, I would confess to it here, and just to prove it, spoiler warning, I have stolen something on purpose, but only once, and I deeply regret stealing it. I regretted stealing in the same day I stole it. I knew I would never steal anything again, especially anything as stupid, and that was before this incident happened.

I do plan on telling you that story.

The following events took place at the beginning of my third year at university, I know this for a fact, for several reason, all of which I will explain in future posts, when they are relevant.

While at uni, two of my friends, Eddie, and (we’ll call her) Skylar (not her real name, but her real name is extremely unique, and this is the closest I can get to her name without exposing her, which I obviously don’t want to do, and if I don’t pick a name which is similar to her real name I will accidentally call her by her real name either during this post and/or future posts) had birthdays within, if I remember correctly, eleven days of each other. Eddie’s birthday is on Halloween, mine is the day before bonfire night, Skylar’s is, I believe, six days after mine, so we decided to have a joint birthday night out in central London, as we had mutual friends, and none of us could really afford either financially or time wise to do three nights out in eleven days.

We were in a club that seemed to consider itself lowkey classy, which was mind numbingly boring. It was one of those clubs which has a toilet attendant, and perfume and sweets set up on the sinks. Sober, thirty five year old, me shudders at the thought of food so close to toilets, however tipsy twenty two year old me did not share that disgust.

Me, Skylar, her friend Sarah, and another one of her friends, had all gone to the toilets together.

At the sinks, all four of us each threw a couple of pounds into the attendant’s jar. I did it because she was intensely starting at us. Which made me feel extremely uncomfortable. It is my assumption that the other girls did it for the same reason. However, other than being uncomfortable around this staff member, we were in good spirits, talking and laughing as we fixed out hair and make up.

Other women put money in the jar to use perfume or take sweets. The attendant did not acknowledge any of these women. She continued to glare at the four of us, a scouser, and three Essex girls, the entire time. Whether it was due to our accents I can’t say for sure, but it would be safe to guess it was, as Lucy, who was also from Essex, occasionally talked about the discrimination that came with being from Essex.

I assume their uncomfortableness at being watched in such a hostile manner is also why they left me alone, after they finished fixing their hair and make up,  before I finished fixing my own, telling me they would see me back on the dance floor.

They had literally just walked through the door, heading back into the club, when a girl right by me dropped her drink. Bits of glass and liquid sprayed across the room.

Cursing and lecturing the girl about her carelessness, the attendant bent down and began clearing up the glass. She had her back to me, however there was a set of full length mirrors right in front of her, meaning she could clearly see behind her in the mirror.

After finishing what I was doing, I took another couple of pounds out of my bag, and with my right hand, I dropped the money into her jar. At the exact same time, I took a lollypop with my left hand. There is not a possibility the attendant did not see me put money in her jar (just like other people who had taken sweets had done) if she saw me take that lollypop, which she did, because the second my hand touched that stick, meaning the second the money left my other hand, all hell broke loose.

She jumped up, actually dropping the glass she had picked up, spun around, and rushed towards me, screaming. “You thief! You dirty, stinking, little, thief!”

Then, she snatched lollypop out of my hand.

Everybody in the room turned to watch.

At first, I was shocked and afraid, because not only had I paid for the lollypop, I had tipped her for no other reason than she was staring at me and my friends in hostile manner, I was backed into a corner, with her leaning over me screaming directly into my face, and both her hand and elbow had made contact with me as she snatched the lollypop off me, then moved towards me.

This shock and fear only lasted a few seconds before hot rage swept over me. My skin was burning red and I was trembling I was so angry.

“What do you mean thief?” I shot back at her through gritted teeth, trying my best to appear and remain as calm as possible, which wasn’t easy considering the level of rage I can achieve and the fact that I was couple of drinks in. “I’ve put about six pound in your shitty jar. Is that not enough to pay for a lollypop here?”

(To put this situation into perspective, today you can still buy one of these lollypops from a corner shop for less than a pound.)

At this point, the room was so quiet the only things I could hear was the sound of my own blood pumping through my veins and my ragged breathing.

We glared at each other for several more seconds.

I though about being petty and taking the money I had given her back out of her jar.

Instead, I slide from between her and the wall, and without looking at any of the spectator, walked out of the toilets.

Announcement

The return of The Psychotic Girls Guide To Surviving The Human Apocalypse’s Blood And Chocolate posts

Please don’t ask me why, because I both know (and it’s a long story I plan to tell on my blog soon) and don’t know why, I have just reread my first ever blog post.

This blog post was published over two years ago, on Sunday the 20^th of September 2020. It was an announcement that I was planning to start a blog.

Unsurprisingly, I have not achieved any of the things that I said I wanted to do in this post, and my life has gotten worse instead of better.

Surprisingly though, I noticed that I actually had this word press account for a while before I started using it.

Both of these things lead me to the realisation that I am a doer, not a planner, so next week there will be a new Sunday autobiographical blog post. I have no idea what it will be about yet, I just know that there will be one, because I am going to force myself to write one.

I hope you will all join me on my word press account at 9pm UK time.

Love y’all,

Pix

Announcement

Hey guys,

Quick unplanned announcement.

I will be taking a few weeks off writing to work on some personal issues I have been dealing with. These issues have been either buzzing away in the back ground of my life for a few months or have been my life for a few years now and its time to address them.

Hopefully once I have addressed them I will be able to spend more time on writing.

I appreciate your continued love and support.

Pix

A Hole In Your Story.

“I’m going to have to speak to my manager about it,” the cashier told me.

It was early on a weekday morning, so early that the top shop in Oxford Street had literally just opened its doors, so I was the only person at the counter.

With the bra in hand, she disappeared, and was gone for at least half an hour, then returned with her manager, who immediately, and sharply, insisted, that she needed to see my receipt.

“She has it,” I nodded my head at the cashier, who I had given the receipt to when I gave her the damaged bra.

“Do you have it?” The manager inquired, at the time, I didn’t realise that the tone of her voice suggested she didn’t believe I had given the other girl my receipt.

Silently, the girl handed her manager the small piece of paper. The manager studied it for a good five minutes, even though it only had one item on it. Then she turned her attention back to me. “Is this your bag?”

I nodded. I was starting to feel uneasy.

“Is it the bag we gave you when you bought this?” She put so much emphasis on the word bought that I knew I was being accused of something, but because it sounded like I was being accused of buying it, at least to me, which I had indeed bought it, I suddenly felt guilty. Meekly, I confirmed that it was the Topshop bag they had giving me when I bought the item.

She snatched it up aggressively, riffled through it, peered intently inside it, tipped it upside down and shook it violently, before slamming it back down on the counter, and returning her attention to the receipt.

“When did you buy it?”

“Saturday.”

“What time?”

