u/Mediocre_Revenue_785

🚨
I’VE HAD A STROKE, MY ADHD HAS GONE HYDRO-FUCKING-STATIC, AND SOME BASTARD HAS BROKEN INTO MY HOUSE! 🚨
need to report a crime.
Unfortunately, I can’t.
BECAUSE I CAN’T GET FUCKING DRESSED. 😂
Let me explain.
I’ve had a stroke, and I’m fairly certain somebody has broken into my house and systematically fucked with my entire life.
First, they’ve shrunk all my fucking jeans.
EVERY SINGLE PAIR.
Then they’ve hidden half my clothes.
WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?
I’ve looked in cupboards, drawers, laundry baskets and places where clothes have absolutely no business being.
I’ve found things I haven’t seen since 1997, but I can’t find the fucking top I was holding thirty seconds ago.
I’m beginning to suspect the burglar is still living in the house and moving things around when I’m not looking.
But WAIT. IT GETS WORSE.
When I finally find a pair of jeans, somebody has apparently replaced the buttons with some sort of experimental military technology.
I’ve had a stroke, and I’ve only got one properly working hand.
ONE.
And I’m trying to fasten a button that appears to have been trained by the fucking SAS.
I line it up.
I try to fasten it.
THE FUCKING THING MOVES.
I TRY AGAIN.
IT FUCKING MOVES AGAIN!
WHAT IS THIS? A BUTTON OR A TINY DENIM-CLAD ESCAPE ARTIST?
I’m standing in my bedroom wrestling with my trousers, and the trousers are WINNING.
I’ve been trying to get dressed for twenty minutes, and I’ve achieved absolutely fuck all.
And then, just when I think things can’t get any worse, I find a clean top.
HOORAY!
THERE MAY BE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE FUCKING TUNNEL!
I pick it up.
I sniff it.
OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
THAT SMELL.
That horrible, stale, damp washing smell.
You know the one.
The smell of clothes that haven’t dried properly and now smell like a wet badger that’s been locked in a shed with a bag of old potatoes.
I CAN’T WEAR THAT!
So I throw the bastard thing straight back into the laundry basket in utter disgust.
AND NOW I’M BACK TO SQUARE ONE.
No clean top.
No trousers I can fasten.
No idea where the rest of my clothes are.
AND STILL NO FUCKING POLICE REPORT.
But hang on a minute.
WHO SHRUNK MY JEANS?
WHO HID MY CLOTHES?
WHO REPLACED MY BUTTONS?
AND WHO THE FUCK DID THE WASHING WITHOUT DRYING IT PROPERLY?
IT’S THE SAME BASTARD!
It’s all connected!
The burglar has been living a double life!
By day, he’s a clothes-shrinking, button-replacing menace.
By night, he’s a laundry saboteur, deliberately leaving everything damp enough to develop its own ecosystem.
THIS IS ORGANISED CRIME.
ORGANISED DENIM AND LAUNDRY CRIME.
And the genius of this operation is that the victim can’t even get dressed to report it.
THE PERFECT FUCKING CRIME!
Meanwhile, I’m getting increasingly angry with myself because I can’t find anything.
I put something down.
Turn around.
GONE.
I KNOW I JUST HAD IT!
So I start looking.
And looking.
And FUCKING LOOKING.
I’m moving things around to find things I’ve misplaced while looking for other things I’ve misplaced.
