TW | “SHE’S ACTUALLY JUMPED! GET AMBULANCE ON LIGHTS & SIREN!” | WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE, DURING, & AFTER YOU JUMP, LESSONS LEARNT, & LOTS OF ADVICE

“…Like, it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don’t come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people’s words do... So, you just keep quiet.”

Ned Vizzini

In the early hours of August 24^th, 2025, I jumped from a small bridge near my home which crosses a disused railway track. In this blog post, I’d like to share everything that happened before it, during it, and after it. This post is not intended as ‘attention-seeking’ but instead, to raise awareness of a lot of different issues which crop up throughout it and I want to do that (raise awareness) to help others. To help those who have also jumped, to feel less alone. To help professionals see good, helpful, and supportive work. To help provide the loved ones of those who have jumped with some sort of insight. The content also is definitely not intended as any sort of negative or unsafe influence. Nor do I want it to upset or trigger anyone – hence the ‘Trigger Warning’ in the title; if it does, please visit the blog’s Help Directory and reach out for professional support where relevant/necessary. With all of that said, thank you all for providing me with the platform to hopefully do some good with my content and to experience the personal, therapeutic benefits I receive in writing like this; I might have created I’m NOT Disordered, but it wouldn’t be where it is today without all of you – and for that, I am eternally grateful…

ALL MY CURRENT THOUGHTS & FEELINGS AFTER TWO MASSIVE FAILINGS BY THE CRISIS TEAM

A lot has gone on recently in my mental health journey, and as I came to recognise that I hadn’t posted any new content in over one week and started trying to think of what to blog about, I realised that it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about recent goings on! Like, I feel as though a lot of my most recent posts have largely been collaborations and reflective, regarding advice I’d give or things I’ve learnt rather than what’s actually currently happening in my life. And now that a number of pretty big things have happened this past week, I felt inspired and – to be honest – compelled to blog about them. I really want for this post to take I’m NOT Disordered back to its very roots in the fact that it was created to blog about my mental health and what was happening for me in the psychiatric hospital I was an inpatient in at the time, and I don’t want the very valid fact that blogging is (still) therapeutic for me, to get lost among adverts, awareness dates, freebies, events, and complimentary experiences…

19 OF THE BIGGEST DON’T’S IN A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

When I first created I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, I did so with the idea that it would be a brilliant way to document my mental health recovery journey and to off-load my thoughts, feelings, and everything that was going on in the psychiatric hospital I was an inpatient of. So it wasn’t until the audience numbers began to grow that I started to realise my blog could be a great platform of opportunity to share advice I might have gained along my journey. Advice on lessons which I had learnt the hard way and I hoped that in sharing them, readers could escape going through those same difficult and challenging experiences. I thought that having the ability to provide advice that might actually help others as a result of the hardships I had gone through, would make all of those horrible moments somewhat worthwhile. So, I present to you now, one of the largest advice posts in the nine-year history of I’m NOT Disordered…  

1. No matter how strong a resemblance or similarity, never consider any two people involved in a mental health crisis to be the same

 

2. Saying you’ve “heard it all before” doesn’t make things any less strange or scary for someone who definitely hasn’t experienced all of this before

 

3. Judging someone for the coping skills that something out of their control has led them to having to use, won’t teach them to use better, more safe skills

WHEN THEY SAY SUICIDE IS ‘SILLY’

You, with your voice like nails on a chalkboard

Calling me out when I’m wounded

You, pickin’ on the weaker man…

And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

Taylor Swift - Mean

So, a few days ago I was in a mental health crisis and there was a Policeman who…well, let’s just say I’ve put a lengthy complaint in and have been told mine isn’t the first against him. Anyway, he made a number of discriminatory comments around mental health and a few very personal ones specifically about me, but the one which stuck out and which seemed to fuel everything else was when he referred to suicide as ‘something silly…’

THE IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIBILITY

My immediate response to the comment was to tell him that he ‘really shouldn’t use a word like that to refer to something so serious.’ Of course there was no apology. No hands up to say “yes, ok. I was wrong, I’m sorry.”

Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I hold apologies quite highly in considerations around respecting and appreciating someone or an organisation on a whole. I think this stems from all the years of Crisis teams telling me to take responsibility for my own safety and then trauma therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) encouraging you to view your behaviours as a chosen response.

