>
>Strangers in the street have recognized me on sight many times, and shown
>awareness of the current thread of abuse. To give you one example, in 1992
>I was seriously ill, and a manager at work somewhat humouroursly said that
>"it wasn't fair" that people were bullying me. A few days later, I
>attended for the first time a clinic in London as an outpatient, and on my
>way out was accosted by someone who asked if "they had paid my fare", with
>emphasis on the word "fare". He repeated the word several times in this
>different context; that they should have paid my "fare", each time
>emphasising the word.
>
>For two and a half years from the time their harassment started until
>November 1992 I refused to see a psychiatrist, because I reasoned that I
>was not ill of my own action or fault, but through the stress caused by
>harassment, and that a lessening of the illness would have to be
>consequent to a removal of its immediate cause, in other words a cessation
>of harassment. I also reasoned that since they were taunting me with jokes
>about mental illness, if I were to seek treatment then the abusers would
>think that they had "won" and been proved "right".