Author Archives: ninachildish

In 2016 I resolve to be resolute.

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

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I don’t generally make New Years Resolutions. Every year I just hope that it will be better than the previous year. After a mostly-hellish 2015 I don’t think that will be hard to manage.

This year, however,  I resolve to be resolute. The most useful thing I’ve learned about EDS from healthcare professionals since being diagnosed 18 months ago is if you want good care you have to fight for it yourself. If you get apathetic, you’ll slip through the net. So, in 2016, I resolve:
1. To insist to my GP that I need a rheumatologist. She has refused to refer me twice on the basis that a) I have already been diagnosed and b) I have a pain specialist and a cardiologist already. But when I go to see a GP whilst in the throes of a fatigue crash, EDS never comes into it and I am invariably sent for a pointless “generic tiredness panel” of bloodwork which all comes back fine, wastes NHS money and resources, and doesn’t teach me one bit how to manage in the future with reduced energy and ability.

2. To get an Autonomic Clinic referral, somehow. This referral was one of the things my July ’14 diagnostic letter promised me, along with a GI specialist and specialist hand and foot assessments. None of them materialised once I was discharged back to the care of my GP. When my autonomic symptoms increased drastically early in 2015 I asked for a referral again. Dizziness, blackouts, nausea, random fevers, lack of controlling one’s body temperature – these things aren’t really fun. Then I asked again in October to be told that my cardiologist should be referring me instead. My next cardiology appointment is in MAY. Time to bite the bullet and call the secretary…

3. To stick with therapy (unless it becomes deleterious to my mental health). The therapy my psychologist has recommended to me is Mentalisation. It’s shown to have better results than CBT for patients with emotional instability. What scares me is that it starts off with 6 months of group therapy. But last year I promised myself I would go to therapy, and this is it. I’ve never completed a full course of therapy in my life, except when I was actually in hospital and had no choice, but last year, when the fog lifted from the worst mental health I’d suffered in some years, I promised myself I would go back to therapy and STICK at it and try to make some progress.

Also probably to blog more. Having poor mental health or too much pain generally means that I’m not up to writing long pieces (or even short pieces). This is why Twitter is my medium of choice for writing, to be honest. I can’t get too distracted in 140 characters.

Malevolent Incompetence: a short post about the DWP.

24 Tuesday Nov 2015

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“It’s not enough that they’re cruel, they’re also incompetent with it and that makes it so much worse.”

My ex said that about the DWP sometime last year. I can’t remember over what, which is a worrying sign of how often they cause their victims stress and upset.
I’m still in pre-appeal limbo as far as PIP is concerned (occasionally sending them new and relevant letters from docs/specialists). But now my WCA has come up, and I’m having to try and deal with both benefits being “tested” at once.

My Work Capability Assessment was scheduled for the afternoon of the 11th of November. This didn’t happen. As soon as I got the letter with the date of my assessment, I called to request transport as it would be just too sensible for the assessment centre to be near an accessible station. I was told I needed a doctor’s letter for this. Fine. It took about a week and a half to secure an appointment, get the letter written up, and have it faxed over to the DWP, and then I called to see if it had been received. It had, but then I was told for the first time “We need three weeks to process it”. BUT I ONLY RECEIVED THE LETTER THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE APPOINTMENT DATE! They said they’d try to prioritise it, but the day before my assessment I was told that “it still hasn’t been checked by a medical professional”. That’s right, it requires a “medical professional” to read a letter stating that I can’t walk safely right now and can’t use stations without level access therefore can I please have a taxi to the assessment. My appointment was cancelled with authority, and I spent the day of the 11th a mess, full of anxiety and adrenaline built up for nothing, with no outlet, panicking that my new WCA and PIP appeal would be on the same day and both would therefore be cancelled. (DWP stress does interesting things to anxiety disorders.)

