The Start of Magic

You never know where a path will lead you, until you walk it.

When I opened this blog, it was a personal space; a way of talking to myself in writing. A patch of dirt to sow whatever seed of thought was in my head at that moment in time, without having to worry about who was going to see it. I was speaking to myself. In a private, digital headspace.

Or so I thought, but of course within this online realm we once called the Web, nothing is really private. Eventually, someone finds you. Hears you. Listens to you. But what do they hear? You begin to wonder if they will ever hear what you hear, or only what they want to hear.

So, I do not know where this path will lead me. Yet, I walk it.

I am someone who has always felt things intensely, so intense that it needs an outlet. Extreme physical activity is one outlet. Listening to music, loudly. Especially one song, over and over again. Composing melodramatic, rhythmic poetry another. But writing in a single conscious stream of thought is often my first path to give my emotions a space to breathe, scream, shout and vent their particular melody for that day. Then I pick up the pieces and try to edit them into sense; give them a shape and form to inform me. The focus that provides finally gives me a route to calm down.

I have been told I might have ADHD. I have been referred for a diagnosis. Regardless, I have known all my life that I am different. My differences make me stick out like a sore thumb. My worship of Nature, my physical exuberance, my direct honesty - too honest, too direct - the passionate nature of my emotions, has always made me and my beliefs open to ridicule. Moreover, the fact that I do not care about the opinions of others in regard to my lifestyle also must irk some to distraction. Apparently, this is another side of ADHD, my difficulty interacting with others, when I always thought it was their difficulty interacting with me.

Another block to towing the line of societial norms: I also have a strong sense of right and wrong. If some action does not align with my principles, there is no storm on Nature's green Earth that will move me to do it. I refuse to physically harm. I refuse to abuse drugs that destroy the spirit, mind and body. I refuse to take advantage of desperate people who ask for money in return for sexual favours. I refuse to lie. I refuse to lie down and die. I refuse to allow anyone to normalise violence, dishonesty or mendacity. No companionship, no friendship can persuade me to compromise on these.

Apparently, again, these have become societal norms. Or at least they seem to have become in the street where I live. So, I walk this path. Who knows where it will lead me? But I walk it.

After my father's death, I refused to mask my real self with a persona. I had tried it; I did not like it. But because of the strong moral responsibility my own beliefs have given me, I am also aware that the world and all its beautiful spaces are for all of us to share. So, I thought it my duty to learn how. I learnt how our universal existence calls for balance. I learnt this in the way that works for me, by teaching myself: My notes and findings I have documented here, in my private allotment, in a manual I called The Inner Sanctum.

Thus, I learnt that sometimes I must dial down behaviour; sometimes compromise is the only way, because balance must be maintained. Nature demands it. Learning to tolerate another person's choices, because you happen by proximity to be in their sphere of knowing, and you in theirs, is the only way a community can continue. Nature requires it. The only other option is the law of the jungle, and Nature shows us how balance is maintained there, too.

Which path do we choose to walk? Well, when I can guess where a path will lead, I usually choose the less travelled option. The law of the jungle should not be the law of our streets. Humans have a capacity for destruction not seen in the jungle; we must take the harder route, and sometimes the more dangerous - that of passive resistance against a toxic situation.

After my mother's death, I returned to the street I have lived in for seventeen years, to notice the very fabric of it had changed. The nine year sojourn had taken me away from the concerns of the real world, so focused had I become over my mother's care. Her house was like a blessed oasis, I realised, the real and changing world had barely intruded into our lives.

In the two years back on my street, the oasis has disappeared, and I have been walking an arid desert of reality. The homeless come to our street, and are treated as though they are as discarded as the litter and drug paraphenalia they leave on our steps. They abuse drugs that destroy the spirit, mind and body, and physically harm one another over the smallest dispute. Neighbours either ignore them, as they would do someone else's rubbish, or take advantage of the desperate who ask for money or shelter in return for sexual favours.

The level of manipulation I have been privy to, works both ways. The desperate and the neighbour are in a symbiotic, if somewhat, parasitic relationship, It is not only an understanding of supply and demand, it is a covert alliance that happens under the guise of night. My issue with it is that it brings drug dealers, their customers and the desperate right to our doorsteps, where we come under their sphere of influence, and the desperate are provided with the opportunity to manipulate those who would take advantage of them.