I’ve now forgotten what the original thing was because I’ve found three other things I lost last week.
And then the people I live with start getting annoyed.
“Oh God, what are you looking for now?”
“What have you lost this time?”
I DON’T FUCKING KNOW, DO I?
IF I KNEW WHERE IT WAS, I WOULDN’T BE CONDUCTING A FULL-SCALE FORENSIC INVESTIGATION OF MY OWN FUCKING HOUSE!
Now I’m angry.
They’re angry.
I’m getting more flustered because they’re angry.
And the more flustered I get, the harder it is to think clearly enough to find the bastard thing.
ROUND AND ROUND WE FUCKING GO.
It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of frustration, anger and missing objects.
And then I start gaslighting myself.
Did I put it there?
Did I move it?
Did I imagine the whole fucking thing?
AM I LOSING MY MIND?
Three hours later, I find the bastard thing in the last place I’d ever think to look.
And for one glorious moment, I feel vindicated.
THERE! I KNEW I WASN’T COMPLETELY FUCKING MAD!
Except I’ve already spent three hours telling myself I’m an idiot.
THE BURGLAR DOESN’T EVEN NEED TO GASLIGHT ME. I’M DOING HIS FUCKING JOB FOR HIM.
And now I’ve had another thought.
Can you report yourself to the police for gaslighting yourself?
Because I’m beginning to suspect that another persona has broken into my house.
Someone who looks exactly like me.
Someone who knows where I keep everything.
Someone who moves my belongings when I’m not looking, shrinks my jeans, hides my clothes and leaves my washing damp.
And then disappears without a trace.
WHO THE FUCK IS THIS PERSON?
AND WHY ARE THEY LIVING MY LIFE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?
I NEED TO REPORT THIS.
BUT I CAN’T.
BECAUSE I CAN’T FIND MY PHONE.
AND I CAN’T FIND MY GLASSES.
AND I CAN’T FIND MY FUCKING TROUSERS.
So I imagine the conversation with the police.
POLICE: What’s the nature of your complaint?
ME: I’VE BEEN BURGLED!
POLICE: What’s been stolen?
ME: I DON’T FUCKING KNOW! EVERYTHING’S BEEN MOVED!
POLICE: Do you have a suspect?
ME: YES! ME!
POLICE: YOU?
ME: WELL, SOMEONE WHO LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE ME HAS BEEN MOVING MY FUCKING BELONGINGS AND GASLIGHTING ME INTO THINKING I’M LOSING MY MIND!
POLICE: Can you describe the suspect?
ME: NO, YOU ABSOLUTE MUPPET! I’VE GOT ENOUGH TROUBLE REMEMBERING WHERE I’VE PUT MY GLASSES!
POLICE: Can you come down to the station and make a statement?
ME: I’VE JUST FUCKING TOLD YOU! I CAN’T GET DRESSED!
And that’s when it dawns on me.
I’M THE VICTIM, THE SUSPECT, THE DETECTIVE AND THE WITNESS.
I’m investigating a crime that I may or may not have committed, while gaslighting myself into thinking I’m losing my mind, wearing one sock, holding a damp T-shirt and wrestling with a pair of jeans that no longer fit.
THE BURGLAR HAS GOT AWAY WITH IT.
BECAUSE THE VICTIM CAN’T GET DRESSED.
THE DETECTIVE CAN’T FIND HER NOTEBOOK.
THE SUSPECT HAS NO ALIBI.
AND THE WITNESS HAS FORGOTTEN WHAT THE FUCK SHE WITNESSED.
😂😂😂
CASE CLOSED.
BECAUSE NOBODY CAN FIND THE FUCKING CASE FILE.