The DWP employee on the phone had been uncharacteristically reassuring, promising to phone me back personally when he heard any news of my rescheduled appointment. Any reassurance quickly dissipated from my mood when I got a form two swift and efficient days after my assessment should have been (how come they’re always quick with the bad things and not the things we need?). The form had questions (here paraphrased but not exaggerated): 1. Why didn’t you attend the assessment we had prearranged either by letter or by phone with you? 2. Why did you not let us know you could not attend your assessment as soon as you found out that you could not go?
The accusatory tone of the questions sent me into a spin. I felt like even though I could write “My assessment was cancelled by someone in your office on 10/11 because appropriate transport  could not be arranged in time”, the wording still made it sound like it was my fault, and as one of thousands of claimants flailing around in the huge system designed to fuck them over, why would they believe me? Anxiety through the roof.
That afternoon I got a phone call from Frank, the kind DWP employee. As promised, he had called to check up on me and update me on the situation. I told him about the form, and he told me it was an automated letter, in this case an error and not to send it back. Okay then, I had a minor meltdown over nothing.  Also would I like a normal taxi, or a wheelchair accessible one?

Another few days passed and Frank called again to tell me that I would have to be seen at Marylebone, not Neasden. But doesn’t Neasden have a lift? “Yes, but it’s policy that wheelchair users have to be seen on the ground floor.” Ah, so I’m guessing there’s a lift at Neasden, but no safety plan should wheelchair users need to be evacuated.

And now I have another WCA date. December 14th. I’m calling on the 7th to make sure there’s transport in place, and I’m calling Frank directly if not.

(Postscript: They forgot to send the taxi, any taxi. When a last minute taxi did arrive, it wasn’t a wheelchair accessible one either. Depressingly predictable.)

A Tale of Two Indignities

20 Sunday Sep 2015

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The first time my boyfriend came to my flat, I had to ask him to help me in the bath. He’d not had so much as a risqué picture message from me before, but here I was stark naked, with him gently manhandling my wonky body into the foamy water. He sat politely out of sight while I washed. Asking a new partner to help with something so intimate was daunting for the few minutes I deliberated over it, but when he turned up at the last minute in a bid to turn my bad week around with a night of films and food, and I realised I hadn’t washed in 3 days, I didn’t have much choice. In retrospect I think he might have been more anxious than I was.

It’s a funny story to tell on the surface: date turns up, girl demands bath. It’s less funny when you dig a little deeper. Since a major worsening of symptoms in December, I can’t bathe without at least having someone in the flat listening carefully, as I’m liable to faint in the bath, and I need help getting in and out on my worse pain days.  As I’ve previously written about, I am still trying to access Personal Independence Payments so there is just no money spare to pay for home care. I’m in contact with social services, but I’m still waiting for another meeting with my occupational therapist who seems to be my contact for all things useful.

This leaves me to rely on friends for now and it doesn’t feel fair on either party. But really, what choice is there? The choice between the indignity of being naked in front of someone who’s probably just as embarrassed by the situation – and throw in some body confidence issues too for good measure – or the indignity of not washing for several days. It’s the latter I’ve been doing lately, knowing that the next time my boyfriend comes over will only be a few days away. Dry shampoo and sink washes. There is no right answer, though. I worry that one day my brain will notice that I smell bad, that I’m wearing pyjamas in the afternoon, I’m not even trying to tidy my hair, and it will deduce that I must be depressed and then act accordingly. I worry even more now I’m having psychiatric appointments again, that unwashed hair and overcompensating body spray will by noted down as clinically significant (after all, my facial piercings were once used as a diagnostic tool, however [in]accurate).

I need to swallow my anxiety on this, and jump in. I’ve done it before years ago, in hospital. Evading being watched while washing on close observation order by having a bath with half a bottle of Matey poured in to protect my modesty. Maybe bubble-bath is the way ahead.