Initially that was a hard thought process because who ‘chooses’ to self-harm? But I learnt and realised that it was more about the fundamentals of the situation. You know? Like, if someone touched your skin with fire, you’d burn. If someone touched your skin with fire and you punched them in the face(!)… Well, you could argue that a level of that was instinctual, but it wasn’t something which everyone would do. And recognising that I’m responding to something because of something inside of me and not looking to blame another person who arguably, might have at the very least stoked the fire, was just one key to my recovery. 

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

A while ago I joined the North Service User and Carer Forum (NSUCF) which is part of my local NHS Trust who provide mental health services in my locality: Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW). At our most recent meeting, we had a Psychiatrist from CNTW’s Crisis Team join us and each Forum member asked questions and put forward ideas. In part of the discussion, myself and one of the Service Users came to the realisation that we really had different definitions of a mental health ‘crisis’ and it inspired me to write this blog post…

DEFINING IT

For me, I deem myself to be in a mental health crisis when I can no longer keep myself safe. Like, if I struggle and feel unsafe, but I can manage it myself and use the healthy coping skills I’ve been taught in therapy, then I wouldn’t label it a crisis or call anyone for help or support. Me calling the Crisis Team or a professional, usually means I’m unsafe and that I feel as though the hallucinations are in control. As though I have no say in whether I self-harm or attempt suicide because if I did, I wouldn’t do those things. When I’m me, and when it is my thoughts that take up the majority of my mind, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to hurt.

One difficulty in having different definitions is the worry as to whether you’re really ‘entitled’ to speak up or ask for help because there’s the concern that there’ll be people who might judge your crisis in comparison with others. And that they might come to the conclusion that it is completely minor and unworthy of any help or support. That in looking at it alongside another person’s crisis, it really shouldn’t be a big deal and it wasn’t deserving of help and support from others, particularly where this meant the use of NHS resources.

WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE TO BE UNDER THE CARE OF THE CRISIS TEAM

“Never give up on someone with a mental illness. When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we.’ Illness becomes wellness”

Shannon L Alder

The Crisis Team are definitely an element of mental health which is misunderstood, and the Teams are often the ones who receive the most negative feedback. In this post, and as someone who is currently under the care of the Crisis Team, I hope to promote a better understanding of them and instil hope in others to utilise their local Team for help and support in a mental health crisis.


The first instance

My first memory of an interaction with the Crisis Team is from 2009 when I had attempted suicide through taking an overdose. Somehow my Mum knew I had done it and she tried to convince me to go to hospital for the potentially life-saving antidote treatment. I refused and she asked what she was supposed to do, and I remember telling her “ring the Crisis Team because it sounds like you’re in a crisis!” To be honest, I don’t remember actually speaking to the Crisis Team, but they came to the house and arranged for me to have a Mental Health Act assessment with two Psychiatrists and an AMHP (Approved Mental Health Practitioner). I was detained under Section 2 of the 1983 Act and the Crisis Team opened the door to allow six Police to march in, restrain me, handcuff me, and carry me out to their van.

COMPLETE A WELLNESS RECOVERY ACTION PLAN WITH ME

“When the group developed WRAP, I was so impressed that I went home and wrote one for myself!”

– Mary Ellen Copeland

As someone who regularly puts almost her entire life out there for the general public to consume, I’m so interested in hearing/reading about the lives of others and seeing inside the most mundane of things! As someone who really struggles with completely mixed feelings of loneliness - sometimes all I want is to be surrounded by people and other times I can only tolerate the company of my pets – I mostly enjoy the YouTube ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos or ‘Speed Clean My Flat’ or ‘Come Shopping With Me’ because they enable me to have control over the company and how long it lasts! The important thing is the impact loneliness can have on a person’s mental health and so, in a desperate bid to help others experience the same positive things I feel when I watch similarly formatted videos. Though, of course I had to make my version mental health themed… Ever since I was discharged from the specialist psychiatric hospital in 2014, I’ve heard so many good things about Wellness Recovery Action Plans, but it wasn’t until recently that I – and my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) – realized that I’ve never done one! And as with most documents in mental health, it has the chance of triggering negative thoughts and feelings by making you think back to hard times so I thought that maybe it’d also be helpful to me to feel that I sort of have someone with me while I complete it... 