“I don’t remember,” I honestly didn’t. “Doesn’t it say what time I bought it on the receipt?”

“It does, that’s why am asking. Do you have the card you paid on with you?”

“Yes, but I don’t want a refund, I just want to change it for one that isn’t damaged. I didn’t notice the hole before I bought it.”

“I need to see the card,” she demanded, that aggression she displayed earlier present in her voice.

I took my debit card out of my purse, but before I could offer it to her, she yanked it from my fingers so hard it hurt me a little bit.

After holding it next to the receipt and studying both for another five minutes, she slammed both down on the counter and huffed at the cashier that she needed to speak to her manager about it.

“Is there a problem?” I asked the cashier, once the manager was gone.

“The hole is where the security tag would’ve been,” The cashier explained.

This would make sense, because I didn’t see the hole before I bought it and there had indeed been a security tag on it, although I don’t recall the security tags exact location, but the store was busy when I bought it, and I do recall that the lady who served me had been rushing, also the back was lace, which was the location of the hole, meaning the heavy metal tag could have damaged the delicate lace regardless of how carefully, or roughly, it was removed.

When the two managers joined us, the new one interrogated me in almost the exact same way as the first one had (this manager showed no interest in the bag) then sternly informed the cashier that I was allowed an exchange only.

The entire incident was so exhausting and upsetting, that even when they didn’t have another pink lace bra in my size, and the only bra they did have in my size was this hideous shade of denim blue, I took it without complaining.

Later though, I complain to my friends at work about it.

Even though this incident happened after the incident in my previous story, and I had never had so much trouble returning anything to a shop before (or since) it didn’t occur to me until I recounted the event to my friends that the issue was my accent.

Every single person I told, said they had returned items to that top shop before, some of them for the same reason, and that they had never had any problems with getting a refund.

Dictionary Corner

No

The word no, is an adverb, a determiner, and a noun.

As an adverb

As an adverb, the word no means

– not at all

– to no extent

As a determiner

As a determiner, the word no means

– not any

Or

– can be used to give a negative response.

As a noun

As a noun, the word no means,

– a negative answer

– a negative answer in voting

– a negative decision

– a negative decision in voting

Words you could use instead of…

Of

So far I have found no directly or closely exchangeable words to of, but if I do I’ll put them here.

You need to learn to walk before you can run

I know this title is probably one you didn’t want to see. Like with anything new you want to do, are excited to start, or have gotten yourself motivated to tackle, when it comes to starting your new exercise routine, you’re probably eager to dive right in, and maybe even feel like you’re a failure if you’re not an expert from your first attempt.

Well, there’s a very good reason today’s blog title is well known advice we apply to learning any and every new thing, and that’s because it’s literally true.

The truth is, that it can actually be far too easy to do too much too soon, and when we are talking about literal running and walking, not taking this advice can have serious consequences for your body and mind. It’s necessary and important that you apply patience and allow time for your body to adjust, and the very obvious and unpopular reality is that the more inactive you have been, not just recently, but throughout your life, the longer those periods of adjustment are going to be, and the slower you are going to be at reaching your overall target.

You need to make peace with this before you start your new exercise routine, or you likely won’t stick to it long enough to reach your overall goal.

Before you attempt to run you should be prepared to do a period of walking, which could be anywhere from 2 to 7 weeks depending on your personal fitness level. I did 7 weeks of walking last year, while following a professional beginners guide to running, so for those of you who want, or need, to do the full 7 weeks, I’ll be sharing the links to my walking journals from that time period.

Personally, I would recommend at least a month of testing your own capabilities before committing to your starting point. That doesn’t mean that you should spend that entire month or so fully walking, if you’re capable of working small running intervals into your walks, the opposite is true.

Before I move forward, I should make you aware that, for the next few months I plan on doing interval training, so my blog post for the foreseeable future, including the rest of this one, will be focused heavily on interval training.

With that said, let’s get into the possible ways you could begin testing your own capabilities.

You have two options when it comes to measuring how far you go, these are to use either miles or minutes. Which you choose is based on what works best for you. Don’t feel like once you start using either method you are stuck using it. If the method you initially chose isn’t working for you, change it. Just don’t go out for your run without an idea of how far you are going, either as a minimum or maximum.

Most guides seem to agree on how far you should go as a beginner.

In minutes they advise 20 to 30.

In miles 1 to 3.

I might be wrong, but I believe if you were running from start to finish this works out roughly the same distance l, which is why when doing interval training, it is my opinion that it’s better to measure in miles rather than minutes, as you will have a much more accurate way to measure your capabilities and progress.

If you’re looking at those mileage figures and thinking there’s a huge difference between the minimum and maximum distance, you’re not wrong, there is. This is one of the reasons using the lap system can be helpful. For example, if you’re using the 1 1/2 mile lap system I suggested in last weeks post, and you can only do 1 mile before you need to stop, you don’t have far to walk back to your starting point . However, if you find the first lap too easy and want to try a second lap, to attempt the full 3 miles, it also provides you that option as well. What you don’t want to do is set yourself a lap of 3 miles, discover you can only do the mile, then have at least a mile long walk back to your starting point.

You also don’t want to push yourself too close to your breaking point, you should stop your exercise before you get too tired.

Try to leave at least one rest day in between each exercise day.

During your exercise session, pay attention to how you feel and perform. Then, take a note of how you feel for the rest of that day and the following day. Your aim here is to understand not just what is too much to do during a single session, but as an overall routine. The accumulation of miles over a longer period of time can take a toll on your body and mind, just as pushing yourself too hard in a single session can. You want to find out how your body responds to exercise and your personal capabilities, with the lowest risk of injury, et cetera, so gradual increase in intensity is the best way to approach your work outs.

Do 2 weeks of walking. It will fly by faster than you think. After those two weeks of walking, if you feel ready, try adding small intervals of running into your walking.

I’d recommend starting with 30 seconds.

Like for the distance you need a plan of how much time you are going to run, and how much time you going to walk.

I’d recommend using a Tenths system, so 10 sets of 30 seconds, which equals 5 minutes. This means as a beginner you’d be doing 30 seconds of running, 4 minutes 30 seconds walking.

If after another 2 weeks you feel this is too easy, increase your run time by 30 seconds and decrease your walk by 30 seconds, so you are running for 1 minute, walking for 4 minutes.

You don’t have to use my system, you can make your own, just make sure you have a system in place.

Finally pace.

How fast should you be moving?

A lot of guides recommend that you move either at an easy or “conversational pace,” meaning a pace that you could hold a conversation at. This is probably good advice for the majority of people, but as a person who naturally moves fast, slowing down to that pace makes running much harder for me, so I recommend moving at a speed that is comfortable and natural for you.