Working as a disabled person, not as simple as just having a job

17 Wednesday Jun 2015

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Millys Move's avatarMillly's Move

In many ways I was lucky, I become disabled whilst I was already in a job, I was able to negotiate reasonable adjustments and stay in the same role. In the last year I’ve had a few more health issues and staying in work has become more complicated. I now need a new wheelchair and a new home.  It sounds straight forward, go to NHS wheelchair services and get the wheelchair that fits my needs and, as both me and my husband work and we can afford a mortgage, buy a home that better fits my needs. Only it’s so much more complicated that that.

A year ago I was referred to Wheelchair Services by the Occupational Therapist I was seeing at RNOH Stanmore whilst inpatient. 6 months later I had an assessment, and found out they don’t provide wheelchair vouchers for powerchair users. Once we’ve moved to a house…

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Why I Love My Fat Imperfect Body

15 Monday Jun 2015

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[Note: I wrote this a few years ago, reposted here from my old blog. I tried to be careful to leave out weights and details, but if you’re easily triggered with ED stuff be cautious just in case x]

First off, I just want to say that anorexia really fucking sucked. No matter how much I’d have insisted at the time that I liked feeling as if I was on the verge of fainting for most of the day, I really didn’t. I don’t much like the after-effects I still have 10 years on either. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t enviable; by the time I hit my lowest weight no one would have wanted to take my photograph for fashion magazines (excess arm hair and terrible skin aren’t much sought after). It started out like many cases do – a simple diet, possibly even a sensible one. I was fat. I’m not going to write numbers in here, because I know that’s not helpful. But I was fat at 16, by anyone’s standards. A lonely, depressed few years around puberty had meant I’d been comfort eating in a big way, occasionally binging and purging but mostly just binging. By cutting out junk food snacks, eschewing school lunches in favour of sandwiches brought from home etc, I was able to lose weight and finally see the benefit of my twice-weekly martial arts class. For a short while I was actually at my physical fitness peak. I got compliments from girls in my class on my appearance for the first time ever. Life, however, went sort of tits up. Family problems and mental health issues spiralled, and my diet was the one thing I felt in some way in control of (I’m using “control” loosely here. At some point I stopped being in control, badly). I stopped being toned, and started being thin. If my dad noticed, he didn’t mention it; he’s very British like that. My boyfriend complained about my ribs. I found it difficult to sleep comfortably because of my hip and pelvic bones. My periods became erratic, then stopped. I learnt how to throw up without using my fingers. If I hadn’t had short hair I would have noticed how much it was falling out. Numbers started being important. I didn’t just want thinner legs any more – I wanted to get down to the next even number on the scale. For an average student, fairly decent at a few things, being exceptionally good at shrinking myself became priority.
When I was 17 I had to move out of home. That’s for another blog that I probably won’t write (some things will never stop being raw). The stress of sleeping on friends’ floors, juggling college with housing applications, and still dealing with deteriorating mental health badly affected things and after 3 months hellbent on self-destruction I found myself hospitalised in an adolescent psychiatric unit (yet another future blog/novel…). While anorexia was not the main reason for this, it was made clear to me that I wasn’t going to get out of hospital without changing my behaviours. It was the first time I’d been forced to accept that I had to stop. I’d long since stopped caring that my boyfriend was upset that I wouldn’t eat. I’d stopped caring that my friend, who’d bravely taken on the role of  foster mum, was emotionally cut up. All I cared about at that point was destroying myself, even if it felt at the time like I was making myself a better (thinner) person. I remember writing a letter to a friend after I’d been in hospital for about 6 weeks, saying that this was the turning point; I’d thought of something funny while washing my face and grinned to myself in the mirror. I looked macabre. Skin stretched over bones, trying to mimic a smile. Something had to change after that. Putting it on paper, a proclamation to someone, that made it real. Six months later, I left hospital having gained about a stone. I’m notoriously stubborn, and had to learn to shift from stubbornly refusing to eat, to refusing to NOT eat, and refusing to let anorexia take over my life any more. Unlearning disordered eating habits sounds simple, but imagine that every time you prepare a meal, there’s a voice in your head telling you how many calories are in each slice of potato, each carrot stick. You get surprisingly good at maths. Before hospital, I didn’t have “safe” foods; no food was safe. In recovery I found a few foods I felt safe eating, and went on from there.

