Читать книгу: «Against My Will», страница 2

I sensed the spirit of an elderly lady who seemed to take delight in frightening me. One day I was sitting in my brother’s pushchair in the passageway in our house when she kicked it full force and I was thrown into the front door. My mother came running.

‘What have you done?’

‘It wasn’t me. It was the old lady,’ I said.

The look on her face told me she didn’t believe me. My parents weren’t that open to the idea of spirituality at that time.

The elderly woman wasn’t the only thing I experienced. I’d hear heavy boots walking up and down the stairs in the night, and the door would open on its own and shut again. Items in my bedroom would also rearrange themselves.

Trying to make sense of the spirit world was one thing. But for my parents, the real world was challenging enough and there were more pressing issues for them to contend with. My dad was starting to struggle. As well as working as a labourer on building sites, he had been doing shifts driving a taxi. There were times when I hardly ever saw him. But then he started to develop mental-health problems and had to give up work. Money had always been tight, despite his best efforts, and when he was no longer able to work we were under even more pressure. We became very poor. We couldn’t afford the things other children take for granted, like ice creams on sunny days. Our coal was donated by charities. The council house we lived in was falling down, literally. The roof leaked and it was waterlogged. The council deemed it uninhabitable, so we went to the top of the housing register as a priority case to move. They found a house for us in Aberdare, another former mining town ten minutes’ drive away. It meant moving schools.

We were assigned social workers to assess our general wellbeing. My parents discussed with them how hard it was getting me to go to school. Mum wanted me to stay at home, but they said I needed to be socialised and going to school would sort that.

There was only one school that would take both Jason and me, which was a bit of a trek from where we lived. There were schools closer to where we lived in Trecynon, but my parents were keen for us to be together. If I’d thought my time had been hard at my last school, it was nothing compared to this place. At first I thought it might not be too bad. My teacher was nice and showed me some compassion. But after I moved on to a new teacher, I was on my own. The rest of the teachers didn’t even try to understand me. All it would have taken was a few little concessions on their part to alleviate some of my anxiety, but they weren’t interested. In fact, it was the opposite.

I had developed a phobia of being in the water. Swimming wasn’t compulsory but they liked to take us to the pool. I really didn’t want to go. They made such a fuss about it. To people who love swimming, it might sound like I was just being difficult, but when you are that age and beset with crippling anxiety it is a big deal. They seemed to think I was just trying to get out of it. When they did eventually relent and say I didn’t have to get in the water, they made me take my school books and sit by the side of the pool and do some work. I felt like such a pariah and thought I was going to be sick in the stifling heat and the clawing smell of chlorine.

I would have lunch in the canteen, where children were expected to eat everything on their plates. On one occasion I wasn’t hungry so I left some food. One of the dinner ladies called me back.

‘Sophie Crockett, you haven’t finished!’ she shouted. I tried to say I wasn’t hungry but she wouldn’t listen.

I burst into tears, ran out of the room and locked myself in the toilet, refusing to come out for the rest of the day. I must have spent three hours in there. I was too scared to come out until I could go home.

I hated school so much I would cry and beg my parents not to make me go back. At night I would lie awake sobbing at the thought of it the next day.

‘Please don’t make me!’ I begged every morning. It led to terrible outbursts.

We now know that children with autism are prone to outbursts. Mine were nearly all related to school. I just hated it. I felt the school didn’t care. They didn’t have the patience. It was a horrible time.

I enjoyed schoolwork mostly, but mathematics scared me. I developed a big phobia around it, but the teachers didn’t help. If I didn’t understand something, instead of showing me a different way they’d show me the same way but louder. I thought, You just said that and I didn’t understand it.

Every day at 11 a.m. our maths lesson began. As the time approached I started to stress. My mind would go blank and I’d panic when the paper was put in front of me. I used to hide in the toilets or, if I couldn’t get out of the classroom, I would write down anything just to get it over with, and then my work would come back with a big cross on it.

There were two girls in the class who picked on me. At first they said if I helped them with English they would help me with maths. They used to copy my English work, but the teacher thought it was me copying them. The girls blamed me. It was always the same. No one would believe me. My maths didn’t improve, and it got to the stage where I wouldn’t come out of the toilets or I would get a headache and beg to go and sit in the library, where it was quiet.