Seriously, though: this is my attempt to find some humour in the frustration of everyday life after a stroke. Sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.

I wrote this poem when I was in my early twenties, while I was in rehab. I didn’t consciously set out to write it in any particular style. Reading it now it is in the style of a nursery rhyme! That wasn’t intentional; it’s just how it came out at the time. I was abused as a child, and this is simply the poem that came out:

Darling child come to me,

The malicious web of misery.

Give me your hand,

I'll take you down,

What ever you do,

Don't make a sound.

I'll show you things you can't believe,

But I won't worry,

Your too young to conceive.

Your virgin soul I will entice,

Stop crying child,

Or I'll stop being nice.

Lie back and just enjoy,

Just you behave,

And I'll give you a toy.

Your child mind I will betray,

Your only young,

You have no say.

I have no remorse for what I do,

It's my adulthood right,

And you haven't a clue.

Don't say a thing,

Don't breath a word,

Believe me when I say,

They'll think it absurd.

Now dream sweetly,

Go to sleep,

I've given you memories,

Only you can keep.

Absolutely. I’d make it playful but clear that “Deadlight Theory” is the name you’re giving your analogy, rather than claiming it is an established astrophysical theory.
🌌 I’m officially calling this the
Deadlight Theory
Okay, I think I’ve finally found the analogy I was looking for.
In astrophysics, when we look at something very far away in space, we aren’t necessarily seeing it as it exists now. We’re seeing the light that left it some time ago.
A star could have changed, exploded, or even ceased to exist — but the light carrying information about what that star used to be can still be travelling through space.
So I’m calling my analogy the Deadlight Theory.
The basic idea is:
Something can be real, and what you are seeing can be real, but you may still be seeing an old version of it.
And I think that applies beautifully to perspective.
Two people can experience the same event, conversation or relationship and come away with completely different understandings of what happened.
Neither person necessarily has to be lying.
They’re looking at the “light” that reached them — but from different positions, different distances, different points in time, with different information and different contexts.
One person may be seeing the event directly.
Another may be seeing the light from the event — the version of it that travelled to them through memory, interpretation, hearsay, emotion and time.
And just like astronomy, the fact that you’re seeing something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re seeing its present state.
You’re seeing the information that has reached you.
So, yeah.
I’m officially naming this my Deadlight Theory. 😂🌌
Not an actual astrophysical theory — my analogy.
But I think it’s a pretty damn good one.

The Luton Public Services Accountability Wall: GP negligence, reckless prescription drops, unannounced home intrusions, financial harassment, and systemic abandonment—where can disabled residents get legal help?

I need to share the full reality of what is happening across Luton's public services, because what I have experienced is not an isolated mistake—it is a multi-agency system of institutional abandonment, financial victimization, and medical neglect that leaves vulnerable, disabled residents to rot.

I live with severe disabilities: a crumbling spine with collapsed discs pressing on my nerves, chronic hearing loss, and a paralyzed arm following a stroke I suffered in April. Between fighting for my own basic safety and protecting my neurodivergent son, I have come face-to-face with a closed loop of buck-passing across Luton.

Here is how the system operates:

* The GP Frontline (Larkside & Stopsley Village Practice): Larkside subjected me to years of administrative sabotage (ignoring hearing-loss communication needs, trapping me with 25-minute email windows for urgent care when I had a UTI and high blood pressure) right up until I suffered a stroke. When I escaped to Stopsley Village Practice, they picked up right where Larkside left off—violating every standard of safe clinical guidance regarding opioid tapering. Official clinical protocols state that any reduction in pain relief like co-codamol must be slow, gradual, and patient-led (dropping by small amounts over weeks or months to avoid severe physical shock and withdrawal). Instead, Stopsley subjected me to a brutal, cliff-edge drop: slashing my co-codamol from 60mg down to 54mg, then to 45mg, and crashing it straight down to 15mg four times a day in less than two weeks.
* The Home Intrusion & Missing Medication: Things escalated beyond mere negligence. After I kept writing about the distress this was causing, a doctor from the practice (Dr. Khan) came to my home unannounced. She didn't introduce herself—I had to ask who she was. She sat down, barked questions, and rummaged through my bag of personal painkillers. Once she left, my son, a friend, and I tore the place apart only to realize my remaining 15mg co-codamol had physically vanished from my home without my knowledge or consent. They treated me like an addict, stripped away my blister packs while I have a paralyzed hand and brain damage, and left me with nothing. Because they refuse to manage my pain properly for clinical reasons, I have been forced to shell out of my own pocket to buy my own co-codamol and pay privately for help to clear physical hazards at home. It feels like the NHS isn't practicing medicine anymore—it’s just torturing patients and rationing care to save a few pounds. When NHS 111 promises to sort prescriptions during emergency blood pressure spikes (reaching 190 last week while my son watched in terror), the prescriptions vanish into the ether, leaving me stranded.
* The ICB & Complaints Wall: When I brought formal evidence of this dangerous negligence to the Integrated Care Board and local practices, they did nothing. They didn't investigate or protect me; they simply issued whitewash denials, locked me out of online patient access by sending wrong passwords, and hid behind defensive scripts like "Well, you asked to be removed"—punishing a stroke survivor for fleeing unsafe care.
* Social Services Abdication & Financial Harassment: When the medication cuts became a direct physical hazard, I appealed to Luton Council Social Services. Their response? "We don't get involved in clinical decisions," leaving me and my neurodivergent son stranded with high-risk hazards. To make matters worse, they carried out a disgraceful financial assessment: they wrongfully took my son's PIP (which is paid into my account solely because I am his official appointee for his car and needs) and counted it as my income. They inflated my earnings to hit me with a manufactured, exorbitant care bill. Now, knowing I am severely hard of hearing, they are harassing me with phone calls I cannot hear, text messages, and red-demand final letters. It is financial victimization.
* The Regulatory & Legal Dead-Ends: NHS England, the CQC, and local routes have offered nothing but closed doors. Meanwhile, MP caseworkers drag their feet on submitting compiled files to the Ombudsman, ignoring basic reasonable adjustment duties under the Equality Act Sections 20-21.