If you are still determined to push yourself too hard, too fast, because you’re desperate to lose weight or get fitter, please remember these two things –

If you push yourself too hard, you will injure yourself, and that injury could take months to heal, putting you out of action, delaying or outright destroying the progress you’ve made up to that point. I had several injuries some from running last year because I pushed myself too hard too fast and thats probably why I failed in meeting my goal.

Also, you’re very unlikely to lose weight when you first start running. In fact, you’re more likely to gain it.

There are 2 possible reasons, that I know of for why this can happen.

The first is that, you might start to eat more.

The second is that, you actually might be losing fat, but gaining muscle, and muscle is heavier than fat.

If you think you have injured yourself, or you start to experience any problems with your physical or mental health, that you think is be due to your new exercise routine, regardless of whether you have any pre existing conditions or illnesses, please put your routine on pause until you have consulted a doctor.

And, if you’re during your run you become concerned for your health and safety, again either physically or mentally, end your run immediately, and don’t go for another one until you have consulted your doctor.

During your first couple of months, your only goal should be consistency. Focus on getting out 2-3 days a week and doing the same amount of miles or minutes every time. Honestly, I believe this is going to be the biggest challenge you face during your first few months, but it also should be.

Writing Plan For March

-To write for 3 hours a day

-5 days a week

-To have weekends off

-To find a consistent writing time during the day

-To catch up on my February post so I can bring my plan for the following month into line with the actual posts

-To keep better notes by journalling daily

-Not to miss any post

-No to do any more short posts (I’m referring to my break this week)

I Knew You Were Trouble…

When I return to Gubby, the notice was taped to every fire door.

Deciding that nobody would miss me at the studio on a Friday afternoon, because they would likely also be missing, and struggling to function under the weight of a very specific type of stress that wouldn’t allow me to think of anything other than what might be happening back at Gubby, as a result of the freezer in the bath, I left the lecture hall and raced straight Home.

Though this type of stress was not completely unfamiliar to me at the age of twenty, I did still naïvely believe that finding out what was happing, or had happened, would relieve me of this weight, and I think I was only experiencing this type of stress during situations were stress was an appropriate response.

This is the same type of stress that once I graduated and got a “real” job, I would come to live in a constant state of, with the intensity and paranoia increasing even when stress was not an appropriate response to the situation, and never decreasing after the situation had been resolved, until it burst out of me in a very public pseudo psychotic episode that would change my life forever.

The best way I can describe this type of stress is that to me the the worst outcome has always already happened, and I am just waiting for the repercussions and/or punishment, even if logically that particular event couldn’t have reached its conclusion yet.

To me, those notices confirmed that this was the case in this situation.

Parties had always been against the rules at Gubby, so the first paragraph of the notice did surprise me a little bit.

“Due to vandalism and damage to property, all parties will now be a punishable offence and could lead to eviction from Gubby halls and expulsion from Middlesex University”

It was the second paragraph of the notice that didn’t shock me.

It requested that anybody with any information about the vandalism and property damage come forward.

Nobody ever did.

Emma was also convinced that those signs were reaction to the freezer in the bath, which is what led to her recounting the events of the previous night, incriminating herself in the process. She confronted me about it in the same manner she had confronted me about the waffles, and would confront me a few months down the road causing our “friendship” to officially end, she seemed to believe I must have known everything she knew, so was faking not remembering.

Fee, who had watched us arguing about what we should do with the freezer, from her bedroom door, while we were in the corridor, said the signs couldn’t be a reaction to the freezer in the bath as it hadn’t resulted in any property damage. Both Sam and may had used the bath since, and the freezer was now in the large kitchen on our floor, which according to everybody who used that kitchen, desperately needed it.

Seemingly, due to this, the staff hit a wall of silence.

Everybody knew who had taken that freezer.

Everybody knew who put it in the bath.

Yet, nobody talked.

Worryingly, the wall of silence didn’t extend to the other students discussing it with me, or between themselves.

To the people who lived on the third floor, me, David, and Greg had become modern day, student versions of Robin Hood, but much funner and funnier.

“Next time can you get us a toaster?” They’d joke. “It’s murder trying to make toast in the morning with just two toasters for thirty of us.”

At first I had laughed.

In the end I’d tell them, “Eat cereal instead.”

To say the jokes grew stale to me fast was an understatement. I was absolutely terrified that the staff would over hear them.

I avoided David, like I wished I could have avoided the freshers flu that ignited the romantic feelings that I felt for him.

He was trouble.

But, he was also lots of fun in a really weird way.

It was a couple of weeks later that I next encountered David, and it was purely by chance again.

I was on my way to my room, from S’s room, which was on the ground floor, during the early hours of a weekday morning, when I spotted him behind the fire door in another corridor, with his back to me.

My mistake was holding my gaze for just a fraction of a second too long.

In that fraction of a second, he turned to face me and saw me through the glass panel.

Smiling mischievously, he approached me.

When he opened the door, I immediately noticed the flatware he was holding. My curiosity won over my common sense, and I found myself enquiring as to what he was doing.

“I’m putting either a knife, fork, or spoon under every door,” explained as though it made any sense.

“Why?” I pressed.

“Why not?” He shrugged. “It’ll give everybody something interesting to talk about tomorrow.”

“Did you get those from the box by the security office?” I grimaced.

“Yeah, why?” He looked down the flatware he was clutching in the same way a magician clasps a magic bunch of flowers.

“You know somebody was sick in that box…” I began.

But he cut me off with a whisper, as his eyes shifted in the direction of the box, “Security guard. Run.”

Dropping the flatware, he grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the stairs, knives, forks and spoons clattering and scattering behind us.

When we reach the first floor, he pulled me down one of the corridors, into the nearest bathroom, then shower cubicle, locking the door behind us and directing me to get in the corner. Squashing in next to me, sort of shielding me with his body, he reached up and switched on the water.

Bracing myself for the impact, I was surprised to realise we were out of the path of the water.

It seemed to spray all around us, never touching us.

“What …” I gasped. It has all happened so quickly, and was so bizarre, that my brain was unable to keep up with it as it unfolded.

But he cut me off again, this time by leaning down, and kissing me.

The Day I Dyed My Hair Blonde

Due to the fact that I hated the natural colour of my hair, I had thought about dying it a lot, although I don’t think I actually believed I would do it. Despite all the changes I had made to my body over the years, permanent or not, dying my hair felt like an irreversible step to take, probably because it wouldn’t have been possible to hide my hair if I had regretted it.

What prompted me to finally do it, I’m not sure. Maybe it was just that all those years of hating my hair had gotten the better of me finally. Or, it might have been that I wanted a hairstyle I knew wouldn’t suit me if I stay brunette. However, it could’ve been a symptom of my BPD, and identity crisis, me wanting to be somebody else due to the trauma I had suffered, or was still suffering. After all, I did it either during, or just after, the worst summer of my life.