A book that I used to help with my recovery was Anorexia: A Survival Guide For Friends, Families, and Sufferers by Janet Treasure. Recommended by my therapist, this book appealed to me mostly because it wasn’t written by a former sufferer, therefore didn’t contain the details of their starvation regime (tips!) or details of their lowest weight (goals!), and there was no author picture of someone who’d made it out of anorexia while still retaining an enviable waif-like figure, unlike me, for whom recovery would inevitably mean (fat!) getting back to (fat!) where I started (fat!). The book taught me to think of the “anorexic voice” as more of a nuisance, an irritable demon clinging onto my shoulders, in stark contrast to the “saint ana” figure written about in numerous pro-ED blogs.

I’m not going to lie and say things were perfect from then on. I never relapsed badly, but getting back to a healthy weight took literally years. For a while I kept Ipecac in my bathroom in case of binging, but later threw it out in a fit of panic in case I had a black mood and drank it all.  A few years ago things were suddenly, amazingly, good. I had the realisation that I was more comfortable being a little bit overweight. Having curves and not giving a fuck. Obviously this is not an outlook that everyone will agree with, but when I was teetering between thin/okay I always felt pressure on myself to stay on the thin side. I keep a few extra pounds on now, mostly for emergencies, but also to say FUCK YOU to the occasional anorexic voices that come back to jeer at me for having “given up”. (When you’re in recovery they deal with the physical problems. No one warns you that you’ll still have internal monologues when you’re a healthy weight, even when you’ve been weight restored for a decade.) It goes without saying that I don’t own scales. I’ve learnt my body, and I know what’s comfortable. It feels good to write that. IT’S MY BODY. I don’t have to be thin. I can eat if I want to. I can eat WHAT I want to. I am back in control.

Being disabled is a full time job.

15 Friday May 2015

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“Getting support for your disabilities is a full-time job you have to fit around being disabled.”

That is something my friend Richard told me this morning, after I had vented a bit about the near-daily phone call to the DWP I’d just finished with. Having dealt with serious illness himself, he knows how exhausting it can be to keep up with forms, certificates, letters, phone calls.
This has been the last 9 months of my life, ever since I applied for ESA and PIP to help deal with disability. The minute I had my diagnosis in hand last year I applied for help. I was no longer able to work part-time in pubs, as it’s not very useful when you can’t lift things heavier than a full pint, climb stairs, or unscrew beer taps without dislocating a wrist. Eventually even part-time studying was impossible. Right now I would describe myself as a full-time cripple. Every day is a measured exercise in trying not to be in pain, trying not to injure myself. A week where I have no appointments in one hospital or other, or at my long-suffering GP’s is a rarity. And then there’s the DWP.

It’s my second job. I’m moonlighting as a benefits claimant. Every month I pick up my medical certificate for ESA, get it sent internally via the Job Centre, and wait with my heart in my mouth to see if it’s arrived at the DWP HQ in time. Any lateness will result in a sanction, and when there’s only £72 odd to live on per week, it doesn’t leave you with an awful lot of excess to fall back on if this happens. The GP who signs the medical certificate is not always my primary GP, so with no knowledge of me they just pick the first thing off my medical records and the DWP don’t like it when my reason for being unable to work is “hypertension”. I’ll be doing that anxiety week until I’m finally called in for a Fitness To Work assessment, whenever that is. It’s easier to keep us in limbo than process our applications.
Then there’s the ongoing PIP appeal. I’m calling them daily at this point to find out why they haven’t sent the full medical report to me yet so I know what I’m appealing against (apparently you can’t just say “took all medical evidence and chucked it in the bin along with everything I had to say”).

