I’m not dead yet. I still have no gas or electricity. Mum found out from a neighbour that the gas pre-payment meter is behind the washing machine and I need to hire someone to unplumb and replumb the washing machine every single time the gas needs topping up and it can’t be topped up with more than £90. The electricity pre-payment meter is behind a communal door that the leaseholder (the local council) do not, under any circumstance, ever allow any resident to have access to the electric meters – apparently everyone has lock-picking kits or they have to book Friday’s of work and hope that they can catch the communal staircase cleaner and ask the cleaner for permission to see their own electricity meter, but some of the cleaners don't allow you to see it because the council told them they aren't allowed to allow access to them. I reconnected the water myself and the shower started to pour with water, so I disconnected it. A plumber came out yesterday and said the entire shower needs replacing, the toilet pipe needs repairing, the radiators pipes leak and the water mains is leaking. He turned the water back on and two pipes in the attic burst and water has leaked through the ceiling. I already needed the entire ceiling in the living room re-taped/pinned, now I need the bedroom ceiling replaced too. The plumber said that the boiler is so dangerous that under no circumstance can I turn it on, which is why the estate agent wouldn’t let me get it serviced. All of the problems that I know need fixing will cost £15,500 (that's on top of the £3,000 I have already spent) and I don’t have that money. The gas pipes might need all replacing too – we won’t know for certain until I can get gas and electricity - that's more money. I need a new front door, I need new floor, I need curtains or blinds or something on the windows, I won’t be able to afford to paint the walls. Oh and I don’t have any keys to open the windows either. Self harming is the only way I am getting through, because I don’t want my maisonette anymore and I don’t want to exist. I can’t cope and I wish I had never tired in the first place. This is the biggest mistake of my entire life.

Buying My Own Place Was A Mistake

 

Buying my own place to live was a mistake. I have never felt more stressed and upset in my entire life. People say that buying a property is stressful. Yes, purchasing my maisonette did not go to plan. I should have received the keys on 12^th October, but I ended out waiting until 31^st January. Waiting to get the keys and have the purchase finalized was frustrating, and the estate agent made everything difficult and stressful for me – she will not be getting a thank you card. In fact, it is because of her that I am now facing a bit of a mess.

My maisonette has no gas or electricity. There is gas and electricity connected to the property, but it is apparently on a pre-payment meter, which is the property of British Gas. Unless the prepayment meter is behind the fridge-freezer, behind the washing machine, in the loft or under the floorboards, there is not one. At first, I was told, over the phone, at the British Gas UK call centre, that there was nothing they could do to help me, if there were not any meters on the property and they hung up. So, I contacted the British Gas online chat. They told me that until the previous owner gives them consent to close her account, then there is nothing they can do. The property was a repossession and, according to the neighbours, the previous owner has gone to live with family, therefore will not be updating British Gas on her address. If she owed them money, she is not going to willingly contact them, is she? Then, I tried the British Gas Help direct messenger, on X. They were really helpful, and set me up with an account number, for both the gas and electricity, but they said that was all they were able to do. I then received an email telling me that there is a meter on the property and, “Sorry you don’t know how to find it.” And I was told that there was nothing anyone could do to help me. Then, I phoned the British Gas pre-payment meter number, which you require an account number to get through to someone. This call centre is based in India. I explained (ever tearfully) to the customer service person what the problem was. They were whispering about me in the background, which made me feel even worse. Then they told me the pre-payment meter is located in the kitchen. The boiler is in the kitchen, I can find that. A Honeywell hot water thermostat is in the kitchen too. Unless the pre-payment metre is behind the fridge-freezer or washing machine, that the previous owner left behind, then it is not there. Also, if the pre-payment meter is behind the fridge=freezer or the washing machine, does that mean that once a week or more often than that, I have to hire someone to move the fridge-freezer or un-plumb and re-plumb the washing machine? I just keep being told that the pre-payment meter is there and, “Sorry you don’t know how to find it.” They keep telling me to go to the off-licence around the corner, buy a pre-payment stick for the gas and electric and ask the person on the till to help me. Are they for real? That is like going into a supermarket, buying a packet of rice and asking the cashier how long it will take to cook. How on earth would they know? Do you want to know what else? Not one person at British Gas has said, “Congratulations on your new home.” Not one! I am just a stupid woman to them, because I cannot find the missing or very well hidden electricity and gas pre-payment meters.

