Today was even worse

I have wasted two days holiday and I only get 13. Today I had the opticians and I wish that I never went. It essentially costed me £130 for a check up that I didn’t need. I knew my eye sight hadn’t altered, so from now on, I am going to do what I had bee doing and not go unless I know I need to.

I wish that I was allowed to send this email to Specsavers:

I made sure that all of my details were up to date when I booked the appointment. I selected that I didn’t want the additional testing, which costs more. Then, when I got there, they said they needed to update all of my details. They asked if I needed the additional testing. I very quietly said, “No thank you.” My appointment was at 10:25am. At 10:35am they took me for the additional eye health testing that I asked not to have twice. My anxiety was already high by then. Waiting in noisy areas, with lots of people coming and going, and having to constantly be alert in case someone is speaking to me, on top of struggling to understand a new voice and being made to have the additional testing that I didn’t ask for twice, that was a lot. Then at 11:45am I had my eye test. I feel so unlucky. The customer service assistant, from two years ago, who made me cry was now my optician. She said that my eyes are healthy. My prescription hasn’t changed, but my current glasses have the wrong astigmatism and they are so scratched that the glare coating has come off. She said I wouldn’t have to pay for the eye test, just the new frames and lenses, but this was only valid for this immediate appointment slot. I didn’t want the eye test waived. I wanted to pay for it, so that I could leave the shop, but now I was in a situation, where I couldn’t leave the shop.

The optician took me to the customer service person. The customer service person looked up my current frames and said they don’t manufacture them anymore. Then she said she was going to help me pick out a similar pair. She took me over to the frames and asked me which ones I looked at when I came in. I didn’t look at the frames when I came in, as I was instructed to sit down. Then she handed me a red pair that I didn’t like and said they were the closest to the ones I have now. I currently have Nathalia frames in pastel purple. These were a dark red and not similar to the shape of my square frames at all. I said, “Okay, thank you.” She asked me to try them on. I said, “No thank you.” She said I needed to try them on. I said, “No thank you. I won’t be able to see what they look like,” as I cannot see anything without my glasses on. She asked me if there were any frames that I liked. I didn’t get the chance to look. I wasn’t offered the option to look by myself. I didn’t get the option to pick any up to look at. I didn’t get the option to look at any other section than the pair that we were standing in front of. I didn’t want to be in the shop anymore. I just wanted to pay for the eye test, so that I could leave, but I wasn’t allowed to pay for my eye test, I was made to have new frames. As she said they no longer manufacture anything similar to my current frames I said, “If they are the only ones I will have to go with them.” With the discount of not having to pay for the eye test they did only come to £130, which is the cheapest opticians visit I have ever had. So it was essentially a £130 eye test, as I am not going to pick the glasses up when they are ready, because I will never wear them. Please, could you tell me if there is a way to cancel the glasses, so that someone doesn’t go through the effort of making something that I will not collect? Either that or I pick them up and put them directly into the glasses recycling bin next to the till and walk out.

Specsavers don't give you an appointment number or a code that relates to me as a person/customer. So, even if I could send the email, I couldn't identify that it was me. I can't have them email me back and say that they need to phone me to discuss it either. I don't know if I could even cope with emailing them back either. I just want the experience of today to just go away forever. It is 14:28 and I still haven't stopped crying yet.

 

