Perfection?

There are now a number of new, mental health initiatives, starting in Wokingham, and I hope that they prove successful, and don’t have to struggle for survival, as the crisis house has in the past.

Some attitudes and suggestions made to us,are so crazy that they leave us in fits of laughter, as we reflect on what would happen – if I actually did what was being suggested.

This is a recent one: The lady said, ‘The Crisis House is the only place where I can get any help, and your association’s befriender is the only one who has done anything for me. I don’t know why you don’t sell the Crisis House, and then use the money raised, for mental health.’

It’s not mine to sell, but, assuming that it were, and I sold it, then this lady would have nowhere to come, to get help, and our association’s befrienders would have no base from which to operate.

It was not for nothing, that I entitled my Thirty Year History of the Crisis House – ‘There’s A Place For Us’.

What would I then do for mental health with the money raised? Buy another house? I would have a job to find one in such a perfect location.

Conversely, another recent suggestion was, ‘Why don’t you buy the Crisis House? Then you could have people living here, and paying you housing benefit.’

So I feel in my pockets for the odd few hundreds of thousands of pounds that are rattling around in them, and buy the Crisis House, to house people. But we are not a housing charity. Finally, there was this suggestion. The man said, ‘When I was isolated, and alone in my flat I was terribly depressed and suicidal, but since I have been coming to the crisis house, my mental health has improved, greatly, and I have not slept so well for years. You are wasted here. Why don’t you work with the Social Services?’

I don’t believe in paid social work, so I am about as likely to work with them as I am to join up with Jeff Bezos and go exploring outer space.

Perhaps one day someone will come to us and say, ‘Your services are perfect, so please leave everything exactly as it is.’

Pam Jenkinson, The Wokingham Crisis House