In such an environment, my apparent ADHD and my strong sense of right and wrong kicked in like a World Cup final kick-off. I did not know how to deal with it, and I initially did not react in a way I now wished I had. I certainly brought it to the attention of all the relevant authorities - the police, local council, social services - whose one constant was their failure to believe me. I do not blame them. If I am the only neighbour making a fuss, then I must be the problem, So, I took the wrong path. I took it not knowing where it would lead me, for it was a path less travelled. Yet, I walked it.

It was the path I was still on from my mother's care; deluded as I was still stuck in that beautiful oasis I had created with Mum. I chose the path of kindness, and understanding, and decided to reach out to the desperate. This is where it led me.

This street has become a place where you can no longer leave your windows open. On Mothering Sunday, during daylight hours, I went for an afternoon nap, and made the mistake - I now realise - of leaving the kitchen window open. When I woke up, I entered the kitchen to see my mother's vases stolen, and the kitchen window closed. It was a message. From a known heroin addict, for me to keep my windows closed and my mouth shut. In short, to mind my own business. My street, which I love, is my business if the drug usage and dealing I see is so brazen, that the smell, the litter and nuisance confronts you night or day, no matter the time.

And what did I do specifically to deserve the theft of these items that were purely sentimental in value? Refuse to allow anyone to normalise the degredation of spirit I was witness to outside my windows daily, and that they were unable to persuade me not to call the police whenever I saw any criminality go on. To make things worse, the heroin addict who stole my mother's possessions was someone I showed unconditional kindness to, on that path I took in my misguided attempt to reach out and understand the desperation I at first saw.

But caring and kindness is a language, I now realise, should only be spoken to those that understand it. If someone has a cruel streak, then that kindness is perceived as a weakness, and is taken advantage of. It is a harsh reality that those of us who do care must face. It is a lesson learnt, as important as the lessons in regard to maintaining spiritual balance. We must speak to people in the language they understand, and desperate people, who have been abused for most of their lives, only understand the language of abuse. And seeing as I am in no way, shape or form prepared to use such language, there was no way I could reach him.

Allowing him into my home, to give him food when I could barely afford to feed myself, to give him money for no reward in return, to offer him safe shelter with no requirement of sexual favours confused him. Before I make myself out to be a saint, it would have been, I thought, of mutual benefit. I was recently bereaved, no longer a carer, my finances severely depleted because of probate and funeral expenses, and reaching out to someone in a similar desperate position might have helped a two-way healing process begin.

Save someone, save yourself. This was not the case. Being kind is about what the other person actually needs; it was not kindness he was looking for, it was not a language he understood or spoke. Neither was forgiveness; I forgave his previous thefts of my property, his common assault against me (the compensation of which has yet to be enforced by the courts) and his continued harrassnent. Yet, the kindness and forgiveness shown was like pouring gasoline on the pyre of his cruelty. It did not dim it; it enflamed it.

It culminated in him stealing my mother's vases, on Mothering Sunday, knowing how much my mother had meant to me. The woman he had spoken about in terms of the greatest disrespect to trigger a rage I had yet to heal: for instance, to quote him verbatim, to piss in her mouth and to fuck her. He would also mock my beliefs, and I think, as with many of his drug using friends, due to a strong Christian faith, believed me to be a Satanist. On the day of the theft, one of his female counterparts threw a Devil's Bible Grimoire at me. I equate it with throwing anti-Semitic literature at a Jewish person. Thus, the advice of staying away from toxic people is no where more pertinent than here.

Truly, you never know where a path will lead you, until you walk it.

The Silent Nature of Persecution

Had he really been desperate for money, or his actions the desperate acts of a suffering individual, I could again forgive it. But when I realised he had shelter, and had means of procuring money for drugs employing the hustling he was comfortable with, I understood that his actions did not correspond with my kindness because there was a different agenda at play.

It was not merely that he did not understand the language I spoke, I came to realise his mission was to manipulate and persecute a person that those in the street had dehumanised, simply because of his outspoken principles and beliefs. I was never going to reach him, because he was not there to be reached. He was in my home to do as much damage to my property, finances, and mental wellbeing as he was able to.

This knowledge came a little late, but it was well earned. I now understand that the path I initially took was the wrong one. Should one feel shame? Only if they have lost their self-respect. Had I given up on my principles, that would have indeed been true. But a victim in this circumstance should not feel shame; the abuser should shoulder that burden. And the persecution has not been limited to this one individual; he is merely the face of a wider issue at large that I face.

