Sudden and unexplained loss of church support that had been consistent for the past two years. How to cope?

I'm really glad that some of our advice has helped. I know it's hard, but please try not to doubt your moral worth - you sound like a really good person.

Don't apologise for being less coherent - I haven't noticed it here, and even if you aren't feeling coherent at the moment, that's okay I have noticed I'm finding conversations more tricky at the moment, especially when it comes to speaking on the phone. I think it's harder to communicate sometimes if you're feeling anxious.

I've responded to this quite late, but I really hope your exam went well.

Thanks... I've been doubting my sanity through this whole ordeal and after learning about the 'emotionally manipulative' indictment I've been doubting my moral worth too; I didn't know how much I needed to hear that you disagree. I've never heard of Purple Ella - thanks for telling me! I've only heard of Aspie World. I'm very new to this community so thanks for your resources. Incidentally the NAS helpline/webform through which I sought advice on how to cope a month ago hasn't gotten back to me. I just watched a TedTalk by Dylan Dailor on autism and addiction (not just to alcohol/drugs but generally to wanting to be liked by NTs, and to anything that will take away the anxiety of being constantly judged and misunderstood by NTs); it really spoke to me. I wish the church would watch it, especially if they're honest about being inclusive. I really hope the EASS thing goes well. The Bishop's chaplain wrote back saying he'll pass on the complaint. Good news but doesn't help my anxiety and isolation meanwhile. Sorry I've become less coherent over the past weeks. Exam tomorrow but haven't been able to revise much because of anxiety and depression over this. Thoughts all over the place. I'm just writing because talking to you all seems to help prevent shut down events. Thanks again for being here

I think they need to think about their own behaviour before they start lecturing you on yours! What an awful way to treat someone. You certainly don't sound like someone who's emotionally manipulative.

I'm glad the EASS has your back  Hope you're able to sleep better soon. If it helps with the sense of community, Purple Ella's doing a weekly YouTube livestream to support people through Covid-19 - that might be helpful? It's 4pm every Wednesday. I don't know if I've already mentioned that (my short-term memory is terrible, so I may be repeating myself) 

Well just an update that my sister told me 2 days ago that my priest had called her on the day he cut off all contact with me saying that he felt I was 'being emotionally manipulative', while implying to her that he'd keep supporting me. She didn't know he cut off all contact until she found indirectly from my social media (we're not close). Aside from that accusation being hurtful and untrue, I now understand why the archdeacon was so defensive when I tried to talk to her, and said, 'God's not doing this to you, you're doing this to yourself' and 'There are just some behaviours that make participation in church impossible' (before denying she ever said those things 15 min after saying them). It's likely that my priest had told her I'm 'emotionally manipulative' and would find any chance to manipulate her if I could. It also makes sense why the neighbouring church also suddenly removed me from their group when this incident happened, before I even said a word there. When you paint someone as a manipulative predator, whether it is substantiated or not, people would rather believe it and be on their guard to be on the safe side. For 2 months the archdeacon's words and the neighbouring church's ostracisation have utterly bewildered me but it makes sense now. It might also explain why many people in the church refused to stand up to this.

My friend told me that this is called gaslighting, so I looked it up on wiki: "Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes such as low self-esteem." It fits the church's response to me so far perfectly to an uncanny degree. It's self-evident which side is being manipulative here. (Still very hurtful though. That accusation that I'm 'emotionally manipulative' just will not leave my mind, even in my sleep. I took 4 promethazines 2 nights ago because I couldn't sleep because of this, and I still woke up twice in the middle of the night. Last night was a bit better because a friend called me. But tonight will be hard again. Also I just sent the letter so they have 28 days to reply. I know this means things are moving forward but it's just more agony of waiting for me. The EASS did say that I should report back to them whatever reply or non-reply the church gives in 28 days though, so at least I can take comfort in that they have my back.)

Good luck! It's all sounding like its heading in a good direction

I'm really glad to hear you're getting some support with this   It's good that the EASS are taking this seriously.