AN IN-DEPTH LOOK INTO AN OVERDOSE | WHAT I THOUGHT, HOW I FELT, & WHAT HAPPENED

I almost couldn’t believe what I was saying when the lady in the shop asked why I’d passed out and I said that I’d gradually been overdosing on Co-Codomol since the previous day. You’d think that if anything, I’d be used to saying it and maybe even become quite ‘glib’ about it; but actually, it doesn’t get any easier – it still hurts to admit that you were so desperate to escape the hallucinations and memories of abuse that you tried to kill yourself. And it isn’t just with family and friends; I’m also ashamed and pained to tell Doctors, Nurses, and other professionals that I’ve ‘done it again’ because, I know it’s a very common thought process around mental health, but I actually wouldn’t blame someone for thinking me ‘weak’ for coping in such a way. Some people look at suicide as the ‘easy way out’ and I don’t blame them for misunderstanding something so scary and intimidating as going against all human instinct for survival and taking your own life. 

Telling the lady in the shop turned out to be a mistake because she called an Ambulance and when I refused to go to hospital with them, the Paramedics called the Police and I was told it was either put my seatbelt on in the Ambulance or put on handcuffs in the Police car; and so, of course, I fastened my seatbelt! Part of my refusal was because I wanted the overdose to work and for it to kill me, but a bigger part of it was about not wanting to upset the auditory hallucinations who were telling me not to go to the Hospital. I’d already bartered with them to hurt myself over hurting the people and things the voice was telling me to hurt; so, there could be no more compromising with it. I was no longer in control; my health, my thoughts, my feelings, my relationships… the voice owned them all. Agreeing to go to hospital, however, was much easier when it was the result of a threat from the Police and not my own volition.

A CHAT ABOUT TRUST IN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES | TW

After self-harming over a week ago I was put under the care of the Northumberland,Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team (or the Crisis Team basically!) and on the day before I was discharged from their caseload I self-harmed again. When I did it the staff arrived to see me and ended up taking me to A&E for stitches. When they went on to their next visit with another service user, they ended up leaving my care plan at that person’s house and as soon as they realized they returned to the house and got it back. Then I got a phone call with an apology to tell me what had happened and that the Team had reported the breach of data protection. The support worker who called me asked if I wanted the complaints procedure and it didn’t take me long to reply with ‘no.’ I think he was surprised but I came to that conclusion because I knew that the Team had done all that they could to rectify the situation; they’d realized what had happened, gotten the care plan back, reported it, and apologized to me. It was that last bit that really helped in my decision not to make a formal complaint. I’ve talked before about how important apologies are to me and how I think they’re essential in mental health because they’re the cornerstone of building – or maintaining trust in a person or a service. The Manager of the service called me and asked if there was anything else they could do because she didn’t want me thinking that I couldn’t trust the Team and therefore wouldn’t utilize them as support in a crisis. But that trust has been maintained with the apology.

TEN WAYS TO HELP SOMEONE IN A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

The Fray – How To Save A Life

When I felt suicidal recently, I cut my wrist. I’m sorry to say it so bluntly but there’s really no way to sugar coat something like that! Anyway, I’ve never done anything like that, so I got scared and when I saw all of the blood, I rang an Ambulance. They told me I needed stitches and took me to A&E but I got scared and I just couldn’t stay there so I left, the Police were called and they found me, told me I didn’t have capacity and took me back to A&E. A very cold Consultant came along and said I did have capacity before discharging me. When I got home, I took some Diazepam (a very mild sedative) and fell asleep. In the morning, I felt better and took myself to Minor Injuries for the stitches. Unfortunately, though, because the wound had been open for so long, they said it wouldn’t close and has had to remain open and be redressed every few days. When I spoke to my Mum, she asked why I hadn’t taken the Diazepam before cutting because it might’ve helped me and maybe I wouldn’t have done it. I told her that I hadn’t thought of it and she suggested that I write a list on the whiteboard in my Kitchen so that if I have another crisis, I can look at the list and try all of the coping skills that the crisis makes me forget. And then I thought, wouldn’t be good to come up with a list of things that I think everyone could know/use to support someone in a mental health crisis.

The most important thing to know, before you read this list, is that reading this and being prepared to use it doesn’t make you a professional because I’m not a professional. This list is just things that I’ve found helpful for both myself and others and it won’t work for everyone but there’s some really broad tips and some that could easily be adapted to fit the person’s crisis/personality/type of mental health problem. I mean, a mental health crisis will mean something different to different people. For someone with anxiety, a mental health crisis could be a panic attack. For someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (like me) a crisis could be feeling suicidal. No crisis is any more or less severe than another. But that does mean these tips might not even be relevant for some people!

