What should I do if I am at immediate risk of harming myself?

If you are at immediate risk of harming yourself or someone else, contact emergency services or your local crisis service straight away. If you are in the UK, this may include 999, 111, your local NHS crisis team, or going to A&E.

Who can I contact if I need to talk to someone now?

If you need to talk to someone urgently, you may be able to contact a 24-hour listening service or crisis line. In the UK, this includes services such as Samaritans, who can be contacted by phone or email.

Can you provide emergency or crisis support?

No. I am not able to provide emergency or crisis support, and I cannot offer crisis care outside of ongoing therapy. This page is intended to offer validation and signposting, but it is not a substitute for urgent support.

Is it still worth seeking ongoing therapy if I am in crisis now?

In a crisis, the first priority is immediate safety and containment. Ongoing therapy can be helpful once there is enough stability to begin working with what is underneath the crisis, but it should not be used instead of emergency help when you are at acute risk.

If You're At Risk of Harming Yourself Right Now

Maybe you've been sitting with this for hours. Maybe it came on suddenly. Maybe part of you isn't sure why you're still reading. That part matters. That's the part this page is for.

It doesn't have to mean you want to be saved, or that you're ready to call someone, or that you believe things can change. It just means you're still here, and part of you is still moving.

That's enough to start with.

If you're in crisis right now, the pain is not imaginary, not disproportionate, not a sign that something is fundamentally wrong with you as a person. It is real, and it makes sense given everything you have been carrying — often for a very long time.

Suicidal crisis isn't a sign that something is fundamentally broken in you. It's what happens when pain has outrun the resources available to carry it. That's an imbalance, not a verdict. And imbalances can shift — not through willpower, not by deciding to feel differently, but because circumstances change, because the worst of this moment passes.

You may have tried to get help and found it didn't reach you, or made things worse. You may be exhausted in a way that goes beyond tired, or so agitated you want to escape your body. You may feel like the people around you would be better off without you, or that there is no one who would notice, or that there's no version of the future worth staying for.

That feeling — that your absence would make things simpler, or that no one would truly feel it — is one of the most painful things a human mind can generate. And it is also one of the least reliable. It feels like clear-eyed realism. It is not. It is what pain does to perception.

I'm not going to tell you that's wrong. I'm going to say: that is what crisis feels like from the inside. And it is not the same as what is true.

If you can, reach out to someone reliable or one of the phone numbers below.

If you're not sure you want to call anyone

You may have spent a long time being very good at not letting people see how bad it is. That's exhausting in a way that's hard to explain.

You may have tried to get help before and been turned away — told you weren't unwell enough, or weren't the right kind of crisis, or placed on a waiting list when what you needed was now.

You may have phoned a helpline and not had the conversation you needed. You may have been dismissed, disbelieved, or made to feel like a problem to be managed rather than a person to be heard.

You still deserve care. And some people — including some providers — won’t respond the way those past people did. There are people who meet pain with kindness.

You don't have to want help to stay safe right now. You just have to get through the next few minutes.

Right now, in this moment

Just five minutes. That's all we're working with. Not whether life is worth living. Not the future.

Just the next five minutes.

You've stayed with this page this far. That means some part of you is still here, still looking.

Keep reading for another few minutes — that's the only ask.

If you can, pause here for a moment.

Notice the surface beneath you — a chair, a floor, a bed. Feel its weight, its texture. You don't have to do anything with this. Just notice that there is something solid beneath you right now.

If you can, name five things you can see from where you are. Not because this will fix anything, but because it can bring you the tiniest bit back into the room.

You don't have to feel better. You just have to stay with what's here for another five minutes.

And then another five after that, if you need to.

People you can contact right now

These services have kept people alive in moments like this one. And if you've called before and it wasn't what you needed, please don't let that be the last word. A different service, a different person, a different moment — it can go another way. The services below are UK-based unless otherwise noted.

Samaritans 116 123 — free, 24/7 Call or email jo@samaritans.org. They are not there to talk you out of anything or to send the police — they are there to listen. You don't have to be 'suicidal enough'. Silence is okay.

CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) 0800 58 58 58 — free, 5pm to midnight, every day calmzone.net — also has a webchat if calling feels like too much. Originally aimed at men but now for everyone. Good if you need a different tone to Samaritans — less formal, more direct.

PAPYRUS HOPElineUK (under 35s) 0800 068 4141 — free Specifically for young people experiencing thoughts of suicide. Trained staff, non-judgemental. More conversational than a standard crisis line.

Crisis Text Line Text SHOUT to 85258 — free, 24/7 If talking feels like too much, you can text. Good if you need contact but can't manage a phone call.

The Mix (under 25s) Text THEMIX to 85258, or webchat at themix.org.uk Broader support for young people, including crisis. Different in tone to PAPYRUS — more peer-to-peer, less clinical. Worth trying if one hasn't felt right for you.

SOS Silence of Suicide 0808 115 1505 — free 8pm to midnight Monday to Friday, 4pm to midnight Saturday and Sunday contact@silenceofsuicide.org.uk — email also available. Evening hours fill gaps when other lines are quieter

National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK 0800 587 0800 — free, 6pm to midnight daily Staffed by trained volunteers. Welcomes calls in other languages via Language Line — let them know your preference when they answer. Alternative number if you have difficulty connecting: 0800 689 0880.