My hairdressers appointment was booked for a cut and colour, as I knew exactly what I wanted done, although I didn’t tell anybody my plans, as I was determined that nobody was going to stop me.

What I didn’t expect, was that the hairdresser would try to put me off.

When I sat down in the chair and she asked what I wanted, I pulled out the page I had torn from the hair magazine. The photograph was of a sort of pixie cut. It was short at the back, with a long sweeping fringe. I suppose it was very Emo boyish. And yes it was blonde.

“That won’t suit you,” she informed me. “Your hair is too dark.”

“I want it blonde,” I explained.

I swear she rolled her eyes. “What do you mean by blonde?”

“Blonde,” I repeat, as I didn’t understand the question.

She looked around the shop and pointed at a lady with very long bleach blonde hair, “Like that?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Thats several years worth of colouring. Yours wont go that blonde straight away,” she insisted.

Now, at this time in my life, I’d already been a hairdressing student. Admittedly, I had dropped out a few points short of achieving my level one qualification, as I had never done a semipermanent dye by myself before, but I’d assisted fully qualified hairdressers when they did permanent colours, so I knew what she was telling me wasn’t true, or rather was an over exaggeration, for several reasons. Not only had I witness brunettes go from dark to light, I had witnessed banding. Also, if this was true, that women’s hair would’ve gone from dark at the top, to light at the bottom, and it didn’t, it was all the same shade of blonde.

Rather than argue with this woman, who was a professional hairdresser, I just shrugged.

“You won’t like it,” she changed tactics, as thought she knew me, which she didn’t. This was the first time I had ever met her.

“Maybe I won’t,” I shrugged again. “But its my hair, not yours. So, it’s my choice, not yours.”

Here, she definitely rolled her eyes. “Ok, but I warned you. If you don’t like it that’s your fault, not mine.”

She applied the bleach in silence.

Once the bleach was on, she left it to work. It was obvious to me, before she walked away, that it was already starting to lift.

I recall the look of horror on her face when she returned to check on it, as it made me panic. My fear was that my skin was chemical burned, or my hair was falling out in a place I couldn’t see, because she hadn’t done a patch test.

“It might have gone too light,” she reluctantly admitted.

It had, but that was fine, as she just coloured it a shade or two darker.

I loved it immediately.

The moment I saw myself as a blonde, I never wanted to be a brunette again. At the time, I never wanted to be any other colour than blonde.

Not everybody love ld my new hair though. My sister described it as looking like Lego hair.

My mum still tells me how much she hates it at least once a month, and I was eighteen when I dyed it.

On my way home from the hairdressers, she almost walked passed me in the street, because she didn’t recognise me. She would have walked passed me, only she was out walking our dog, and he recognised me.

He seemed to be the only person that did.

The first time my friends from college saw my hair, was a few days later, at The Krazy House. Sarah, who was coming with some of her friends from school, arrived later than the rest of us, and as I was going down the stairs from the K2 to the K1 to meet her, she was coming up.

“Sarah,” I called, but she didn’t look.

“Sarah,” I called again, but she still didn’t appear to hear me, so I grabbed her arm gently as she walked by.

When she turned to face me, she stared at me for a few seconds and then asked “Rachel?”

The most dramatic reaction came from Helen, who at this point was referring to me as either Polly (as in Polly pocket) or Pixie.

It was my first shift since dying my hair, and I was on my way into the locker room. Her and Ash were chatting in the doorway.

Honestly, I don’t remember whether this was before or after what Ash did to me at The Krazy House, but I’m sure it was after her house party, due to the fact that after that party, she was extra hot and cold with me.

“Was that Polly/Pixie?” Helen sounded startled as she addressed Ash, who didn’t respond.

“Polly/Pixie?” She enquired, this time addressing me.

“Yes,” I cringed, as I turned to face her.

“Oh my God! Look at you! You’re so hot!” She squealed, excitedly. “Isn’t she hot Ash? Michael is going to kick himself for letting you go when he sees you. Isn’t Michael going to kick himself Ash?”

Scowling, Ash walked away, without answering.

Just a couple of days later though, she tried to talk to me during our lunch break in the staff room, as though we were the best of friends.

On the night that Sarah didn’t recognise me, after I got home, I caught my reflection in the mirror and cried, because I thought I look like Courtney Love. Crying only made the resemblance stronger.

When I relayed the story to one of my male friends (I don’t remember which) as a sort of, and there isn’t even anything wrong with Courtney Love anecdote, about how shocking it is to look in the mirror and see somebody you don’t recognise staring back, Ash chimed in, “Kurt Cobain thought Courtney Love was hot.”

“Yes Ash he did, but it’s you that thinks Kurt Cobain is hot, not me,” I reminded her.

The truth is, to say I look different as a blonde would be an understatement, I was unrecognisable, and other than the unwanted attention I got from everybody at work and college when they first saw me, I was happy with the transformation.

For the first time in my entire life, I loved my hair.

Don’t Bother Calling For Help

There is very little that I recall about my friendships with Sam and Emma. Besides one good memory, all the rest are bad. My friendships with both of them lasted until just after the Easter during our first year of university. Although we never officially fell out, as an actual adult, I am shocked that it was the two of them who fell out with me. Yet, there wasn’t a specific occasion that I can point to and say, “This is the day our friendship ended.” You might think based on what I have said so far, that our relationship just fizzled out, like so many do, but that wasn’t the case. As a young adult, I wondered what I did to make the two of them despise me so much. As an almost middle aged adult, I realise that they were both just awful, selfish, human beings. If I had a list of people I truly hated, they would be very close to the top of that list.

If up until what I just told you, you suspected that me and Sam fell out because she sent a gang of would be rapist to my room, to get them out of here own, then you are right to suspect that, after all, it should have been a massive red flag, signalling to me that this woman was to be avoided. Yet, I ignored it. I was so naive and trusting, despite everything that I had already been through at this point. It was completely a mistake on my part that I continue to engage with Sam. By no means was I stupid either, I wanted to trust people. You could argue that it is better to trust people, than to view everybody through a lens of suspicion, and at nineteen, I would have most definitely argued this case. Today, at thirty four, knowing where trust gets you, I would advise you firmly to make your default setting suspicion, and be pleasantly surprised when you are proven wrong.

I never judged Sam for what she did to me that night, at the time. Yes, I would have handled the situation differently, but maybe in the heat of the moment she hadn’t been able to think clearly. Now, I do judge her for it. My real anger at the time, though I never showed it, or vocalised it, was at the boys, GP and Mikey, for walking past a group of men, fully aware of why they were at my door, and doing nothing to help me. Maybe they were afraid, I reasoned, and maybe they really were, but there was so much they could’ve done to help me without personally confronting the men themselves, for example, contacting the security guards.