The library became my sanctuary. It was there that I confined myself when my class was away on a trip, the thought of which scared me. I read all kinds of books, including the Ramayana, the ancient Indian epic fable of heroism and tragedy, and several by Charles Dickens too. My favourite was Little Dorrit, his commentary on society’s treatment of the poor. It might not be one of his most famous, but it’s a very understated novel and, to me, a truly wonderful book.

I enjoyed reading poetry too, particularly the works of William Wordsworth. By the time I was eight I could recite all the lines to his most famous work, ‘Daffodils’, which many people know only by its opening line, ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’.

I spent so much time in the library that it became a running joke with the teachers. They’d walk past and make snide comments like, ‘In the library again, Sophie?’ They probably had no idea the effect their comments had on me, but it felt like they were mocking me and they wounded me deeply.

My whole school experience was exhausting. I never knew what might trigger my anxiety attacks. The uniform was polo shirts, cardigans and trousers, which I was happy with because I wasn’t in the least bit fashion conscious and I liked the fact that everyone wore the same thing. In summer, however, the girls wore gingham dresses. I hated mine, as it wasn’t the same as the other girls’. It was made of a looser fabric, and I was convinced it made me different when the last thing I needed was to give the other girls any excuse to single me out.

Despite all these issues, I was still one of the top students. The teachers might not have recognised it, but when the class sat a literacy test I scored the highest, with a reading age of 18. I was proud of my work and strived to do well, but my condition, or whatever it was that affected me so severely, was getting out of control. I was desperate to stay off school. Every day was a battle. Sometimes I would get to stay off or I would go every other day if I could be dragged in.

It got to the point where my mum and dad stopped forcing me to go anywhere. It seemed that the things other children enjoyed were denied to me because of my extreme anxiety. I was just locked in myself. I was nine years old and felt like an alien – that I didn’t fit in with this world around me. And on top of that was my belief that I could see spirits around me and hear what they were saying. People seemed to be contacting me, telling me they had passed on. They appeared before me. It was scary. Why were they communicating with me? It was a deeply disturbing and difficult time.

Against this backdrop of worsening behaviour, my parents, who had been trying to keep my issues secret, hoping it was a stage I’d eventually grow out of, decided to ask for help. They went to the doctor I had seen about my asthma. He referred me to a mental-health team, and for a while I was seen by a number of psychiatrists all over the region. One suggested I take Ritalin, the drug used to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, while another suggested I start the contraceptive pill to stop me from going through puberty. My parents flatly refused.

It felt like no one had an explanation. That was until we were referred to Dr Latif, an expert in autistic spectrum disorders at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. I felt incredibly anxious and worried before I saw him, as I did with anyone I didn’t know. My legs were actually knocking together and my hands were shaking.

I had a habit of walking on my toes, as I didn’t like the feel of my heels on the floor, and as soon as I walked in he pinpointed it straight away: ‘You have Asperger syndrome.’

He asked me a couple of questions, but I couldn’t answer him, as I had terrible difficulty in communicating with strangers at the time and I couldn’t make eye contact. This only seemed to confirm his diagnosis.

Asperger syndrome, or Asperger’s, he explained, is a form of autism. People who have it are often above average intelligence but can display learning difficulties. As with other forms of autism it is a spectrum condition, so while people with it might share certain challenges, it will affect them in differing ways.

‘With Asperger’s,’ he said, ‘you will see, hear and feel the world differently to other people.’

That immediately struck a chord. Here, finally, was someone who understood what I was going through. I could see the relief on my mum’s face. Throughout my childhood she had shown nothing but unconditional love, but there were many times when she’d questioned what exactly was the matter with me. We had all wondered, many times. Now there was an explanation.

Dr Latif explained that although Asperger syndrome was something I would have for life, and was not a condition that could be cured, it could be managed. It was a fundamental part of my identity that needed to be accepted and understood.

He gave my mum advice on how to manage the condition and advised her to buy books on Asperger’s. He said he would write to the school explaining the diagnosis and advising ways in which they could help alleviate my anxiety.

At last there was a name for what I had. The impact that had on me was massive. Maybe I wasn’t such an alien after all. Surely this would make a difference, I thought. My teachers would understand, the other children might begin to accept me more. It could be a new beginning for me. It was a massive relief for us all, because now my parents could get help. They had been in the dark until then, but now they thought, Okay, it’s a condition we can read about and get our heads around. The more they read about the condition, the more they felt reassured, as I had all the key traits of Asperger’s.