If indeed I am diagnosed with ADHD, then the way I have dealt with the complex issues of human suffering, drug abuse and manipulation on my street has been a difficult box for me to unpack, especially when it is wrapped up in neighbour disputes. I am not good with human interaction, or so I have been told. I interacted well with my parents as a child, and for the large part, during my mother's care, with the carers whom I had to work with, but maybe because we had a focused motive, and a desired outcome - the wellbeing of someone in need.

Here, in a situation I have never faced before, people on both sides are different, and not seeing the need to apologise for it. My behavioural issues I am sure cause a nuisance to some. But do they physically harm or cause distress? Well, if you think me a Satanist, then no amount of good I do is going to change that outlook. You cannot reason with it. The hate and animosity directed towards me is going to feel justified. Even if I did not make a sound, and holed myself up in my home, my existence alone is going to cause distress to some.

But do I trade in poison, deal drugs, and destroy the lives of others? Am I making a healthy profit on the backs of desperate people? Am I in an absusive relationship with any of them? Am I befriending any of them and asking them to cause nuisance to any neighbour I might not happen to like? The answer is no, of course. But I have also discovered that when people can collaborate with false testimony, the single voice of truth can get boxed up, and wrapped up in a more acceptable presentation that makes it easier on the eye.

Truth is not merely in the eye of the beholder; it is in the eye of the majority. It is more expedient to believe - especially with the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in currently - that someone with my skin colour and appearance is the one causing the harm. It does not matter how I may eulogise on the rights of women, and opine against their subjugation, apparently all it takes is for me to make one statement to the contrary and I shall be turned into a woman hater, though that is far from the truth. Or Nature forbid, I should look at a child in some unintended way, and be labelled a paedophile - a word I despise so much, that even using it in this context sullies my blog. Or if I enjoy playing a game online that involves target practice, then I must be some potential terrorist in the making, ready to do harm.

Often, however, these dirty little lies are used to wrap up the truth. The truth, however much we try and box it up, is not pretty either, but it is the truth. Despite my appearance, and my cultural identity, I am against drug abuse. Vocally against it. Some on this street are not. Some even advocate it. Some may not use it, but open their homes to it. I neither have the benefit of their appearance, nor the benefit of their acquaintances. And our agencies, especially the police, with the understandable natural bias that comes from the very nature of their job - however impartal they are trained to be - will still give another person's testimony greater weight than mine. I do not look like them; I do not profess faith to any of the main religions, as they do. And I possibly look a lot similar to the sort of people they must have to deal with in their holding cells daily if the yearly criminology statistics I look at are anything to go by. Take one look at me, and I would still forgive you for thinking I was a recent arrival to my home country.

Fighting against stereotypes is challenging at the best of times, but here made more so when you are fighting slanderous lies, and a system of drug abuse and manipulation that has wormed its way on to a street I hardly now recognise. Most of the neighbours I knew and who knew me well and I cared for have gone, and what I see on my street, aside from the litter and the lawlessness, are people either ignoring it or being complicit with it. So, what do I do? What does anyone do in such a situation? Do they do one, or the other?

I do a third, in that I do neither, but remain vocal about what I see are the current issues facing the street. Does my vocal disapproval, however, mean I should be silenced? Either by intimidation, with drug users now openly hostile to you, by entering your communal spaces for no apparent reason than to blow out their cannabis smoke, polluting your air spaces to the point of damaging your vocal cords, or by attempting to hack your digital spaces and delete your blogs, and thus silence your written vocalisations of your side of events? Apparently, it does. For I have experienced all these things.

So, what can be done in this regard, especially if you look like me? The police, my housing association and the neighbours - who set up daily and nightly performances of borderline nuisance and criminal activity - are waiting for me to turn violent, raise a hand first, thus allowing heroin addicts, groomed by the very self-same neighbours, to do me very real harm under the protection of the common law version of self-defence. But my appearance deceives them. I have never raised a hand to anyone - not even when I was assaulted three times, twice on this street (I was ran over by an e-scooter by a cannabis dealer during one, threatened to be bricked "up the side of my face" in another by the heroin addict I had hitherto given food and shelter).

A third took place in a public park, on a day I was minding my own business and practising my grounding techniques. The drug users that frequent the street had followed me. The main antagonist I have spoken of was stalking me and discovered my whereabouts. His friend punched me in the head and threatened to take me apart and scatter me piece by piece so no one could find me. The same people, just a few days prior to writing this weaponised themselves and spoke of bullets, when I told them I would inform the police of any drug dealing I was witness to.

