To treat or not to treat - that is the question

So what happens when you're to scared to call for help as you don't know where you'll end up?

This, from one of our contributors today.

Things haven't been so good lately.  I'm finding it harder and harder to cope.

I can't sleep, but then when I sleep, I can't wake up.
I can't concentrate on anything other than making plans to end it all.

But I don't want to call for help.  What are my options?  There are no options.

The Crisis team?  What can they do anyway?  Tell you off if you call them instead of the CCTT when you aren't sure which number to ring.  Have a magical bath of healing. Distract yourself.  End up feeling worse than before you called.

So you're offered hospital, but I have no idea where will I end up. 

• Burnley, which by all accounts is hell on earth.
• Blackpool, which has a great reputation, but only next to Burnley.
• Chorley, miles away from my family and too far for them to visit.
• Ormskirk?   I'm not even sure where the hell Ormskirk is.
• Some private hospital somewhere? Not local, Manchester? Further?

I don't want to be sent miles away.  I just don't.  Knowing there's fuck all chance of being close to home, desperate to get out.  That's not healing.  That's not the environment you can get better in.

So I'm not calling for support as it's pointless. There's no point in calling for support when there's none, is there.  If I ask for support and end up hospitalised then I'm screwed.

I give in.  I really do. There's no help and no where to turn to.

Thanks LCFT.  Thank you very much for taking away my local hospital.  Thank you for screwing me over just because I'm a woman.  Thanks for screwing over your own bed capacity to my loss.

Thanks for nothing.

Today we are Angry

Today we are angry.

We are angry because there is a woman from our area experiencing all of the problems we have been talking about.

We are angry that she is miles away from her home.

We are angry that she is miles away from her family.

We are angry because she's separated from her children.

We are angry that she doesn't have any visitors as its too far to travel.

We are angry that she's being treated by people who don't know her or her history.

We are angry that she was treated in a dismissive and disrespectful way.

We are angry that she couldn't leave easily as she is ill, alone and miles from home.

We are angry that this will continue as there's no chance of her being moved closer to home.

We are angry that it took intervention from people on twitter for anything to change.

We are angry that this has even happened.

There are a number of us who have found what happened today with the women being treated in Burnley very triggering as it reminded us of the experiences we have faced ourselves when being treated away from home.

There was a time when this would have upset us and maybe we would have withdrawn into ourselves and let it churn and churn into introspective negativity.

But no.  While we are deeply, deeply concerned that there is someone out there who is struggling with the situation she finds herself in, through no fault of her own, we are not running away.

We are angry.  Very angry.  And that anger is galvanising us to make sure that we keep on going and we keep on fighting this until we have the female beds back at The Orchard.

If you share our sense of anger and injustice at this, see the pinned post on our blog about how you can help.  Sign our petition.  Get angry and speak out as well.  Every voice helps.