Published on 12, July, 2020
I am a 38 year old woman, diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (now referred to as high functioning or level one Autism) in 1998.
I am currently living in a council flat in a 'sheltered housing' complex. However my experience here has been anything but sheltered.
I have had ongoing problems with my downstairs neighbour, including huge domestic rows in the middle of the night after being told by the council 'he is a single guy with some communication issues', banging at all hours of day and night which makes my flat shake and terrifies my dog. My dog is SO important to me, I put her wellbeing above my own most of the time. My dog is my entire world, as I tell her so often, she has a piece of my soul, lol.
This situation with my downstairs neighbour escalated recently when him and his son in law accused me of being racist. They are Slovakian Romani. My mum is Czech, my grandad on her side is Jewish, and I am NOT racist. They know about my family background too!. When I meet someone, I don't see their skin colour, their language, their accent, their sexuality, their gender, their religion etc, I only see a human being. I treat all people as I would like to my treated myself, with respect.
We have tried on numerous occasions to communicate with my downstairs neighbour, my mum has come out and had discussions with them which have involved telling them about my family background. They are choosing to do this because I reckon they think if they use the race card, it will carry more weight with the authorities, council and police. I offered to have my mum talk to them on the phone or face to face, which they declined and told me 'we're talking to the council and the police now!'. My mum called the council antisocial behaviour department and found out no such complaint had been made and so far I have not had a visit from the police or any contact from the council regarding this. I challenged his son in law on this and told him to go right ahead and do it, but he would need evidence in the form of a video or voice recording. I asked him 'what evidence have you got?' and his son in law responded by telling me 'I heard you!', to which I replied 'that's not good enough, everything with the council and the police is evidence based, you need evidence if you are going to accuse someone of something' and he went silent!.
I also asked his son in law to repeat the words he thinks he heard me say. I asked him three times and all I got back was silence. He can't repeat words I did not say, silly man.
Also over the past two years I have endured constant asthma attacks due to cigarette smoke from my downstairs neighbour coming into my flat. I know they have a right to smoke in their own home and the council can't do anything about it so guess what? I am back on the homefinder bidding system trying to move yet again. I like my flat, but this has ruined it for me. I have never had asthma this bad, not even in childhood when I was first diagnosed. I am now on three different inhalers which do not work, and they upped the dose of my steroid inhaler which has caused problems with my adrenal glands and cortisol levels. I have endured horrendous symptoms from that including extreme fatigue to the point I couldn't get out of bed, unable to wake up in the morning, EXTREME incessant thirst which caused me to drink enormous amounts of water etc, but thankfully these symptoms have eased off now. Blood test again in a few days to see if my levels have normalised, if not I am facing having to have a discussion about why I can't accept the steroid treatment, I simply can't risk my mental health deteriorating any more and I can't risk any of the side effects. I have a nasty internal tremor I have had for years, doctors have no idea what it is. It feels like my body is vibrating inside and it can be painful, and it has a serious impact on my sleep as well. My steroid inhaler makes this so much worse, so what the dickens hydrocortisone tablets would do to it I have no idea.
GPs don't believe you when you tell them these inhalers can go systemic and can cause these kinds of side effects, but the endocrinology department do agree!. The GP just doubled the dose without any discussion or even telling me how high the dose was, I had to find this out the hard way!. This inhaler has ruined my life and ravaged my body, I have lost a lot of hair, I get headaches, it gives me a hoarse voice, I have had repeat episodes of thrush in areas I cannot post on here, the steroid has gone into my system and it has ruined my life!.
Like I said, I am trying to move. Ideally I want a bungalow, they are allowing me to bid on bungalows but my chances of actually getting one anytime soon are very slim. All we get told when we talk to the council is 'we are very short of housing stock'. That doesn't help me, they might be short of housing stock, but I am short of breath!.
I have had enough!.