Two years of abuse in so called "supported living"

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When I was 18 I had to leave home due to an unbearable situation between me and my stepfarther. I was placed into a supported living place, who unbeknown to anyone involved in my "transition" to independant life, had practicaly no awareness of Aspergers or ASD's. I was supposed to be receiving support to help me eventually live an independant life, manage my money and gain important living skills which I serverely lacked. During the first few months my finances were SERVERLY neglected, and a £7000 debt to the care company was allowed to build up in uncollected rent and bill payments, which I should have been paying them since day 1, but they failed to collect the money from my account. Then there was this one worker, if I have ever met the devil I would have to say it was her. She made my stepfarther seem like a microscopic life form, which he was but hey..lol. I endured 2 years of abuse from this woman, who's qualifications were "community support worker". There were days where she would wait to get me alone before subjecting me to hours of verbal and mental abuse, which included telling me I "stunk", looked "deshevled" etc. She did not stop there, one day she insisted that she took me to buy deoderant and personal hygene stuff, because I would not allow her to rumage through my private things to prove I had some. Then there was the screaming, boy could this woman scream if I was to put one foot out of line, have a mark on my jumper, a thread loose, anything.
She would prevent other staff from giving me support, as the place I lived at was an ordanary house with 3 flats in the garden, I was in one of those, the people in the flats were not allowed support outside their allocated hours, the people in the house had 24 hour support, so we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves. I was put in a flat as a group situation was seen as too difficult for me, not that I was any more able that those in the group house. She would prevent other staff from talking to me, she accused me of having a "schoolgirl crush" on one of the male staff, who happened to be one of the only ones who had any idea about AS, so she could try to prevent him working with me, she had me in a room for about 2 hours screaming at me over "using the word conspiracy against her name" I never found out what that meant.
The woman who lived in the flat next to me had a massive row with this woman and landed up with huge scratches across her neck, nobody was prepaired to say if they saw anything, all the staff protected her and the woman who she scratched was too afraid of her to do anything.
There were countless situations where she would lecture me for hours, scream at me, threaten me, taunt me etc.
Like one day I went out and brought myself the Nirvana box set, which I had to carefully think about as I knew what the consequences would be when she found out I had spent £40 of MY money on it, but I thought oh hell and got it. Later that week she insisted on seeing a bank statement from my account, and when she found out, she went LIVID, she almost screamed herself into tears, yelling stuff about how it had to stop, me spending my own cash had to stop....

Anyway, I left that place about 2 years ago now and moved in with my boyfriend, who I met whilst living there, and oh boy did this set her off LIKE A WILD BANSHEE. I was subject to hours of VERY PERSONAL interogation about what me and this guy "did" together, wether or not I knew how not to get pregnant etc, your talking about someone who actully listened in sex ed..lol. When I went to stay at his house over Christmas, she phoned me up and I told her I was not going back to the place. I was told the police and social services would be called and there could be serious consequences for my boyfriend, who I expect she was planning on pinning some fabricated accusation on.
Staff had also threatened to send the police after me when I went to watch some bands play with some people I knew from a college course at a bar in town.
She threatened allsorts if we did not allow her to come to my boyfriend's house and "see where I was living" I knew the only way to beat her was to test it, my boyfriend said if she turned up he would call the police on her and have her removed, as I am an adult, making an adult choice. No social services or police ever turned up.

The debts were so bad I could not afford the £40 a month they were demanding after I moved out, my mother, who I suppose felt guilty for putting me there, paid off the remaining debts after we had battled for months trying to find out exactly what they consisted of and why they were allowed to build up like they did.

You'd have thought I'd have got over this by now, but I haven't, I have nightmares about her, not so much ones about what happened, but her doing new stuff to me, I have "recurring thoughts" about her which I can't get out of my head, I relive the experiance everytime someone argues with me or comments on my appearance etc, I don't see them, I see her, and end up saying all the stuff to them I would say to her if we ever met again. It has serioulsy impacted on me as a person.

The worst bit is I'll never be able to ask her why, why she did any of it, I'll never get any closure on it, so I suppose I'll spend my whole life re living it.