Thanks! I've written to the EASS and they've replied that the church in my situation can rightly be considered a service provider and my case one of unlawful direct discrimination based on mental illness and possibly unlawful indirect discrimination based on autism. Apparently even just denial of entry to the church Whatsapp group in this particular situation can be considered discrimination. As long as I'm confident that these actions were taken purely on account of my mental illness and/or situations arising from my mental illness and that reasonable adjustments weren't made for my autism (inability to cope with sudden change, clearer instructions, etc), and that all the things denied me continue to be offered to others, and that were my mental illness or autism not known, I would not be denied these things, I should send a formal letter of complaint to the Diocese drafted by the EASS and await their reply and return that reply or lack thereof to the EASS. EASS misunderstood some details of my predicament though so I clarified them and asked for confirmation of their advice just to be safe. They underestimated the number of 'services' I've been denied so I think if anything their advice would be firmer but I don't want to get anything wrong so asked again anyway. They even suggested that because of Covid they can understand that it's much harder for an autistic person to be cut off from a familiar community. The language on their drafted letter to be sent to the Diocese is a bit harsh and I've been wanting to tone it down a bit but my law student friend (who is not a lawyer, legal aid, etc) said that's a bad idea as EASS made the language forceful for a reason. So I think I'll just preface it with the fact that I've been advised by EASS to send it. I'll fill in the blanks in the letter after my exam in a few weeks then send it. I'll update you all! Thanks so much; it's always so good to talk as my whole former church family from whom I got so much support and sustenance is ignoring me. You all are God-sends.

That sounds promising and you sound more possitive. Good luck and keep is updated

This sounds really encouraging - I hope you're able to get some good advice through the EHRC.

Hi all, I just want to firstly say thanks for the moving solidarity you've all shown me. I'm just updating this post because this holy grail I found could be helpful to others who have experienced similar discrimination with the church or other community organisations: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/core-guidance-voluntary-and-community-sector-organisations .

Basically, what happened is possibly illegal. I didn't know the EHRC existed; I only heard about them today after bumping into a tweet on 'Inclusive Justice'. Here are the relevant excerpts of the laws around this:

"Unlawful discrimination can take a number of different forms:

• An organisation must not treat you worse than someone else because of a protected characteristic (this is called direct discrimination)...

For example:

An organisation must not stop offering home visits to disabled people who they find out have a mental health condition if they go on offering home visits to other clients. That is likely to be unlawful disability discrimination.

• Must not give you a service of a worse quality or in a worse way than they would usually provide the service. 

For example:

An organisation must not take twice as long to make a decision about whether to help someone if this delay is because of a protected characteristic.

• Must not give you worse terms of service than they would normally offer. 

For example:

An organisation must not make it harder for you to access their services.

• Must not put you at any other disadvantage.

An organisation can still tell you what standards of behaviour they want from you as a service user or client - for example, behaving with respect towards their staff and to other service users or clients.

Sometimes, how someone behaves may be linked to a protected characteristic.

If an organisation sets standards of behaviour for their service users or clients which have a worse impact on people who share a particular protected characteristic than on people who do not have that characteristic, they need to make sure that they can objectively justify what they have done. Otherwise, it will be indirect discrimination."

There's a hotline and contact details on the page as well if you feel you've been discriminated in this way. Hope this helps anyone else who has run into similar problems. I'm going to give this route a try and see what they say. I've had a deep search into whether the C of E itself has any internal checks and balances (a means of appeal, a fair hearing) against the sanctions forced on me and all I found was a complaint procedure against the Safeguarding adviser responsible. I should think an appeal to the EHRC hotline will probably be more fruitful.

