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-= abuse. in set-up situations and in public -=
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Strangers in the street have recognized me on sight many times,. and shown
awareness of the current thread of abuse.. To give you one example, in 1992
I was seriously ill, and. a manager at work somewhat humorously said that
"it. wasn't fair" that people were bullying me. A few days later, I attended
for the first time a clinic. in London as an outpatient, and on my way out
was. accosted by someone who asked if "they had paid my fare", with emphasis
on the word "fare". He repeated the word several. times in this different
context; that they should have. paid my "fare", each time emphasizing the
word.
For two and a half years from the time their harassment. started until
November 1992 I refused. to see a psychiatrist, because I reasoned that I
was not ill of my own action or fault, but through. the stress caused by
harassment, and that a lessening of the illness would have. to be consequent
to a removal of its immediate cause, in other words a. cessation of
harassment. I also reasoned that since they were taunting me with. jokes
about mental illness, if I were to seek treatment. then the abusers would
think that they had "won" and. been proved "right". Remember, the constant
theme of any persecution is, "we must destroy you because you're. X",
whether X is a racial or. other attribute. In this case the X was "we
persecute you because you have brain. disease". The similarity of this logic
to Nazi attitudes to the mentally. ill is striking.
The. same manager who'd said "it wasn't fair" asked me in winter 1992 why I
didn't seek help from. a psychiatrist; was it, he asked, because "they would
think they had won" if I sought treatment? That. was something I'd never
said at work... again, taken. separately it proves nothing, but many such
things over a period of. months proves conclusively that people in the
company knew what was going on, and in. quite a lot of detail.
Usually harassment in public lacks the. level of finesse of "paying your
fare". Most people's imagination does not. go beyond moronic parroting of
the current. term of denigration. That is not surprising given the average
level of the abusers;. if they do not have the intelligence to distinguish
wrong from right then. neither will they have the capacity for anything
other than mindless repetition of a monosyllabic term. calculated to fit
into. their minds.
The. first incidents of verbal assault in public were in again in the summer
of 1990, although they increased. in frequency and venom with time. In July
1990 the. first public incident occurred on a tube train on the Northern
line. Two men and their girlfriends recognised. me; the women sprang to my
defence, saying "He looks perfectly normal, he doesn't. look ill". Their
boyfriends of course knew better,. and followed the party line; one of them
made reference to. an "operation", apparently to work at the tube station
but implicitly to a visit. that I had made to hospital a couple of weeks
previously.
In August 1990. going home from college, soon after getting on a tube train
at Gloucester Road I was followed by. a group of four youths, who started a
chant of abuse. That they were. targeting me was confirmed by other people
in the carriage, one of whom asked the other "who are they going. on at, is
it the bloke who just got on?" to which the second replied "yes, I. think
so". I was tempted to reply, but as in every other. instance the abusers are
enabled in their cowardice by physically outnumbering the. abused; any
confrontation would result in my being beaten up,. followed by a complaint
to the police that "he attacked us", and of course he's ill, so he. must
have been imagining that we were getting at him. Shitty,. aren't they?
But the shittiness of the four. youths on the tube train is as nothing
compared to the episode on the National Express coach to Dover. in the
summer of 1992. While going on holiday to the Continent I. was verbally set
upon by. a couple travelling sitting a few rows behind. The boy did the
talking, his female. companion contributing only a continuous empty giggling
noise. He spoke. loudly to ensure other people on the coach heard, always
about "they" and "this bloke" but never naming either the abusers or. the
person he was talking about.. He said "they" had "found somebody from his
school, and he was always really. stressed at school". They must have dug
deep to find enemies. there; perhaps someone who dropped out of school,
someone who didn't do too well. later, who was jealous and keen to get their
own back? The boy also said "he was in a. bed and breakfast for only one
night and they got him". By a not. unexpected coincidence I had been in a
B&B in Oxford a week previously, which had been booked from. work; other
things lead me to the conclusion that the. company's offices were bugged for
most of the 2 1/2. years that I was there, so "they" would have known a room
in the B&B had been booked.. (But I'll bet "they" didn't tell the company's
managers their offices. were bugged, did they?).
After a. few minutes of this I went back to where they were sitting and
asked. where they were travelling. The boy named a village in France, and
the girl's giggling suddenly ceased; presumably it permeated. to her brain
cell what the purpose of the boy's. abuse was.
This and other set-up situations are obviously calculated. to provoke a
direct confrontation which would bring in the. police, with the abusers
claiming that they were the ones attacked. Again. in 1992, outside the
house where I was living in Oxford I was physically attacked by someone. -
not punched, just grabbed by the coat, with some verbals. thrown in for good
measure. That was. something the people at work shouldn't have known
about... but soon after a couple of people were talking. right in front of
me about, "I heard he was attacked". The UK police have. a responsibility
for preventing assault occurring,. but they do not seem to take any interest
in meeting that responsibility. I suppose their. attitude is that harassment
does. not come within their remit unless it involves physical assault, and
they will only. become involved once that happens. That is of course quite
the wrong attitude. for them to take, but as I now understand, the police
investigate only the crime they wish to investigate; if. they do not take
your complaints seriously then there is nothing you can do. to make them
take. action.
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