I'm not saying supported living is a bad thing, for some people it's a really good thing, but all I'm saying is if you are looking into going into anything like it, be very careful, ask loads of questions as to how they will be supporting you, how they will manage your money and how much their staff are trained in ASD's.

Over and out.

I'm sorry you went through this kind of abuse. It sounds like you have some classic PTSD symptoms - I have PTSD too. I don't have any answers for you except that some people are so damaged that they can't look at themselves objectively and understand what they are doing to others. She sounds like a pathological control freak with bipolar disorder who thought she was doing "the right thing", but just went overboard. Have you sought counseling? Talking about it with a professional, especially someone who understands AS might help you get through this.

I've tried, I got turned away because I'm "too bright" so nobody will pay for me to have any help, the GP only wanted to offer me Prozac, which I have had and extreme reaction to in the past, and as I also have servere PMS which was started by taking the pill whilst I was living there and since stopped taking as I was havign such extreme side effects, beleive it or not, another contraceptive pill. If I took medication I would land up costing the health authority thousands to keep me on the mental ward, a lot more than the small ammount of support and the re assesment I have asked for.

And yes, this woman is exactly as you have described her.

I had a very similiar, "horrible" experience living in a community residence. Fortunately, I had the intelligence, finances and the
living skills of a neurotypical person to get OUT of that living nightmare. I never should have been placed there at all ...but the mental health care system is "FUBAR." (FU** Up Beyond All Recognition). Still, I suffer post traumatic stress from it all and only
time will alleviate the "trauma" my mind had to endure. All you can really do is move on...and when a stressful thought or reminder of that experience comes to mind, find something to divert your attention and occupy your mind. Like simply going for a
walk.

In addition, because I live in New York State, I reported my abuses to the Director of the Office of Mental Health, in the state capital where the governor resides, and an investigation was done. New York State is EXCELLENT when it comes to looking out for the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens, no matter what their age, race or disability.

I'm really sorry to hear you've had these experiences. It shocks and disgusts me that so many vulnerable people are abused in these situations.

Have you reported this to the authorities, or do you think this would just cause nothing but stress?

I can save myself from the thoughts sometimes, but the worst one is if someone argues with me, I don't really care about what they are saying, but I kind of uncontrolably come out with EVERYTHING I would like to say to her, completly missing the point of the conversation with the other person. I also have pretty much no control over waking up in the night thinking she's watching me, and the last "dream" I had about her was one where she had come looking for me in my dreams...

Here in the UK these things are very hard to report, you need solid visual evidence in the form of say physical injury, video, photo etc, to even think about bringing a case against these people. We also like cover ups here, vaunrable and elderly people are abused all across the country in care homes etc, but it only seems to make the news when there is a death.

I'm sorry to hear about the bad time you suffered at her hands. There are some horrible people out there. Hopefully you're OK now though. Do try to get some help for the post-traumatic stress you're having.

The only way I'll get help is if my IQ was below their "standards", or I had a learning disability.

Who from? Is there anywhere else you can look for help?

GP, social services, everyone. The people who have to refer you, won't as they don't feel I'm worth the cash.

Do you get on well with your GP?

Not really, he seemed taken aback that I refused medication, even after a graphic description of what the pill and Prozac did to me, then became reluctant to do anything and told me there was no more he could do for me.

That's probably why you aren't getting anywhere, because you don't get on with your GP. If you had a good one things would move. My GP is great, known him since the year dot. The man's no fool but he's always seen me right.

I am Uk too. I had bad experiences in a private psych hospital, but I had no idea this sort of thing could happen, I mean seriously, she sounds as if she is the one who needed care, not you... sounds borderline personality to me, with the whole need to control every aspect of your life, and they do often find their way into such lines of work.

Fortunately, my Gp has thus far been okay and knows about AS etc, but how that will be when I get official diagnosis and deal with the psychs here, I don't know...the difficulties you have had getting assistance makes me somewhat nervous

All my GP seems bothered about is what pills he can offer me to get me out his office, the surgery only allows 3 minute sessions I think, as I've never been in his room any longer.