The irony of my completely non judgemental attitude towards Sam and Emma is not lost on me. Apart from that one good memory, all my other memories of our interactions involve them judging me. The stuff they judged me for was bizarre, and sometimes not even anything to with me, and even stuff they also would, or couldn’t, do.

The only way I can describe this pair of absolute human trashbags, is that they seem to be mirroring the behaviours of entitled, upper middle class, middle aged adults, who had done nothing but be pushed out of another human being to give them their comfortable life and entitled mindset. I imagine, the people they were mirroring the behaviour off were their parents.

Their friends and boyfriends were exactly the same.

Sam’s boyfriend was around our age, but he looked double that. He was grossly overweight and really unattractive, and although I never pointed it out, other members of the penthouse crew, and the group from the second floor, did. They also pointed out, as did I, that he was emotionally abusive and controlling, but Sam wouldn’t listen, and even dragged one of the other girls boyfriends into it, which was true, the other girls boyfriend was abusive, but the stuff Sam was calling him out on, was the same stuff she was admitting to her own boyfriend doing, while defending him. To make matters worse, she complained about him constantly, which only made the other girls go after him even more. He would nag her not to go home to see her family on the weekend, so that he could stay over, which she blatantly wanted to do, and for her it was doable, as her family lived in Kent and she drove and owned an expensive car. Then, when he stayed over, we could all hear them having explosive arguments that lasted for hours. After a few weeks, he started staying over during the week nights too, which began affecting Sams university work and attendance, as well as everybody else’s, on our side of the floor. He worked on the underground, and had to be at work ridiculously early in the morning. Instead of setting his alarm clock for the time he had to wake up, for example 5 am, he would set it for hours earlier, for example, 2 am, then snooze for 3 hours on purpose, and it was a proper, old school, very loud alarm clock, not a mobile phone alarm. You could hear that alarm all around our half of the floor. Around Christmas, we all discovered that he was an alcoholic and gambling addict, and he was in a ridiculous amount of debt, which by no means makes you a bad person, but the reason we found this out was because he was abusing Sam financially as well.

Emma on the other hand, kept her relationship with her boyfriend private, so much so that I don’t remember a thing about him. I also remember very little about her best friend from home, who also stayed over regularly, other than he was a boy, and bizarrely judgemental, just like her.

For example – one evening, after being at uni all day, I was doing work and decided to take a break. On my way to uni that morning, I had gone to the supermarket and bought a litre carton of orange juice. As I was at uni, I was drinking it out of the carton. I didn’t finish it, as I soon started chain drinking coffee, and went through a couple of bottles of water too. The carton had been out of the fridge all day, so it definitely wasn’t going to be ok to drink the next day, so I was still just drinking it straight out of the carton. If his criticism had been that the juice had been out of the fridge all day, then that would’ve been valid, but it wasn’t. During my break, with the carton still in my hand, I went to see what Emma and her friend were planning on doing that night. It was Friday, and I could hear them getting ready for a night out, due to her room door being wide open.

“Are you drinking that straight from the bottle?” He observed.

“Yeah,” I shrugged.

“You’re disgusting,” He commented. “Think of the germs from your mouth that are going into that bottle.”

“Think of the germs from my mouth that would be going into a glass if I was drinking from a glass,” I counted.

“It’s not the same. The glass is your personal glass of juice. Nobody else drinks from your glass, and you finish the glass,” he persisted.

I shook the almost empty carton, “This is my personal bottle of orange juice. Nobody else drinks from this bottle of orange juice. I am about to finish this bottle of orange juice.”

“You’re disgusting,” he repeated, then looked away dramatically, signalling that he didn’t want to speak to me anymore.

Emma herself called me disgusting twice over food.

The first time, was for following a very basic, simple, pasta sauce recipe, to the letter.

The second, was because I don’t add milk to scrambled eggs.

On neither of these occasions, was I cooking for anybody but me.

She also had a proper go at me for another food related incident, that had nothing to do with me, other than food that belonged to me was stolen.

I had been home to Liverpool for roughly ten days, from the Friday of one week, to the Sunday of the next week, and had prepared for my late night return by buying food that could go in the freezer, then be cooked quickly. This included a packet of potato waffles, because you can cook them in the toaster, but you have to defrost them first, again using the toaster. When I arrived back at halls, I dumped my bag in my room, hurried to the toilet for a much needed wee, scrubbed my hands raw, due to all the excessive touching of public transport, then headed into the kitchen. I had just open the freezer, when somebody else entered the kitchen.

“Are you looking for your waffles?” It was Emma. She was standing in the door way, leaning against the door frame, the heavy fire door resting against her foot, with her arms folded across her chest. It is obvious to me now, that she had been waiting for me to go into the kitchen from the second she heard me return.

“Yes,” I answered, confused.

“I threw them away,” she informed me, her tone becoming harder.

“Why did you throw my food away?” I managed to sound calm, even though I was upset. I was starving, and now I had practically nothing to eat.

“You put them in the fridge last Sunday night, and by Wednesday they were blue. Why would you do something so stupid? Are you really that stupid? You’re such a moron,” she ranted.

Growing more upset and confused, I tried to reason with her, without turning this strange interaction into an argument, “Emma, I’ve been in Liverpool since last Friday night. I’ve only just got back. I told you I was going, remember?”

“Yes, of course I remember. It’s you who’s behaving like an idiot, not me. You could’ve made people sick?” She accused.

“Emma, I couldn’t have possibly moved them from the freezer to the fridge last Sunday, because I wasn’t here,” at this point, it occurred to me that Emma and Sam didn’t use the communal fridge or freezer, because they had their own in their rooms. “Why were you in this fridge anyway?”

“Don’t do it again,” she chided. Ignoring my question, she left the kitchen.

At the time, I genuinely thought she was intentionally being nasty to me.

This belief seem to be confirmed, after the Easter holidays, when we had a similar but much more serious conversation.

However, a couple of years ago, I read this really interesting article, about how toddlers view the world and the people around them, which may cause behaviours that we might perceive a selfish or bad. This article said, that children under the age of five don’t understand that you don’t automatically know what they know.

They gave this example. An adult and a child under the age of five are in a room, with a red box, a blue box and a ball. The adult puts the ball in the red box, then leaves the room. A second adult enters the room, and moves the ball to the blue box. They asked the child which box the other adult will look in for the ball, when they return. The child will always answer, “The blue box.”

This made me wonder, (and when I say this, I don’t mean it nastily, because you all know, I have brain related problems) whether Emma could have never outgrown that stage of cognitive ignorance, therefore, she didn’t understand that people don’t automatically know what she knows.

The last non serious thing that I remember Emma independently judging me about, was about how I applied my eye make up. We were both getting ready for an event, in her room. While she was curling her hair extensions, I was using her mirror to do my make up. I hadn’t noticed her watching me, until she spoke.