- Josie -

Today Has Been Hard

Today has been so hard. There has been something that I really wanted to do, that I have been looking forward to since August. Aside from the half a day I took of work for a job interview and one for the doctors, today was the only other day I have taken off work all year, with my 13 days of annual leave running from January to December. I do not have a partner or a child, so I do not really qualify for holiday. Anyway, I had been really looking forward to today, until it came to last night. I barely slept. My anxiety has kept me awake since just after 3:30am. I knew I couldn’t do it, but I managed to get myself out of my maisonette at 5am. I got more than three quarters of the way there and I just couldn’t do it. It was too hard for me to try without you. I don’t want you to think that I am codependent on your existence to do things. I can go to work, pay my council tax every month, pay my utility bills every month, do my food shopping weekly… I can do all of that without you. It’s just the interacting bit of life that I really struggle with. Now I have done one of those talking therapies and discovered that it is far more complicated that autism and anxiety alone and even with many years of expensive therapy, there is a possibility that I can’t do it on my own. Having you was like having crutches or a wheelchair. You wouldn’t tell someone who uses crutches or who needs a wheelchair to get around that they aren’t allowed to be dependant on them, it is wrong to rely on them and they must be independent. I don’t need you to do daily things. But for the things that any autistic people struggle with, then layer my anxiety on top of that and a whole bunch of bad upbringing, the concept of rules and both physical and mental abuse, I need help in certain situations. Not just anyone’s help… I need you.

You made some of the things that terrify me so much that I go mute, not easy, but having you there made it so that even if I did go mute, I could still try. You made me not struggle as much. And you never judged me for it… well, even if you did mentally, you didn’t verbally. You never got angry with me, or frustrated with me. You helped me. And you loved me. Or at least that was what you showed me, and that’s all that matters to me. You did the things that no body else ever did. And you made me excited to want to do things. Like today. There was something that I have been excited about for months… but it was too much for me and I couldn’t do it.

This entire year has been so horrible. My entire year was ruined on 1^st January, when I saw the video of you with another woman. It hurt so much. Then the next day, when you told me that you were essentially a different person to the person that I met hurt even more… and you did it right after you told me there was nothing to worry about and that what I was upset about from the day before (although I didn’t tell you what I saw) wasn’t what you wanted, and you wanted us. Then the next day, you didn’t want any of the things you told me that you wanted when we first met. You started acting different. I can’t even write down any of it, because I am already too upset.

Then there have been all of the problems that I have been having at work. It is impossible to get another job. I am going to be put on an agency contract in less than two months too, so who knows whether I will still be employed the day after, because the whole point of putting everyone on an agency contract is to take away employee rights, which I only just got yesterday, having been at the company two years, so that they can sack you on the spot and have you replaced with someone else the next morning.

Then there was the mentally abusive, controlling friend. I think having him in my life stopped my brain from finding as much time to grieve over losing you. I know that was partly his intention, but now I am free from him, I know it has been six and a half months, but I haven’t stopped loving you. And now it feels even harder. Knowing it is your birthday soon as been really hurting too… because that’s another special thing that I can’t share with you. I even bought you a present for your birthday at the beginning gif the year. I found it when I was sorting out my gifts for people cupboard. I tried to finish my Christmas shopping today, so that cupboard is full now. I really should donate it, along with the things you left at mine and the things you gave me, but I haven’t found the strength to let go just yet. I thought about posting your hoodie to your parents’ house for you, but I didn’t want to make you unintentionally angry and lash out at me and then me feel suicidal all over again. But I don’t want you to think that I didn’t think about returning it to you.

I never, ever wished any ill will towards you. I just want you to be happy. I really wished it was with me, but I am being selfish to hold onto that thought. You deserve to be happy, and with someone who shares your same future wants. Maybe you do still want what you said you wanted when we first me, it just wasn’t with me, and that’s what caused you subconsciously to change. I still miss the you who you were when we first met. He still is, and always will be, my favourite person.

I’m too old. I’m over halfway to dead. I can’t have the thing that I want in life. Not because they will never happen and I will never find someone, although I do 100% believe that I am just not the right person for anyone, but because it is too late. Too much time has passed for the things that I want. I’m never going to have a day where I can say to someone, “We have been each other’s lives longer than we have been apart.” I can never experience that. I’m past halfway to dead. Unless scientists invent a way to prolong life, it’s too late. There are certain anniversaries that I can never have. People who grow up with parents who stay together and in an environment where you weren’t constantly shouted at and hit every time you spoke when you weren’t spoken to or wanted to do something other than sit in front of the television, you don’t realise how good you had it. I just want to be loved, feel safe, be equal to my partner and be respected. I’m not asking for a lot. I just want to be treated with kindness and have my thoughts, feelings and aspirations matter.