Trying to prove your disability to a body that is determined to deny you access to support is exhausting and time-consuming. PIP is the gatekeeper to so many things. It took me literally months to get a Freedom Pass for transport from my local council because I didn’t have PIP yet (it was 9 months between my application and my assessment for PIP). The fact that many people may be seriously disabled but still not deemed worthy of PIP seems to escape the decision makers. Even when I fell three times in a fortnight on public transport, and reported this in my mobility assessment,  it still took a letter from my GP to change their minds. After each phone call to the DWP I’m tired, flat. It’s mentally taxing, demoralising. I haven’t hung up the phone feeling optimistic in months, not since I first applied for ESA and PIP. I feel like a number, a process, that whoever’s on the end of the line is ticking boxes, filing my request onto a conveyor belt heading straight for a furnace. Staying focussed and not giving up is the hardest part of the job.

Zero Points – the PIP nightmare continues

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

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Zero points. When I first read the decision letter, I honestly laughed. Then I tried not to cry, and now I’m stuck in righteous anger mode (so apologies if this post is somewhat disjointed). But anger makes me productive, motivated.
Let me tell you how I got here….

It took me weeks to get my PIP assessment sorted from the time I was first offered one in March (after applying in August 2014). Initially they sent me an appointment for 8am – in Chelmsford. Since I’m in North London, this would have required me to get up at 4am to ensure I could take medication, get dressed, and leave the house in time to get the nightbus to the station for the first train. It wasn’t going to happen. I was allowed to rearrange the appointment for a more local centre, but missed it by 15 minutes – a broken lift at the “accessible” nearby tube station and a hellishly long walk to the assessment centre after already having done the station stairs on a bad pain day conspired against me. In the end I had to get Atos involved on my behalf when the DWP cancelled my claim, as Atos had promised me when I called them in tears from the assessment centre that they would send me another appointment. You’re only meant to be allowed one rearrangement, you see, and moving an appointment from another city entirely to one it takes under 4 hours to get to is counted as such.

The assessment, when I finally had it, left me feeling cautiously optimistic. The assessor was a nurse who’d specialised in chronic pain and had actually heard of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. He said he wouldn’t put me through the physical examination because he knew how painful the condition was.
Reading the decision letter over I can see now why there was caution in that mood:

“You said that you have difficulties with preparing food, taking nutrition, therapy or monitoring a health condition, washing and bathing, dressing and undressing, communicating verbally and engaging with others face to face. I have decided you can manage these activities unaided.“
It’s just a bit of a kick in the teeth isn’t it? I sat facing the assessor and told him that I’d managed to have a grand total of one bath and one shower completely unsupervised since January, meaning I often go for most of the week without a proper wash (ask me about that time I had to have my new bf to supervise me in the bath before we’d even seen each other naked!), and that I can only cook if someone is there to make sure I don’t fall (not to mention the issues carrying pans, chopping veg, opening jars etc). If I can’t get up on bad days, then I can’t get food, therefore I can’t take my medication. As for getting dressed? My partners learn quickly how to put tights on misbehaving legs. If I’m not leaving the house I just DON’T get dressed. It saves pain and energy.
“I have decided you can stand and then move more than 200 metres”
This was written without actually seeing me walk further than the short distance to the assessment room, on crutches, in pain. That is how I walk: in pain. He didn’t even want to see the letters I brought with me from the GP. Somehow I thought that was a positive thing.

So the next step is to ask for a Mandatory Reconsideration, and call a local disability service for more advice. I’ve checked with a few disability activists I know, and apparently being awarded Zero Points is fairly common – a tactic they use to discourage appeal (after all, it’s not even CLOSE to the minimum number of points needed for any award). It just disgusts me that they do this. I’m angry, and anger makes me want to fight it. Many other people in my situation may get depressed, disconsolate, feel helpless and abandoned. They do not fight. I’m angry for them. This system is incredibly broken if it thinks that only those who are strong enough to fight the decision made against them “deserve” help.

