TW | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING UNDER THE CARE OF THE CRISIS TEAM | PART ONE OF THREE

“Successful people recognize crisis as a time for change - from lesser to greater, smaller to bigger.”

Edwin Louis Cole

*This is Part One of Three*

As you may know from a previous blog post titled ‘TW | “SHE’S ACTUALLY JUMPED! GET AMBULANCE ON LIGHTS AND SIREN!” | WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE, DURING, & AFTER YOU JUMP, LESSONS LEARNT, & LOTS OF ADVICE’ (which you can read here), I’ve recently gone through a very big, unsafe relapse in my mental health recovery. On August 24^th, as a result of a delusional belief to jump from a bridge near my home, the Crisis Team told me they would be out within the next 24 hours to assess me. At their assessment – after I had jumped – they decided to prescribe Zopiclone (as one reason for my relapse was a lack of sleep) and put me on caseload stating that it would be for at least one week. As it happens, six days later, things are improving and on August 30^th, I was officially discharged. My week with them – and previous experiences under their care – have inspired and informed this blog post where I’d like to provide insight and advice around working with the Crisis Team…

A LITTLE CHAT ABOUT SELF-HARM & ATTENTION SEEKING & A MESSAGE TO ALL THOSE USING THE TERM | SELF INJURY AWARENESS DAY 2022

Whilst I knew that I wanted to mark this Day, this post took a lot of brainstorming to decide on the angle I wanted to use. After a few chats with various people though, I finally came to the conclusion of tackling the subject of self-harm being dismissed as ‘attention seeking’ behaviours because it’s something that – having experienced the accusations myself – I feel passionate about. I don’t want this post to be a ‘rant’ about the judgment… More that it’s about me talking about my experiences with the label and hoping that what I have to say about this topic, has the gravity to make someone branding self-harm as attention seeking to reconsider their words and mindset…

My most vivid memory of being accused of attention seeking was when a very abrupt and grumpy Police Officer had detained me under section 136 of the 1983 Mental Health Act and was driving me to the 136 suite at my local psychiatric hospital. I remember her telling other Officers over her radio that I had been found and then she just glanced to me in the backseat of the Police car and said “why do you do this? Why do you like attention so much?” And I said, “why do I have a diagnosis?!” to which she replied “oh! I didn’t know that, sorry.” As though that little ‘sorry’ on the end of the sentence was an adequate apology for what she had said…