That Pool Again

One of the staff is a royal bitch. She is abusive and actively encourages those two ladies who feel I ought not swim in 'their lane'. So if they are so concerned about it, why don't they get into it before I do? They can walk fast! They have ample opportunity and time to get there before me. They don't. Instead they try to intimidate me to move by swimming as close as they can to me.

This morning, the guard I am referring to was stood by the side of the pool chatting with one of the bullies. She saw me. I got in and swam across to the edge where I prefer to swim. Once I got there she screamed at me to get out as she was not yet ready and had to leave the poolside! Once I am in it is not so easy to get out. I get cold very quickly and also I have taken my GTN spray so my head pounds if I don't start to move str8 away. She knows this and she deliberately engineered this episode. I did not leave the pool. I swam with vigour though, I was not a happy bunny.

Worse still, the changing room floor was filthy as it has been all week. I did not complain until today. there was an odd smell, quite whiffy, in there. Today I realised that the trolley bed thing that i put my clothes on was soaked with urine!!!!!!! Okay so now I am upset. i go and get the manger. Nice as he is, he is ineffective.

This whole thing makes me feel bad. Some of the staff, not all, ostracise me for daring to complain about their attitude and lack of service. I go in at 6.30am or 7am (as soon as they open). I always say Good Morning cheerfully, knowing full well they will turn their back on me, look away and ignore me. They swipe my card but don't even look at me. They watch me struggle to get of the pool when I am done and never offer help, they don't even get my stick. Occasionally a member of the public will. I do not expect anyone to help me, I can manage perfectly well on my own as long as people give me time to get myself out.

It makes me wonder if I am at fault. Am I being a Victor Meldrew? A grumpy old man?

I treat people with respect always, regardless of how they treat me. I refuse to allow my behaviour to be dictated by another person's behaviour.

Do I not have the right to be treated with dignity and respect? This has nothing to do with liking or disliking people. I don't know these people and they don't know me. Like has nothing to do with it. Decency and respect have everything to do with it.

Covert bullying such as this is incredibly hard to prove. I know this so well. It is the speciality of all abusive people. DENY DENY AND DENY. So the abusee is the one who appears to be crazy or the abusive one.

Like when I was a kid and I'd get my dad's fist only to be told it never happened! No wonder I have always had so much trouble with knowing what is real and what is not. I was always told my feelings were wrong, my memory was wrong, that I imagined things. That my perceptions were invalid. My feelings were invalid. I saw the elephant and it was huge and dangerous and I was constantly told it wasn't there. And others in authority colluded with this denial too. It was easier for them.

So I was in perpetual fear. Never sure how real I was or how real my surroundings were. Constantly questioning myself and acquiescing to others' reality. My first attempts at speaking out about the abuse were met with a diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia and the cruel drugs they give for that. It was effective. It shut me up.

Other attempts at speaking out resulted in me being demonized.
Literally. Prayer meetings were held to 'deliver' me from the demons. Prayers asking that I be forgiven were the result of telling about the abuse.

Shunning of me was the end result of me trying to survive.

I have no wish to harm anyone. No wish for revenge. I wish nothing but good things for those people. It is evil that caused me to suffer and it has always been illogical to me to wish more evil!
How can any good from that?

I wish for peace. For them and for me. For us all. That is what we all want. It is senseless to think we can find it by wishing bad for others, no matter the provocation.

Oh, I get angry and in that anger I think things I would rather not and would not carry out. It is fleeting. I am human and it would be foolish indeed to pretend otherwise. I am not a saint. I sometimes imagine my car as a weapon!

Yet so much suffering has occurred. It is difficult to leave it be. I don't actively seek the memories and the feelings. they just come. I know that recently the feelings that have come up and out have needed to. They were making me ill and the expression of them has certainly made me ill. I had no choice. they erupted. I could not stop it.

This last 6 years we have had a number of foreign travel trips. I am building good memories. I need to. I want to look back and see sunny times and not this gaping black hole, squirming with anguish and slime and fear and pain and sorrow.

I am tired of it. I have often thought how nice it would be to have my memory wiped. I know in reality that would be awful but still....unless of course one could selectively forget.

I have so much good in my life. John. My number one. My dogs. My knitting. My other gift with which I help others. Financial security. Home security. I am not so disabled I can't fend for myself. I have drugs to alleviate pain. I have a brain that is still able to use the childhood trick of disassociating which does help me deal with my body. I have good friends. I can communicate and I have this wonderful thing called the Internet which really has given me so much.

I know what is done is done. I have felt it. I just wish it would f**k off now and leave me be.

Why does it insist on crawling up to the surface, gripping me with fingers of ice? Why can it not melt away? Evaporate on a breeze?