'I
came here in total despair'
By
Jane Elliott, BBC News Online Health Staff ~ 2nd
November 2003
For more than
30 years Paddy Bazeley worked for the Samaritans - which is
celebrating its golden jubilee - offering a receptive ear to potential
suicides.
But she
wanted to do more to help the vulnerable, she wanted to offer them a
sanctuary.
Somewhere
they could go for a few days respite, where they could have warm meals
and drinks and where there would always be someone on hand to listen
if they wanted to talk.
So with a
small group of supporters Paddy and her team set up Maytree - the UK's
first respite centre for suicidal people, based in Finsbury Park, in
north London.
Lifeline
The centre,
which has now been open a year, has helped over 30 people by offering
them a lifeline.
Maryanne, who
used the centre explained: "I came here in a thousand pieces,
without hope, in terror and total despair...I leave here as a whole
person ..with hope knowing I can change."
"We
can all identify with needing somewhere safe in our lives"
Paddy
Bazeley, Maytree director
Ms Bazeley, a
director of the centre, said when people like Maryanne reached the
depths of despair they needed a sanctuary to shelter and recover.
She said that
by offering them a short-stay, a maximum of four days, in Maytree they
hoped to persuade them that life was worth living.
"It was
really when I was working with the Samaritans I got so many people who
needed somewhere safe. Somewhere to be for a short-time where they
could consider this living and dying.
"I saw a
lot of people who were suicidal and a lot said they would rather die
than go to hospital and a lot of them did.
"Suicide
is so much about ambivalence and we are hoping to tip the balance into
living.
"We can
all identify with needing somewhere safe in our lives."
Suicide
facts :
Maytree can
offer rooms for up to six people at one time, but at the moment people
are only able to book in once, although Ms Bazeley said this might be
reviewed.
She said
those people, like Annie, who had used Maytree had found it a turning
point in their lives.
Annie said:
"I feel very privileged to have stayed at Maytree... you have
helped me see myself in a different light ..that it is possible for
life to be worthwhile."
Ms Bazeley
said Maytree was specially created to be a calming and peaceful
influence on those needing to stay.
"It is a
lovely house and calm and peaceful and that immediately settles
people."
Help
"People
talk about it giving them time for reflection because we do not have a
television. It is amazing what people discover about themselves when
they talk."
She said
although the house is a sanctuary, it must also be remembered it is
housing potential suicides and everything possible must be done to
prevent deaths, without making the house into an institution.
"As far
as we know nobody who has stayed here has committed suicide.
"But
people are fragile and we have to take the risk that it could happen
here, but we have made the house as safe as possible, but we want to
keep it as a house rather than an institute."
Richard
Brook, chief executive of Mind, said centres like this could help to
offer help to those who were desperately in need of it.
"We know
people who feel suicidal, particularly young men do not always
approach statutory mental health services for help.
"Mind
welcome the opening of this centre because people with mental health
problems, like anyone else, needs somewhere to go where they can feel
safe at those times when they are desperate or in despair."
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