Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, I've recently been diagnosed with autism, which has helped make sense of much of my life.
However, the rector of my C of E parish church of 2 years, St George the Martyr Southwark, has recently conveyed at the start of March through the Diocese Safeguarding that he is no longer willing to support me in any way, in conversation, in prayer, in blessing (this was about 2 weeks before Covid measures here and has nothing to do with Covid). This led me to attempt to kill myself because I just couldn't cope.
This came as a complete shock to me as immediately up to that point of complete withdrawal, he'd consistently supported me for two years in weekly pastoral meetings, in being available for conversation, prayer and blessing after services and even phone-calls when I'm overwhelmed (as he still does for others). I've since learnt from a meeting with the Diocese that he'd been in constant 'confidential' meetings with the Diocese about being no longer 'able' to support me, despite my needs being non-confrontational and non-violent, even as he reassured me of his commitment to "walk with you always" and "I just wanted to repeat my willingness to support you", in speech and in writing as recently as late February. Now that I'm not allowed to contact him in any form, I'm not just unable to learn why he's done this to me but have been utterly depressed about being excluded from the same level of pastoral and spiritual care he still gives others, not just those with physical health needs but even ordinary people. The worst part is that because of Covid, he is now offering church members remote pastoral support by phone. Because I'm still on their mailing list (because by church law I'm still on their electoral roll), I got the email detailing this new measure of support by phone. However, when I tried to clarify this, I got an email from the Diocese expressly stating that this measure still excludes me, and that this offer of pastoral support is given freely to everyone else who have been worshipping at St George's with the specific exception of me. (Anyway, I later found out through someone who took me out for lunch after this happened and helped me process things a bit that this priest is just someone that I should never have trusted. I didn't know this because I never got involved with church management but apparently he's known to those involved in the church's management for constantly changing his ideas and behaviour, breaking promises and saying different things to different people, someone I should never have called a priest. But what's done is done.)
After learning about my autism diagnosis while in hospital from my suicide attempt, I've since tried to look up how to cope with a change as sudden and devastating as this (sudden, complete and inexplicable withdrawal of two years of consistent, reliable trust and support!). I read that I should find a 'new normal' as soon as possible but with Covid this is impossible as I can't get to know a new church and clergy because churches are closed.
Can anyone help me? It's so painful being surrounded by memorabilia (photos, confirmation cards, books) of my time at St George's, particularly that priest's support, knowing all that's come to an abrupt and inexplicable end but at the same time removing them would only make it worse by their noticeable absence. I'd appreciate any tips you can give. Every day I'm just fighting for the will to live. I really can't deal with something so abrupt and inexplicable as this. If it helps with your advice and tips, I have a further, older diagnosis of EUPD (the new term for BPD).
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:
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.
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.
An organisation must not make it harder for you to access their services.
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 sounds really encouraging - I hope you're able to get some good advice through the EHRC.