WHY YOU NEED TO WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE IN MENTAL HEALTH

1.    ‘Superficial’

When I recently self-harmed I told the Nurse that I’d scared myself with how bad it was because all of mine are usually – then she said ‘superficial.’ And I agreed but told her how much I hate that word and she explained that she uses it in terms of how deep a cut is and not that it’s ‘nothing’ important. I explained that it’s a person’s interpretation of the word and it probably comes from their experience of it being used. I, personally, have always used superficial alongside words like ‘shallow’ or ‘silly’ so it becomes an insult to use it to describe my desperate coping mechanism of self-harm but I now understand that she was using it as more of a medical term than a derogatory one. I think that my interpretation is evidence that firstly, it has previously been used as an offensive comment by professionals who were being dismissive of my self-harm and secondly, that it’s so easy to misinterpret this one word.

TEN THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT I’D SAY

1.      “I’M TWENTY-EIGHT!”

It’s like I wrote in my blog post on my twenty eighth Birthday (February 1^st 2019), when I took my first overdose aged eighteen (in 2009) I don’t think there was a huge concern that I wouldn’t make it to my next Birthday because the overdose wasn’t really life-threatening and I think people just assumed it to be a ‘one-off.’ But by 2012, when they’d calculated that I’d taken over 60 overdoses in the space of three years and I ended up on life support, I think people became… ‘concerned’ is probably an understatement… especially after I ended up on life support in Intensive Care.

2.      “I LIVE IN A BUNGALOW”

So often I get asked questions about my ‘flat’ and I’m so proud and lucky to be able to correct people with ‘I live in a bungalow.’ It’s sad that I only got this home because I’d been in a psychiatric hospital for two and a half years and so I was high priority on the list for a council property. But I could’ve just been housed in a crappy little flat! We dubbed my little bungalow my ‘forever home’ but as I progress through recovery, I can see that it’s almost inevitable that I will move at some point in the future but for now, I’m grateful for my little one-bedroom bungalow! 

HIT OR MISS IN MENTAL HEALTH

So, because my last few mental health crises resulted in contact with the Police, and that contact was mostly negative; my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) has been speaking with Inspector Baker (who I’ve previously worked with in training Northumbria Police’s new recruits). They thought it might be a good idea for me to meet with an Officer from my locality. Initially, the intention was because one officer detained me under the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and I voiced that whilst I’d heard of the Act, I wasn’t aware that it gave Police any power. You see, I’ve had the Act used on me a couple of times, but it’s always been by either Paramedics or staff in a medical Hospital. So, my CPN’s thinking was to have the Act explained to me and for us (my CPN, myself and the Officer) to discuss a ‘plan’ in case there was to ever be another instance where the Police became involved in a mental health crisis with me. 


Initially, I was actually a little bit horrified at the idea because there’d been a similar meeting in 2012 before I went into Cygnet and so I worried that the fact professionals felt another meeting appropriate, meant that I really was going backwards. Things really were going back to the beginning. My CPN reassured me that the meeting was purely for a ‘what if’ situation and not – as the previous meeting had been – a necessity because such situations were inevitable.

THANK YOUS IN THE MIDST OF A BLIP

Something has changed within me, something is not the same, I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game

-          Gravity from Wicked

I’m happy to finally be able to say that the most recent ‘blip’ in my mental health recovery seems to be coming to an end! Just like the beginning of this, I can pinpoint the trigger of it. I’ve talked a lot about how my abuser’s new job role sparked off a lot of old thoughts and feelings that led to a lot of old coping strategies but now I can finally talk about the causes of my stabilizing.

I think that the first thing was when I was asked whether there should be a phone call to the RSPCA to get my pets rehomed because if I was so intent on committing suicide then it wouldn’t be fair on them. Another trigger was the impact my suicidal intent had on those closest to me. It was a bit of a wake-up call – a common feeling for those who are suicidal is the belief that their friends and family will be better off without them. I too had this thought, but their reactions became evidence to the contrary. I realized – the hard way – that I was loved and when my Twitter was flooded with positive messages and hopes that I ‘feel better soon’ I really learnt that my work – this blog – was helping others and was told that without it, people might just give up hope. Sometimes, when you don’t want to be alive, the only way to move through it is to stay alive for the sake of others. That, at least, buys you some time to work on your thoughts and feelings until it you actually, finally, begin to feel better about yourself. The final trigger for this stabilization was the negative interaction I had with a particular Police Officer from the Northumbria Police force.

