Just a moment.....

...just want to scramble onto my soapbox......

It takes a certain amount of moral courage to stand up and say that which the silent masses know, but do nothing about, and a certain self belief to do so.......

To rise up against the NHS and the Police Force, both major institutions in this country, takes not only intelligence and nerve, but also requires the passion to do so, the ability to keep doing it when it appears nothing is happening, to continue when it seems isolating....and why? Because it is worth doing. Because it has to happen. Because every day somewhere in this City, someone, somewhere, needs those missing resources.

Yes, there has been publicity, and yes, that is important... I wonder if the conversation between the head of Plymouth Police and Oliver Colvile MP regarding detaining mentally ill people in cells when they need 'a place of safety' (Section 136, Mental Health Act 1983) would have happened if I hadn't bought it to his attention? I wonder if the resulting publicity did anymore than provoke the usual bigots who comment on articles in the Plymouth Herald to state that mentally ill should be cells, should be given strait jackets and head protectors to stop them from hurting themselves....if the article did little more than objectifying those with mental health illness... I don't know, but I hope not.

What I do know is that I don't start something without the intention of getting my own way... yes, maybe my idea of a naked protest across Plymouth was a little more than courageous, probably bordering on daft, and would have got us all locked up...but it is that passion that drives me forward...

The frustration which comes at times, can stop me. Why don't others see this as a priority? Why can't others see what damage is being done by their lack of urgency, their lack of prioritisation? But we are one in four, that is a quarter, and I guess the three quarters, don't know what it is like to be in that other quarter, and I am not alone, I am sure, in hoping that they never become the one in four that they currently are not.

So, onwards ever onwards, no I don't need a troop of cheerleaders with their pom poms, shouting that I am doing good.... I don't need a parade of naked one in fours waving banners in the air... I just need to remember what it was like to be sat in a cell for hours, what it was like to be dropped back at my flat after forty eight hours of assault, physcological assessment and then forensic examination, to know that this is right, and I will do it.