I am not too concerned about the gas, but without electricity, I have been unable to clean the maisonette, which means that I have not been able to decorate or do anything. I just want to wash the walls and floor, but I cannot do that without hot water, and I cannot paint the walls without them being clean. I cannot even use the electricity until I have the fuse box fixed, but my electrician cannot fix the fuse box, until I have access to electricity, because he needs to do an entire building inspection, for me, to ensure the plug sockets are safe. He cannot do this without having any electricity to test.

There are loose hanging wires in a lot of places, pipes all over the walls. There are large holes in the plaster in various places. There are cracks in the walls. All of these things were unable to be detected, when I looked around, back in August, because there was furniture everywhere. The estate agent would not let me re-view the property after the furniture was removed, nor would she let me get the gas or electricity checked, which is why I am in the mess that I am. The estate agent just kept telling me that, “You don’t do that with a repossession,” and if I held the sale up, I would have to pay the company selling the property an extra 4% on top of the property price.

The kitchen is completely unusable. The fridge-freezer, that the previous owner left behind, is full of a brown gooey gunk that smells like a dead body. The washing machine is smashed up. The oven is caked in the thickest amount of oil I have ever seen (and I worked in a cheap restaurant for eighteen months). Inside the cupboards is either smashed up or full or oil or a the poopy-coloured gunk that smells of dead people. The main reason why I wanted to move out of where I live now, is because I have no access to a kitchen. The cost to have a the kitchen pulled out and a completely new, very cheap one, refitted is the entire amount of money that I have left.

I have just spent two and a half hours online to the British Gas online chat. They passed me through to three separate people, two of them managers, before they disconnected the chat. They just keep saying that there is a meter and I need to locate it. They will not send an engineer to the property to find it. They will not send me a new pre-payment card, which means I have to pay the debt of the previous owner. They will not let me cancel. The pre-payment metre phone line and chat is an Indian call centre who do not have the authority to do anything. There is no UK pre-payment metre person to talk to. I cannot find the pre-payment meter. My mum has been to the property, both with and without me and she cannot find the pre-payment meter. I paid an internal designer to come out to the property and help me find the meter and we searched a tiny one bedroom, one reception room, one bathroom, one kitchen property for one hour and a half. We could not find it. I have told British Gas this.  Have told them that wherever the pre-payment meter is, I need it moving, because I obvious cannot access it, but they keep saying that there is nothing they can do to help. I asked are my only options to either not have gas and electricity forever or sell the maisonette and they keep repeating, “Sorry you cannot find the meter,” and, “We cannot provide an engineer visit service.”

So, I have spent my entire life’s savings, purchasing a maisonette that I can never live in and I do not have any money to sell it. I am paying the mortgage on it and council tax, but I am paying rent where I am currently living too. I only got paid on the last day of January and I have zero in my bank account until I get paid on the last day of February. I do not even have money for bus fare or food, if I had the mental capacity to get public transport or step inside of a shop.

Buying my own place was the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life.

- Josie -

I Wouldn't Be Here, If It Wasn't For You

I feel like a few of my last rambling thoughts blog posts have been very negative towards the person who was my sunflower (if you want to know what I mean by that, you can read this post: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2024/10/you-were-my-sunflower.html) but it was not always bad. In fact, this morning, at work, things popped into my head that really made me smile, along with the line, “I wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for you,’ from a ‘Simple Plan’ song. I think I want to take the time to write some positive things to this person.

Although I have mentioned mental abuse in many of my recent posts, it was not always there. It was very present, perhaps even constant, towards the end. It is funny. The times where I wanted you, but did not need you everything was fine, more than fine, but as soon as I needed you, everything fell apart.

