Im attempting to raise funds for Yewdale ward which is an accute mental health unit at westmorland general hospital, whitehaven. I was admitted to this ward in febuary and spent a week in there after suffering a breakdown. Ive since then been diagnosed with EUPD a form of BPD, my stay on yewdale ward was tough, as with everything within the NHS they are badly under funded. Meaning patients and nurses taking care of them suffer, unless youve ever been inside a secure mental health unit i’ll describe what its like, you arrive there you are shown to your room or cell as it could easily be mistaken for, you then wait 72 hours to see a psyhcitarist for assesment- i waited a week to be seen, these wards are awful places yet the people i met in there were kept me going- it was a mixed ward so males and females, one man inpaticular i remeber was tommy a paranoid sczophrenica in his 60s would walk to the shop with me when we were allowed off the ward, the highlight of my day was just tasting proper coffee from the hospital shops- some patients dont have leave to go off thw ward either because they wouldnt return or hurt themselves so they are locked in 24/7 Yewdale ward is bare the walls are covered in dirt dints and cracks where people have thrown stuff or banged their heads against them as a form of self harm, the tvs no longer work as some have fallen off the walls or the remotes have been lost and not replaced, milk is like gold in there you can rarely have a brew, theres a drink machine that barely works and when it does rarely work no one has £1.30 to get a drink, the gardens are empty all the plants dead and ciggarette butts eveywhere, one of my other ‘inmates’ described the place worse than prison, he said he’d chose a cushy stay in jail over being on Yewdale ward. The staff are amazing people and they dont get the credit they deserve. Every single day they get you up they spend their days comforting people, breaking up fights between patients, being phsyically and verbally abused almost daily, what they do truly deserves more recognition. These places are not a walk in the park or like anything else imaginable, there are mental health wards all over the UK housing people together with all sorts of different illnesses, some illnesses worse than ofhers but none the less everyone admitted to these wards is suffering some level of emotional pain, when i was laid on my anti-suicide bed listening to one of the patients a 55 year old ex nurse screaming and banging her head against the wall repeatadly i made a vow that i would get better and try to do all i could to make these wards more bareable, just do anything i could to try to give back something to the nurses and other patients, and to patients that will come after me. I would also like to open peoples eyes to the harsh reality of these wards and the lack of sufficient funding for mental health services in the UK. The sad reality is people who are in desperate need of help and extensive therapy are locked in these secure units and denied the proper pshyciatric care that they are desperately in need of, you see a pshycitrist once every week if youre lucky but for most its every other week, the wards are stretched theres not enough beds resulting in people who are still at risk being discharged too soon, and left to pretty much sort them selves out. So if anyone would like to donate to a worthy cause it would mean the absolute world to me, id love to change the stigma about mental health but I dont think that will change over night, plenty of people can stand in judgement on those with mental illnesses but those people have probably been lucky enough that they havent witnessed it happening to their loved ones, or suffered themselves. mental health can affect absolutely anyone at anytime its just as serious as cancer yet people still dont get it. It doesnt just affect the person with the illness it also affects their family and friends. Thank you for reading.