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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