Any optimism we had was sadly short-lived. My mum and dad got in touch with an autism support group. I went along hoping it might be a chance to meet people in a similar position, but it wasn’t like that. Autism covers a broad spectrum and I didn’t feel the people there were like me at all. I still found it hard to relate to them. It was as if the imaginary barrier that stopped me from interacting with other people was still in place.

Autism understanding in society was still in its infancy. Progress was being made but the pace was slow for those of us going through it. A form of help was there, but if you couldn’t cope with that, there was no alternative. As for my school, we persevered, hoping they would implement some kind of strategy to make my time there bearable. But it was no use. I felt very depressed.

However, one of the benefits of getting an Asperger’s diagnosis was that my parents could look at other options – like home schooling. Eight months after our first meeting with Dr Latif, a plan was in place. I would never have to go back to school again. Instead I’d be tutored at home, potentially offering an end to the anxiety that had crippled my development so far.

I was thrilled. I was convinced that this would signal a new start, a chance to live a better life.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter 2

This was the life. No school, no horrible teachers or girls picking on me. A chance to push on at my own pace, no longer shackled by the limitations of the curriculum or held back by the slowest in the class. And, most importantly, it was the solution to my ever-increasing anxiety.

That was the dream, anyway. The reality was very different.

Although it was a blessed relief not to have to go into school, provision for home schooling was very limited. The local authority just did not know how to handle it. They could only provide a tutor for one hour every day. As I was technically still of primary-school age, it meant they sent teachers for my age, not my capacity.

I was ten but already reading challenging adult books and developing what would become a lifelong passion for Russian literature, especially works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Anton Chekhov. I read Shakespeare and, although on the whole I thought he was overrated, I enjoyed Macbeth. This was purely down to the character of Lady Macbeth, who I saw as a very strong, determined woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to use her husband to get it.

I continued to develop interests in a variety of topics. My fascination with strong women extended to Emmeline Pankhurst, the political activist whose inspiring work helped women win the right to vote. The women’s rights movement fascinated me and sparked a passion inside me for activism. Being outside of the school environment meant I grew a little braver about venturing outside of my comfort zone. I got involved with Animal Aid, leafleting around the town for issues like animal testing and writing for its children’s paper on why I decided to become a vegetarian. My dad accompanied me as I went from door to door. I think he respected me for wanting to do something to try to change people’s attitudes.

All of my knowledge came from reading and forming my own opinions. I didn’t watch television. Most children are happy to plonk themselves in front of the box, but for as long as I can remember I’ve viewed television as a form of brainwashing. I had the same disdain for games consoles. My sister and brother loved playing computer games, but I thought they were a waste of time. I was content with my doll collection. These were antique twentieth-century dolls, not for playing with but to display. I wasn’t interested in contemporary television programmes. I preferred learning about history and was intrigued by the elegance and style of other periods, not in Britain but abroad – like the lavish costumes worn by Marie Antoinette, the last French queen before the revolution, or the Japanese geishas and how their clothing and make-up changed depending on their seniority and experience. I even dabbled in making my own jewellery.

For a while I was the happiest I’d ever been. Left to my own devices, I could be content and amuse myself. Within the family there was greater understanding of how I saw the world. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t the odd blow-up. Attempts to include me in family activities still often ended in tears. I remember going with my dad, brother and sister to the cinema to see the animated movies Ice Age and Monsters, Inc. Most people would just think of these films as harmless family fun, and I did try to enjoy them, but the reality was that I couldn’t stick the cinema; it was too sensory, too dark and loud, too in-your-face. I accept that it wasn’t fair on my brother and sister, but I just wanted to leave. So that was it. We all had to. It caused a bit of tension, understandably, but we were all still trying to come to terms with my Asperger’s and working out ways to manage the extreme reactions I had.

One place I enjoyed going to, where I didn’t experience anything like the same blow-outs, was the ballet. The Coliseum Theatre, which hosted regular performances, was close to where we lived. Going to watch the dancers move with such grace and elegance captivated me. I loved classical music as well. It reflected and influenced my moods. And I liked the reserved atmosphere of the theatre. I felt like I was entering a different world, one that did not impose itself on me.