Previous to returning back to my street, I had never suffered any assault, or had my property stolen, or had this many occasions to call the police, or have the police called on me. I highly doubt I was even on the police's radar before these connected events. It is a heavy chain, and a large cross to bear. Again, what does someone with ADHD, and not just the average person, do in this situation? This is what I have asked myself: Why do I refuse to be intimidated? Why do I refuse to be silenced? And I certainly refuse to move from my home. Am I glutton for punishment?

Now, I am beginning to understand that these all could be consequences of my ADHD. My father always told me that due to my differences, I would always be fighting my corner. And I can, as the saying goes, talk for England. My moaning is world renowned. But while those who care for me would find this amusing, or tell me to affectionately shut up, those that abhor my appearance, my principles and my beliefs will, it seems, try to silence me - not at any cost - but if they can get away with it, with no cost to themselves.

It is a strange irony that when I began this blog, one of my first posts 16 years ago for this book of observations was a serial piece titled The End of Magic, in which I spoke of the much needed belief in goodwill and looking out for your neighbour. Now, it does not matter if I tend a neighbour's garden, decorate it out of my own pocket, or pet a neighbour's dog and buy them treats, or feed a family whose ex-husband has gone out to play being homeless in the streets for a brief period; the hand that reaches out is slapped back. Either, because of who I am, or my refusal to say that the drug abuse I see on my street is acceptable. Kindness, therefore, really is about giving a person what they need; what my closest neighbours need are not the acts of a good neighbour, but for me to be silent on the drug problems pervasive in my street, or to go away, because I do not fit in, over the way I look, speak or think.

Finally, I ask again: What can you do? The first thing is to forgive anyone that goes on outer appearance. We all do it, no one is free from this bias. You understand it, and allow time for people to get to know you. If they will still fall back on their prejudices no matter what you do, then ignore them and focus not on pleasing people, but on pleasing yourself. If your habits cause no harm, then air your thoughts, and play your game. Life is too short.

The second and more important thing you can do is to continue to work with the agencies that are there there to help you - because they are there to help you. Eventually, they will get an insight into who you are, but you need to constantly engage with your landlord, council, police, social services for that to happen. Provide them with your own feedback. Complain, if necessary. Do not be afraid of stating your case. Email your local councillors and your Member of Parliament. Adovcate for closed circuit television in your area. Keep contacting the emergency services. The police will eventually help, because that is what they are there for. They are not the enemy, but they are bound by more procedure and law in many ways than the public they serve to protect are. They may fail us, but they are our first call for help. Don't give up, and keep trying. The only other option is, that there is no other option.

The disadvantages of appearances aside, if anyone has faced, or is facing these issues, the other advice I can give is this: Do not over generalise, or turn yourself into a martyr. I am guilty of this, especially in my most frustrated moments. If the four walls of my home could speak, I am sure they would relay back to me a lot of verbose garbage that has come out of my mouth. But for me, freedom of speech dictates that talking about something to yourself is cathartic. Yet, the agencies that are there to help us, can only do so, if we help them. Aggrandizing or becoming aggressive to people who are merely there to help, will not help you. So, take a deep breath, find your balance, stick to your guns and arm yourself with the truth. It is the only ammunition you need. Even if you lose your case, you can learn to live with it, because you have your self-respect.

I have also discovered that a person can suffer the slings and arrows of many outrageous fortune, if you have your self-respect. Similarly, I have not given up on caring and kindness. But you must first see if the person you offer it to needs it, or is just manipulating you to think he needs it. And in my quieter moments, I always try to see the other side to it. The man who has been the main face and antagonist of this piece is ultimately, merely a desperate individual that needed money for a serious drug addiction, not kindness to get out of it. I must apportion some of the blame to myself. If I fail at the average social interaction, what made me possibly think I could deal with the complexities of a heroin addict? In common parlance, who died and made me his social worker?

And so, as I come to the end of this piece, then, it is also the final chapter in my book of observations, and it is sad that there is no happy ending for this thought of the day, or the book as a whole. But there is hope, because now is the time for the journey back up. When I fall down, it fills me with joy that I can get back up again. That is when the real magic begins; the journey to a better you is a journey worth taking, as long as you are steadfast in your belief that the best is yet to come.

Published 31 March, 2026

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