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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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