My parents were delighted that I’d found something I could enjoy without feeling anxious. They had almost given up on trying to get me involved in some sort of activity or club. I was not sporty and anything that involved interacting with other children was not an option. When they asked if I wanted to take up ballet-dancing lessons I felt excited, but the thought of being in a class with other girls who might judge and look down their noses at me filled me with fear. My parents investigated, however, and found a dance teacher who was willing to offer private lessons. It would just be the teacher and me, no other children to stress or distract me. I was nervous at first. The thought of anything new brought out the old anxieties, but I loved watching ballet so much that the prospect of actually learning how to dance like that was a magical dream.

The teacher was firm but encouraging, and once I got over my initial nerves I started to really enjoy the lessons. I pleasantly surprised everyone by how easily I picked it up. As with my other obsessions, I threw myself into the practice 100 per cent. It was blissful respite from my everyday existence.

I continued to have my psychic experiences. I could feel, see and hear spirits. This continued to concern my parents, who had hoped it was a passing phase and thought it was just my imagination running away with me. They didn’t understand it, but I was becoming more intuitive and they couldn’t really deny it anymore. To people who don’t believe, it might sound strange, but I could see angels. They appeared before me, and just as people might imagine; I could see their wings. The one I saw most often was my mother’s guardian angel, called Jasmine. I saw her wearing a pink dress. She had long, brown curly hair with flowers in it and her wings had pink tints to them. She had a calming presence about her.

Some of the spirits were from relatives of mine who had passed on, but often they had no connection to our family. Sometimes the spirits had messages from the other side. I would amaze people by saying something only they would know. For example, my father’s mother always called him ‘Chick’ as a child, and nobody but him knew this. When I said, ‘Granny says, “Hello, Chick,”’ he was flabbergasted.

As with my autism, the longer it went on, the more my parents thought they’d better seek an expert opinion. Paul Hanrahan was a well-known medium from a television programme called Ghost Detectives and also a friend of a friend of my grandmother. They got in touch and he came to meet me. I was quite anxious because this was someone new. I didn’t speak to him but he looked at me intently.

‘You have a very, very bright light,’ he said. ‘You’re incredibly gifted psychically.’

He told my parents he knew of spirits at this location and that he too had seen them just as I had described them.

‘Sophie is a very special person,’ he told my parents. ‘She’s clearly an indigo child. To be as gifted psychically is rare.’ People can see things all the time, yet they always doubt their senses, but he believed I was clairvoyant, someone with supernatural ability; clairsentient, as I could feel psychic energies; clairaudient, capable of hearing messages; and claircognisant, an ability to sense the future. He said I possessed a very rare gift, but he wasn’t in the least surprised. Many children can display spiritual powers.

Indigo children, he explained, are supremely empathetic, curious and strong-willed – traits I had already demonstrated – and often considered strange by other adults and their peers. The concept of indigo children had been coined in the 1970s by a psychic, after the colour of their aura, but it had gained credibility since the 1990s. Once my parents better understood what I was capable of, they began to embrace it.

I got more and more into spirituality. I learned how to read tarot cards. I began using a dowsing crystal to tap into my sixth sense and answer questions that were puzzling me. I could see people’s auras and learned how to interpret the different colours to tune into their emotional energy. And because I felt the presence of spirits, I became something of a psychic medium, doing readings for people using messages I was hearing. I gave readings to my mum, dad, aunt, grandmother and even a great-uncle who I never saw. After I had a dream about a lady who said her name was Glenis, my mother told my grandmother, who immediately recognised the significance. Glenis was my great-uncle’s wife. I had never heard of her or seen any photographs of her, but I described her exactly as she was. Since that day my great-uncle believed in spirits.

We found out there was a church in Ferndale, about a 15-minute drive away over the valley in Rhondda, which held spiritualist meetings. We paid it a visit and the people there were really nice and welcoming. We started to go quite regularly, and it became a little outing for my brother and me. I felt quite at home there and enjoyed the singing, the prayers and the psychic readings.

Paul Hanrahan even wanted me to join his psychic circle – a group of like-minded experts who gave spiritual readings. I was still only ten years old, though, and due to my condition this wasn’t an option.

I was in a contented place. Two years on from my Asperger’s diagnosis and a year after quitting school, I was feeling a little less anxious and quite optimistic about life in general. Sadly, it would not last.