Silent stares and rude questions: the disability minefield.

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

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We need to talk about something faced by disabled people every day: the attitudes of strangers. Not remarks, not discrimination, but the silent stares.

There’s no question that everyone gets judged on their appearance by those they pass in the streets. Something that makes you stand out will attract attention be it crutches or a strange hairstyle. I’ve been there pre-disability: bright obnoxious pink white and orange woollen dreadlocks paired with multiple facial piercings. Then I revelled in the stares (two fingers up to society? oh teenage me), but now when people look at me struggling to walk with crutches, hiding behind nothing, it feels like the stares are piercing my skin. I attract attention for the “wrong” reasons, those beyond my control, yet I feel no pride in my appearance now. There’s nothing worse than passing a chattering group of friends on the tube platform, for them to go silent, watch me pass, then start up again in hushed tones once I’m out of earshot.

On a Facebook-based support group the other day, I saw a woman ask why so many of us posting have negative or angry responses to strangers asking questions about our crutches or wheelchairs. She suggested that we should embrace the questions, and use it as a chance to educate people about a debilitating and under-diagnosed condition. This met with a mixed response from the rest of the group, and sowed the seeds of this post in my mind.
Ideally, if a stranger approached me and asked me “Excuse me, do you mind me asking why you walk with crutches?” I would give them a polite, concise but informative answer. But that is of course just hypothetical –  they DON’T tend to ask that question. I get “What’s wrong with your leg/legs?”/ “What happened to you?”/ “Aren’t you too young to be disabled?”. None of these require acknowledgement, let alone dignifying them with a response (although I did once end up getting a major charity’s entire street-fundraising team retrained in their appropriate opening gambits, of which “Woah, what’s up with your legs?” is NOT one).

And if the hypothetical polite and considerate question is asked? I am probably not in any mood to answer it. And here’s why:
I call it the Triangle Of Doubt. I experience it almost every time I go out. Their eyes go first to my crutches (disabled!), then my face (young!) then my legs (not broken!) and around again, the frown becoming deeper. Something doesn’t add up there. They try to work out which bit is wrong. Too young to be disabled? Faking? Fashion accessory? Benefits cheat? Should she be out alone?
What this mostly amounts to is I get frowned at by strangers who’ve been staring at my legs. And it adds up. I end up trying to avoid eye contact.
So, usually by the time someone comes up and asks me a polite question about disability, I have had x-number of the above microaggressions and my patience has run out.

Generally I really dislike being asked about disability when I’m out in public by complete strangers who only want to satisfy their own curiosities*, but I’m happy to educate people about Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and chronic pain over the internet, but in my own time and when I’m able to, but this is the key point: you cannot demand personal information from people and expect to be given all you want then and there. Disabled people may be dealing with chronic pain, exhaustion, and the effects of strangers’ attitudes and even politely asking could be upsetting or met with a snappy response. Consider this next time you feel entitled to approach a stranger for details of their life. Although you might be lucky and get one of the small percentage who don’t pick up on the microaggressions.

And, for the record, the correct response to “What’s wrong with your legs?” is “What’s wrong with your manners?”.

*exemption given to medical professionals because EDS is really undertaught and we often have to be our own experts and teach our own doctors!

A bad poem for the upcoming General Election.

19 Thursday Mar 2015

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On a cold rainy night I was lounging at home
With a Pinot, and Tivo, and porn on my phone
When in burst the skipper all flustered and stressed
By expenses and bankers and all of that mess
So I said to my boss, turning off Geordie Shore,
“Dave, have you thought about blaming the poor?”

“They’re already downtrodden, they’ve nothing to lose
We’ll say they waste money on gambling and booze
They have too many children and live far too long
They’re shirkers and scroungers, it’s morally wrong!
Supporting them goes against what we stand for,
So let’s have a toast to scapegoating the poor!”