This brought me to tears. I feel deeply for you and thank you for showing me that my experience isn't isolated. That's really an uncanny resemblance to my experience. You really put a finger on what church meant and still means to me and how unbearable this is. At the moment I can't imagine ever being welcome into any church again - my fear of sudden rejection and my loss of faith will see to that. I admire you for moving on from such devastation that only autistic people seem to know. I wonder why any loving god would 'predestine' a minority of people to be autistic such that the depths of our pain caused by NTs can't be understood by NTs at all. If they understand, it seems like they never care to make things better, since we can't do anything. I only hope that I can move on from this like you. I doubt it'll be possible but it gives me hope just knowing you have been through almost the exact same thing. I still can't believe modern society would allow such a situation to happen more than once, but there we go.

I know you started this post some time ago but I have only just read it and all your updates. Normally I wouldn’t reply to something that has been on so long but reading this is like I wrote it apart from it wasn’t the church in my case.

I had somebody who had been a constant in my life for about 10 years and they abruptly refused to speak to me, see me or offer any support again without any reason. We didn’t see a lot of one another for 9 out of the 10 years She offered me support but I was coping with day to day things or so I thought, then in the 10th year I became un well and did need support. This was caused by me thinking I was coping and all the masking I had been doing, eventually things came crashing down. 

she was really good at not pushing me ( I’m not a big talker) she recommended I do certain things and strongly advised against others. She never went into too much detail but would say things like, that won’t work for you, she / he won’t get you etc. I 100% trusted her and it now seems that was my downfall. I was put into situations that meant I would be doing things she told me not to do and I was finding it hard to explain to people why I couldn’t / didn’t want to talk to them or do things they asked , obviously I couldn’t repeat what she had said and I am such a loyal person I would never intentionally drop somebody in it.

Things were really tough and I was struggling with life but I was starting to feel like I had got through things so was convinced with her continued support I would be getting better. I was due to meet up with her about a week after I started to feel like I had made some progress and was actually looking forward to showing how far I had come and explain I’d done as she said . The day before the meet I received a call from somebody advising it wasn’t my fault but I could no longer meet her and that she never wanted to see me again. Like yourself no explanation, whilst I would have been upset giving an explanation would have helped me understand. 

like you I didn’t want to accept this and pushed and pushed to get answers. Eventually it was agreed she would see me but with the person who called me present, I thought great finally we could have an answer and in my head thought I could change her mind. That meeting was awful she was horrible to me accused me of not following things she had asked but all the things she listed was what she told me not to do, I felt she was saying what she was saying because the other person was there. Looking back now I should have jumped in and said everything she had said to me but I was still been loyal hoping that this could be resolved. It was then agreed if i did x y and z things could go back to normal and I even made them right it and sign it because I felt trapped.

i did everything I was asked and they went back on their word this made me really ill, in fact worse than I was in the first place. It wasn’t about seeing this person it was getting back to normality and I couldn’t understand these lies. In the end I got a family member involved and a meeting was made with the manager of this person to discuss. When I arrived there was 7 people in this room and me and my family member, this was intimidating and non of it made sense.

I explained how I wanted normality and again I was still defending this person by not repeating the things she had told me to do. My family member explained how distressed I was and that she was shocked that I was involved in something with lots of people as i keep myself to myself and don’t cause trouble. I was then told by everybody in the room including the people I didn’t know how non of this was my fault and how I’d done nothing wrong. When we left the decision hadn’t gone in my favour and I was even more confused, I asked my family member who isn’t autistic what she thought as I assumed I was missing something. She said she had no idea other than she felt the other person had maybe done something wrong and they couldn’t tell me what, she said she couldn’t understand why I wanted to see this person as she felt this was the cause of how unwell I had become, another person that just didn’t understand. This continues to be difficult for me and writing this has left me in tears as I will never understand what went wrong.

The reason I am putting this on here is that the situation is similar even though a different setting and lots of people don’t understand why we can be upset by what NT’s think is normal. You been part of the church is Your thing, you feel happy being involved it’s what you have done day in day out and for this to abruptly stop it can feel like the end of the world. What makes it harder for you is that nobody has told you why / what you have done so you can’t process things. What is true though is you won’t have done anything and this is why they are sort of passing the book, NT’s would have just gone your loss see ya and moved on. I really don’t get how they can throw things away so easy but I guess that is what makes us different.

what I would like you to take from this is that things will improve you will find a new church and eventually you will put this down to a bad experience, you won’t forget but it won’t be as raw. I know it’s harder with the COVID situation I’m sure we are all feeling the lack of support / routine and just want normality back. 