I want this year to be over with. I’m sick of all of the bad things that keep happening. I’m sick of all of the bad things that just keep happening in general. I don’t even mention most of them, and even then I still get a certain someone’s spiteful, “You sound crazy, get help.” Jump off a cliff.

I didn’t even post the post that I thought would make you unintentionally angry and you still doubled the bots. Well, you want something to get angry over, here is the post that I was never going to post that I wrote on Tuesday, when I needed to get some frustrated thoughts out of my head:  present to you, The Queen of Mean.

I am done being nice. I have a Queen of Mean story idea that I have wanted to write for three years, but now, this post is me finally leaning into that Queen of Mean energy.

I am sick of being a magnet to mentally abusive people. Maybe it is just emotionally immature people, the people who want people to suffer, call them crazy, or maybe it is just Scorpios, because I only ever seem to have problems with Scorpios. The Aries I dated left me alone. In fact, the Aries is the one person that I wish I still had contact with, after all this time.

To the first on my list – I had to send him a message telling him to leave me alone, because he was still making my health all about him. I tried to stay quiet and just ignore him, but you Scorpios are relentless with the mental abuse and needing control over people. Just because you aren’t dictating what I wear, who I talk to or where I go does not mean you aren’t being controlling. That is the first ever time I have actually confronted the person who is making me suicidal with how their mentally abusive actions are harming me. I told him, “’m not physically or mentally well and need to be left alone. Stop making my mental and physical wellbeing about you! Your messages are mentally abusive, controlling and completely tone deaf! I would never go to a restaurant even if I was well! You know nothing about sensory autism and anxiety. If you are typing to make me suicidal, you are going the right way about it. I need to be left alone!” And it actually worked. He replied, “OK,” and has since left me alone.

The next two are the two of you. I was going to be nice, but as the Queen of Mean, I will name you Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Duh!

Do you think I am stupid? I may only have a 136 IQ, I am no Sherlock Holmes, and I am definitely no match for your intelligence, but I’m not stupid. 154 IQ doesn’t scare me. And I like to play games too.

Which one of you do I start with? We’ll start with the one who instantly sprung to mind when I heard Dove Cameron’s new single, “Do the Math.” Why? Because I wish I had written that song about you. There isn’t another song that sums you up better. And you think that your VPN is hiding you? I know who you are. I know your patterns probably better than your wife. You’re predictable. Really predictable. And now I can hear Andrew Scott’s Moriarty saying, “Boring,” in my head, right after I said predictable. I thought you’d appreciate that little reference. It amuses me that out of all of the countries you could have picked, you chose The Netherlands, as it is the closest in spelling to Neverland. You really are Peter Pan in so many ways. Refusing to let go. Refusing to leave me alone. Refusing to grow up. Not realising how much time has actually passed. I know your pattern. I know your phone. I know your proximity. I know the posts that you linger on – even the new ones. I asked you to leave me alone. You might not comment the lines from the Dove Cameron song anymore, but I know you are there. It’s creepy. It’s weird. There is no logic behind it. Are you that emotionally immature that you think you are being clever or that you have one up over me? Because you are very clearly demonstrating that I’m very lucky to not be with you. And I feel sorry for your wife and child, because they are stuck with an emotionally immature person. And relationships with immature men never last. You can be Peter Pan and not grow up in spirit, but when you are that immature, there is a reason why a woman chooses to keep a friend after marriage and doesn’t get rid of all of her friends and only become friends with your friends’ wives. I’ll let you figure out the why.

Then we move on to you. Now you’re even more emotionally immature. Wishing someone else would suffer, because they couldn’t cope with your controlling disposition, lack of human decency and respect makes you sound like a 13-year-old schoolboy, who cannot process his emotions. And you picked Belgium of all places to hide behind. I know you and Peter Pan are similar, but did you really think I wouldn’t know it was you. Now, I wasn’t drawn to you because you are like Peter Pan, I was drawn to you, because you weren’t like him. Yet, here we are. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb copying one another, yet unaware of the other. You chose Belgium before I aligned you with the character James, who was my first “boyfriend” if you could call him that, and he was from Belgium. I dated you because you had the nice qualities that reminded me of him, so you really have aligned this so well. The interesting thing is how stupid you think I am.