“My god!” exclaimed Dave, “You’re really spot on!
If we just shift the blame then our worries are gone
A few skewed statistics are all that we need
So the voters ignore our corruption and greed
I’ve got friends in high places with morals on the floor
They’re sure to help us with exploiting the poor.”

So this election when you cast your vote
Just think about who got you into this boat
Not us, Dave and Gideon, we care for your rights
We feel so acutely your middle-class plights
It’s the ones who take most yet keep asking for more
Yes, we sure did a great job of blaming the poor.

n.a.j.Grant 2015

The *click* of sexual harassment.

01 Sunday Feb 2015

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Oh blog, I had such hopes for you. I will write once a week, I promised myself. Even if it’s just sketchy poetry. Then a fatigue crash happened in late December and I currently struggle to piece two coherent thoughts together one after the other, and don’t even try linking them eloquently. I will come back to this properly, it might be a winter darkness thing, or it might be the Mystery Heart Condition or just “hey you have chronic fatigue, this is just what you do”. But I’m not abandoning this one, even if I’ve already taken a small leave of absence.

I’m here today to rage about insidious sexual harassment.
It’s not easy for me to leave the house right now. It requires forward planning: estimating my energy levels, timing painkillers correctly and working out which of London’s many stations are accessible enough. I failed on the last front yesterday evening and found myself changing trains at Finsbury Park – which necessitated climbing a flight of stairs. I do not generally do well on stairs, it’s usually slow going and often painful and I’m concentrating hard on both coordination and not passing out. Still, I recognise the click of an iPhone camera when I hear it.
That’s a bit odd, I think, who would take a selfie on the stairs at Finsbury Park?
Then it hit me, as a man pushed up the stairs past me, with his phone in his hand, the screen still set to camera. That man has just taken a picture of my arse. Or up my skirt. 

There is a control room at the top of the staircase where the North and Southbound passages intersect. I fully intended to be late to meet my friend in order to report the guy right then and there, but as I reached the top of the stairs I realised he was right there, leaning against the wall of the tunnel, looking at his fucking phone and I got so freaked out that I just got the hell out of there as quickly as I could manage.
Once I was at the pub with my friend, I couldn’t get comfortable for a long time. The idea that some stranger had taken a photo of me without consent for sexual gratification made me feel really gross and upset and anxious. It felt like a part of me had been taken without my consent.
I started fretting about going home and going back through the station, and eventually asked my friend to come back with me. Having him there made me feel brave enough to stop at the control desk and tell them what had happened earlier. They called the British Transport Police and we were taken to the station next door to make a statement. It’ll go down as intelligence, so they can build up a pattern of this guy if more people report him, if he’s a repeat offender for this kind of thing.

I feel the need to stress the importance of reporting even minor harassments such as this if you feel able to. The trend for photographing women without their consent is really disturbing – from numerous Facebook groups for posting pictures of women in nightclubs (“Sluts Embarrassing Themselves” famously took weeks to be closed), to Women Who Eat On Tubes (misogynistic AND food shaming!) and it’s totally media-endorsed – how can someone taking a photo of me be any different to a paparazzi photographer shoving their camera up the skirt of a young actress as they get out of a cab? We’re viewed as public property. We’re on show, so why can’t people take home a souvenir? I’m incredibly pleased that it’s being taken seriously by the police, even if it’s not a serious crime. It’s insidious, creepy. Most women who are photographed like this probably don’t even realise it’s happened at all – even when the cameras make noise it’s hard to hear when you have headphones in, or when there are lots of people around.

I’m just thankful that I probably won’t be travelling that way through Finsbury Park again, thanks to the stairs.

(It’s worth noting that up-skirt shots were apparently such a problem in Japan that you cannot silence the shutter click at all on Japanese iPhones, and there’s no in-camera mute function on any iPhone.)