Guides
The hard part is rarely the hour of the crisis. It is the weeks around it — when nobody has told you what happens next, what you are entitled to, or what any of it is going to feel like. These are for that.
What happens when you call 988
Who answers, how the call is routed, what they ask, and whether the police get sent.
5 minIn a crisisGetting help
Going to the ER in a mental health crisis
What actually happens, why the wait can run into days, and the federal law that means they have to see you.
5 minIn a crisisTreatment and services
Will I be committed if I tell someone?
What an involuntary hold actually requires, why it varies by state, and what happens in nearly every other case.
5 minGetting helpTreatment and services
What it costs, and what to do if you can't pay
What is free, what your insurance owes you, the safety net if you have none, and how to deal with a bill that has already arrived.
5 minGetting helpTreatment and services
What actually happens when you call a crisis line
Who answers, what they ask, whether they can trace you, and what happens if you say nothing at all.
6 minIn a crisisGetting help
Will I be sectioned if I tell someone?
What detention under the Mental Health Act actually requires, how rare it is, and what usually happens instead.
5 minGetting helpTreatment and services
How to get through tonight
Not a plan for your life. A plan for the next few hours, written for someone who cannot manage anything bigger.
5 minIn a crisis
The first 72 hours after a hospital stay
The highest-risk period in the whole literature, and almost nobody prepares you for it. What to arrange before you leave.
5 minAfter a crisisTreatment and services
Getting a first GP appointment you can't face
The phone call is the barrier, not the appointment. Ways around it, and exactly what to say once you are through.
6 minGetting helpTreatment and services
Surviving a long waiting list
What to do with the months between a referral and a first appointment — the gap where most people are quietly left alone.
6 minGetting helpTreatment and servicesLiving with it
What a mental health assessment is actually like
Who is in the room, what they ask, how long it takes, and what they are deciding. Written to remove the unknown.
6 minTreatment and servicesGetting help
Going to A&E in a mental health crisis
When it is the right call, what the wait is really like, what to take with you, and how to be heard once you are there.
6 minIn a crisisTreatment and services
Telling your employer about your mental health
What you are and are not obliged to say, who is allowed to know, and wording that gets you what you need without a diagnosis.
6 minMoney, work and housingLiving with it
Relapse: why getting worse again isn't starting over
The most demoralising part of recovery is the second bad patch. It is also the most misread.
6 minLiving with itAfter a crisis
Money, debt and mental health
Debt and despair feed each other, and the loop is breakable at the money end even when it is not breakable at the other.
6 minMoney, work and housingLiving with it
What to expect from antidepressants
The first fortnight, how long they really take, what the side effects are like, and why you must not stop abruptly.
6 minTreatment and servicesLiving with it
Alcohol and low mood
Why the thing that reliably helps in the evening reliably makes the next three days worse.
5 minSleep and bodyLiving with it
Sleep and low mood
Sleep is not a side issue. It is one of the few levers that moves mood in both directions, and it is the one you have most control over.
6 minSleep and bodyLiving with it
When someone refuses help
What you can and cannot do when the person you are worried about will not see anyone — and how to stay useful anyway.
6 minSupporting someone
Anniversaries and difficult dates
The dates you can see coming are the ones you can plan for. A short method for doing that.
6 minBereavementLiving with it
Telling your family
Who to tell, how much, and what to do when the person you most need to tell is the one least able to hear it.
6 minGetting helpLiving with it
Going back to work after time off
Phased return, what your employer must consider, and the first-day questions nobody prepares you for.
6 minMoney, work and housingAfter a crisisLiving with it
Supporting someone from a distance
You are in another country, another city, or on the other end of a phone. What still works, and what to do when you cannot get there.
6 minSupporting someoneIn a crisis
Being discharged from mental health services
Discharge often arrives before you feel ready. What it should involve, what to ask for, and how to get back in.
6 minTreatment and servicesAfter a crisis
Drugs, alcohol and feeling suicidal
What to do when mental health services want you sober first, substance services don't handle crisis, and A&E treats you differently while you're intoxicated.
6 minIn a crisisTreatment and services
Crisis support when you're autistic
Phone lines are the default crisis route and don't work for a lot of autistic people. Text and chat routes, and what gets misread as not being distressed enough.
5 minIn a crisisGetting help
When a crisis service isn't accessible
For Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind and partially sighted people, and anyone a phone line doesn't serve. BSL, text relay, textphone and easy read.
5 minIn a crisisGetting help
When your job is the emergency
For first responders and emergency-services staff: cumulative exposure, why disclosure feels costly, fitness-for-duty fears, and what confidentiality covers.
6 minMoney, work and housingLiving with it
Perinatal mental health and intrusive thoughts
The fear that stops people telling a midwife or GP about intrusive thoughts, and the clinical distinction that means disclosure usually brings support, not removal.
6 minGetting helpTreatment and services
Elsewhere on this site
How these are written
Every guide is checked against the same build gates as the rest of the site, and every page carries the date it was last reviewed. Nothing goes up as a placeholder — an empty page that ranks in search and then disappoints someone in trouble is worse than not existing.