It was approaching Christmas when my dad and I went out to go shopping for presents for my mum. From out of nowhere a car appeared in front of us at a junction. There was nothing my dad could do. We crashed into it, the impact throwing me forward. My head exploded in pain. I was so shocked at first that I didn’t know what had happened. When I came to my senses I realised my face had smacked off the airbag that had inflated on impact. My dad was slumped forward on his.

Oh, good lord, I thought. Please, no.

I couldn’t breathe between sobs. I thought he was dead. Within seconds, though, he started to come round. My nose was in agony. The medics who were quickly on the scene confirmed it was broken. And when they told me Dad was going to be okay I began to calm down, but I was badly shaken. When we’d had time to digest what had happened we realised there was nothing my dad could have done. The other driver had just pulled out in front of us. She appeared unhurt.

Our physical scars soon healed, but the incident would have psychological repercussions for years to come. The woman initially denied responsibility for the accident, and we were lucky that a group of builders working on a house nearby saw what had happened and told the police they’d seen her pull out without looking.

After thinking I could control my anxiety, that incident sent me backwards. Whenever my dad left the house I was terrified he would be in another accident. My GP said I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. After the legal wrangling that followed I was awarded a significant sum in compensation, money that would be held in a trust for me until I turned 18. It was one positive to take from the highly distressing incident. And then another episode unsettled me even further.

One of my home-school tutors was an older woman called Mary who took a shine to me. She was in her sixties, and dressed quite shabbily, though she lived in a large house in Pontypridd, about 12 miles away. While some other teachers just turned up, took me through some exercises and left, Mary was intrigued by me. She saw potential in me that no other teacher had recognised before, and was amazed by my reading capacity and intelligence for my age. She was more willing to move away from the curriculum and have more meaningful conversations about a broad range of topics. I enjoyed her visits and thought, finally, here was someone who understood me.

But then it took a turn.

Mary invited me to her house for a change of scene and wanted to take me to the theatre. My mum and dad were concerned she was overstepping the mark, but they were afraid to say the wrong thing so went along with it. Mary was getting me out of the house, after all. It was surely a positive thing, right?

Mary was very snobby. She would make comments about shelf-stackers in supermarkets as though they were beneath her and talked about ‘stupid’ people. She was quite a eugenicist, who would have happily seen certain types of people discouraged from reproducing. She started to become fixated with me, weirdly obsessed. When we were alone she said, ‘You know, Sophie, you are better than your parents. You could achieve so much more if you weren’t with them.’

I had been flattered when she’d made comments about how special I was, but this was too much. It was like she was trying to turn me against my family.

Once, when she was in our house, she spied my mum and dad’s magazines on the table. She picked them up and said, ‘Who reads books like this, Sophie?’

‘My parents, but I occasionally glance through them as well,’ I said, feeling defensive.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but you wouldn’t buy them now, would you?’

She made comments about the many photographs of pets we had in frames on the wall, saying it was weird and they should be confined to photo albums. And she used to discourage me from engaging with my mental-health nurse, who she thought was a ‘stupid, blonde bimbo’.

She thought I was a very gifted child who needed specialist care. Without my family’s permission she got in touch with Christ College boarding school in Brecon to enquire about me going there. I knew she was a bad influence and she made me feel uncomfortable, but I grew attached to her because she was the first person to help me get my confidence back in my academic abilities.

Then she wanted me to go to London with her and stay with her son. It all started to get creepy.

‘I wish you were my granddaughter,’ she told me. ‘We would be able to spend a lot more time together and I could teach you so much about the world.’

It was like she saw me as a way to fill a void in her life. One day the snow was so bad she couldn’t get her car out, so she wouldn’t be able to keep her appointment to see me. But rather than accept it, she walked the ten miles in the driving snow to my house just to see me for a couple of minutes.

That was the final straw as far as my parents were concerned. They could see that an extremely unhealthy relationship was developing. They spoke to one of the psychiatrists who’d seen me about my anxiety attacks. He immediately agreed with them that it was weird. He reported what was going on to the local authority and Mary stopped coming to the house after that. We were glad to bring an end to what was a strange episode, but it was unsettling.

Mary had a strange energy around her, and it was disturbing to think that someone could come to my home and fixate on me. Already it was clear that I had attracted some obsessive characters. But it was to get a lot worse.