We both know in this story intelligence is my game. You’re thinking like a Gen-Z. You’re thinking like a 13-year-old schoolboy. If you treat all of your relationships this way, you are going to end up old and alone. Everything can’t always be your way. Everything can’t always be about you. A partner isn’t someone who you ignore, and just bring out when you want to show off, like some sort of trophy. I was never your partner, just a teenage-style girlfriend. Newsflash, you’re less than a week away from being halfway to dead. Treat your partners like a partner. If you can’t, do not engage in a relationship with anyone ever again, because I do not want you hurting anyone else.

Now, back to my question… how stupid do you think I am? It’s really not that hard. The bot views had an American VPN, use one machine that splits in two – half Windows, half Mac. Then there was a small lull and it stopped, before being run singularly through one machine and from your phone. Running Chrome from a phone that isn’t a Google phone doesn’t make it Chrome. It’s CriOS, doofus! (You wouldn’t get the Moriarty reference. My humour is wasted on you).

Why? Why do it? What is the purpose of running my blog through AI? I don’t understand what you think you are doing. Do you think it is causing me to suffer, as I know you like to word it? Do you think you are removing the UK’s automatic copyright laws by making AI read my writing? Do you think the bots are copying my creative writing? Stealing it? Duplicating it? Do you think I don’t know it is bot views? Do you think I am so stupid that I think the views are real? Do you think I am excited to see lots of random, non-interactive bot views, but am not using Google Analytics to see that the only views that exist are you on your phone using a Belgium VPN and Peter Pan doing the exact same thing, but with a Netherlands VPN? Yes, I don’t know your patterns as well as his, but I am learning them. You are both creatures of habit. I know the times to expect you, the posts you will open, the posts you will ignore, the posts that you will reread over and over like you are looking for some hidden meaning or think that you have one up on me, while you sit there in angry mode or revenge plotting mode, when all I have done is used experience to write an innocent poem.

Figuring out who is who, when you’ll appear, which posts you will engage in is the easy part. Figuring out the why is the hard part. Is this some kid of malicious act of revenge you think you are winning in your heads? Is it because neither of you can cope with the fact that you aren’t controlling me anymore? It was always a control thing with both of you, wasn’t it? Do you think that just because you aren’t controlling what I wear, who I communicate with or where I go that your actions aren’t controlling? I find it all highly amusing. In fact, I find it so amusing that I’m going to go back through this rant and play a game with it. I was thinking I was going to play this like Sherlock, but Moriarty is much more fun! I think I have decided, I like being the Queen of Mean. Why be nice, if everyone is just going to treat me badly? Why not play the game that you all seem to be playing.

That’s done. Okay, this is fun. If you two want to be childish and play games – let’s play. There’s a lot I have just added to this. I used to say, “When having a heart of gold isn’t good enough, write your own happily ever after,” which Is what I lived by for the past seven years. All I wanted was a tiny little piece of what everyone else expects from a relationship. Not money, not gifts, not to go places or spend time together every single day. I wanted to feel loved, safe and to be building towards a life together. Now… now all of that is over. When having a heart of gold isn’t good enough, pull a page out of Mary Shelley’s book. King Valder has been dethroned and Peter Peterson is due to be hanged in the town square. Enjoy your happily never after boys!