FIVE SONGS HELPING ME THROUGH MY MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

I won't live inside your world

'Cause your punches and your names
All your jokes and stupid games
They don't work
No, they don't hurt
Watch them just go right through me
Because they mean nothing to me

-          Grace Vanderwaal – Clay

The huge catalyst for this recent ‘blip’ in my mental health was the news about my abuser’s new job role. It brought back all the old feelings about him – the anger, frustration, sadness… it all came flooding back, overwhelming me and taking over all of the positive thoughts and feelings. To come through the blip, I’m trying to regain some control over all those negative feelings and bring them in check so that they’re manageable and aren’t influencing my thoughts to self-harm or cause me to feel suicidal. Instead, I’m trying to adopt the attitude that no matter what he says or does, I’ll just get on with my life. I have to.

"I HAD BEEN HOSPITALIZED BY PEOPLE THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME" | A GUEST POST BY PETER MCDONNELL

I saw Aimee’s recent post about her experiences with suicide which I found insightful and I’m sure it will help lots of people. It got me thinking that if I could write a similar article about my own experiences then maybe it could help people too. 

It is not really a grey area for me at the moment. I drive my car underneath the bridge I chose to jump from in 2002 many times a week and it doesn’t affect my mood. If people around me are discussing suicide stuff I feel like I have something to add to the conversation but I’m lucky in that it doesn’t trigger anything negative, although driving underneath the bridge is a bit weird to think “Wow. I jumped off that once.” 

I jumped from a 25-foot-high road bridge in 2002 with the intention of killing myself. I broke my back – three lumbar vertebrae, and both wrists, and spent ten weeks in hospital. I had to lay still for eight weeks and after 12 weeks I was completely recovered, though I have an increased chance of arthritis in later life. One of my colleagues I worked with at a mental health training and consultancy company 2007 – 2011 did the same thing and has been unable to move from the neck down ever since. So, I do feel quite lucky. 

“MENTAL HEALTH COMES IN EPISODES” “MINE FEELS LONGER THAN A MOVIE!”

S

So, I’ve talked a few times now (here and here) about the news I got that the person who abused me now has a higher role in his job, but unlike most things I’ve blogged about, I still haven’t seemed to have worked through it. I’m having the same view on it as I did with the actual abuse; I could talk about it until I’m blue in the face, but it won’t make it go away. It won’t make it un-happen! So, I’m left with ‘well how do I cope with it?’

Through my mental health recovery, I’ve gotten used to moving through things by talking or writing about it and using my Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills effortlessly. So effortless that I’ve not had to make a conscious decision to use them or a choice as to which I do use. They’re just there!

Understandably, this new thing has really thrown me off balance, because all of the healthy coping strategies are no longer so easy to come by. And I guess that’s why I sort of fell apart on Saturday (02.03.2019). I self-harmed and called the Crisis Team. They were brilliant, but then they said they’d have to send an ambulance I ran away, and they called the Police.

HOW IT REALLY FEELS TO BE SUICIDAL

So, I began writing this post and things became a little familiar, so I went back through recent posts and lo behold there was one on suicide from less than two months ago! I debated doing another but decided that since the previous one was so popular and that I’ll be writing this one with different/new content and in a different format, maybe I can get away with it…?!

After having consulted on Richmond Fellowship’s Social Media Guidelines, I was recently asked to look at the Suicide Prevention Policy to provide comments on the different aspects of it. In completing the feedback form, I realized that it must be difficult for organizations to devise such policies when the chances are that the majority of staff developing these actually don’t have any experience in what they’re trying to prevent. And I guess that’s why Richmond Fellowship consult with Service Users – they recognize that we can provide an insight into such a difficult topic that could better their care of others. Thinking up signs that a person is feeling suicidal, has the potential to save the life of someone exhibiting those signs who staff might have previously ‘overlooked.’ And sometimes there are signs that only someone who has experienced feelings of suicide can point out.

BEEN IN EMERGENCY CARE DURING A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS? NORTHUMBRIA HEALTHCARE NHS FOUNDATION TRUST WANT YOUR FEEDBACK!! | AD

I’m honoured to have been asked to tell you all about this fantastic opportunity (which I have been a part of):

THE THREE BIGGEST TRUTHS IN MENTAL HEALTH

Ok; so, I don’t want to patronize some people with this post but let’s be realistic: there are people out there who will be surprised by these three truths about mental health! And they aren’t all linked to people with stigmatized views, sometimes it can be that a person is simply uneducated in or misunderstanding of mental health. Or perhaps a person simply doesn’t have the insight into mental health that is needed to know these truths. At the same time, I hope that people with an awareness of mental health might still be surprised at some of these!

1.       It’s always ‘us’ and ‘them’