The Right To Be Abused?

Carers are seen as saintly and a crip who says they are being abused is seen as bad and even evil – and yet often the role of Saint and Sinner is reversed and the Crip is abused for saying they are abused.

The question is what happens when you decide to escape from such abuse, simply cos you can't take any more? How do you do it!

You don't have access to a phone without your calls being monitored and screened ( Abuse ) so it's rather hard to call anyone, even if you know who to call, and let them know what is happening!

On a shopping trip you manage to buy a pay as You Go Mobile, but when it is found that you have it it is taken away!

You are given a computer to keep you out of mischief, but then when ever you use it everything you type is recorded and monitored with covert software – so you fear telling anyone what is going on cos the abuser will know and no one will believe you anyway! You find people supposedly befriending you via the net and then you discover that they can't be trusted – they will use anything you say and you are more alone than ever!

If someone comes to your home to visit you, there is the carer being ever so nice, telling everyone how hard it is for them to cope – but they don't mind – the poor unfortunate crip is so lovely! How do you announce that this is a pack of lies and tell the truth to people who believe everything that the Saintly carer says? If you do speak up you are having problems – attention seeking – It's the meds... and then once the visitor goes you are left at the mercy of the abuser and they take revenge!

How do you get out to a place of safety? You can't even run down the street cos you need someone to push that wheel chair! How do you escape from a Prison that is made up of your own body and the place where you have to live?

Throw in a good dollop of Rural Isolation and not having neighbours within half a mile and it just makes it that little bit harder to escape and so much easier for the Abuse to continue – un-noticed – for years – decades – and openly!

You wait – patiently – enduring – wondering – hoping – praying – and then it's arranged for you to visit a hospital and be treated, and the carer is not able to go with you! It is the first time in years that they have not been about and in control.

You are picked up and taken to the hospital – it's known that you will be away for 4 hours and you tell the driver that you need help and what has been happening.

The driver does not flinch – they don't tell you that you are wrong, making up stories or having a bad day. They listen.

You arrive at the hospital and the driver wheels you in – and then instead of taking you for treatment you are taken to The Hospital Social Worker and they listen.

You start to wonder what is happening and then there are more social workers and they tell you they are there to help. The fear turns to relief – the years of abuse are going to be over and at last you can escape.

Things happen quickly – you are told that your home has been visited and the carers told you won't be back. They go mad and demand that you are returned and they even demand your wheelchair is brought back cos they say they own it! They have already started to figure out how to keep control so that the abuse can go on! The people dealing with you are shocked to the core by what is being revealed.

You are sitting there – doctors talk to you – there are hushed conversations – more questions – someone is told to sit with you and they give you a cup of tea! You are numb – numb – numb – numb with relief – numb with fear – numb with reality – numb with other peoples kindness – numb....

Time passes – numbly – and it passes – and then you are told that you are going to be taken somewhere to stay.

Another car journey with a driver and social worker and you realise that 10 hours have passed – it's dark and late and you don't know where you are going.

You are taken to a Motel and taken to a room – there are things to make a cup of tea and a disabled adapted bathroom for you to use – and then you are alone.

You are numb! Time passes – even more numbly – and you realise that you have not eaten since breakfast. You wonder about how you can get food – and then it dawns on you that you can't! You are left in a supposed place of safety with no food, nothing to drink and you can't even get out of your wheel chair and into bed!

You sit there numb – and dazed – and hungry – and thirsty – and you realise that you can't even get to the toilet cos you don't have your medication and you are shaking as a result.

You wet yourself – numbly – you have no other option – you have not been to the toilet for 12 hours.

You remember being told that you would be visited the next day in the afternoon. It's midnight and you have at least 12 hours to wait – and you are numb – hungry – thirsty – wet – and alone – in a wheel chair..... and you wonder if what has gone before was not that bad!

Maybe you should just go back if this is what not being abused is all about!

That is day one – and there are more horrors and abuse in the months to come!

Some may read that as fiction – and it is. Certain details have been changed to protect both the Innocent and the Guilty – and to make sure that the victim of this case is protected. The elements have been picked over and used to make sure that readers get the message that in 21^stCentury UK if you are Disabled and Abused you will suffer abuse if you try to flee!

There is a great deal more to this story – being abandoned in another 2 hotels and left to fend for yourself whilst statutory agencies figure out they have no Policy, Practice, Procedure to deal with you – Disability is covered, Abuse is Covered, but Abused Disabled People are not covered and they simply don't know what to do with you!

You are a disability problem to be solved and your needs as an abused person are just ignored.

If you are an abused woman – Women's Aide are supposed to help, but you have not been subjected to violence and have no Kids so you are not a Priority and don't need help!

Most refuges in the UK claim they can accommodate disabled women and then it is found out that most simply can't - they have never considered fully the needs of disabled women to escape domestic abuse. We have a ramp is not the same as we are accessible and you can move here and be protected. 15 years of the DDA and they still have not adjusted!

What happens when you have been moved across the country to a womens' Aide Refuge so that you can be protected – and when you arrive you find that you can't even get to a bathroom and pee!

They apologise and stick you in a Hotel and leave you. You are in a place you don't know with no support and no way back – and that is your lot. Sorry just don't go far enough to apologise or help!

You need a carer a few hours per day – but carers are not allowed in to a refuge to help you. The one refuge that can meet your physical needs is closed to you because carers are not allowed in – and so neither are you!

You are dealing with being homeless and told to prove you are disabled. You point at your wheelchair and are then told that is not proof – where is your disability card, the one they demand you have to carry to prove you are disabled. The person sent with you to that Council office to provide help and support also asks where your crip card is. You just Cry with Frustration and are told to come back when you have the Proof that you are a crip! What proof?

You have suffered years of abuse, unnoticed, unknown and you were told that you were to be helped – that the abuse was to stop. It has not. It's just the identity of the abusers and methods that have changed and you are expected to just sit and suffer – and put up with what is done to you!

You are told that you have to move into an Institution – cos that is where disabled people go - That is what is done to crips who have been abused. That is where we put you says the Authorities.

You are taken to a care home with supposedly suitable facilities to see if it is a place you may wish to stay. You find that it is filled with Psycho-Geriatrics who are all suffering dementia. One tells you that you are her long lost relative who she hates. You are left sitting and wondering is this as good as It gets – and along comes the manager to tell you that the papers are done and the people who brought you have gone. You went to see if it was suitable and it was no visit – it was for you to be dumped. You start to cry and the old lady who hates you tells you that you deserve to cry after what you have been doing... and you cry, and cry, and cry cos you are so numb and it is the only piece of humanity left to you!

Being left without food and water is Human Rights abuse – and even Direct Disability Discrimination! NO meds is the same – made to sit and wet yourself – abuse – and if that was happening in Guantanamo Bay there would be outcry. Let it happen in a Hotel room near you to a Crip and no-one passes comment or sees anything wrong. You are just a crip after all!

Being abandoned by a system that allows you to be either disabled or abused, but not both is Institutional abuse – and THEY just don't get it!

AS one victim puts it

“I have the right to be Disabled or Abused – but I have no right to be an Abused Disabled Person!”

15 years of Laws to prevent Disability Discrimination and they are still being broken with impunity and by the Government of The United Kingdom.

It seems that the Social Model of Disability explains the mechanism of Discrimination but does not require change – it is just assumed that people will do it. It seems that only using the Litigation Model Of Disability can achieve that – or being killed by neglect and making it onto the front page of the news.

Time To Get Equal?

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