How to create a crisis plan

Crisis plans -- Easy to make, hard to follow. There are many versions of this that I am currently working with.

There's the official crisis plan (for an extended look at this I suggest Susan Rose Blauner's book), there's what I call a crisis journal, and there's a crisis, or happiness box.

For the happiness box, I can't speak much on that, but I love the idea. Here is a sample https://youmatter.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/self-care-box/ of what that could look like.

I have actually used my crisis journal a few times. It's a non linear thing that reminds me of ways I can support myself, or ways in which the world sucks.

A crisis plan is the most official of these, and it's hard to use in the moment to my experience. What I have found helps is keeping it simple. If it's too elaborate, it simply doesn't work.

What your crisis plan absolutely needs to have: a progression of events -- if you're mildly suicidal, you don't need to jump right to calling 911. See if you can calm yourself down first. The best way I've found for this is distractions. If you want to add meditation or music to this, go right ahead.

You can journal, play a game, take some deep breaths, and take stock of what's going on. Try writing down your feelings, sleeping if you need to sleep, eating if you need to eat, etc. You can do these things for as long as they feel helpful.

If you're still feeling awful the next step is to call someone. Call your mom, call your therapist, call a friend. Repeat if you want.

Then, you need to call a crisis hotline or text line. This step is crucial for me, and if I feel VERY suicidal, I'll often go straight to this step.

If you still don't feel better, that's where you want to call 911 or have someone take you to the hospital. Don't be alone if you are actively suicidal during any of these steps, but especially the last one. Call over a neighbor or a friend. Your dad.

The last step of any suicidal crisis plan is this -- put down any weapons, get to a safe place, and keep both hands on your phone.

On a crisis plan you can also write what it's for -- mine says for when I feel: Worthless, depressed, afraid, sad, numb, and hopeless.

It has a list of activities, such as reading, candy crush, video games, knitting, drawing, etc.

It also has a remember list, such as: You are a fighter, you will get better, all feelings change, etc.

I also have a call list, of people I need in emergencies. It's good to have this where you can see it.

My crisis journal (I also call it a lighthouse book), has the following sections, all illustrated.

*Reasons to Live
*People to Call
*Beautiful Things in Life
*Things I want to do
*Things to Distract
*Things that might help that you haven't tried yet
*Compliments
*Rules e.g No Suicide for 48 hours.
*Happy Memories
*Acts of Self Care
*Things to Remember e.g Your mood drops at night so be gentle with yourself.
*Coping Tools
*What to do when depressed

It helps a lot in a bind and I can slip it in a bag pretty easily.

In future, I would like to do a whole, more detailed post on both subjects, but I think that is all for now. Coping and getting better is all about developing a tool kit for the bad times. It is yours, and yours alone, and you have to experiment and find out what works for you. It's a process, but you will get there, I promise.

~ Emery