MindOut mindout.org.uk A mental health service run by and for LGBTQ people, with online support, a helpline, and one-to-one work. If mainstream services have ever felt like they weren't quite designed for you, this one was.

NHS 111 — mental health option Call 111 and select the mental health option. Most areas have a local crisis team staffed by mental health workers available around the clock. Search '[your area] mental health crisis line' if you want to find your local number in advance.

999 or A&E If you are in immediate danger — if you have already taken something or hurt yourself — please call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. I know these can be frightening and not always trauma-informed spaces. But they can keep you physically safe while the worst of this passes.

Outside the UK? Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com) is a free, verified directory of crisis lines in over 175 countries. Befrienders Worldwide (befrienders.org) is another trusted network spanning more than 30 countries. If you're reading this from outside the UK, either of those is the place to start.

For when the worst has passed — or when you want something gentler

Crisis is not the only state that deserves support. The resources below aren't primarily hotlines — they're for the longer tail of this: the days after, the slow return, the work of building something more solid.

The Listening Place 020 3906 7676 — listeningplace.org.uk — open 9am to 9pm, seven days a week One of the most significant and least-known services in the UK. They offer free, regular, face-to-face sessions with a trained volunteer — not a one-off call, but ongoing support for as long as you need it, up to a year. London-based, but worth knowing about.

Not The Void notthevoid.uk A peer support community for people with lived experience of suicidal feelings — a space to speak frankly, without being managed, coached, or fixed. Genuinely rare. Worth knowing about even if you're not ready for it yet.

Stay Alive App stayalive.app — free, iOS & Android A crisis support app with grounding tools, a personal safety plan, and a LifeBox to hold images and things that matter to you. Most useful if you build it out before a crisis hits, so it's already there when you need it.

Safety Plan Template prevent-suicide.org.uk/find-help-now A simple document to work through in your own time — what your warning signs are, what helps, who to contact. Having it written down before the worst moments means you don't have to think it through from scratch when thinking is hardest.

If the system hasn't worked for you

Some people reading this will have been harmed by psychiatric services, or will have felt unseen, misclassified, or made worse by them. That experience is real — and far more common than services ever acknowledge. It does not mean nothing can help — but it may mean that a different framework for thinking about crisis is not just preferable but necessary.

The resources below approach mental health crisis from a peer, mad-positive, and anti-oppression perspective. They don't ask you to see yourself as ill. They ask different questions: about what your nervous system needs, about what your community can offer, about what it might mean to plan for the hard times in your own terms.

These are not substitutes for immediate safety support in acute crisis — please use the numbers above if you are in danger right now. But for the work of understanding yourself and building something more sustainable, these are among the most honest resources I know.

Anti-Carceral Crisis and Safety Planning Available as a PDF — search 'Anti-Carceral Crisis and Safety Planning' to find the current version A planning template to fill out when you're not in crisis, so that your needs, your warning signs, your support network, and your preferences around treatment are already known when things become hard. Explicitly names the risks of police and psychiatric intervention and centres your own knowledge of what helps you. Designed to be completed with trusted people in your life, not alone.

Mapping Our Madness theanarchistlibrary.org/library/momo-mapping-our-madness A zine-format self-planning workbook, made with warmth and with love, by someone who sometimes feels too much — for tinkerers and poets, for brains prone to overheating, for dimly lit and sunken hearts. Anti-copyright and freely shareable. The anarchist library link is the most accessible version (no PDF required, works with screen readers). Touches on triggers, immediate needs, safe spaces, things that help, notes to your future self. Human in a way that clinical tools rarely are.

Navigating Crisis — The Icarus Project / Fireweed Collective Available as a PDF via fireweedcollective.org/publication/navigating-crisis/ A short peer-written handout on navigating mental health crisis from a mad-positive, social justice perspective. Practical and grounded, written from inside the experience rather than looking at it from outside.

Fireweed Collective Crisis Toolkit fireweedcollective.org/crisis-toolkit A fuller portal of resources — including materials on suicidal feelings, psychosis and hearing voices, peer warmlines, and coming off psychiatric drugs — all curated from a healing justice and lived experience framework. Explore when you have time and energy. Useful to know exists even if most of it isn't for right now.

A note about this page and what I can offer

I wrote this because I wanted there to be something here for anyone who lands on this site in a hard moment, whether or not we've ever spoken. I hope some of it has been useful.

I also want to be honest with you: I'm not able to offer crisis support outside of existing therapy relationships, and this page isn't a substitute for that. If you're in danger right now, the people best placed to help you are the ones listed above — they're there specifically for this.

What I can offer, when the time feels right, is longer-term work. If you're not yet a client and you're wondering whether therapy might help — at some point, not necessarily now — you're welcome to get in touch. No minimum level of okayness required.

Crisis narrows everything.

It collapses the future into a single point, makes the present feel permanent, strips away the texture of what life has been and what it could be.

That narrowing is real — it's what happens in the nervous system under extreme stress. But it is a state, not a verdict.

There are people who have sat exactly where you are sitting and found their way to something they couldn't imagine from inside this moment. Not because they were stronger, or more deserving. Just because they stayed long enough for something to shift.

This is not the whole of you. Even now.

Please stay.

If you are worried about someone else who may be at risk, the Samaritans offer guidance for people concerned about others: samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/if-youre-worried-about-someone-else