A Crisis Building

(Beware, trigger warnings in the following).

I like to go for a walk most days as I recover from my operation, but this morning my neighbours would have seen me out earlier than usual, walking through local woodland in company with two police officers.  I was guiding them to where I had (correctly) guessed Julie was holed up.  She was alright - conscious, alert and breathing - but had hurt herself deliberately and taken another overdose. We had been hunting for her for about half an hour after she failed to arrive at school who raised the alarm.

I have not had to deal with the police before and I was hugely impressed by their kind and matter of fact presence.  I particularly liked one gesture the senior officer made.  As soon as we found Julie, he focussed on the problem of retrieving the blade she had used.  She handed it over meekly, he examined it, then tossed it flat on the ground and very deliberately placed his boot on top of it.  Out of sight and symbolically neutralised, the blade immediately lost all its power to shock and alarm.

Later, once we had established the extent of her injuries we raised her carefully to her feet and helped her out of the woodland to the waiting ambulance.  The officers helped me home with Julie's bike and school books.  They had been called because of the presence of the blade, they said, which meant that ambulance teams would not approach her without police support.  We laughed at the very idea of her trying to hurt anybody else: she had been so forlorn she could hardly even raise her head, and her blade was extremely small and feeble.  "She could have had a go at me," said the senior officer, indicating his broad chest, "I'd like to see her have a go at me with my body armour on."

Crisis teams have been in and out of the house all week, but Julie has probably guessed by now that nobody has a magic wand, and nobody can actually wipe the pain away.  If anything, this stream of new faces, the constant discussion of her mental state, only reinforces the sense of disruption, stress and crisis.  But what else can they do?  What can any of us do?  Just sit it out it seems.