“Why do you do your eye make up backwards?”

“What do you mean?” I enquired.

“You’re meant to put your eyeliner on before your eyeshadow,” she explained, as though it was an unwritten Law.

“I put mine on after I do my eyeshadow,” was all I could think to say.

“I know,” she huffed. “I just watched you do it. That’s how I know you’re doing it wrong?”

“Ok,” I shrugged.

How somebody else applied their own eyeliner, seem like such a weird thing to need to control. Yet, she brought it up constantly throughout the night, trying to get people to agree with her.

When I first met Sam and Emma, my opinion was that they both seemed nice. They had invited me, a complete stranger, to come to the freshers fair with them.

But then, while we were there, they told me to go home, or go on alone, if I didn’t want to stay with them while they spoke to a man who was making sexually inappropriate comments towards me.

They did similar stuff to me every time the three of us were alone. They would invite me to, and even insist, that I do stuff with the two of them, and then treat me like a third wheel and/or an emotional punching bag. Eventually, due to this, I started declining their invitations to do stuff with them, if it was just the three of us.

An example of this behaviour, is the only time that I ever went to the supermarket with them.

I had come home from uni that day for lunch, which I never did, as I attended uni at the Cathill campus and lived at the Trent Park campus, but I had forgotten equipment that I needed to complete a piece of work that day.

Sam heard me return, and knocked on my door a minute later. Her and Emma were going to the supermarket that afternoon, to do a “big shop” and she said that I should come with them, so that I didn’t have to struggle home with my own shopping. I really appreciate the gesture, but at this point, I was doing small shops as and when I needed to, and was planning to go back to Cathill after I finished my lunch. When I explain this, she started accusing me of being bad with money, because according to her, small shop ls worked out more expensive. Feeling like a child who didn’t know how to spend money properly, I agreed to go.

Note: This shop actually ended up costing me more wasted money than a small shop would have, as unlike Sam and Emma, during my first year at university, I couldn’t afford my own personal fridge freezer, so I had no choice but to use the communal ones. As I am a vegetarian, I actually brought both vegetables and dairy products, which apparently nobody else did, so they would constantly steal mine. For those reasons, after this shop, I was robbed, in bulk.

Almost as soon as we got in her car, Sam started going on about how I really need to learn to drive, because it wasn’t fair depending on other people.

“Who do I depend on?” I asked.

“You’re depending on Sam right now,” Emma replied.

“Sam invited me,” I pointed out.

“Because she knew you had nobody else to help you,” Emma insisted.

I was so furious, that’s in order not to lose my temper, I had to say nothing at all. Even though, Emma didn’t drive.

Later, on that same journey, Sam started aggressively screaming at another driver, who had stalled their car at the traffic lights. She was swearing and slamming her hand down on the horn, as well. How I managed to bite my tongue, and not tell her I thought she was too immature and dangerous to be operating a vehicle, I don’t know.

Really though, all these tiny acts of nastiness pale in comparison to my next story, and my next story pales into comparison to each of the worst things these women separately did to me.

Those two stories I will tell you when we get to them though.

My next story is the last in this post.

It left me very shaken and afraid, and taught me that rape alarms are pointless pieces of equipment, meant purely to make you feel safe.

Me and JZ had been given “personal attack alarms,” basically rape alarms, that looked like marker pens, by the police. The reason they looked like marker pens, were so that our attacker wouldn’t drag them off us, before we could set them off. The way you set these alarms off was by pushing the “lid” down onto the “pen”. We were instructed to keep them on our persons at all times.

“We’re not expecting him to come after either of you,” my victim liaison officer had tried to reassure me. “It’s just a precaution in case he does.”

I took her instructions seriously, seeing as I had already received several death threats, none of which were from my rapist, surprisingly. They were from other people who were determined to protect him, and shockingly, the same people who claimed not like him before he raped me.

Everybody knew what had happened, not only due to the same people, but also my rapist him self, telling everybody about it.

The first night of having my alarm, I accidentally set it off in the kitchen. I was juggling it, and my just wash kitchenware, and as I tried to open the heavy fire door, it squashed the alarm into my stomach, forcing the lid down. Due to already being on edge, it startled me, causing me to drop my kitchenware.

The kitchen door slammed shut again, obscuring the view into the kitchen from the corridor.

A second later, Sam had come to her door, and was screaming and swearing at me to turn the alarm off.

Another second later, and Emma was doing the same.

Neither of them came into the kitchen to check I wasn’t being attacked.

Nor did anybody else.

Conditioned To Expect And Accept It

Part 2.A

As you know, I try not to go off topic when I am writing my blog posts, which is not only very difficult for me due to my disorganised and racing thoughts, it is important to me that my readers understand my posts as well, and it gives me hope that in the future I will be able to overcome some, if not all of my most disabling symptoms, even if right now it takes me hours of rewrites, drafts and edits, to get a single post to the skill level I am currently writing at. That is why I have made this a separate post.

The things that I am going to briefly talk about not only seems relevant to this miniseries, I believe they will make future stories in this miniseries and in general make more sense, and might add more context to some of the stories I have already told.

All of my “adult life” I have been part of many different friend groups at the same time, which seems “normal” enough to me, as I think everybody has multiple friend groups at any one point in their lives. What I think is “less normal” is how diverse and eclectic my groups of friends have been. Being so openly welcomed into such different friend groups was not due to any purposeful effort on my part, and and it was something I didn’t even notice at the time. What made me start thinking about it it was an article that I read last year, that was written by a woman with borderline personality disorder, who described how she struggled with her own birthday parties, because she has borderline personality disorder. As I read this article I realise that I struggle with my own birthday parties, and I struggle with them for the same reason she struggles with them, I can’t be all the different versions of who I am at once.

There are several factors that I believe cause borderline people to be “different people” with different friend groups, all of which are truly who we are. Each of these factors could and should be posts themselves in the future, which is why I am only going to vaguely discuss them here.

1. High levels of sympathy and compassion, combined with low levels of empathy.

To me having low levels of empathy means I can’t independently decipher how you feel, why, or what your intentions are, I need to be told most of the time.

However, I am very sympathetic and compassionate, and upsetting or distressing things have a long lasting an almost trauma inducing affect on me, but not for me, for the subject involved.

Lacking empathy doesn’t mean that you lack sympathy, compassion and don’t care, it’s like being emotionally blind to other peoples emotions and intentions.

This makes me a better person to confide in, because I am incapable of making your problem my problem, so the conversation will be driven by you and fully about you and your problem. At the same time if you tell me how you feel and why you feel that way, I can understand how you feel and why, and I won’t take offence or unfairly judged you.