I want to ask two vital questions:

1. Does anyone know where I can get actual legal help or representation for this? I am drowning financially from having to pay out of pocket for my own prescription medication and private hazard clearance because these public bodies have abandoned me.
2. Are other people in Luton experiencing this? Are they giving you completely botched, inflated financial assessments by counting protected funds (like an appointee's PIP) as your income, just to whack you with massive bills and hound you with red letters? Have others dealt with unannounced home visits resulting in missing medication?

How do these institutions get away with systematically punishing, bleeding dry, and abandoning disabled residents and their families?

How stupid am I?
I just lost my phone. I’m always losing my fucking phone and everything else.
So there I am, standing in the middle of the room, panicking and thinking to myself: Should I look on my phone? Shall I ring so-and-so to ask them to call my number so I can follow the ringtone to find it?
No. I’ve lost my fucking phone. How am I supposed to look on my phone, or call from it, when I don't have it?
So apparently, this stroke hasn't just made me lose everything I own—it's made me terminally fucking stupid as well.

Title: The NHS is failing vulnerable patients and reckless prescribing is putting lives at risk. My family has paid the price—and now they are doing it to me.
I need to share what is happening because I honestly believe the system is just letting vulnerable people deteriorate or worse.
My late ex-husband Terry had years of clear prostate cancer signs, but the warnings were missed or ignored. When it finally metastasized to his spine, leaving him paralyzed and in horrific pain as a skeleton of his former self, the care he received was a total disaster. Meanwhile, my brother, who battled bipolar disorder for over 25 years and was entirely dependent on mental health services, was abandoned by them right when he was crashing from a manic stage—and he tragically took his own life. The services failed him completely.
Now, I am experiencing the terrifying reality of the NHS myself. Following my stroke, I was explicitly and strictly warned by the hospital discharge unit never to take Naproxen or Ibuprofen because it creates a severe, direct risk of triggering another stroke.
Yesterday, I had to attend a walk-in centre. When I explicitly told the clinician about this hospital warning and the fatal risk, he completely waved it off, saying, "No, no, you're fine," and prescribed Naproxen anyway. At the same time, services are aggressively trying to strip away my co-codamol for my severe pain—stemming from degenerative disc disease, fibromyalgia, and bad knees with swelling—treating me like an addict instead of looking at the underlying causes or my actual medical history.
They pushed a drug that could literally kill me with another stroke, while denying me proper pain management and refusing to properly diagnose my musculoskeletal issues. It feels like they are just cutting costs at the expense of our lives. Has anyone else experienced this kind of blatant medical negligence and complete disregard for patient safety?

Heading to my stroke swimming session today, bracing myself for the usual three-hour wrestling match with my swimming costume—a Lycra-based cage fight in which the costume has youth, flexibility, and absolutely no intention of letting me win.

Once I’m finally in the water, swimming with one-sided arm paralysis turns me into a sack of potatoes attempting the doggy paddle while plotting an ambitious circular route across the pool. I’m less “graceful aquatic athlete” and more “unattended supermarket produce caught in a gentle whirlpool.”