 

- Josie -

 I miss you. I hope you’re doing okay. You’ll always be the Jack to my Sally. I wish you are happy. I may not have known you that long. The first three months I knew you were the happiest I have ever been. I know you changed, and you were not that man anymore… you no longer wanted all those things anymore. I miss your cuddles. Sometimes I can hear your voice in my head. Last weekend, I dreamt that we were friends and spent the day in my favourite place, just exploring. Then last night, I dreamt of our wedding day. It was beautiful and very special. It is funny, because I think I have only dreamt of you once before, and now I have had two dreams of you so close together. I wish I could get rid of this constant migraine, so I could write both of these dreams into my Jane Chronicles series. I have been cuddling the plushie that I got you today. It seemed a shame to keep it in the cupboard on Halloween. I hope you are having a great Halloween, not that you need a day to celebrate our favourite holiday. I have had my pumpkins and ghosts out all year around. I hadn’t even realised that I am wearing my ghost hoodie, while wrapped up in my new ghost blanket. Thank you for being a part of my life for the tiny part that you were. You changed my life more than you could ever know, and I will never forget you for it. I part of me will always love and care about you, well, the you that you were when we first met. I don’t know how much of it was real, I like to believe it all was, but you just decided that you didn’t want that anymore. I hold onto hope that you change your mind and you do want that life again. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to it. You probably have someone else by now anyway… and she probably is the one for you and you probably do want that life with her. But thank you for sharing part of your life with me. I will treasure it forever. You helped me so much. I just wish there was something I could do to thank you or repay you. Sometimes I think maybe leaving you was repaying you… because now you can be happy, and I won’t be holding you back by still wanting the life you said you wanted when we first met… the communicating, respecting and sharing, instead of pushing away, isolating and refusing to see that your selfish actions were hurting me. I only asked that we could agree a day or a time for a phone call. That isn’t being controlling. I didn’t want to put my entire life on hold for someone who didn’t have time for me and made my mental health struggle. That first photo we took together is still my favourite day. Sending you this biggest hug. I hope your Halloween is the best. I love you.

How Dare You?!

How dare you? How dare you make my autism, anxiety and physical health all about you. Do you hear how tone deaf your message reads? I have been unwell because of you. You are so controlling it is insufferable! I can’t take it anymore.

I am not allowed to go home, when I want to go home. I am not allowed to walk to the train station on my own. I am not allowed to walk on the side of the road by the curb. I am not allowed to cross the road without your permission. I am not allowed to buy myself a cup of tea, when we are sat outside, at the airport for six whole hours in the freezing cold. I am not allowed to then get the bus home without you. You dictate to me what bus I can and cannot get onto based on how you think I will cope. I have to wake up at 5am, to walk two hours to meet you, and you make us meet up 45 minutes before the coach leaves. Why? Then you keep buying me things. I don’t want you to keep buying me things. The more treats you buy me, it isn’t going to make me like you more.

Three weeks ago was very hard for me. It was wet. It was cold. There aren’t even many aeroplanes to watch now that airports are running to their winter timetables. And I am going to remind you, this is your hobby, not mine. Me tolerating it, is me masking and being a nice person. Wasting my entire Sunday, every Sunday has had me dreading weekends. I dread the week, because I have been trying to get another job all year long, and I have only managed two interviews all year. This workplace is draining me and you know it, which is why I need Saturdays as my autism overload recovery days. They are not “Lazy days,” as you word them. They are essential for my recovery. And I am not staying in bed all day, just because I am at home all day. I have chores and DIY that need doing and I have to cram it all into Saturday, because I spend all day Sunday with you.

You could see that I was struggling, yet you dragged it out and dragged it out. When you suggested cutting our usual six hour airport watch to four and a half hours, I was very grateful. All I wanted to do was to go home, put on more layers, make a hot water bottle and put on my electric blanket. I had been shivering so much during the past three weeks of our airport visits, that I have further damaged my knee, and will not need that knee operation sooner. But no, leaving the airport early did not mean that I was allowed to go home.

You had already tried to get me to set your phone up for you, while we were in the middle of nowhere. News flash, there is no public wifi in the middle of Birmingham Airport Car Park! How was I supposed to set your phone up without wifi? Then you kept growling like a frustrated child at me, because I couldn’t do the impossible task that you had given to me.