For example –

If you said to me, “I am a lesbian and I am not friends with women who aren’t lesbians, because I’m fed up of being hassled for threesomes by females I thought were my friends, for their boyfriends.”

I wont take offence that you don’t want to be my friend, because I am able to understand the problem from your perspective, based on what you have said to me only, as I don’t link it to any political or social bullshit, and wont make it about more than what you have said to me, as I don’t believe I can interpret some ulterior motive behind your words.

2. Black and white thinking, paired with only having intense emotions.

If lack of empathy is being blind to other peoples emotions, black and white thinking paired with only having intense emotions is like being emotionally colourblind when it comes to feeling your own emotions.

Mostly put as seeing all things and people as being good or bad, black and white thinking really is downplayed for what it truly is, which is a disabling symptom, and is often used as a reason for why we are bad people, just like lacking empathy.

People with borderline personality disorder only have the extremes of each emotion, meaning we don’t feel emotions on a sliding scale, just at their peak levels. Based on my own experience, we don’t understand how it impacts us not to have that sliding scale, yes my emotions can feel physical, but before I was diagnosed with bpd I thought everybody’s emotions could feel physical. What I experience as happiness and sadness, you apparently would experience as euphoria and depression.

This means that if we have a relationship of any sort, that relationship feels much more important to me than it does to you, and oddly there is something about this that other people respond positively to, at least in the beginning.

3. Eclectic, all consuming and fast changing hobbies, interests and personality traits.

For some reason, because I have BPD, I can like several types of things such as music genres at the same time, even those that are at odds with each other.

When I am with a person who shares a hobby, interest or personality trait with me, that is who I fully become.

The results of being this way though means that when I am with people from more than one of my friend groups I feel as though I go into a social and identity meltdown, as well as like I am faking all of the versions of myself, and I can feel isolated and lonely while surrounded by my friends.

If this post, this far seems weird and out of place to you, I promise that I don’t think it will by the end of this miniseries.

For now though that is it.

Proof Reading Skills

Part two

1. Literary Techniques

In exams

It is important to look over any literary techniques that you have used in your answer.

This includes

• Alliteration

• Onomatopoeia

• character

• Sibilance.

Make sure that you know

• the correct meaning of these words

• and that the example you have taken from the text is evidence of them.

There’s no point in saying the words “happy family” are alliteration as they are not.

2. Errors

Check for any errors you know that you always make.

You know the type of mistakes that crop up in your work better than anybody else.

Don’t let them get the better of you.

3. Grammatical Errors

A. One of the first things to check is that your tense is consistent.

We use tense to show whether things are happening in

• the past.

• or present

And

• whether they are ongoing

• or finished.

You should be writing in the same tense all the way through your answers.

In most cases they should mean that you are writing in the present tense.

This means that you avoid adding ED to your sentence.

Example

You would write

Stephen suggests that the weather is cold.

And not Stevenson suggested that the weather is cold.

If you have alternated through throughout your answer switch it all to the present tense.

B. If you’re writing a story and not an essay you can change your tense.

But don’t mix two sentences up in your tenses.

Example

If you want to use the past tense you might say

The old man walked quickly down the road. He opened a gate and looked around him.

If you wanted to use the present tense you might say.

The old man walks quickly down the road. He opens a gate and looks around him.

In both of these sentence the tense is consistent.

However if you said…

The old man walked quickly down the road. He opened the gate and looks around him.

… You would lose marks, as this sentence switches from past tense to present tense at the very end.

Try to avoid these types of errors.

4. Verb Agreement

Using the right tense links to another part of proofreading, which is verb agreement.

A. This sounds complicated but it simply means that the verb used makes sense given what has come before it.

Example

You might say

The writer suggests.

But you would never say

The writers suggests

This looks and sounds a little strange.

That is because the verb is not in agreement with what has come before it.

The correct way to write this would be

The writers suggest.

B. The verb itself can also sometimes change.

Example

I open the gate.

Is grammatically correct

But

He open the gate.

Is not

Add an s to make the sentence read properly

He opens the gate.

5. Look over your sentences to make sure they are fully complete.

Especially in short stories.

A sentence needs a subject and a verb.

Example

Jane (the subject) walked (the verb) in the park.

If you said

In the park

On its own

It would not be a complete sentence.

6. Sometimes your sentences may be too long

Consider

• splitting the sentence into two

• Or breaking them up with punctuation

If they stretch on for too long.

Remember

Each new

• Thought

• Or point

needs to end with

• a full stop

• a question mark

• or and exclamation mark.

⁃ A comma isn’t enough to divide completely new ideas.

7. Check your writing in the way that suits you.

• If you’re at home reading out loud might help.

• If your in an exam reading each sentence one by one could be key.

Proof Reading Skills

Part one

It is important to proof read your work, even professional writers check their work several times before submitting it.

How can you proof read your work accurately?

1. In an exam

A. Begin by making sure you have read each question correctly.

B. Does your work answer the questions properly?

C. Have you addressed all the key points in the question?

2. In an exam

A. Check that you have numbered all of your answers correctly.

3. In an exam

A. When you’ve done 1 and 2 quickly read through your answers to make sure they each have clear

• Introductions

• conclusions

• Topic sentences

⁃ To guide your readers through your ideas.

4. Errors- Sentence Beginnings

• Errors can sneak in at any time

• And they come in a variety of different forms.

A. Does every sentence begin with a capital letter?

5. Errors – Capital Letters

A. Have you started proper nouns such as

• Names

• Places

• And titles

with a capital letter?

6. Errors- Sentence Endings

A. Have you ended every sentence with

• a full stop

⁃ .

• question mark

⁃ ?

• exclamation mark

⁃ !

7. Errors- Speech And Quotes

A. Are there speech marks around speech?

” “

B. Are there quotation marks around quotes?

‘ ‘

8. Errors – commas

A. Are

• Lists

• And long sentences

Broken up with commas?

⁃ ,

9. Apostrophes

Apostrophes can cause a lot of problems so it’s worth checking to see if you have used them correctly.

A. You use apostrophes for contraction.

This is when 2 words are merged together.

Example

Do not – Don’t

Should not – Shouldn’t

In each of these examples the words have been pressed together and a letter removed.

An apostrophe fills the space left behind.

B. Apostrophise are also used for possession.

That means showing that an object belongs to someone.

If something belongs to someone you should use an apostrophe.

Example

Jayne’s hat

Dan’s book

If you happen to encounter a character whose name already ends in s

Example

Sherlock Holmes + book

Sherlock Holmes’ book

Or

Sherlock Holmes’s book

Both are correct.

10. Colons and semi colons

A. A semi colon is used to connect to related ideas.

B. And to show a relationship between two sentences that are linked in some way.

Each side of a semi colon work as a sentence in its own right but the semi colon implies a relationship between the two.

