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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 coin