Then, when I thought I was free to go home, you made me walk around town with you to all of the phone shops, asking them if they stocked a phone case for your phone. You wouldn’t listen to me, when I told you that they wouldn’t, as the phone is second hand and not a new enough model. But you eventually listened to the four shop workers, after you made me do all of the talking.

Then, you made me go into CeX with you, where you bought the phone from, and you made me do all of the talking again, when I had to tell them you had no idea how to set it up. We were in there for over one hour, talking to the guy who worked there. One whole hour. I could not cope. I don’t do confrontation. If the phone didn’t work, well you only spent £75 on it. Throw it away and just buy a new one! But, no, you wanted to be that difficult customer. So, not only did you make me stand in a noisy shop for over an hour and you would not let me wait outside or even look around, you made me do all of the talking, then, when the customer service assistant didn’t help fast enough for you or simply because it wasn’t done right the first time, you spoke to them in a condescending, patronising and spiteful tone. You caused confrontation. I do not cope with confrontation. I do not cope when two people are having a confrontational moment on the opposite side of the room that has nothing to do with me. This confrontation had nothing to do with me. I won’t even join my mum on confrontational conversations like this one. I won’t even endure this type of conversation for my own purchases. But here we were in the centre of the tills, with you causing so much upset to the person that was kindly serving us and who kept his patience with you, and those around us. I kept having to apologise to the person helping us.

You put me in such a horrible situation. I couldn’t cope. By the time we left, I had become mute, was sucking my thumb and rubbing Snuffles across my face. You could see that I was struggling. You even said, “You’re struggling, aren’t you?” As we left, rather than helping me, you scolded me for not telling you the scale of which I was struggling, and you were determined that I was struggling because the nice person who has just been helping is for over an hour wasn’t being helpful enough. You keep telling me that I have to tell you, in detail, when I am struggling. You do not accept when I keep telling you that I can’t. You keep saying that because we are friends that I have to tell you, or else it means that I don’t trust you. No, it doesn’t. When I have become mute, I have become mute. There isn’t a specific, magical lead up to becoming overwhelmed, especially not when I am with you, where I can just say, “Hi, I am overwhelmed now.” That is not how being overwhelmed works. And you make things worse when you think that you know everything that is best for me. Just because you have read a book about autism does not mean that you know me nor what is best for me.

After you could see that I was struggling to contain myself, as I was on the edge of a meltdown, you still wouldn’t let me go home. You insisted that we had to go for a cup of tea and that a cup of tea would make me feel better. Are you completely mad? Going somewhere with more people, more noise and delaying returning to my safe place is supposed to help a person with sensory autism? Is it?

If you hadn’t have stopped outside to have a cigarette, I would have been trapped with you for even longer. It is only because the religious preacher, on the microphone, was so loud that I completely snapped, couldn’t take it anymore and I burst into tears that you finally let me go home, however, you were still insistent that I stop with you for a cup of tea. I couldn’t say no, as I have already pointed out, I had already become mute. I managed to shake my head and finally, you let us get the bus home together.

After that ordeal, I still had to go to work the next day. The one place where my anxiety is constantly high and I do not feel safe there. You know this. I struggled all week at work, but I was still able to text you multiple times every single day.

On Saturday night, I texted you saying that I still felt really poorly from last Sunday and I was going to stay at home. I did just that. I didn’t respond to anyone’s text messages.