Example

A Justine likes kickboxing; Ali likes rockclimbing.

In this case the two girls like different things.

But the semi colon implied there’s a relationship.

B. The interviewer entered the room; I froze in panic.

In this case freezing and panic is clearly linked to the interview entering the room.

C. If the second part of the sentence explains the first you can use a colon.

Example

The house with deserted: its owner died ten years ago.

11. Spelling Errors – Homophones

Always be on the lookout for spelling errors.

One of the most common spelling errors is homophone confusion.

Homophones are words that sound the same but which are spelt differently.

A. Example

• There

• Their

• They’re

Their is used when something belongs to someone.

Example

They put on their coats.

Here the coat clearly belong to the group being discussed.

There

• most often to refer to a place.

• Or the beginning of a sentence.

Example

I went over there.

There were three women.

They’re

• Is informal

• It is not likely to be used in your essay writing

If you need to say they are informally then you will use they’re.

Example

They’re moving to New York.

When your proofreading check every there, their and they’re to check you are using the right one.

B. Example

• Which

• Witch

Witch – A magical person.

Which – The writer uses the word “chilling” which makes him seem cold and frightening.

Always use the word which unless referring to an actual witch or a plant name etc.

Useful Devices To Employ In A Review

• Similes

• Metaphors

• Rhetorical questions

• Alliteration

Example

You might say-

The film is like marmite, you’ll either love it or hate it.

Vary your sentence structure.

• you might describe a film or a book using a long list like sentence followed by a simple sentence for effect.

Example

This film starts with monsters, men, robots and explosions. It still sucks.

Another helpful technique is to tell the audience how they will feel.

Example

The jump scares will leave you shaking in

your seat.

or

You’ll be crying with laughter at the novels conclusion.

Remember

You want to get the audience

• interested

• or disinterested

in what you’re reviewing.

However you don’t want to

• tell them too much too soon.

⁃ Nobody wants to see spoilers in a review.

Try to strike up a healthy balance between

• reviewing the information fairly

• and withholding certain information from the audience.

Writing To Argue

Form And Content

Content

Main arguments

• Use evidence to extend and develop your arguments fully.

• Use: anecdotes

• Expert opinions

• Statistical data

• Factual information

Writing To Argue

Form And Content

Form

Form means how you set things out.

• Layout

• Format

• Organisation

⁃ Should be clear and easy to follow.

Email Between Me And The Merseyside Police In Response To My Attempted I.O.P.C Complaint

Part Eleven- From the Merseyside Police

(I have redacted information both at the beginning and end of this email which includes the personal details and contact details of the emails sender)

The sender of this email is the same person as the sender of the emails in part one, part three, part four part six and part nine.

The complaint is being handled by my department which is the Professional Standards Department. The appeal body will be the Police Crime Commissioner. I have attached a link to our website so that you can follow the steps.

https://www.merseyside.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/c/complaints/investigating-your-complaint/

If you wish to pursue legal proceedings against Merseyside Police, you will have to write to the below address. My department does not handle civil litigation.

Head of Civil Litigation

Legal Services

Merseyside Police Headquarters

Canning Place  

Liverpool  

L1 8JX

Hope this helps.

Regards

• 

• 

Walking advice for beginners

• Walk 10 minutes per day for the first three weeks.

• Try to walk at a pace of 3 -3.5 mph.

(1 mile in 17 to 20 minutes.)

• Increase this by five minutes a day per week until you are able to walk for 30 minutes, six days a week.

Running schedule

phase 1: walking

Week one

The guide schedule

Anybody who wants to follow the guide schedule this is it

Day one -walk for 15 minutes

Day two -walk for 25 minutes

Date three -either walk 15 minutes or have a rest day

Day four -walk for 25 minutes

Day five- have a rest day

Day six -walk 35 minutes

Day seven -have a rest day

Total walking time- 2 hours 15 minutes

My progress

Day one -walked for 50 minutes

Day two- walked for 1 hour and 15 minutes

Day three- had a rest day

Day four -walked 50 minutes

Day five -had a rest day

Day six -walked for 57 minutes but it should’ve only took me 50minutes so that’s all I’m counting

Day seven -had a rest day

laps done -nine

Time- 3 hours and 45 minutes

An overview of 20th century non-fiction

The monarchy

In 1901 Queen Victoria died and her son Edward the seventh became king. He enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and travelled abroad to meet other important leaders. However his reign was relatively short and he died in 1910.

His son George the fifth became king at a turbulent time in history, over the following years tensions gradually rose in Europe.

The world wars

In fact the 20th century is categorised by two world wars one in 1914 and one in 1939. These walls had a huge impact on society and this can be seen in non-fiction at the time.

Gender equality improved in response to the wars as women were seen as assisting in the day-to-day running of the country.

Non-fiction literature had an important role in the recruitment of soldiers.

Posters encouraging men to fight for their countries were displayed.

Speeches were also written to boost the morale of soldiers and encourage more men to join the army.

Entertainment

Commercial radio featured in daily life from the 1920s onwards.

Most families owned a radio.

As the century progressed cinema and the television also became increasingly important.

• News

• Political views

• And literature

were easily accessible in

• Audio

• And visual forms

• As well as on paper

Newspapers

in 1912 the front pages of newspapers reported the sinking of the Titanic. The ship been called unsinkable, but the newspapers reported how it sank in only four hours, after hitting an iceberg.

Newspaper reports allowed terrible news like this to reach ordinary people all over the UK.

Newspapers can be used to trace changes in the mood of the country in the run-up to the Second World War. Many newspapers deliberated on the best way to approach Hitler. Some felt like the then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was doing well. Others such as The Yorkshire Post stated in December 1938 that…

“By repeatedly surrendering to force, Chamberlain has courage aggression.”

by paying attention to multiple extracts from different newspapers, we can get a better idea of the ideas and thoughts being discussed at the time.

in the late stages of the 20th century news headlines became increasingly sensationalist. This means that they were deliberately emotional and horrifying to view. It became increasingly common for new stories to feature horrifying images, such as bleeding children and bombed out buildings. A focus shifted in many news papers from objective fact to emotion.

example

Following the death of Princess Diana in 1997 many tabloid journalist focused on the emotion and the tragedy of the situation. One newspaper referred to the anguish of her two young children. Media displayed continual crowds of ordinary people mourning Diana. These tributes grew daily, and some argued the emotive techniques used by journalists actively added to the overwhelming sense of grief.

Letters

The letters written from soldiers to love one’s back home are now invaluable to researchers, who use them to gain insight into the personal experiences of those at war.

Example

War poet Wilfred Owen wrote many letters to his mother. In them he wrote about the horrific encounters in war.

On the 21st of April 1907 he wrote…

“For twelve days lay in holes, where at any moment a shell might put us out.”