I received the keys to my maisonette on Friday. I will not go into all of the upset of no gas, electricity and that it might be years before I can ever move in – that is a story for another time. Today is about happy thoughts and memories. What I do want to say is, I realised today that I would not be owning my own maisonette, if I had not met you. I was only 24 years old when I met you, and you were 30. You were so sensible and had your head screwed on with finances and future planning. You knew what you wanted and were working hard to get it. I really admired that about you. I had never had someone in my life who was career driven and goal orientated. I know you felt that you had to act this way to please your father or to prove yourself to him, to make them proud of you, but that part of you also helped me to see an understand things in a different way. You made me want to try, want to better myself from my family and the life that was expected of me, to work in a supermarket forever and live at home, renting, forever.

You taught me that having confidence is not a bad thing, despite me being brought up to believe that it was. You built confidence within me. You held my hand and guided me, baby step by baby step, as you would say.

Okay, I have had to take a break from writing, because I got very emotional and could no longer see the keys to type, and although I roughly know where they are, I did not want to chance it. I make enough jumbled spelling mistakes as it is.

I had been mentally abused my entire life, at home, and I had no clue. I just assumed that it was normal. If I ever questioned things at home, my parents would reply, “That’s what you have to do when you’re poor.” You taught me what was not right about things. A lot of things. You taught me that things Steve (yes, I will use my sperm donor’s real name – he is and was never a father) said were illegal are not at all. You introduced me to independence and freedom. It was because of you that I could walk down the street on my own, without the walk needing to be to work and straight back home.

You made me feel safe and calm for the first time in my entire life. You were my safe haven. You showed me love and helped me to navigate my thoughts and feelings for so many new experiences. Despite me not knowing or understanding, at the time, why my brain is different to the average person, you supported me and tried to understand things. You even told me that if we ever learnt that there was a pill of some kind that I could take to become normal that you would never force me to take it. Sadly, there is no medication that I could take for my brain, now that I know it is autism, but I have spent a very long time wishing that there was a pill to make me normal.

You looked after me when I was scared, upset and overwhelmed. I remember laying in your bed, squeezing you as tight as possible, feeling overwhelmed with every sense and all I could do was cry, because I could not make sense over any of it. Soothing actions that you would do, to help calm me down, have stuck with me, all of these years later. Sometimes it is the gentle rocking. Other times it is the gentle rubbing of your hand on my back. In dark moments, occasionally my brain has reimagined you comforting me and it has helped to calm me down.

You were there for me when my parents spit up, when I became the head of the household. You were there for me when my previous neighbour tried to blame for her baby crying, when she left it in a room on its own from the day it was born and had no clue how to look after it, other than to make monster noises to scare it. You picked me up in your car and let me spend the night with you, because it was too scary to go home.

You supported and encouraged all of my hobbies, interests and creative thoughts, even when they were not something that you agreed with. You researched gifts for me, for birthdays and Christmas, making sure that they were things that I liked and not just a generic gift from a supermarket shelf.

While these happy memories flooded my thoughts, I felt such a warmth and happiness in my chest. This is a very rare feeling for me. Yes, my autism thinks a million emotions all at once and they are constantly fighting for the front place in my mind, but it is very rare that my heart feels what my head is telling me I do, when it comes to positive emotions. I have been told by an occupational therapist that my body could forget how to feel positive emotions altogether. He said it was a good practice to try to recreate those positive feelings and hold onto them for as long as I can, in the moment. I used to practice this a lot, when we were first separated, but I have not felt these feelings in a very, very long time. It was a complete shock to my body that not only could I still feel positive things, but they were so strong. I got very overwhelmed, with happy thoughts, and had to cry for a while. It was fine, because everyone at work knows that I have been crying over the complications I am having now that I own a maisonette with no gas or electricity, so people probably just thought I had a blotchy face from that.

The more time I spent with you, the harder being at home became. This is when I needed you most, but then you became the mentally abusive person that I was trying to run away from. The person that has appeared in several of my rants, of late.

I have a wonderful network of friends, who have done so much for me, since too. Like helped me to know that I could look for a better job than an office junior, and how I should be treated at work, and at home, and how to know when things are not right. But I would not have been able to navigate any of those things, if it had not been for you. I know we live in separate worlds now. You are happily married and properly have/planning a family of your own. Our lives have led to very different paths. I will never forget any of the positives. I will never forget that I wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for you.

- Josie -