Anyone fancy joining my new synchronised swimming team? We’re called The Sinkers. Our signature routine is a line of us drifting in completely different directions, each of us performing a solo interpretation of “Where on earth am I going?” We look gloriously unsophisticated—like a flock of confused ducks trying to evacuate a pond.

Greco-Roman wrestling match with my swimming costume were peak comedy, the universe decided to turn up the difficulty setting.
Today’s feature presentation: the case of the vanishing shorts. I literally just needed to walk a few steps from one side of the room to the other. Somewhere in that microscopic journey, my shorts completely dematerialized into another dimension. Not misplaced, not tucked under a cushion—they just ceased to exist.
This brings the official scoreboard to:
The Single Shoe: Vanished into thin air months ago, never to be seen again.
The Swimming Shorts: Vaporized mid-room crossing, leaving me stranded.
I am officially at the point where I feel like I'm gaslighting myself. You put something down, you know where it is, you reach out your hand, and—poof—it’s gone. Haven't been anywhere, haven't done anything, yet my front room is operating on alternate-dimension physics where my wardrobe just quietly checks out of reality.
If anyone figures out the portal password to wherever these clothes and shoes are hanging out, please let me know. Until then, I'm staying put before I lose my socks next!

Just when I thought the shoe saga was peak comedy, round two commenced: the swimming costume.
I was telling a friend later that it was a bloody good job she hadn't come round as planned, because she would have walked in to find me half-naked, wrestling a stubborn swimsuit like it was a Greco-Roman wrestling match.
Let's be honest, since the stroke and losing my mobility, I'm not moving as much, I'm getting on a bit, and I've picked up quite a bit of "blubber" around the middle. Standing there half-paralyzed, half-naked, and wrestling a tight swimsuit would not have been a pretty sight!
Between the apraxia and the absolute lack of cooperation from my body, I was standing there unleashing a foul-mouthed rant of F-words while literally laughing out loud at myself. If anyone had walked past my window, they would have called the men in white coats immediately.
You've got to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all, haven't you? 🤣💀 x

Here is just the body text on its own, ready for you to copy and paste straight into the message box:
Thought I'd share another wonderful little installment from my ongoing adventures with stroke recovery, five months in.
My left hand, which has been playing up a bit with post-stroke spasticity and curling right up on me, has been getting a proper workout with my physio stretches. But I’ve noticed a new morning routine: I keep waking up with what I can only describe as a proper stiffy.
My fingers and hand are stiff as a board, straight as anything. The absolute glamour of neurological recovery, folks.
You’ve got to laugh at what your body gets up to, haven't you? 😜❤️ x

Here is just the body text on its own, ready for you to copy and paste straight into the text box:
Thought I'd share another wonderful little installment from my ongoing adventures with stroke recovery.
The other day, I had to ring 111 with my son Josh by my side. The poor operator was running through the mandatory checklist, asking all the usual serious questions: 'Have you got numbness? Have you got this? Have you got that?'
After about the third one, I finally sighed and said, 'Well, yeah, because that relates... because I've been recovering from a stroke for five months.'
Josh just looked at me and went, 'Mum... I think they get that you've had a stroke.'
So, naturally, like any completely unhinged human being, I immediately leaned into the phone and asked the 111 operator: 'Did I tell you I've had a stroke?'
By that point, the three of us completely broke down in absolute giggles. Medical bureaucracy at its finest. You’ve got to laugh, haven't you? 😜❤️ x

> "Since the stroke and the brain damage, I'm officially a complete and utter muppet because of the things that are happening.
> To prove my case: the other day, a simple strappy top and shorts completely fucked me right up for a stroke rehab swim. Between the apraxia and my brain going blank on how to get dressed, I spent three solid hours wrestling a bloody outfit like it was an extreme sport, gave up in absolute disgust, and had to quickly cancel my cab.
> Then there was the shoe saga: I sat here for nearly two hours looking completely unhinged with just one shoe on, hunting for the other. Josh eventually strolled in, looked at the chaos, and I went, 'Josh, I've lost the shoe!' He just grinned and wandered straight back out without a care in the world!
> I still haven’t found the feckin shoe! 😜🤣 x"
>