I do not believe your daughters are real. They only text me from your phone. They text me exactly the same way that you text me. They are in their 20s yet they have no social media, they never use their own phones, they have zero presence online. They don’t even have a Spotify account or a YouTube account to listen to/watch things. Does it not seem a little odd to have a 26 year old daughter who is a musical prodigy, has taught in universities all across America and Italy and is now the most sought after university music lecturer in the whole world that she is moving to Australia, in January, and has already bought a five bedroom house over there and she owns a house in Worcester, which she is keeping, when she migrates to Australia. I do not believe that your 24 year old trans-son exists either, because they only existed when I opened up to you about my struggles with gender identity and that if becoming transgender was more heard of when I was at secondary school then I would be male right now. He apparently only turns up to the airport on days when I am sick in bed and they bring a llama with them everywhere they travel, yet no one in Worcester has ever posted a photo online of seeing a young man with a llama, just walking around. No photos of either exist. I do not believe your £7,000,000 bank account is real. I do not believe you bought a three bedroom house, around the corner from work, for £75,000 two years ago. Every single story you tell, you change it slightly when you repeat it to other people. You even forget that you have told me the same story before, however, this time it is different. I do not believe that your one-of-a-kind British Racing Green Range Rover exists, as I have Googled it and there are plenty of Range Rovers that exist in that colour. I don’t believe that you have met Damen Hill, as you were only interested in Formula One after learning that I used to follow it from the age of sixteen. I do not believe that you ever had a canal boat, as when we all planned to take you up on your offer for the ride, you had conveniently sold it.

Nothing you say adds up. It is all just a fabrication in your mind.

Now we get to the part that pushed me over the edge. I didn’t text you, or anyone, on Sunday. I arrive at work on Monday morning and you had texted two colleagues, asking them if I was at work, if I was okay and if I needed an ambulance. I had one day to myself. One day. I was going to reach out and message you, only to find you had texted me saying, “Are we not talking anymore? Going to tell me what I’ve done wrong?” I didn’t text you on Sunday, because I had taken migraine medication and was sleeping on and off all day. You knew this! So, on Monday, I ignored you. I took a piece of my life back. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like a really heavy weight had been lifted and I had a piece of my life back. Yet, you chased multiple people at my workplace about me. You had your phone number passed to others. The one lady that I can trust, you bombard her with text messages between 10pm and midnight, demanding to know everything about me from the past week.

Then, I woke up on last Saturday morning to the postman bringing me a giant box. Guilting me with Temu junk is not going to make me want to talk to someone who has been so controlling. Still, I reached out and thanked you for the kind gifts, explained that you didn’t need to, and told you that I am struggling with my anxiety, autism, job search and how much I still have to do to my maisonette, that I have been in denial about being in autism burnout for some time and I just need a little space. Your reply made me angry.

First of all, two weeks? You say you hadn’t heard from me in two weeks? It was one day. I didn’t text you back for one day. And how dare you make my struggles all about you! You have been worried sick? I am a bad person for not constantly updating you on my mental wellbeing? I need to tell you these things? You even confirmed that you have been texting and phoning everyone you can to find out about me, when it hasn’t even been a full week yet. And ending your message with, “So does this mean I’m not going to see you then?”

ARGH!!! I have never been so angry or so infuriated with anyone. Ever. I literally just told you that I am struggling with my mental health, and I need some time to recover. And you twisted everything I said to make it all about you. You are the reason why my mental health has been suffering. You are the reason why I am struggling to cope with everyday things. You are the reason why I am so incredibly tired and drained all of the time. You are a fully grown adult. You need to learn to handle your own actions and emotions. I am not being held responsible for you waking my colleagues up in the middle of the night and for not being able to cope with me not messaging you for one day, when I told you I would be heavily medicated and sleeping.

You have pushed this communication beyond controlling now. It feels scary, stalker-y and dangerous. I even had a colleague, who is one of your friends, quietly tell me not to talk to you anymore, because he was worried for me. I then opened up to him about how I feel like I am going mad, because everything feels so controlling and so scary, and he said that I confirmed what he was worried about. I have barely explained half of my concerns to people, and I have done it because I feel so trapped and scared by this, that I don’t know what to do. This is controlling. This is stalking and this is getting really scary now.

Please, leave me alone. I do not want any more text messages from you, or from your supposed offspring, from your phone. I do not want any emails. I do not want any phone calls. I do not want any gifts. I do not want you turning up at my front door. I want to be left alone. You have no respect for my mental health, my privacy or my wellbeing. You showed that in your email. I have never, ever been more disgusted by the manipulation used in your email – and I thought my father was a controlling and manipulative man. In the words of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes: you repulse me.

 

- Josie -