I really hope things work out for you 

No please don't worry. It's not you, it's something beyond our control. I only wish it were caused by you, then it would be easily resolved and forgiven, then there would be resurrection to this crucifixion. You've been helping me so much by just being there. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by this problem I check to see if I have any notifications from this thread. It's just that this disaster has far outpaced my executive function. When I was still in denial, it was manageable - I just pretended it hadn't happened, that it was just a misunderstanding that will be resolved soon enough. While it is in fact a ball of misunderstandings, I'm starting to see that clearly no-one is bothered to resolve it. Why should they? I'm a weak freak that can do nothing to them, with no advocate or influence. I'm resigned now to the fact that it won't be long before I succumb to a permanent meltdown.

Oh I'm sorry, I hope I didnt cause that worry. I was simply trying to get you thinking about other things you like. I have trouble letting things go and im working on it. Usually it's why people do or say the things that they do. 

If I can help at all let me know. If not I shall leave you in peace

I don't know... it was a long time ago when I chose it. Right now there's just nothing of interest to me in my work because of church and the current instabilities. I really can't handle it anymore. It's too much. It's too heavy.

If I ask you anything and you feel uncomfortable, I understand please dont feel obliged to answer. I'm trying to avoid a shut down and talking to you is helping me a bit. I'm  recovered from the virus so have alot to catch up on. My husbands home has 2 radios on in different rooms, he opens all the windows then goes outside. Someones constantly drilling, someone has a lawnmower. People are meeting and chatting in the street and going into each others gardens. I shut blinds husband opens them. Helping my children catch up on school work. A bored dog stealing food from the side. Local druggies making a nuisance of themselves everyday as usual outside our house.o just want quiet but not well enough to go out to walk lol. 

Moan over I'm explaining why I'm almost at shut down lol.

How did you choose war studies and philosophy? Is it a special interest of yours?

No don't worry I wasn't referring to you; just people I've come across lately have said I have many options but refuse to take them, which isn't true. I'm not crying and wanting to die every day by choice. I haven't said what I'm doing at uni before so don't worry about that too. I was going to keep that to myself because it might identify me but I realise everything I've written is already enough to identify me anyway. I read war studies and philosophy at a university in London. I like chess somewhat - I used to play it at church so it's just a trigger for me now. I also like reading but it's hard as I used to share what I read with my priest so even reading can be a trigger, because I tend to read works by the same few writers. I'd come across something and think, my priest or a church friend should hear this - then I get reminded again about my exclusion. The pain is so great that it shadows everything I do, even my sleep when I can sleep at all. I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out like this.

Dont worry I wasent going to say your not helping yourself. What is it your doing at uni? Sorry if you answered before I'm forgetful lately. What other hobbies do you have or films do you like?

It's getting worse sadly. :( It's indescribable now. Watched some of St George's livesteams, got triggered but I'm still attracted to them because after all, it was my home and still is - just that now I'm not allowed home. Not even allowed in the Whatsapp group which is now open to strangers on the website. I'm worse than a stranger to them; I'm like a criminal on a blacklist to them. I honestly can't hold everything together at this point anymore. I still have uni work and while before this disaster happened I was pretty on track, there's no way I'm going to get a satisfactory grade now. I honestly can't hold it together anymore. Everything is falling apart despite my best efforts. It seems to me now that the only 'church' that will not ignore or exclude me is heaven. Thanks for asking anyway; you're very kind. (FYI I have contacted NAS support through the webform but haven't gotten a reply, in case anyone accuses me of not doing all I can to help myself because I'm honestly very sick of that argument at this point.)

I understand that. I find help or understanding harder to come by than most. Message us on here if you need a talk. I sometimes have log in issues on my phone so I I disappear if it gets too annoying to log in lol

Hows you today